Agents of Empire
English Imperial Governance and the Making of American Political Institutions

Explains how American political institutions evolved from strategic interaction of the English crown, colonial agents, and colonists.

Sean Gailmard (Author)

9781009316897, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 May 2024

336 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.621 kg

'[A] welcome addition for graduate students and faculty. Recommended.' J. L. Wallace, CHOICE

To understand the foundations of American political institutions, it's necessary to understand the rationale for British colonial institutions that survived the empire. Political institutions in England's American colonies were neither direct imports from England, nor home-grown creations of autonomous colonists. Instead, they emerged from efforts of the English Crown to assert control over their colonies amid limited English state and military capacity. Agents of Empire explores the strategic dilemmas facing a constrained crown in its attempts to assert control. The study argues that colonial institutions emerged from the crown's management of authority delegated to agents-first companies and proprietors establishing colonies; then imperial officials governing the polities they created. The institutions remaining from these strategic dynamics form the building blocks of federalism, legislative power, separation of powers, judicial review, and other institutions that comprise the American polity today.

Introduction
1. Economic incentives: the origins of colonial autonomy
2. Governance incentives: the balanced colonial constitution
3. From incentives to institutions: contractual imperialism in practice
4. The rise and fall of autocratic imperialism
5. Economic regulation: imperial administration in the colonies
6. Political regulation: legislative review and colonial autonomy
7. Colonial assembly power under regulatory imperialism
8. The institutional bequests of empire.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP]