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Self- Restraint and Second-Image Theories of Hierarchy
Chad Rector
The George Washington University
## email not listed ##
http://home.gwu.edu/~rector
Paper prepared for the annual meeting of the American Political Science
Association, Chicago, Illinois. September 2004. Please contact me with any comments
or suggestions.
Abstract
Dominant states in hierarchic relationships have a long-term interest in
committing to moderate behavior in order to dissuade subordinate states from resisting
their pre-eminence, but these dominant states may be tempted to use their dominance to
extort short-term gains. Self-restraint must therefore figure prominently in any theory of
hierarchy. The ability of a dominant state (or empire or, in the extreme case, a unipolar
state) to resist the temptation to exploit a subordinate can be influenced by the economic
interests of the dominant state’s ruling coalition. In particular, promises of self-restraint
are more credible if the interests of groups that have specific investments in the
subordinate state have a veto over policy decisions that relate to how the dominant state
governs its colonies. A comparison of British Imperial institutions in colonial
governance crises with North America in the 18
th
century and Australia in the 19
th
suggests that subordinate states were more willing to accept unequal, hierarchic
relationships when interest groups with a particular interest in the persistence of the
relationship – even though these groups have no interest in the well-being of the
subordinate state per se – held positions of influence in the imperial government.
Introduction
In the American war of independence the Colonies, fearing that the British
Empire could not be trusted to refrain from economically exploiting the m in the future,
joined in a coalition with France against the empire. This was a dramatic turn, for in the
1760s most leading voices within the colonies supported the continuation of the imperial
relationship with Britain. Benjamin Franklin’s view of how the colonies should structure
their relationship with the empire is particularly interesting since it shows an evolution in
his thinking. Throughout the ‘60s Franklin sought to preserve the empire by reforming it
in a way that would give the Colonies a greater vo ice in imperial governance. When this
effort failed, he was among the strongest supporters of joining with France, a country
with which the colonists had just fought a war.
From the perspective of mainstream theories of hierarchy, the Imperial behavior
during this period that led the colonies to revolt was out of equilibrium; the British made
a mistake. I argue, however, that the Empire’s problem went deeper, and I develop a
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