Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development [Paperback]

Michael Hechter (Author, Introduction, Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 1998

Recent years have seen a resurgence of separatist sentiments among national minorities in many industrial societies, including the United Kingdom. In 1997, the Scottish and Welsh both set up their own parliamentary bodies, while the tragic events in Northern Ireland continued to be a reminder of the Irish problem. These phenomena call into question widely accepted social theories which assume that ethnic attachments in a society will wane as industrialization proceeds.

This book presents the social basis of ethnic identity, and examines changes in the strength of ethnic solidarity in the United Kingdom in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition to its value as a case study, the work also has important comparative implications, for it suggests that internal colonialism of the kind experienced in the British Isles has its analogues in the histories of other industrial societies.

Hechter examines the unexpected persistence of ethnicity in the politics of industrial societies by focusing on the British Isles. Why do many of the inhabitants of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland continue to maintain an ethnic identity opposed to England? Hechter explains the salience of ethnic identity by analyzing the relationships between England, the national core, and its periphery, the Celtic fringe, in the light of two alternative models of core-periphery relations in the industrial setting. These are a diffusion model, which predicts that intergroup contact leads to ethnic homogenization, and an internal colonial model, in which such contact heightens distinctive ethnic identification.

His findings lend support to the internal colonial model, and show that, although industrialization did contribute to a decline in interregional linguistic differences, it resulted neither in the cultural assimilation of Celtic lands, nor in the development of regional economic equality. The study concludes that ethnic solidarity will inevitably emerge among groups which are relegated to inferior positions in a cultural division of labor. This is an important contribution to the understanding of socioeconomic development and ethnicity.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Hechter is professor of sociology at the University of Arizona. He is currently serving as visiting professor at the University of Washington, and before that was a Fellow of New College at Oxford University. He is the author of Principles of Group Solidarity, and editor of The Microfoundations of Macrosociology and Social Institutions.

Product Details

• Paperback: 390 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers; 2nd edition (September 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765804751
• ISBN-13: 978-0765804754
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,130,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable insights with applicability beyond Celtic world, April 30, 1999

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Along Red River of the North "JMS" (Moorhead, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development (Paperback)

As someone interested in American Indian policy, I found Hechter's analysis of the Celtic fringe highly relevant to the situation of many American Indian peoples. The non-Indian policy makers who advocated the policies that imposed conditions of forced economic dependency are characteristic of three related components of modern national "development" theory: the internal colonial model, core-periphery relations, and a cultural division of labor.

"One of the defining characteristics of the colonial situation is that it must involve the interaction of at least two cultures - that of the conquering metropolitan elite, and of the native culture" (Hechter:73). This accurately describes the relationship between the federal government and the various American Indian tribes in the United States from 1870 to 1900. Another attribute of internal colonialism is when the metropolitan core dominates an undeveloped periphery politically and exploits it economically. The result is an unequal distribution of wealth and power, and a form of social stratification based upon a cultural division of labor. The periphery exists within an unequal and dependent economic and political relationship with the metropolitan core. There is also a basic cultural conflict, usually over language and religion, between the core and the periphery. The spokesmen for the metropolitan core, such as federal Indian policy makers, portrayed the American Indian periphery's desire for independence from the Anglo-American core as an "obstacle" to national development. This ideology created a social or cultural boundary "which define[d] the peripheral group" in negative terms (Hechter:207). All of these factors describe a colonial situation that was antithetical to non-Indian policy maker's self-proclaimed goal of assimilation.

"The advent of sustained economic and social development serves to undercut the traditional bases of solidarity among extant groups [i.e., Indians]. New coercive policies [e.g., allotment and assimilation] attempt to "increase the individual's dependence upon and loyalty to the government" (Hechter:16). The non-Indian "reformers" did not build their ideas of coercive assimilation solely upon complaints about Indian dependency. Assimilation was envisioned as a means of asserting control over American Indian peoples because most Americans abhorred the idea of American Indian autonomy. The core group of reformers and allotment policymakers asserted their prerogative to impose their supposedly superior culture on the Indians. This is NOT assimilation. It is a form of colonialism where Indian peoples on Indian lands are regarded as being an internal colony. There is scant historical evidence to support the thesis that the benevolent reformers and their political allies like Senator Dawes ever intended to assimilate American Indians into the Anglo-American mainstream as equals. Allotment policy, and its corollary goal of assimilation, was not interested in the cultural, economic, or political integration of American Indian peoples. Instead, they were to be marginalized in an ever-shrinking periphery. Their relative low social status was to remain unchanged. This situation calls into question "the simple assertion that acculturation NECESSARILY leads to cultural integration" (Hechter:24, emphasis original). Hechter is on the mark when he states that "colonial development produces a cultural division of labor: a system of stratification where cultural distinctions are super-imposed upon class lines" (Hechter:30). I think this type of analysis is seriously lacking in American Indian history and policy scholarship.

It is about time that this book has been re-issued by Transaction Publishers in paperback. I hope the real price is not $29.95, because this updated version with a new introduction and appendix belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the history and methods of colonialism in the British Isles and beyond.