Imperial Schemes: Empire and the Rise of the British Business-State, 1914-1939

Abstract

Imperial Schemes narrates how imperial knowledge and administrative expertise undergirded the expansion of the British state expansion in the early 20th century, particularly with regard to economic management and assistance to British business. Imperial dreams of wealth and power, international schemes to assist industry and finance, and the growth of the domestic state were closely interrelated in the early 20th century. This project tells these interrelated stories by following policymakers, unelected administrators, and business leaders. Together, such officials forged the networked apparatus that this dissertation calls the “business-state.” These administrators were key and historically overlooked intermediaries between prominent politicians and the general public. Focusing attention on this “meso-level” across two dozen government departments and private organizations, the project highlights the importance of the administrative state and of bureaucracy itself. It exposes the hidden dealings that enabled and responded to British imperial expansion, in both formal colonies and informal markets. In so doing, it narrates interwar British imperialism and state growth in a new way: through the administrators and advisors who pushed British power abroad and expanded the state’s power at home.