TY - JOUR
T1 - Imperialism, territory, and liberation
T2 - on the dynamics of empire stemming from Europe
AU - Parker, Noel
PY - 2011/12
Y1 - 2011/12
N2 - This article tries to understand the deeply ambivalent role in modern global world history of imperialism originating from Europe. It follows a long, genealogical narrative, beginning in the inherent structure and tensions of empire per se on the European mainland. Nonetheless, there was a partially successful attempt at empire in the primarily spiritual 'imperial' power emanating from Rome, which in due course evoked a matching response in religious-ideological opposition of the Reformation. The subsequent weakening of the prospects of mainland empire encouraged maritime empires in the form of sovereign states, while the profound opposition to top-down power per se survived in the derivatives of Protestantism, primarily in North America. A compromise with that opposition was sketched in Protestant-inspired Lockean Liberalism, which saw virtue in territorial expansion in so far as a key motif from the start was a sense of autonomous liberation achievable through expansion into open territory as the pursuit of God's purpose. That grew sharper in North America, as Europeans seeking progress in European society envisioned their own freedom from the state in the 'empty' space granted by the colonializing state itself for colonization and enclosure. Colonists' and migrants' aspirations for liberation thus found expression in a modern vision of territorial expansion as freedom. USA's continental expansion in the nineteenth, and more sharply global expansion in the twentieth century, reiterated that vision in extending an intrusive liberal imperialism. There emerged a US-centered, Western oppressive dynamic of liberation, which is still present in the dissemination of values individual liberty and into the integration in global open space.
AB - This article tries to understand the deeply ambivalent role in modern global world history of imperialism originating from Europe. It follows a long, genealogical narrative, beginning in the inherent structure and tensions of empire per se on the European mainland. Nonetheless, there was a partially successful attempt at empire in the primarily spiritual 'imperial' power emanating from Rome, which in due course evoked a matching response in religious-ideological opposition of the Reformation. The subsequent weakening of the prospects of mainland empire encouraged maritime empires in the form of sovereign states, while the profound opposition to top-down power per se survived in the derivatives of Protestantism, primarily in North America. A compromise with that opposition was sketched in Protestant-inspired Lockean Liberalism, which saw virtue in territorial expansion in so far as a key motif from the start was a sense of autonomous liberation achievable through expansion into open territory as the pursuit of God's purpose. That grew sharper in North America, as Europeans seeking progress in European society envisioned their own freedom from the state in the 'empty' space granted by the colonializing state itself for colonization and enclosure. Colonists' and migrants' aspirations for liberation thus found expression in a modern vision of territorial expansion as freedom. USA's continental expansion in the nineteenth, and more sharply global expansion in the twentieth century, reiterated that vision in extending an intrusive liberal imperialism. There emerged a US-centered, Western oppressive dynamic of liberation, which is still present in the dissemination of values individual liberty and into the integration in global open space.
U2 - 10.1080/2158379x.2011.628565
DO - 10.1080/2158379x.2011.628565
M3 - Journal article
SN - 2158-379X
VL - 4
SP - 355
EP - 374
JO - Journal of Political Power
JF - Journal of Political Power
IS - 3
ER -