Twentieth Century British History Advance Access originally published online on November 6, 2007
Twentieth Century British History 2007 18(4):453-480; doi:10.1093/tcbh/hwm017
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A Technocratic Imperial State? The Colonial Office and Scientific Research, 1940–1960
University of Oxford
* sabine.clarke{at}wuhmo.ox.ac.uk
 |
Abstract |
|---|
Accounts of the history of British imperialism that talk of imperial ideology as the product of the beliefs of a class of ‘gentlemanly’ administrators and capitalists often fail to engage fully with the changed character of colonial policies after 1940. Most notable is a failure to appreciate the decidedly technocratic turn in policy that occurred with the creation of a substantial Research Fund for the colonies. This article shows that a significant expansion in colonial research offered the prospect of restoring the credibility of British action in the colonial sphere at a time when the British government faced severe criticism over the management of its colonial possessions. With the emergence of new colonial policies that emphasized the need for metropolitan intervention and innovation came attempts to rationalize the development process that were based on faith in the efficacy of scientific solutions to colonial problems. In order to achieve their aims, officials at the Colonial Office afforded members of the scientific elite in Britain considerable powers in the organization and direction of colonial research. The result was the expansion of the research council system that had developed in Britain to the Colonial Empire as a whole with the extension of a liberal ideology of research which emphasized the need for freedom for the individual researcher. This article considers the implications of this for the organization of research in the colonies after 1940 and the relationship in practice between research and colonial development.