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Colonial ‘Shock’ and Global Inequalities
Recent literature in New Institutional Economics has sought to study the link between colonialism and global inequalities. This strand of analysis has received substantial attention in academic and policymaking circles. But despite making an important contribution to development theory and deepening our understanding of North–South development differentials, this strand of analysis is not without its own set of problems and contradictions. Taking a critical view of NIE literature on colonialism, it is argued that by taking the nation state as the basic unit of analysis and by ignoring global power asymmetries, the NIE approach absolves the role of capitalist imperialism in creating global inequalities, and instead produces an internalist and Eurocentric theory of development.
I would like to thank J Mohan Rao and Vineet Kohli for detailed comments on this paper. Their suggestions have been invaluable. I am also extremely grateful to the anonymous referee of this journal for providing key inputs which have helped me sharpen several points in this paper.
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