Research Seminar: Temporal Oddities in Conservative Approaches to the British Empire

Research Seminar by Dr Tom Bentley (Politics and IR), in Taylor A08 (or on Teams)

‘This paper offers an analysis of the deployment of time by conservatives engaged in the defence of the British Empire. Specifically, I capture two alternative conceptions of how conservatives present time. The first, I term the “continuous one nation” approach: there is a temporal arc that links the empire with the present – a moral continuum that binds the actions of the past with today’s living community. The second is the “temporally segregated neoliberal” approach: the past is ontologically and normatively distinct from the present; it is over and complete and does not meaningfully impinge on the present. I explore these conceptions of time through unpacking four tropes of colonial apologia.

1. That citizens can feel pride or shame for their nation’s past.
2. That Britain provided prosperity and democracy in ways that endure today.
3. That contemporary racism and inequality are not a direct result of empire.
4. That one cannot judge the past by today’s standards.

I discuss how the tendency among conservatives to shift between the “one nation” and “neoliberal” conceptions of time reveals an incoherence at the heart of this tradition.’

Future CISRUL events:

Wednesday 10 September at 3 pm in Taylor A08 ‘Environmental constitutionalism – a reading seminar’