Settling for Less: Why States Colonize and Why They Stop By LachlanMcNamee, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023. pp. 256. 30 figs. ISBN 9780691237817. bk £30)
本书通过多学科视角和丰富案例，提出经济发展使国家从殖民转向去殖民的理论，解释了为何发达国家更少殖民，对研究殖民主义、国家政策及经济发展的学者有参考价值。
In this aptly timed book, rich in historical detail, Lachlan McNamee provides an exhaustively researched contribution to our understanding of the actual dynamics of settler colonialism. With no shortage of illustrative examples, McNamee adopts an interdisciplinary methodology, seamlessly weaving insights from anthropology, history, economics, political science, geography, and demography. This approach enables the development of a theory of settler colonialism which effectively captures the complex interplay between land, migration, race, and state power. With engaging prose that makes complex ideas easy to follow, the book stands out for its exceptional analytical rigour. The opening chapter establishes a strong conceptual foundation upon which the rest of the book builds, emphasizing the importance of contextual nuance in understanding settler colonialism, its dynamics, and its historical development. McNamee argues that the elimination of indigenous peoples was often not an intentional or coordinated project of the metropole but rather a consequence of predation on indigenous land by European settlers in places such as Australia, the United States, and Zimbabwe, often occurring in defiance of metropolitan authority. McNamee offers many examples of the ‘illogic of elimination’, the point of which is not to defend metropole actions but to emphasize the contradictions in state policy during the process of colonization. The second chapter builds towards a theory of colonization, providing a set of concepts for understanding colonization that is initiated and led by state power, distinguished from colonization led by private settlers. Both are recognized as evolutionary in nature: as states undergo economic development, their economic gains from territorial expansion diminish, leading to reduced support for colonization. Economic development also decreases the attractiveness of peripheries for settlers, resulting in a shift from a colonizing equilibrium with expansion and cooperative settlers to a decolonizing equilibrium with limited expansion and more selective settlers. Speaking to the book's title, this suggests that more developed states are less likely to engage in colonization, and if they do, they become less effective colonizers as they face off against the interests with settlers. The next chapters present case studies that both individually and collectively contribute to a re-evaluation of our ideas about settler colonization and modernization. Each chapter is neatly self-contained, allowing readers to dip in as their interests dictate. Indonesia's colonization success of West Papua (chapter three) is contrasted with Australia's failure to colonize Papua New Guinea and the Northern Territory (chapter four), attributing the latter to economic changes and challenges in drawing settlers to the region. The next two chapters explore China's colonization efforts in Xinjiang (chapter five), focusing on demographic changes in the region during and after the Sino-Soviet split, and challenges faced in colonizing Muslim-majority and border areas of the region (chapter six), respectively. Drawing on microdata of settlement patterns, McNamee demonstrates how economic development and urbanization effectively prevent states from settling contested frontiers. In the second-to-last chapter McNamee asks whether the book's theoretical insights extend beyond the specific cases already discussed. By examining patterns of settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing on a global scale in the late twentieth century, the chapter reveals that colonization and ethnic cleansing tend to occur more frequently in less developed and territorially insecure states. In doing so, McNamee demonstrates that the chosen cases are not exceptional and that there is a broader pattern of settler colonialism, with Israel serving as an exception that reinforces the rule. The book challenges the existing literature in several important ways. First, with a nuanced take on modernization theory it argues that economic development shifts the locus of economic activity away from rural peripheries towards urban centres, therein limiting the power of states to colonize contested frontiers and forcing them to reevaluate their relationships with indigenous peoples. Similarly, McNamee argues that the most powerful global force for decolonization has been economic change, rather than ideological change, highlighting the need to differentiate decolonization as a tangible political process from its broader cultural and rhetorical interpretations. Second, the book challenges the significance of racial ideologies in the history of settler colonialism. It highlights cases where states with different racial ideologies engaged in colonization or decolonization and suggests that racial ideologies are neither a necessary nor a sufficient explanation for colonization, as even explicitly white supremacist states ceased colonizing indigenous peoples. Instead, it argues that the presence of willing settlers is the primary condition for colonization and that economic development plays a pivotal role in ending colonization and creating space for decolonization.