British colonial policy framed colonialism itself as a remedy for backwardness, not its cause.

Evidence

Dukes was instructed in the Colonial Office position: ‘colonial status is not a cause of backwardness; it is a remedy’. The Colonial Office stipulated five prerequisites for self-government: a healthy and vigorous people; adequate technical skill and knowledge; adequate production; a commodity for export; and, finally, honest and efficient administration and governance. This represented a turn away from the free trade of the nineteenth-century British Empire, as the state took on direct responsibility for economic development. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 235

Categorization

• DEFINE: Articulates the colonial empire’s official ideological self-justification — the five ‘prerequisites for self-government’ are a precise conceptual framework for how the UK withheld sovereignty from its colonies.
• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on ‘developmental’ colonialism and to debates about sovereignty’s economic preconditions in human-rights discourse. — connects to: The British framed colonial rule as character formation rather than mere training — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 527; Colonialism’s ultimate goal is reengineering the colonized subject, not acquiring territory — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 424

Broader Connections

• The British framed colonial rule as character formation rather than mere training #expands (0.82) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 527
• Colonialism’s ultimate goal is reengineering the colonized subject, not acquiring territory #expands (0.78) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 424