Imperial rhetoric about Wahhabism reflects internal tensions in British liberal-authoritarian ideology

Evidence

The relationship between imperial policy and Wahhabism is therefore one that reflects wider concerns about maintaining global trade in favour of British interests. To conclude, the discourse that surrounds Wahhabism and piracy is intimately tied up with wider tensions between authoritarian and liberal strands of imperial ideology. — Robin Alexander Plant, Discuss the Relationship Between…, 20

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Frames imperial discourse as the product of an unresolved split within liberalism itself — worth sitting with as a lens for reading colonial archives.
• QUESTION: Which specific nineteenth-century policy debates best expose the authoritarian versus liberal split the author gestures at?