Remote colonial subregions ran on delegated autonomy of junior officials

Evidence

Assistent Resident was a coveted post for a young man making his way up the ranks of the Dutch colonial Civil Service. Depending on the region, he might preside over the governance of a subregion and thus several districts within a single residency. In this case, because the Resident was stationed a long distance from Deli, and because the residency of the East Coast of Sumatra covered nearly ten thousand square kilometers, Valck was largely left on his own to manage Deli. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1019

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: A public authority can build quasi-sovereign autonomy over territory — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 69; Local township militancy arose indigenously before the ANC organized it — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 607