Bureaucrats, Transplant and lnstitutional Quality ll
Das Projekt
Projektleitung: Dr. Valentin Seidler
Finanziert von/Kooperation mit: FWF – Der Wissenschaftsfonds (Erwin Schrödinger-Stipendium)
Projektlaufzeit: 15.03.2016 bis 14.03.2019 in Warwick (UK), Groningen (Niederlande) und Wien (Institut für Internationale Entwicklung)
Zum Inhalt
My research agenda focuses on the question of how institutions, bodies of national law and social norms, can be been copied into countries lacking them. My current research project "Bureaucrats, Transplant and lnstitutional Quality ll" investigates the role of colonial officers in the institutional reforms of British colonies as they prepared for independence.
I approach the issue from two angles. First, I have collected the biographical data of over 14,000 British colonial officers as a visitor at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton from 2014 to 2015. Preliminary findings, which were presented at Harvard Law School in June 2015, indicate a robust relationship between the composition of the colonial administration in the 1950s and 1960s and modern-day institutional quality. Second, I have started as series of interviews with surviving colonial officers. Project VOICES will systematically archive and publish the personal histories of over 108 British colonial officers. The collection of biographical interviews is complemented by numerous private collections donated by former colonial officers and by a large collection of documents donated by the former Overseas Service Pensioners’ Association (OSPA).