It is widely recognized that the concepts of ‘state’ and ‘nation’ developed largely out of the history of Europe. In Western Europe the process of state-building preceded and assisted the process of nation-formation. In consequence, the concept of the nation that developed from this process focused on the political community as defined by the institutional and territorial framework. In the tradition of Rousseau, Abbé Sieyes could define a nation as ‘a body of associates living under one common law and represented by the same legislature’. In most lands of Western Europe these developments also produced the model of a single nationality nation or nation-state. In Central and Eastern Europe the process was different: ‘the nation was first defined as a cultural rather than a political entity’ and the underlying theoretical foundation was in the tradition of Herder rather than Rousseau Nevertheless, once nationhood had been achieved in these regions there was a tendency to approximate to the model associated with Western Europe. This was made all the easier in such states as Italy and Germany because the majority of their citizens were from one ethnic group; they, too, were single nationality nations. Whatever the dualisms and amalgams in Europe, the export model has been that associated with that of Western Europe—for the simple reason that the predominant colonizing powers were from this part of the Continent.

Although the framers of the Philippine constitutional convention of 1934–35 were careful not to establish an imperium in imperio (kingdom within a kingdom), the local government system which developed was not under absolute national control either. For in spite of the efforts made by several delegates to include in the national fundamental law a provision that would have guaranteed ‘a more autonomous framework of government for the provinces and municipalities,’ and the efforts of other delegates to leave the future of local governments to the national legislature, a unitary government was agreed upon in which local governments were subject to presidential supervision. In the course of time, presidential supervision evolved to mean two things: 1) the power of the Chief Executive to appoint local officials and to review local budgets and 2) the power of congress to create local units and to grant local powers. Thus, these two political branches of the national government were to play major roles in the re-emergence of the issue of local autonomy in the fifties and the issue of decentralization in the sixties. In more specific terms, the two political branches had different views of central-local relations, especially the approach to, and extent of, decentralization. Before we proceed to discuss executivelegislative controversy on the problems of decentralization, the concept of decentralization must be understood.

A maval is the generic name for one of the fertile river valleys which run east from the watershed of the Western Ghats in the Poona District of Maharashtra. They are called mavals only so long as they are fairly narrow and enclosed between the many spurs which run east from the summit crest of the Ghats and they end roughly at a line drawn north-south just short of Poona city itself, so that the whole belt of country west of Poona, about 25 miles wide and 70 miles from north to south is often called ‘the Maval’. The sub-district of Maval Taluka which lies north-west of Poona and through which run the main road and railway to Bombay, is only a small part of this area. It was in the Maval that Sivaji first established the power base which, after many vicissitudes, developed into the Maratha kingdom and the hardy mountain people who formed his guerrilla forces and raiding parties were known as māvaḷe. The word probably derives from the Marathi verb māvaḷaṇeṃ—‘to set, of the sun or any other heavenly body’, and so the Maval was originally just ‘the West’ if you happened to live in Poona. An alternative name for some of the higher and narrower valleys is khor.

One of the functions of any imperial system is to stabilize the subordinate political structures over which it exercises suzerainty. Without such a role for the central authority, control of local politics becomes impossible and, without such centralization, the stability of the entire empire is threatened. This policy has often acted to support or maintain local socio-economic relationships which, in the absence of overarching centralization, would show greater instability and flux. The precise nature of these relations can best be seen in an examination of the interregnum period between the decline of one imperial power and the imposition of a new generation of centralized stability.

We commonly find in the literature on pre-colonial mainland Southeast Asia a tendency to treat the principal ethnic groups—Burmese, Mons, Siamese, Cambodians, Vietnamese—as discrete political categories. This tendency is particularly marked in the historiography of the Irrawaddy valley, where the recurrent north—south conflicts of the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries have usually been interpreted as ‘national’ or ‘racial’ struggles between the Burmese people of the north and the Mon, or Talaing, people of the south. In writing of the last major ‘Mon—Burmese’ war, that of 1740—57, historians have characterized the 1740 uprising at the southern city of Pegu as an expression of ‘Mon nationalism’. The ensuing conflict reportedly became a struggle between Mons and Burmese each ‘fighting for the existence of their race’; and Alaùng-hpayà, said to be a champion of ‘Burmese nationalism’, allegedly made vigorous efforts to destroy the Mon culture and people once he had triumphed.

Historical accounts of the Second Anglo-Burmese War (1852–53) emphasize national bias, monocausality and events immediately preceding the outbreak of hostilities. Asian historians find Europeans culpable. Governor-General Dalhousie ‘was an imperialist of the deepest dye, who longed to extend his Indian empire at the cost of the Burmese.’ The East India Company in its unquenchable ‘thirst for conquest’ coveted Burma. ‘There was a desire for war on the part of the British trading community in Burma … as it would permanently safeguard commercial interests in the country.’ Anglophile historians blame the Burmese. The ‘intransigence and xenophobia which radiated from the court of Ava… drove [Dalhousie] into war.’ Dalhousie himself blamed an unrestrained military officer whom he labeled the ‘combustible commodore.’ Despite imperial apologetics, critical Englishmen felt unease at the ‘double government's’ Blue Book coverup and sought with mixed success to disclose the ‘whole ugly truth.’

From before the turn of the century, the great powers held large commercial, industrial and technological exhibitions to show off the fruits of progress and to give their citizens a glimpse of where civilization was headed. World fairs thus provided one window into the future. But it must be remembered that such events also constructed monuments to their own era—an age when jingoism and a paradoxical recognition of the shrinking nature of the globe coexisted before the road to war. In the final analysis, the grand exposition, with its curiosity about other peoples and nations and its faith nonetheless that mechanical invention would soon make everyone much the same, was a place where imperialists met in thinly disguised competition. How strange it must seem, then, to learn that the last Chinese dynasty, having just discovered the power of nationalism, attempted an international exposition of its own in the summer of 1910 at the same time that the ‘Festival of Empire Exhibition’ was booked into London's famed Crystal Palace.