Diplomacy is a political performing art that informs and determines the decisions of other states and peoples. It shapes their perceptions and calculations, so that they do what we want them to do, because they come to see that doing so is in their own best interests. Sometimes diplomacy rearranges their appraisal of their strategic circumstances–and, when needed, the circumstances themselves. Ultimately, it aims to influence their policies and behavior through measures short of war. Diplomacy succeeds best when it embraces humility, and respects and preserves the dignity of those to whom it is applied. Most of what diplomats do is unseen, and it is relatively inexpensive. Diplomacy’s greatest triumphs tend to be preventing bad things from happening, but gaining credit for something that was avoided is difficult.

Focusing on the island of Borneo, this chapter explains why Brunei – but not the other administrative units on Borneo – achieved separate independence. Nineteenth-century European expansion into Southeast Asia divided the island of Borneo into four administrative units: Brunei, Sarawak, North Borneo, and Dutch Borneo. The first three, located in the northern part of the island, were under British colonial rule, while the southern half was under Dutch colonial rule. They were highly similar to each other prior to colonization, but their decolonization outcomes diverged; Dutch Borneo became part of Indonesia, and Sarawak and North Borneo became part of Malaysia, while Brunei rejected to be merged into Malaysia in 1963 and eventually became independent separately in 1984. This chapter conducts historical within-case and comparative case studies to show that oil and the protectorate system enabled Brunei’s separate independence, while the lack of these two factors resulted in the incorporation of the other three colonial units into larger entities.

Shifting the focus from Borneo to the Persian Gulf, this chapter explains why Qatar and Bahrain – but not the other administrative units in the lower Gulf – achieved separate independence. Britain had been involved in the Persian Gulf for centuries until its withdrawal in 1971. Through treaties signed by the British and local rulers, there had been nine separate sheikhdoms in the lower Gulf with the same colonial status of a British protected state: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Bahrain, Dubai, Fujairah, Qatar, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. They had similar social, cultural, political, and historical backgrounds, but they varied in their decolonization outcomes. All of them participated in negotiations under Abu Dhabi’s initiative between 1968 and 1971 to form a federation. Among the other eight, six eventually joined the newly established United Arab Emirates. The other two, Qatar and Bahrain, however, chose to achieve independence on their own. This chapter analyzes the sheikhdoms in depth using within-case and comparative analyses to reveal that Qatar and Bahrain achieved separate independence because of their early oil development and the protectorate system, while the lack of these two factors resulted in the incorporation of the others into the UAE.

Chapter 2 explains the historical setting during the period of colonization and decolonization and develops the theoretical framework of this book. The successful cases of separate independence covered in this book are cases where oil production started at a specific time: after colonization but well before the “window of sovereignty” closed. When this economic activity occurred in protectorates where the colonizers offered protection to the local rulers and ruled through them, the result was separate independence. The central argument of this book, therefore, is that when faced with a project for amalgamation with neighboring areas, (1) oil production during the colonial period and (2) the protectorate system led to separate independence. The two factors enabled some colonial entities to achieve statehood separately by providing them with material and political incentives to pursue separate independence, perceived viability as a sovereign state, which includes both financial self-sufficiency and security, and bargaining power vis-à-vis the colonizers.

This chapter discusses whether the theoretical framework of this book can explain cases outside of Borneo and the Persian Gulf. Kuwait can readily be explained by the same framework as Qatar and Bahrain. This chapter then analyzes negative cases that meet at least one of the two conditions. It first looks at the West Indies, particularly the case of Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad was a producer of oil but became part of the West Indies Federation when it was established in 1958, although the federation collapsed four years later. It argues that Trinidad’s initial inclusion into a larger entity can be explained by the absence of the protectorate system. Second, it investigates the case of British protectorates in South Arabia. They had been governed in a similar fashion to lower Gulf sheikhdoms during the colonial period, but many of them had no choice but to join the Federation of South Arabia in 1962. This chapter argues that the difference between those states and successful cases of separate independence lies in the presence of oil. It thus shows that the theory of this book travels to other cases.

This chapter explores the contrasting use of ordinances to detain two men thought to be Britain’s principal political enemies in West Africa in the 1890s. It begins with the deposition and exile of Prempeh of Asante in 1896. Under Prempeh, the Asante kingdom began to revive after its decline since the war of 1873–1874. Britain now sought to bring it under its influence, by inducing Prempeh to sign a treaty of protection. When he persistently refused to accept a Resident, colonial officials in Accra generated a pretext to invade Asante. Once there, Governor Maxwell decided to detain Prempeh, though he was no rebel, had not engaged in war, and had breached no treaty. His detention and ultimate exile was the result of pure imperial aggression and the perception that he needed to be removed to secure British control of Asante. It was unconstrained by any conception of the rule of law. By contrast, Bai Bureh, who was held responsible for the outbreak of the Hut Tax revolt in Sierra Leone in 1898, was held under an ad hominem ordinance after the Law Officers reported that he could not be tried for treason or rebellion in the newly proclaimed protectorate, not being a subject.

This chapter examines the detention of African chiefs who stood in the way of British expansion in the Niger Delta in the era of the Berlin Conference. At a time when the legal conception of protectorates was being rethought, Britain began to claim more extensive jurisdiction over chiefs with whom it had signed treaties. This chapter concerns the cases of three rulers – Jaja of Opobo, Nana Olomu and Ovonramwen of Benin – each of whom had signed the standard form treaty of protection first taken to the region in 1884. Jaja had struck out a clause permitting free trade, and, when he continued to insist on controlling his rivers, he was removed to Accra. After an inquiry into his conduct, he was removed under an ordinance. In the following decade, after the creation of the Niger Coast Protectorate, Nana, who had also blocked trade after reserving his rights, was tried by a career soldier in a consular court, before also being exiled by ordinance. Ovonramwen’s deposition and removal (after an ambush of a British party on its way to Benin City) was made without trial or authorising ordinance, but by a simple assertion of power which was not legally validated until 1911.

This chapter describes the long, revolutionary period in which majoritarian patterns of decision-making predominated and matured but were never clearly institutionalized. The House of Commons regularly faced status-related crises that perpetuated majoritarian practices during this period, but these practices were never routinized to the point where they became devoid of profound status implications. If the ultimate question of the English Revolution is the question of why Parliament failed to protect its institutional prerogatives, this chapter provides an answer. Consensual decision-making utterly collapsed amid the disintegration of Parliament’s authority under revolutionary conditions in the later 1640s. The explosion of majoritarian dynamics undermined Parliament’s legitimacy and made its composition subject to the dictates of the army and Oliver Cromwell from the late 1640s to the end of the Interregnum. Majoritarian patterns of decision-making continued up to the Restoration, not necessarily because majority voting had become institutionalized, but because so many questions before the Commons had profound constitutional and status implications in a period of fundamental instability.

This chapter examines a group of closely related pamphlets published in the late 1650s around the time of Oliver Cromwell’s death that stage a dramatic dialogue in the crypt of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, between the ghosts of Henry VIII and the freshly interred Charles I. A Messenger from the dead (to give these anonymous English and Latin texts a collective title) advances the extraordinary claim that the recent civil wars, the regicide and the nation’s descent into political turmoil represent God’s delayed punishment for Henry VIII’s alleged crimes against the Catholic Church several generations earlier. I argue that this unorthodox thesis is not unique to Messenger but enjoyed a wider circulation in seventeenth-century culture. In asking who promoted and stood to benefit from such an explanation of recent events, I explore the significant differences among the various texts of the pamphlets, including their place of publication and ideological motivation.

Chapter 1 examines the early university career of Locke, detailing his proximity to Oxford Independents during the Interregnum and to more conformist figures after the Restoration. The chapter charts Locke’s possible exposure to Hobbes’s Leviathan and to debates over sovereignty and conscience that were strongly coloured by Hobbesian themes. Central to the chapter are Locke’s connection to figures such as John Owen and Henry Stubbe and early evidence of his political reading. These researches contextualize Locke’s early correspondence and his unpublished ‘Two Tracts’ and suggest the influence of Hobbes on both. The young Locke emerges as a figure versed in the new contractual theories of sovereignty and their implications for religious governance. The chapter also makes a case for deploying the categories of ‘civil’ and ‘prophetic’ religion in historical analysis of the period.