Conceptualising the Imperial in Imperial Welfare

This paper addresses the imperial dynamics of social welfare since the late nineteenth century. It aims to conceptually establish the connection between the natures of European imperial rule, on the one hand, and modes of social policy-making, on the other hand. While the past decade has brought substantively new insights on colonial institutions, on the everyday politics of imperial connectivities and on imperial policies of health, schooling and poverty relief, it has not led to serious engagements from within the field of welfare states and social policy research with these insights. To do so, this paper will first demonstrate the imperial blindspots of existing welfare state traditions. Second, it will critically reflect on more recent attempts to explain and theorize European imperial welfare and its legacies in the Global South. Finally, it calls for conceptually expanding existing traditions to include analytical tools from with historical sociology, state theory and figuration sociology to design a historical theory of imperial and post-imperial welfare.