Agents of Empire

Sean Gailmard is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the development of American political institutions and strategic models of choice in politics.

• Introduction; 1. Economic incentives: the origins of colonial autonomy; 2. Governance incentives: the balanced colonial constitution; 3. From incentives to institutions: contractual imperialism in practice; 4. The rise and fall of autocratic imperialism; 5. Economic regulation: imperial administration in the colonies; 6. Political regulation: legislative review and colonial autonomy; 7. Colonial assembly power under regulatory imperialism; 8. The institutional bequests of empire.

'With this pioneering study, Sean Gailmard shows us that to understand the American institutional inheritance of elected legislatures with decentralized autonomy, we need to hearken back to the challenges faced by the English Crown from Jamestown forwards as it sought to extend colonial rule with limited resources. A must read for anyone interested in comparative political development.' David Stasavage, New York University