The Limits of Indirect Rule Containing Nationalism in Corsica

Indirect rule is an important institution of governance in large and multicultural polities. Recent studies have shown how it can contain nationalism and why governments often adopt it to manage some of their more peripheral regions. Whereas the benefits and effects of indirect rule have been widely discussed, little attention has been paid to the limits of indirect rule. This paper develops and tests a theory specifying the conditions under which indirect rule crumbles. The paper suggests that the efficacy of indirect rule depends on the central government’s (that is, the principal’s) control over the regional agent’s resources, especially its revenue. Economic dependence on the center enables peripheral agents to distribute both public and clientelistic goods to local subjects, which imbues the agent’s power with legitimacy and underpins the principal’s prerogative to rule indirectly. This quells nationalist fervor and the demand for more regional autonomy. However, when alternative sources of revenue arise, the patron‐client linkage is loosened, and new principals, agents and opportunities emerge. This weakens the indirect ruler’s legitimacy, which in turn creates a greater demand for autonomy and an opportunity for nationalist parties to gain political ground. We illustrate and examine our theory using municipal-level quantitative data on nationalist voting patterns, an original expert survey on the demand for autonomy as well as qualitative field research from Corsica.