{"title":"The Long-Run Consequences of The Opium Concessions for Out-Group Animosity on Java","authors":"Nicholas Kuipers","doi":"10.1017/S0043887122000041","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines the consequences of the opium concession system in the Dutch East Indies—a nineteenth-century institution through which the Dutch would auction the monopolistic right to sell opium in a given locality. The winners of these auctions were invariably ethnic Chinese. The poverty of Java's indigenous population combined with opium's addictive properties meant that many individuals fell into destitution. The author argues that this institution put in motion a self-reinforcing arrangement that enriched one group and embittered the other with consequences that persist to the present day. Consistent with this theory, the author finds that individuals living today in villages where the opium concession system once operated report higher levels of out-group intolerance compared to individuals in nearby unexposed counterfactual villages. These findings improve the understanding of the historical conditions that structure antagonisms between competing groups.","PeriodicalId":48266,"journal":{"name":"World Politics","volume":"74 1","pages":"405 - 442"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"World Politics","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887122000041","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Abstract This article examines the consequences of the opium concession system in the Dutch East Indies—a nineteenth-century institution through which the Dutch would auction the monopolistic right to sell opium in a given locality. The winners of these auctions were invariably ethnic Chinese. The poverty of Java's indigenous population combined with opium's addictive properties meant that many individuals fell into destitution. The author argues that this institution put in motion a self-reinforcing arrangement that enriched one group and embittered the other with consequences that persist to the present day. Consistent with this theory, the author finds that individuals living today in villages where the opium concession system once operated report higher levels of out-group intolerance compared to individuals in nearby unexposed counterfactual villages. These findings improve the understanding of the historical conditions that structure antagonisms between competing groups.
期刊介绍:
World Politics, founded in 1948, is an internationally renowned quarterly journal of political science published in both print and online versions. Open to contributions by scholars, World Politics invites submission of research articles that make theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature, review articles, and research notes bearing on problems in international relations and comparative politics. The journal does not publish articles on current affairs, policy pieces, or narratives of a journalistic nature. Articles submitted for consideration are unsolicited, except for review articles, which are usually commissioned. Published for the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Affairs