American Imperialism and the State, 1893–1921

How did the acquisition of overseas colonies affect the development of the American state? How did the constitutional system shape the expansion and governance of American empire? American Imperialism and the State offers a new perspective on these questions by recasting American imperial governance as an episode of state building. Colin D. Moore argues that the empire was decisively shaped by the efforts of colonial state officials to achieve greater autonomy in the face of congressional obstruction, public indifference and limitations on administrative capacity. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book focuses principally upon four cases of imperial governance - Hawai'i, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic and Haiti - to highlight the essential tension between American mass democracy and imperial expansion.

1. Introduction; 2. Clerical state colonialism and the annexation of Hawai'i; 3. Institutional design of the insular empire; 4. Building a colonial state in the Philippines; 5. Dollar diplomacy as inconspicuous action; 6. The colonial state at the height of progressive imperialism; 7. Consequences and collapse: the empire under Wilson; 8. Conclusion.

Colin D. Moore is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawaii. He has won the American Political Science Association's Burnham Award for the best dissertation in politics and history, and the Mary Parker Follett Award for the year's best article in politics and history. His research has been published in Perspectives on Politics, American Political Science Review and Studies in American Political Development.