Colonial reflection - Essay Example

Branch argues that colonial expansion was key to the formation of territorial states by presenting theorization of the interaction between colonies and metro-poles and highlights the significance of ideas and practices of political authority and structure. Branch asserts that sovereign statehood and the practices of international relations had their origin or were influenced by Europe by building upon many theories. Some of the theories that support this argument include historical sociology regarding the origin of European statehood that argues that European state system is exclusively internal to the European continent.

Branch is right in his argument because European expansion of colonial powers and the competition among different forms of European rule ended up in sovereign state since every rule wanted to control at least a territory they conquered. The objective of the colonialists was to exercise their power in the places they conquered and this favored well the system of sovereign state. I concur with Branch that system of sovereign state spread to different parts of the world because of direct colonial imposition and imitation thus implying that practices and ideas of the modern states originated from colonial world.

Practices that were used during the colonial period have been reflected in the modern states even though they were adopted as a conscious response to the perceived novelty of extra-European expansion. However, this argument has been challenged in many ways such as the need to incorporate extra-European dynamics in arguing the case and the challenges that may be faced in applying the European experience to other parts of the world. It can be argued that European influence in state building cannot be ignored because Europe greatly dominated the world and therefore it was easy for them to impose either directly or indirectly their own ideas of state building.

Process of colonial reflection