DOI: 10.5064/f6iouey2
title: Data for: The territorial expansion of the colonial state: Evidence from German East Africa 1890–1909

description: &lt;b&gt;This is an &lt;a href="https://qdr.syr.edu/ati"&gt;Annotation for Transparent Inquiry (ATI)&lt;/a&gt; data project. &lt;/b&gt; &lt;h3&gt;The annotated article can be viewed on the &lt;a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/territorial-expansion-of-the-colonial-state-evidence-from-german-east-africa-18901909/709EEF58BC4BD8A27B5856B663EB7F59#annotations:group:zvEVDE2R" &gt;publisher's website&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;h3/&gt;

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&lt;p&gt;In this paper, we investigate the spatial expansion of the colonial state in German East Africa. In contrast to large parts of the literature that focuses on the development of national state capabilities, we analyze the development of sub-national state presence. We argue that this sub-national expansion of state presence follows a logic of political and territorial control. We present statistical evidence that the German colonial government was more likely to establish presence, via the creation of a military station, if a region violently resisted German rule in the immediate past or if the creation of a station vastly expanded territorial control of the colony. This required the colonial administration to commit scarce financial and human resources even to remote and dangerous locations of the colony. In contrast, the potential for economic extraction or cost-driving geographic or ecological factors seem to have mattered less in the colonial government’s decision-making. These findings extend our understanding of state-building in colonial times and emphasize the importance of a context-specific, political calculus, forcing colonial decision-makers to make consequential investments with very limited information.&lt;/p&gt;
description: &lt;h3&gt;Data overview&lt;/h3&gt;
The core empirical contribution of the paper is a statistical analysis of the creation of military stations in German East Africa from 1890 to 1909. The analysis relies on an indicator of station presence in a set of regular grid-cells, observed from 1890 to 1909, as our main outcome measure. We also consider information on station type and troop strength as alternatives. Our key independent variables are the occurrence of violence against German troops in each grid cell in prior years and a measure of territorial coverage gain implied by the creation of new stations. The analysis controls for an extensive list of control variables. More details on variable definitions and modeling assumptions in the statistical analysis can be found in the paper and statistical appendix. Several of our quantitative variables were generated by digitizing archival records and information from historical maps. All maps, periodicals and monographs have been obtained from the “Berlin State Library – Prussian Cultural Heritage” (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz), the “ZBW Leibniz Information Centre for Economics” (Leibniz- Informationszentrum Wirtschaft) in Hamburg and the German Federal Archives in Berlin. Data for our main outcome and explanatory variable come from a book written by Ernst Nigmann, a former major in the colonial army, and published in 1911. Nigmann provides information on the establishment dates and locations of German stations as well as on major instances of violence in the colony. We have digitized this information with the help of the 1920 German Colonial Atlas and a complete village and location register accompanying the atlas. The atlas was published in 1920 by the Colonial Department of the Imperial Foreign Ministry (Kolonialabteilung des Auswärtigen Amtes). The atlas consists of nine over-sized map sheets. Information on other variables and the underlying primary sources can be found in the main manuscript and the statistical appendix.
We complement this statistical analysis with a descriptive introduction to the case of German East Africa and the discussion of a few qualitative pieces of evidence with respect to the decision-making calculus of colonial administrators. The Section “Colonial State Building in German East Africa” conveys basic descriptive information about the evolution of German colonialism in Tanzania. This section largely draws on secondary source material written by historians. Our section on “Robustness Checks” provides more specific qualitative evidence from primary sources in support of our argument. For example, we use information from an official military handbook (“Militärisches Orientierungsheft für Deutsch-Ostafrika”), prepared by the German military and published in 1911, to discuss the practical difficulty of obtaining reliable information on local ethnic groups. This discussion illustrates the need for colonial decision-makers to rely on easily observable events, like violence against German troops or settlers, for allocating stations across the colony instead of relying on specific organizational characteristics of local ethnic groups. We leverage additional primary source material to engage other aspects of station placement. For example, Section 15 in the Appendix draws on the yearly report of the colonial office from 1904/05 and other internal colonial files to identify explicit motives for station creation. Here, we also draw on assessments by Ernst Nigman, published in his 1911 book. Section 16 engages qualitative evidence on the role of cost considerations in station placement, specifically the disease environment. This section draws on the book by Ernst Nigmann and additional government files from the colonial office. Finally, Section 17 in the Appendix provides more detail on the Maji-Maji revolt against the German government. This draws on original quantitative data from the German East African Newspaper (detailed in De Juan 2014) and minutes of the meeting by the colonial government council (Gouvernementsrat). All primary documents were accessed in the Berlin State Library, the ZBW Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, and the German Federal Archives in Berlin.
For the annotations added to the main document, we followed the suggestions outlined by the ATI Working Group. First, we screened all citations, descriptive, and analytical claims in the manuscript. We then decided to not add additional annotations to mere literature citations or citations of basic historical facts. Instead, we focus on supplementing original claims made by us that are based on our reading of primary source material. For these annotations, we decided to provide more context information and details on the source material or, when useful, the original quotation (often in German) or other noteworthy observations. We also decided to add several annotations to primary material cited in the paper that was used for the quantitative analysis. While our manuscript and statistical appendix provide detailed sources and specifics on data creation, we felt it was useful to offer the reader an abridged version of this information in the form of an annotation.
description: Berlin State Library – Prussian Cultural Heritage (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz)
ZBW Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (Leibniz- Informationszentrum Wirtschaft), Hamburg
German Federal Archives, Berlin
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