PRINCIPALS AND AGENTS, COLONIALISTS AND COMPANY MEN - THE DECAY OF COLONIAL CONTROL IN THE DUTCH-EAST-INDIES

Patrimonial states and their chartered East India companies propelled the first wave of European colonialism in Asia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The metropolitan principals of these organiz ations faced special problems in monitoring and controlling their own colonial agents. Focusing primarily on the Dutch United East Indies Co mpany and secondarily on its English counterpart, I argue that the net work structure of each organization affected the degree to which relat ionships between patrimonial principals and their agents could serve a s a disciplinary device. Dutch decline was imminent when alternative o pportunities for private gain, available via the ascending English Eas t India Company allowed Dutch colonial servants to evade their own pat rimonial chain and encouraged its organizational breakdown. Features o f network structure determined whether colonial agents saw better alte rnatives to the official patrimonial hierarchy when they could act on them, and whether principals could respond.