Belgium’s Expansionist History between 1870 and 1930: Imperialism and the Globalisation of Belgian Business

Abbeloos, Jan-Frederik (2008): Belgium’s Expansionist History between 1870 and 1930: Imperialism and the Globalisation of Belgian Business.

Abstract

This chapter considers if and how the political action of imperialism and the globalisation of business influenced each other in Belgium between 1870 and 1930. In addition to the role that Belgian King Leopold II played in the territorial partition of Africa and the opening up of China, the period sees a growing amount of capital and industrial know-how from Belgium being invested in markets outside Europe. Before World War I, the globalisation of Belgian business and Belgian imperialism operated relatively independently of each other, leaving the financing of the imperial project open to other international investors while strong political support for the globalisation of Belgian business was absent in this small, neutral and open country. Only after the Belgian state took over Leopold’s Congo Free State in 1908 and World War I infused colonial (economic) policy with a stronger patriotic spirit, did Belgian foreign investments start to concentrate on the Congo. From the 1920s on, Belgian business fully seized the opportunities that imperialism had created earlier.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Belgium, business history, imperial history, globalization
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F1 - Trade > F15 - Economic Integration; F - International Economics > F2 - International Factor Movements and International Business > F23 - Multinational Firms ; International Business; N - Economic History > N1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics ; Industrial Structure ; Growth ; Fluctuations > N13 - Europe: Pre-1913; N - Economic History > N0 - General > N00 - General; N - Economic History > N1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics ; Industrial Structure ; Growth ; Fluctuations > N14 - Europe: 1913-

References

Coolsaet R., België en zijn buitenlandse politiek 1830-2000, Leuven 2001.

Cooper F., Colonialism in question: theory, knowledge, history, Berkeley 2005.

Dumoulin M., Stols E. (eds.), La Belgique et l’étranger aux XIXe et XXe siècles, Brussels 1987.

Degrève D., Lebrun P., Le commerce extérieur de la Belgique 1830-1913-1939: présentation critique des données statistiques, vol. 1a, Brussels 1982.

Hobsbawm E., The Age of Empire: 1875-1914, London 1987.

Kurgan-van Hentenryk G., Léopold II et les groupes financiers belges en Chine: la politique royale et ses prolongements (1895-1914), Brussels 1972.

O’Rourke K., Williamson J.G., Globalization and history: the evolution of a nineteenth-century Atlantic economy, Cambridge 1999.

Stengers J., King Leopold’s imperialism, in Sutcliffe B., Owen R., (eds.), Studies in the theory of imperialism, London 1972, pp. 248-276.

Van den Eede M.. De Belgische mondiale expansie, 1831-1914, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Ghent 2006.

Van der Wee H., Investment strategy of Belgian industrial enterprise between 1830 and 1980 and its influence in the economic development of Europe, in Van der Wee H., Blomme J. (eds.), The economic development of Belgium since 1870, Cheltenham 1997, pp. 186-204.

Vanthemsche G., The historiography of Belgian colonialism in the Congo, in Lévai C (ed.), Europe and the world in European historiography, Pisa 2006, pp. 89-119.

Id., La Belgique et le Congo: empreintes d’une colonie (1885-1980), Brussels 2006.

Vellut J.-L., Hégémonies en construction: articulations entre Etat et Entreprises dans le bloc coloniale belge (1908-1960), in «Canadian Journal of African Studies», 1982, 16, pp. 313-330.

Id., Réseaux transnationaux dans l’économie politique du Congo léopoldien, c. 1885-1910, in Marfaing L., Reinwald B., (eds.), Afrikanische Beziehungen, Netzwerke und Räume, Münster 2001, pp. 131-146.