Idioms of Empire: Political Narratives of Colonialism in the French Parliament, 1881-2005

Abstract

While a growing body of scholarship examines the legacies of colonialism across a variety of political and economic dimensions, few studies address how the colonial powers themselves discussed and debated issues of empire. Focusing on France, we examine how elites framed colonial issues over time, during and after the colonizing era. We apply a word embeddings approach to an original French-language corpus of parliamentary debates since 1881 and describe the degree to which moral, economic, and martial narratives feature in elite discourse on colonial issues in Africa and Asia. Although moral language associated with the “civilizing mission” dominates early discourse, the same language is revived—and reframed—in the 20th century to meet new threats posed by global security crises. We document potential mechanisms driving shifts in political rhetoric through qualitative evidence of the workings of the colonial lobby. The study speaks to ongoing controversies over colonial memory and the role of rhetoric in legislative debates.