Decentralization and Public Spending in a Colonial Context: The Ethical Policy in the Netherlands East Indies

In 1901 the Dutch colonial government started the “Ethical Policy”, which included a programme of political decentralization and aimed to expand public infrastructure, education and health care in order to improve living conditions in the Netherlands East Indies. Both underlying motives and the extent to which this succeeded are the subject of academic debate. This project entails the collection and publication of a large body of primary data that will shed light on the following question: how was public spending distributed across localities in the Netherlands East Indies between 1892 and 1942 and how was this affected by decentralization.