Casement Contra Casement: Liberalism, Empire and the Radicalisation of the Tohought of Roger Casement

Abstract

THIS THESIS examines the political thought of Roger Casement (1864–1916). A knighted humanitarian imperialist famed for his exposure of widespread human rights atrocities in the Congo and Amazon, Casement was hanged for high treason following his revolutionary republican gun running into Ireland on the eve of the Easter Uprising. Examining the content and conditions of Casement’s seemingly paradoxical political ideas, it will be argued that his anti-imperialism was continuous with and derived from his humanitarian expansionism and his unique practical experiences of the contradictions of liberal imperialism. In so doing, this thesis demonstrates the complexity and fluidity of liberal thought as it was navigated by contemporary individuals, illustrating the extent to which arguments about self-determination and decolonisation were not just external critiques of empire, but developed from within empire itself.