BOUNDARIES AS INSTITUTIONAL ARTEFACTS: HISTORICAL INSTITUTIONALISM AND THE COLONIAL CONSTRUCTION OF BRUNEI’S BOUNDARIES, 1841–1958

Abstract

This article argues that Brunei’s modern boundaries should be understood not simply as geographic lines or the legal residue of colonial diplomacy but as institutional artefacts produced and stabilised through colonial governance. Existing scholarship on colonial boundary-making has predominantly privileged inter-imperial explanations, treating boundaries as the outcome of negotiation, rivalry, and settlement between competing empires. Brunei presents a different configuration. Its territorial boundaries were shaped less by direct bargaining between rival imperial powers than by intra-imperial struggles and administrative processes within the British imperial system, involving the Colonial Office, the Brooke regime in Sarawak, the British North Borneo Company, and the Brunei Sultanate itself. Drawing on historical institutionalism, this article examines how critical junctures and path dependence transformed Brunei from a polity characterised by fluid frontiers, tributary authority, and overlapping zones of influence into a territorially bounded colonial state between 1841 and 1958. Methodologically, the study employs qualitative historical analysis and process tracing based on primary and secondary sources. The primary sources consist of archival documents from the British Foreign Office, Colonial Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office held in British and Malaysian archives, as well as maps and other relevant documents. These primary sources are complemented by secondary sources, namely academic journal articles and books on British- Brunei relations and Borneo history, to support interpretation and analysis. The findings show that British intervention in northern Borneo disrupted Brunei’s indigenous territorial order and generated a path-dependent sequence in which protectorate rule, the Residential System, and successive boundary agreements progressively stabilised a reduced yet durable territorial form. The article contributes to Political Geography, Border Studies, and International Relations by advancing the concept of boundaries as institutional artefacts and demonstrating that colonial territorial formation may be driven not only by inter-imperial diplomacy but also by internal imperial politics, bureaucratic rivalry, and administrative consolidation.