Influence of Colonialism on Political Structures of Africa Nations - Essay Example

Influence of Colonialism on Political Structures of Africa Nations Introduction Colonizationin Africa had long lasting effects still experienced in modern day Africa.  It is still a hot topic that the colonization has influenced African states development. The legacy of colonization affects Africa in various fronts. There have been examples of internal displacement, ethnic violence, and other kinds of conflicts as a result of post-colonization in Africa. Africa is a huge continent that has 54 countries at the moment. And also, there are many nations that are showing great potential as a developing country since the decolonization from the Western powers. In assessing the progress of Africa nations in postcolonial era, it is important to factor in the adverse outcomes of the sudden transition from being under pressure to a free and independent country. The first Europeans to settle in Africa were Portuguese in 1446. Other Europeans came in Africa first as missionaries, then as colonizers. The British and German idea was for imperialism while the French had no problems with assimilation. The numerous natural resources made Africa attractive to most European nations. Presently, like most parts of the world, Africa has different people, cultures, languages and history partly because of colonialism (Hrituleac 2). Research Problem Various literatures exist on the influence of colonization to countries. However, most political science and history research analyzes the implication of colonialism in a holistic manner. Ziltener and Kunzler observe that this analysis is not sufficient as different colonial methods were used in different colonies (305). Moreover, the debate of the political and economic influence of colonialism in Africa is still open with some school of thoughts arguing that colonialism has assisted Africa more than exploited it. The assistance in infrastructure, education, urbanization, new political and economic systems is often cited. This paper will attempt to weigh in on the debate by using secondary data to explore the influence of colonialism in Africa by observing three African countries with distinct colonial history. Research question This study will look at the historical and current political and economic structures of three African countries (Algeria, Liberia and South Africa). Since Liberia was not colonized by Europeans, Algeria attained independence in the late 60s and South Africa attained independence in the 1990s, the study assumes that the current trend in their political structure in particular politics and governance are directly linked to the nature of colonization. In order to address the research problem the following research question was derived: How did colonization influence political structures in the African countries of Algeria, Liberia and South Africa? To answer this question, the following research objectives were formulated: To describe the historical and current political structures of the study countries To assess the link between political structures with colonialism in the study countries. Methods Colonialism as an intervening variable has huge diversity and variations. This is because colonialism style and experiences were different and therefore coding to get the influence of colonialism is a challenge (Ziltener and Kunzler 305). The methodology used is consistent with colonial discourse theorem where the relationship between colonial systems and structures are studied. The theory claims that Africa has different democracy types, and the study looked at the democracy types in the three countries. From the theories, colonial influence would be apparent if the African countries adopt the colony’s politics and governance, and the level of democracy would be similar. Afterall, the French, Americans and Britons are all democrats. It involved qualitative research in which two strategies were used to collect data. The first strategy was literature review where the information on colonialism was collected from various sources including journals, books and reports. The second stage involved collecting political data for the three case studies. All the information in this research paper are obtained from reliable sources hence they are valid; the information for literature review are obtained from screened sources. Furthermore, each of the concepts described is counterchecked from at least one more source. The data for the case study are obtained from only two sources, i.e., The World Bank and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA Factbook) Literature review Theories of colonialism Sartre Theory of Colonialism and neo-colonialism The philosophies of Sartre on colonialism are informed by the events in colonial Algeria. Sartre identifies colonialists as people who do not mind about the liberty and equality of other individuals. He observes the irony as the French people cited liberty and freedom as important aspects in humanity. Colonialists use the best resources exploiting the natives and dominating them politically (Smith, 443). Ending colonialism is a moral obligation to which political action is sine qua no. This implies action is needed even if the action is revolution/violence. He also argued that colonialism encourages racism. Among his famous quotes on colonialism was that, ‘…we are viewing the terrible agony of colonialism’ (Smith 429). The quote implied that the working class French citizens were seeing the effects of colonialism in Africa but were doing nothing about it. Sartre ideals on colonialism were Marxist. He also warned of neo-colonialism where the former colonized people use the same oppressive systems of the colonialists for the benefit of few individuals. Through neo-colonialism, the western powers exert indirect maximum control of their former colonies through the channels of culture, politics and above all economies (Alemazung 69; Child and Williams 5). Colonial discourse theory is explained by Tiffin and Alan which analyze the roles played by colonialists rather than relying on texts (21). It is a system of statements that can be made from studying colonial powers and systems, and the relationship between the two. Postcolonial theory Unlike colonial and neo-colonial philosophies, a lot of literature has been written on postcolonial theories. According to Child and Williams, postcolonial theory is best explained by the globalization of capitalism which is influenced by contemporary critical theories of feminism, Marxism, post-structuralism and postmodernism (21). According to Gandhi, the theory prioritizes itself in attempting to scavenge the colonial past to describe an implacable enmity between native and invader (11). He also notes that colonialism and neocolonialism did not take into account the psychological resistance to the colonizers civilization mission, and postcolonial theory ought to consider it (18). Postcolonial is a period after decolonization. Decolonization refers to the process where the colonial power cedes dominance and power to indigenous members of the society. Sociology of political systems The holders of power in relationship of government and people describe the social interest of political structures/systems. Five common forms of governments exist and they include monarchy, democracy, oligarchy, authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Monarchy was the common form of government in the world until the 19th century where power was bestowed on one family. Democracy means the people choose the leader they want; it is either direct or representative. In direct democracy, the citizens choose whom they want through a vote. Representative democracy occurs where the citizens vote through elected representatives. In oligarchy, the power is vested in few individuals such as a dominant class, and unlike a monarchy, the people need not be related by blood. In authoritarianism form of government, people have no power in participation. Totalitarianism is an extreme form of authoritarianism where all control of private and public life are run by state. All the forms of government described except democracy are nondemocratic (Duignan 44) The theory of democracy has had numerous famous theorists including Aristotle and John Locke. The central idea in the theory of democracy is that political equality and majority rule are essential for any government to claim legitimacy (Duignan 111). John Locke supports the idea of democracy because he posited that all men then were created equal among one another without subordination or subjection. The ruling class has to have consent of most of the citizens of a territory (Duignan 112). Sklar observes that Africa is still experimenting with democracy and thus countries have different types of democracies which he mentions as liberal, guided, participatory and consociational democracies (11-19). He adds another democracy type called developmental democracy, and argues that it is the future of Africa (20). History of colonialism According to Ziltener and Kunzler, colonialism is a temporary domination of people politically to exploit them economically (291). In 1885, during the scramble for Africa, European powers imposed formal territorial boundaries in Africa without consideration of ethnicity (Blanton 473) or extant trade (Ndulu and Chakraborti 102). The primary reason for Europeans coming to Africa in the late 19th Century was to expand their territories and explore areas to obtain resources for their mother countries. African resistance was a key narrative in most of colonial governments (Cooper, 1520). While colonial governments are known to be oppressive and exploitative, Kholi analyzes on the benefits of colonialism to countries. He uses the example of Japan colonizing South Korea from 1905-1945 causing it to evolve to a great developmental path. South Korea transformed from authoritarian leadership to a democracy with an efficient police from and a functioning civil society (1274), after Japan had left the country following a defeat in World War 2. Hovarth points out the definition of colonialism. He states that the term is generally used interchangeably with imperialism. He notes that while in colonialism a huge number of settlers migrate and live permanently in a country, in imperialism the foreign power has control of the country except that not many people come to settle in the country. He gives example of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Latin America as being colonized, and most of Africa and Asia as being imperialized (47). This research, like most academic papers, recognizes both imperialism and colonization as colonization. Colonialism in the study countries The French conquered Algeria in the period of 1830 to 1847. The location of Algeria as a uniting hub for Europe, Middle East and Africa had made Algeria to be occupied by various colonialists before including Romans, Arabs and Ottoman Empire. According to Blanch, the French were established in Algeria by early 20th century with their citizens numbering 300000 in the country (540), and were trying to impose their cultures to the Algerians with minimal success compared to British colonies who were more organized (551). The Algerian Civil war between 1954 and 1962 that killed over one million Algerians and French led to the independence of Algeria in July 3, 1962 (Stora, 109). At the start of the nineteenth century, the Americans realized that slavery was not viable. Additionally, the White Americans were increasingly concerned about the increase of Blacks population in their midst. The American Colonization Society was formed with the aim of emancipating all the Blacks to Liberia. However because of high mortality of the settlers in Liberia, the program stalled. Hence Americans colonized Liberia from 1820-1843 (Shick 12-19). While Liberia was not colonized by Europeans, descendants of the freed slaves known as Americo-Liberians, who were approximately 3% of the population, had the political and economic control of Liberia until a coup in 1980. The Dutch colonized South Africa in 1652 and became Afrikaners, but in 1779 the British took over Afrikaners lands and made South Africa a British colony. The British gave back control partly to Afrikaners in 1910 (Meskell and Weiss 88-93). The Afrikaners through their dominant National Party in South Africa set up the apartheid system that created visible stratification among the Whites and Blacks people (Faulkner and Loewald, 2). In essence both Liberia and South Africa were colonized by settlers. African politics Ekah define politics as actions of an individual that are in the public realm. Activities such as religion and household issues are not political because they are in the private realm (92). The politics of colonialists took different forms depending on the existing pre-colonial structures and conditions of the colony (Acemoglu et al. 7; Ziltener and Kunzler 297). For instance colonialists settled en mass in areas in which were favorable to them and developed efficient routes to extract resources in areas that were not favorable to them. Additionally the style of ruling was different as Britain preferred indirect rule where they appointed local leaders while French preferred direct rule in most of their colonies. It was common for colonialists in Africa to have people from the same ethnicity in certain areas (Alemazung 66). For instance in Kenya, the British preferred Kamba ethnic community to be in the army, while in Togo, administrative positions were dominated by Ewe tribe (Ziltener and Kunzler 298) Ekah notes that there are two public realms in modern day Africa; one is the primordial public that operates in the same way as public realm and two is the public realm associated with colonial administration and includes things such as military, civil service and so on (92). Acemoglu et al. argues Africa is poorer compared to rest to the world not because it has poor cultural and geographical factors but because of poor political, social and economic institutions set up by the colonial governments (4). Brown reinforces this by claiming many problems in Africa are obtained from the legacy of colonialism (183). Fulgniti et al. questions the influence of colonial masters in Africa to the country’s political and economic stability. They observe that former Belgian colonies such as Burundi, Congo and Rwanda have had numerous conflicts in the past, and so have Portuguese colonies such as Angola and Mozambique. British and French had more colonies, and inasmuch as some of their former colonies are unstable, bigger proportions have a history of relative political and consequently economic stability (172-176). Politics in the study country According to Stora, the extant political structure in Algeria is a manifestation of how the nation was formed. The rule is authoritarian with strong military backing to the president (118). Algeria has a dysfunctional democracy as manifested by military coup that followed the 1991 legislative elections (Joffé 2). The official structure according to its 1976 constitution is in such a way that the president is the head of state while the prime minister is the head of government. The military and unelected civilians usually have great power in determining government. The politics in Algeria is getting continuous support in moving from a socialist state to a free market. The politics of South Africa has been based on democracy, with peaceful elections being held every five years since 1994. Only one party, Africa National Congress, has led the country since end of apartheid (Lodge and Scheidegger 2). The country is headed by the president who is elected by parliament. The structure significantly differs from other commonwealth countries because the local levels of government have significant authority (SA Constitution Ch.3 & 7). Liberia also has democratic structures in place, the democratic structures came up recently in 2006 after a 14 year civil war that ended in 2003 (2). The country has a presidential system of government (Liberia Constitution Ch. VIII). In case one person does not garner more than 50% of the votes during the elections, the Election Commission arranges for a runoff between the top two candidates. The review of literature confirms that colonialists did take different strategies in gaining dominance over African countries. It also shows the Africa countries in study have different political and economic structures. A major gap identified in the literature is the observation that while many studies conclude that colonialism had social, political, cultural and economic influence on their colonies, few studies explicitly link particular influences to particular countries, backed with evidence. This is because most of the literatures study the influence of colonialism on continental or colonist levels. This paper attempts to fill the gaps by studying case studies and focusing on political structures of three countries with different colonial legacies. Description and Evaluation of Findings The political data of the three case studies were collected from the World Bank and CIA Factbook (see table 1). The government structure is assesses by the government type, legal system and elections. The political data of interest included political stability, government efficiency and rule of law. All the data of politics were on index of 0-100 with 0 implying poor and 100 excellent, and were compared between two years, 2006 & 2008, to have some insights of the trends. Table 1: Case study results ALGERIA       General government  Source Government type Republic CIA Legal system Mixed(Islamic Sharia Law and French Civil law) CIA Election After 5 years (no limits) CIA Politics 2006 2013   Political stability 15.8 12.8 World Bank Government effectiveness 35.6 31.5 World Bank Rule of law 30.14 29.3 World Bank LIBERIA       General government   Government type Republic CIA Legal system Mixed (Anglo-American, customary African laws) CIA Election After 6 years (two terms) CIA Politics 2006 2013   Political stability 12.5 31.28 World Bank Government effectiveness 8.78 8.61 World Bank Rule of law 22.1 19.43 World Bank SOUTH AFRICA       General government   Government type REPUBLIC CIA Legal system Mixed(Roman-Dutch, English common law, customary law CIA Election After 5 years CIA Politics 2006 2013   Political stability 47.12 44.8 World Bank Government effectiveness 69.27 66.51 World Bank Rule of law 59.33 57.82 World Bank Source (World Bank, OEC) Politics and governments All the study countries had the government type of being a republic. Another similarity is that the legal systems of all the countries were mixed. However, each country’s mixture was unique. Election was the method of forming government in each of the three countries. The score for all the countries is quite low for the political indices. A conspicuous trend is that all the indices for politics declined when compared between the two years. The exception is Liberia’s political stability index that increased between the periods. Political stability measures the likelihood of terrorism or violence, government effectiveness is an index estimating credibility of government and quality of service delivery while rule of law is to the extent to which laid out procedures are adhered to. Overall, South Africa fared better than Algeria which fared better than Liberia when all the indices are compared. Colonial influence on politics and governments All the countries had the government type of being republics. The CIA defines republic government type as people electing representatives directly, but the people do not vote on legislations. The work is for the representatives chosen democratically by the people. The legal system is included in the government structure because it determines important issues like the constitution. The colonial influence on the government type is not striking as only Algeria has the same government type of its colonial master, France. However, the other countries were not colonized by one country, South Africa was for instance colonized by Dutch and Britons and Liberia was never really colonized although it attained independence from USA in 1847. The colonial influence on politics and governance is evident from the legal systems the countries have. All the countries have mixed systems that incorporate their native laws with each of their former colonial masters from the 19th century. The influence of the legal system is exhibited in the country respective constitutions. For instance, the constitution of Liberia has striking similarities to the US constitution Inasmuch as all the government structures show that each country has a democracy. The situation is quite different from reality on the ground. The influences of colonization on democracy level in these case studies appear to be minimal, i.e. the country’s level of democratization is not at par with their colonial power. Liberia for instance has had civil war for many years, and the recent elections (2011) were controversial as the second candidate boycotted runoff citing extensive irregularities. Similar problems have been experienced in Algeria and to some extent South Africa. Sklar notices that African countries are facing great challenge with democracy. Sklar argues that democracy is widely approved in Africa but in doubt (18). The results from the case study show that most African countries wish that they were democratic. Following Sklar descriptions, South Africa is close to liberal democracy (12), though only one political party has been dominant in decades. Although they hold elections, the type of democracy shown by Algeria and Liberia appears to be guided (14). The colonial influence on the politics of Africa is transformational. The major reason for this according to Ziltener and Kunzler is that many Africans countries did not have structured political systems covering a wide area (306). However, these structured political systems have been a source of conflict for many African countries. It has been claimed by many scholars that the arbitrary division of Africa in the Berlin conference is the major cause of conflicts in Africa (Alemazung 65; Ndulu and Chakraborti 102), though others claim conflicts the resultant political instability is a result of the style of rule of the colonialists who favored some ethnic communities thus causing feelings of bitterness to the non-favored (Blanton et al. 479). Sklar combines the two ideas and claims that colonialist in Africa advocated for statism, which advocates for primacy of state over rights on individuals. It was the colonialists who formed these states and were committed to maintaining their colonies. Statism is a graveyard of any political system whether democratic or social (Sklar 18). In conclusion, the colonialists influence on political structure in Africa is still present today. Political characteristics especially stability and governance directly affects the community. It appears that the politics and economies of African countries that were colonized for longer are faring better compared to those that were not colonized at all. This is mainly because, since modern economies and politics are Western constructs, the longer the colonialist stayed, the better they established the political and economic structures. In addition, the colonialists were better managers of conflicts in Africa because they are the ones who formed the borders. It is vital for African countries to work on their political structures; this is because the indices show trends of decline. Poor political structures can result to instability and poor governance, translating to poor economies and standards of living. Limitations This study only used political data of a short period of time in the postcolonial era. For effective analysis on the influence of colonialism on the politics of Africa, data from pre-colonial, colonial and colonial era should be compared. 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