From Colonialism to Confederation

The receding tide of European imperialism has left many exotic and fragile political life-forms stranded on the foreshore of nationhood in the Third World. Whereas, a few decades ago, many of these new states would have been regarded as incapable of attaining independence, the haste with which colonies have been abandoned and the disregard for earlier strict criteria of economic and political viability have resulted in the creation of an unusually large number of very small or micro states. A combination of limited territory, small population, and restricted economic resources places enormous burdens on the governments of these countries in their attempts to create stable and autonomous political systems and to bring about economic development. The severity of their problems is widely recognized in the academic literature (Benedict. 1967; Rapaport et al., 1971), which, on the whole, and regardless of political persuasion, is skeptical about the long-term prospects of most of these Lilliputian states. No longer can we assume a natural progression from colonial dependence to full and equal membership in the community of nations: Instead, the future of these states may be as clients of larger countries, not necessarily their former colonial overlords; or they may even be swallowed up by their neighbors or otherwise dissolve their separate existence in some form of regional union

Colonialism · Political science · Sociology · Statistics · African history and culture studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Mathematics

• The State and Agriculture in West Africa

  Open Access•Deborah Brautigam•Chinese Aid and African Development•1998

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