Pre-Colonial Institutions, Post-Colonial States, and Economic Development in Tropical Africa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6340309 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Pierre Englebert (0000-0002-7116-7647, Pomona College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2000 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 7 |
| Publication date | 2000-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Research Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1065-9129 • E-ISSN: 1938-274X |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/449244 |
| OpenAlex | W4229548472 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 119 |
| References cited | 90 |
It is well known that Africa's development lags behind that of other regions. Lesser known is the substantial variance in development fortunes within Africa, with “miracle” economies compensating for the region's development disasters. Prevailing theories of Africa's average performance fail to account for intra-African disparities. Using empirical evidence from cross-sectional data, this study offers a new explanation for success and failure in African development, which builds upon the insights of neo-patrimonial theory. It argues that variations in the extent to which post-colonial state institutions clash with pre-existing ones largely account for what differentiates state capacity and economic growth across the region. The greater the incongruence between pre- and post-colonial institutions, the greater the relative power payoffs to domestic elites of adopting neo-patrimonial policies over developmental ones. The article challenges thereby the social capital and ethnic homogeneity theories of African under-development, and offers substantial qualifications to the “imported state” hypothesis
Colonialism · Development economics · Economic geography · Economic growth · Economics · Ethnic group · Geography · Miracle · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social capital · State (computer science · State formation · African history and culture studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Economic Growth and Development · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · International Development and Aid
Authoritarian diversity and its limits
Neopatrimonialism in Africa
Privatisation Policy and the Ghanaian Gold Mining Industry
Administrative Traditions
Introduction
The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades
The Importance of History for Economic Development
Botswana as a Role Model for Country Success
The Colonial Legacy and the Rise of Social Assistance in the Global South
From fragmented drainage interventions to integrated urban flood management
The Rise and Fall of the Bureaucratic Bourgeoisie
Promoting Rwanda’s business environment
State history and political instability
Order, Distance, and Local Development over the Long-Run
Are Borders a Burden? Debates and Counter-Narratives on Nigeria’s National Security
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Why Canada Needs a Focused Foreign Policy towards Africa in the Twenty-First Century
Institutions Influencing Trust Development in Entrepreneurial Relationships in Africa
Electoral Politics in Africa since 1990
Democracy in Ghana
Arbitrary States
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African Growth Recurring
The Causal History of Africa
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Long-Term Dynamics of the State in Francophone West Africa
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Institutions and economic growth in Africa
Neopatrimonialism Revisited
Indigenous Origins of Colonial Institutions
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The State of Policy Capacity Problems in Africa
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On Stage
Expropriations of Foreign Property and Political Alliances
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Neopatrimonialism Reconsidered
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The Sociology of Law and Global Sociology
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Historical Legacies and African Development
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An institutional appraisal of tourism development and planning
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Killing a Country and Getting Away with It
Political Corruption and Institutional Stability
Democracy and State Capacity
Working with the grain for reforming the public service
Post‐Colonial Portuguese Migration to Mozambique
Does Land Abundance Explain African Institutions
Ethnicity and the Colonial State
Bureaucratization and administrative development in Africa
The New Economic History of Africa
Indonesia in 2007
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Late Colonialism and Postcolonial Development in Africa
Post-colonial states, ethnic minorities and separatist conflicts
Colonial Rule and the Power of Chiefs over Land Resources
Extraordinary African cities? Zipf’s law and the emerging African system of cities☆
Neopatrimonialism and the Political Economy of Economic Performance in Africa
The Political Economy of State Building in Sub-Saharan Africa
The Mobilization Solution? Face-to-Face Contact and Voter Turnout in a Municipal Election
A Signaling Theory of Distributive Policy Choice
The Colonial Foundations of State Fragility and Failure
The Dualism of Contemporary Traditional Governance and the State
The Limits of Mobilization
Birth Legacies and State Failure
A House Divided
The Social Terrain of Rebel Held Territory
Forging then Taming Leviathan
History and Ethnic Conflict
State Building, Interstate and Intrastate Rivalry
Is Diversity Detrimental? Ethnic Fractionalization, Public Goods Provision, and the Historical Legacies of Stateness
Who Inherits the State? Colonial Rule and Postcolonial Conflict
Beyond ethnicity
How the International Slave Trades Underdeveloped Africa
Civil-military relations in francophone Africa and the consequences of a mistaken analysis
Territorial origins of center-seeking and self-determination claims in Africa
Structural causes, development co-operation and conflict prevention in Burundi and Rwanda
Ultranationalism, democracy and the law
How Europe underdeveloped Africa
The Black man's burden
Structure and change in economic history
Partitioned Africans
Democracy and prebendal politics in Nigeria
Corruption and state politics in Sierra Leone
States and ruling classes in postcolonial Africa
The Precarious Balance
The State, War, and the State of War
Governance and Development
Economic Behavior and Institutions
Embedded Autonomy
The Politics of Africa's Economic Stagnation
The Penn World Table (Mark 5)
Institutions and Economic Performance
Africa's Growth Tragedy
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Trust
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Governance and Politics in Africa
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La greffe de l'État
The Politics of Development in Botswana
Corruption and Growth
Modernization and Postmodernization
The Logic of Collective Action
Making Democracy Work
Limited-dependent and qualitative variables in econometrics
Economic Action and Social Structure
The state and economic stagnation in Tropical Africa
Accelerated development in sub-Saharan Africa, an agenda for action
Adjustment in Africa
Hemmed In
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Sub-Saharan Africa, from crisis to sustainable growth
Adjustment in Africa
Democratic Experiments in Africa
The Moral Basis of a Backward Society
The Politics of Development in Botswana
Botswana
Ghana in Transition
Leadership and ethnicity in the making of African state models
Black Africa
Markets and States in Tropical Africa
Agenda for Africa's Economic Renewal
The politics of Africa's economic stagnation
State Versus Ethnic Claims
Why Africa's Weak States Persist
Economic Reform and Political Transition in Africa The Quest for a Politics of Development
Institutional selection in international relations
Economic Change and Political Liberalization in Sub-Saharan Africa
Predatory, developmental, and other apparatuses
Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation
Cultures and Societies of Africa
Cents and Sociability
New and Original States
Lessons from Asia
Africa's management in the 1990s and beyond
African Political Systems
Researching social capital in Africa
Foundations of Social Theory
| Unique citing works | 113 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,76 |
| Citation span | 2001 - 2026 (26) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 116 |