Colonial experience and postcolonial underdevelopment in Africa

Mizuno, Nobuhiro; Okazawa, Ryosuke

doi:10.1007/s11127-009-9461-8

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Beyond these measures, evidence exists that while the overall intent of colonialism was common across the European powers, there were differences in colonial style. In particular, the British tended to use indirect rule and utilize local colonial administration, while the French, Portuguese, and Germans tended to employ direct rule and establish centralized administration (Athow & Blanton, 2002;Blanton et al, 2001;de Sousa & Lochard, 2012;Mizuno & Okazawa, 2009). Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands also pursued central administration (CIA World Factbook, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, colonists often engaged in actions that dismantled local institutions, practices, and structures governing economic and social life in many African countries to facilitate the exploitation of natural and human resources (Blanton, Mason, & Athow, 2001;Kiggundu, 1991). This practice not only created institutional voids, but also represented a traumatic experience that disrupted daily life and has had lasting psychological effects for many African people (Athow & Blanton, 2002;Jack et al, 2011;Mizuno & Okazawa, 2009).…”

Section: Colonial Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Institutional determinants of ownership positions of foreign acquirers in Africa

Ellis

Lamont

Holmes

et al. 2017

Global Strategy Journal

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Research summary Using unique features of the African context and blending institutional, hostage, and transaction cost theories, we address gaps in our understanding of institutional determinants of ownership position in cross‐border acquisitions (CBAs) in emerging countries. We focus on two traditional institutional determinants: Informal and formal institutional distances between the two firms’ home countries and two determinants that are particularly acute in the African context: the colonial ties between and fractionalization of the two firms’ home countries. We find colonial ties and uncertainty avoidance distance, an indicator of informal institutional distance, are negatively related to ownership position. Conversely, we show that formal institutional distance and the host country's fractionalization positively influence ownership levels, but the latter effect is weakened when acquirers come from more fractionalized home countries. Managerial summary We examine the effects of four institutional factors that influence organizational decision‐making in the African context: (a) its colonial history, (b) differences in informal cultural norms, (c) differences in formal regulatory structures, and (d) ethnic and linguistic diversity within a country on the percentage of equity ownership that foreign acquirers hold in African target firms. Results indicate that this equity position is lower when colonial ties and greater differences in uncertainty avoidance exist between the acquirer's home country and the target African country. Conversely, foreign acquirers’ equity ownership positions are higher when there are greater formal regulatory differences between the two countries and the host country is more ethnically and linguistically diverse, though the latter effect is reduced when the acquirer is from a home country that is also diverse.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Colonial Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional determinants of ownership positions of foreign acquirers in Africa

Ellis

Lamont

Holmes

et al. 2017

Global Strategy Journal

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“…Commentators from multiple disciplines have seen the long shadow cast by colonial indirect rule in contemporary strategies and dilemmas of development (e.g., Berry, 1992;Cooke, 2003;Mizuno & Okazawa, 2009;WaMuiu, 2010). As for natural resources, and specifically water, there were, of course, plentiful instances of the colonial appropriation of water.…”

Section: Processes Of State Formationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Colonialism and its legacies, as reflected in water, incorporating a view from Malawi

Mathur

Mulwafu

2018

WIREs Water

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Continued, accelerating water inequalities and conflicts in the postcolonial world cannot be properly grasped without a thorough understanding of colonialism and its legacies. At the same time, water as a resource provides an immensely useful lens for understanding the intricacies and the dynamics of the colonial and postcolonial eras, in general terms, and in the particular historical instance of Malawi examined here. This essay draws on a range of literatures—social theory, political ecology, history, anthropology, sociology, geography, and so on—to demonstrate that struggles over water and other natural resources in the postcolonial world are situated within wider global structures and relationships of power. Starting with a discussion of theoretical approaches to water, the essay goes on to examine the processes of state formation in Sub‐Saharan Africa, and explore the intersectionality of the contemporary lived experience of class, gender, race, and ethnicity in this region. It ends with a consideration of social differentiation, land tenure, degradation of water resources and natural resource conflict in Malawi. Traversing across humanities and social science disciplines, this essay uses water as a means of cutting a path through world historical questions on the articulations between the global and the local in the present era. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented

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“…9 In particular, Lange (2004) and Iyel (2010) empirically analyze the effects of indirect rule on development. Mizuno and Okazawa (2009) present a model showing how indirect colonial rule affects post-colonial development in Africa, but their focus excludes the effects on the alliances between national governments and rural elites.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Political structure as a legacy of indirect colonial rule: Bargaining between national governments and rural elites in Africa

Mizuno

2016

Journal of Comparative Economics

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Alliances between national governments and rural elites are observed in post-colonial Africa. In such alliances, the national governments preserve rural-elite authority formed during the colonial era and cede their resources and prerogatives to the rural elites. This paper develops a model of bargaining between a national government and a rural elite, in which the bargaining power of the national government is endogenously explained by the ability of the rural elite to compel obedience from rural residents. Since indirect colonial rule is a significant source of the rural-elite control over residents, the result implies that cross-regional variations in colonial policies lead to variations in the feature of post-colonial alliances between African national governments and rural elites.

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Colonial experience and postcolonial underdevelopment in Africa

Abstract: Africa, Colonialism, Indirect rule, Colonial legacies, Ethnic conflict, D74, N47, O10,

Cited by 21 publications

References 33 publications

Institutional determinants of ownership positions of foreign acquirers in Africa

Institutional determinants of ownership positions of foreign acquirers in Africa

Colonialism and its legacies, as reflected in water, incorporating a view from Malawi

Political structure as a legacy of indirect colonial rule: Bargaining between national governments and rural elites in Africa

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