Democracy and institutions in postcolonial Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALAN GREEN
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Spatial Lag ◽  
Postcolonial Africa ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractAfrica has seen a steady rise in democracy since the end of the Cold War. This paper investigates two possible implications of democratization in African countries: better economic growth through improved institutions and less civil conflict through increased political participation. Instrumental variables regressions are estimated with the spatial lag of democracy. This instrument varies over time, allowing for consideration of country fixed effects in IV regressions. Large positive impacts of institutions on economic growth and of political participation on reducing civil conflict are found in IV regressions with fixed effects. Further estimates show that both growth and civil violence effects may be driven by civil liberties.

Developments in African Governance since the Cold War: Beyond Cassandra and Pollyanna

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hazel McFerson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
External Pressure ◽  
Economic Governance ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Institutional Capacity Building ◽  
Better Than

Abstract:Twenty years ago, most African countries seemed permanently mired in malgovernance and repression. The end of the Cold War triggered two contrasting developments: governance improvement associated with the end of superpower competition, and deterioration caused by the resurgence of suppressed ethnic conflicts. Based on a variety of evidence, three subperiods can be identified: fragile governance progress from 1989 to 1995; backsliding associated largely with civil conflict between 1996 and 2002; and resumption of progress in recent years. These broad trends mask major intercountry differences—with Ghana the best-known case of improvement and Zimbabwe the worst case of reversal. Overall, African governance is now somewhat better than it was two decades ago. However, the progress is fragile, and improvements in administrative and economic governance have lagged behind those on the political front. Consolidating democracy will thus require institutional capacity building through a combination of appropriate civil society efforts and constructive external pressure to strengthen accountability.

scholarly journals The Simba Rebellion, the Cold War, and the Stanleyville Hostages in the Congo

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-99
Author(s):  
Alanna O'Malley
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Effect ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Western Government ◽  
Postcolonial Africa ◽  
The Cold War

In late October 1964, nearly 1,000 European and U.S. citizens were taken hostage by rebel forces in Stanleyville in northern Congo as part of an attempt to create the “People’s Republic of Congo,” an opposition regime designed to rival the pro-Western government in the capital Léopoldville (now Kinshasa). The hostages were captured to use as leverage against the advancing Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC), led by white mercenaries as part of a Western-backed military effort to crush the rebellion. In response, Belgium and the United States launched a military intervention to rescue their citizens on 24 November 1964, publicly justifying the incursion on humanitarian grounds. In reality, the main purpose was to crush the rebellion and secure Western interests in Congo. The intervention reflected a cavalier attitude toward sovereignty, international law, and the use of force in postcolonial Africa and had the adverse effect of discrediting humanitarian reasoning as a basis for military intervention until the end of the Cold War. The massacre of tens of thousands of Congolese in Stanleyville was a unique moment in which African countries united in their criticism of Western policies and demanded firmer sovereignty in the postcolonial world.

scholarly journals The Cold War and Africa’s Political Culture

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-21
Author(s):  
Kenneth Kalu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Military Support ◽  
Postcolonial Africa ◽  
The Cold War

Leadership and political systems in most of Africa have been described in several negative ways. Paternalism, clientelism, dictatorship, corruption and such pejorative labels have been used to described the type of politics prevalent in most of Africa today. A number of studies have explained Africa’s political challenges in the context of the choices of postcolonial African leaders. Others have pointed to European colonial exploitation and its destructive legacies as the foundations of the perverse political culture that define contemporary Africa. While these factors play important roles in defining the type of politics that has endured in the continent during the past half century, this paper takes a look at another epoch that had significant impacts on Africa’s political culture. The paper argues that the foreign policies of the United States and USSR - two major actors in Africa during the Cold War - had some of the most significant impacts on the political culture that evolved in postcolonial Africa. In pursuit of ideological supremacy, these foreign actors focused on undermining each other, with little consideration on how their actions in Africa were shaping the continent’s political development. By providing military support to opposing forces in African countries, the Cold War actors institutionalized a violent political culture in postcolonial Africa.

The Security Demographic: Population and Civil Conflict After the Cold War

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard P. Cincotta ◽  
Robert Engelman ◽  
Daniele Anastasion
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
The Cold War

Human Destiny Is a Choice

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
World Order ◽  
Military Spending ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Global World ◽  
First Time ◽  
Human Destiny

In this chapter, Haq outlines his optimistic outlook for global world order. For him the end of the Cold War had opened up many more choices for the global community. For the first time global military spending was seen to be declining every year. He saw potential to reallocate ODA aid funds, which were previously tilted in favour of cold war allies. For Haq the challenge is to link economic growth as the means to human development as an objective. He stresses on the need to reform institutions of global governance to translate globalization into opportunities for people.

scholarly journals Taming the Expellee Threat in Post–1945 Europe: Lessons from the Two Germanies and Finland

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
PERTTI AHONEN
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Integration Process ◽  
World War ◽  
Forced Migrants ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This article analyses the process through which the dangers posed by millions of forced migrants were defused in continental Europe after the Second World War. Drawing on three countries – West Germany, East Germany and Finland – it argues that broad, transnational factors – the cold war, economic growth and accompanying social changes – were crucial in the process. But it also contends that bloc-level and national decisions, particularly those concerning the level of autonomous organisational activity and the degree and type of political and administrative inclusion allowed for the refugees, affected the integration process in significant ways and helped to produce divergent national outcomes.

Chairman cotton: Socialist Bulgaria’s cotton trade with African countries during the early Cold War (1946–70)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Jan Zofka
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Economic Assistance ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Mutual Economic ◽  
Mutual Economic Assistance ◽  
Globalization Studies ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cotton Trade

Abstract This article follows Bulgarian officials engaged in cotton and textile exchange with African states in the early Cold War. These officials founded enterprises for carrying out transactions, collected information on prices at international cotton exchanges and attended meetings of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) to coordinate trade activities in capitalist markets. Exploring how Bulgarian foreign trade organizations positioned themselves on the scene of international trade, this article argues that cotton traders, instead of upholding the supposed bloc bipolarity of the Cold War, followed the logic of the markets they worked in. A focus on trade infrastructures in particular shows that early Cold War East–South trade was not as strictly bilateral as official agreements and statistics suggest and reveals the systematic embeddedness of the socialist traders’ practices in global capitalist structures. In the field of cotton, the globalizing economy of the early Cold War was not cut in half, as globalization studies have implied.

scholarly journals Foreign Direct Investment - Growth Linkage in Sub-Saharan Africa: Is Governance a Mediating Factor?

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-129
Author(s):  
Fisayo Fagbemi ◽  
Kehinde Mary Bello
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Mediating Effect ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Investment Efficiency ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Sub Saharan

In sub – Saharan Africa, weak institutions and the rising concern for improved business environment offer considerable leverage for enhancing the effectiveness of institutional framework, capital inflows, and public investment efficiency. These have put SSA in the global spotlight in recent times. Hence, the study examines the mediating effect of governance on FDI – growth nexus in 35 SSA countries between 2002 and 2017 using panel data techniques (Pooled OLS, Fixed Effects, and Panel-Corrected Standard Error’ (PCSE) estimation) and the Dynamic One – Step Difference and System GMM. Results indicate that control of corruption, political stability and regulatory quality, including governance composite index, have a positive and significant effect on economic growth, suggesting that institutions have a salutary impact on SSA economies. The findings further show that FDI inflows adversely influence growth owing to insufficient absorptive capacity that could enhance FDI effectiveness in the region. More importantly, the pervasiveness of poor governance in SSA is identified as a critical case that undermines the development of the nexus between FDI and economic growth. Thus, the study suggests that FDI – growth linkage would be enhanced by promoting a strong institutional environment that offers a good mechanism for attaining the actual FDI spillover potential through a policy framework that points the path towards cost-effective measures in SSA. Also, there should be core investment policies across African countries that would induce the private sector in consolidating government efforts and resources aimed at improving international competitiveness by diversifying the region’s economies away from a protracted commodity – based.

Economists at Armistice

2019 ◽  
pp. 231-262
Author(s):  
Alan Bollard
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
New World ◽  
Economic Task ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

1946 brought the Armistice and a new economic task: the focus of the economists had to move from the problems of wartime rationing and finance to a new world of economic reconstruction, post-war stabilization, economic growth, and debt reduction. In addition the Cold War brought a new tactic: strategic deterrence. In this year Japan commemorated the anniversary of the death of Takashi Korekiyo, H. H. Kung gathered his wealth and prepared to flee the Chinese Communist forces, Maynard Keynes helped establish the International Monetary Fund, only to die exhausted, and Hjalmar Schacht defended himself from accusations of Nazism and regained his freedom.

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