Counterfactual Arguments in Historical Analysis: From the Debate on the Partition of Africa and the Effect of Colonial Rule

1978 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 169-186
Author(s):  
Jarle Simensen
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Causal Analysis ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Essential Condition ◽  
European Expansion ◽  
Actual Usage

During the last decade the question of counterfactual arguments has attracted a good deal of attention both in philosophy and history. A recent example, which concentrates on the logics of counterfactual analysis in history, is T.O. Climo and P.G.A. Howells' “Possible worlds in historical explanation.” Further progress in this field probably depends both on a development of the purely logical issues involved and an analysis of the actual usage of counterfactuals in the language of practicing historians. My own approach belongs primarily to the latter category. I shall consider examples of counterfactual arguments in two hotly debated fields, first the partition of the African continent and, second, the effects of colonial rule. This approach will provide examples of the function of counterfactuals both in causal analysis and in historical evaluations. My primary aim is to establish a categorization of different usages, but the opportunity will also be taken to discuss in a general manner criteria for the legitimate use of counterfactual argument in history. In this connection I should emphasize my lack of knowledge in formal logic, except that provided by my two Norwegian collegues, Ottar Dahl, and Jon Elster, on whom I rely heavily for the more theoretical parts of this paper.Historical analysis is preoccupied with causes, and in causal analysis there is a particular urge to identify socalled “sufficient” and “necessary” causes. In propositions about such causes some counterfactual assumptions are logically implicit. The clearest example of a necessary cause or precondition for European expansion in Africa is that of technology. To take an early and typical example, Holland Rose maintained that it was an “essential condition” of colonization that “mechanical appliances should be available for the overcoming of natural obstacles.” The implicit counterfactual is that without technology, never colonization. Counterfactuals of this kind scarcely attract attention precisely because of their obvious legitimacy.

Unpacking Africa as a dynamic continent: Insights from contemporary development issues in Ghana

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Martin Oteng-Ababio
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Test Tube ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Developmental Issues ◽  
Contemporary Development ◽  
Development Trajectories ◽  
Fundamental Shift

Since the last formal vestiges of colonial rule disappeared in 1994, the democratically elected governments on the African continent have been experimenting with developmental strategies and policies. These experiments come at the backdrop that Africa’s output per head is notoriously among the lowest in the world and has, on the average, expanded slowly and haltingly since 1960, albeit, with some critical changes, and variations over place, space and time. The structural adjustment programme (SAP) in the 1980s, for example, marked a watershed: a fundamental shift from administrative to market means of resource allocation. This opinion piece, appearing in this Special Issue of the Oguaa Journal of Social Sciences on the theme “Developmental issues in contemporary Ghana”, provides an overview of Africa’s development trajectories as presented by the collection of articles, using Ghana as a test-tube.

An African Balance Sheet

Worldview ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 7-10
Author(s):  
Ross K. Baker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Balance Sheet ◽  
The United States ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Regional Power

It hardly seems possible that two decades have elapsed since the floodtide of African independence. We have become so accustomed to associating Africa with newness that we are apt to forget that the premier states of independent Africa—Ghana and Sudan—are coming up on their twenty-fifth anniversaries of freedom from colonial rule. The scant score of years has seen some remarkable transformations. Nigeria, whose first decade was blighted by Africa's bloodiest civil war, has emerged not merely as a regional power but a major world actor. Second only to Saudi Arabia as a supplier of oil to the United States, Nigeria is able to exert a degree of influence on this country unequaled among the states of the African continent.

Conflict, Justice, and the Stranger-King Indigenous Roots of Colonial Rule in Indonesia and Elsewhere

2004 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Henley
Keyword(s):  
Military Power ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Common Ancestry ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Guerilla Warfare ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
European Expansion ◽  
Tribal Societies ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
The Stranger

Historians of Indonesia often think of states, and especially colonial states, as predatory institutions encroaching aggressively on the territory and autonomy of freedom-loving stateless peoples. For Barbara and Leonard Andaya, early European expansion in Sumatra and the Moluccas was synonymous with the distortion or destruction of decentralized indigenous political systems based on cooperation, alliance, economic complementarity, and myths of common ancestry (B. W. Andaya 1993; L. Y. Andaya 1993). Anthony Reid (1997: 81) has described tribal societies like those of the Batak and Minangkabau in highland Sumatra as ‘miracles of statelessness’ which ‘defended their autonomy by a mixture of guerilla warfare, diplomatic flexibility, and deliberate exaggeration of myths about their savagery’ until ultimately overwhelmed by Dutch military power. Before colonialism, in this view, most Indonesians relied for security not on the protection of a powerful king, but on a ‘complex web of contractual mutualities’ embodying a ‘robust pluralism’ (Reid 1998: 29, 32). ‘So persistently’, concludes Reid (1997: 80-1), ‘has each step towards stronger states in the archipelago arisen from trading ports, with external aid and inspiration, that one is inclined to seek the indigenous political dynamic in a genius for managing without states’. Henk Schulte Nordholt (2002: 54), for his part, cautions against any tendency to downplay the violent, repressive aspects of colonial and post-colonial government in Indonesia, expressing the hope that ‘a new Indonesian historiography will succeed in liberating itself from the interests, perspective, and conceptual framework of the state’. An even more systematic attempt to demonize the (modern) state in Indonesia and elsewhere can be found in the work of James Scott (1998a, 1998b).

Corporate Constitutionalism and the Dialogue between the Global and Local in Seventeenth-Century English History

Itinerario ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Pettigrew
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
Illustrative Case ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
European Expansion ◽  
Before And After ◽  
International Trading ◽  
Illustrative Case Study ◽  
Global And Local

This forum discusses the utility of ‘corporate constitutionalism’ as a category of historical analysis. Corporate constitutionalism privileges the constitutional activities of international trading corporations to understand the cross-cultural dynamics at work in European expansion. William A Pettigrew sets out the possibilities of corporate constitutionalism in the first essay which defines the concept, makes the case for viewing trading corporations as constitutional entities at home and abroad, signals some possible interpretive benefits for historians of empire, corporate historians, global historians, and constitutional historians, before offering an illustrative case study about the Royal African Company. Leading thinkers in international history (David Armitage), legal history (Paul Halliday), constitutional theory (Vicki Hsueh), and corporate history (Thomas Leng and Philip J Stern) offer their reflections on the possibilities of this new approach to the international activities of trading corporations. Although the Forum focuses on seventeenth century English trading corporations, it proposes to start a discussion about the utility of corporate constitutionalism for other European corporations and for periods both before and after the seventeenth century.

Change or Consistency? A Historical Overview of South Africa's Post-apartheid Foreign Policy

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lona Gqiza
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
African Continent ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
African Region ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Role Conception ◽  
National Congress ◽  
Thabo Mbeki

This study examines the trajectory of South Africa's post-apartheid foreign policy by establishing the extent of change or consistency in its implementation since 1994. Under the ruling African National Congress (ANC), South Africa has emerged as a promising international actor, particularly within the Southern African region and on the African continent in general. The authors provide a historical analysis of the major trajectories of foreign policy articulation under the administrations of Presidents Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma spanning the period 1994 to 2018. In investigating the conception and execution of foreign policy under these dispensations, the authors unravel a consistent but skewed pattern of national role conception that underscores Pretoria’s vision to be a major actor in international affairs, both regionally and globally. We conclude that South Africa’s foreign policy during this period was marked by Mandela’s altruism, Mbeki’s Afrocentrism and the antediluvian signature of Zuma.

THE POVERTY OF THE 'MIDDLE CLASSING' OF DEVELOPMENT: KEY PROBLEMS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Southall
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Global South ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Global System ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Global Institutions

Recent decades have witnessed a 'middle classing of development' as global institutions hail the expansion of middle classes in the global South. Although the African continent has lagged behind in this regard, expanding middle classes have nonetheless been proclaimed as drivers of development and progress. However, such generalisation smoothes over the rough edges of history, for the emergence, evolution and character of middle classes have been shaped, historically as well as contemporaneously, by the timing and manner of their incorporation into the global system. In this article, it is demonstrated how the character and present prospects of middle classes in key countries in Southern Africa have been differentially shaped, not only by varying experiences under colonial rule, but also by significantly different policies pursued by the party-states of Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

scholarly journals The Concept of Taste in South Korea: Historical, Aesthetical and Philosophical Aspects

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 83-101
Author(s):  
T. V. Zimenko
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Conceptual Representation ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
Japanese Colonial ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Aesthetic Concepts ◽  
Korean Food

The focus of this paper is on the Korean aesthetic model of taste. In order to investigate the origins of aesthetics in Korea and its current place in Koreans’ lives, it analyzes the key concepts of the Korean aesthetics and spiritual aspects of life for Koreans. In a way to exemplify this cultural system, traditional Korean food is presented as a conceptual representation of the aesthetic experience. Its role in integrating different aspects of meanings and values in everyday lives of Koreans is also discussed. The research subject is studied through the complex lenses: its association with both the gastronomic taste, which comprises organoleptic perception and aesthetic judgements, and the semiotic aspect of culture, represented by basic units thereof – words. The optics of the interdisciplinary outlook of this method suggests a new approach to viewing Korean aesthetic of taste. The research shows that scientific approach to aesthetics was first adopted in Korea in the 1930s under the cospicuous cultural influence of the Japanese colonial rule; the ideas formed at that time still remain important aesthetic concepts. The study proposes that meot should be viewed as the most important and representative concept in Koreans’ everyday aesthetic experience. The cultural and historical analysis of Korean gastronomic culture suggests there is a number of specific cultural and cosmogonic meanings that were typical of the royal cuisine during the Joseon era and demonstrates how certain Korean dishes are endowed with aesthetic and existential values today.

scholarly journals Demographic Models for Projecting Population and Migration: Methods for African Historical Analysis

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Manning ◽  
Scott Nickleach ◽  
Bowen Yi ◽  
Brian McGill
Keyword(s):  
Population Size ◽  
National Level ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Calculated Data ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Relative Significance ◽  
Demographic Models ◽  
African Populations ◽  
Input Variables ◽  
And Migration

This study presents methods for projecting population and migration over time in cases were empirical data are missing or undependable. The methods are useful for cases in which the researcher has details of population size and structure for a limited period of time (most obviously, the end point), with scattered evidence on other times. It enables estimation of population size, including its structure in age, sex, and status, either forward or backward in time. The program keeps track of all the details. The calculated data can be reported or sampled and compared to empirical findings at various times and places to expected values based on other procedures of estimation. The application of these general methods that is developed here is the projection of African populations backwards in time from 1950, since 1950 is the first date for which consistently strong demographic estimates are available for national-level populations all over the African continent. The models give particular attention to migration through enslavement, which was highly important in Africa from 1650 to 1900. Details include a sensitivity analysis showing relative significance of input variables and techniques for calibrating various dimensions of the projection with each other. These same methods may be applicable to quite different historical situations, as long as the data conform in structure to those considered here.

On the Structural Explanation of African Military Interventions

1986 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Goldsworthy
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
American Political Science Review ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
African Politics ◽  
Military Interventions ◽  
Structural Explanation ◽  
High Level ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Coups D'etat

As numerous review articles attest, approaches to the study of military interventions in African politics have varied widely in their methodology and foci of concern.1 Over the last decade, a good deal of runing has been made by quantitatively-inclined political scientists, such as Alan Wells, Roberta McKown, Ruth Collier, and especially Robert Jackman, whose particular path towards the understanding of military interventions has Iain through aggregate-data analysis of structural fratures of African states.2 This line of approach has recently been brought to a high level of sophistication in two major articles: Thomas H. Johnson, Robert O. Slater, and Pat McGowan, ‘Explaining African Military Coups d'Etat, 1960–1982’, in The American Political Science Review (Washington, D.C.), 78, 3, September 1984, pp. 622–40, and Pat McGowan and Thomas H. Johnson, ‘African Military Coups d'Etat and Underdevelopment: a quantitative historical analysis’, in this Journal, 22, 4, December 1984, pp. 633–66. The A.P.S.R. article is described by the authors as ‘only the latest and not the last word on these matters’ (p. 637), and it has already fulfilled this implicit prophecy by generating debate among those who have adopted a similar methodology.3

Bureaucracy and Ideology: Britain and India in the Nineteenth Century

1980 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 131-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. T. Stokes
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Causation

Historians love to sail under bare poles with the spares tophamper of theoretical disquisition. Yet in the last resort their differences resolve themselves largely into differences of methodology, and nowhere more patently than in the history of bureaucracy where contingency and a priori ideas have long contested for the key position in historical explanation. This must be the excuse for an historian of colonial rule who finds himself driven to study the richer historiography of bureaucracy in metropolitan Britain and to trace out its movement with the simplicity of caricature before he can settle to his satisfaction the mechanics of historical causation in government house and secretariat.

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