Ghana And The Ivory Coast

Europe, in the late 1800’s, was starting for a land grab in the African continent. Around 1878, most of Africa was unexplored, but by 1914, most of Africa, with the lucky exception of Liberia and Ethiopia, was carved up between European powers. There were countless motivations that spurred the European powers to carve Africa, like economical, political, and socio–cultural, and there were countless attitudes towards this expansion into Africa, some of approval and some of condemnation.

Europe and Africa have been linked together in evaluating the state formation process. Both regions have similarities, strengths, weaknesses, and room for improvement. To this day both regions are far from perfect. Some light can be shed on this subject, by evaluating Europe and Africa’s state formation process, evaluating what party benefits, and briefly explaining two economic consequences of European colonialism in Africa.

In the second half of the twentieth-century, African countries were able to gain their independence and strive to create unified countries. However, many countries were plagued with civil wars and the issues left behind the colonial era. The adversities faced by these new African nations are at the hands of their old colonial powers and the neo-colonialism that has taken place. These new independent countries were left to unify their people of different backgrounds, create a strong government and economy, and leave the post-colonial legacy behind.

Africa’s persistent poverty interrogates the continent’s past through institutions, government, demography, economics, colonialism, and the impact of the trading. The colonial era affected the variety of Africa’s historical development for it was quite the game changer since it put a halt to the continuous drain of scarce labor and paved the way for the expansion of land concentrated forms of agriculture, and engaging smallholders, estates, and communal farms. The establishment of the colonial rule over the African interior reinforced African commodity growth in export. The colonial control facilitated the construction induced significant inflows of European

In the late nineteenth century the European powers of the world began imperializing Africa. This annexation, occupation, and division of African territory has since led to much strife within the continent and has caused many struggles politically. This period known as the “Scramble for Africa” has led to the many problems that Africa faces today and has been the root of several wars in Africa to assume control. After World War II many European imperialists began to give African nations autonomy. This seemed like a step forward for African nations, but without any plan to transition into self governance many African nations have faced bloody civil wars and corruption. Along with political struggles, numerous African nations face rising debt and other economic problems. Many of these political and economic issues stem from the “Scramble for Africa”. Once the European countries left Africa had very little to support itself. To explain the issues left by imperialism the three African nations of Rwanda, South Africa, and Sierra Leone will be put under the scope.

Being familiar, but never well read, on the foreign influences of European and American nations on 16th through 20th century Africa, I never put much thought into the vast economic history and consequences that have come upon those actions. In reading Part 5 – Foreign Influences in John Reader’s book Africa, Reader highlights two thought camps on the effect of foreign influences on the Africa continent and its society as a whole. Transformationalists argue, Africa’s current economic state has been indubitably affected by the foreign slave trade of African indigenous populations that has occurred until recent times. Non-Transformationalists oppose this view. They believe that Africa’s current economy, “would have been about as well off, […] in the same socioeconomic environment, if there has been no trading contact [with Europe].” (David Eltis) Reading chapters 34-40 in John Reader’s Africa, I agree with the Transformationalist view, that Africa was indeed affected by foreign influences.

Another one of the stereotypes European historians had claimed was that Africa had no progress; nevertheless, Africa had been progressing so much over the centuries that passed. Indeed, a passage from Through African Eyes declares, “Ghana had superior technology… excellent organization” (Leon E. Clark). That is, Ghana had developed so many things, such as the art of iron work, in which it had came to a point where spears could be made as it gave Ghana an advantage in the field. Ghana had also an advanced and organized social structure where the subordinate kings and governors, who ruled throughout the empire, received protection and the right to rule their local areas as long as they paid their final allegiance and money to the king. So too,

Africa has been accepted as a developing world in the modern age. When it is compared to continents such as Europe and America it is still behind with technology and knowledge accumulation, but what led to Africa being left behind by the economic vehicle named the “Industrial Revolution”. Institutional factors were the pivotal points that set apart Africa from Europe. The most notable of these was the introduction of democracy and the increase in state powers in Europe which was not the case in Africa. After the Glorious Revolution of 1689 the British kings lost most of their powers to aristocratic land owners who wanted to tighten control over their land.

Beginning in 1880, there was a growing desire for European countries to expand and control their rule. The only continent at that time that was left uncontrolled and, in the European's eyes uncivilized, was Africa. This was the start of Western Imperialism. All European countries wanted their piece of Africa and to get it, they would let nothing stand in their way. They would change the entire government, religion, market, and behavior of most of the African nation and affect almost every person living there. An account of the impact of Imperialism is given in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. This book shows the changes that occurred in Africa during Imperialism and its affect on the community and the people

The infliction of colonialism on Africa modified its history forever. African traditions of cultural, social, and economic development were impacted by the change in political structure brought about by colonialism. The African economy was fundamentally

Revolutions, whether successful or not, inevitably change the place in which they happen. In the early 20th century, nearly all of Africa was colonized by European powers. Colonialism, and Africans’ ill feelings toward being colonized, inspired unity, desire for social change, and an urge for independence. Revolutions were imminent in Africa due to the strict policies of segregation, social structure, and feelings of superiority that the Europeans brought. These feelings were ingrained in many people both consciously and sub-consciously. Many Africans, after independence, fell back into this old routine and when the white populations left, these feelings of superiority and the old social structure continued to manifest itself Africa, only in a new form. This was, and continues to be Africa’s biggest problem today.

Despite its small size, Senegal is an important player in West African politics. It has had a long history, from its days as a collection of tribal kingdoms, to its existence under French rule and eventual decolonization, to its place today as a model of peaceful democracy (“it is one of the few African states that has managed to avoid military or political coups since its independence in 1960” (Anderson, 2013)). Senegal has retained much of its traditional African values as well as adapted to traditional European ideals (Gellar, 1995). France and other European countries have had a profound effect on the social, political and economic structures Senegal has in place today. By analyzing the previous structures developed by the Africans and then comparing them to the placed upon them by the French, one can truly begin to understand the extent of the transformation that has occurred.

Here we come to the limit of the commonality of the countries that we routinely put the stamp “former colonies.” Since the many countries that we often put under that rubric have traversed diverse trajectories both as colonies and former colonies, it is difficult to justify our thinking about them in their sameness, except nominally. Because whereas Canada, the United States, and Australia are obviously modern states with thriving economies built on intense industrialization (and South Korea, India, and the Republic of South Africa are not far behind), few will say that Nigeria or the rest of the former colonies in Africa either have thriving economies or can be judged modern states. What is more, although Canada, the United States, and Australia have thriving systems of rule of law as well as robust civil societies, in spite of the fact that many African countries are now ostensibly under representative democracies, few will deny that they are nowhere

Modern African states have several problems ranging from corruption, to armed conflict, to stunted structural development. The effects of colonialism have been offered as a starting point for much of the analysis on African states, but the question of why African states are particularly dysfunctional needs to be examined, given the extent to which they have lagged behind other former European colonies in many aspects. In the first section, I will consider the problems with African states from the level of the state. That is, the nature of the states' inceptions and the underlying flaws may explain some of the issues that have been associated with African states today. Next I examine the development of, or lack of, civil

How should an empire assert their claim to territory and how should they govern it? This question is important because there are a number of methods an empire could employ presiding over a colony. For example the French empire employed a system call direct rule. The French rulers wanted to assimilate or incorporate the peoples of West Africa . The British however preferred a system called indirect rule and it was applied to many of their West African colonies including Nigeria and Ghana. It has proven to be detrimental to problems in Africa and can be linked to the political past of the British colonial government. The goal of this paper is to expose the reasons for indirect rule in British colonies and the negative impact of post colonial development in West Africa.