administration to prevent the development of class consciousness by any stra-
tum of indigenous society. ‘African political and social forces were frag-
mented, isolated and contained within the framework of local administrative
units which ... inhibited the coalescence of African opposition and resistance
into a colony-wide challenge to the colonial order’ (Berman, 1984, pp. 186–7).
The ‘tribalism’ thus encouraged persisted into the immediate post-independence
period and became a major source of destabilizing political conflict.
Further political change was occasioned by reliance on the co-option of
traditional authority. In Africa, for example, chiefs were invested with more
power than they traditionally enjoyed in return for their support and co-
operation. Hoogvelt argues that this undermined their legitimacy in tradi-
tional society, leaving political space for new élites whose status rested on
Western educational achievement. Thus a dual political structure was cre-
ated of Westernized élites in the urban areas and traditional élites, supported
by the administration through the reaffirmation of local law and custom, in
the rural areas (Hoogvelt, 1978, p. 107).
Conclusion
Colonialism has now all but disappeared: there are a few small pockets left
in the world. National sovereignty is the rule. Latin American independence
had been achieved by the end of the nineteenth century, whereas in Africa
and Asia colonialism came to an end largely as a result of the Second World
War. Social scientists found themselves confronted by a growing number of
newly independent states after that war and became interested in how these
societies were going to progress and develop. This was of more than merely
academic interest. It was important for the foreign policies of the great pow-
ers that were interested in the way that modernizing countries would change,
whether they would achieve a stability that favoured Western interests and, if
not, whether such regimes could be destabilized to produce a less hostile
environment for Western economic, strategic and diplomatic aims.
Theories of Imperialism and Colonialism 43