Published in:International Catalan Institute for Peace, Working Paper ; No. 2011/6
Extent:
1 Online-Ressource (52 p)
Language:
English
DOI:
10.2139/ssrn.2033138
Identifier:
Origination:
Footnote:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments April 2, 2012 erstellt
Description:
Over the past 50 years, the concept of neo-colonialism has become central to the debate of politicians and activists in order to explain ongoing dependences of former colonies, yet without a consensus on its exact meaning and its measurement being developed. This working paper aims at operationalising the concept of neo-colonialism in order to enable an approximate measurement of its existence in a given country. To do so, a conceptual framework covering criteria of economic, political, financial and military influence of the former colonial power on its ex-colony is established and applied to two case studies - Cameroon and Ghana. The paper finds that France does preserve a neo-colonial relationship with Cameroon in all terms, while Britain only maintains economic influence and a slight financial control over Ghana. It more generally identifies a trend towards a multilateralisation and privatisation of the relations and considers the conceptual framework as reasonably functional