Institutions, context, and outcomes: Explaining French and British rule in West Africa

Comparative Politics

Volumn 32, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 253-272

  Firmin Sellers, Kathryn ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040630043     PISSN: 00104159     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/422366     Document Type: Article

References (78)

1. Elliot Berg, "Structural Transformation v. Gradualism," in Phillip Foster and Aristide Zolberg, eds., Ghana and the Ivory Coast (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), p. 190.
2. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Road to Independence (Paris: Mouton, 1964), pp. 40-48.
3. Sue Crawford and Elinor Ostrom, "A Grammar of Institutions," American Political Science Review, 89 (1995), 583.
4. Elinor Ostrom, Roy Gardner, and James Walker, Rules, Games and Common Pool Resources (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994), p. 38.
5. George Tsebelis, Nested Games (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
6. Jean Ensminger, Making a Market (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), ch. 1;
7. Margaret Levi, Consent, Dissent and Patriotism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 16-27.
8. William Miles, Hausaland Divided (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994).
9. Michael Crowder, West Africa under Colonial Rule (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968).
10. Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992), p. 161; Miles, p. 11.
11. Catherine Boone, "Rural Interests and the Making of Modern African States," African Economic History, 23 (1995), 1-36.
12. The strategy is what Adam Przeworski and Henry Teune, The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry (London: Wiley, 1970), have called a most similar systems research design. Miles uses a similar approach.
13. The Akan ethnic group is comprised of a large number of closely related subgroups, among them the Agni and Brong.
14. Scholars often invoke the literature on patron-client relations to explain the relationship between ruler and ruled. This literature derives typologies to describe different patron-client systems. It does not, therefore, explain why patron-client systems differ, and it does not generate deductive predictions about how these differences affect individual behavior. Principal agent theory focuses explicitly on the rules governing relations between ruler and ruled and allows us to predict the consequences of differing rules. See René Lemarchand, "The State, the Parallel Economy, and the Changing Structure of Patronage Systems," in Donald Rothchild and Naomi Chazan, eds., The Precarious Balance (Boulder Westview Press, 1988), pp. 149-70.
15. Armen Alchian and Harold Demsetz, "Production, Information Costs and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, 62 (1972), 777-95;
16. D. Roderick Kiewiet and Mathew McCubbins, The Logic of Delegation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).
17. I conducted interviews with the village chief and elders. At the end of these interviews, I asked the chief and elders to name the most successful farmers of the colonial period. From their list, I chose two for analysis. I then interviewed each farmer's successor, followed by any family member or laborer the successor mentioned. Over the course of five months, I conducted nearly one-hundred interviews, ranging in length from fifteen minutes to six hours. Where possible, I complemented my interview data with archival documentation.
18. Ivor Wilks, Forests of Gold (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1993), pp. 56-62.
19. F. J. Amon d'Aby, "Le problème des chefferies traditionnelles en Côte d'Ivoire" (Abidjan: L'Institut d'Ethnosociologie de l'Université d'Abidjan, 1958), pp. 10-11, 17.
20. Gabriel Rougière, "Les pays Agni du sud-est de la Côte d'Ivoire forestière," Études Eburnéennes, 6 (1957), 63-64.
21. The stool is the Akan equivalent of the European throne. Thus, stool land is akin to crown lands.
22. A. F. Kobben, "Le planteur noir," Études Eburnéennes, 5 (1956), 190;
23. R. S. Rattray, Ashanti Law and Constitution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), p. 113.
24. Nevertheless, the actors' control over land was significant, because people preferred to live within established communities to enhance security and facilitate exchange.
25. Amon d'Aby, pp. 10-13;
26. Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 42.
27. Lineage heads also supplied public and private goods to lineage members, including the resolution of intralineage disputes and repayment of members' debts. These relations are less relevant for this analysis because colonial institutions targeted chiefs.
28. Marguerite Dupire, "Planteurs autochtones et étrangers en basse Côte d'Ivoire orientale," Études Eburnéennes, 8 (1960), 21, 40; Wilks, p. 81.
29. Mancur Olson, "Democracy, Dictatorship and Development," American Political Science Review, 87 (1993), 568-69; also, Mamdani, p. 43.
30. Aristide Zolberg, One Party Government in the Ivory Coast (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 53.
31. Sara Berry, "Unsettled Accounts," Journal of African History, 39 (1998), 62.
32. Lord William Malcolm Hailey, Native Administration in the British African Territories, vol. 3 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1951), pp. 199-201.
33. Mamdani, p. 54;
34. Anne Phillips, The Enigma of Colonialism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), p. 11;
35. Inez Sutton, "Law, Chieftaincy and Conflict in Colonial Ghana" African Affairs, 83 (1984), 52.
36. Jane Guyer, "Head Tax, Social Structure, and Rural Incomes in Cameroun, 1922-37," Cahiers d'Études Africaines, 20 (3), 322; interview with dignitary, Niabley, July 3, 1996.
37. Berry, p. 47.
38. Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 151.
39. Interview with dignitaries, Niabley, July 19,1996; interview with dignitary, Niabley, July 15, 1996.
40. Interview with elderly man, Niabley, June 27, 1996.
41. Interview with dignitary, Ebilassokro, July 24, 1996.
42. Interview with dignitary, Abengourou, July 14, 1997.
43. Interview with elderly man, Niabley, July 2, 1996; interview with elderly man, Niabley, July 4, 1996; interview with young man, Adjoumani Kouassikro, July 9, 1996; interview with young man, Niabley, July 17, 1996.
44. See Barbara Geddes, "A Comparative Perspective on the Leninist Legacy in Eastern Europe," Comparative Political Studies, 28 (1995), 305-29.
45. Sara Berry, "Hegemony on a Shoestring," Africa, 62 (1992), 336-39, 347;
46. Kathryn Firmin-Sellers, The Transformation of Property Rights in the Gold Coast (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 56-57.
47. Berry, "Unsettled Accounts," pp. 46-48;
48. K. A. Busia, Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti (London: International African Institute/Oxford University Press, 1951), pp. 180-200.
49. Interview with dignitary, Dormaa Ahenkro, September 29, 1996; interview with dignitaries, Wamanafo, September 18, 1996.
50. Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Expenses Incurred by Litigants in the Courts of the Gold Coast and Indebtedness Caused Thereby (Gold Coast: Government Printers, 1945).
51. Gareth Austin, "Capitalists and Chiefs in the Cocoa Hold-Ups in South Asante, 1927-1938," International Journal of African Historical Studies, 21 (1988), 74-78.
52. Mamdani, p. 22; Phillips, pp. 118-23.
53. Interview with elderly man, Wamfie, October 3, 1996; interview with four young men, Wamfie, October 5, 1996; interview with elderly woman, Wamfie, October 5, 1996.
54. Interview with two elderly men, Wamfie, October 1, 1996; interview with elderly man, Wamfie, September 22, 1996;
55. Gwendolyn Mikell, Cocoa and Chaos in Ghana (New York: Praeger, 1989), p. 92.
56. If a candidate for office failed to dedicate a significant portion of his personal property to the stool, the kingmakers would likely deem him unfit to hold office. Interview with dignitaries, Wamanafo, September, 18, 1996.
57. Interview with dignitaries, Wamfie, September 14, 1996.
58. Interview with dignitaries, Wamanafo, September 18, 1996.
59. Kwame Arhin, Traditional Rule in Ghana (Accra: Sedco Publishing, 1985).
60. Jarle Simensen, "Rural Mass Action in the Context of Anti-Colonial Protest," Canadian Journal of African Studies, 8 (1974), 30-33;
61. Jean Allman, "Youngmen and the Porcupine," Journal of African History, 31 (1990), 263-79.
62. Resolution passed by the Mansenhene, November 10, 1951, ADM 54/1/19, Dormaa State Council Affairs, 1949-52, National Archives of Ghana.
63. Ibid.
64. A chieftaincy dispute erupted in Niabley at approximately the same time. Interestingly, the dispute failed to attract citizen interest. Only members of the royal lineage became actively involved. Thus, Niabley's chieftaincy dispute more closely resembled a lineage dispute, an outcome one would expect in the former French colony.
65. Interview with elderly woman, Wamfie, October 8, 1996.
66. Interview with elderly woman, Wamfie, October 5, 1996.
67. Interview with elderly woman, Wamfie, October 8, 1996.
68. Interview with dignitary, Niabley, July 19, 1996; interview with young man, Niabley, July 16, 1996.
69. See Claude Hélène Perrot, Les Anyi-Ndenye et le pouvoir au 18ème et 19ème siècles (Abidjan and Paris: Coda and Publications de la Sorbonne, 1982).
70. Interview with dignitary, Abengourou, June 13, 1996.
71. Interview with elderly man, Niabley, July 1, 1996.
72. Interview with dignitaries, Wamanafo, September 12, 1996; interview with dignitary, Amasu, September 29, 1996; interview with dignitary, Dormaa Ahenkro, November 4, 1996.
73. Dian Boni, L'économie de plantation en Côte d'Ivoire forestière (Abidjan: Les Nouvelles Editions Africaines, 1985), pp. 85-90; Dupire, pp. 91-95.
74. Wallerstein, p. 47.
75. Morgenthau attributes the different compositions of the PDCI and CPP to the existence of French plantation farmers in the Ivory Coast. She contends that the presence of Europeans gave African farmers a target for their anger, inciting their political activism. Ghanaian farmers had no such inspiration. Morgenthau's thesis may explain why Ghana's farmers failed to mobilize, but it does not explain why Ghanaian farmers possessed smaller landholdings than their Ivorian neighbors. Policies favoring European farmers were not extended to Ivorian farmers until the early 1950s, after the SAA had already formed. See Ruth Schachter Morgenthau, Political Parties in French Speaking Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), p. 178.
76. Interview with dignitaries, Niabley, June 20, 1996; interview with dignitaries, Wamfie, September 12, 1996.
77. Jean Marc Gastellu, "Les plantations de cacao au Ghana," Cahiers ORSTOM, 18 (1981), 248-50.
78. Robert Bates, Markets and States in Tropical Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981); Morgenthau, p. 178.