Burton, Andrew and Michael Jennings. "Introduction: The Emperor's New Clothes? Continuities in Governance in Late Colonial and Early Postcolonial East Africa". The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol.40, No.1 (2007): 1-25.

Burton, Andrew and Michael Jennings. "Introduction: The Emperor's New Clothes? Continuities in Governance in Late Colonial and Early Postcolonial East Africa". The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol.40, No.1 (2007): 1-25.

• Scholars from the 1960s have emphasized how colonialist forms of government have continued to impact African politics, from the dependence theorist of the 1960s and 1970s, who claimed that Europe still exercised economic colonialism, to more modern academics studying how class and rural-urban divisions created during colonialism continue to impact contemporary Africa (1).
• The authors critique these conceptions of colonialism's impact on Africa as denying the agency of Africans and presenting them as trapped inside institutions that they are somehow powerless to change (1).
• Unsurprisingly, the governments which emerged in East Africa immediately following independence kept many of the same structures and institutions as the former colonial regimes, which were believed to be necessary for the basic function of the state. This really only began to change in the 1980s, as state retreated in many countries globally (3).
• The colonial policy of Britain following WWII had particularly important implications for the independent governments which emerged directly from its legacy. Whereas inter-war colonial policy had been characterized by making colonies financial self-sustaining, the policy of the 1940s and 1950s focused on modernizing Africa by including increasing numbers of Africans in the market economy and organs of government (4).
• The African leaders and civil servants who ruled newly independent countries inherited mostly similar values to those of late colonial policy; supporting a progressive and modernizing agenda, and being deeply suspicious of conservative opposition or 'backward' native traditions. They often resembled the colonialists in mannerisms (5, 9, 15).
• The late colonial state also vastly expanded its presence in terms of social service, often alongside nominal increases in democracy, although with severe and paternalistic reservations. This expansion of the state and its partial encouragement of civil engagement was paired with centralization and brutality for opposition (6-8).
• Prior to the Second World War, colonial officials made efforts to preserve the 'ancient' traditions of African life, preventing Africans from participating in capitalist economics. By the 1940s, however, colonial officials highlighted the necessity of market economics to lift Africans out of poverty, attempting to privilege 'good', educated Africans in business, and furthering the divide between the rural poor and the urban elites (8-9).
• The East African governments immediately following independence were more responsive than their colonial predecessors, but maintain many characteristics, esp. a strong desire to modernize their country and intolerant of groups they viewed as opposed to progress (9).
• This tendency was most apparent in Tanzania under the rule of the Tanganyika African National Union, which launched a campaign in 1967 to 'civilize' the Maasai by imposing 'proper' Western styles of dress in contrast to the nudity common among the Maasai (9-10).
• The struggles for independence against a repressive and centralized colonial state had conditioned nationalist parties to adopt a dualist worldview, where those against the nationalist movement had sided with the colonial regime. This thought process continued into independence, where disagreement with the nationalist's policies continued to be seen as reactionary and worthy of repression (11).
• The rhetoric of modernization was often used as cover for much darker political actions, as in Milton Obote's 1966 movement to centralize power in Kampala as a way to disenfranchise the South in favor of his northern constituency, cloaked under a campaign to end feudalism and localized rule (10).
• Kenya clamped down on civil rights and imposed a heavily centralized system of rule stemming from the presidency following independence for specifically interesting reasons, as Jomo Kenyatta saw stability as necessary to prevent white settlers from fleeing the country with their valuable property, expertise, and capital (11).
• All independent governments in East Africa were characterized by growing socio-economic inequality between the ruling, educated elites and the rest of the country. This was esp. notable in Kenya, were neoliberal economics fostered growth in the urban core and wealthy central areas, while leaving the rest of the country crumbling and neglected (12-13).
• Salaries for new African civil servants were the same as former colonial officials, making government jobs highly valued with wages over 10 times the national average. The attraction of government jobs led to a ballooning of the public sector and the nationalization of many of the existing private enterprises (14).
• Dr. Frederick Cooper suggests that the African state from independence until the crisis of governance from the late 1970s onward represented a uniquely 'post-colonial' polity, more resembling a successor to colonial governance than the kinds of African government to come after the 1990s (15-16).