ABSTRACT
To what extent does the global politics of development remain influenced by colonial practices and power relations? Colonialism has been defined as ‘the direct political control of a people by a foreign state’ (Bernstein et al. 1992: 168), as ‘the control by one group over another inhabiting a separate territory’ (De Alva 1995: 262), and as ‘an empire that was developed for settlement by individual communities or for commercial purposes’ (Young 2001: 16). Colonialism therefore implies some degree
of foreign command and political control, whether or not settlers are present. Two significant aspects of the colonialism of old were slavery in Africa and the establishment of a global trading network controlled by European powers and their various agents. The official worldwide demise
of both these aspects is signalled rhetorically by two key concepts, namely abolition and national development. But the reality behind the rhetoric in contemporary West Africa suggests that today’s world is not postcolonial in any meaningful sense.
