ABSTRACT
Throughout the post-colonial period numerous commentators, including prominent leaders such as Nkrumah and Nyerere, have bemoaned the illusory nature of flag independence in SSA. They have pointed to the economic linkages between imperial metropoies and their ex-colonies, which continue to bind the new states to their former colonial masters. Moreover, they have argued that these ties maintain African subordination to the metropolitan states and render the new states particularly vulnerable to the political influence of the imperialist nations. According to such arguments the debt crisis has served to increase African vulnerability to external policy direction by the metropolitan states and such institutions as the IMF and the World Bank. In this chapter we shall examine the external pressures for policy direction produced by growing indebtedness, paying particular attention to the central role played by the Fund and the Bank in pressing market-orientated policies on often unwilling African governments.
