ABSTRACT
Most of the ruling political parties in the newest states grew up under the late colonial regimes as instruments for attaining national independence. The new states will increasingly be obliged to make some hard long-range decisions for which the experience and habits acquired in the period of nationalist agitation will provide little guidance. The movement of independence have sometimes sought to export a national revolution or to continue the independence movement to areas not yet favored by an enlightened colonial master. Instead of profiting from the West's arduous history of nation-building, the newest nations may then be condemned to repeat the long apprenticeship of "coups, conquests, revolutions, and wars" before they, too, evolve viable national societies. Ensuring the short-run stability of the new states has led many regimes into practices which appear particularly objectionable to most people with a liberal democratic tradition.
