ABSTRACT
After explaining the rationales for selecting the African nations studied in the book, this chapter reviews the major findings from Chapter 3 through Chapter 7 on five major African nations’ colonial legacies and their legacies’ intersection with the rule of law. Specifically, the chapter compares and contrasts how each nation performs relative to the others on the nine driving forces created and utilized to assess each nation’s adherence to the rule of law. Also introduced in this chapter is Shomade’s Index, which scholars and students can utilize for studying other African and non-African nations. Results obtained from the application of Shomade’s Index are compared to results obtained from similar rule of law measurement by the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index and Afrobarometer. The chapter concludes that Shomade’s Index seems to be a good proxy for these globally established indices.
