Influence of Colonialism on Politics and Economics of Africa Nations Essay

Influence of Colonialism on Politics and Economics of Africa Nations - Essay Example A lot of literature exists on the influence of colonization on countries. However, most political science and history research analyzes the implication of colonialism in a holistic manner. Ziltener and Kunzler observe that this analysis is not sufficient as different colonial methods were used in different colonies (305). Moreover, the debate of the political and economic influence of colonialism in Africa is still open with some school of thoughts arguing that colonialism has assisted Africa more than exploited it. The assistance in form of infrastructure, education, urbanization, new political and economic systems is often cited. This paper will attempt to weigh in on the debate by using secondary data to explore the influence of colonialism in Africa by observing three African countries with distinct colonial history. This study will look at the historical and current political and economic structures of three African countries (Algeria, Liberia and South Africa). Since Liberia was not colonized by Europeans, Algeria attained independence in the late 60s and South Africa attained independence in the 1990s, the study assumes that the trends in their political and economic structures are directly linked to the nature of colonization. In order to