Unintentional neo-colonialism? Three generations of trade and development relationship between EU and West Africa

Abstract

This article argues that the limited economic transformation in West African countries is a function of the interaction between domestic elites’ quest for political survival and the EU’s international trade partnership with former colonies (Yaoundé Convention 1963–1975; Lomé Convention 1975–2000 and Cotonou Agreement 2000–present). The counterfactual argument, demonstrated clearly in a comparative study (of the Yaoundé era), is that in the absence of the EU’s trade partnership, ruling elites would have had to negotiate their survival by promoting economic change instead of colonial continuity. As not all West African countries joined the Yaoundé Conventions (1963–1975), a comparison of the affiliated and the non-affiliated countries was conducted from 1960 to 1975. Analysis of the differences between the countries in these three areas (economic crisis, political crisis with economic origins and diversification) reveals two trajectories in West Africa: neo-colonialism (for affiliated countries); and economic change (for unaffiliated countries).