Paradoxes of Predation in Francophone Africa

Douglas A. Yates

International Journal of Political Economy, 2018, vol. 47, issue 2, 130-150

Abstract: Francophone sub-Saharan Africa today consists of 17 countries in which French is the main language of politics and government. While the French colonial empire no longer exists as a formal structure, the legacy of its former empire continues to influence French African policy. Through its cultural imperialism the common imprint of France upon this immense region is expressed in the French language, as well as its accompanying traditions of law, administration, and education. Through an ingenious system of bilateral cooperation accords, France has installed privileged relations with its former African colonies in culture, education, natural resources, aid, trade, finance, security, defense, and a common currency. Through continuous military interventions, France has perpetuated its strategic armed dominance. France is the only member of the UN Security Council to have an explicitly “African policy.” But the economic importance of Africa to France’s foreign policy must be understood as less about its macroeconomic importance to France as a whole than about its profitability to a small predatory lobby of influential French actors who conduct scandalous “African affairs.”

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/08911916.2018.1497505 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mes:ijpoec:v:47:y:2018:i:2:p:130-150

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MIJP20

DOI: 10.1080/08911916.2018.1497505

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().