Decolonisation without independence |
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| Authors: | AJ Christopher |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Geography, University of Port Elizabeth, P.O. Box 1600, Port Elizabeth, 6000, South Africa |
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| Abstract: | The massive decolonisation of the post World War II era resulted in a new political map of the world. The great majority of
the new independent states were essentially coincident with the former administrative colonies. However, in a quarter of cases
the ending of colonial status did not result in the emergence of a sovereign state. The colonial powers sought to reduce the
number of small and potentially weak states by various mechanisms. Thus colonial mergers took place between administrative
units within the same empire, and only occasionally between units in different empires. Some dependencies were absorbed by
more powerful neighbours and others incorporated into the political structure of the metropolitan power. Prior to 1960, in
terms of population and size, the colonies which failed to achieve statehood at independence were substantially smaller than
those which did. Thereafter there was little to distinguish them. The legacy of the merged colonies has ranged from successful
secessionist movements to integrated states.
This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |
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| Keywords: | colonies decolonisation independence micro-states states |
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