Gradualism in the transfer of administration (INDTRANS)

In September 1958, Guinea was the only French territory in West Africa overwhelmingly rejecting the French constitutional project and opting for immediate independence.

„France was quick to retaliate, withdrawing civil servants, severing aid, trade, and development agreements, absconding with government files, and sabotaging whatever the departing officials could not take with them.” (Schmidt 2007: 178)

This discontinuity in the administrative institutions was a heavy burden for the newly independent Guinea. A similar institutional discontinuity has in other cases been caused by massacres targeting expatriates. In Mozambique or the Belgian Congo, most European civil servants fled or were chased away immediately before or after independence. In contrast, there are countries with an extreme gradual transfer of administrative authority to local civil servants accompanied by training and meritocratic promotion, resulting in considerable state capacity. In Botswana, efficiency of administration was clearly put before africanization (Künzler 2004: 162f). Just after independence in Malaysia still 44.5% of civil servants were British, in Pakistan 34.2%, in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) 18.9%, in India 7.3%, while in Burma they all left with independence (Braibanti 1966: 644ff). According to Kerbo (2005a, b), the way the colonial power left the country (such as the extent of planning and preparation for independence) was indeed crucial for the further development in East and Southeast Asia. While our main concern is the transfer of bureaucracy, we also considered the transfer of the judicial system and the security forces, but not the transfer of legislative.

The transfer of administration is an important aspect for the development of post-colonial institutions which has been rather neglected so far. We therefore introduce a variable (INDTRANS) measuring the gradualism in the transfer of administration:

• 0= not applicable/planned, coordinated and very gradual transfer of administration (52 cases)
• 1= short initiation, no conflicts (16 cases)
• 2= very quick, disruptive, disorderly transfer (15 cases).

Of course, a planned and coordinated transfer of administration is not possible in the case of armed conflicts/war of independence. INDTRANS correlates highly with indicators for the level of violence, but also a more direct rule seems to have impeded a gradual transfer of administration (see 'Descriptive Statistics'). Of all economic indicators, only the trade-related ones (TRADEPOL, TRADECON) have a significant relationship with INDTRANS: The closer the colonial economy was related to the metropole, the less likely a gradual transfer (ibid.). British colonies experienced a gradual and orderly transfer of administration more often than others.