Copying informal institutions: the role of British colonial officers during the decolonization of British Africa

Abstract

Institutional reforms in developing countries often involve copying institutions from developed countries. Such institutional copying is likely to fail, if formal institutions alone are copied without the informal institutions on which they rest in the originating country. This paper investigates the role of human actors in copying informal institutions. At independence, all British African colonies imported the same institution intended to safeguard the political neutrality of their civil services. While the necessary formal provisions were copied into the constitutions of all African colonies, the extent to which they were put into practice varies. The paper investigates the connection between the variation in the legal practice and the presence of British colonial officers after independence. A natural experiment around compensation payments to British officers explains the variation in the number of officers who remained in service after independence. Interviews with retired officers suggest that the extended presence of British personnel promoted the acceptance of imported British institutions among local colleagues.

Beyond the nation-state: Anchoring supranational institutions in international business research

“…An important consequence here is that institutions are overlapping, and at times reinforcing or conflicting. One example is that norms and beliefs are recurrently identified as a major determinant of formal institutions and that, if they are misaligned with norms and beliefs of societies, they become ‘dead law’ (Berkowitz, Pistor, & Richard, 2003 ; Rodrik, 2008 ; Seidler, 2018 ).…”

Early Statehood and Support for Autocratic Rule in Africa

“…This is one of several mechanisms that scholars invoke to explain the putative “democratic advantage” associated with former British colonies. British political culture supposedly emphasized democratic governance and the attendant pluralistic norms (Ferguson, 2003, 2012; Lipset et al, 1993; Maseland, 2018; Seidler, 2018). Other scholars contend that indirect rule, a practice typically associated with British colonialism, engendered distinctively antidemocratic tendencies.…”

“…Yet, it is unlikely that colonial-era norms took root in a uniform, easily predictable fashion: disparate factors impacted the rate and magnitude of transmission. For example, Seidler (2018) presents evidence that "good" informal norms were more likely to take hold where local bureaucrats interacted with expatriate administrators from the former colonizer country. Moreover, colonialism possibly spread ideas and attitudes outside of political channels.…”

Introduction to the Special Issue on colonial institutions and African development

“…Valentin Seidler (2017) in his article entitled 'Institutional copying in British Africa: the presence of overseas officers and the quality of governance in former colonies' focuses on the copying of institutional rules. The literature on this subject reports that institutional copying often fails, but we know very little about the reasons why this occurs.…”