trade colonialism geographical discovery
The first stage of the industrial revolution and its influence on world trade (second half of the 18th century - end of the 19th century).
The second period of colonialism differs from the first in two main ways:
- - transition to wide territorial seizures;
- - the desire to develop Asian countries as a market for European goods.
These two policies are related to each other, but not rigidly. Territorial acquisitions and subjugation of populated areas are the most logical way to ensure access to relevant markets. But the struggle for territory began in the mid-18th century: the industrial revolution had not yet occurred (even in England) => Europeans did not yet have goods at their disposal that could make their way to Asian markets. Then the territories were needed mainly to generate income through non-economic methods (by collecting taxes) - in order to ensure the previous nature of trade with the East.
The fate of future colonies was decided mainly not in wars with local states, but in the course of rivalry between European powers. The fate of India, for example, was decided in the wars between Britain and France. The most significant stages of this struggle are the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and Seven Years' War(1756-1763). During the latter, England broke the resistance of France and became the only serious contender for the conquest of India. But France was still feared: especially in connection with the revolution (1789) and the Egyptian campaign (1798).
Then came the time of wars with Indian states. In 1849, the last independent Indian state of Punjab fell. Although the British vassal principalities remained; in 1857, the population of the princely states was 181 million, and that of British India was 123 million. Theoretically, all the princes were allies of the OIC, bound to it by subsidiary agreements. At the courts of the princes lived British residents who vigilantly ensured that the princes behaved well. The rebellious prince could be removed.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the British captured Ceylon (1796) and the Cape Colony (1798) from the Dutch. The British acted quickly, because... they feared that any day Napoleon would annex Holland and receive all its colonies. The British were in a hurry for good reason: in 1806-1813. France occupied Holland and took over all its surviving colonies =< сражаться англичанам пришлось с французско-голландскими войсками. В 1811 г. англичане сумели захватить Яву. Правда, Яву потом вернули Голландии (в 1814 г. по Парижскому договору.
Other attempts were made to expand possessions beyond India: a successful attempt in the case of Burma (wars of 1824-1826, 1852-1853 and 1885), Singapore (1819), Malacca (1824); unsuccessful in the case of Afghanistan (1838-1842, 1878-1880, 1919). Campaigns in Afghanistan - part Big game, an attempt to remove it from Russian influence and protect India.
Other vast colonial empires began to be created: in 1800, the Dutch government nationalized the Dutch OIC and its possessions formed the Netherlands East Indies. By 1862, Holland had taken control of almost all the islands of Indonesia (Sumatra, Java, part of Borneo and the Moluccas, and by 1920 - all of modern Indonesia).
France, recovering from the Napoleonic Wars, invaded Algeria in 1830, which was completely occupied by 1847. Thus began the colonial division of Africa. By the beginning of the 20th century. France controlled all of northern, western and central Africa. The French have also become more active in Southeast Asia. In 1863 they established a protectorate over Cambodia, in 1867-85. took over all of Vietnam. In 1887, Cambodia and Vietnam were united to form French Indochina, to which Laos was added in 1893.
Thailand was lucky - it became a buffer.
The process of decolonization, i.e. The elimination of colonial rule and the granting of political independence to peoples lasted for several decades and had three stages that differed in content from each other.
The first of them covered 1945-1955. It opened with the August 1945 revolutions in Vietnam and Indonesia. Taking advantage of the defeat in the war by Japan, which occupied these countries, the leftist forces, which organized an organized fight against the Japanese, declared independence. Their former metropolises - France and Holland, having restored their own statehood after the German occupation, tried to regain dominance over these countries, but were defeated in a many-year bloody war. Laos, which declared independence in October 1945, was again occupied by France and gained freedom only in 1953 along with Cambodia.
The British acted differently with their colonies in Asia, which demanded independence. The Labor government met them halfway, transferring all power into the hands of national forces already prepared for this. In 1947, independent governments were established in India and Pakistan; in 1948, in Burma, Israel and Sri Lanka. In total, in the first post-war decade, 11 states in Asia and one in Africa (Libya) gained independence.
The second stage (mid-50s - late 60s) was more organized and even somewhat systematic in granting independence to the colonies. Having come to terms with the inevitability of the loss of colonies, European countries, primarily England, took care of additional training of managers, military personnel, teachers, doctors, etc. in order to prevent chaos in the new states and to maintain their influence in them. The principles and procedures of management and the mechanism of transfer of power were developed. To achieve this, the colonialists often made contact with national liberation movements. During this period, 7 countries in Asia and 37 in Africa gained independence. The decisive year was 1960, when 17 African countries became independent. It went down in history as “the year of Africa.” Only in the case of Algeria did France use all its forces and means to prevent independence. For 8 years - from 1954 to 1962 - it waged a colonial war, which was due to the great integration of the two economies and to the findings in
Algeria has huge oil deposits. Only in 1962 did Algeria become independent, which was facilitated by the support of the world community and the UN, which back in 1960 adopted the “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples”
At the third stage, which began in the first half of the 70s, the remnants of the once powerful colonial empires were eliminated. In 1975, the last of them, the Portuguese one, fell, giving independence to Angola, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe. Until the mid-90s, 11 countries in Africa acquired their state status. It is noteworthy that most African countries have maintained close ties with their metropolises. Many of them are members of the British and French Commonwealth of Nations, respectively.
The term “political map” is usually understood in two meanings - in the narrow and broad sense. In a narrow sense, this is a cartographic publication that shows modern borders and the territories belonging to them.
In a broad sense, the political map of the world is not only the state borders of countries plotted on a cartographic basis. It carries information about the history of the formation of political systems and states, the relationship between states in modern world, about the uniqueness of regions and countries in their political structure, about the influence of the location of countries on their political structure and economic development.
At the same time, the political map of the world is a historical category, since it reflects all changes in the political structure and borders of states that occur as a result of various historical events.
Changes on the political map can be:
- quantitative, in the case when the outlines of the country’s borders change as a result of the annexation of lands, territorial losses or conquests, cession or exchange of areas of territory, “conquest” of land from the sea, unification or collapse of states;
- qualitative when it comes to changes in the political structure or the nature of international relations, for example, during a change in historical formations, the acquisition of sovereignty by a country, the formation of international unions, changes in forms government system, the emergence or disappearance of centers of international tension.
In its development, politics went through several historical periods:
- Ancient period(before the 5th century AD), characterized by the development and collapse of the first states: Ancient, Carthage, Ancient, Ancient Rome.
- Medieval period(V-XV centuries), characterized by overcoming the isolation of economies and regions, the desire of feudal states for territorial conquests, and therefore large parts of the land were divided between states Kievan Rus, Byzantium, Moscow State, Holy Roman Empire, England.
- New period(XV-XVI centuries), characterized by the beginning of European colonial expansion.
- Recent period(from the beginning of the 20th century), characterized by the end of the First World War and practically completed by the beginning of the 20th century with the redivision of the world.
Most significant historical events XX century allow us to identify the main stages of formation political map the world of the modern period.
1. The first half of the 20th century (until the end of the 40s) was marked by two the most important events- First World War and the October Revolution in Russia. As a result of these events, the world has changed significantly.
2. The 40-50s were marked primarily by the end of the Second World War, which, in turn, led to the formation of the world system of socialism and the unification of socialist countries in Europe and the split into the GDR,
3. The 60-80s are characterized by:
- collapse of the world colonial system and the choice of orientation of the “third world” countries;
- emergence of a socialist state in the Western Hemisphere - - Cuban Missile Crisis;
- the intensification of the struggle between the world systems of capitalism - the intensification of the nuclear arms race and the Cold War.
4. The 90s are the modern stage of international relations. The modern stage of international relations is characterized by two main features:
1.The crisis of the world socialist system.
This crisis led to great territorial changes on the political map. First of all, this is the collapse of the USSR and the formation of 15 new independent states (Russia, Tajikistan). Most of them (except the Baltic countries) united to form the Commonwealth of Independent States ().
In addition, the federal state of Czechoslovakia collapsed into two sovereign states: and; reunification of the two German states; disintegration of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia into independent states: , Yugoslavia (consisting of and ). The political situation in the territory of the former Yugoslavia remains tense, which Lately is aggravated by national conflict in the province of Kosovo, inhabited by .
The crisis of the world socialist system led to profound socio-economic transformations that qualitatively changed the political map of the world. Most countries in the so-called socialist camp are returning to a market economy. This , . Only four states are still considered socialist - Cuba, and. However, these countries are also experiencing significant changes in both economics and politics. The collapse of the world socialist system led to the cessation of the Warsaw Pact Organization and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in 1991.
2. The transition from confrontation to mutual understanding and cooperation between countries- peculiarity modern stage international relations. This contributed to the formation of new and changing the role of existing interstate political and political-economic organizations. The role of the United Nations in defusing international tension has increased significantly (). The UN Security Council makes fundamental decisions to resolve international conflicts, sending observer groups and UN forces (“blue helmets”) to maintain peace in conflict areas when the warring parties are not ready for their peaceful resolution. Many international conflicts can be resolved through peaceful negotiations.
However, despite positive changes in the easing of international tension, many regional conflicts remain. Since the Second World War, the Persian Gulf area has also been a “hot spot”. Regional conflicts in (Chechnya, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh), on the border and , and many others.
According to experts, in the near future the political map of the world will undergo major changes. The trend toward an increase in the number of states based on ethnic principles continues. At the same time, state borders that do not correspond to the nations living within them will lose their meaning. On the other hand, international political alliances will play an even more important role.
In what is now the United States, English-speaking settlements began in the early 17th century. These settlements were scattered throughout the East Coast of the country. Puritans took root in New England, Quakers settled in Pennsylvania, and English Catholics colonized Maryland. The earliest settlements occurred in what are now Virginia and Carolina.
The British, of course, were not the only nation to establish colonies in the New World. Spain and Portugal dominated the territories of modern Latin America and the islands of the Caribbean Sea.
The Spanish flag once flew over what is now Florida. Spain also owned the desert territories of the West and the western coast of the continent.
The Dutch who settled in New York were driven out by the British before 1700. The Dutch language and certain fragments of Dutch law remained in New York for quite a long period.
Some parts of Dutch law probably spread beyond New York. The institution of the prosecutor may have its origins in Dutch terminology. This issue is quite controversial. But no one disputes the fact that quite tangible traces of Spanish law continue to live, especially in the territories once governed by Spain. One more surviving detail must be mentioned: the local laws of the native tribes. The laws and customs of the natives of America sometimes still play some role on their scattered reservations.
These are all exceptions. Basically, American law comes from one source - English law. No other system of law really had a chance to establish itself in the United States, just as no other language other than English.
The common law system that arose in England - its traditions, methods and techniques - crossed the Atlantic and took root in this country.
Legal history books often focus on the “colonial period,” looking at the impact of various eras on American law, and may give an inaccurate impression of the period's dominance. First of all, more than 150 years passed between the landing of the first settlers on the continent at Plymouth Rock and the beginning of the Revolution. This is as long a period of time as between 1834 and 1984 - an interval full of significant social conflicts. The colonial period was not as volatile and rapidly changing, but it was quite long and quite complex. At least there were many different colonies spread across the country from New Hampshire to Georgia. Settlements lined up like beads on a necklace along the narrow coastline. Communication with them was extremely difficult. The connection with the homeland was even worse; An immense and turbulent expanse of water separated the colonies from England.
This was a very important factor.
In theory, Britain had complete control over the life of the colonies - the inhabitants of the colonies were subjects of the British crown. In reality, she could only influence her distant child to a very small extent. The British were too distant to exercise effective diktat, even when they really wanted to. -Also, at least at the beginning of the development of new lands, they had neither a coherent political program for the empire, nor a concept of how to govern distant lands.
Most their history, therefore, the colonies (at least most of them) grew and developed independently of Britain.
Colonies can be roughly divided into three more or less different groups. The northern colonies - Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut - were the least obedient to English law.
The second group of colonies - New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware - stood in the middle between the North and the South, both from a legal and geographical point of view.
The southern colonies were the most consistent in regard to both law and the entire legal culture. They adhered more closely to English traditions.
Naturally, such differences between colonies were not accidental.
Puritan New England or Quaker Pennsylvania deliberately chose its own path, different from the path chosen by Virginia or the Carolinas. Climate and soil quality also had an impact. In the South, mild winters allowed the development of various directions Agriculture, create a plantation system. Black slaves were another exceptional aspect of Southern life. The first American slaves arrived in Virginia and other southern colonies before the mid-17th century. By the time of the Revolution, slaves made up 40% of Virginia's population.
There were no blacks in England and there was no section of law that legally prohibited slavery. The slave law was a purely American invention, based on various sources, and was strongly influenced by a sense of racial superiority, being implicated in the traditions of the West Indies and the southern colonies. Slavery also existed in the northern colonies; in New York, 10% of the population were slaves. There were slaves as far away as Massachusetts and New Hampshire. But slavery never dominated the northern productive system as it did in South.
Slaves in New York, for example, primarily worked not in manufacturing but as domestic servants.
Indeed, the North had thousands of “indentured servants.” Contract service was a type of temporary slavery. The agreements were a written document, in some way an employment contract, in which there were stipulations
The terms and conditions of slavery were redefined. Indentured servants were intended to serve their masters for a specified period: seven years was the most common period. During the contract, the servant did not receive a salary. During the specified period, the owner had the right to sell the servant, or, to be more precise, had the right to sell the right to the servant’s labor for the period remaining until the end of the contract, the Servant could not control these actions of transferring (selling) him to another owner, although some colonies and tried to prevent abuses by owners of indentured servants. When the contract expired, the servant, unlike the slave, became completely free. According to custom or law, a servant was not supposed to leave his master empty-handed: he had the right to “vacation pay.” Originally in Maryland, for example, they consisted of a coat, a headdress, an axe, a hoe, three barrels of grain, and (until 1663) 50 acres of land. Later, clothing, food, and money became more typical items (“grain, clothing, and wages”).
Enough a large number of Research has already been carried out on issues of the colonial legal system. Most of them concerned the northern colonies, especially Massachusetts. Indeed, the legal system of Massachusetts is extremely interesting. It was very different from the English law used in the royal courts of London. Massachusetts law, in fact, appeared so strikingly different from English that scholars even debated among themselves whether it should even be considered a subset of the general family of English law.
Today this idea seems quite stupid. Despite some oddities in practice and language, it can be said with absolute certainty that the law of this colony is rooted in English law and English practice. Upon closer inspection, some of its features disappear, especially if we remember that the first colonists were not lawyers. The law they brought with them was not the law of the royal court, but only local law - the custom of their community. We can call it "people's law." Naturally, it differed from the old official law. The key elements in it were still English: after all, what else could the settlers know? In other words, their law was a version of the Creole dialect or pidgin English of common English law.
The details of colonial law are complex and difficult to understand, but their basic essence is easy to understand. Imagine a group of American college students who are shipwrecked and stranded on a desert island. They need to build a new society. They form a kind of crude surrogate government and create some semblance of a legal system, different from those they left on the mainland. After all, on the island, most of the old legal system will be completely unnecessary.
For example, road rules will be of no use. On the other hand, the colonists would have to create a lot of new laws - rules about setting up a sentry post on the mountain that would try to signal ships passing by the island, laws about how to divide fish and how to organize the collection of shellfish in coastal waters, and so on. The people on the island will reproduce such parts of American law as they can recall and which will suit the new conditions of their life and the life of their new community. Ideology would also play a role. Much would depend on who the students who landed were, their political views, what part of the country they came from, what their religion was,
Colonial law was quite similar to the legal system created by shipwrecked people. It consisted of three parts: elements of the old law that came to mind, new laws created as a result of the urgent needs of life in new country, and legal elements formalized
influenced by the religious views of the settlers (for example, Puritanism in Massachusetts). If we take the Law and Liberties of Massachusetts, one of the earliest colonial legal publications (1648), we find dozens of examples of the application of these three characteristic parts. To begin with, we find all sorts of references to judges and juries, to documents such as wills, to the system of private property - all that was brought from England as part of the baggage of memory and custom of the colonists and was accepted almost unchanged.
On the other hand, life in this desert area required orders far from those that existed in Stuart England. Here, for example, there was a rule that prohibited the sale, as well as the gift, to “any Indian... of any... weapons or gunpowder, bullets or lead... or any military weapons and equipment” - a rule that, naturally, did not have its counterpart in England. Religion also played an important role. It was a community created by purely religious people. There was legal persecution of Jesuits, Anabaptists, and witches (“any man or woman... who... has contact with such spirits shall be severely punished”). There were laws that also persecuted heretics (“those who intend to undermine or destroy the Christian Faith and Religion by accepting or supporting any heresy”).
Massachusetts law was inevitably simpler than the common law of England. It was mostly stripped of the old technical details. These changes were made to simplify the application of the law in practice. English law in the 1600s was saddled with a lot of technicalities. The slow evolution of this law allowed it to take the form of a dense monolithic structure of irrational, overlapping elements - a crazy connection that developed over the centuries. Even a hundred lawyers could not claim to have a complete understanding of all elements of this law. Even if the settlers wanted to, they would hardly be able to duplicate such a system in full. Colonies in this sense always start with a clean slate.
Consequently, in essence, Massachusetts and the other colonies stood their ground own way. For example, consider the royal law of primogeniture in England. According to it, if a landowner died without leaving a will, his lands became the property of his eldest son. Massachusetts has abandoned this practice. All children had the right of inheritance, although the eldest son received a double share as the other heirs. Most of the other northern colonies (Rhode Island and New York were exceptions) simply repealed the primogeniture law, and quickly. This law lasted much longer in the southern colonies: in Georgia it was abolished in 1777, in North Carolina in 1784, in Virginia in 1785. It is impossible to reject the idea that differences in land ownership depended significantly on the fate of the law of primogeniture. Only in the South were there large estates and plantations, and in New England, “the topography and lands dictated a small holding and a compact settlement.” This delayed the moment of abolition of the law of primogeniture, that is, in essence, the division of this property between all children.
The judicial system in England was as complex as the legal system, if not more so. Lord Coke, who described the court system as it was in the 17th century, needed an entire volume just to list and explain the differences between dozens of royal, local, ordinary, special courts - a labyrinth of jurisdiction into which plaintiff and defendant (and their lawyers) had to get involved somehow.
Such an irrational system would be simply ridiculous in the small, poor, constantly struggling settlements of the American coast. Massachusetts created a clear and simple court system, and so did the other colonies.
The structures of the ships were similar, although they were never completely identical in various groups colonies. The differences were sometimes even striking. Massachusetts, for example, did not have “equity” courts, which were important
the most important (and perplexing) feature of law in England. South Carolina, on the other hand, had well-developed courts of this type.
In the 18th century, the legal system of both the North and South seemed to move somewhat closer to English law, that is, it was becoming more like the English model. This happened naturally and largely unconsciously, this is partly due to the influence of Britain on its colonies, which began to realize with some surprise that it was placed at the head of an empire and that it could control it. As you know, attempts to manage the colonies ended in complete failure. Britain's attempt at imperial pressure came too late. The colonists learned to govern themselves, and when England tried to impose new taxes, create new courts, and behaved accordingly like an imperialist, it caused a revolution. As a result, England lost a diamond piece of its empire.
But the desire to be more in keeping with the traditions of England also had natural sources. First of all, despite political differences, the colonies acquired ever closer trade ties with their homeland. The population grew significantly, new cities grew, and the colonists needed more developed laws based on their needs. This was especially true of trade law: merchants whose ships sailed to England, Jamaica and ports around the world increasingly demanded modern trade law, such as was practiced in England and the rest of the European world.
Cultural ties with England were also maintained. The lawyers who lived in the colonies were English, some actually received their profession in England. The legal materials they used were in English. Apart from collections of local laws, there were no books published in the colonies on questions of law that could be mentioned. All definitions and terminology were in English. All case books were in English. Anyone who wanted to learn anything about law had to study English editions, and these books, of course, talked about the English understanding of law, and not the American one.
In 1756, William Blackstone's Commentary on the Laws of England was first published in England. It became a bestseller, but gained perhaps even greater success on the other side of the ocean. Blackstone had a clear and concise writing style. He was writing a book for English gentlemen, ordinary people who would like to know something about their laws. Americans, both ordinary people and lawyers, eagerly seized on this book, since they were an accessible key to the law of the ancestral homeland. The American edition was published in Philadelphia in 1771-1772. Blackstone would never have become so popular in this country if there had been anything like his book that described American law.
j The colonial period, firstly, is interesting in itself, and secondly, it illustrates one of important topics of this book: how social conditions shape a country's legal system. This principle is still valid today; it is also the “key to understanding the legal past.
After the end of World War II, the lives of the peoples of Asia and Africa began to new stage. In countries that were still under colonial rule, a powerful wave of liberation movements arose.
The events of World War II contributed to the weakening of the political dominance of European states in their colonies. They could no longer seriously influence the situation there. The colonies also changed during the war years. Many of them have become stronger National economy, which worked for the military needs of the metropolis, the position of the national bourgeoisie strengthened, the number of the working class increased, and new patriotic organizations emerged.
In a number of countries in Southeast Asia, national armed forces were created that fought against the Japanese occupiers and gained experience in armed struggle. All this created the conditions for the collapse of colonialism. Decolonization was also accelerated by the confrontation that began between the two “superpowers” - the USSR and the USA, since each of them sought to strengthen its camp by attracting the peoples of the periphery.
The process of decolonization is conventionally divided into three stages (three waves). The first stage lasted from 1945 to the mid-50s of the twentieth century. During this stage, Asian countries freed themselves from colonial dependence. The countries of Southeast Asia and the Middle East were the first to declare independence.
In the context of the collapse of the colonial system, the emerging metropolitan states behaved differently. England pursued a more flexible policy on the colonial issue. Therefore, she managed to avoid military confrontation with the countries that were liberated. Even more, she managed to maintain control over her former colonies for a long time, forming the British Commonwealth of Nations.
France's colonial policy was characterized by a lack of flexibility. The French government sought to restore the pre-war order of things, without stopping at the use of force and outright dictatorship. Such actions led to confrontation with their former colonies. As a result, France was drawn into colonial wars. So, in 1946-1954 she fought a colonial war in Indochina. This war ended with the defeat of France.
The second stage of decolonization lasted from the mid-50s to the mid-60s of the twentieth century. During these years, the decolonization of Northern and Tropical Africa took place. 34 countries were freed from colonial dependence. The collapse of the English, French and Belgian colonial empires is ending. 1960, during which 17 African states gained independence, went down in history as the “Year of Africa.”
The third stage lasted from 1975 to 1990 and was characterized by the completion of decolonization South Africa. The main event of this stage was the collapse of the oldest Portuguese colonial empire. Its “survivability” was explained by the fact that Portugal, which did not have its own economic capabilities to develop natural resources its colonies, allowed foreign capital there. As a result, the Portuguese colonial empire turned into a “collective colony” of the West.
Western countries were interested in maintaining the Portuguese colonial regime in Africa. But in 1974 in Portugal there was democratic revolution, which ended the former authoritarian regime. The Portuguese colonial empire was overthrown, and new states appeared on the political map of the world (Angola, Mozambique, etc.). In 1990, the last colony in Africa, Namibia, gained independence. This event completes the global process of eliminating colonialism.
The main result of decolonization was the emergence of about 100 independent states on the former colonial periphery. New states have become an important factor in world politics. The peoples of the liberated countries were given the opportunity to choose development paths, taking into account national traditions and cultural and civilizational characteristics.
Features of the development of Eastern countries in the 40-90s
The young liberated countries faced serious tasks: strengthening their political independence, gaining economic independence, carrying out social transformation and cultural development. On questions about the path, methods and timing of solving these problems in many developing countries, a sharp confrontation has unfolded between various political forces.
Many countries that have liberated themselves and in which bourgeois relations are deeply and firmly rooted, followed the Western countries and chose the path of capitalist development (India, Pakistan, South Korea, Nigeria, etc.). In these countries they relied on parallel existence various forms property, development of market relations, political and ideological pluralism, strengthening comprehensive ties with advanced capitalist countries.
The peculiarity of the development of capitalism in the countries of Asia and especially Africa lies in the underdevelopment of the private sector and the weakness of large and medium capital. Therefore, the state was often more active in the economic sphere: it created key industries and enterprises within the public sector, regulated and directed the right direction development of the private sector, contributed to national entrepreneurship in its fight against foreign capital, etc.
A number of countries in Asia and Africa have chosen a non-capitalist path of development (or “socialist orientation”). As a rule, these countries were characterized by the presence of a significant (sometimes dominant) public sector, centralized regulation of the economy, agrarian reforms, as a result of which a strong cooperative sector emerged, and an openly authoritarian character. political structures, significant restriction of civil liberties, focus on Soviet Union and other socialist countries.
The idea of a non-capitalist path was especially popular in the 6070s. In the 80s almost everyone developing countries In this way, they found themselves in a deep economic and political crisis. As the crisis in the Soviet Union grew and after its collapse, many countries had a “socialist orientation” (Angola, Mozambique, Somalia, Ethiopia, etc.). They changed their course and embarked on the path of economic and political liberalization.
Difficulties in the economic development of young states
Most independent states are in a difficult situation due to socio-economic and cultural backwardness. The vast majority of African countries, for example, are characterized by a downward trend economic development in recent decades. The problem of backwardness of these countries is increasing due to the increase in the growth rate of their population. As production growth does not keep pace with population growth, per capita income falls. TO beginning of XXI century, economic backwardness has become the main problem of African countries.
Economic situation in individual countries Asia and Africa are worsened by the desire of the regimes existing there to enrich themselves at the expense of their own people. In Africa, for example, the policy of “Africanization” of government and administration, implemented by all independent countries, produces mixed results.
On the one hand, it has obvious positive consequences, since all leading positions in politics and economics are passing into the hands of Africans. But on the other hand, this policy opened the way for dishonest people to quickly get rich. Bribery, embezzlement, and nepotism flourished.
An important economic problem that many young states face is the peculiar export specialization of these countries (cotton, citrus fruits, coffee, etc.) that emerged during the colonial period and is difficult to overcome. Such one-sided development narrowed their economic opportunities and made them directly dependent on the changing situation on world markets and on changes in world prices.
Huge foreign debt has been and remains an acute problem for most countries in Asia and Africa.
In a number of regions of the East, rapid population growth (“demographic explosion”) caused agricultural overpopulation. In some areas this led to a real disaster. An example of this is the area of Africa north of the Sahara, where, due to a violation of the ecological balance (deforestation, plowing of all suitable land, depletion of sources drinking water etc.) since the 70s there has been a constant threat of famine.
High rates of population growth, characteristic of most countries in Asia and Africa, complicate the solution to the problem of overcoming backwardness. Enormous unemployment - a consequence of rapid population growth - keeps wages low and slows down technological progress.
The low level of the economy of many countries has led to a sharp decrease in government allocations for education, health, vocational training. And this, in turn, preserved existing problems for a long time.