The Link Between Colonial ‘Native Legal Codes’ and Postcolonial Governance

• In Event: Cultural Foundations of State Building

Abstract

This paper explores how the “native legal codes” enforced in many British, French, and Portuguese colonies impacted their long-term economic development and postcolonial governance. Most existing studies in this tradition suggest that British common law generated superior developmental outcomes relative to French or Iberian civil law (La Porta et al 1998, 1999, 2008). Yet most British, French, and Portuguese colonies relied heavily on “native legal codes” that restricted the civil liberties and political rights of indigenous subjects relative to European settlers. Consequently, it is important to examine how these parallel legal codes shaped the economic and political development of postcolonial states in the Global South. To this end, we statistically analyze the effect of “native” legal codes on postcolonial governance and prosperity in 67 British, French, and Portuguese colonies. Working under the bifurcated legal systems framework developed by Mamdani (1996), we analyze whether colonial states that relied heavily on native legal codes had worse developmental outcomes in terms of real per capita GDP growth and postcolonial governance. The paper examines whether it was the native legal codes enforced by European colonial officials and indigenous “chiefs,” rather than the identity of the colonial power, that contributed to divergent developmental outcomes across the Global South.

Author

• Kunle Owolabi, Villanova University