The neocolonial state assumed a dual task. Sustaining processes of economic growth set in motion under colonial rule was the first. The second was creating and maintaining a form of political order that would make this possible. Ann Phillips (1989) argued that its predecessor, the colonial state, had failed to reconcile these dual imperatives, for economic growth tended to destabilize mechanisms of social control (such as indirect rule) that underpinned colonial state power. This contradiction was manifest starkly in the postwar crises of the colonial political economy. Wartime exploitation of the colonies, followed by public investment to break the deadlock of economic stagnation, unleashed social forces that the colonial state could not contain – including new working classes, ambitions indigenous merchant strata, and the postwar nationalist elite.

Independence and the political arrangements of the 1960s worked to incorporate these social strata into the sphere of state control. Coalitions forged within the structures of postcolonial states allowed disparate but powerful elements within African societies to share in the benefits of maintaining the economic status quo.