Post-Empire Organisations
The European Empires domination on those colonies still leaves some hints up to this day. The American continents still speaks mainly in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Whereas the African continent speaks English and French. Architecture in central cities of former colonies is often influenced by the former colonizer, with Haussmannian buildings in Alger and Spanish architecture in southern and central America. And some countries still construct strong ties to their former colonies.
France established new political systems to keep its influence in its territories. Overseas territories and regions (DOM-TOM) were created in order to offer the autonomy asked from the locals, while keeping a french sovereignty over the lands. France also established strong ties with its former colonies. As an example, to promote and protect the french language the Francophonie was created in 1970. In the meantime, France’s political relationship with its former colonies is called Françafrique, often qualified as a form of neo-colonialism. François Mitterrand, former French President, stated in 1957 that the history of France is linked to Africa. It can be seen through the interference of French political in African Francophone countries. France is still managing military intervention in various countries (Mali, Tchad, Centrafrique), and with permanent military bases.
Without Africa, France will have no history in the 21st century.
The Commonwealth of Nations regroups former colonies of the English Empire, created at the London Declaration in 1949. It has inherited from the former Imperial Congress where the different prime ministers of the empire were reunited. The current chief of the Commonwealth is the current English monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. Its goals are officially to help its members to accelerate their economic growth while also conveying different values of human rights, democracy, sustainability, environment protection and equality.
Conclusion
It is nearly impossible to observe the complete influence of different decolonization patterns for the current state of the former colonies. Even countries that declared their independence two centuries ago can present up to this day political instability and corruption, as in Brazil with the impeachment of Dilma Roussef in 2016. To be able to offer a better analysis, we would need to get a dataset including the history of conflicts way before the decolonisation and even the colonisation. This way, we could observe which conflits truly emerge from the decolonisation handling rather than old rivalities that came back to light when the colonies were independent again.
However, those countries were now able to take their destiny in their own hands, and not being ruled by a foreign government. Even through all of those difficulties, the freedom of those colonies is established by implementing their own policies and facing the consequences of their own decisions.