Abstract
The resistance which the ILO’s efforts to extend the blessings of the TAP to the remaining colonies met at the end of the 1950s was one of many indicators that the Organization’s colonial work was heading for a cul-de-sac after the enthusiasm and activity of the reform period of 1944–48 and the successful introduction of the Programme. During the 1950s, the colonial powers generally preferred not to expose their development efforts to too much scrutiny from international organizations. Although the ILO had provided them, during the war and immediately afterwards, with concepts and legitimacy for the development projects which they hoped would strengthen their control over the colonies, by the 1950s their doors in Africa were firmly locked to the Organization. It was not until the tide began to turn against the continuation of colonial rule in Africa on the international, metropolitan and colonial levels that the colonial powers relaxed their defensive attitude towards ILO activities on the continent.
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Notes
See A. Carew: “A false dawn: The World Federation of Trade Unions (1945–1949)”, in A. Carew et al. (eds): The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (Berne, Peter Lang, 2000), pp. 165–87.
See O. Pohrt, Die internationale Gewerkschaftsbewegung zwischen Einheitswunsch und Kaltem Krieg. Der Weltgewerkschaftsbund (WGB) von der Gründungsphase bis zu seiner Spaltung (1941–1949) (Regensburg, S. Roderer, 2000), pp. 254–77.
See Anthony Carew: “Conflict within the ICFTU: Anti-communism and anti-colonialism in the 1950s”, in International Review of Social History (1996), Vol. 41, pp. 147–81.
See ILO: List of Ratifications by Conventions and by State (Geneva, 2000), pp. 93–6.
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See Y. Richards: Maida Springer: Pan-Africanist and international labor leader (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000).
On the complex interplay of metropolitan, colonial and international factors which accelerated the political decolonization process in the mid-1950s, see W.D. McIntyre: British decolonization 1946–1997: When, why and how did the British Empire fall? (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1998), pp. 79–101;
R. Betts: France and decolonization 1900–1960 (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1991), pp. 78–114.
On the US role in the Suez crisis, see W. Roger Louis/R. Owen (ed.), Suez 1956: The crisis and its consequences (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989);
S.C. Smith (ed.), Reassessing Suez 1956: New perspectives on the crisis and its aftermath (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2008).
See B. Reinalda: “Organization theory and the autonomy of the ILO: Two classic theories still going strong”, in B. Reinalda and B. Verbeek (eds): Autonomous policy making by international organizations: Purpose, outline and results (London/New York, Routledge, 1998), pp. 49–52.
See F. Cooper: Decolonization and African society: The labor question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 362–69.
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© 2012 International Labour Organization
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Maul, D. (2012). At Arm’s Length: The ILO and Late Colonial Social Policy. In: Human Rights, Development and Decolonization. International Labour Organization (ILO) Century Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230358638_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230358638_7
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