Uncovering the colonial legacy: An analytical framework for examining the long-term effects of colonialism on social policy
Date Issued
2026
Author(s)
Abstract
Research on the long-term impact of colonial rule on social policy remains limited, despite growing evidence that colonial legacies continue to influence welfare arrangements in former colonies in significant and often adverse ways. Existing scholarship is highly fragmented, weakly interconnected, and frequently lacks clearly articulated causal arguments about colonial legacies. These shortcomings constrain scholars, policymakers, and practitioners in international cooperation in explaining variation in welfare outcomes and in designing context-sensitive, equitable interventions.
To address these limitations, this article develops the Colonial Legacies in Social Policy (CLSP) Framework as a theoretical contribution to the study of colonialism’s long-term effects on social policy. Building on a critical review of existing approaches, the framework integrates fragmented causal arguments into a coherent analytical structure that distinguishes between colonial causes, the causal mechanisms linking these causes to their effects, and institutional and distributive outcomes. Critically assessing the causal claims in the extant literature and contrasting them with insights from the broader scholarship on colonialism also identifies key shortcomings, including theoretically imprecise explanations, weak specification of causal mechanisms, and insufficient attention to the interactions among different forms of colonial intervention.
The framework provides a structured entry point and a common conceptual language for future research seeking to overcome these limitations. It strengthens causal clarity, supports more systematic comparison across cases, and facilitates more rigorous empirical strategies, including mechanism-based analysis and improved variable specification. More broadly, it advances the study of colonial legacies toward a more theoretically grounded and causally explicit research agenda in social policy.
To address these limitations, this article develops the Colonial Legacies in Social Policy (CLSP) Framework as a theoretical contribution to the study of colonialism’s long-term effects on social policy. Building on a critical review of existing approaches, the framework integrates fragmented causal arguments into a coherent analytical structure that distinguishes between colonial causes, the causal mechanisms linking these causes to their effects, and institutional and distributive outcomes. Critically assessing the causal claims in the extant literature and contrasting them with insights from the broader scholarship on colonialism also identifies key shortcomings, including theoretically imprecise explanations, weak specification of causal mechanisms, and insufficient attention to the interactions among different forms of colonial intervention.
The framework provides a structured entry point and a common conceptual language for future research seeking to overcome these limitations. It strengthens causal clarity, supports more systematic comparison across cases, and facilitates more rigorous empirical strategies, including mechanism-based analysis and improved variable specification. More broadly, it advances the study of colonial legacies toward a more theoretically grounded and causally explicit research agenda in social policy.
Subjects
colonial legacies
;
colonialism
;
healthcare
;
social policy
;
Global South
;
welfare state development
Institution
Type
report
Serie(s)
Band
34
Secondary publication
No
Language
English
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
SOCIUM SFB 1342 WorkingPapers_No 34_Götsch_Archiv.pdf
Size
1.22 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):5abbcac6515cec83f1828bb678435808