Colonial powers often ruled through local coercive institutions because doing so was cheaper than direct control. A sudden withdrawal can therefore remove the external authority before representative institutions, civilian habits, and counterweights have recovered. Police and armies trained to resolve crises by force may then become the strongest organized actors and establish dictatorships. The point concerns the inherited institutional situation rather than the capacity of the population, and it places responsibility on the departing power to support a more orderly transition.
Notable Point · 49:38-52:18
Why rapid decolonization can leave an institutional vacuum
A colonial state that governed through coercion can leave police and military institutions ready to impose order but few civilian checks able to restrain them.