“At Lord Lugard’s Table”: The Ford Foundation and the Making of Modernization Theory in Late Colonial Africa

This report outlines the role of the Ford Foundation in shaping social science research in African societies in the late colonial and early Cold War period. In the postwar years, sub-Saharan Africa was initially viewed as only a minor political priority and occupied a marginal position in the growing field of American area studies. In contrast to an increasingly dominant modernization theoretical paradigm in social science premised on post-colonial nation states, African societies were under continued colonial rule and research was dominated by European anthropologists. In response to growing concern over the international implications of widespread anti-colonial protest and social transformation, in the early 1950s, the Ford Foundation became central in fostering systematic American social science engagement with Africa. Still, the geographic and intellectual scope of research and the possibilities for philanthropic action were constrained by colonial control over field access and research infrastructure. The transformation of African societies into research subjects of Cold War social science relied on close cooperation with British colonial authorities, was mediated through existing institutions, and was influenced by colonial approaches. Despite these close links, the Ford Foundation was crucial in reorienting the field towards a focus on political modernization that corresponded to Cold War imperatives instead of colonial administrative priorities.