The dissertation examines the business component in U.S.-Africa relations and the historical matrix of this relationship, with a view to locating the structure and the ideological basis of U.S. policy choices and preferences. The focus is on the multinational corporation (MNC) because it comprised the basic medium for the conduct of business relations between Africa and the U.S. in the last two decades.;American firms that invested in Africa after the demise of colonial rule mirrored the performance of modern capitalism in pre-capitalist environments abroad. This fact raises four basic questions. First, to what extent was the strategy and structure of the U.S. firm compatible with the political economy of post-colonial Africa? Second, what were the causes and consequences of private investment disputes in U.S.-Africa relations? Third, how effective was the role of the U.S. government in the settlement of investment disputes? Fourth, how did the disputes affect the performance of U.S. firms in Africa?;My analytical approach is essentially corporatist. This approach serves three purposes. First, it shows the pattern of cooperation between business and government for the expansion and consolidation of U.S. direct investments in Africa. Second, it identifies the ideological basis of U.S. business policy in post-colonial Africa and the institutional coordinators that emerged for the management of investment disputes in developing nations. Third, it establishes a crucial link between U.S. business history and foreign policy.;Investment disputes occurred in Africa when the host governments attempted to translate their political independence into economic sovereignty. In the United States, a regimen of anti-expropriation laws was emerging to contain "third world" economic nationalism. Congressional reactions to foreign investment disputes altered the ideological basis of the U.S. foreign assistance program and transformed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 into a code of business ethics. The American policy did not halt economic nationalism in Africa, instead it put a strain on U.S. corporate multinationalism. In Africa, the strategy of the MNC failed to determine the firm's structure. To be competitive, the strategy of the MNC must be responsive to the national aspirations of the host country.
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