According to Fred Cooper, a “gatekeeper state” refers to African nations attempting to balance internal political unrest and instability with external elements and influence. He hypothesized that many African governments and countries had difficulty with forming functional economic-political systems due to incredibly tumultuous events in their history. This had much to do with European conquering, which had an organized and systematic nature, but did little in terms of ruling these countries in structured ways. This resulted in many African governments being unable to gain the trust and following of their citizens as they only began to interact with external economics and relations. As such, these governments were “gatekeeping” both their own people and the colonial forces from outside. The colonial powers prioritized resources almost exclusively, which planted deeply rooted issues that disregarded the well-being of African citizens and their future societal structure. The poor systemization resulted in African rulers at the time planning to impose strict rules to expand outwards later, which resulted in “gatekeeping.” However, with the independence of many nations, such political leanings became unwelcome.
During the Cold War, both the socialist motives of the USSR and the imperialist nature of the United States affected African nations and their changing political states. The US promoted notions of the anti-colonial roots of many countries and held sympathy for the emerging countries that pursued economic growth and free markets. The Soviet Union held more support for socialist revolutions that began to emerge in other African countries that directly opposed imperialism and had revolutionary prospects at the time. However, with the rise of the Cold War, the anti-American and anti-Soviet Union projection only stifled the relations and growth of many political movements. The US focused more on preventing socialist regimes that promoted independence and economic and political developments. The same was done by the Soviet Union towards African nations that preferred democratic ideologies. This resulted in severe but differing violence in several countries, such as Liberia and Somalia. In the case of Liberia, the most notable cases of violence occurred throughout civil wars, starting with the violence in the form of a coup against negatively regarded leader Samuel Doe. On the other side, Somalia was a socialist state with an equally violent history. Siad Barre, the president of Somalia at the time, was also opposed and responded with repressive and violent repercussions towards his citizens.