> The country has 56 years of independent existence.
Independence isn't binary. Despots in these countries are often directly chosen by colonial powers, but even when chosen by local processes, they enter into a relationship with those well-resourced colonial powers that maintains their dictatorship. These countries end up run by local elites with western education and relationships (and multi-million dollar London/New York apartments), with help from those nations to put down any local resistance, up to and including intelligence agencies giving the despots lists of names to help solve their political or labor problems.
The US, UK, French, and Chinese sell weapons to them to put down their own populations, and US, UK, French, and Chinese companies are allowed to build infrastructure for resource extraction for export. This makes it in their interest for friendly despot #294 to maintain his position. The populations of these countries can't compete with that.
The usual process is that the colonial power helps the despot (or the series of despots if a few show a little defiance or get a little greedy) exterminate all of the country's secular resistance as "communists," leaving the religious opposition as the only uncorrupted institution left. Support for it grows to a majority of the population, you have a revolution, and now you have a theocracy. Then the colonial powers try their best to immiserate the population through sanctions and annoyance attacks against civilians to turn that theocracy back into a dictatorship.
Vaguely related prediction: the US will soon be, if we are not already, paying and arming "ISIS" to attack the Taliban. There will be fawning profiles of "The Warlord Who Turned Away From ISIS - Afghan Women's Only Hope?" about somebody who supports decapitating women for adultery but also has kids at US and UK grad schools.
Independence isn't binary. Despots in these countries are often directly chosen by colonial powers, but even when chosen by local processes, they enter into a relationship with those well-resourced colonial powers that maintains their dictatorship. These countries end up run by local elites with western education and relationships (and multi-million dollar London/New York apartments), with help from those nations to put down any local resistance, up to and including intelligence agencies giving the despots lists of names to help solve their political or labor problems.
The US, UK, French, and Chinese sell weapons to them to put down their own populations, and US, UK, French, and Chinese companies are allowed to build infrastructure for resource extraction for export. This makes it in their interest for friendly despot #294 to maintain his position. The populations of these countries can't compete with that.
The usual process is that the colonial power helps the despot (or the series of despots if a few show a little defiance or get a little greedy) exterminate all of the country's secular resistance as "communists," leaving the religious opposition as the only uncorrupted institution left. Support for it grows to a majority of the population, you have a revolution, and now you have a theocracy. Then the colonial powers try their best to immiserate the population through sanctions and annoyance attacks against civilians to turn that theocracy back into a dictatorship.
Vaguely related prediction: the US will soon be, if we are not already, paying and arming "ISIS" to attack the Taliban. There will be fawning profiles of "The Warlord Who Turned Away From ISIS - Afghan Women's Only Hope?" about somebody who supports decapitating women for adultery but also has kids at US and UK grad schools.