Preserve it's small armies while doing enough damage to erode the Union's will to fight
I am going to assume here you are referring to the 'Scramble of Africa' that happened in the second half of the 19th century, as the European power did not really control the African regions before then.
The methods contexts did differ per colonising power and colonised region, but it boils down to the following factors:
- superior firepower, equipment and recourses; having better guns, armour, communication technology, and supply routes, made the Europeans a formidable enemy that the various tribes simply could not counter.
- co-opting the local elites; a tried and tested method for centuries, this has always been the way smart conquerers could maintain control over a region with minimal fuss and expenditur.
<span>- divide and conquer; conflict between the many tribes of Africa has been a constant for centuries in the continent. The Europeans could easily manipulate the various tribes against each other to prevent a unified resistance from rising up. </span>
<span>- a willingness to use extreme forms of terror; the Europeans might have been all high and mighty back home about their Enlightment and democracy, but in Africa they were more than willing to use forms of terror that would make most contemporary dictators feel a little uneasy. Case in point, the widespread killing and mutilation when quotas were not met in king Leopold II's Congo.</span>
These ideas are most closely associated with no other than Karl Marx. He brought about this idea in his seminal work called the Communist Manifesto, where he talked about various things pertaining society and class struggles. Among them he also develope dthe notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat where the proletariat would have all the political power in a new type of society.
Depends on the country, for example the UK Prime Minister is elected by the public.
Hope this helps.
