Neocolonialism is the control by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally Independence (usually, a former colony) through indirect means.
Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, globalization, cultural imperialism and conditional aid to influence or control a developing country instead of the previous Colonialism of direct military control or indirect political control (hegemony). Neocolonialism differs from standard globalisation and development aid in that it typically results in a relationship of dependence, subservience, or financial obligation towards the neocolonialist nation.
Coined by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in 1956,
Term
Origins
When first proposed, the term neocolonialism was applied to European countries' continued economic and cultural relationships with their former colonies, those African countries that had been liberated in the aftermath of Second World War. At the 1962 National Union of Popular Forces conference, Mehdi Ben Barka, the Moroccan political organizer and later chair of the Tricontinental Conference 1966, used the term
al-isti'mar al-jadid ( "the new colonialism") to describe the political trends in Africa in the early sixties.
Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana from 1960 to 1966, is credited with coining the term, which appeared in the 1963 preamble of the Organisation of African Unity Charter, and was the title of his 1965 book, Neo-Colonialism, The Last Stage of Imperialism.
In Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah wrote:
Neocolonial economic dominance
In 1961, regarding the economic mechanism of neocolonial control, in the speech
Cuba: Historical Exception or Vanguard in the Anti-colonial Struggle?, Argentine revolutionary
Che Guevara said:
Dependency theory
Dependency theory is the theoretical description of economic neocolonialism. It proposes that the global economic system comprises wealthy countries at the centre, and poor countries at the periphery. Economic neocolonialism extracts the human and natural resources of a poor country to flow to the economies of the wealthy countries. It claims that the poverty of the peripheral countries is the result of how they are integrated in the global economic system. Dependency theory derives from the
Marxism analysis of economic inequalities within the world's system of economies, thus, under-development of the periphery is a direct result of development in the centre. It includes the concept of the late 19th century
semi-colony.
It contrasts the Marxist perspective of the theory of colonial dependency with capitalist economics. The latter proposes that poverty is a development stage in the poor country's progress towards full integration in the global economic system. Proponents of dependency theory, such as Venezuelan historian Federico Brito Figueroa, who investigated the socioeconomic bases of neocolonial dependency, influenced the thinking of the former President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez.
Cold War
During the mid-to-late 20th century, in the course of the ideological conflict between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., each country and its
accused each other of practising neocolonialism in their
Imperialism and
Hegemony pursuits.
[ Provides the standard definition of "Neo-colonialism" specific to the US and European colonialism.][ Defines "neo-colonialism" as a capitalist phenomenon.][ Defines "neo-colonialism" on page 7.][ Provides the history of the word "neo-colonialism" as an anti-capitalist term (p. 339); also applicable to the U.S.S.R. (p. 322).][ Clarifies that neo-colonialism is a practice of the colonial powers, that "the Soviets practiced imperialism, not colonialism".] The struggle included
, fought by client states in the decolonised countries. Cuba, the
Warsaw Pact, Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser (1956–1970)
et al. accused the U.S. of sponsoring anti-democratic governments whose regimes did not represent the interests of their people and of overthrowing elected governments (African, Asian, Latin American) that did not support U.S. geopolitical interests.
In the 1960s, under the leadership of Chairman Mehdi Ben Barka, the Cuban Tricontinental Conference (Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America) recognised and supported the validity of revolutionary anticolonialism as a means for colonised peoples of the Third World to achieve self-determination, a policy which angered the U.S. and France. Moreover, Chairman Barka headed the Commission on Neocolonialism, which dealt with the work to resolve the neocolonial involvement of colonial powers in decolonised counties; and said that the U.S., as the leading capitalist country of the world, was, in practise, the principal neocolonialist political actor.
Multinational corporations
Critics of the practice of neocolonialism also argue that investment by multinational corporations enriches few in underdeveloped countries and causes
humanitarian, environmental and
ecological damage to their populations. They argue that this results in unsustainable development and perpetual underdevelopment. These countries remain reservoirs of cheap labor and raw materials, while restricting access to advanced production techniques to develop their own economies. In some countries, monopolization of natural resources, while initially leading to an influx of investment, is often followed by increases in unemployment, poverty and a decline in per-capita income.
In the West African nations of Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and Mauritania, fishing was historically central to the economy. Beginning in 1979, the European Union began negotiating contracts with governments for fishing off the coast of West Africa. Unsustainable commercial over-fishing by foreign fleets played a significant role in large-scale unemployment and migration of people across the region.[United Nations 2007]
Oxfam's 2024 report "Inequality, Inc" concludes that multinational corporations located in the Global North are "perpetuating a colonial style 'extractivist' model" across the Global South as the economies of the latter "are locked into exporting primary commodities, from copper to coffee" to these multinationals.[
]
International borrowing
American economist
Jeffrey Sachs recommended that the entire African debt (c. US$200 billion) be dismissed, and recommended that African nations not repay either the
World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF):
Conservation and neocolonialism
Wallerstein, and separately Frank, claim that the modern conservation movement, as practiced by international organisations such as the World Wide Fund for Nature, inadvertently developed a neocolonial relationship with underdeveloped nations.
[In a manner consistent with Immanuel Wallerstein's world-systems theory (Wallerstein, 1974) and Andre Gunder Frank's dependency theory (Frank, 1975).]
Science
Former colonial powers and Africa
Françafrique
The representative example of European neocolonialism is
Françafrique, the "France-Africa" constituted by the continued close relationships between
France and its former African colonies.
In 1955, the initial usage of the term "French Africa", by President Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Ivory Coast, denoted positive social, cultural and economic Franco–African relations.
It was later applied by neocolonialism critics to describe an imbalanced international relation.
Neocolonialism was used to describe a type of foreign intervention in countries belonging to the Pan-Africanism movement, as well as the Asian–African Conference of Bandung (1955), which led to the Non-Aligned Movement (1961).
Neocolonialism was formally defined by the All-African Peoples' Conference (AAPC) and published in the Resolution on Neo-colonialism. At both the Tunis conference (1960) and the Cairo conference (1961), AAPC described the actions of the French Community of independent states, organised by France, as neocolonial.
The politician Jacques Foccart, the principal adviser for African matters to French presidents Charles de Gaulle (1958–1969) and Georges Pompidou (1969–1974), was the principal proponent of Françafrique.
The works of Verschave and Beti reported a forty-year, post-independence relationship with France's former colonial peoples, which featured colonial garrisons in situ and monopolies by French multinational corporations, usually for the exploitation of mineral resources. It was argued that the African leaders with close ties to France—especially during the Soviet–American Cold War (1945–1992)—acted more as agents of French business and geopolitical interests than as the national leaders of sovereign states. Cited examples are Omar Bongo (Gabon), Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Ivory Coast), Gnassingbé Eyadéma (Togo), Denis Sassou-Nguesso (Republic of the Congo), Idriss Déby (Chad), and Hamani Diori (Niger).
Belgian Congo
Belgium's approach to Belgian Congo has been characterized as a quintessential example of neocolonialism, as the Belgians embraced rapid decolonization of the Congo with the expectation that the newly independent state would become dependent on Belgium. This dependence would allow the Belgians to exert control over Congo, even though Congo was formally independent.
After the decolonisation of Belgian Congo, Belgium continued to control, through the Société Générale de Belgique, an estimated 70% of the Congolese economy following the decolonisation process. The most contested part was in the province of Katanga Province where the Union Minière du Haut Katanga, part of the Société, controlled the mineral-resource-rich province. After a failed attempt to nationalise the mining industry in the 1960s, it was reopened to foreign investment.
United States
There is an ongoing debate about whether certain actions by the United States should be considered neocolonialism.
Nayna J. Jhaveri, writing in
Antipode, views the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a form of "petroimperialism", believing that the U.S. was motivated to go to war to attain vital oil reserves, rather than to pursue the U.S. government's official rationale for the Iraq War.
Noam Chomsky has been a prominent critic of "American imperialism";
Chalmers Johnson argued in 2004 that America's version of the colony is the military base.
David Vine, author of Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Overseas Harm America and the World (2015), said the US had bases in 45 "less-than-democratic" countries and territories. He quotes political scientist Kent Calder: "The United States tends to support dictators and in nations where it enjoys basing facilities".
China
The People's Republic of China has built increasingly strong ties with some African, Asian, European and Latin American nations which has led to accusations of colonialism,
As of August 2007, an estimated 750,000 Chinese nationals were working or living for extended periods in Africa.
In the 1980s and 90s, China continued to purchase natural resources—
petroleum and minerals—from Africa to fuel the Chinese economy and to finance international business enterprises.
In 2006, trade had increased to $50 billion expanding to $500 billion by 2016.
In Africa, China has loaned $95.5 billion to various countries between 2000 and 2015, the majority being spent on power generation and infrastructure.
In 2018, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad cancelled two China-funded projects. He also talked about fears of Malaysia becoming "indebted" and of a "new version of colonialism".
According to Mark Langan in 2017, China, Western actors, and other emerging powers pursue their own interests at the expense of African interests. Western actors depict China as a threat to Africa, while depicting European and American involvement in Africa as being virtuous.
Russia
Russia currently occupies parts of neighboring states. These occupied territories are
Transnistria (part of
Moldova);
Abkhazia and
South Ossetia (part of Georgia); and five provinces of Ukraine, which it has illegally annexed. Russia has also established effective political domination over
Belarus, through the
Union State.
Historian
Timothy Snyder defines Russia's war against Ukraine as "a colonial war, in the sense that Russia meant to conquer, dominate, displace and exploit" the country and its people.
Russia has been accused of colonialism in
Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, by enforced
Russification,
passportization, and by settling Russian citizens on the peninsula and forcing out Ukrainians and
Crimean Tatars.
The Wagner Group, a Russian state-funded
The "Russian world" is a term used by the Russian government and Russian nationalists for territories and communities with a historical, cultural, or spiritual tie to Russia.
Other countries and entities
Iran
The Iranian government has been called an example of neocolonialism.
The motivation for Iran is not economic, but religious.
After its establishment in 1979, Iran sought to export Shia Islam globally and position itself as a force in world political structures.
Africa's Muslims present a unique opportunity in Iran's dominance in the Muslim world.
Iran is able to use these African communities to circumvent economic sanctions and move arms, man power, and nuclear technology.
Iran exerts its influence through humanitarian initiatives, such as those seen in Ghana.
Niue
The government of Niue has been trying to get back access to its domain name, .nu.
The country signed a deal with a Massachusetts-based non-profit in 1999 that gave away rights to the domain name. Management of the domain name has since shifted to a Swedish organisation. The Niue government is currently fighting on two fronts to get back control on its domain name, including with the
ICANN.
, the long-serving Premier of Niue who died in 2020, called it a form of neocolonialism.
South Korea
To ensure a reliable, long-term supply of food, the South Korean government and powerful Korean multinationals bought farming rights to millions of
of agricultural land in under-developed countries.
South Korea's RG Energy Resources Asset Management CEO Park Yong-soo stressed that "the nation does not produce a single drop of crude oil and other key industrial minerals. To power economic growth and support people's livelihoods, we cannot emphasise too much that securing natural resources in foreign countries is a must for our future survival."
In 2008, South Korean multinational Daewoo Logistics secured 1.3 million hectares of farmland in Madagascar to grow maize and crops for . Roughly half of the country's arable land, as well as rainforests were to be converted into Palm oil and corn , producing food for export from a country where a third of the population and 50 percent of children under five are malnourished, using South African workers instead of locals. Local residents were not consulted or informed, despite being dependent on the land for food and income. The controversial deal played a major part in prolonged anti-government protests that resulted in over a hundred deaths.
In 2009, Hyundai Heavy Industries acquired a majority stake in a company cultivating 10,000 hectares of farmland in the Russian Far East and a South Koreans provincial government secured 95,000 hectares of farmland in Oriental Mindoro, central Philippines, to grow Maize. The South Jeolla province became the first provincial government to benefit from a new central government fund to develop farmland overseas, receiving a loan of $1.9 million. The project was expected to produce 10,000 tonnes of feed in the first year.
Cultural approaches
Although the concept of neocolonialism was originally developed within a
Marxist theoretical framework and is generally employed by the political left, the term "neocolonialism" is found in other theoretical frameworks.
Coloniality
"Coloniality" claims that knowledge production is strongly influenced by the context of the person producing the knowledge and that this has further disadvantaged developing countries with limited knowledge production infrastructure. It originated among critics of subaltern theories, which, although strongly
Decoloniality, are less concerned with the source of knowledge.
Cultural theory
One variant of neocolonialism theory critiques
cultural colonialism, the desire of wealthy nations to control other nations' values and perceptions through cultural means such as
Mass media, language, education
and religion, ultimately for economic reasons. One impact of this is "colonial mentality", feelings of inferiority that lead post-colonial societies to latch onto physical and cultural differences between the foreigners and themselves. Foreign ways become held in higher esteem than indigenous ways. Given that colonists and colonisers were generally of different races, the colonised may over time hold that the colonisers' race was responsible for their superiority. Rejections of the colonisers culture, such as the
Negritude movement, have been employed to overcome these associations. Post-colonial importation or continuation of cultural mores or elements may be regarded as a form of neocolonialism.
Postcolonialism
Post-colonialism theories in philosophy, political science, literature and film deal with the cultural legacy of colonial rule. Post-colonialism studies examine how once-colonised writers articulate their national identity; how knowledge about the colonised was generated and applied in service to the interests of the coloniser; and how colonialist literature justified colonialism by presenting the colonised people as inferior whose society, culture and economy must be managed for them. Post-colonial studies incorporate subaltern studies of "history from below"; post-colonial cultural evolution; the
psychopathology of colonisation (by
Frantz Fanon); and the cinema of film makers such as the Cuban
Third Cinema, e.g. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, and
Kidlat Tahimik.
Critical theory
Critiques of postcolonialism/neocolonialism are evident in
literary theory. International relations theory defined "postcolonialism" as a field of study. While the lasting effects of cultural colonialism are of central interest, the intellectual antecedents in cultural critiques of neocolonialism are economic. Critical international relations theory references neocolonialism from Marxist positions as well as
postpositivist positions, including
postmodernism,
postcolonialism and
feminism approaches. These differ from both realism and
liberalism in their
epistemology and
ontology premises. The
Neoliberalism approach tends to depict modern forms of colonialism as a benevolent imperialism.
Neocolonialism and gender construction
Concepts of neocolonialism can be found in theoretical works investigating gender outside the global north. Often these conceptions can be seen as erasing gender norms within communities in the global south
to create conceptions of gender that align with the global north.
Gerise Herndon argues that applying feminism or other theoretical frameworks around gender must look at the relationship between the individual subject, their home country or culture, and the country and culture that exerts neocolonial control over the country. In her piece "Gender Construction and Neocolonialism", Herndon presents the writings of Maryse Condé as an example of grappling with what it means to have your identity constructed by neocolonial powers. Her work explores how women in burgeoning nations rebuilt their identities in the postcolonial period. The task of creating new identities was met with challenges from not only an internal view of what the culture was in these places but also from the external expectations of ex-colonial powers.
An example of the construction of gender norms and conceptions by neocolonial interests is made clear in the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Act introduced in 2009 and passed in 2014. The act expanded upon previously existing laws against sodomy to make gay relationships punishable by life imprisonment. The call for this bill came from Ugandans who claimed traditional African values that did not include homosexuality. This act faced backlash from western countries, citing human rights violations. The United States imposed economic sanctions against Uganda in June 2014 in response to the law, the World Bank indefinitely postponed a $90 million aid loan to Uganda and the governments of Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway halted aid to Uganda in opposition to the law; the Ugandan government defended the bill and rejected condemnation of it, with the country's authorities stating President Museveni wanted "to demonstrate Uganda's independence in the face of Western pressure and provocation".
See also
Bibliography
Further reading
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Mongo Beti, Main basse sur le Cameroun. Autopsie d'une décolonisation (1972), new edition La Découverte, Paris 2003 A
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Frédéric Turpin. De Gaulle, Pompidou et l'Afrique (1958–1974): décoloniser et coopérer (Les Indes savantes, Paris, 2010. Grounded
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Kum-Kum Bhavnani. (ed., et al.) Feminist futures: Re-imagining women, culture and development (Zed Books, NY, 2003). See: Ming-yan Lai's "Of Rural Mothers, Urban Whores and Working Daughters: Women and the Critique of Neocolonial Development in Taiwan's Nativist Literature", pp. 209–225.
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David Birmingham. The decolonisation of Africa (Ohio University Press, 1995).
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Charles Cantalupo(ed.). The world of Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Africa World Press, 1995).
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Laura Chrisman and Benita Parry (ed.) Postcolonial theory and criticism (English Association, Cambridge, 2000).
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Renato Constantino. Neocolonial identity and counter-consciousness: Essays on cultural decolonisation (Merlin Press, London, 1978).
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George A. W. Conway. A responsible complicity: Neo/colonial power-knowledge and the work of Foucault, Said, Spivak (University of Western Ontario Press, 1996).
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Julia V. Emberley. Thresholds of difference: feminist critique, native women's writings, postcolonial theory (University of Toronto Press, 1993).
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Nikolai Aleksandrovich Ermolov. Trojan horse of neo-colonialism: U.S. policy of training specialists for developing countries (Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1966).
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Thomas Gladwin. Slaves of the white myth: The psychology of neo-colonialism (Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1980).
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Lewis Gordon. Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997).
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Ankie M. M. Hoogvelt. Globalisation and the postcolonial world: The new political economy of development (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).
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J. M. Hobson, The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
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M. B. Hooker. Legal pluralism; an introduction to colonial and neo-colonial laws (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1975).
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E.M. Kramer (ed.) The emerging monoculture: assimilation and the "model minority" (Praeger, Westport, Conn., 2003). See: Archana J. Bhatt's "Asian Indians and the Model Minority Narrative: A Neocolonial System", pp. 203–221.
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Geir Lundestad (ed.) The fall of great powers: Peace, stability, and legitimacy (Scandinavian University Press, Oslo, 1994).
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Jean-Paul Sartre. 'Colonialism and neo-colonialism. Translated by Steve Brewer, Azzedine Haddour, Terry McWilliams Republished in the 2001 edition by Routledge France. .
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Peccia, T., 2014, "The Theory of the Globe Scrambled by Social Networks: A New Sphere of Influence 2.0", Jura Gentium – Rivista di Filosofia del Diritto Internazionale e della Politica Globale, Sezione "L'Afghanistan Contemporaneo", The Theory of the Globe Scrambled by Social Networks
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Stuart J. Seborer. U.S. neo-colonialism in Africa (International Publishers, NY, 1974).
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D. Simon. Cities, capital and development: African cities in the world economy (Halstead, NY, 1992).
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Phillip Singer(ed.) Traditional healing, new science or new colonialism": (essays in critique of medical anthropology) (Conch Magazine, Owerri, 1977).
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Jean Suret-Canale. Essays on African history: From the slave trade to neo-colonialism (Hurst, London 1988).
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Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Barrel of a pen: Resistance to repression in neo-colonial Kenya (Africa Research & Publications Project, 1983).
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Carlos Alzugaray Treto. El ocaso de un régimen neocolonial: Estados Unidos y la dictadura de Batista durante 1958,(The twilight of a neocolonial regime: The United States and Batista during 1958), in Temas: Cultura, Ideología y Sociedad, No.16-17, October 1998/March 1999, pp. 29–41 (La Habana: Ministry of Culture).
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Uzoigw, Godfrey N. "Neocolonialism Is Dead: Long Live Neocolonialism." Journal of Global South Studies 36.1 (2019): 59–87.
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Richard Werbner (ed.) Postcolonial identities in Africa (Zed Books, NJ, 1996).
External links
Academic course materials
