Neocolonialism is the control by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally independent state (usually, a former colony) through indirect means. The term neocolonialism was first used after World War II to refer to the continuing dependence of former colonies on foreign countries, but its meaning soon broadened to apply, more generally, to places where it was argued the power of developed countries was used to produce a level of control in some ways comparable to direct colonialism. Some scholars have argued that neocolonialism operates through global economic governance, including international financial institutions and trade regimes, which can influence domestic policy decisions in formally sovereign states through mechanisms such as debt and loan conditionalities.
Neocolonialism is argued to take the form of economic imperialism, cultural imperialism and conditional aid to influence or control a developing country, instead of the previous colonial methods 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, it was first used by Kwame Nkrumah in the context of African countries undergoing decolonisation in the 1960s. Neocolonialism is discussed in Sartre's works such as Colonialism and Neocolonialism and Noam Chomsky's The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism.
Term Origins When first proposed, the term neocolonialism was applied to European countries' continued economic and cultural relationships with their former colonies, particularly 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 his book the President of Ghana exposes the workings of International monopoly capitalism in Africa. For him Neo-colonialism, insidious and complex, is even more dangerous than the old colonialism and shows how meaningless political freedom can be without economic independence. Nkrumah theoretically developed and extended to the post–World War II 20th century the socio-economic and political arguments presented by Lenin in the pamphlet Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917). The pamphlet frames 19th-century imperialism as the logical extension of geopolitical power, to meet the financial investment needs of the political economy of capitalism.
In Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah wrote:
Contemporary usage In contemporary scholarship, the term neocolonialism is often used to describe structural inequalities in the global political economy, particularly in relation to trade dependency, global supply chains, and financial governance. Critics argue that institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank can exert influence over domestic economic policies in developing countries through loan conditionalities, while others contend that such mechanisms are necessary for economic stability and development.
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 Marxist 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.
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 satellite states accused each other of practising neocolonialism in their imperial and hegemonic 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 proxy wars, fought by client states in the decolonised countries. Cuba, the Warsaw Pact bloc, 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 overtthrowing 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 anti-colonialism 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 practice, 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. This violates the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which recognises the importance of fishing to local communities and insists that government fishing agreements with foreign companies should target only surplus stocks.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. Scholars have also linked these dynamics to global value chains, in which higher-value production processes are concentrated in developed countries while resource extraction and low-wage labor remain in developing economies.
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
By area
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-Africanist 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).
The Defense Agreements between France and French-speaking African countries established close cooperation, particularly in defense and security matters. Often accompanied by secret clauses, they allowed France to intervene militarily: to rescue regimes in order to establish the legitimacy of political powers favorable to its interests, to fight jihadism, particularly in the Sahel, or to put an end to civil wars. The departure of French troops from the African continent signals the end of a world, that of interventions in Chad, Togo, Gabon, Rwanda, Djibouti, Zaire, Somalia, Ivory Coast, Mali, Libya, and Cameroon. It also marks the end of Françafrique.
Belgian Congo