Tomas Ocampo
Department of Politics, University of California, Santa Cruz

Neocolonialism can be briefly defined as the continued or renewed relations of domination of a nation by another nation following the end of formal colonization (Phipps 2012). Typically, this relation of domination is primarily described as economic in scope, however other uses of the term have incorporated military, cultural, and/or political domination or interference. It is also often conflated with imperialism, or the “indirect systems of influence and domination of the developing nations by dominant nations, particularly the United States” (Phipps 2012, 1233-1234). However, it can be best distinguished as a distinct form of imperialism that emerged as a concept following the decolonial movements in Africa.

The term bears its origin from the anti-colonial and liberation movements in Africa during the 1950s and 60s and was discussed extensively at the All-African People’s Conference in Accra (1958), Tunis (1960) and Cairo (1961). The first President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, Algerian psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, and French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre also engaged with the term and expressed in their work some of the sentiments around it that arose at these conferences and in the movements for decolonization across the continent. Today the term has grown beyond its origins. We can understand neocolonialism more broadly than economic domination and distinguish it still from imperialism, in that it is a different form of imperialism that has taken place following the end of formal colonization for most of the Global South in the middle-to-late twentieth century. Nkrumah’s Marxist analysis of neocolonialism is particularly significant to understand the term. For Nkrumah, neocolonialism is in fact a far more complex system that was all-encompassing, operating at the political, economic, social, and cultural level. Not only had it been actively shaped by the Western industrialized countries on each of these levels (especially the US), it operated to maintain a colonial relationship with their former subjects despite their formal independence. Neocolonialism can then be understood as a system of informal colonization that shaped the economic, political, and social dimensions of the world (particularly the Global South) following the end of formal colonialism.

In Neo-Colonialism, The Last Stage of Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah (1970) details the new relationship established between formerly colonized countries (mainly in Africa) during their independence and their colonizing countries (mainly Europe or the West). In brief, he describes neocolonialism as a state that is considered independent and has “all the outward trappings of international sovereignty” but “In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside” (ix). Like other definitions of neocolonialism, Nkrumah is quick to note that this colonial relationship is typically “exercised through economic or monetary means” rather than military occupation (ix). Provisions to accept manufactured goods from the former colonizing country, economic advisors and civil servants that can dictate policy, and imperial control of the banking system that sets exchange rates for the newly independent country comprise some ways that neocolonialism operates according to Nkrumah. The “Balkanisation” of the African continent is primarily how Nkrumah explores neocolonialism in his seminal work, situating his conception of the term in the experience of countries in Africa achieving independence during the 1960s (14). He argues that the break-up of large territories into states that cannot achieve self-sufficiency and remain dependent on their colonial masters is the main instrument of neocolonialism. The critical result of neocolonialism, then, is the continued exploitation of the developing world that keeps it in a subservient position to the West, mainly the US after the end of World War II (x).

Nkrumah (1970) wrote comprehensively about the way that neocolonialism takes place and made the case that it is not purely economic- that neocolonialists used “the old colonialist methods of religious, educational and cultural infiltration” (35). He argues that neocolonialism was achieved through several mechanisms that were economic and political, but also social and cultural in nature (239-253). This included:

• the agreements made by developing countries for their independence, which often included privileges for the former colonizing country such as maintaining military bases, prospecting rights to natural resources, exemptions from customs duties, or exclusive rights to Western information services;
• development aid from colonizing countries to their former subjects, which often came with stipulations for their use subject to the goals of the former colonizing country, and typically acted as credit for the colonizing country since it is used to make the developing country profitable;
•  the international finance and trade system, which resulted in agreements that favored the West and their corporations, at the expense of the developing countries, such as the shipping rates;
•  multilateral aid through international organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank, which came with higher interest rates and conditions to structure developing countries’ internal affairs;
• the US/Western military and intelligence agencies, which used physical force and espionage to enforce the interests of their corporations and meddle in the internal affairs of developing countries, sometimes through religious groups or non-governmental organizations;
• the nominally left parties and unions in the West that supported “free trade” and facilitated the expansion of capital investment in Africa, and/or acted as a cover for intelligence operations;
• control over journalism and film media by the US and West, which set the narratives of liberation struggles across the world that painted rebels as “communists” or “terrorists,” and produced films depicting indigenous peoples as villains and white police or federal agents as heroes;
• and the propaganda organized through intelligence institutions and disseminated through media, which included efforts by the US Information Agency to establish media institutions that spread anti-socialist propaganda and prevented the rise of independent national media.

These mechanisms essentially created a de facto colonial relationship between the newly independent countries and their colonizing country, but largely this relationship became one between the Global North (with the US at the helm) and the Global South. Neocolonialism can therefore be understood as an all-encompassing system that shaped the conditions of countries emerging from formal colonization and those already nominally independent (e.g. Latin America), and maintained the global order established by the US and West.

In large part, the focus on the economic dimension in neocolonialism stems from what Nkrumah and others observed about the global capitalist system. Despite having extraordinary wealth in natural resources, many African countries remained poor, those resources were extracted and exported to the West, along with the profits from those resources. African countries had achieved political independence but remained trapped in the same economically exploitative relationship that characterized colonialism. This critique came at a time when the right to self-determination was being expanded to the newly independent countries. While the right was first employed to argue in favor of political independence of the colonized countries, it came to be expanded to the right of countries to determine their own economic development free from the interference of their colonial masters, and the global capitalist system (Getachew 2018). Nkrumah and others believed that Africa’s development should not follow the same path as Europe and the US, laissez-faire economics, but should be directed through comprehensive socialist planning (Whyte 2019). As such, the “struggle against neocolonialism took the form of new demands for economic rights, including rights to development and ‘Permanent Sovereignty Over Natural Resources’” (Whyte 2019, 69).

Today, the mechanisms Nkrumah described and whether they comprise neocolonialism could be debated, as well as his belief that neocolonialism represented the “last hideous gasp” of imperialism (253). Because the international economic system today has adapted to the changes following the end of formal colonialism, the end of the Bretton Woods system, and the rise of neoliberalism, it will be necessary to update our understanding of neocolonialism under these conditions Still, it should not be a surprising fact that the same issues he detailed in his 1965 book are evident in the international system today, from disputes over trade conditions at the World Trade Organization that favor Western countries, to the intrusion of Western military and intelligence forces across the globe. Attending to how neoliberalism has shaped neocolonial relations of power will reveal new insights about the neocolonialism Nkrumah and others developed and its implications for the Global South. In that regard, the term still bears significant relevance to the study of political economy and beyond.

(See Coloniality of Power, Empire, Geopolitics, Underdevelopment) 

Bibliography

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–. 1965: https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/nkrumah/neo-colonialism/

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