Semi-colony

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Semi-colony" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Part of a series about
Imperialism studies
Theories Dependency theory Intercommunalism Neo-Gramscianism Neocolonialism Social imperialism Super-imperialism Three Worlds Theory Ultra-imperialism World-systems theory
Concepts Ecologically unequal exchange North–South model Unequal exchange Superprofit Uneven and combined development
People Samir Amin Giovanni Arrighi Paul A. Baran Charles Bettelheim Ľuboš Blaha Nikolai Bukharin Arghiri Emmanuel John Bellamy Foster Andre Gunder Frank Michael Hardt Rudolf Hilferding Peter Gowan J. A. Hobson Vladimir Lenin Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev Li Minqi Rosa Luxemburg Antonio Negri Kwame Nkrumah Huey P. Newton Walter Rodney Paul Sweezy Leon Trotsky Immanuel Wallerstein
Works The Accumulation of Capital Empire How Europe Underdeveloped Africa Imperialism Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism Monopoly Capital Multitude Naked Imperialism
Related Banana republic Economic development Illicit financial flows Global North and Global South Lumpenbourgeoisie Neo-Marxism Prebisch–Singer hypothesis Primitive accumulation of capital Third worldism
Category
v t e

Part of a series on the
Marxian critique of political economy
Concepts Capitalist mode of production Capital Commodity Concrete and abstract labour Critique of political economy Means of production Mode of production Productive forces Relations of production Socially necessary labour time Socialization Wage labour Wage slavery Wertkritik Wertabspaltungskritik Value-form
Topics Crisis theory Imperialism Historical materialism Technological unemployment Falling profit-rate tendency
Works Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 Wage Labour and Capital A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Grundrisse Das Kapital Theories of Surplus Value Value, Price and Profit
People Karl Marx Friedrich Engels Paul Lafargue Roman Rosdolsky Étienne Balibar Robert Kurz Mark Fisher Claus Peter Ortlieb Geoff Pilling Moishe Postone NML: Hans-Georg Backhaus Helmut Reichelt Hans-Jürgen Krahl
Journals Monthly Review New School Economic Review Crisis and Critique Historical Materialism Socialist register Capital & Class
Related topics Critique of political economy Economics Marxist sociology
Socialism portal
v t e

In Marxist theory, a semi-colony is a country which is officially recognized as a politically independent state and as a sovereign nation, but which is in reality dependent and/or dominated by an imperialist country (or, in some cases, several imperialist countries).^[1]

This domination could take different forms:

• economic - the supply of capital, technology and/or essential imported goods; and foreign control over strategic assets, industrial sectors and/or foreign trade.
• political - direct intervention by the imperialist country in the political affairs of the semi-colony to secure client-regimes.
• military - the presence or control exercised by foreign troops, or foreign surveillance.
• cultural/ideological - the imposition of a foreign culture or foreign religion on the local population through the media, education and foreign consumer products.
• technological - the dependence on foreign technology, or the technological domination by a foreign country.
• demographic - the immigration into the semi-colony of large numbers of settlers from imperialist nations (or from other continents), which dominate the indigenous population of the semi-colony, and the imposition of controls over inward and outward migration.

The term "semi-colony" is often used interchangeably with "neo-colony". The term "neo-colony" usually refers to a country which originally was a colony but later became a formally sovereign country, although de facto it remained dominated by another country. In this case, there exists a "new" type of (informal) colonialism replacing the old colonialism, despite formal independence.^[2] A colony in this sense could have "semi-colonial" status after it formerly obtained sovereign political independence while it remained in many important respects dependent on other countries. Many semi-colonies in Africa, Asia and Latin America are, according to some analysts, still dominated by the imperialist countries which once colonised them, or by other imperialist powers.^[3]

The term "semi-colony" is also used for countries which, although they officially never became full-scale colonies or were not colonized on a very large scale, were nevertheless dominated by and/or dependent on other (imperialist) countries.^[4] In this case, there can exist national characteristics analogous to colonial dependence and domination alongside a prior tradition of national sovereignty or political independence.^[5] Countries without colonial past could nevertheless be dominated by a superpower such as the United States, or were dominated by the Soviet Union (see American imperialism, Soviet empire and Russian imperialism). A semi-colonial status is sometimes ascribed to a country, simply because it lacked much capitalist industrial development in its economy, which made the country dependent on other (industrialized) countries for importing modern technology, modern consumer goods and knowledge.

Some semi-colonies were originally "settler colonies" attracting large numbers of foreign immigrants,^[6] while in other semi-colonies, the indigenous population always remained the vast majority of the population (see also dominant minority).^[7]

There have been many different types, histories and gradations of colonization, and consequently also many different types, histories and gradations of decolonization.^[8] Colonization and decolonization processes in different places usually had both some common characteristics and some unique characteristics. Some analysts suggest that the general colonization and decolonization process can be periodized as a sequence of common "phases" or "stages". Others argue that there is not really any substantive evidence for a universal sequence of events.^[9]

In many cases, there is no consensus or broad agreement among historians and social scientists about how exactly the terms "colony", "neo-colony" or "semi-colony" should be applied to a given country.^[10] To some extent, the descriptions can remain controversial or contested.^[11]