Imperialism

Imperialism—a relationship between societies that leads to the economic, political, and social systems of subordinated societies being oriented toward serving the interests of another—has played a fundamental role in the formation of a single global economy and the modern state system. Imperialism has acquired an indelibly economic connotation, but it has been a fundamental concept in the explanation of military, racial, cultural, linguistic, legal, and even ecological hierarchies in the modern world. As such, imperialism is now widely seen as having an almost completely negative connotation, although it was once as likely to be considered a neutral or even positive term denoting a progressive and enlightening force in history.

The meaning attached to the word imperialism has changed over time. The widespread use of the word mostly dates from the later 19th century, in reference to the competitive carving up of the world into formal and informal spheres of influence by European powers, the United States, and Japan. In this context, it was used almost interchangeably with colonialism. More recently, imperialism is more precisely distinguished from colonialism. Whereas colonialism is associated with population transfer from a metropolis to a colony, and often with the formal transfer of political authority to a colonial power, imperialism refers also to a more diffuse and indirect form of relations by which one community comes to dominate another. By this definition, imperialism is a broader category of which colonialism and empire are manifestations.

Since the early 20th century, imperialism became an important concept in Marxist analyses of capitalism. It is primarily from this heritage that the term has acquired both an economic and a normatively negative connotation. Imperialism remains a controversial but deeply embedded concept in global studies. It is often enlisted as a cause or as an outcome of numerous ongoing global processes, although its precise nature is still contested. For some critical or radical scholars, imperialism is seen as closely related to, and even synonymous with, capitalism and globalization. This entry gives a brief historical overview, followed by the main theoretical accounts of imperialism.