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 on and/or dominated by another (imperialist) country (or, in some cases, several imperialist countries or corporations).Ronaldo Munck, "Dependency and imperialism in Latin America: new horizons", in: Ronald H. Chilcote (ed.), The Political Economy of Imperialism. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. "Belgian financial domination of the Congo, because of the close connections of Belgian banking institutions with such international houses as Rothschild, Lazard Frères, and Schroder in their turn linked with the Morgan and Rockefeller groups, was shared with British, French and American finance." Kwame Nkrumah, Neo-colonialism: the last stage of imperialism. London: Thomas Nelson Sons, 1965, p. 40. A country could have been independent before it became a semi-colony, and it could have gained full independence after it had been a semi-colony. Forms of dependence and domination The dependence or domination of a semi-colony could take different forms: economic - foreign control over the supply of capital, technology and/or essential imported goods; and foreign control over strategic assets, industrial sectors and/or foreign trade. political - legal agreements and contracts defining government policy, or the 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 other countries, which dominate the indigenous population of the semi-colony; the expulsion or killing of indigenous people; and/or the imposition of controls over inward and outward migration.
Semi-colony and neo-colony
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 still remained dominated by another country. In this case, there exists a "new" type of (informal) colonialism replacing the old colonialism, despite formal independence.Jack Woddis, An introduction to neo-colonialism. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1967. 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.For example, Ronaldo Munck, "Dependency and imperialism in Latin America: new horizons", in: Ronald H. Chilcote (ed.), The Political Economy of Imperialism. London: Bloomsbury, 2000; Bruce Berman, Control & Crisis in Colonial Kenya: The Dialectic of Domination. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1990. The suggestion is often that there is the "formality" of sovereignty, but not real sovereignty. A semi-colony could be a "partly colonized country" or a "partly decolonized" country.
According to Michael Barratt Brown,
Gradations of colonization 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.Taoyu Yang, "Redefining Semi-Colonialism: A Historiographical Essay on British Colonial Presence in China". Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, volume 20, issue 3, 2019; Bruce Berman, Control & Crisis in Colonial Kenya: The Dialectic of Domination. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1990. In this case, there can exist national characteristics analogous to colonial dependence and domination alongside a prior tradition of national sovereignty or political independence (cf. Persia, China, Thailand, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Ethiopia in the 19th century and early 20th centuryJohn Scott, A Dictionary of Sociology, 4th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 933.). 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,David Bedggood, "New Zealand's Semi-Colonial Development: A Marxist View". Journal of Sociology, volume 14, issue 3, 1978. while in other semi-colonies, the indigenous population always remained the vast majority of the population (see also dominant minority).Donald Denoon, Settler Capitalism: The Dynamics of Dependent Development in the Southern Hemisphere. Oxford University Press, 1983; Sai Englert, Settler Colonialism: An Introduction. London: Pluto, 2022.
There have been many different types, histories and gradations of colonization, and consequently also many different types, histories and gradations of decolonization.Stanley L. Engerman & Kenneth L. Sokoloff, Colonialism, inequality, and long-run paths of development. Cambridge, MA : National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005. 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".David Johnson, “Settler colonialism can’t fully explain our world”. Catalyst (New York), Jacobin Foundation, 3 september 2023. Others argue that there is not really any substantive evidence for a universal sequence of events; each country has its own developmental path, influenced by national peculiarities and its position in the world capitalist order (see also uneven and combined development).Michael Löwy, The politics of uneven and combined development. London: Verso, 1987.
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 dependent country.For example, Prabhakar Singh, "Of International Law, Semi-colonial Thailand, and Imperial Ghosts". Asian Journal of International Law, Vol.9, No. 1, 2018, pp. 1-29. To some extent, the descriptions can remain controversial or contested. Ronald H. Chilcote, Imperialism: Theoretical Directions. Humanities Press, 2000; Ronald H. Chilcote (ed.), The Political Economy of Imperialism. London: Bloomsbury, 2000.
Client relationship
The relationship between the semi-colony and the country (or countries) dominating it is said to benefit: the position of semi-colonial elite or ruling class (which serves both its own interest and the interests of foreign investors and creditors). the imperialist country or its multinational corporations, which obtain profits and cheap resources from their investments in the semi-colony. employees in the "advanced" foreign-owned industrial sectors within the semi-colony, which often offer better wages and conditions to skilled industrial workers, as compared to labourers and farmers working on the land. the population of the dominating country, because they can buy cheap imported goods and services produced in the semi-colony.
The semi-colonial predicament however mainly disadvantages the majority of the working population in the semi-colony, insofar as balanced economic development in the semi-colony is impossible - that is, only those industries and institutions are developed in the semi-colony which mainly benefit foreign investors, or which mainly benefit/support the export trade (usually extractive mineral and foodstuff industries).*Ronald H. Chilcote, Dependency and Marxism: Toward a Resolution of the Debate.
Social structures, ethnic composition and political trajectories The class structure of a "typical" or "classical" semi-colony features a large mass of peasants and unemployed, a relatively small urban working class and middle class, a class of landowners, and an urban comprador bourgeoisie. However, a variety of different class structures, ethnic compositions and complex political trajectoriesJames Minahan, Encyclopedia of the stateless nations: ethnic and national groups around the world (4 vols.). Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002. are possible in semi-colonial countries. For example,
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the British colony of New Zealand (since 1907 a dominion of the British Empire) engaged in imperialist interventions and annexations in the Pacific.Nicholas Hoare, New Zealand's ‘Critics of Empire’: Domestic Opposition to New Zealand's Pacific Empire, 1883-1948. Masters Thesis, Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), 2014. Today, New Zealand is a major aid donor in the South Pacific, and a large number of Pacific Islanders now live in New Zealand.
In what is now Israel, a new colonial settler state arose out of a Jewish insurgency against British rule in Mandatory Palestine during the late 1940s, as well as the 1948 Palestine war against the Palestinians; the state of Israel continues to expand its territory via annexations and depends heavily on military, economic and political support from the federal government of the United States, as well as from private U.S. investors/donors.Maxime Rodinson, Israel: a colonial-settler state?. New York: Monad Press, 1973. In the American Revolutionary War, armed forces commanded by George Washington engaged in eight years of conflict with the British which ultimately led to Britain recognizing the sovereign independence of the United States. At the same time, the American government mostly denied the sovereignty of American Indians over their ancestral lands, and not infrequently tried to exterminate the Indians, and/or relocate them to reservations set aside for Indians. It was characteristic of American political thinking, that sovereignty was not necessarily regarded as a good thing or as a bad thing, and that a people or a nation was not automatically entitled to sovereignty and territory because they lived somewhere, and had lived there for a long time. It all depended on the interests that were at stake, what the balance of power happened to be, and what was regarded as a "progressive" policy (see also: United States involvement in regime change and Foreign interventions by the United States).
Origins of the term In his pamphlet on imperialism, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), V.I. Lenin wrote: