Course Title: Issues in

Development Economics
Course Code:ECN 306
Dr Monica A. Orisadare
Department of Economics
OAU, IlE-Ife
 TOPIC 6
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IMPERIALISM AND
UNDERDEVELOPMENT
Objectives
• Identify the relationship between
underdevelopment and imperialism

• Explain the concept of Neo-colonialism

• Relate with the dependency theory

• State the Impact of imperialism on developing

nations
Introduction
• The developed countries of the Northern
hemisphere of the world especially Western Europe
and the United States of America (USA) have been at
the gaining end of the parasitic and asymmetrical
relationship between the north and the improvised
south, this asymmetric relationship is what is known
as imperialism.

• Imperialism has been the bane of many developing

countries especially Africa, Asia and Latin America
thus, while a part of the world builds empires both
home and abroad, another part continually spirals
down the drain of poverty, peril, stagnation,
improvishment and underdevelopment.
IMPERIALISM AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT
Introduction Cont’
• The era of colonialism is often placed in the
past , but for many many colonised countries, its
effects are ongoing.

• Formal imperialism, with direct control of

colonies around, and the ability to implement
imperial policy from the “mother countries”

• Imperialism has been experienced as global

dominance by colonised countries
Introduction Cont’
• Empires exist to serve same basic functions which
include-

• Representing the extension of one people’s control

over another

• The extension of one state’s hegemony over other

territory

• The opportunity to extract raw materials cheaply

without concern for local costs and

• The chance to extend values (religious, moral, cultural,

Relationship between Underdevelopment and
Imperialism
• Imperialism is a dialectical relationship among a party
(usually states/nations) in which there is equilibrium in
the gains and losses, hence what counts as loss for one
party becomes gain for the other.

• The dialectical relationship started with the

mercantilist epoch around the middle of the 16th
century and continued till the end of the 19th century.

• The era witnessed numerous economic activities that

were of great benefits to only the western capitalist
countries.
• The era of colonialism is often placed in the past, but for
many colonised countries, its effects are ongoing.

• The Western imperial powers have devised so many means

to maintain such asymmetrical relationship at all cost even
post colonial.

• It is the employment of these methods that some scholars

refer to as Neo-colonialism, post colonialism and
colonialism-in- continuum.

Neo-colonialism
• Neocolonialism, neo-colonialism, or neo-imperialism is the
practice of using capitalism, globalisation and cultural
imperialism to influence a developing country instead of the
previous colonial methods of direct military control or
Dependency Theory
• The Dependency Theory arose out of the quest by Latin
America and African scholars (Paul Baran, Walter Rodney,
Claude Ake, Kwame Nkruma etc) to explain the reason for the
underdevelopment of third world countries and possibly proffer
solutions to the problem.

• These scholars contend that development and

underdevelopment are two different sides of a universal
historical process.

• To this extent, western capitalist countries developed in the

process of under developing the present day underdeveloped
nations.

• This formed the crux of Walter Rodney’s argument in his book

Impact of Imperialism on Developing
Countries
• Imperialism has been a major factor in shaping the modern
world. It had more negative effects in the modern world today
than positive effects.

• The term "imperialism" carries with it many (perhaps rightfully

attributed) negative connotations:

• Some of the activities of imperialism included the slave trade

and free trade, colonial conquests and the annexature of the
present day third world, all of which had economic motives.

• This in turn paved the way for the incorporation of the

economies of these overseas into what scholars like Ake (1985)
termed the mainstream of world capitalism. The process had
Impact of Imperialism on Developing Countries
Cont’
Transfer of Economic Wealth
• First, it led to one sided transfer of economic wealth from
the overseas countries to the colonizing countries, thereby
resulting in capital accumulation in the later, and the
depletion of economic surplus generated in the former

• International division of labor

Secondly, it promoted complementarity and dependency such
that countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America became the
producers of primary products for the industries in the
advanced industrialist west and importers of manufactured
goods.
This led to an international division of labour skewed
advantageously in favor of the west and against the
Impact of Imperialism on Developing
Countries Cont’
Decimation of Local Manufacturing Industries
• Thirdly, it resulted into the flooding of the
market of the colonized territories with foreign
goods at cheaper rates
• resulting in the withering away of local
industries that were previously producing the
goods.
Impact of Imperialism on Developing
Countries Cont’
Blockage of Technology
• This takes a number of forms: it could mean actual technological
retardation or arrest in the underdeveloped countries; or it
could mean simply the blockage of the movement of technology
from the metropolitan to the colonial economy.

• Examples of the failure to allow the transfer of whatever

technology has developed in Europe itself to the Third World can
be taken at random.

• Particularly in the more recent epoch, we have had in Africa

striking instances of the refusal of the metropolitan
capitalist/imperialist countries to allow the transfer of
technology in certain critical areas which would pose a threat to
their own exploitation and domination.
Impact of Imperialism on Developing
Countries Cont’
• Due to imperialism, some aspect of life such as
education, transportation and medicine
improved in Africa.

• Many Africans however strayed from their

tribal beliefs and began adopting western
beliefs, leading to internal conflict.
Competition increased and conflict grew
between imperial powers.
Recap
• Relationship between underdevelopment and
imperialism

• The concept of Neo-colonialism

• The dependency theory

• The Impact of imperialism on developing

nations
Assignment
• In what ways did imperialism contributed to
the underdevelopment of developing
countries?

• What is Neo-colonialism?

• What is the postulate of the dependency

theory on the underdevelopment of third
world countries?
• Thank You