Imperialism

Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultural imperialism). Imperialism focuses on establishing or maintaining hegemony and a more formal empire.

While related to the concept of colonialism, imperialism is a distinct concept that can apply to other forms of expansion and many forms of government.

The word imperialism was derived from the Latin word imperium, which means 'to command', 'to be sovereign', or simply 'to rule'. It was coined in the 19th century to decry Napoleon III's despotic militarism and his attempts at obtaining political support through foreign military interventions. The term became common in the current sense in Great Britain during the 1870s; by the 1880s it was used with a positive connotation. By the end of the 19th century, the term was used to describe the behavior of empires at all times and places. Hannah Arendt and Joseph Schumpeter defined imperialism as expansion for the sake of expansion.

"Imperialism" was and is mainly used to refer to Western and Japanese political and economic dominance, especially in Asia and Africa, in the 19th and 20th centuries. Its precise meaning continues to be debated by scholars. Some writers, such as Edward Said, use the term more broadly to describe any system of domination and subordination organized around an imperial core and a periphery. This definition encompasses both nominal empires and neocolonialism. Imperialism has also been identified in newer phenomena like space development and its governing context.

The term "imperialism" is often conflated with "colonialism"; however, many scholars have argued that each has its own distinct definition. Imperialism and colonialism have been used in order to describe one's influence upon a person or group of people. Robert Young writes that imperialism operates from the centre as a state policy and is developed for ideological as well as financial reasons, while colonialism is simply the development for settlement or commercial intentions; however, colonialism still includes invasion. Colonialism in modern usage also tends to imply a degree of geographic separation between the colony and the imperial power. Particularly, Edward Said distinguishes between imperialism and colonialism by stating: "imperialism involved 'the practice, the theory and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory', while colonialism refers to the 'implanting of settlements on a distant territory.'" Contiguous land empires such as the Russian, Chinese or Ottoman have traditionally been excluded from discussions of colonialism, though this is beginning to change, since it is accepted that they also sent populations into the territories they ruled.

Imperialism and colonialism both dictate the political and economic advantage over a land and the indigenous populations they control, yet scholars sometimes find it difficult to illustrate the difference between the two. Although imperialism and colonialism focus on the suppression of another, if colonialism refers to the process of a country taking physical control of another, imperialism refers to the political and monetary dominance, either formally or informally. Colonialism is seen to be the architect deciding how to start dominating areas and then imperialism can be seen as creating the idea behind conquest cooperating with colonialism. Colonialism is when the imperial nation begins a conquest over an area and then eventually is able to rule over the areas the previous nation had controlled. Colonialism's core meaning is the exploitation of the valuable assets and supplies of the nation that was conquered and the conquering nation then gaining the benefits from the spoils of the war. The meaning of imperialism is to create an empire, by conquering the other state's lands and therefore increasing its own dominance. Colonialism is the builder and preserver of the colonial possessions in an area by a population coming from a foreign region. Colonialism can completely change the existing social structure, physical structure, and economics of an area; it is not unusual that the characteristics of the conquering peoples are inherited by the conquered indigenous populations.

The Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin suggested that "imperialism was the highest form of capitalism", claiming that "imperialism developed after colonialism, and was distinguished from colonialism by monopoly capitalism".

Imperialism has been present and prominent since the beginning of history, and its most intensive phase occurred in the Axial Age. But the concept of the Age of Imperialism refers to the period pre-dating World War I. While the end of the period is commonly fixed in 1914, the date of the beginning varies between 1760 and 1870. The latter date makes the Age of Imperialism identical with the New Imperialism. According to Historians Daniel Hedinger and Nadin Heé, the widespread use of the term "Age of Empire" for this specific period reflects a Eurocentric bias in terms of time.