Neocolonialism, neo-colonialism or neo-imperialism is the practice of using capitalism, globalization and cultural imperialism to influence a developing country in lieu of direct military control (imperialism) or indirect political control (hegemony). It was coined by Kwame Nkrumah in the context of African countries undergoing decolonization in the 1960s. Neo-colonialism is also discussed in the works of Western thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre (Colonialism and Neo-colonialism, 1964) and Noam Chomsky (The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, 1979). Some neocolonial ideas, like charter cities, are popular among economists.
Neocolonialism labels European countries' continued economic and cultural relationships with their former colonies, African countries that had been liberated in the aftermath of Second World War. Kwame Nkrumah, former president of Ghana (1960–66), coined the term, which appeared in the 1963 preamble of the Organization of African Unity Charter, and was the title of his 1965 book Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism (1965). Nkrumah theoretically developed and extended to the post–War 20th century the socio-economic and political arguments presented by Lenin in the pamphlet Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917). The pamphlet frames 19th-century imperialism as the logical extension of geopolitical power, to meet the financial investment needs of the political economy of capitalism. In Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah wrote: