Internal Colonialism Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Internal colonialism is a relationship between urban/majority populations and rural/minority populations. This asymmetric system of power parallels the dependency theory of international relations but directs this relationship to describe domestic development. Like other formulations of the core periphery relationship in dependency theory, strong actors in the capital-rich center have power over the impoverished majority whom it oppresses at the political, economic, and often geographic fringes of the state. These urban/metropolitan centers develop industry, become centers of capital, and dominate peasant farmers and miners through the economy. Urban elites control farmers and other preindustrial workers through the capitalist–free market system. Rural populations within the state provide raw materials and foodstuffs to support these cities and are economically repressed by the urban center.

Like other types of colonialism, internal colonialism benefits some population at the expense of another. Because capitalist centers produce and sell secondary and tertiary-sector goods, and because there are many more impoverished farmers and miners than wealthy industrialists, the rural populations remain permanently poor. Capitalist accumulation at the metropole increases at the expense of economies at the periphery. Peripheral populations receive low capital investments and continue agricultural economies and other primary-sector enterprises to feed the industrial center. Such a drain from these local communities has lasting economic and environmental effects. The colonial economy destroys existing trade relationships and depletes local capital but also may destroy local natural resources.

While the idea of internal colonialism is used to describe capitalist accumulation in international relations theory, other disciplines discuss race relations using the internal colonialism model. Famous examples of city centers’ expanding and prospering from the work of the periphery are the British at the expense of the Scots and the white urban elite of many former colonies at the expense of indigenous populations in North America, South America, and Africa. Sociologists also point to the U.S. white–African American relationship as an example of internal colonialism. In this sociological literature, elites exploit workers either by maintaining an established system of exploitation or by structuring social arrangements to strategically impoverish or exclude groups of people. Excluded groups may be defined by religion, ethnicity, or language.

However defined, elites prevent the minority group from gaining powerful or prestigious positions and enforce exploitative socioeconomic systems.

Groups in the metropole/socioeconomic center are asymmetrically stronger and have more influence on cultural, religious, and language state policies. Populations with a greater access to the state may pursue policies to homogenize the rest of the population, either deliberately or accidentally. Social policies, such as education and language training, may institutionalize the preferences of one ethnic, linguistic, or religious group and suppress those of others. Peripheral groups may be dismissed as uncivilized or antiquated. The marginalized population is disadvantaged because the social system is built to make them disadvantaged but also because the cultural roots of the system are alien to them and they are forced to adapt. Such social structures may be intuitive to the groups that create them but completely foreign to some of the communities on whom the system is applied. Internal colonialism is said to create mentalities of fatalism and resignation, similar to those dependency theory creates in its periphery. In this way, internal colonialists control the periphery both materially and psychologically.

There are several problems with internal colonialism as an explanation of social systems. First, the internal colonialism model may describe economic patterns but is less potent as a method of explanation. Internal colonialism is unable to specify particular actors and their specific motives. While it is clear that people at the center benefit from this system of trade, it is unclear what defines a state’s center, how a population becomes the center, and by what method the center unites as a coherent actor against the peripheral population. Also, the model is unable to describe differences between regions: if there are only center and peripheral areas, why do some peripheral areas experience the same benefits as urban areas? Furthermore, the history of advanced industrial and postindustrial states shows that there is (1) intensive capital investment in the hinterland to efficiently produce goods and (2) a steady flow of migrants to urban centers. Shifting economies and populations complicate the model of internal colonialism. Last, the argument of internal colonialism is laden with normative commitments.

Bibliography:

Bonilla, Frank, and Robert H. Girling, eds. Structures of Dependency. Stanford, Calif.: Institute for Policy Studies, 1973.
Casanova, Pablo Gonzalez. “Internal Colonialism and National Development.” Studies in Comparative International Development 1, no. 4 (1965): 27–37.
Hechter, Michael. Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536–1966. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.
Hind, Robert J. “The Internal Colonial Concept.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 26, no. 3 (1984): 543–568.
Lyson,Thomas, and William W. Falk, eds. Forgotten Places: Uneven Development in Rural America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993.

This example Internal Colonialism Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.