Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century: A Global Tripartite System

Is imperialism dead? While economists on the Right would readily answer in the affirmative, some even on the Left, like Hardt and Negri, would agree that it is indeed. To be sure, for the latter, global hegemony has taken a different shape, which they call ‘Empire’. But is imperialism, as understood in the classical sense, dead indeed? In varied frameworks of imperialism—world systems, dependency, unequal interdependence—the world has been theorised as constitutive of two parts: capitalist core (global North) and pre/semi-capitalist periphery (global South). This neat classification has been smudged by the emergence of China from the global South as a major economic player in the global economy. We argue its emergence, far from weakening imperialism, is a key factor in explaining today’s imperialism. Imperialism of the twenty-first century constitutes of three, not two, parts—capitalist core, periphery’s core, and periphery’s periphery. JEL Codes: F54; F60