Meanings
- derogatoryuncountablegovernmentA political ideology that uses socialist rhetoric but engages in imperialist actions.
- uncountablegovernmentThe governmental use of imperialism to preserve the domestic social status quo.
1 more example
Moreover, industrial capitalism not only produced a new form of economic integration between metropolitan and colonial societies, it also stimulated the emergence of what is known as social imperialism—that is, the projection overseas of the social discontents and dislocations engendered by industrialization at home. In Japan’s case, social imperialism operated both to diffuse radical demands of factory workers and to deflect class tensions in a rural economy battered by the effects of industrialization.
1998, Louise Young, chapter 1, in Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism, Berkeley: University of California Press, published 1999, →ISBN, →OCLC, pages 12–3
Cite this entry
social imperialism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/social%20imperialism
“social imperialism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/social%20imperialism. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “social imperialism,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/social%20imperialism.
Source: social imperialism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.