In 1965, Kwame Nkrumah, a political scientist and the president of Ghana, employed the word neocolonialism for this new era: “The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic and thus its political policy is directed from outside.”

DEFINE: Nkrumah's 1965 definition of neocolonialism: formal independence with external control of economic and political policy. XREF: Connects to postcolonial theory and modern debates about economic dependence, IMF conditionality, and corporate influence in developing nations.

Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Intro…, loc. 181