Informal Imperialism in Europe and the Ottoman Empire

‘Informal colonialism’ and ‘informal imperialism’ are relatively common

terms in the specialized literature. The term ‘informal colonialism’ was

coined—or at least sanctioned—by C. R. Fay (1940: (vol. 2) 399) meaning a

situation in which a powerful nation manages to establish dominant control

in a territory over which it does not have sovereignty. The term was popularized

by the economic historians John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson

(1953), who applied it to study informal British imperial expansion over

portions of Africa. The diVerence between informal and formal colonialism is

easy to establish: in the Wrst instance, complete eVective control is unfeasible,

mainly due to the impossibility of applying direct military and political force

in countries that, in fact, are politically independent. They have their own

laws, make decisions on when and where to open museums and how to

educate their own citizens.