Sub-imperialism

US imperial dominance, BRICS sub-imperialism and unequal ecological exchange

10 January 2024 - by Patrick Bond, Federico Fuentes

Patrick Bond is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg, as well as a political economist, political ecologist and scholar of social mobilisation. He is the author of BRICS: An Anti-Capitalist Critique and (...)
Samir Amin’s diagnosis of worst-case racial capitalism

11 November 2023 - by Patrick Bond

Abstract: Samir Amin’s critiques of both apartheid-era and post-apartheid political economy contributed to his scathing view of the crucial ‘semi-peripheral’ layer of the world system, a perspective typically ignored in binary formulations of (...)
BRICS+ emerge from Johannesburg, humbled as sub- (not anti- or inter-) imperialists

30 August 2023 - by Patrick Bond

However, the notable intensity within the new membership of fossil-addicted economies, of tyrannies and of human rights violations – civil, socio-economic and environmental – amplifies the existing group’s dangers. Still, the other 17 countries (...)
French fossil imperialism, South African subimperialism and anti-imperial resistance

15 December 2022 - by Patrick Bond

Abstract As protest against TotalEnergies stretching from South Africa’s Cape coastline to eastern Uganda rises, the main Big Oil target of African climate activists is facing an historic choice. It can continue long-standing patterns of (...)
The G7 prepares a divide-and-conquer trap, as BRICS countries spall, fall and try to reconstitute

24 June 2022 - by Patrick Bond

On Friday June 24, a hasty one-day virtual summit of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa will occur, hosted by Xi Jinping. The date is important because on Monday June 26, two of the three intrinsically pro-Western leaders from the bloc – (...)
Global North ‘climate reparations’ to prevent Southern fossil-fuel conflict

19 August 2021 - by Patrick Bond

Abstract The climate crisis is amplified by socio-political and economic injustices everywhere but in 2021, perhaps nowhere as acutely as northern Mozambique. There, the Cabo Delgado province is a site for military intervention against Islamic (...)