social imperialism

social imperialism (uncountable)

1. (politics, derogatory) A political ideology that uses socialist rhetoric but engages in imperialist actions.
2. (politics) The governmental use of imperialism to preserve the domestic social status quo.
   • 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:

     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.