Description
This paper develops the concept of algorithmic colonialism as a new form of international power through which data extraction, infrastructural dependency, narrative control, behavioural governance, and identity capture reshape relations between the Global North and the Global South. Existing debates on digital colonialism often focus on platform dependency, surveillance capitalism, or ownership of data. This paper extends that debate by arguing that the deepest form of algorithmic power is not only the extraction of information, but the external structuring of human identity, social belonging, political imagination, and decision-making.
The paper introduces a Third Generation International Relations framework to explain how global power is moving from territorial and industrial domination toward symbolic-intelligent domination. In this shift, artificial intelligence, platform infrastructures, predictive systems, and automated governance reproduce inequality, dependency, and epistemic hierarchy.
By connecting AI governance, postcolonial theory, international political economy, and human agency, the paper asks how vulnerable societies can resist algorithmic capture without rejecting technological development. It proposes an anti-capture framework based on data sovereignty, infrastructural autonomy, narrative plurality, behavioural accountability, and protection of human identity.