This is viewed as a better alternative to colonialism, because formal colonies are expensive. Hegemony exists when one core power controls production, commerce, and financial and political leadership. It owns the large share of world production. Its currency is universal, and its primate city is the financial center of the world. Such periods are characterized by peace and universal ideologies such as free trade.
Hegemonic power relies on economic mechanisms to extract surplus value from the periphery.
Hegemons fall because rival powers can focus on capital accumulation, while the hegemon is forced to spend its wealth maintaining political and military organization. Without a dominant power, conflicts increase. The historical geographer Donald Meinig described four types of colonial landscapes. In the Latin American case, extensive colonial influences date back further than in the rest of the areas. Spanish and Portuguese colonialism in the Americas is associated with decimation of indigenous populations, but, in the Spanish case in particular, there was also considerable intermarriage with indigenous peoples.