From TheBestLinks.com
Banana republic (or Bananaland) is a pejorative term for describing a country which has a government imposed upon it by foreign power in a cynical, non-democratic way, and which serves as a form of colony providing some sort of raw natural resources (for example, bananas) in exchange for military support.
The United States government (in particular the Central Intelligence Agency) is often accused of maintaining other countries as "banana republics," in Central America, for example, whence the term came.
Traditionally, the controlling foreign power need not be a state; a corporation such as the United Fruit Company can play the role. The imposition of such an arrangement can be appreciated in a poem by Pablo Neruda, titled "La United Fruit Co." in Spanish.
The term has come to be used to describe a generally unstable or "backwards" dictatorial regime or a country where fraudulent elections are regularly held.
In literature
San Theodoros and Nuevo Rico are fictional South American banana republics in the world of Tintin that display all the stereotypes one might expect of such countries. For instance, San Theodoros is constantly limping from revolution to revolution (often fueled by outside agents); and when Tintin first lands in San Theodoros, he immediately gets bestowed the rank of colonel in the army, leading to a protest of one of the many other colonels, because there are only ten corporals in the army.
Joseph Conrad's 1904 novel Nostromo is set in Costaguana, another fictional South American banana republic, which is also heavily prone to revolution. Much political power is held by a foreign Silver mining company.
es:República bananera
de:Bananenrepublik
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