<P> Decolonization (American English) or decolonisation (British English) is the undoing of colonialism: where a nation establishes and maintains its domination over one or more other territories . The term refers particularly to the dismantlement, in the years after World War II, of the colonial empires established prior to World War I throughout the world . However, decolonization not only refers to the complete "removal of the domination of non-indigenous forces" within the geographical space and different institutions of the colonized, but it also refers to the intellectual decolonization from the colonizers' ideas that made the colonized feel inferior . </P> <P> The United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization has stated that in the process of decolonization there is no alternative to the colonizer but to allow a process of self - determination, but in practice decolonization may involve either nonviolent revolution or national liberation wars by pro-independence groups . It may be intramural or involve the intervention of foreign powers acting individually or through international bodies such as the United Nations . Although examples of decolonization can be found as early as the writings of Thucydides, there have been several particularly active periods of decolonization in modern times . These include the breakup of the Spanish Empire in the 19th century; of the German, Austro - Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires following World War I; of the British, French, Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese, Belgian and Italian colonial empires following World War II; and of the Soviet Union (successor to the Russian Empire) in 1991 . </P>

It can be said of decolonization after w.w. ii that it