THE REVOLT AGAINST THE WEST

The historical change from positive to negative sovereignty is most specifically and concretely evident in European political disengagement from Asia, Africa, and Oceania. As indicated in the last chapter, the right to independence and the corresponding duty to decolonize was installed as an international categorical imperative following the second world war and by 1960 it was the unchallenged and unchallengeable declaration of the United Nations. There is no better place to look for changing norms and assumptions about sovereign statehood, therefore, than in the sphere of decolonization. It is one of the momentous international reversals of the twentieth century whose consequences – material and moral, intended and unintended – continue to reverberate and will for decades to come. We live in a post-colonial world which has undoubted significance for international relations. The termination of colonialism has necessitated and called into existence alternative international arrangements and practices to deal with the special circumstances and problems of post colonial states, as we shall see in chapters 5 and 6.

Decolonization is often understood as a successful revolt against the West and there is evidence to recommend this positive sovereignty view. The usual image is of a decline of European primacy by the devastation and demoralization of two global wars and the rise of powers on the peripheries of Europe (United States, Russia) and beyond (Japan) which ‘ultimately displaced the European system’.