The Postcolonial New World Order and the Containment of Decolonization

• In Event: 3507 - Nations/Nationalisms II

Abstract

This paper examines the rapid expansion and normalization of a new global regime of supposedly independent and self-determinate nation-states in the years after World War Two (WWII). It argues that the realization of “national self-determination,” far from ending practices of expropriation and exploitation, expanded the power of capital and states through key post-WWII organizational structures, including the United Nations, Bretton Woods institutions, and the actions of nation-states in First, Second, and Third Worlds. By examining US demands during negotiations for the 1941 Atlantic Charter with Britain, this chapter shows how the new political economy of nationalized sovereignties was well-understood as opening up new markets for capital and for containing radical demands for decolonization. It examines how Cold War politics, with their competition for military hegemony, political influence, and capitalist profits, were emblematic of the Postcolonial New World Order, as they were organized through three inter-national alliances each claiming to safeguard the security of national sovereignty. Through these discussions, this paper argues that far from representing an end to colonialism, postcolonialism ushered in a new biopolitics and a new governmentality centered on ideas of “national self-determination,” the lietmotif of the new world order. Two main figures define the Postcolonial New World Order and are enshrined in state-categories: the National Citizen and the Migrant. This paper concludes by showing the significance of re-conceptualizing postcolonialism as a system of ruling relations to bettering our understanding of the current intensification and spread of nationalism(s) vilifying Migrants.

Author

• Nandita Sharma, University of Hawaii at Manoa