An English School analysis of colonialism, decolonization and the emergence of the post-colonial states on the primary institutions of international society

Abstract

Between 1945 and 1970 the world shifted from an international society dominated by colonial empires to a global body of nation states. At the same time many of the norms and practices of international society were either being contested or newly created. The United Nations, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other cornerstones of the contemporary international order were being founded to codify these new norms. This twenty five year period represented the biggest transition for the norms and practices of International Society for at least a century and created our contemporary international society. Much of this change was driven by the newly emergent postcolonial world. These new states formed coalitions of interest, represented at the United Nations by bodies such as the Non-Aligned Movement, to try to develop new norms and practices in the interest of the newly emergent post-colonial world. This research seeks to take an English School approach to the study of this transition, and question first what role colonialism played in establishing the pre-1945 world order and then consider how the emergence of the post-colonial states contributed to the creation of the norms of contemporary international society from the previous colonial dominated international order. The thesis is divided into three parts: the first section of this work situates the wider thesis in the intellectual tradition of the English School. The second section of this work will explore how colonialism functioned as a key organizing principle of international society prior to 1945. Having established the nature of international society in the previous colonial era, the final section of this thesis looks at each of the primary institutions of international society in turn and questions how the emergence of the post-colonial states changed international society from its previous colonial order to our contemporary global international society.