Decolonisation and The Erosion of the Imperial Idea

The chapter maintains that 20th-century decolonisation, unlike previous historical episodes wherein particular empires were resisted and declined, represented a critical juncture at which the very idea of empire was substantively challenged and radically rejected. It led to the establishment of a large number of postcolonial states and signified a decisive reshaping of the international system—both in terms of its actual composition and the norms that came to guide recognition, membership, and ideas of sovereign equality. The chapter, moreover, stresses that the change to international order, which decolonisation after the Second World War propelled and embodied, should not primarily be seen as the outcome of an ostensibly global and totalising diffusion of European ideas, institutions, and practices. Instead, a general account of decolonisation has to acknowledge the key role of anti-imperial agency, which manifested itself in many localised guises, and the still incomplete and ongoing endeavour to bring about decolonisation in a more comprehensive sense.