To reimagine a new global history of sovereignty, what happens if we split the idea of territorial sovereignty from the notion of sovereign integrity? As the process of decolonization produced the greatest transformation in the form and meaning of sovereignty in the twentieth century, borders were redrawn, identities (tentatively) changed, ‘nations’ were split and unified, and millions of people were left in search of a state. This panel seeks to recover lost visions of sovereignty across three different levels. At the national level we explore how the agency of sub-state actors who pursued different visions of sovereignty was thwarted or undermined by state actors seeking to protect newly acquired and often hard-fought postcolonial sovereignty. At the international level, especially at the United Nations, we investigate how these lost dreams of nationhood both found traction in the shifting sands of the transition to independence and were foreclosed by power politics between postcolonial actors. Also at the inter-imperial level, we explore how these ideas impacted upon and between the organizations that sought to govern this process, imposing a hard form of Westphalian sovereignty, through state institutions. Across these three levels, sovereignty appears as a concept and a principle that was deeply contested, connected to multiple domains and expertise, imposed with varying structures and systems and often had a significant impact on the territory, identity and ultimately, though not always, peace. This panel weaves these various levels of interaction around sovereignty together to point to the contestation of postcolonial sovereignty which was as much part of late colonialism and the decolonization process, as the struggle for independence and liberation from colonialism.
The papers each take a different methodological position on this issue, from the national, international and inter-imperial level to start a conversation about how sovereignty, in its multiple possibilities, was imagined and disputed and, also, about what happened to sovereignty after decolonization. The panelists will produce presentations which draw on the intersection(s) between histories of sovereignty and international organizations, on one hand, and late colonialism, decolonization and postcolonial statehood, on the other. We hope to push the boundaries of thinking about late colonialism and decolonization and their impact on sovereignty, and vice-versa, highlighting diverse, and frequently understudied, actors, and networks, arguments, projects and dynamics. In doing so we wish to spark a debate about late colonialism and decolonization that delves into the process in the post-colonial moment, thereby investigating how they meaningfully shaped the contours of global order, in varying ways. In its diverse expressions, sovereignty, from this perspective, appears as an intricate and contested process, even after it was formally achieved. Along the way, we will show how disenfranchised actors or those struggling to continue to hold power, fostered alternative political and economic possibilities, including failed plans, and abandoned interpretations and lost visions represented the reimagining of global order from 1940s-1960s.
