As part of the special issue focusing on Adam Watson’s seminal work titled The Evolution of International Society, the purpose of this essay is twofold: first, to provide a constructive criticism to Watson’s approach to the study of the structure of the Cold War international society primarily understood in terms of power distribution; and second to offer an alternative picture of that society by focusing on its social structure and investigating the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) as constituting the third pillar in the social structure of the Cold War international society.

In so doing, the essay will be divided into four sections. The first section will examine the criticism that the English School of International Relations and, as an extension Watson’s work, have received as being largely Eurocentric; a fact that may be regarded as the cause of Watson’s decision to focus on the bipolar structure of the Cold War international society and exclude the sub-global international society composed by the NAM member states. The second part will focus on Watson’s conceptualization of post-World War II international society, while the third section will make a case for NAM as constituting a sub-global international society during the Cold War. The final section will discuss the legacy of the New International Economic order (NIEO), which has been the core objective of the Non-Aligned Movement.

The critique of the classical English school as being eurocentric

Adam Watson was one of the founding members of the English School, which has become known for offering a comparative historical and sociological approach to the study of states systems and their evolution. Specifically, the English School has pursued two main historical projects. The first project sought to compare how different international societies have evolved in different times and places (Wight 1977) while the second project focused on the expansion of fifteenth-century European international society and its gradual transformation into contemporary global international society (Bull and Watson 1984). Watson contributed in both projects (Watson 1987, 1990) but he was particularly instrumental in the production of The Expansion of International Society (1984), which has become a key text of the English School. In this project, particular attention has been paid to how extra-European states were admitted to the expanding European international society. In The Expansion of International Society, Watson contributed three chapters: one discussing the expansion of European international society; a second one investigating the relationship between Russia and the European states system; and a third one exploring the admission of new states in the Americas into the expanding European international society (Watson 1984a, b, c). Watson also made a significant contribution to English School literature pertaining to primary institutions of international society by engaging in one of the most fundamental institutions, namely diplomacy (Watson 1982).

Most importantly, Watson’s seminal work on The Evolution of International Society has bridged the two English School historical projects by offering first a historical account of the ancient states system and then an account of the development and expansion of the historical European society of states and its gradual transformation into contemporary global international society (Watson 1992). Although references are made to decolonization and the developing world, in The Evolution of International Society Watson focuses mainly on the power structure of post-World War II international society that was dominated by the two superpowers, namely the USA and the Soviet Union. Thus, he describes Cold War international society as being mainly bipolar in structure thereby overshadowing the social structure of that society by minimizing the role of the developing word. As a result, an incomplete picture of Cold War international society emerges.

A factor that may have prevented Watson from considering the NAM as constituting a third sub-global international society is the Eurocentrism of the classical English School. Specifically, it has been recently argued that The Expansion of International Society and, as an extension, Watson’s The Evolution of International Society, reflect the Eurocentrism of the English School. For example, in The Globalization of International Society (2017) Tim Dunne, Christian Reus-Smit, and their colleagues re-examine the development of today’s society of sovereign states, drawing on a wealth of new scholarship to challenge the account presented in The Expansion of International Society. For Bull and Watson, international society originated in Europe, and expanded as successive waves of new states were integrated into a rule-governed order. International society, on their view, was thus a European cultural artifact—a claim that is at odds with recent scholarship in history, politics, and related fields of research. The Globalization of International Society provides an alternative account. It shows how interacting identities, political orders, and economic forces were intensifying within and across regions; it details the tangled dynamics that helped to globalize the European conception of a pluralist international society, through patterns of warfare and between East and West; and it explores the multiple forms of contestation that challenge international society today.

Other English School scholars as well as English School sympathizers have also acknowledged classical English School’s Eurocentrism. For example, after identifying some of the shared concerns between the English School and Global IR, such as the emphasis placed on history and culture, Buranelli and Taeuber (2021) have called for a more thorough engagement with the origins of global international society rooted in dispossession, violence, and colonialism; a more localized and diverse understanding of ‘society’; a sharper and more grounded conceptualization of ‘the state’ as a basic ontology; an embracement of the interpretivist principle of charity; and a problematization of assumptions of ‘globality’ of international society.

The standard of ‘civilization’ has played a prominent role in the expansion of the European international society (Gong 1984). Therefore, it is not a surprise that despite its rejection by the countries of the Third World, the concept has occupied a prominent place in classical English School’s explanation regarding the gradual transformation of the European international society into the contemporary global international society. Stivachtis (2015a, 2020; b2008, 2010) and Andrew Linklater (2016) have provided a critique to the historical standard of ‘civilization’ and have taken a critical stance toward the use of modern forms of standards of ‘civilization.’ Bowden and Seabrooke (2006) have investigated how global ‘standards of market civilization’ have emerged, their justification, and their political, economic, and social impact. Bowden (2009, 2004) has argued that the idea of civilization has been deployed throughout history to justify all manner of interventions and sociopolitical engineering and has examined how the idea of civilization has informed our thinking about international relations. He further suggests that standards of ‘civilisation’ are of most value if we think of them as an operating system that allows different states or societies of states or regional blocs to communicate and facilitate various forms of exchange or doing business and that we are better off collectively when standards are more minimalist (Bowden 2014). Finally, Fidler (2001) reminds us of Georg Schwarzenberger’s argument that ‘The nexus between civilization and international law is a basic question of international law’ and suggests that the new standard of ‘civilization’ may solidify civilizational harmonization on the West’s liberal, globalized terms and thus may lead to a new “revolt against the West.”’.

Hall (2011) argues that far from being indifferent to decolonization, many British IR scholars were deeply worried about ‘the revolt against the West,’ and that those concerned helped shape the distinctive character of British international thought in the formative period of the IR discipline (Hall 2017 and 2019). Hall (2012) also points out that in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Arnold Toynbee conducted a highly public campaign against Western imperialism, arguing that the West needed to acknowledge and atone for its aggression if the world was to find peace. His efforts met with considerable resistance, damaging his reputation as a scholar and a political thinker. Thus, Hall’s work has sought to examine the origins of Toynbee's anti-imperialism in his philosophy of history, his public arguments of the post-war period, and the reaction they provoked (Hall 2018). Moreover, Hall has criticized Samuel Huntington’s call for the renewal and revival of the West (Huntington 1996), which he thought had been weakened by immigration and by multiculturalism, which aided and abetted the spread of non-Western cultural and religious beliefs and practices, by economic malaise, and by ‘moral decay.’ The USA, Huntington argues, must defend the Anglo-Saxon Protestant beliefs and practices that delivered past social and political success, so as to ensure it can play the necessary role of the West’s ‘core state’ (Huntington 1996, 304). Toynbee, of course, warned against such policies, which he characterized as anachronistic archaisms (Toynbee 1987).

Historical sociologists have also contested the historical accounts of the classical English School, albeit indirectly. For example, John Hobson (2009) challenges the ethnocentric bias of mainstream accounts of the ‘Rise of the West’ that assume that Europeans have pioneered their own development, and that the East has been a passive by-stander. He argues that Europe first assimilated many Eastern inventions, and then appropriated Eastern resources through imperialism. Hobson’s work seeks to reveal how Eurocentrism is equivalent to cultural racism; how it has outwardly shapeshifted through time in everyday life and world politics; and how orthodox international relations theory’s racist trajectory has mirrored this. He claims that since 1945, modern orthodox international relations theory has covered its racism with a non-racist mask through a sublimated discourse that focuses on cultural difference but is white racism in disguise (Hobson 2022, 2021). Moreover, Hobson (2012, 2007) claims that throughout its history most international theory has been embedded within various forms of Eurocentrism. Rather than producing value-free and universalist theories of inter-state relations, international theory instead provides provincial analyses that celebrate and defend Western civilization as the subject of, and ideal normative referent in, world politics. Thus, he aims at reconstructing IR by drawing on a range of non-Eurocentric arguments that are furnished in the new global history. His overarching framework explores how ‘Eastern agency’ and ‘Oriental globalization’ have informed many of the developments in world politics that are conventionally assumed to have Western origins. In addition, he shows how various global relationships conducted between Eastern and Western agents have shaped the modern world, in particular capitalist modernity and the rise and spread of the sovereign state.

Amin (1989) also rejects the dominant Eurocentric view of world history and presents a reinterpretation that emphasizes the crucial historical role played by the Arab Islamic world. In a similar manner, Blaut (1993) challenges the pervasive and powerful belief that Europe rose to modernity and world dominance due to unique qualities of race, environment, culture, mind, or spirit, and that progress for the rest of the world resulted from the diffusion of European civilization. In contrast, he argues that this doctrine is not grounded in the facts of history and geography, but in the ideology of colonialism. Goody’s (1996) work reassesses Western views of Asia, which much European history and social theory has seen as ‘static’ or ‘backward. He challenges these Eurocentric assumptions, including the notion of a special Western rationality, and argues that factors inhibiting the East’s development have been greatly exaggerated, and have contributed to a misunderstanding of both Eastern and Western history and society. Similarly, Frank (1998) invites us to re-orient our views away from Eurocentrism and to see the rise of the West as a mere blip in what was, and is again becoming, an Asia-centered world. He explains the Rise of the West in world economic and demographic terms that relate it in a single historical sweep to the decline of the East around 1800. He argues that what East Asia is doing today is to recover its traditional dominance and, as a result, the center of the world economy is once again moving to China. Chakrabarty (2000) also addresses the mythical figure of Europe that is often taken to be the original site of modernity in many histories of capitalist transition in non-Western countries. This imaginary Europe, he argues, is built into the social sciences and the very idea of historicizing carries with it some peculiarly European assumptions about disenchanted space, secular time, and sovereignty. Measured against such mythical standards, capitalist transition in the third world has often seemed either incomplete or lacking. He proposes that every case of transition to capitalism is a case of translation as well—a translation of existing worlds and their thought—categories into the categories and self-understandings of capitalist modernity.

Finally, Sanjay Seth (2011, 2009) has criticized Eurocentrism from a postcolonial standpoint. He argues that IR has misdescribed the origins and character of the contemporary international order, and that an accurate understanding of the expansion of the international system requires attention to its colonial origins. He suggests that IR is deeply Eurocentric, not only in its historical account of the emergence of the modern international order, but also in its accounts of the nature and functioning of this order. He believes that the Anglo-American dominance of the discipline was much to be regretted and that a plurality of voices in the discipline, actually reflecting the plurality of voices in the world that the discipline seeks to describe and comprehend, would be a very good thing (Seth 2021). The human sciences, he claims, are heirs to a tradition of knowledge which defines knowledge as a relation between a cognizing, representing subject and an object, such that knowledge is always ‘of’ something out there, which exists independently of its apprehension. He further suggests that knowledges serve to constitute that which they purport to merely cognize or represent, and that IR theory serves to naturalize that which is historically produced (Seth 2014). Thus, a project that begins by critically examining the universalist pretensions of social science in relation to non-Western pasts and presents may end up doing more than challenging Eurocentrism. And this may prove to be the most important difference between historical sociology and postcolonial theory—that whereas the former assumes that the social sciences can (be made to) be applicable everywhere, postcolonial theory argues that they are fully adequate nowhere (Seth 2012).

Adam Watson and the Cold War international society

According to Watson (1992, 288), the post-World War II international society was dominated by the victors of the war: a badly damaged Soviet Russia and the USA, which had taken Britain’s place in the system. Initially, the USA, the Soviet Union and Britain had formed a temporary alliance to counter the threat of German and Japanese power. Once this power was destroyed, however, the basic reason for the alliance disappeared with it. Consequently,

‘Power in the global states system quickly rearranged itself round two opposing poles: the Soviet Union and a western alliance in which the USA was very much the strongest partner. The two superpowers were not “book-ends” holding together a single closely involved society of states; they were centers round which largely separate societies developed, locked against each other strategically but insulated by geography and ideology’ (Ibid, 289)

The global international society

Watson argues that both of the new centers of world power belonged to the European cultural tradition, which was so strong that the USA, the Soviet Union, and their allies agreed that the rules and practices of the previous period should remain provisionally in force with minor changes (Ibid, 289). The overarching international institution was to be the United Nations (UN); a secondary institution of international society where the two superpowers would serve as the leading members of the organization. As such, the UN would serve as a means to facilitate diplomacy; one of international society’s primary institutions.

Following a Soviet proposal, Watson (Ibid, 290) notes the other major states accepted a formula based on the experience of the great powers in the Concert of Europe. As a result, the UN Security Council (UNSC) became the primary UN organ dealing with the most important questions pertaining to international peace and stability. There would again be five great powers (USA, Soviet Union, UK, France, and China) permanent members of the UNSC; and the active opposition of any one of these powers could block a mandatory decision of the UNSC, so that the support or at least acquiescence of the five powers was necessary for the UN to take any significant collective action. In this context, Watson considered the UNSC as reflecting international society’s primary institution of great power management.

Furthermore, UN membership would reflect international society’s primary institution of sovereignty and serve as the symbol of independent statehood and of acceptance into the global international society (Ibid, 290). Thus, apart from establishing a new ‘concert of powers,’ the victors of the Second World War decided to create a more ‘democratic’ and representative organ for international society’s members by establishing the UN General Assembly where each state would have a vote, with the tacit assumption that such votes would be ‘advisory’ and not make much difference.

A bipolar international society

Watson (Ibid, 290) argues that while the rules and institutions of the global international society emphasized continuity, the pressures of the system allowed neither a diffused hegemony over the system nor an anarchy of multiple independences. Its characteristic was the dominance of the two superpowers, and the separation of the two systems which they proceeded to construct. Unlike the five great powers who after the 1815 Congress of Vienna acquiesced in each other’s actions within a single concert, the two superpowers after the Second World War acquiesced in the establishment of two separate spheres of authority thereby creating two sub-global international societies operating within the boundaries of a global international society.

According to Watson (Ibid, 291), initially, the USA did not wish to dominate the world. Nevertheless, the country found itself able to lay down the rules in the Cold War international society and to see that others abided by them. The USA considered the rules of the new world order which they favored to include democracy, the rule of law, decolonization, and an open door for American business. The USA also viewed these rules to be just and universally valid, giving equal independence to every ‘nation’ (Ibid, 291).

On the other hand, the Soviet Union, according to Watson (Ibid, 291), viewed international politics largely in terms of raw power. At the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union found the opportunity to expand its empire and insulate it from external threats. The Soviets occupied a circle of subordinate states and hoped, through the use of Cominform, to ensure the obedience of communist parties to the Soviet Communist Party and through the utilization of other forms of pressure, to establish a hegemony over western Europe and parts of Asia, or at least to block tendencies and policies there which he considered hostile to their interests (Ibid, 291).

The likelihood of a Soviet hegemony in Europe or part of Europe alarmed many Western European states which sought to establish a new coalition to oppose Soviet hegemony. This collation was to include the USA. Eventually, as Watson (Ibid, 292) point out, American policy makers thought it necessary to contain Soviet power not only in Europe but all round the world. But soon after the end of the Second World War the communist party of China established effective control over the Chinese territory. This fact led to the assumption that all communist parties were under Soviet control and gave the impression that the globe was divided ideologically and strategically into two great hemispheres of influence (Ibid, 292).

According to Watson (Ibid, 292), during the Cold War, the Soviet Union exercised dominion over the contiguous client states in which it had garrisons, notably in eastern Europe and Mongolia; and it later offered a measure of protection and support to small states that feared a powerful neighbor and adopted an approximately Soviet form of government, like Cuba, Vietnam, Angola, and South Yemen. The Soviet authority was shaped and legitimized, in the Soviet Union and outside it, by the doctrines of Marxism-Leninism, which were authoritarian, Mosco-centric, and universalist (Ibid, 292).

The much looser strategic hegemony of the USA permitted other states greater freedom of action. It was expressed institutionally in a chain of alliances. In all of them American power was preponderant (Ibid, 293). Furthermore, the industrial and financial strength of the USA had grown so much, and that of the rest of the developed world had been so damaged, that an American economic hegemony was also inevitable. According to Watson (Ibid, 293), ‘American hegemony was negotiated as much as it was imposed. It was maintained by a defense capacity which the client states could not muster for themselves, by financial subsidies and by a continuous and detailed diplomatic dialogue.’

As a result, Watson (Ibid, 294) argues that what both the superpowers, and particularly the Soviet Union, disregarded was the theoretical legitimacy of multiple absolute sovereignties the result being that ‘the practice of the global system in the decades following the Second World War was somewhat, but not much, more hegemonial than the European norm.’

Watson (Ibid, 293) suggests that ‘the rift between the two super-systems was not as great as it is sometimes portrayed’ and that the world ‘remained very much one system strategically, and each superpower was the principal military concern of the other.’ The world, according to Watson (Ibid, 294) also ‘remained formally one international society, with a common structure of international law, diplomatic representation and other rules and institutions inherited from the European society.’ In other words, according to Watson, the post-World War II international society was global in dimension but politically heterogeneous. Within the boundaries of this heterogeneous global international society, however, there existed two sub-global international societies which were politically homogeneous. Each of these sub-global international societies was comprised by states which were ‘conscious of certain common interests and common values and conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions (Bull 1977, 13).

Decolonization

During the Cold War, the European dominance of the outside world continued to disintegrate. According to Watson (Ibid, 294), at the end of the Second World War the European colonizing states were acutely aware of their weakness. At first, while accepting responsibility for the welfare of colonial peoples, they still assumed that their empires, which had increased their power and pride in the past, would help them to revive their economic strength and political influence. But within ten years it had become clear that colonialism had by then become unacceptable and that the time had come for all the dependent states set up by the west Europeans to achieve political independence (Ibid, p. 295).

The states which emerged or re-emerged into independence from the European dominance wanted to be free of entangling relations, and in particular to avoid becoming client states of either imperial superpower. Under the leadership of India and China, the newly independent states proclaimed the goal of non-alignment, at a congress at Bandung and several subsequent congresses (Ibid, 295). They called themselves the ‘Third World,’ as distinct from the two hegemonial systems. The anti-imperial appeal of the Third World concept was strong enough to bring the Latin American states into the non-aligned bloc.

As Watson (Ibid, 296) points out, decolonization was a massive political decentralization, and a substantial swing of the pendulum toward the multiple independences end of the spectrum. The new and restored states now constituted the majority of the members of international society. They insisted on the European concept of the equality of all sovereign states. Watson (Ibid, 296) suggests that most of the new states

‘were without tradition or experience in international affairs, and many were mini-states too small to be economically viable. Many of them recognized that economic and administrative, as opposed to political, independence was impracticable. They therefore quickly came to consider what international arrangements would mitigate the poverty and loneliness of too absolute an independence.’

Despite the fact that Watson acknowledges that the newly established states not only constituted the majority of the members of international society but also proclaimed the goal of non-alignment and sought to organize themselves toward achieving their political goals, his preoccupation with power in conjunction with the impact of Eurocentrism on his thought and understanding prevented him from considering the Third World as a third, separate sub-global international society.

Completing the picture: the social structure of the global international society

Among other things, the Cold War era was characterized by a massive admission of mainly ‘Third World’ states into the global international society. The disappearance of the distinction between full and partial membership in international society in the second half of the twentieth century was the result of the successful Third World revolt against European dominance and the simultaneous weakening of the European powers (Bull 1979, 1984).

The process of independence of ‘Third World’ states reflected an ongoing struggle between European and non-European peoples. Specifically, the revolt against Western dominance comprised five phases (Bull 1984, 220–3). First, there was a struggle for equal sovereignty; second, an anti-colonial revolution; third, a struggle for racial equality, especially in Asia and Africa where a strong and deep resentment against the racial and cultural superiority presumed by ‘white men’ existed (Vincent 1984); fourth, a struggle for economic justice; and fifth, a struggle for cultural liberation. The success of the ‘Third World’ in these struggles was determined by the growing weakness of certain European powers, as well as by the nature and structure of international relations during the Cold War.

During the decolonization period, the standard of ‘civilization’ (Gong 1984; Schwarzenberger 1955) was strongly contested by the newly independent states and this contestation eventually led to its abolition. Four were the main reasons for this contestation: first, the new states realized that the Western powers failed themselves to observe the standards they demanded from others to fulfill; second, by failing to clarify what the ‘basic rights’ included in the standard of ‘civilization’ were, what constituted their guarantee, and when and under which conditions were to apply, the Western powers perpetuated the ‘moving target’ problem; third, the requirements included in the standard of ‘civilization’ not only did not take into account the cultural and political particularities of domestic societies; and finally, the European ‘civilizers’ and the non-European ‘civilizees’ did not have joint ownership of the ‘civilization’ process.

The creation and strengthening of the socialist block, the collapse of colonial empires, the emergence of a bipolar world and the formation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact brought about a new international context that led to the necessity of multilateral coordination fora between the countries of the South. In this context, many new countries in Asia and Africa felt the need to join efforts for the common defense of their interests, the strengthening of their independence and sovereignty and the cultural and economic revival or salvation of their peoples, and also to express a strong commitment with peace by declaring themselves as ‘non-aligned’ from either of the two nascent military blocks (Willets 1983).

The NAM as a sub-global international society

The NAM comprises 120 countries thereby constituting the largest grouping of states worldwide. The movement originated in the aftermath of the Korean War as an effort by some countries to counterbalance the rapid bi-polarization of the world during the Cold War, whereby the two superpowers formed blocs (NATO and the Warsaw Pact) and embarked on a policy to pull the rest of the world into their orbits (Luthi 2016). It can be argued that during the Cold War, the NAM was comprised by states which were ‘conscious of certain common interests and common values and conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions (Bull 1977, 13).

Common interests, common rules, and common values

The term ‘non-alignment’ was established in 1953 at the United Nations. The Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru used the phrase in a 1954 speech in Colombo, Sri Lanka, during a Sino-Indian meeting. In this meeting, the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and Nehru described the ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’ to be used as a guide for Sino-Indian relations Rajan 1990, 25). These principles would later serve as the basis of the Non-Aligned Movement. The five principles were:

  • Mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity;

  • Mutual non-aggression;

  • Mutual non-interference in domestic affairs;

  • Equality and mutual benefit; and

  • Peaceful coexistence (Rajan 1990, 27)

In order to fulfill the aims of debating on and advancing a strategy designed to achieve such objectives, the Bandung Asian-African Conference was held in Indonesia on 18–24 April 1955. It was attended by twenty-nine Heads of State and Government of the first postcolonial generation of leaders and its expressed goal was to identify and assess world issues at the time and coordinate policies to deal with them. Although the Asian and African leaders who gathered in Bandung might have had differing political and ideological views or different approaches toward the societies they aspired to build or rebuild, there was a common project that united them and gave sense to a closer coordination of positions (Benevolensky 1985, 17). Their shared program included the political decolonization of Asia and Africa. Moreover, they all agreed that the recently attained political independence was just a means to attain the goal of economic, social, and cultural independence (Benevolensky 1985, 18).

The principles that would govern relations among large and small nations were proclaimed in the Bandung Declaration according to which ‘Peace cannot be achieved with separation, but with the aspiration toward collective security in global terms and expansion of freedom, as well as terminating the domination of one country over another’ (Rajan 1990, 34; Singham and Hune 1987, 49). These principles included:

  • Respect for fundamental human rights and for the purposes and principles of the UN Charter;

  • Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations;

  • Recognition of the movements for national independence;

  • Recognition of the equality of all races and of the equality of all nations, large and small;

  • Abstention from intervention or interference in the internal affairs of another country;

  • Respect for the right of each nation to defend itself singly or collectively, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations;

  • Refraining from acts or threats of aggression or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any country;

  • Settlement of all international disputes by peaceful means, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations;

  • Promotion of mutual interests and cooperation;

  • Respect for justice and international obligations; and

  • Such principles were adopted later as the main goals and objectives of the policy of non-alignment. The fulfillment of those principles became the essential criterion for Non-Aligned Movement membership (Rajan 1990, 35).

The NAM membership criteria formulated in 1961 in Cairo, Egypt, during the Preparatory Conference to the Belgrade Summit show that the NAM was not conceived to play a passive role in international politics but to formulate its own positions in an independent manner so as to reflect the interests of its members (Benevolensky 1986, 14; Luthi 2016). Thus, the primary of objectives of the non-aligned countries focused on the support of self-determination, national independence and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states; opposition to apartheid; non-adherence to multilateral military pacts and the independence of non-aligned countries from great power or block influences and rivalries; the struggle against imperialism in all its forms and manifestations; the struggle against colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, foreign occupation and domination; disarmament; non-interference into the internal affairs of states and peaceful coexistence among all nations; rejection of the use or threat of use of force in international relations; the strengthening of the United Nations; the democratization of international relations; socioeconomic development and the restructuring of the international economic system; as well as international cooperation on an equal footing (Singham and Hune 1987, 54; Miskovic 2014, 17).

The NAM came formally into being when its First Summit Conference was held in Belgrade on 1–6 September 1961 through an initiative of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah, and Indonesian President Sukarno. These leaders expressed their desire ‘to guard their independence and sovereignty in face of complex international situation demanding allegiance to either two warring superpowers’ (Benevolensky 1986, 24).

Following the Belgrade Summit, the NAM played an important role in the support of nations which were struggling then for their independence in the ‘Third World’ and showed great solidarity with the most just aspirations of humanity. It contributed indisputably to the triumph in the struggle for national independence and decolonization, thus gaining considerable diplomatic prestige (Miscovic 2014, 18). At the Lusaka Conference in September 1970, NAM member states added as aims of the movement the peaceful resolution of disputes and the abstention from the big power military alliances and pacts. Another added aim was opposition to stationing of military bases in foreign countries. In 1975, NAM member pushed for the Resolution 3379, which was a declarative non-binding measure that equated Zionism with South Africa’s Apartheid and as a form of racial discrimination (Benevolensky 1986, 77).

In the fifth Conference of the Heads of States or Governments of Non-Aligned countries in 1976, participating countries are denoted as ‘members of the movement.’ The purpose of the organization was summarized by Fidel Castro in his Havana Declaration of 1979 as to ensure.

‘the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of non-aligned countries in their struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics’ (Castro 1979)

Common policies

The NAM gained the most traction in the 1950s and early 1960s, when the international policy of non-alignment achieved major successes in decolonization, disarmament, opposition to racism and apartheid in south Africa, and persisted throughout the entire Cold War, despite several conflicts between members, and despite some members developing closer ties with either the Soviet Union, China, or the USA.

NAM members accepted the universality of human rights and social justice, but fiercely resisted cultural homogenization. In line with NAM’s views on sovereignty, the organization appealed for the protection of cultural diversity, and the tolerance of the religious, sociocultural, and historical particularities that define human rights in a specific region (Luthi 2016, 99). Moreover, during the Cold War the NAM espoused policies and practices of cooperation, especially those that are multilateral and provide mutual benefit to all those involved. In addition, the NAM placed particular emphasis on disarmament. NAM’s commitment to peace pre-dates its formal institutionalization in 1961. The Brioni meeting between Heads of governments of India, Egypt, and Yugoslavia in 1956 recognized that there exists a vital link between struggle for peace and endeavors for disarmament (Luthi 2016, 101).

During the 1970s and early 1980s, the NAM also sponsored campaigns for restructuring commercial relations between developed and developing nations, namely the New International Economic Order (NIEO), and its cultural offspring, the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) (Anghie 2019; Bhagwati 1977). The latter, on its own, sparked a Non-Aligned initiative on cooperation for communications, the Non-aligned News Agencies Pool, created in 1975 and later converted into the NAM News Network in 2005.

The new international economic order (NIEO)

The New International Economic Order (NIEO) was a set of proposals advocated by NAM members to end economic colonialism and dependency through a new interdependent economy. The main NIEO document recognized that the current international economic order ‘was established at a time when most of the developing countries did not even exist as independent states and which perpetuates inequality.’ In the spirit of ‘trade not aid,’ the NIEO called for changes in trade, industrialization, agricultural production, finance, and transfer of technology (Anonymous 2015; Mahiou 1974).

The idea of a new international economic order emerged from the experiences of decolonization after the Second World War. Newly decolonized countries gained political sovereignty but ‘felt that their de jure political colonization ended only to be replaced by a de facto economic colonization’ (Murphy 1984, 17). This mission to achieve a more equitable international system was motivated also by increasing inequality in the share of global national income between developed and developing countries, which more than doubled between 1938 and 1966. From its beginnings in 1964, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), along with the associated Group of 77 and the NAM, was the central forum for discussions of the New International Economic Order (Lazlo et al. 1978; Rothstein 1979).

Key themes of the NIEO included both sovereign equality and the right of self-determination, especially when it comes to sovereignty over natural resources. Another key theme was the need for a new commodity order through international commodity agreements and a common fund for commodity price stabilization. Restructuring international trade was also central as a means to improve developing countries’ terms of trade, such as by diversifying developing economies through industrialization, integrating developing countries’ economies into regional free trade blocs like the Caribbean Community, reducing developed-country tariffs and other obstacles to free trade, expanding generalized trade preferences, and designing other agreements to reduce trade barriers (Anghie 2019; Bhaghati 1977). These proposals to restructure the international economic system also sought to reform the Bretton Woods system, which had benefited the leading states that had created it—especially the USA. This set of proposals proclaimed that facilitating the rate of economic development and market share among developing countries will fight global issues such as hunger and despair more effectively than the current focus on philanthropy and development aid. This advocacy among NAM nations can also be understood as an extension of the decolonization movement that was present in many developing countries during that time. In this perspective, political and economic equity were perceived as a metric to measure the success of independence movements and completing the decolonization process (Cox 1979).

In response to the NIEO proposals, the UN General Assembly adopted the ‘Declaration for the Establishment of a New International Economic Order’ and its accompanying program of action on 1 May 1974 (UN Digital Library 1974; Mahiou 1974). A few months later, the UN General Assembly adopted the ‘Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States’ (UN General Assembly 1974a, b; Kohler 1985). The main principles of the NIEO included:

  • The sovereign equality of all States, with non-interference in their internal affairs, their effective participation in solving world problems and the right to adopt their own economic and social systems;

  • Full sovereignty of each State over its natural resources and other economic activities necessary for development, as well as regulation of transnational corporations;

  • Just and equitable relationship between the price of raw materials and other goods exported by developing countries, and the prices of raw materials and other goods exported by the developed countries; and

  • Strengthening of bilateral and multilateral international assistance to promote industrialization in the developing countries through, in particular, the provisioning of sufficient financial resources and opportunities for transfer of appropriate techniques and technologies (UN Digital Library 1974; Horn 1982, 347).

The main reforms required by the NIEO included:

  • An overhaul of the rules of international trade, especially those concerning raw materials, food, the system of preferences and reciprocity, commodity agreements, transportation, and insurance;

  • A reform of the international monetary system and other financing mechanisms to bring them into line with development needs;

  • Both financial and technology transfer incentives and assistance for industrialization projects in developing countries. This industrialization was understood as essential for the diversification of economies, which during colonization focused on a very restricted range of raw materials; and

  • Promotion of cooperation among the countries of the South, with a view to greater individual and collective autonomy, broader participation, and enhanced involvement in international trade. This cooperation was called ‘Economic Cooperation among Development Countries,’ which replaced colonial dependence with new interrelationships among developing countries based on trade, production, and markets and builds collective self-reliance (Horn 1982, 349).

The new world information and communication order (NWICO)

The New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) is a term coined in a debate over media representations of the developing world in UNESCO in the late 1970s early 1980s. The NWICO movement was part of a broader effort to formally tackle global economic inequality that was viewed as a legacy of imperialism upon the global south (McChesney and Schiller 2003; Pavlic and Cees 1985).

The fundamental issues of imbalances in global communication had been discussed for some time. In 1964, it was noted that the flow of news among nations is thin, that much attention is given to developed countries and little to less-developed ones, that important events are ignored and reality is distorted (Schiller 1969; Wilbur 1964). Also, developing countries had little meaningful input into decisions about radio frequency allocations for satellites as many of them had military applications. In the 1970s, these and other issues were taken up by the NAM and debated within the UN and UNESCO (McChesney and Schiller 2003).

In 1970, at the 16th Congress of a UNESCO, the NWICO was clearly raised by the NAM for the first time. The UNESCO work on the NWICO was immediately met with criticism from many areas, mainly from Western countries whose media organizations were troubled by the phrase ‘New World Information and Communication Order,’ seeing it as a dog-whistle for the use of government propaganda in the guise of information flow balance (Preston et al 1989; Mehan 1981, 160).

In 1980, the MacBride Report was published which stated that the right to inform and be informed was critical to modern societies, and that information was a key resource. In December 1980, the UN formally endorsed the MacBride Report by saying that UN member states should ‘take into account the report in framing their communications policy.’ The resolution also invited UN member states to promote ‘the widespread circulation and study’ of the report (Raube-Wilson 1986, 109). While not a binding resolution, this move was met with immediate criticism from the British government, saying they did not regard the report as definitive.

The MacBride Report proposed five main ideas of action to progress these goals:

  • Include communication as a fundamental right;

  • Reduce imbalances in the news structure;

  • Strengthen a global strategy for communication while respecting cultural identities and individual rights;

  • Promote the creation of national communication policies to be coherent and lasting in the processes of development; and

  • Explore how the NWICO could be used to benefit a NIEO (Raube-Wilson 1986, 109).

As a result, UNESCO received a thirty four percent increase in funding, and the USA agreed in principle to creating a new international body for communication in developing countries ‘within the framework of UNESCO.’ The report itself was controversial, as many viewed it as lending strength to the Communist and non-aligned blocs. Likewise, the USA warned that they would not provide funds or technical assistance if UNESCO appeared to desire government control of media (Preston et al 1989; Mehan 1981, 161).

In 1983, the 22nd edition of UNESCO established the medium-term plan for the establishment of NWICO from 1985 to 1989. The struggle to establish a new world information order won broad support within the United Nations. The UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity of 2005 put into effect some of the goals of NWICO, especially with regard to the unbalanced global flow of mass media. However, this convention was not supported by the USA, and it does not appear to be as robust as WTO agreements that support global trade in mass media and information (Carlsson 2017).

Common institutions

As a sub-global international society, the NAM members have shared in the working of common institutions both by adopting a set of guiding principles and acting upon them.

Sovereignty, non-intervention, and international law

Sovereignty and its derivative institutions of non-intervention and international law have featured predominantly in the rhetoric and practice of NAM member states. For example, the Bandung Declaration asked the NAM members to display their ‘respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations’ (Rajan 1990, 35), while the Havana Declaration recognized ‘the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries’ as fundamental (Castro 1979). In addition, the NIEO called for ‘the sovereign equality of all states’ and for ‘full sovereignty of each state over its natural resources and other economic activities necessary for development, as well as regulation of transnational corporations’ (Rajan 1990, 35). The Bandung Declaration also called NAM members from ‘refraining from acts or threats of aggression or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any country’ and abstain from ‘intervention or interference in the internal affairs of another country’ (Rajan 1990, 35). The NEIO also invited non-NAM states to respect the principle of ‘non-interference in their internal affairs, their effective participation in solving world problems and the right to adopt their own economic and social systems’ (Horn 1982, 347). Although the standard of ‘civilization’ was strongly contested by the newly independent states and eventually abolished, NAM member states clearly not only declared their respect for the UN Charter and the associated principles of international law but also demanded its equitable application and implementation.

Diplomacy

The NAM member states viewed diplomacy as essential for the management of relations among states. In practice, summitry and conference diplomacy have been the means through which the NAM has operated while multilateral diplomacy at the UN General Assembly and the UN agencies was considered by the member states of the movement as fundamental for international peace and security. Diplomacy was also seen as a means to settle all international disputes by peaceful means and in conformity with the UN Charter, as well as a necessary tool for the ‘promotion of mutual interests and cooperation.’

Equality/inequality of people

Human equality has constituted one of the most fundamental institutions of the NAM which called for ‘Recognition of the equality of all races and of the equality of all nations, large and small’ as well as for the ‘respect for fundamental human rights and for the purposes and principles of the UN Charter’ (Rajan 1990, 35). The Havana Declaration also highlighted the importance of combating racism in all its forms and legitimized the struggle of ‘Third World’ states against the systems of colonialism and neo-colonialism and associated policies which were viewed as providing the fertile ground for discrimination between countries and people (Castro 1979).

Nationalism and self-determination

It has been of no surprise that after employing the principle of ‘self-determination’ and emerging from their fight against colonial rule the members of the non-aligned movement called for ‘Recognition of the movements for national independence’ and for recognizing the right of states to fight ‘imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics’ (Castro 1979).

Anti-hegemonialism and disarmament

Finding themselves between two political and military blocs led by two superpowers, the member states of the non-aligned movement expressed both their dissatisfaction and fear for balance of power politics and especially for proxy wars. As a result, they sought to promote peaceful settlement of disputes, denounce military alliances as a way to ensure international peace and security, pursue disarmament and arms control policies as a way to minimize security dilemmas facing states, and contempt hegemonialism both verbally as well as practically. Of particular importance was the support of the NAM for nuclear arms control and disarmament, as well as for UN policies aiming at monitoring conventional arms sales and preventing illegal transfer of conventional arms.

Development and trade

The members of the non-aligned movement viewed themselves as the victims of imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism which resulted in the use of their natural resources and raw materials by colonial and imperial powers and, in turn, to the impediment of their economic growth and development. As a result, the NAM called for ‘Just and equitable relationship between the price of raw materials and other goods exported by developing countries, and the prices of raw materials and other goods exported by the developed countries’ and ‘Strengthening of bilateral and multilateral international assistance to promote industrialization in the developing countries through, in particular, the provisioning of sufficient financial resources and opportunities for transfer of appropriate techniques and technologies’ (Horn 1982, 347). It is no surprise, therefore that the main reforms required by the NIEO included an overhaul of the rules of international trade, especially those concerning raw materials, food, the system of preferences and reciprocity, commodity agreements, transportation, and insurance; a reform of the international monetary system and other financing mechanisms to bring them into line with development needs; and for financial and technology transfer incentives and assistance for industrialization projects in developing countries (Horn 1982, 349).

Organizational structure and membership requirements

The movement never intended to create a very strict organizational structure. The Summit Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned States is the highest decision-making authority. The chairmanship rotates between countries and changes at every summit of heads of state or government to the country organizing the summit.

To assist the operation of NAM, a number of working groups, task forces, and committees have been established, such as:

  • Committee on Palestine

  • High-Level Working Group for the Restructuring of the United Nations

  • Joint Coordinating Committee (chaired by Chairman of G-77 and Chairman of NAM)

  • Non-Aligned Security Caucus

  • Standing Ministerial Committee for Economic Cooperation

  • Task Force on Somalia

  • Working Group on Disarmament

  • Working Group on Human Rights

  • Working Group on Peace-Keeping Operations

NAM membership requires that candidate countries adopt the key beliefs of the United Nations and have displayed practices in accordance with the ten ‘Bandung Principles’ of 1955.

The legacy of the NIEO

The NIEO’s overall lack of success has been attributed in part to developing countries not having presented a unified platform and an agreed set of concrete objectives. In addition, the impact of the debt crisis of the 1980s which devastated developing countries and shifted the attention of the international community from the international economic order to development in individual countries, overshadowed the demands for NIEO. But the central failure to establishing a NIEO was due to the fact that industrialized states did not want any such thing. It is not therefore surprising that they were unwilling to enter into genuine global negotiations and to see rules created that did not serve their economic interests well. In so far as the post-war settlement reflected economic and social development among the purposes of the UN, and as part of the institutional framework establishing the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the GATT, this was not to be implemented so effectively as to displace the power and advantage held by influential western states (Salomon 2013, 46).

Specifically, the USA rejected the NIEO almost immediately. As Mark Mazower (2013) argues, with Washington taking over world leadership global organizations became a useful extension of American power. He points out that from the late 1960s on, the USA lost control over the global dialogue while the rise of the independent Third World saw a marked shift away from the UN and toward more pliable tools such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). From the 1990s to 2007, US efforts centered on a new regime of global coordination built upon economic rule-making by central bankers and finance ministers, a regime in which the interests of citizens and workers are trumped by the iron logic of markets.

The Third World’s economic challenge also exposed deep ideological divides between american policymakers. At the same time, the NIEO’s arrival galvanized right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the close-knit intellectuals of the Mont Pelerin Society, who during the NIEO’s lifespan moved from the fringes of mainstream economic thought and policy to the center of the White House and the World Bank (Anghie 2019).

While most neoliberals focused on the economic principles at stake, another network of self-identified dissident intellectuals in the USA saw an even greater threat emanating from the South. The NIEO conflict was not simply a battle between rich and poor nations but ‘much more a question of one’s attitude toward liberal political and economic systems, and toward liberal civilization in general’ (Cox 1979, 259). Recent historiography has sought to account for how ‘right-wing liberals’ went from committed Democrats supportive of civil rights and expansionary social policy in the mid-1960s, to ‘neoconservative’ supporters of Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy in the 1980s and powerful allies of the New Right (Franczak 2022).

Specifically, neoconservatives and libertarians criticized the NIEO and became influential in US foreign policy circles. According to Michael Franczak (2019), in the early 1970s, Americans of both political parties came to resent what they saw as their government’s acceptance of the United States’ declining global power and the Third World’s rise. His work reinterprets the rise of a neoconservative foreign policy in the 1970s within the context of North–South relations. He suggests that neoconservatives’ reactions to the NIEO. It demonstrates that they considered it both a novel and potentially revolutionary threat to US global power and the liberal world order, as well as a global analogue of the liberal establishment’s failure to contain the rise of radical ‘egalitarianism’ at home (Franczak 2019, 868). Neoconservatives not only condemned the NIEO but they also reserved their most severe scorn for a bipartisan US foreign policy elite, who believed that the decline of US global power was inevitable and that strategic concessions to Third World economic demands now were necessary to prevent greater disaster and disorder in the future. Importantly, neoconservatives’ war on the NIEO also attracted the support of some prominent neoliberals, whose positions combined neoconservative arguments about Western guilt and Third World poverty with blistering attacks on the concept of foreign aid itself (Franczak 2019, 869).

It is no coincidence that neoconservatives’ engagement with the NIEO occurred during a critical period: their transition from critics of domestic policy to foreign affairs and their migration from the Democratic Party to the GOP. For neoconservatives, the NIEO’s call for a world order ‘based on equity [and] sovereign equality’ and designed to ‘correct inequalities and redress existing injustices’ effectively globalized the very issue that had prompted their alienation from the Democratic Party (Franczak 2019, 869). Their hatred of the New Left in the late 1960s and early 1970s translated into a hatred for the NIEO. For neoconservatives, ‘The germ of radical egalitarianism had infected people outside the boundaries of Western society; striving for equality was no longer limited to the confines of the state; the global political system had become its domain’ (cited Franczak 2022, 870). Thus, they argued that this ‘new majority’ in the UN needed instruction on the ‘realities of international politics: that inequality is here to stay [and] that order is underpinned by it’ (cited in Franczak 2192, 869).

The NIEO captured both the fears and imaginations of the Washington foreign policy establishment. Anticipating the creation of cartels for other commodities beyond oil, a worsening of transatlantic relations, and the turning of a global recession into a depression, liberal internationalists went into crisis mode to form a practicable response. The Overseas Development Council (ODC), a Rockefeller Foundation-funded think tank founded by former US Agency for International Development officials, partnered with Democratic lawmakers to pass an updated foreign assistance act (Bair 2009, 357). The recommendations of the Trilateral Commission (TC), formed in July 1973 more aid for poorer developing countries and more trade and participation in international financial institutions for richer ones. Neoconservatives reacted to the Washington foreign policy establishment’s desire to buy off the South. Therefore, the actual political battle that emerged was between ‘liberal capitalist societies (mainly affluent) and those societies—whether communist, socialist, or neo-fascist (the latter category prevailing especially in Africa)—which, whether poor or less affluent, are opposed to liberal capitalism in principle’ (cited in Franczak 2019, 872).

After the NIEO’s announcement, Robert Tucker (1977) published his book entitled The Inequality of Nations. Like other neoconservatives, Tucker criticized the Western elites and their ‘policy of pacific interdependence’ toward global egalitarianism, the fault of nearly a decade of liberal thinking about domestic politics that elites were now applying to international relations (Tucker 1977, 31). In other words, the NIEO’s global egalitarianism and the New Left’s domestic egalitarianism were two strains of the same virus (Tucker 1977, 32).

Bair (2009, 358) argues that the NIEO’s unifying power for neoconservatives and neoliberals was recognized by mainstream economists. She has examined the numerous ways that neoliberal discourse has come to shape the global economy. In doing so, she has focused on the key debates and conflicts that occurred among neoliberal scholars and their political and corporate allies regarding trade unions, development economics, antitrust policies, and the influence of philanthropy.

Two subsequent events in the USA and Europe would seal the NIEO’s fate. The first was a drive by the rich countries, led by the USA, to tackle inflation at all costs (Franczak 2019, 887). The subsequent combination of fiscal and monetary tightening was taken without regard for developing country debtors, who simultaneously faced skyrocketing debt servicing costs and plummeting demand for their exports. Starting in 1980, developing countries’ exports as a share of world trade entered a steep decline, while commodity prices fell to lows not seen since the 1930s. Second were the elections of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and Ronald Reagan in 1981. While Reagan promised the attending heads of state that private investment and free markets were the surest path to development, prosperity, and democracy, Thatcher refused to assist the governments of the Third World to address their debt. The aftermath of the 1982 debt crisis, which began in Latin America and spread to Africa and parts of Asia, destroyed whatever solidarity was left in the NIEO coalition and ushered in a ‘lost decade of development’ for the indebted.

Within the context of the worldwide debt crisis in the 1980s, it was very difficult to realize the NIEO. Unrealized NIEO proposals contributed to the formulation of the ‘Right to development’ in 1986. From the 1980s onward, the Washington Consensus and neoliberal economic globalization became dominant. The economic reach of multinational corporations, rather than being circumscribed, was expanded significantly. Trade in commodities shifted away from state-dominated cartels toward increasingly financialized markets. The formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the proliferation of free trade agreements compelled the reduction of barriers to trade, generally on strictly reciprocal terms.

The debt crisis also marked a profound shift in US policy toward international institutions. Out of the crisis emerged a ‘new diplomatic constellation, with the IMF and the USA taking on key brokerage roles between banks and debtor states’ (cited in Franczak 2019, 889). Thus, it was at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, rather than the UN, where the Reagan administration reasserted US economic power over the Third World, primarily through the negotiation of ‘structural adjustment loans’ with indebted countries during the nearly decade-long crisis. These efforts were accompanied and supported by a new paradigm for US global power based on a fusion of neoliberal and neoconservative themes, namely free markets, democracy promotion, unilateralism and American exceptionalism; a hostile attitude toward the UN or any institution not controlled by the USA; and a narrow definition of human rights.

On the other hand, parts of the NIEO were realized, such as the non-legal, non-binding Restrictive Business Practice Code adopted in 1980, and the Common Fund for Commodities, which came in force in 1989. The adoption of the 1974 Declaration (UN 1974) and the much more recent 2018 resolution ‘Towards a New International Economic Order” keeps the ideas of the NIEO visible in the policy arena’ (UN 2020).

Conclusion

Adam Watson has contributed significantly to the genesis and development of the English School of International Relations both through his leadership skills and scholarship. Nowhere, can his scholarly contribution be observed better than in his seminal work on The Evolution of International Society. Despite the fact that he acknowledges that following the decolonization process the newly established states not only constituted the majority of the members of international society but also proclaimed the goal of non-alignment and sought to organize themselves toward achieving their political goals, he did not consider the ‘Third World’ as a third, separate sub-global international society thereby providing an incomplete picture of the social structure of global international society. This essay sought to address this issue by examining the NAM as a sub-global international society.

During the Cold War, the NAM gathered a growing number of states and liberation movements which, in spite of their ideological, political, economic, social, and cultural diversity, accepted its founding principles and primary objectives and shown their readiness to realize them. During this historical period, the non-aligned countries demonstrated their ability to overcome their differences and found a common ground for action that led to mutual cooperation and the upholding of their shared values. Thus, the NAM reflected the existence of a sub-global international society in the sense that its member states were conscious of certain common interests (attaining national independence and sovereignty equality, as well as preserving their territorial integrity) and common values (anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, anti-racism, anti-hegemonialism) and conceived themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations (international law and the principles of the Non-Aligned Movement) with one another, and shared in the working of common institutions, such as sovereignty, non-intervention and international law; diplomacy; human equality; nationalism and self-determination; development and trade; and anti-hegemonialism and disarmament.

As one summit after another was held in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the NAM became a forum of coordination to struggle for the respect of the economic and political rights of the developing world. Specifically, during these decades the NAM played a key role in the struggle for the establishment of a new international economic order that allowed all the peoples of the world to make use of their wealth and natural resources and provided a wide platform for a fundamental change in international economic relations and the economic emancipation of the countries of the South.

The legacy of the NIEO is mixed (Bair 2009, 347). Some judged the NIEO as a failure (Franczak 2019; Getashew 2019). On the other hand, parts of the NIEO were realized, such as the non-legal, non-binding ‘Restrictive Business Practice Code’ adopted in 1980 and the ‘Common Fund for Commodities,’ which came in force in 1989. In addition, the realization of the NIEO was an impetus for developing country support for the Tokyo Round of trade negotiations. The adoption of the 1974 NIEO Declaration and the much more recent NIEO resolution kept the ideas of the NIEO visible in the policy arena (Bair, 377).