How African Decolonization Challenged the Notion of Cold War Polarity
The End of Empire, Modernization, and International Relations Theory in the 1950s and 1960s
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8251981 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Frank Gerits (0000-0003-4855-6713, Utrecht University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Global Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2634-3797 • E-ISSN: 2634-3797 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/isagsq/ksag039 |
| OpenAlex | W7139004497 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 40 |
International Relations Theory (IR theory) has been cast by its critics as a Eurocentric discipline, obsessed with the bipolar international system that the Cold War competition between the Soviet Union and the United States created. While historians have laid bare the imperial roots of IR theory in the 1920s, they overlook the influence of African ideas on Realist, Idealist and Marxist theory after 1945. African decolonization raised questions about whether the post-1945 international system was truly bipolar or potentially multipolar. It also brought pan-African schemes of autonomous development to the fore, creating doubt in the U.S. about the ability to successfully deliver modernization programs, industrialization and foreign aid to the Global South. While realists like Hans Morgenthau were skeptical, Liberals like Joseph Nye felt modernization could only successfully be executed by Africans themselves while Wallerstein viewed foreign aid as a cynical imperial tool. Leading figures in the American academic field of international relations were forced to respond to African decolonization as they were developing their foundational work
Cold war · Decolonization · Eurocentrism · Foreign policy · International relations · International relations theory · Marxist philosophy · Modernization theory · Soviet union · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Race, History, and American Society
Decolonization
Hans J. Morgenthau and the American Experience
Triumph of the Expert
Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment
The Global Cold War
Postcolonial Theory and International Relations
The Guardians
Social Theory of International Politics
The Development of Underdevelopment
Thinking East African
The Political and Social Thought of Kwame Nkrumah
W. Arthur Lewis and the Birth of Development Economics
Colonialism in Question
Inequality and Theorizing in International Relations
Westphalian Eurocentrism in International Relations Theory
Decolonisation and the “Federal Moment”
Imperial Realism
Immanuel Wallerstein as Africanist
Inadvertent reproduction of Eurocentrism in IR
Power and interdependence
The Kenyan Style of “African Socialism”
When the Bull Elephants Fight’
Is critical theory always for the white West and for Western imperialism? Beyond Westphilian towards a post-racist critical IR
Pan-Africanism and East African Integration
Possibility and Constraint
The Politics of Regionalism and Federation in East Africa, 1958–1964
Subaltern geopolitics
Time, Space, and Their Knowledge
Neorealism and Neoliberalism
Neo-Modernization? IR and the Inner Life of Modernization Theory
The World-System after the Cold War
A Political Theory of Foreign Aid
The Algerian Question in Nkrumah's Ghana, 1958-1960
The United States and Armaments
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |