True master of our own destiny: the Third World and the decolonisation of political freedom

José Miguel Ahumada

Review of International Political Economy, 2025, vol. 32, issue 6, 1895-1923

Abstract: This article explores how the Third World articulated a novel political vocabulary of freedom and domination during the post-war era, culminating in the demands for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) and the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States (CERDS). Drawing on Latin American structuralism and a conception of freedom as non-dependency, peripheral countries reframed sovereignty not merely as non-interference but as emancipation from structural economic domination. Through the analysis of key political events—such as the Algiers Charter, the Third Session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD III), and the Sixth Special Session of the UN General Assembly—this study shows that the Third World developed a distinctive understanding of international inequality, linking development to autonomy and sovereign control over economic structures. The article challenges dominant interpretations that reduce Third World demands to just material self-interest or mere extensions of Western liberal ideals. Instead, it argues that these initiatives constituted an original, systemic critique of the global economic order, with lasting relevance for contemporary debates on development and freedom.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09692290.2025.2513384 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rripxx:v:32:y:2025:i:6:p:1895-1923

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rrip20

DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2025.2513384

Access Statistics for this article

Review of International Political Economy is currently edited by Gregory Chin, Juliet Johnson, Daniel Mügge, Kevin Gallagher, Ilene Grabel and Cornelia Woll

More articles in Review of International Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().