Paper short abstract:

The entry of rising powers has opened up new opportunities in the geopolitical landscape of development. To move forward, this work looks back on the movement for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) to derive lessons from an intellectual history tracing back to Bandung and Bretton Woods.

Paper long abstract:

The entry of rising powers in the geopolitics of development presents a real opportunity to change the landscape of possible choices or trajectories for developing countries. A critical question then arises in how to sustain and institutionalise such momentum towards a more open and multipolar development arena.

This work addresses the above by looking to the past for a way forward. History proves significant here in two regards. The first is in the basic notion that history offers valuable lessons, in the sense in which Santayana remarks that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The second lies in the manner in which the legacies of the past very much live on in the present. If one is to reform the political terrain of development, it is worth knowing how this present state first came to be.

For the rising powers, history is all the more significant in light of antecedents in the Third World movement. Namely, the rise and fall of NIEO provides a compelling example of past successes and failures. Tracing back to Bretton Woods and Bandung, this work shows how successful political mobilisation came to face the limits of Western liberalism and Third World diversity. A key finding here is the need for intellectual foundations to sustain political momentum. This—along with the interwoven contexts of domestic politics, international politics, and the politics of knowledge that emerge from NIEO history—may point to some of the challenges that lay ahead.