Self-Determination between World and Nation

Abstract

Abstract Rejecting the rigid dichotomy between anticolonial nationalism and postnational solidarity, Adom Getachew's Worldmaking after Empire argues that anticolonial leaders in the Caribbean and Africa did not outright reject the nation-state in their quest for self-determination. Instead, they internationalized the nation-state through the construction of new constituted powers that linked national sovereignties together in global juridical, political, and economic bodies. This essay explores a neglected question in this account: What were the constituent powers—the underlying sources of authority —that corresponded to these new global institutions? What, in other words, was the constituency of self-determination? Focusing on C. L. R. James and W. E. B. Du Bois, Dahl shows how anticolonial constituencies are at once the referent and effect of claims for self-determination. For James and Du Bois, politically delineating the constituency of self-determination is central to the institutional project of securing nondomination against international hierarchies of empire and enslavement.