Bandung 60 years on: revolt and resilience in international society

This article examines the extent to which international society has been able to accommodate challenges such as the mid twentieth-century ‘revolt against the West’ and the twenty-first-century rise of new (especially non-Western) great powers. The Bandung conference of 1955 has commonly been seen as posing a threat to the fabric of international society by proliferating cultural and political differences. The authors show, on the contrary, that the political project of anti-colonialism and peaceful coexistence expressed at Bandung was actually consistent with a pluralist conception of international society, even if Western powers and intellectuals at the time failed to notice. The non-Western countries represented at Bandung were intent on expunging international society of the structures and practices of racism and colonialism so as to strengthen the foundations of a pluralistic international society better able to accommodate cultural and political differences.