Evil Empire 39The ideal of a national independence disembedded from the world
was not only a fantasy for decolonizing nations—it was also increas-
ingly impossible for the Global North. Anticipating the contemporary
dilemmas of neoliberal globalization, Manley argued that international
entanglements of trade, capital flows, and financialization, as well as the
emergence of transnational private actors, threatened to undermine the
capacity of all states to steer and regulate their national economies. For
Manley, the multinational corporation revealed the growing contradic-
tions between the international economy and the bounded nation-state.
In creating an international system of political management for the world
economy, the NIEO would supplement the diminished role of the state.
It would create a system for political and democratic regulation of the
global economy, ultimately benefiting all states and peoples. Thus while
anticolonial nationalists reimagined international institutions for the
postcolonial condition, their vision extended beyond the Global South.
the democratic decision-making and global redistribution at the
heart of the NIEO could yet again be a source for inspiration, espe-
cially in our present moment when the tension between nationalism
and internationalism electrifies political debate. Brexit, the election of
Donald Trump, and the wave of authoritarian populism surging across
the West all frame national insularity as the solution to an age of neo-
liberal globalization. By withdrawing from international institutions,
erecting barriers to global trade, and closing borders to migrants, the
new right in the Global North aspires to realize a vision of national
independence that Manley and other anti-colonial nationalists already
realized was impossible fifty years ago. But if the right’s model of
national insularity is impossible, the neoliberal globalization that