Did you notice? The Global South has just shifted the power

Abstract

ABSTRACT Inspired by Táíwò's call to investigate the “omissions and blind spots” (2022: 5) of the decolonization movement, we posit that important threads of both the decolonization and “shift-the-power” movements share (neo-)colonial assumptions. They overestimate the importance of “development industry” of bilateral donors, multilateral lenders and international NGOs for everyday life and public policy in most of the Global South. The middle-income countries where most of the global population live have been decolonising their world for decades, building viable polities, societies and economies that are neither modelled after nor dependent on the West. Yet an important thread of the decolonization literature continues to equate decolonizing the development industry with decolonizing development. This, we contend, is a sideshow. The main challenge for decolonization and shifting-the-power must be to decolonize those elements in the Global South adhering to old colonial practices.