Portugal and the UN: a rogue state resisting the norm of decolonization (1956-1974)

Abstract

This article places the resistance by the Portuguese government to the growing wave of anti-colonialism in the UN in the context of wider debates regarding the role of the latter in the international history of decolonization and the dynamics of state resistance to UN norm-setting. It compares Portuguese and Belgian diplomatic approaches to anti-colonialism at the UN with the aim of improving our understanding of how successful and how specific the Portuguese policy towards decolonization really was. More specifically this article aims to explain why the Portuguese State sought entry to and remained in a UN hostile to overseas empires, and why it persisted in ‘a denial of colonialism’, despite its failure as a conventional diplomatic strategy.