This short conclusion pulls together the implications of tracing this cohort’s work and thought, through the conceptual framework of an anticolonial culture, for our understanding of the social and intellectual processes that accompanied legal-constitutional decolonisation. It focuses on the broader and less state-centric picture that emerges, on the importance of a regional framework to arrive at this ‘distributed’ history, and on the merits of microhistorical methods for revising heroic narratives of both national liberation and global solidarity projects. A new intellectual history of anticolonialism could thus make more room for social histories and collective labour.

Chapter 6 shows how actors turn to more fluid forms of ordering to adapt to movements and new issues in the security arena. Fluid ordering can compensate for minimal resources but can also reduce possible gains in the security arena. Non-state actors often attempt to mediate security issues as an alternative to absent state enforcement but often lack the influence to resolve conflict. State and international actors themselves recurrently choose to engage the arena through flexible conflict resolution. Fluid ordering that turns violent is particularly hard to grasp as perpetrators deliberately keep their actions and organization obscure. Ordering towards the fluid end of the spectrum can improve security by allowing for more modifiability but it also allows insecurity to arise as violence remains unchecked.

Chapter 7 – Governing Transformations – outlines ideas and approaches for governing various kinds of transformations, ranging from the transformational leverage of technology, market incentives, strengthening state actions, civil society initiatives, enhanced public education and efforts to shift mindsets to restructuring the economic world order. We present key concepts in governance of transformation and discuss the various governance implications of aspirations for sudden, rapid and profound changes versus proposals for incremental or niche developments. Such policies and measures range from stand-alone unparalleled efforts, intended to activate a tipping point towards transformation, to a series of incremental efforts to gradually accomplish transformation. Moreover, we suggest an analytical framework for transformation governance processes that focuses on scrutinising goals, governance mechanisms, outcomes, target populations, outputs, leverage mechanisms, interventions and institutional frameworks.