A Critical Review of the Non-Aligned Movement in Contemporary Historiography

Despite a growing body of scholarship reflecting renewed interest in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), there remains little agreement on how to interpret its origins, ideological coherence, political agency, and historical significance. This review article examines a selection of key English-language publications from 2011 to 2022, analysing them across three main dimensions: the NAM’s ideological foundations; its political and diplomatic practices; and its positioning within global and postcolonial historiographies. In doing so, the article challenges conventional narratives that depict the NAM as a reactive or marginal actor, while also highlighting emerging approaches that emphasize its ideological roots, strategic agency, and transnational entanglements. These contrasting perspectives expose an ongoing attempt to introduce an innovative outlook and perspectives within the field to resolve methodological and interpretive tensions. Ultimately, the article argues that recent literature offers important openings for rethinking the NAM not simply as a Cold War product, but as a dynamic actor in the making of global order, and points to the need for further research into its shifting meanings across time, space, and context.