Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan, The Making of Global International Relations: Origins and Evolution of IR at its Centenary, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019 (original) (raw)
Related papers
2016
International Relations History has been a much-discussed theme in the discipline of IR. Over time, some discourses have consolidated themselves as the mainstream. However, these narratives have been established on top of feeble ground put forth with the purpose of stabilizing them, what, at the end of the day, only weakens those discourses to a point that they end up not holding any water. Some of those ways of “telling” the history of the field have become so strong that they obscure other ways of viewing things, something that can be detrimental to any academic subject and especially to International Relations. The type of narrative used may have a pressing influence on ontological, epistemological and methodological postures vis-à-vis the field and its object, that is, relations between international actors.
“International Relations” in The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies
International Relations (IR) is commonly understood as the study of behaviors and interactions of nation-states (such as the United States or China), regional organizations (such as the European Union or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), international organizations (such as the United Nations or World Bank), and multinational corporations (such as Google or McDonalds). The question whether these examples may further be characterized as governmental, intergovernmental, or nongovernmental in nature depends on the hybridity of the tasks and roles they undertake and the mission-vision of these organizations. It is apparent that other social science disciplines have had a marked influence on IR in terms of its theoretical and methodological development. IR is described as an interdisciplinary field mostly influenced by philosophy, political science, history, economics, and sociology. Thus, the individual, the community (cultural, religious, or secular), civil society, world society (cosmopolitan and universal), and the international system and their interactions are also part of the study of IR. In addition, it is concerned with the formulation and implementation of foreign policy. Its motivations, objectives, national interests, and the involvement of its agents such as political elites in decision-making are all part of the foreign policy of a given nation-state. IR may also utilize positivistic or normative tools for its research design and methodology. Some treat it as still a branch of political science, but although IR is a relatively young discipline, scholars from the United Kingdom and the United States have established their own institutes and departments independent of the other social sciences. Almost all the books, journal articles, and textbooks in IR used all over the world were authored by American or British scholars, or by UK or US graduates. The extant literature in the West is therefore much more extensive than that in the rest of the world. IR is therefore considered by some scholars as a US-or Europe-centric discipline which ignores or downplays the experience of other parts of the world, such as the Muslim world, and its principal actors, such as China, India, and Brazil. Another significant aspect of IR is the difference between theoreticians and practitioners in the approach to international issues. Who has more weight, credibility, and influence in a given case (e.g., Iranian nuclear talks, or issues of climate change or crimes against humanity)? Theoreticians may guide and provide explanatory precedents to practitioners, while practitioners will always be in the forefront of the hands-on implementation of solutions suggested by theoreticians. In short, both play a vital role in shaping and/or carrying out the study of IR. Below is an overview of the historical development of IR as a discipline and guidance to practitioners or policymakers, including the major debates that have taken place and the future prospects for the discipline of international relations.
'International historical what?' International Theory (2016) Vol.8, no.3
This essay examines the relationship between history and theory through a historical and political analysis of the rise of distinctly social theories, concepts, and practices in the ‘long 19th century’. Sociomania, obsession with things ‘socio’, is a problem in international theory. It is also a serious missed opportunity for Buzan and Lawson’s study of the 19th century. "The Global Transformation" contributes to international theory in showing how mainstream IR has failed to grasp the full significance of this period. But, in this crucial regard at least, so too have its authors. In adopting rather than fully historicizing the rise and expansion of social theories, works of ‘historical social science’ obscure rather than illuminate the historical and political origins of social forms of governance and thought; underestimate their significance for the history of international theory; and are unable to identify the more fundamental governance form of which the rise of the modern social realm is a concrete historical expression.
Global History and International Relations
Carta Internacional
The Post-Cold War world order fueled discussions in the field of Humanities on theoretical and methodological resources in the very attempt to understand and explain the increasingly multi-polarized and complex international system. While considering the field of History — especially in its attempt to theoretically and methodologically cross borders — and while being active in the field of International Relations, we see possibilities of fruitful encounters between both areas of research, particularly when it comes to recent discussions on what came to be called in the 1990s “global history”. The article initially presents a conceptual definition of global history; then moves on to underpin its claim that History and IR areentangled disciplines that, despite different theoretical points of departure, not only share similar basic assumptions (state-centrism and the Western intellectual framework of thought) but also have been sharing similar intellectual preoccupations. In the third ...
International Relations, 2017
Over the past two decades, historians of international thought have markedly improved our understanding of the disciplinary history of International Relations and its wider intellectual history. During that period, 'contextualism' has become a leading approach in the field, as it has been for half a century in the history of political thought. This article argues that while the application of contextualism in IR has improved our understanding of its disciplinary history, its assumptions about the proper relationship between historians and theorists threaten to marginalise the history of international thought within IR. It argues that unless the inherent weaknesses in contextualism are recognised, the progress made in the field will go unrecognised by a discipline that sees little reason to engage with its history. It suggests that historians of international thought adopt an extensively modified version of contextualism that would allow them to rebuild bridges back into IR, especially IR theory.
REWRITING THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL THOUGHT. DISCIPLINARY HISTORY, ORIGINS, AND MISSING VOICES
Since the mid-1990s there has been a dramatic surge in work on the disciplinary history of IR and on the history of international thought. Admittedly the amount of work in this area is still small (and dwarfed by work in other aspects of IR), but it deserves the epithet 'dramatic' because it began from a low base. In the second decade of the twenty-first century there is now a recognisable community of disciplinary historians and historians of international thought, which is big enough to support panels at major conferences, and the occasional workshop. Disciplinary history in IR has been able to explore many of the historical myths that have helped shape the discipline, but one question is rarely asked: why did disciplinary history as a significant sub-field in its own right appear in the 1990s? This chapter will start by exploring the nature and evolution of the turn towards disciplinary history in IR. Along the way I will be discussing the particular slants this work has taken, and also its relationship with the larger field of the history of international thought. In this sense I will use the question of the origins of disciplinary history to explore the nature of the disciplinary history of IR, within the history of international thought, and how this relates to questions of the origins of IR and marginalised or missing voices. The paper forms a narrative with four stages to the story. The first explores the form that disciplinary history has taken since the 1990s. The second stage looks at why disciplinary history emerged when it did. Here I will take a step backwards and explore the developments in IR that led to the growth of disciplinary history. The third will look at how disciplinary history has engaged with the problem of IR, and how its origins have framed it. Finally, I will look more closely at the outcomes of disciplinary history and the history of international thought, and discuss how these relate to forgotten or missing theoretical narratives.
Introduction: rethinking the foundations of modern international thought
Foundations of Modern International Thought, 2012
Introduction: rethinking the foundations of modern international thought 'international intellectual history' in the eighteenth-century portion of his Storia della letteratura italiana (1870-1). 4 For early assessments of the field's prospects, see Bell (2002a); Armitage (2004); Rothschild (2006).
International Relations and Intellectual History
International Relations, 2019
This article reflects on themes of continuity and change over the past century of international relations. In 1919 the victors of the First World War endeavoured to remake international relations by abolishing war and erecting institutional structures that were intended to promote a more just world order. The achievements and failures of this project can be discerned in overlapping patterns of continuity and change that portray a world that is at once old and new. The discourse of change tends to dominate thinking about international relations. Technological innovation, globalisation, and human rights, among other factors, cultivate the progressive 'one-worldism' of an interconnected global community of nations and peoples. But, evidence of change notwithstanding, much of contemporary international relations would be intelligible to persons who lived a century ago. International relations is still fundamentally about order and security, power and restraint, and freedom and equality. These patterns provide an important reminder that progress is possible but that international relations involves an open-ended project of continuous renovation and conservation.