Before the “West”: Recovering the Forgotten Foundations of Global Order (original) (raw)
Related papers
Opening up the debate over ‘non-western’ international relations
Politics , 2019
This opening article maps the terrain of the ongoing debate over various forms of ‘non-Western’ International Relations (IR) theory-building enterprise with the aim not only of providing contextual background for the Special Section, but also, and more importantly, of identifying what is missing in the overall debate. It is often pointed out that IR as a discipline is ‘too Western centric’, and that much of mainstream IR theory is ‘simply an abstraction of Western history’. In this respect, many IR scholars have called for ‘broadening’ the theoretical horizon of IR while problematising the Western parochialism of the discipline, and it is increasingly acknowledged that IR needs to embrace a wider range of histories, experiences, and theoretical perspectives, particularly those outside of the West. However, despite such a meaningful debate over non-Western IR theorisation and its recent contributions, several critical questions and issues still remain unclear and under-explored. I suggest that there are (at least) three sets of questions that require more careful attention in our discussion. First, does IR need to embrace theoretical pluralism? Second, to what extent has contemporary IR become pluralistic? Third, should IR pursue the promotion of dialogue and engagement across theoretical and spatial divides? Of course, each of these questions invites several subsequent questions. This discussion will serve as a useful point from which more substantial and exciting bearings may be taken in enriching the ongoing debate and moving IR towards becoming a more pluralistic discipline.
Review of Non-Western International Relations Theory Perspectives on and Beyond Asia
Journal of International and Global Studies, 2012
This edited volume brings together six authors who evaluate the state of non-western oriented International Relations Theory in case study/country formats, incorporating studies of China, Japan, Korea, India, and Indonesia. Accompanying micro-level case study evaluation are meso-and macro-level inquiries from a Southeast Asian, Islamic, and World Historical view. The various authors come together in providing key insights into the fundamental question posed by this volume, namely: Why is there no non-western international relations theory—or, perhaps more pointedly—why is there a lack of appreciation for, exposure to, and dissemination of non-western oriented international relations theoretical scholarship? The nature of this volume is to offer readers a systematized purview of the nature of international relations theorizing, which stands in western academic circles as being the crux of scholastic achievement and stands apart from practitioner/policy analysis (which has as its core motive the solving of everyday issues and problems). The question posed by Acharya and Buzan's text has perhaps escaped academicians and laymen in general for the preceding half century of international relations scholarship. Nonetheless, the research trajectory set by the editors is both intriguing and prescient to the contemporary period, not least because the focus of power relations and international influence in the 21 st century is shifting and will continue to shift towards Asia, with its dynamic economies and rapidly modernizing social and political spaces. International relations (IR) is an interdisciplinary field of study, sometimes considered a branch of political science, with the primary goals of (1) understanding relationships between countries and (2) seeking to both analyze and formulate the foreign policy of states. Students of IR are keenly aware of the demand for rigorous study of the IR " classics " as well as the expectation that publishable work adhere to a theoretically sound and testable base, both of which are the essence of scholarship in the field of IR (and, indeed, in academia in general). However, in U.S. academic circles, the limited scope of theoretical inquiry into the field of IR itself (which has centered on few debates such as neorealist v. neoliberal, realist v. ideational, positivist v. reflexive) has led students and instructors of IR in U.S. universities down a dangerous path. This path is characterized by ever-increasing inflexibility and the need to " reheat " studies and approaches, using familiar paradigmatic expressions (inherently stemming from post-colonial studies) rather than looking towards the nature of international society or exploring the effects that globalization is bringing to the fore, including fracturedness, diversity, reimagination, and reconnection with lost traditions (i.e. the recapturing of local, regional, and subsystem coherence). The threat of reifying western IR Theory and the problem of its uneven fit to emerging regions of the world highlight the need for a fresh look and a diversified understanding of IR. The volume itself is readily accessible to students of international relations. This accessibility is a result of the authors' narrative styles, clearly structured work, and the absence of academic jargon. This text would appeal to a wide range of persons, including students of international relations, Asia experts, and those who simply find international relations interesting. The first chapter, written by Yaqing Qin, addresses the state of international relations theorization and the components which have led to a lack of IR theorization in contemporary Chinese scholarship. Qin begins by making distinctions regarding the different periods of Chinese international relations academic inquiry. The author finds that the state of Chinese IR is
The potential for non-western International Relations Theory
It has become increasingly apparent that modern IR theories are more Western oriented in their approach to the domain. This has motivated many critics to point out the limited ability of such theories in explaining many aspects of the field including IR dynamics in the non-western world. The question therefore becomes how can we tackle this problem and ensure the discipline becomes more inclusive? Although scholars vary in their arguments whether 'Western' and 'non-Western' are appropriate labels, others argue for particular national 'approaches' of IR. This paper on the other hand suggests that the potential for non-western IR theory lies primarily in distinguishing the problem field being addressed and by broadening the ontology and epistemology of IR theory adopted. Although theories of IR continue to be dominated by Western perspectives and contributions, it is possible to build alternative schools originating from non-Western contexts and experiences if the above two factors are considered.
Dialogue and Discovery: In Search of International Relations Theories Beyond the West
Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 2011
Scholars of International Relations (IR) increasingly realise that their discipline, including its theories and methods, often neglects voices and experiences outside of the West. But how do we address this problem and move the discipline forward? While some question whether 'Western' and 'non-Western' (or 'post-Western') are useful labels, there are also other perspectives, including those who believe in the adequacy of existing theories and approaches, those who argue for particular national 'schools' of IR, and those who dismiss recent efforts to broaden IR theory as 'mimicry' in terms of their epistemological underpinnings. After reviewing these debates, this article identifies some avenues for further research with a view to bringing out the global heritage of IR. These include, among other things, paying greater attention to the genealogy of international systems, the diversity of regionalisms and regional worlds, the integration of area studies with IR, peoplecentric approaches to IR, security and development, and the agency role of non-Western ideas and actors in building global order. I also argue for broadening the epistemology of IR theory with the help of non-Western philosophies such as Buddhism. While the study of IR remains dominated by Western perspectives and contributions, it is possible to build different and alternative theories which originate from non-Western contexts and experiences.
Re-Visions and Re-Orientations. Non-European Thought in the International Relations Studies, 2014
With the end of the Cold War political order, the clear bipolarity of the competing liberal and realist schools was no longer enough to explain the multi-layered international relations-ever less hierarchical and more polymorphic, or even amorphous, subject to constant dynamic changes. Global interdependencies implied that in the International Relations theory, neoclassical and constructivist reflections should be supplemented by other approaches, with narrower scopes of interest. The world, which was being Reborn in a new form, resembled a splashy fractal pattern rather than the ordered, though dynamical, international system described by Kenneth Waltz. New actors appeared experimentally in the old, clear international scene, and it might seem that they went through it-and sometimes even flashed through it at the speed of light-as if unintentionally, disregarding the significance of their participation in the global spectacle. The alternative theoretical approaches tried to explain this pulsating reality. Many of them, for example, historical sociology, aspired to maintaining consistency with the classical ideas, while others focused on highlighting the faults in the design of the old paradigms, naming areas which had been omitted in these theories. The latter group of ideas emerged from the traditionally understood international policy, which meant that it would pass over the orthodoxy of studying mainly those things which are the domain of state and political by nature. The content of theoretical studies would, therefore, include: economic inequalities (globalism-neo-Marxism-critical theory), inequality in the social participation of sexes and the disguised gender chauvinism of the study of International Relations (feminism), the influence of politics on climate, responsibility for
International Theory 15(3): 499-515, 2023
The project to establish a Global International Relations (IR) generates space for theoretical expressions drawn from outside the experiences of the modern West. Alongside these demands for theoretical pluralism can be found a concern for widening IR’s historical frames of reference. Yet, to date, the relationship between Global IR and history is the least developed part of the project’s agenda. This article suggests two ways in which this relationship can be strengthened. The first, drawn from Global History, shows how transboundary connections and relational dynamics forge the units used by advocates of Global IR in their analysis: West and non-West, core and periphery, metropole and colony. Second, we argue that a concern for transboundary connections and relational dynamics should be supplemented by analysis of power asymmetries in order to show which connections matter for which processes. This attention to patterns of connections, in other words the structural entanglements, premised on asymmetrical power relations, which can be used to explain processes of historical development, is the terrain of Global Historical Sociology. This double move, from Global IR to Global History, and then from Global History to Global Historical Sociology, sustains an agenda concerned with the interactive connections and asymmetrical entanglements between peoples, places, ideas, and institutions that drive historical development. We illustrate the potential of this approach through a brief analysis of the rise of the West. This, in turn, demonstrates the ways in which three visions of the global – Global IR, Global History, and Global Historical Sociology – can be mutually beneficial.
Preface to The Discipline of Western Supremacy
This volume concludes the trilogy in which I redefine world politics as an evolving composite of modes of foreign relations. Foreign relations are about communities occupying separate social spaces and considering each other as outsiders. Occupation, its protection, and the regulation of exchange with others are universal attributes of human communities; they date back to the dawn of anthropogenesis and have evolved with the ongoing transformation of nature. Hence, as we have seen in Volume II, all human groups, communities and societies rely on mythologies and religious imaginaries to make sense of the foreign encounter. They originate in the tribal and empire/nomad modes and continue to run through contemporary foreign relations. Indeed in our contemporary epoch, such primordial imaginaries are resurgent on a grand scale.
Postcolonial Theory and the Critique of International Relations
Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 2011
This article in three parts offers the beginnings of a postcolonial critique of mainstream International Relations (IR). The first part argues that IR, where it has been interested in history at all, has misdescribed the origins and character of the contemporary international order, and that an accurate understanding of the 'expansion of the international system' requires attention to its colonial origins. The second part suggests that IR is deeply Eurocentric, not only in its historical account of the emergence of the modern international order, but also in its account(s) of the nature and functioning of this order. The human sciences are heirs to a tradition of knowledge which defines knowledge as a relation between a cognising, representing subject and an object, such that knowledge is always 'of' something out there, which exists independently of its apprehension. The third part of the article suggests that knowledges serve to constitute that which they purport to merely cognise or represent, and that IR theory serves to naturalise that which is historically produced.