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1. One Universal Civilization: Superiority and Eurocentric Conception of the Rest

Author:
Fadi Zatari and Omar Fili
Publication Date:
06-2024
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:
Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:
The prevailing notion suggests a universal or human civilization, positing all as subsets of a shared human experience. This article critiques this perspective, arguing that the contemporary concept of human civilization is predominantly synonymous with Western civilization. This article will elucidate its argument by drawing upon the insights of Western scholars in the field of civilizational studies. Subsequently, it will undertake a critical examination and assessment of the Western discourse, evaluating its outcomes as evidenced in contemporary foreign policy shaped by the historical backdrop of colonialism. The article uses direct quotations and historical narratives to not only scrutinize the inclination to depict Western civilization as singular, extraordinary, and unparalleled but also to highlight the persistent tendency to undervalue the importance of other civilizations, often termed as 'the rest'. It relies on primary materials authored by Western scholars concerning the notion of civilization, supplemented by secondary references citing influential intellectuals in the field. In addition to primary sources such as interviews and contemporary statements regarding pertinent events, secondary sources encompass literature on civilization within the framework of global south studies. The notion of Western civilization is depicted as a constructed political construct utilized to perpetuate Western hegemony, engender othering, and perpetuate colonialist agendas. This dynamic persists even in the post-Cold War era, wherein ongoing Western hegemony perpetuates dominance over non-Western powers. Instances reflecting this neo-colonialist paradigm include the US intervention in Iraq, the conflict in Afghanistan, and the ongoing Israeli military campaign in Gaza as of late 2023.
Topic:
Colonialism, Civilization, Eurocentrism, and Superiority
Political Geography:
Europe and Global Focus

2. Is Critique Still Possible in International Relations Theory? A Critical Engagement with IR’s Vocation

Author:
Natália Maria Félix de Souza
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contexto Internacional
Institution:
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:
The article offers a critique of recent efforts to read international relations theory – and its theorists – as especially positioned to offer a critique of international politics. It does so by engaging Daniel Levine’s claim that international relations theory has a special vocation for critique which is unparalleled by other disciplines. By problematizing Levine’s political, ethical and epistemological approach to sustainable critique, I argue that international relations theory has been particularly engaged with a politics of crisis that centers Western modes of subjectivity as the only frame of reference for thinking about politics and history. As a consequence, Western international relations theory has become both inadequate and dispensable for many critical theorists of international politics in much of the world, even when it comes to its most critical approaches. By way of conclusion, I offer an approach to critical international relations theory that starts from the politics of colonialism, instead of crisis.
Topic:
International Relations, International Relations Theory, Decolonization, Sustainability, and Eurocentrism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Looking Beyond England: Slavery, Settler Colonialism and the Development of Industrial Capitalism

Author:
Paula Reisdorf
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Global Political Economy, University of Sussex
Abstract:
This paper examines the debates surrounding industrial capitalism’s origins, critiquing the Eurocentrism in the Political Marxist approach. Instead, using a dialectical framework, I argue that the transition from agrarian to industrial capitalism in Britain required the existence of slavery and settler colonialism in the New World. The reason for this is threefold: Firstly, the removal of surplus populations either to colonies or domestically by employing them in colony- related industries was necessary to avoid stagnation in capitalist development. Secondly, the cheapening of basic commodities leading to a reduction in wages (i.e. relative surplus value extraction) in Britain necessitated enslaved labour in the New World. Thirdly, British industrialisation itself required settler colonialism and slavery because of: 1) the importation of slave-produced raw materials that were manufactured in Britain, 2) the exportation of manufactured products to settler colonies in the Americas, 3) the investment into industry by slaveowners and 4) the credit provision by banks that were tightly linked to the slave trade. I, therefore, conclude by suggesting that taking seriously the links between capitalism and slavery/colonialism could unify post-colonialism and Marxism by demonstrating the interconnectedness between post-colonialism’s principal object of analysis – colonialism – and Marxism’s main object of analysis – capitalism.
Topic:
Post Colonialism, Socialism/Marxism, Capitalism, Slavery, Colonialism, Settler Colonialism, and Eurocentrism
Political Geography:
Britain and Global Focus

4. The Interactions of International Relations: Racism, Colonialism, Producer-Centred Research

Author:
Deep K. Datta-Ray
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
The racial hierarchy underscoring colonialism persists, organises core-periphery interactions and so undermines International Relations’ (IR’s) purpose of accounting and explaining to mitigate violence. Despite IR’s awareness of its colonialism, it reconstitutes in the hermeneutic’s deductive and inductive method via aphasia (calculated forgetting) about its heuristic: diplomacy. The result, analytic-violence or the core’s heuristic corrupting interaction with the periphery. Yet, its evasiveness testifies to a meaningfulness beyond IR’s hermeneutic. Irretrievably corrupted by its heuristic, IR’s hermeneutic is ejected for an altogether new hermeneutic: Producer-Centred Research (PCR). Eschewing deduction and induction, and so colonialism, PCR initiates with abduction or a problem arising from theory and practice to resolve it in terms of rationality because of its, and the problem’s, significance. Changing “rationality” to “rationalities” registers the core’s rationality as colonialism while preventing it from contaminating PCR’s collection and assessment of peripheral practices to determine if they cohere into another rationality. Moreover, treating peripheral practitioners authoritatively, as capable of rationalising themselves and thus equal to rationality, further protects PCR from aphasia. Verifying efficacy shows PCR’s decolonisation of the hermeneutic is not entirely replicated externally, amongst IR scholars. The core engages PCR, but it incites violence in the periphery which defends rationality and so is colonialism’s bastion, now.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, Colonialism, Eurocentrism, Racism, and Hermeneutics
Political Geography:
India and Global Focus

5. Foregrounding the Complexities of a Dialogic Approach to Global International Relations

Author:
Deepshikha Shahi
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
The ever more global character of today’s International Relations (IR) is no longer satisfied with one-sided stories about how things have gone with either the West or the non-West. Rather, the ongoing discussions on Global IR persuade both the West and the non-West to squarely unfold their own narratives. As the theories and practices of contemporary international relations have remarkably acquired a ‘Global’ impetus, a lot of premium is being put on a ‘dialogic approach’ – that is, an approach to Global IR that insists upon a deeper two-way communicative-action between the West and the non-West. Although the dialogic approach to Global IR seeks to resolve a wide range of cognitive differences between the West and the non-West, it more often than not remains thwarted by a few unsettled contestations: (i) History vs. Philosophy, (ii) Chronology vs. Covariance, (iii) Language vs. Concept, (iv) Culture vs. Economy, and (v) Single vs. Plural. This paper sets out to shed light on these unsettled contestations in an endeavour to intellectually improve the prospects of a dialogic approach to Global IR.
Topic:
International Relations, Academia, Eurocentrism, and Dialogue
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Homegrown Theorizing: Knowledge, Scholars, Theory

Author:
Deniz Kuru
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
In recent years, the discipline of International Relations (IR) has entered another of its turns: the homegrown turn. This new turn focuses on possible contributions to IR theorizing using non-Western knowledge and/or scholarship. This article deconstructs the idea of homegrown theorizing by focusing on its constitutive part, dealing separately with the aspects of knowledge, scholar, and theory, questioning thereby the differing meanings of homegrownness. Such an approach provides an initial framework that accomplishes two things: First, the paper discusses today’s core Western IR community and its disciplinary sociology in terms of the main factors engendering present critiques of its scholarship. Second, it then becomes possible to pay attention to peripheral non-Western IR’s position at a time of gradual post-Westernization, both world politically and within the discipline. Engaging with the pitfalls of Western IR and elaborating on the reasons not only explains the emergence of IR’s homegrown turn, but also provides the basis for understanding how scholars engaging in homegrown theorizing can learn from the (past) mistakes of core scholarship. Dealing with the impact of globalization, Eurocentrism, presentism, and parochialism as the main problem areas of (Western) IR, the article concludes by providing a list of lessons to be taken into account when engaging in homegrown theorizing within the periphery.
Topic:
International Relations, Globalization, Sociology, International Relations Theory, and Eurocentrism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. Towards the Global Study of International Relations

Author:
Andrew Hurrell
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
Institution:
Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais (IBRI)
Abstract:
This article reviews recent critiques of the wester-centrism of mainstream International Relations. It argues that the overriding challenge is to try to move beyond critique and to develop a global study of international relations that insists on the importance of the systemic, of the global, but that also takes the critiques seriously and builds on them productively.
Topic:
International Relations, International Relations Theory, Academia, Eurocentrism, and Area Studies
Political Geography:
Global Focus