Chanintira na THALANG and Yong-Soo EUN, Global International Relations in Southeast Asia

A decade ago, Amitav Acharya outlined his ‘new agenda’ for International Relations (IR) scholars: ‘Global International Relations’. This article seeks to modestly move forward two aspects of the Global IR agenda. First, we foreground a region largely missing from the Global IR literature: the Pacific Islands. That the Pacific has been ‘geo-politically marginal’ has consequences for the Global IR, and broader Political Science and IR scholarship, which has missed out on analysing and learning lessons from a rich and diverse region. Second, the Global IR scholarship has focused on important questions about ontology and epistemology, but with less consideration of methodology. That means that the question of how to move ‘beyond critique’ and do the practical work of studying Global IR remains largely unanswered. In the second part of our article we outline considerations arising from greater Global IR, and broader Political Science and IR, scholarly attention to the Pacific and then provide a grounded perspective of the practicalities of doing research there.

The field of International Relations (IR) today is parochial in the sense of eurocentrism and inadequate in explaining the recent developments in the field. We need a new reverberated, innovative, and inclusive perspective that reflects the voices, experiences, interests, and identity of all humankind. Global IR established for that reason. Global IR is not meant to be a new universal narration of the „East? but to encourage a new diversity of perspectives in knowledge and authority decentralization to create a more „international? and wider IR academic contributions. In Southeast Asia, the richness of historical, social, and cultural sources might become a starting point for a geoepistemological perspective and also an entrance for a perspective, in the umbrella of Global IR, for seeing deeper the 'reality' and 'what is existing' in this region.

East Asia is increasingly at the centre of debates among International Relations (IR) scholars. China's political, economic, and military ascendency is increasingly considered as a crucial test case for main approaches to IR. Despite this renewed attention, mainstream theories employed to analyse contemporary Asia are still remarkably Euro-centric. A wave of studies has argued in favour of a broad ‘decolonization’ of theoretical concepts used to analyse East Asia as well as other regions. These efforts have produced several distinct research agendas. Firstly, critical and post-colonial theorists have worked on the par destruens, highlighting the inherent Euro-centrism of many IR concepts and theories. Secondly, scholars such as Buzan and Acharya have promoted the idea of Global IR, seeking to advance a ‘non-Western’ and non-Euro-centric research agenda. This agenda has found fertile ground especially in China, where several scholars have tried to promote a Chinese School of IR. This article has three main purposes. Firstly, it briefly explores the issue of Eurocentrism in IR studies dedicated to East Asia. Secondly, it maps the theoretical debates aimed at overcoming it, looking in particular at the ‘Global IR’ research programme and the so-called Chinese School. Finally, it sketches a few other possible avenues of research for a very much needed cooperation between Global IR and area studies.

A key feature of the long-observed ‘core’ hegemony in International Relations (IR) is a linguistic one, yet it remains the least explored and confronted, with even today’s ‘Global IR’ discussion unquestioningly taking place in English. However, the non-English IR world is demographically and intellectually immense, and global IR cannot afford to ignore it. This study argues that English dominance in IR knowledge production and dissemination is a pillar of a dependent relationship between an English-speaking core and a non-English periphery. It further argues that this linguistic unilateralism, through assimilation, is structurally homogenising, and impedes the periphery’s original contribution potential in an imperialistic manner. This study examines 135 journals from 39 countries in the linguistic periphery to assess the degree and nature of English dominance in them. It explores the relationship between publication language and ranking and analyses citations to understand whether language matters for being cited in the core. We conclude with recommendations for institutions, individuals, and knowledge outlets, including a call for greater multilingualism, which – though a possible risk for parochialism and provincialism – is necessary for periphery concept development and incorporation into a broadened ‘core’, and a necessary stage to curbing the imperialistic impact of linguistic unilateralism and encouraging a genuine globalisation of IR.

Integrating non-Western voices remains a struggle in the path towards global international relations (IR). The dominant Eurocentric orthodoxy in IR has marginalized in particular Southeast Asian views and experiences, which are nevertheless a rich source of non-Western theorizing. In the Philippines, a potential locus of theorizing could come from an exploration of the pre-Hispanic polity of Butuan, an important trading center in northeastern Mindanao from the tenth through the 13th centuries. However, one must be wary of the primordialism of nationalist historians, seeking to legitimize the present nation-state through an appropriation of ancient history. The pitfall of nationalist historiography is the re-nationalization of IR even as they attempt to uncover non-Western insights. Therefore, a viable alternative historiographical framework for non-western theorizing is the mandala polity of O.W. Wolters. With the aid of this framework, the reconstruction of pre-colonial Butuan history based on both textual and non-textual sources would show how the use of non-traditional data sources could enrich IR’s understanding of the world. Thus, from the level of methodology, IR’s take-away is the need to diversify sources from which to reconstruct international history. On the level of theory, the history of Butuan could add more dynamism to IR by challenging its Westphalian and materialist assumptions.

The discipline of International Relations (IR) does not reflect the voices, experiences, knowledge claims, and contributions of the vast majority of the societies and states in the world, and often marginalizes those outside the core countries of the West. With IR scholars around the world seeking to find their own voices and reexamining their own traditions, our challenge now is to chart a course toward a truly inclusive discipline, recognizing its multiple and diverse foundations. This article presents the notion of a “Global IR” that transcends the divide between the West and the Rest. The first part of the article outlines six main dimensions of Global IR: commitment to pluralistic universalism, grounding in world history, redefining existing IR theories and methods and building new ones from societies hitherto ignored as sources of IR knowledge, integrating the study of regions and regionalisms into the central concerns of IR, avoiding ethnocentrism and exceptionalism irrespective of source and form, and recognizing a broader conception of agency with material and ideational elements that includes resistance, normative action, and local constructions of global order. It then outlines an agenda for research that supports the Global IR idea. Key element of the agenda includes comparative studies of international systems that look past and beyond the Westphalian form, conceptualizing the nature and characteristics of a post-Western world order that might be termed as a Multiplex World, expanding the study of regionalisms and regional orders beyond Eurocentric models, building synergy between disciplinary and area studies approaches, expanding our investigations into the two-way diffusion of ideas and norms, and investigating the multiple and diverse ways in which civilizations encounter each other, which includes peaceful interactions and mutual learning. The challenge of building a Global IR does not mean a one-size-fits-all approach; rather, it compels us to recognize the diversity that exists in our world, seek common ground, and resolve conflicts.

International Relations (IR) has long been criticised for taking a particular (Western) experience as basis for formulating theories with claim to universal validity. ‘Non-Western’, ‘post-Western’, and postcolonial theories have been criticising the problem of Western parochialism and have developed specific strategies of changing IR. Global IR has taken up some of these concerns and aims at changing the discipline by theorising international politics as multiplex, taking different experiences, histories, and agencies into account. Yet, we argue that this agenda rests on a partial reading of IR’s critics, failing to take seriously the epistemological and methodological critiques of IR and therefore perpetuating some of the discipline’s ‘globalisms’. Therefore, first, Global IR reifies the idea of a truly universal body of knowledge. The global is logically prior to this as an imagined space of politics and knowledge. Second, Global IR assumes that scholars around the world aspire and are able to contribute to a single body of knowledge. While reifying these globalisms, Global IR fails to ask where this global imaginary comes from and what its effects are on the distribution of power and wealth. We argue that instead of assuming ‘the global’ as descriptive category, a more substantial and reflexive critique of IR’s exclusionary biases should start from reconstructing these globalisms and their effects. Problématiser le « mondial » dans les RI mondiales

This article addresses ongoing discussions across the English School (ES) of International Relations (IR) theory and IR theory drawing on Chinese philosophical traditions and Chinese history as exemplifying a “Global IR” approach. However, common interests in long-run history, non-material forms of power, and an international social structure have not yet led to sustained discussion of normative issues important to both approaches. Showing how analytical commonalities between ES and “Chinese” IR accounts of international societies and concepts of order and harmony focus on elite-level perspectives and priorities, I draw on critical and decolonial aspects of Global IR to argue for alternative accounts. Unexplored potential for this exists within the distinct methodological bases of ES and “Chinese IR,” opening space for normative engagement that can provide a model for other inter-tradition encounters in Global IR.

Who can speak from the perspective of the Global South? In answering this question, Global International Relations (IR) finds itself in a cul de sac: rather than globalize IR, Global IR essentializes non-Western categories by associating difference and knowledge to place (countries, regions, and civilizations) which occludes de-territorialized forms of knowledge production. To reach out for these forms of knowledge, we develop the concept of “hybrid subjectivity,” and propose a shift from the macro to the micro. We propose autoethnography as a method to proceed with this move and present two case studies based on our experiences as hybrid IR scholars to illustrate it. In doing so, we demonstrate the relevance of our self-reflexive exercise in deconstructing reified categories and rendering visible new forms of knowledge in the Global IR debate. This article’s conceptualization of hybrid subjectivity enables the recasting of Global IR in a relational, hybrid, and truly global framework for analysis. The argument goes beyond the confines of Global IR and adds essential analytical value to critical, decolonial, and pluriversal critiques of wester-centrism in IR; in the sense of opening new theoretical and empirical possibilities, as an alternative to current intellectual efforts to recover non-colonial or pre-colonial forms of non-Western authenticity.

This article contributes to two debates about international relations (IR) as a discipline: first, how global is IR, and how is it structured? Second, what is the state of theory in IR? We conducted (co-) citation analyses of both Web of Science (WoS) and—for the first time— non-WoS publications from Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. With regard to the first question, we find that global IR resembles a core–periphery structure as a “hub and spoke” system whereby transatlantic core nodes are interconnected to each other and to some periphery nodes, while the periphery nodes are connected to the core but not to each other. IR scholarship in the periphery quotes the transatlantic theory cluster but is not linked to each other, not even in the same region. Knowledge produced in the periphery has to go through the transatlantic core in order to be recognized globally. As to the transatlantic core, we identify two major (co-) citation clusters: one committed to IR theory-building across issue areas from a variety of perspectives and the other focused on security studies with a strong emphasis on quantitative methods. With regard to the second question, global IR hangs together through references to the IR theory cluster consisting of North American and European authors who appear to define what IR theory is. Scholars in the periphery refer to this transatlantic IR theory cluster when engaging in theory-building. IR theories have become rather diverse and pluralistic, even in the core. While scholars still refer to the big “isms,” they use them around the globe in a synthesizing manner.

The literature on global international relations (IR) has argued that the discipline develops in the footsteps of world politics, but no sustained attention has been given to more immediate causes such as the funders that pay for IR teaching and scholarship. These donor–recipient relations have only attracted the attention of authors interested in cultural hegemony and those contributing to the recent historiography of IR. Among the latter, some have studied how during the Cold War the Rockefeller Foundation attempted to buttress classical realism in the United States and Western Europe. This article connects and moves forward IR historiography and the global IR literature by shedding light on philanthropic foundations’ attempts to further a specific IR theory—classical realism—and area studies in the global south. The article argues that world politics influenced global IR, but this influence was mediated by highly contingent events. Even a proximate cause like science patronage, let alone “world politics,” is not a sufficient cause capable of determining IR theories and disciplinary boundaries. Donors may achieve some impact but only under specific circumstances such as the ones explored here, that is, the donor is a unitary actor determined to advance its agenda by resorting to conditionality, alternative donors and funding are scarce, the discipline is either poorly or not institutionalized, and the recipient perceives the donor's preferences as legitimate. The article uses previously untapped, fine-grained, primary sources to unravel philanthropy's impact on Latin America's first IR center. Because science patronage is exposed to many sources of indeterminacy and to contingency, donors cannot determine scholarship, which makes cultural hegemony all but impossible. Still, IR scholars need to study their patrons to understand their discipline, in and outside Europe and the United States.

The discipline of International Relations (IR) is increasingly being criticized for ignoring and marginalizing states and societies outside of the core countries of the West. The idea of a ‘Global IR’ has been proposed since 2014 a pathway toward a bridging the ‘West and the Rest’ divide and thus develop a more inclusive discipline, recognizing its multiple and diverse foundations. At the same time, there is a trend toward developing theories, or ‘schools’, on a national or regional basis, the leading examples of which come from China. This article examines some theoretical constructs emerging in China, such as the ‘Relational Theory’ of Qin Yaqing, who is the foundational scholar in the ‘Chinese School of IR’, the Tianxia (‘all under Heaven’) concept as applied to IR and world order by Zhao Tingyang, and ‘Moral Realism’ of Yan Xuetong, who is the leading figure of the ‘Tsinghua School’. To many scholars, both inside and outside China, the relationship among the various Chinese approaches and their overall contribution to the IR field remain unclear. Without claiming to capture all their nuances and complexity, this article hopes to stimulate a conversation among scholars, Chinese and foreign, with a view to generate greater clarity and highlight their importance to the study of IR. I argue that while making important contributions, the Chinese approaches to International Relations Theory (IRT) also face a number of challenges. This includes the need for them to offer more convincing proof that the concepts and explanations they propose can apply to other societies and to IR more generally. Moreover, there is the need for these approaches to attract a critical mass of followers worldwide, stimulate a research agenda for other, especially younger scholars, and distance themselves from the official Chinese policy framings. The Global IR approach offers a helpful framework for highlighting and perhaps addressing these challenges, especially in avoiding cultural exceptionalism and ensuring their wider relevance beyond China.

In recent decades, intensive attempts emerged to introduce a new Global International Relations (GIR) research programme related to the post-colonial critique of western dominance and its efforts to overcome the current geopolitics of knowledge. Even though several regional and national approaches have been included in GIR, the integration of semiperipheral IR thinking is only in its early stages. Some of them still remain almost neglected within the GIR context. In response to this challenge, this paper aims to introduce the IR thinking produced in Central Europe (CE) by four semi-peripheral nations – Czechs, Hungarians, Poles and Slovaks – into the GIR framework. It highlights the specifics of the region that should be reflected in GIR as a genuinely global discipline. We address the specific position of Central Europe close to the West but, for various reasons, never fully integrated into its core and the related epistemological uncertainty of how to study regional realities. Simultaneously, we search for those regional CE ideas that would be more generally applicable in the study of international relations and, at the same time, mirror the unique experience of an area with not only close ties to the West in terms of civilisation but also a long tragic history.

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. One draws 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. The other draws from global historical sociology as it advances the role of power asymmetries for understanding the patterns and entanglements in transboundary connections. Connecting global IR to global history and global historical sociology can help produce a fuller understanding of the interactive connections and asymmetrical entanglements between peoples, places, ideas, and institutions that drive historical development. We illustrate this potential 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.

New theoretical perspectives, such as constructivism, the English School and what has been called 'non-Western IR theory' and 'Global International Relations (IR)', have encouraged the incorporation of the voices and writings from other regions into the discussions and debates in IR. Against this backdrop, this chapter explores new and changing African contributions that have relevance for the project of redefining and broadening IR theory. Traditionally, IRT has been biased in favour of universalism. Mainstream IR theories often view the countries or regions of the Global South as marginal to international politics. Turning to South African scholarship, for instance, the predominance of the US academy shaped IR's methodology in South Africa. The politics of the everyday for ordinary people are to be theorised to provide truer descriptions of the world and 'dislodge the dual inferiority of Africa and African feminism in relation to conventional IR' if IR in Africa is to assert its agency.