Expanding Eurocentric Narratives of International Relations through Conservative Cooperation

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, critical International Relations (IR) scholars have increasingly drawn on postcolonial studies to call for opening up IR. However, it has turned out to be a more challenging task than initially imagined. It requires insight into the reasons behind the differences between the forms of national IR and the implications of such variation for our understanding of the international. Such differences need inquiring into by treating those from outside North America and Western Europe as thinking actors and paying attention to their accounts of the international. Eurocentrism occurs when research is designed in a way that occludes the global theory by drawing a direct line from ancient Greece to Renaissance Europe to modern day ‘West’ with next-to-no sociological insight into ‘connected histories’ of societies. Over the years, methodological Eurocentrism has produced a particular narrative about Europe’s place in world history. Thus, Eurocentric narratives have allowed designing research by virtue of the persistence of concepts that have been informed by the very same narratives. The critical point being, the very concepts through which we make sense of world politics (such as state, development, sovereignty and security) have their limitations not only when transplanted to other parts of the world but also when studying ‘Europe’ itself.