Abstract
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 part, we explore possibilities of writing global history from the Latin-American perspective by discussing three recent contributions to the field. Finally, the text briefly enunciates possibilities of mutual enlightenment between the disciplinary fields of History and IR based on the idea of Global IR.
Highlights
History and International Relations: two entangled disciplinesAs the 20th century drew to a close, major transformations in the European political landscape were brought about by the largely unpredictable fall of the Berlin wall, and by conflicts on European soil in the 1990s
The insights of what Acharya calls ‘global International Relations (IR)’ help to set, in our view, three elements convergent to a common agenda with approaches to Global History: (1) enhanced value put upon actors and processes deepening the understanding of intra and interregional relationships; (2) the conscious critique of state-centrism and Eurocentrism as necessary ordering principles in theory and methodology and (3) the perception that a “global” take on international phenomena does not mean a new universal approach to global issues but instead the search for interconnectedness regardless of frontiers and barriers established by mainstream historic accounts
The purpose of this paper was to indicate pathways to reflections on links between the fields of History ( Global History) and International Relations, steered by the key ideas that, to a large extent, guide knowledge production in the more mainstream areas of these two disciplines, namely the “State” category and the Eurocentric stance adopted for theoretical output, together with epistemological and methodological tracks in both disciplines
Summary
As the 20th century drew to a close, major (geo-) transformations in the European political landscape were brought about by the largely unpredictable fall of the Berlin wall, and by conflicts on European soil in the 1990s. The idea of world integration is an assumption underlying Global History research questions, presuppositions addressing systemic relations worldwide simultaneously in action serve only as a backdrop for concrete research projects According to these authors, the idea is not to impose an abstract global totality as a counterpart to the State-centric research paradigm; on the contrary, this involves the development of research sensibilities and history writing that is grounded on the idea that relations are established globally: “The scope of Global History studies may vary by topic and research question. Spatial units are not necessarily starting points, but rather what results from this perspective”
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