Searching for Difference in a Homogeneous Discipline

Abstract

International Relations and the Problem of Difference. By Naeem Inayatullah, David L. Blaney. London: Routledge, 2004. 288 pp., $80.00 cloth (ISBN: 0-415-94637-9), $26.95 paper (ISBN: 0-415-94638-7). By its very subject matter, international relations (IR) scholarship ought to engage the complexities and diversities of world politics: the myriad cultural, linguistic, political, religious, and ideological experiences that encompass the globe. And yet, few disciplines are as homogeneous as international relations. Its most influential conceptual models have emerged almost exclusively from observing the behavior of Western states. Non-Western experiences, perspectives, and ideas only rarely enter the purview of leading theorists. Texts, other than those written in English and approved by social science conventions, are rarely consulted. In International Relations and the Problem of Difference , Naeem Inayatullah and David Blaney address this shortcoming, and they do so in a stimulating and sophisticated manner. Drawing attention to the striking absence of voices from the Third World, they reach beyond the spatial and temporal boundaries of conventional international relations. Rather than accepting the interwar period as the origin of IR scholarship, they trace the roots of current IR theory and practice back to the early modern period. The contours of contemporary world politics thus become intrinsically linked to historical practices of colonialism and religious cleansing. The main proposition of International Relations and the Problem of Difference is that the theory and practice of international relations is in many ways about the erasure of difference. To be more precise, it is about the effort to mark and …