The rise of China between Global IR and area studies: an agenda for cooperation

Matteo Dian

doi:10.1017/ipo.2021.31

Abstract

AbstractEast 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.

Highlights

During the last decade, the rise of China and the global power shift towards East Asia have become a central focus for International Relations (IR) scholarship (Cox, 2012; Vezirgiannidou, 2013)
This article has three main purposes. It explores the issue of Eurocentrism in IR studies dedicated to East Asia
The article aims at contributing to the debate promoted by this Special Issue on how to bridge the divide between IR and area studies

Summary

Introduction

The rise of China and the global power shift towards East Asia have become a central focus for International Relations (IR) scholarship (Cox, 2012; Vezirgiannidou, 2013). Critical theory aims at denouncing the ‘technical reason’ dominant in mainstream IR (Neufeld, 1995) and its conservative bias, trying to avoid, in the words of Kimberly Hutchins, ‘reproduce the patterns of hegemonic power of the present’ (Hutchings, 2021) Building on these positions, critical theorists have highlighted the necessity to understand the role of hegemonic intellectual forces in the development of IR as a discipline, consider multiple empirical and theoretical points of view, and the relative nature of many epistemological assumptions. As Acharya has argued, ‘the main theories of IR are too deeply rooted in, and beholden to, the history, intellectual traditions, and agency claims of the West, to accord little more than a marginal place to those of the non-Western world’ (Acharya, 2016: 8) They argue that the discipline needs to develop a more plural approach built on different regional and national schools

Matteo Dian

Conclusion