Unmasking the racism of orthodox international relations/international political economy theory

Abstract

This article emerges out of the racism debate in Security Dialogue (May 2020). It takes its cue from the passing claim that Orientalism/Eurocentrism is different from racism and that the former is deemed to be relatively innocuous while the latter is viewed as egregious. Here I reveal how Eurocentrism is equivalent to cultural racism. I show how racism has outwardly shapeshifted through time in everyday life and world politics, and how orthodox international relations theory’s racist trajectory has mirrored this. Since 1945, modern orthodox international relations theory has covered its racism with a non-racist mask through a sublimated discourse that focuses on cultural difference but is white racism in disguise. Unmasking modern international relations/international political economy theory exposes this sublimated racist discourse by revealing its racist double move: first, it whitewashes racism and denies its presence in the conduct of world politics and the global economy in the last three centuries, thereby providing an apologia for racist practices; second, it advances subliminal cultural-racist analytical/explanatory frameworks. I close by solving the conundrum as to how white orthodox international relations scholars who are most probably non-racist (though not anti-racist) in their personal lives embrace, albeit unwittingly, racist theories of world politics and the global economy.