Global IR Research Articles

National schools of diplomatic training: divergences in the global epistemology of international relations

The proposition of establishing “global international relations” (Global IR) as an amalgamation of diverse national epistemologies in the field of international relations, potentially superseding the Western-centric paradigm, presents significant challenges. A critical inquiry emerges: Is it possible to form a discipline based on the polyphony of national approaches, despite the fact that the ontology of international relations has remained fundamentally unchanged since the mid-17th century? This study evaluates the thesis of extant national epistemologies in international relations by examining national traditions of diplomatic training. The primary research question is formulated as follows: What are the foundational approaches employed by leading states in the training of IR specialists, and can these approaches be considered reflective of national epistemologies regarding the nature of international relations? The research methodology involves a synthesis of findings from an examination of diplomatic training institutions across a diverse sample of countries. This sample encompasses Western nations (United Kingdom, Hungary, Poland, United States, Finland, France, and Germany), Asian countries (Vietnam, Indonesia, India, China, and the Republic of Korea), Middle Eastern states (Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey), African nations (Nigeria and South Africa), and Latin American countries (Brazil, Mexico, and Cuba). The article is structured in two principal sections. The theoretical section explores the hypothesis of “global international relations” within the context of existing literature and theoretical frameworks. The second section synthesizes the empirical findings from the study of national approaches to diplomatic training, testing the hypothesis of its correlation with national epistemologies in the field of international relations.

Exploring effects of reactant’s chemical environments on adsorption and reaction mechanism by global optimization and IR spectrum calculation, using NO oxidation as a case

Reactant’s chemical environments derived from the type and concentration of surface species on heterogeneous catalysts do great effects on the structures of reactants and reaction pathway. Unraveling the arrangement of surface species and reaction mechanism at different reactant’s chemical environments in theory remains a substantial challenge due to the difficulty in obtaining the global stable configuration of surface species on catalysts and the lack of other theoretical evidences for the identification of surface species and reaction pathway. To solve this problem, a protocol combining the global optimization of surface species at different chemical environments with electronic structure analysis and IR spectrum calculation including frequency and intensity was proposed to unravel the arrangement of surface species and their reaction pathway in this work. Using NO adsorption and oxidation on Pt(111) and O-covered Pt(111) as a case, their stable structures were obtained by the global optimization; then the origins of the structural transformation of NO and NO2 at different environments were elucidated by electronic structure analysis; then the structures and reaction pathway were confirmed by comparing the experimental and calculated IR spectra of NO and NO2 with frequency and intensity. Utilizing this protocol, the stable structures of NO and its transformation, as well as oxidation pathway were revealed under varying chemical environments at the molecular level. It provides solid supports for identifying the stable arrangement of surface species, their transformation and reaction pathway, and can be easily extended to heterogeneous catalysis.

Interventions of post-colonial states in the normative structure of world politics: the case of Iran and the norm of democracy

Within Global IR a constructivist-postcolonial literature is emerging which inquires into how postcolonial states intervene into the normative structure of world politics. This research programme has less covered the question how postcolonial states relate to the international norm of democracy, how and in which ways do they contest this norm, and to which effects? This question is important both to study how the ‘postcolonial condition’ can be overcome, as well as to understand which contours and shapes the norm of democracy might be taking in a multiplex world. To study this multifaceted question from a perspective which acknowledges the shadow of the past, as well as the agency of postcolonial states, Wiener’s concept of norm contestation is applied and further developed in three respects: firstly, by staking out various forms of contestation, that is rejection, strategic contestation and the construction of alternative meaning; secondly, by bringing in identity as a mediating device which impacts the forms of contestation; and thirdly, by studying various sites of contestation where actors beyond the state are also taken into account. This framework is then applied to heuristically study the case of Iran which is of particular interest as it intervenes in the global contestation of the norm of democracy on a dual level of external resistance and internal dissent. Studying Iranian contestation at the UN, within Iran and in Iranian-EU engagement, it becomes evident that during times of geopolitical confrontation with the US, the spectre of the past is produced as present and the form of contestation features dialectics of hypocrisy which harm the norm of democracy. At the same time, we also see a strengthening of the norm of democracy through hybridity both in Iranian encounters with the EU, as well as in the contestation of meanings of democracy within Iran itself.

P‐70: A Novel Peak Luminance Correction Method Based on Global IR Drop Compensation System on AMOLED

In the past year, AMOLED have been widely used in smartphones, laptops, and vehicles. Local excitation luminance is one of the important parameters to measure AMOLED quality. This feature is of great significance for realization of HDR video and getting better visual experience in sunlight environment. Due to IR drop effect in the local display, the performance of peak luminance is often skewed by luminance, chrominance, and gamma curves. The solution is adding a set of Gamma curve debugging at peak luminance of local display, which results in longer take time (TT) and greater aging pressure at high luminance. In this paper, we propose a novel peak luminance correction method based on Global IR (GIR) voltage drop compensation system. In the compensation system, GIR compensation Look‐Up Tables (LUT) is used to accurately tune the luminance, chrominance, and gamma curves that correspond to the local excitation luminance.

Searching for a Place in Global IR Through Exceptionalism: Turkey and the Mediation for Peace Initiative

Searching for a Place in Global IR Through Exceptionalism: Turkey and the Mediation for Peace Initiative

IR and the Global South: Revising Obstacles to a Global Discipline

The IR discipline is marked by a strong center-periphery inequality that is perpetuated through theories, methodologies, and concepts produced in the Global North that do not adequately capture the diverse experiences of Global South states and societies. In tandem with growing critiques of Western-centrism and calls for global IR, the discipline has now become more heterogeneous and inclusive, and IR scholars are more attentive to the global IR debate than ever before. Yet, the discipline has not become truly global, as many Global South scholars are absent from the major debates in the field and there are still sharp geographic differences with respect to IR knowledge production. Even though Global South countries have enormous potential to enrich and globalize IR with their history, political thinkers, and religious and philosophical traditions, this potential remains largely untapped. While Global South scholars develop alternative perspectives and engage in theorizing practices, these efforts have not yet been embodied in the form of an IR theory that provides alternative explanations of world politics. Equally important, these perspectives are not echoed in much of the mainstream accounts in IR. This study contributes to the global IR debate by problematizing the dynamics behind the insufficient development and representation of Global South IR theories and perspectives in the discipline. After delving into entrenched Western-centrism and the asymmetries of knowledge production in the discipline, the present study puts into spotlight the intellectual and material barriers that feed off each other and perpetuate the inequalities in IR knowledge production.

Educational Governance in Myanmar Towards Leveling-Up to Global IR 4.0 Standards

The research objectives are to present the current profile of Myanmar Education, to provide a Global IR 4.0 Education, to describe Global IR 4.0 Education Governance, and to bridge the gap between Myanmar Education Governance to leveling up to Global IR 4.0 Education Governance. As research design, historical, descriptive, and comparative are applied to get effective beneficiaries for the readers, and as the methodologies questionnaire, interview, and survey are effectively applied in the current research. Besides, the methods of data gathering procedure and statistical treatment of data or data analysis are the main generators to complete this study effectively. The respondents of this study are 108 members of the educational functionaries, among them 78 people are educators and 30 people are educational officials. The variables such as technical skills, facility, teaching technological competency, and communication skills are considered for the assessment of the extent of Myanmar Education 4.0, and the variables such as the teaching curriculum, technology standards, and technological curriculum are involved for determining the assessment of the extent of education governance. According to the 108 members of the educational functionaries of the respondents, the assessment of the extent of Myanmar education 4.0 and the assessment of the extent of education governance is “extensive” or limited. Therefore, the researcher proposes a framework that includes five components such as constructive criticism, personalized education, industry-ready students, and information and technology infrastructure. These five components- the framework is to level up the Myanmar education governance towards Global IR 4.0 standards. Keywords: Global IR 4.0 Education, Educational Governance, technical skills, technology infrastructure

Global IR Research Programme: From Perplexities to Progressions

Our basic expectations vis-à-vis ‘the international’ have turned our phenomenal existence into two seemingly irreconcilable cognitive prisons: ‘one world’ with homogenizing propensities (dominated by the West) and ‘many worlds’ with heterogenizing predispositions (embodied by the non-West). Every so often, these cognitive prisons—oscillating between the extreme homogenizing propensities of the West and heterogenizing predispositions of the non-West— become obstacles in implementing effective global partnerships that are required to tackle the challenges thrown by global crisis-situations, e.g., the likelihoods of world war, financial crisis, climate change, pandemic, and the like. The agenda of the ‘Global IR research programme’ has emerged to demolish these cognitive prisons. To this end, this agenda finds rational support from multiple auxiliary theories that derive stimulus from hitherto denigrated knowledge-forms thriving in different corners of the world: e.g., Tianxia (all-under-heaven) from China, Advaita (non-duality) from India, and Mu No Basho (place of nothingness) from Japan. Nevertheless, the conditioned reflexes of many IR researchers compel them to receive the emergent knowledge-forms by correlating their ‘source’ and ‘scope’: generally, the knowledge-forms having their source in the West are granted a global scope, whereas the knowledge-forms having their source in the non-West are given a local scope; it is often suspected that the local non-Western knowledge-forms cannot grasp the larger global scenario. Philosophically, these conditioned reflexes emanate from Kantian dualism, which forms disconnected opposites of phenomena-noumena, science-metaphysics, West–non-West etc. This article reveals how the Global IR research programme—inspired by the Chinese, Indian and Japanese cosmovisions—strives to demolish the cognitive prisons of ‘one world versus many worlds’, thereby ensuring the prospective progressions of this research programme.

The United Nations of IR: power, knowledge, and empire in Global IR debates

AbstractThis paper critiques a core premise of Global IR: the association of knowledge with geography, which we term geo-epistemology. It argues that ‘American’ and Global IR share a Eurocentric spatial imaginary, one that was a product of Western expansion and empire. Through its geo-epistemology, Global IR enables a conservative appropriation of the critique of Eurocentrism in IR. Globality becomes a matter of assembling sufficient geographic representation rather than an analysis of the discipline's political, historical, and spatial assumptions. Anglo-American policymakers and intellectuals invented the national/international world to replace the world of empires and races that came apart in the era of the world wars. This UN world of sovereign nation-states and their regional groupings was the foundational move of both what Stanley Hoffman called ‘the American social science’ – IR – and the American-centred world order. The paper uses the reception and legacy of Hoffman's classic essay to show how culture replaced power and history in the study of the discipline, obfuscating the Eurocentrism of Global IR.

Global international relations and the essentialism trap

AbstractGlobal IR is an encompassing term for a range of work that has set out to globalize the discipline in terms of its core concepts, assumptions, and substantive areas of study. Our symposium supports Global IR's goals but also offers some friendly critiques of the project with the aim of increasing its impact and durability. In this Introduction to the symposium, we posit that Global IR is vulnerable to a dynamic that limits its capacity to upend the status quo, which we term the ‘essentialism trap’. Essentialism captures a range of commitments oriented around the notion that the world is constituted by pre-formed, fixed, internally coherent, and bounded social forms. The trap involves the overuse of essentialist categories by radical projects, a process that can result in the reinforcement of status quo categories and assumptions. With reference to previous openings in IR that have succumbed to this trap, we identify the dynamics that lead to this trap and suggest ways in which Global IR can avoid it by leaning more into relationalism and global history, and, thereby, fulfil the promise contained in the range of movements it speaks with and for.

Realism’s Timeless Wisdom and its Relevance for the Global South

Since the numerous calls for developing a truly global and plural IR discipline,
 a growing spate of IR studies have sought to contextualize and critique the
 Euro-centeredness of the field. One of the most significant problems scholars
 have pointed out is the hegemonic status of Anglo-American IR theories, which
 seemingly assert an ontological preeminence and universality at the expense of
 local knowledge and homegrown theories. While the present article shares many
 of global IR’s concerns, it nevertheless proposes that in our quest to teach IR
 and develop homegrown theories, we should not lose sight of the importance
 of traditional contributions to the field. Our argument is based on a series of
 reflections about the relevance of realist scholarship for the developing world.
 Through an analysis of the major criticisms of classical IR theories, we seek to
 show that classical and, to a lesser extent, structural and neoclassical realism
 contain several and diverse arguments that speak directly to audiences in
 the global South. Classical realism, in particular, shares some interesting
 commonalities with postcolonial theory, which could pave the way for a more
 systematic engagement between the two approaches. Therefore, we argue that
 a global IR founded primarily on critiquing classical theories would be an
 impoverished IR, and “the thousand small steps” to a globalized discipline ought
 not neglect the valuable insights and reflections of traditional theory.

Theory importation and the death of homegrown disciplinary potential: an autopsy of Turkish IR

A primary premise of the Global IR initiative is its emphasis on world history as a basis for global IR theorising. While non-Western contributions are thus critical, periphery IR disciplinary communities operate under the dominance and homogenising effect of core IR theories based on Western history and intellectual traditions. An import-­dependent culture takes over periphery disciplinary communities, neutralising their potential for original IR production and theory creation. This study explores these assumptions by focusing on the case of Turkish IR; providing an evaluation of its evolution and current status, and suggesting lessons it might have for other periphery communities and the future of Global IR overall. It offers a longitudinal qualitative investigation of Turkish IR scholars’ perceptions of their community’s evolution. They suggest that Turkish IR has become a dependent ­consumer of core IR theory and devalued its history base, leaving it bifurcated between a minority ‘core-of-the-periphery’ who operate as ‘compradors’, copying and marketing global core knowledge, and a majority ‘periphery-of-the-periphery’, who remain voiceless, disconnected and resentful. Ultimately, the local community is unable to offer original contributions to the globalisation of IR, and the global IR movement is structurally diminished through the exclusion of large portions of the scholarly community.

Chinese Global Orders: Socialism, Tradition, and Nation in China–Russia Relations

While many use rational IR theory to explain Chinese foreign policy behavior, this paper follows global IR to employ interpretivist theory to examine how Chinese elites understand their country’s role in the world. In particular, it explores the Chinese global order ideas of socialism, tradition, and nation through a comparative analysis of how they work in China–Russia relations, especially after China’s 20th Communist Party Congress in 2022. The first section presents a critical analysis of the realist understanding of the China–Russia–U.S. strategic triangle. It argues that the socialist concept of “united front work” better explains Chinese (and Russian) policy in terms of short-term “tactical triangles.” To probe China’s long-term global order ideas, the second section explores narratives of tradition to examine the concentric circles model of global order seen in Chinese tianxia and Russian Eurasianism. To understand these competing Russocentric and Sinocentric global orders, the third section explores how each country’s official historiography highlights narratives of the nation and especially how national rejuvenation requires correcting the “national humiliation” of lost territories. Rather than see these narratives in a linear chronological history — i.e., from tradition to socialism to nationalism — this paper considers how they overlap in socialism, tradition, and nation, a non-linear dynamic triad of global order ideas. It concludes first that further research is necessary to examine the interrelation of these three narratives: while nation and tradition are often employed to support the overarching narrative of socialism in recent years, this could certainly change. The conclusion then argues that while these narratives may be coherent theoretically, they have not been very successful in achieving Beijing and Moscow’s foreign policy objectives.

From Realist Billiard Balls and Liberal Concentric Circles to Global IR’s Venn Diagram? Rethinking International Relations via Turkey’s Centennial

The Republic of Turkey continues to grapple with a foundational tension between isolationist impulses steeped in a nationalist, sovereigntist, i.e., realist outlook on the world, and what I call the “embedded liberalism” of the republican project. Yet, neither realism nor liberalism are sufficient, I show, to explain Turkey’s trajectory. Invoking three visions of the international system as envisaged in realism (billiard balls), liberalism (concentric circles), and global IR (which I conceptualize as a Venn diagram), I argue that the last best captures (Turkey’s) challenges and opportunities. My contention is that global IR incorporates constructivist claims regarding historical and social forces in world politics, but also decenters Eurocentric notions of history and society. A timely way to read multipolarity, the approach supports relational learning regarding our overlapping challenges as humanity. Scholars in and of Turkey arguably have a comparative advantage in this space. This is due to their ability, albeit not always actualized, to read the world in plural terms — the epistemological equivalent of Turkey’s proverbial bridging role in world politics.

Enhancing Global IR Knowledge Production in Southeast Asia Through Quality Publications

Enhancing Global IR Knowledge Production in Southeast Asia Through Quality Publications

Knowledge Production beyond West-Centrism in IR: Toward Global IR 2.0

Abstract The primary purpose of this article is to advance the ongoing global international relations (Global IR) debate and to offer some possible paths toward Global IR 2.0. To this end, this article first analyzes how Global IR has emerged, what contributions it makes to giving new impetus to IR knowledge (production), and, more importantly, what charges are leveled against Global IR. Although Global IR has produced an important body of scholarship, contributing substantially to identifying West-centrism as a key point of contention in IR and nudging the discipline toward theoretical pluralism, Global IR in its current form still carries the risk of reinforcing the old hierarchical and essentialized structure of knowledge production in ways that are analytic, epistemological, and ontological. Following this critical mapping exercise, I argue that while Global IR can serve as a key signifier of challenge to West-centrism, this important signifier needs to be redefined in terms of what it indicates and means—thereby becoming Global IR 2.0. In onto-epistemological terms, Global IR 2.0 relates more directly to questioning and dissolving essentialized ways of knowing in the discipline. In the final section of this article, I elaborate on how to realize this idea and harness it in practice.

Eternal return of the dragon: discursive power trap and decolonial critique of international relations theory

The paper explores discursive power and related concepts (institutional power, normative power, epistemic power) as an important part of contemporary PRC foreign strategy. As Westphalian identity carries certain risks for Beijing, China is actively trying to reconceptualize its identity through the development of epistemic power, its main manifestation being the emergence of the Chinese IR school. China’s two main strategies of interaction with the Western IR theory are (1) transcending its parochiality through inclusion of Chinese concepts and research methods and (2) creating radical alternatives to Western IR theory. At a more fundamental level of theorizing about non-Western IR, the former strategy is broadly aligned with the project of “global IR” and the latter with a decolonial/postcolonial approach to IR. Decolonial hermeneutics allows for revealing the main shortcomings of “global IR” and the underlying epistemic culture, as well as for examining problems that arise from China's accumulation of discursive power. Based on the analysis, we can conclude that there are three potential strategies of the PRC: Westphalian discursivity, Westphalian discursivity with Chinese characteristics, and critical discursivity. The first two strategies can potentially lead China into the trap of discursive power: trying to resist Western discursive aggression through accumulation of discursive power, Beijing begins to internalize power structures and narratives inherent in the Western political model or romanticize alternative systems for the reproduction of power in imperial China, hence reinforcing international suspicions regarding its true intentions and taking a less advantageous strategic position. The paper proposes a number of ways out of this trap (development of cooperation with countries of the global South, interaction with their epistemic cultures, critical rethinking of modern Chinese concepts of international relations).

Global IR and the middle power concept: exploring different paths to agency

ABSTRACT The premise of Global IR for greater pluralism and inclusivity allows for reconsidering the relevance of established concepts in the IR discipline. This article discusses how Global IR can contribute to rethinking the question of agency in the middle power concept. While the concept has been used in a Western and non-Western context, there is a tendency to adopt a binary distinction between Western middle powers that are conformist in their approach to the liberal international order and Southern middle powers that adopt a reformist stance. The article argues that a Global IR approach can help overcome this dichotomy and open up the study of Western and Southern middle powers to new agential possibilities. To demonstrate this, the article discusses how the cases of Australia and Brazil are not limited to conformist and reformist middle power agencies respectively. The discussion shows how the two states have undergone periods of ambivalence to gradually project new forms of middle power agency that alter and redefine their roles within the liberal international order.

A Way to Transcend Boundaries: Pluralist Theology, Shūsaku Endō, and Global IR

Having been adapted into a movie by Martin Scorsese in 2016, Silence is Shūsaku Endō’s most famous novel outside of Japan. Initially published in 1966, the novel is about seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries who secretly make a voyage to Japan in search of their spiritual Father who has reportedly renounced his faith after being tortured by local authorities. In his foreword to Endō’s Silence, Scorsese, a devout Catholic and long-standing admirer of Endō’s work, claims that the novel is “about the particular and the general. And it is finally about the first overwhelming the second.”1 Not only did Endō acknowledge an inevitable conflict between experience and belief, but he also creatively adapted his faith for a different reality. Endō described Catholicism as “Western clothing my mother gave me,” which, throughout his life, he tried to tailor into a Japanese kimono that would fit him.2 Suffering from an unhappy marriage, his mother turned to Catholicism, and Endō followed her in this pursuit at the age of eleven.

Worlding war as a primary institution of international society

Through interaction with decolonial IR this paper develops a research agenda extending recent English School (ES) work engaging a Global IR agenda. It argues recent developments in ES work that look to world history and which substantially improve ES accounts of “primary institutions” of international society can be further enhanced by decolonial concepts and methods. By focusing on war as a major primary institution of international society, and specifically Counterinsurgency and Counter-Terrorism, the paper shows how “worlding” as a decolonial approach can extend ES theory’s critical reach. Key benefits include enriching its account of political space and identifying ways to open research to perspectives and insights from marginalized populations with deep knowledge and understanding of war through lived experience. Decolonial research methods and associated distinctive ontological and epistemological claims can open ES research to additional world histories its present methods close, further invigorating the principal sociological approach to theorizing international relations.