A New Globalization From the East

This article aims to examine the evolution of China’s foreign policy from the adoption of the “peaceful rise” policy to the present one which stems from the concept of the “Chinese dream” presented by Xi Jinping. The analysis is carried out in the light of major traditional international relations theories and introduces the doctrine underpinning the “Chinese dream” known as Tianxia. It finds that western traditional doctrine lacks rigorous consideration of Asian historical and cultural singularities that prevent them from fully explaining the international actions of the People’s Republic of China. In particular, China’s increasing assertiveness in its international relations along with its economic, military and technological advances, as well as the military conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, have exacerbated differences with the West. It is imperative to provide diplomacy with tools to assess the international context and the opposing positions of the West and the PRC that considers a theoretical framework that incorporates elements such as Tianxia, not as a substitute for Western tradition frameworks of analysis, but to enrich them. This is particularly true for the defense and projection of the interests of developing countries, which will require extensive diplomatic skills to navigate this complex context effectively as proactive players rather than bystanders in the international arena.

This article contributes to the debate on liminality within International Relations (IR) theory by focusing on the actorness of the European Union (EU) and Hamas. The concept of liminality as a transitional process is applied to frame the situation of both the EU and Hamas as political actors in-between socially established categories. This article explores how the liminal identity of these two actors impacts, on the one hand, their relations with each other and, on the other hand, their relations of ‘self’. Exploring the procedural relations of the EU and Hamas, it argues for the necessity of recognising liminal categories in IR theory and practice, while, at the same time, it highlights the limits of such in-between categories in a world order still structured around the state.

The Peace of Westphalia signed in 1648 signaled the beginning of the modern international system of states. International relations (IR) theory identifies this treaty as the founder of the principle of political sovereignty whereby each nation-state has full control over its territory and domestic affairs, thus it is the beginning of an international system of states. The latter is based on the sanctity and inviolability of interstate borders as its main defining feature. This paper investigates the recent developments in international relations and their significance to the concept of borders in IR theory; on the one hand, a “clash of civilizations” thesis assumes that new “fault lines” borders among civilizations of, mainly, different religions are taking precedence over traditional territorial borders of nation-states, while, on the other hand, a rise in conservative nationalism and, possibly, protectionism, over the traditionally liberal West reasserts the primacy of territorial borders in IR. In particular, this study examines whether such developments signal a paradigm shift in IR theory that may necessitate revisiting certain fundamentals of mainstream respective theories.

The aim of this essay is to discuss the places of the notions of subjectivity and reflexivity within International Relations (IR) theory by contrasting the classical perspective inspired by positivism with a dialogical perspective which tries to fully integrate these notions in its examination of the specific nexus between identity and alterity. This dialogical perspective proposes a reflexive tool, the hermeneutical locus, which is intended to provide a way to assess the subjectivity of the cognised without falling into reification and a reflexive archaeology of the discipline of IR itself. In this sense, a dialogical approach wishes to offer a reflexive tool for and on IR theory.

By “Sinophone and Japanese International Relations Theory,” this article means nascent theoretical constructs about the “international” in Sinophone and Japanese International Relations (IR) epistemic communities that draw mainly on their local ideas, experiences, and practices. “Sinophone IR” here is not limited to the community of IR researchers in the People’s Republic of China (PRC); it also includes that of Taiwan and other overseas Chinese-speaking researchers, including non-ethnic-Chinese academics who substantially engage with “Chinese” thought and traditions in their own right, i.e., not for testing established, mainstream IR theories. Similarly, “Japanese IR” is not narrowly defined as a group of IR scholars with Japanese citizenship. Rather, it includes IR researchers based in Japan and their overseas colleagues who take “Japanese” ideas and history seriously. It is thus possible to research and write from these two epistemic communities simultaneously; so to speak, their boundaries are neither fixed nor immutable. The majority of the IR academics in these communities are not concerned with, or involved in, homegrown theorizing, and scholars associated with the “Chinese School of IR” have not engaged with ostensibly Japanese resources for inspiration. However, some homegrown theorists have started drawing on ideas and practices from the other side or shared resources, e.g., Buddhism. Such theorizing synergy and cross-fertilization are likely to continue, especially over such notions as ontology and relationality. This article maps out the literature on homegrown knowledge production in Japanese and Sinophone IR communities and their theorizing endeavors. It will assist readers in comparing and evaluating the originality and contribution of Sinophone and Japanese IR scholarship to global IR knowledge, as well as their shortcomings. Following this introduction, the second section locates the interests of constructing alternative theories in Japanese and Sinophone IR in the wider context of ongoing debates on how to make the theory and practice of global politics more diverse and equitable. The third section introduces key journals and reference resources, followed by the fourth covering the state of the field in Japanese and Sinophone IR. The fifth reviews the debates over the creation of a “national school of IR” in their respective epistemic communities. The last four sections focus on theorizing efforts in Japanese and Sinophone IR as well as their uses of local resources in academic and policy discourses. For the sake of stylistic clarity, surname precedes given name for all East Asian individuals mentioned in the following commentary paragraphs and annotations.

There is an expectation today that International Relations (IR) theory ought to engage with philosophy as a meta-knowledge capable of grounding and legitimizing knowledge claims in the discipline. Two assumptions seem to lie behind this expectation: first, that only philosophy can supply the necessary meta-theoretical grounding needed; second, that theory is inherently a philosophical register of knowledge. This article treats these assumptions with scepticism. While not denying philosophy’s contribution to IR theory, the article makes the case for contextual intellectual history as an alternative mode of political and international theory. It seeks to shed light on the ‘philosophization of IR’ by depicting the broad contours of the historical and continuing rivalry between philosophy and history in the humanities and social sciences and, by reference to Machiavelli and Renaissance humanism, reminding the discipline of IR of the value of studying politics and international relations in a historical mode.

This article explores some basic issues which arise from International Relations (IR) theory also being a form of social theory in a broader sense. Many of these issues are related to the question of a “social whole,” that is, whether international relations/International Relations is one of many parts of a social whole, on what grounds it is differentiated from other parts, and whether it operates on a distinct level of social reality. We argue that these questions have been addressed in many forms of IR theory, but mostly only implicitly, and that the failure to make explicit assumptions about a social whole is probably due to the relative neglect of the subject in modern Sociology. The article argues that implicit assumptions about a social whole can be unearthed by looking at the concepts of systems, levels, and sectors, discussing debates about each of these in turn. Openly addressing IR theory as social theory, and spelling out images of a social whole, allows one to gain a sharper understanding of some of the basic analytical categories used, and to judge whether they form plausible delimitations of social reality within a wider social context.

Journal Article Self and Other in International Relations Theory: Learning from Russian Civilizational Debates Get access Andrei P. Tsygankov Andrei P. Tsygankov Departments of Political Science and International Relations, San Francisco State University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Studies Review, Volume 10, Issue 4, December 2008, Pages 762–775, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2486.2008.00831.x Published: 18 November 2008

This article argues that the symbolic interactionist sources of the first generation of constructivists in IR theory are worth recovering because of their ability to address what constructivists have always wanted to understand – the social construction of world politics. Symbolic interactionism is more or less implicit in key claims of canonical works of the first generation of constructivism in International Relations (IR) theory. However, constructivism lost some of its potential to address everyday experiences and performances of world politics when it turned to norm diffusion and socialisation. The second generation of constructivists generated rich insights on the construction of national identities and on patterns of foreign policy, but did not fully exploit constructivism’s analytical potentials. Contrary to what most IR scholars have come to believe, symbolic interactionists saw the self as a deeply social – not a psychological or biological – phenomenon. Symbolic interactionism is interested in how inherently incomplete and fragile selves are constructed and deconstructed through processes of inclusion, exclusion and shaming. Today, third generation constructivists are returning to the sociology of Erving Goffman and Harold Garfinkel and other symbolic interactionists to address problems of identity, power and deviance in international politics. Keywords : Goffman, constructivism, identity, power, symbolic interactionism, the social self, stigma, Wendt. ----- Bibliography: Adler-Nissen, Rebecca: The Social Self In International Relations: Identity, Power and the Rediscovery of Constructivism’s Symbolic Interactionist Roots, ERIS, 3-2016, pp. 27-39. https://doi.org/10.3224/eris.v3i3.27340

In this article, I revisit a modern classic, a book that is often cited but rarely analyzed: A.P. Rana's Imperatives of Non-Alignment. Appearing in 1976, the book was a culmination of decade-long work and claimed to be the first attempt at IR theory from India. Rana was indeed from the first generation of scholars who engaged deeply with International Relation (IR) theory, and the book drew on a range of, sometimes contradictory, theoretical perspectives from Systems Theory to Realism to English School to Hindu Social Theory. In this intervention, I analyze this book and the corpus of Rana's writings with an attempt to contribute to two themes within IR. First, I show how caste plays a prominent role in Rana's thinking about Indian strategies of foreign policy behavior. His analysis makes a case for seeing nonalignment as a historical continuation of a Brahminical mode of balancing. Consequently, this article is also an effort to place caste as a central category of IR theorization from India. Secondly, I discuss the specific ways in which Rana's realism adapted to its Cold War context and advanced a redemptive vision of realism.

This book discusses the applicability of Western International Relations (IR) theories to Asia and Africa and the rise of non-Western IR theories (especially in Asia), with case studies focused on the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Sub-Saharan African regions. Theoretically grounded studies of Asia and Africa are still in high demand, as International Relations scholarship on and in those regions seems underdeveloped in this regard. This is the case both in the application of Western theories in research on Asia and Africa, but especially IR theory-building by scholars in both regions. The book is driven by the question, whether we need specific Asia and Africa-oriented IR theories to describe, explain and predict developments in regional international relations or can we apply or adapt the so-called Western IR theories.

This chapter examines the relationship between international and Chinese foreign policy. It looks at how a particular kind of international factor might affect Chinese foreign policy, namely, international structure. In particular, there are two kinds of structures, the existence and effects of which are at the core of international relation (IR) theory debates today: material power structures and normative structures. The predominant arguments about material power structures in IR come from neorealist theory. Neorealism's influence on IR theory has been profound. Sovereignty is an example of a normative structure with a direct impact on Chinese foreign policy because the concept is deeply internalized and institutionalized in the decision process. Human agency—the power to act according to intentions—occurs within normative structural boundaries and within the meaning these structures provide to material realities. The chapter discusses different ways in which Chinese foreign policy has been affected by the interplay of domestically generated and institutionalized identity and changing international norms.

This article draws on Hobbes and existentialist philosophy to contend that anxiety needs to be integrated into international relations (IR) theory as a constitutive condition, and proposes theoretical avenues for doing so. While IR scholars routinely base their assumptions regarding the centrality of fear and self-help behavior on the Hobbesian state of nature, they overlook the Hobbesian emphasis on anxiety as the human condition that gives rise to the state of nature. The first section of the article turns to existentialist philosophy to explicate anxiety's relation to fear, multiple forms, and link to agency. The second section draws on some recent interpretations to outline the role that anxiety plays in Hobbesian thought. Finally, I argue that an ontological security (OS) perspective that is enriched by insights from existentialism provides the most appropriate theoretical venue for integrating anxiety into IR theory and discuss the contributions of this approach to OS studies and IR theory.

The ‘Chinese dream’ sums up China’s goals in the twenty-first century. Since its first appearance in 2012, the concept of the Chinese dream has been the core of Xi Jinping’s “new thoughts, new ideas and new arguments”. At the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China it was elevated as one of the guiding principles of ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’, which represents the latest effort towards the Sinicization of Marxism. This paper aims at casting light on whether the discourse on the Chinese dream carries new contents or is based on old concepts ‘camouflaged’ as new. To do so, it will analyse the ideological implications of those ‘creative metaphors’ that compose the discursive mosaic of the Chinese dream as used by Xi Jinping in his political speeches. Drawing on the studies on conceptual metaphors and frame analysis, this study analyses those metaphorical expressions that are purposely outlined in the transcription of the speeches with the aim of signaling the originality of “Xi’s language style”. The final aim is to provide insight into what these ‘creative metaphors’ are doing in contemporary China. Results show that ‘creative metaphors’ in the discourse on the Chinese dream are meant to set the agenda on revitalising morality within the Party as well as ‘unifying’ values in today’s Chinese society, and most of them are far from being new in Chinese political discourse.

Whether there are any substantial merits of theorizing “non-Western” International Relations (IR) and what such a theory would (or should) look like are topics of a heated debate in contemporary IR. Such a remarkable interest in “non-Western” (or “post-Western”) IR theory is largely derived from apparent concerns about American and Western dominance of the field and the corresponding marginalization of IR studies produced outside the West (Acharya, 2010, 2014). Moreover, the growing body of literature on non-Western IR theory often begins with an expressed discontent with the explanatory utility of existing mainstream IR theories, namely realism, liberalism, and constructivism, all of which have Western origins or orientations in their conceptual, theoretical, and normative foundations. China’s rise has added a certain momentum to attempts to develop new or indigenous theoretical frameworks. Despite such a meaningful (and overdue, to some extent) debate over IR theory in the context of the “non-West,” however, both advocates and critics alike do not properly address more acute issues associated with non-Western IR theory building, namely theoretical pluralism, and fragmentation. This chapter suggests that there are (at least) three sets of questions that need to be pondered more fully in the discussion of non-Western IR. First, does IR need pluralism? Second, to what extent has contemporary IR become pluralistic? Finally, should IR pursue the promotion of dialogue and engagement across theoretical and geographic divides? Without addressing these vexed questions, any attempt to argue either for or against the development of non-Western IR theory is likely to be inchoate, for what is at stake in the issue of theoretical pluralism and fragmentation constrains and facilitates the non-Western IR theory-building enterprise.