Sinophone and Japanese International Relations Theory

This paper contends that globalization as framed and understood within the theoretical context of mainstream International Relations (IR) and International Political Economy (IPE) is largely incapacitated to reflect on contemporary changes in world politics and that the advent of ‘globalization debate’ in IR theory and IPE has been unrewarding. Nevertheless, rather than refuting globalization, this study redeems the concept by defining it in such a way that it is able to capture such changes in world politics which often evade traditional categories of analysis in IR. For this purpose, this study, drawing largely on critical sociological theorizing of globalization, attempts to develop a conception and framework of what it calls ‘reflexive’ globalization. Reflexive globalization puts special emphasis on the socio-cultural changes in the world and identifies three aspects of globalization: ‘reflexivity’, ‘relativization’ and ‘deterritorialization’. Thus, the concept of globalization suggested in this study is more complex and holistic than either transnationalism, or interdependence or internationalization, and it rests on a different image of the world. It thereby resists being bounded by the analytical and theoretical limitations of the mainstream IR theory. Reflexive globalization recasts the globalization debate in IR and offers a way of advancing distinct explanations of contemporary changes in the state and the international system.

This study examines the usage of non-Western theories in research and education by International Relations (IR) scholars in Turkey. Our primary purpose is to understand the level of engagement with the non-Western IR debate, with its prospects and variations, in Turkish academia, and to evaluate the familiarity of Turkish IR scholars from different schools with non-Western IR theories. Relevant data were obtained from a questionnaire with 47 items designed to let participants, consisting of 116 academicians at IR departments from 57 Turkish Universities, provide their teaching experiences, views, and perceptions concerning non-Western IR Theory. While our findings based on this data confirm the literature on the scarcity of non-Western theories in Turkish IR scholarship, we have also furthered it with many details. Firstly, according to the findings, respondents who study and teach IR Theory at Turkish universities think that the IR theories of Western origin dominating the literature are not universal or objective in terms of their function as interpreters of IR issues. But interestingly, those considerations direct scholars to Western critical IR Theory schools rather than non-Western theories. The other key conclusion of this study confirms our expectations. The thoughts, concepts and theories emanating from the Turkish-Islamic world have much more recognition than other non-Western IR theories among Turkish IR scholars.

How can we appreciate non-Western agency in theorising world politics without reintroducing parochialism and exceptionalism, thus reproducing the very problem that motivated global international relations (IR) in the first place? In this article, I explore an alternative approach to engaging with non-Western IR theories, which I refer to as the embedded observer approach. First, taking the scholarship on Chinese IR as an example, I argue that the present predicament of global IR is in part attributable to the way scholars engage with non-Western political thought. Drawing from discussions in critical IR and Comparative Political Theory, I propose a methodological adjustment for the study of non-Western theories. Specifically, I argue that by shifting focus from isolated scholars and texts to critical dialogues among autochthonous intellectuals, the researcher has the chance to learn about and appreciate the clashes of ideas, analytical perspectives, and methodological tools that together constitute the living intellectual tradition in a non-Western society. As a demonstration, I analyse the People’s Republic of China (PRC) scholars’ critical reaction to Zhao Tingyang’s Tianxia System through the lens of three key topics in the debate over the thesis. The discussion highlights the need to rethink interlocutors in global IR and the utility of an embedded observer approach for engaging with knowledge traditions beyond the West, both in IR and beyond. 神奇理论在哪里？反思全球国际关系学中的对话者

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.

<p>Taiwan (the Republic of China, ROC) contains vibrant communities of Pacific diplomats and students from Taiwan’s allies—as of August 2019, this included Tuvalu, Nauru, Solomon Islands, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and Palau—and sometimes non-allies like Papua New Guinea. These communities are overlooked in both Pacific Studies and International Relations (IR) research. While working as an interpreter for the Tuvalu Embassy in Taiwan, I interacted with Pacific and Taiwanese diplomatic communities and witnessed how the Tuvalu and Taiwan governments attempted to communicate culture through performative/dance projects (i.e., performative cultural diplomacy). These performative engagements challenge IR analysis of Asia in the Pacific, which sees Pacific-Taiwan diplomacy as primarily determined by competition between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Instead, these engagements demonstrate how participants in Tuvalu-Taiwan performative cultural diplomacy, the majority of whom are not diplomats, carry with them multiple ideas and identities; consider their actions based on diverse contexts; and assign varying levels of importance to diplomacy, Tuvalu, and Taiwan. Consequently, in this thesis, I adopt a Pacific Studies research framework that emphasizes indigenous epistemologies, comparativity, interdisciplinarity, and a critical empowerment rationale to examine three topics: (1) Tuvaluan, Pacific, and Taiwanese conceptions of diplomacy; (2) the Tuvalu-Taiwan diplomatic relationship and its underlying assumptions; and (3) how Tuvalu-Taiwan performative cultural diplomacy both reflects and complicates diplomatic conceptions and assumptions. After introducing my research questions and structure in Chapter 1, in Chapter 2, I outline conceptions of diplomacy explicated by Pacific diplomats in Taiwan; Tuvaluan diplomats, officials, and traditional leaders in Tuvalu and Taiwan; and Taiwanese diplomats/officials in the same locations. I demonstrate how Tuvaluan/Pacific ideas of diplomacy often diverge from those held by Taiwanese diplomats/officials while also highlighting disparities among Tuvaluan and other Pacific views. In Chapter 3, I sketch discursive histories of Tuvalu-Taiwan diplomacy. I map how Tuvalu and Taiwan have characterized each other since establishing relations and trace the complex routes that structure how they currently imagine their diplomatic partner. Chapter 3 also shows how discursive histories both dovetail with and challenge diplomatic conceptions outlined in Chapter 2. Subsequently, in Chapters 4 to 6, I bring three Tuvalu-Taiwan performative cultural diplomacy projects into conversation with conceptual and discursive trends from Chapters 2 and 3. Here, I emphasize the voices of diplomats, officials, planners, performers, and audience members who engage with projects and underscore tensions that arise among participants and between participants and diplomats, officials, and audience members from their diplomatic partner. I also consider diplomatic conceptions, discourses, and assumptions discussed earlier in the thesis from the perspectives of project participants and observers to show how performative cultural diplomacy influences and illuminates diplomatic relationships. In the Conclusion, I explore the theoretical and practical applications of this research. For theoretical applications, I discuss how a Pacific Studies research framework and Performance/Dance Studies create new possibilities for IR research. I also show how this thesis provides an interface for rethinking Taiwan’s positionality, especially Taiwan’s connections to and distance from the Pacific. For practical applications, I make recommendations for the future implementation of diplomacy and performative cultural diplomacy.</p>

International Relations (IR) as a discipline is often deemed to be "too Western" centric. It has been argued that much of mainstream IR theory is "simply an abstraction of Western history." In this respect, many IR scholars have called for "broadening" the theoretical horizon of IR while problematising the Western parochialism of the discipline, and it is increasingly acknowledged that IR needs to embrace a wider range of histories, experiences, and theoretical perspectives, particularly those outside of the West. However, despite such a meaningful debate over broadening the theoretical and practical horizons of IR, several critical questions remain unclear and under-explored. For example, does IR need to embrace pluralism? If so, how much? To what extent, and in what sense, is IR parochial? Should IR promote dialogue across theoretical and spatial divides? If so, how? Yong-Soo Eun addresses these questions. He undertakes a literature review and an empirical analysis of the extent to which the field has actually become diverse and pluralistic. This investigation considers diversity beyond the current limited focus on the geographical origins of theory. Yong-Soo also draws attention to the mechanisms and processes of knowledge production and transmission in IR. More importantly, he addresses what is probably the most acute issue associated with the "non-Western" IR theory-building enterprise; namely, fragmentation and dialogue. In conclusion, Yong-Soo notes that the role of unsettling the present hierarchical structure of the discipline falls to reflexive individual agents. He argues that in order for their agential power to be more fully harnessed in the opening up of IR, critical "self"-reflection and "collective" empathy and collaboration among marginalised scholars are all essential.

Japanese strive to use foreign policy as a means to reconstruct national identity to realize a "normal Japan." They do so largely through approaches to bilateral relations with the United States, China, South Korea, and Russia, in each case with history in mind. Conservatives and progressives differ in their thinking about statism, ethnic nationalism, internationalism, and pacifism—ways of thinking about identity applied to bilateral ties. China is seen as pursuing sinocentrism, denying Japan's hope for Asianism and vilifying its ethnic national identity. South Korea is identified with playing the "comfort women" card also against Japan's ethnic nationalism. Russia assists Japan to distant itself from internationalism, which opens more space for statism. The gap with the United States is most important and complex, serving the cause of both statism and ethnic nationalism but also narrowing to the extent internationalism is welcomed. It is manifest in how US leaders are seen, in responses to US pressure, and in concern about US criticisms of historical revisionism in Japan. Various dimensions of national identity are utilized to assess how the four, key bilateral relations have recently been evolving.

Scientific research in International Relations has produced a growing corpus of empirically grounded formal theoretical models of phenomena ranging from deterrence to systemic polarity, from conditions of peace to the onset of war. Many of these important theories contain a mix of continuous and discrete dimensions, causal variables, and parameters. Analysis and understanding of this fundamental and intriguing class of theories containing functions with a mix of continuous and discrete variables has puzzled generations of social scientists and applied mathematicians. This challenging and longstanding puzzle now has a solution. Here we demonstrate how the recently created calculus with nabladot operators is beginning to uncover previously unknown properties of hybrid international phenomena. Results include new concepts and precise principles on causal relationships, previously unknown political features, and fundamental properties of probabilistic causality, demonstrated through nabladot analysis of international events, crisis dynamics, and warfare.

Japanese theories of international relations (IR) turn into an increasingly important subject of research by Russian political scientists as Russia progressively orientates toward the East. The research task of this article is to approach the understanding of the origins and current landscape of Japanese theoretical thought in IR, explaining its cultural, historical and political condition. Using the historical-genetic method, the author restores the stages of the genesis of the Japanese theoretical understanding of IR, painting a picture of historical continuity that helps to understand the political thinking of today’s Japanese. The author investigates the concepts of the contemporary Japanese theorists – Inoguchi Takashi, Tanaka Akihito, Anno Tadashi, – and other political scientists who determine the main trends of Japanese IR theories, which are the regional comparative studies (primarily Asian studies), specifically Japanese understanding of the soft power concept, political aspects of environmentalism, discourse of differences and a common denominator of Western and non-Western IR theories. Of practical importance is the analysis of the discussion of Japanese international affairs specialists on the transformation of Japan into an “ordinary country”, which has the prospect of rejecting the “peaceful” 9th article of the Japanese constitution and the historically established pacifist identity of the Japanese nation behind it. The author concludes that the most noticeable contribution of Japanese political scientists to world political science is the creative transformation and enrichment of Western concepts with non-Western approaches to world order.

Norms research in International Relations (IR) has developed sufficiently over the past 35 years to become its own subdiscipline within the field. It has its own corresponding ‘toolbox’ of concepts, approaches, and methods, which have often resulted from debates representing distinct perspectives on how norms matter for IR as a field and for global IR more generally. Even so, three groups of enduring questions continue to sit at the heart of norms research: first, the processes by which norms emerge, change, or disappear, on the one hand, and by which they are contested, violated, diffused, or replaced, on the other; second, the agency of actors at sites on the macro-, meso-, and micro-scales of global order, and who engages with these processes; and, third, the embeddedness or interaction of norms with other pre-existing norms and structures, such as the prevailing rules of engagement and clusters of normative meaning. The Oxford Handbook of Norms Research in International Relations provides a state-of-the-art overview of past, current, and future norms research in IR. It provides a comprehensive overview of the toolbox that has developed during this time, mapping the field’s development based on key conceptual milestones, notable theoretical moves, and developments with regard to the field’s contribution to social science theory development, on the one hand, and politics and policymaking in world politics, on the other.

As used in this report, the term is employed to refer to efforts on the part of human beings to discover information concerning the universe in which they live. This universe includes non-human elements such as geography and climate, and also these human beings themselves, together with their to one another and to the earth on which they live. No attempt is made to distinguish sharply between the attainment of knowledge not yet formulated by others and the reorganization of already formulated knowledge, although the former is, of course, the more important. Similarly, the phrase relations is intended to refer not only to international law and international organization but also to all phases of international social and political relations; the more specific subdivisions of the general field, when intended, will be cited by name. The scope of this report is not intended to include the teaching of international relations, nor even particularly the training of research workers. These problems are considered and discussed and decisions are taken upon them, from time to time, by the (national) Conference of Teachers of International Law (and related subjects). The Conference met in Washington in 1914, again in 1925, and again in 1928, and its Proceedings have been published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Attention is concentrated in this report upon the organizations sponsoring research, although in a sense the key to the problem of research lies in the question of personnel, and attention is given in due course to the question of fellowships or subsidies to individuals to enable them to engage in research, of which there are a large number at the present time. The field covered by the report was intended originally to include research in international outside of the United States. The author of this section began to collect material from certain institutions in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere, conducting or sponsoring research in international relations, and now has on hand materials from the 52

The paper discusses the state of International Relations (IR) in Poland. In the first part, it shows IR’s history, institutional conditions, and its level of internationalisation, particularly the influence of Polish scholars working in the West on the development of the discipline. In the second part, it offers a systematic empirical analysis of IR articles published from 2007 to 2012 in Poland’s top seven IR and political science journals concerning the areas that IR scholars work in, the theories and methods they apply, and their geographical areas of interest. The findings show that a descriptive approach dominates and that there are significant deficiencies in both the methodology (particularly quantitative methods) and the theory of IR. However, the Polish community of IR scholars is aware of these weaknesses and is undertaking organisational efforts aimed at improving the quality and status of IR scholarship in the country.

This article describes the German International Relations (IR) community and their research and writing preferences based on data from the 2014 Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) faculty survey. Germany has a relatively young IR community with a relatively large share of women, however, this changes once scholars reach tenured professorships. We found that German IR scholars are, on average, more oriented towards IR theory and the study of international organisation(s) than other national IR communities. The overall picture is one of paradigmatic as well as theoretical pluralism and a rejection of ontological warfare, despite there being more IR scholars in Germany than anywhere else in the world self-identifying as social constructivists. Their methodological orientations are overwhelmingly qualitative – again above average as compared to other IR communities in the world. At the same time, German respondents identified methodology and epistemology as two of the main factors causing division among IR scholars today. Moreover, German IR scholars are almost completely internationalised with a strong leaning toward the Anglo-American core of the discipline. Various ‘beauty contests’ reveal a still vividly accurate image of IR as an ‘American social science’.

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.

INTRODUCTION. International legal policy is a new object in international legal studies, although this phenomenon exists as long as the external relations of States. International legal policy is a rare case of research subject, which remains unexplored. International legal policy as a Concept of State's policy towards legal aspects of international relations was formed in the 80-s of last century. Earlier the questions and their particular aspects now embraced by international legal policy were divided between international lawyers and international relations researchers. However international legal policy is an integral system of State's approaches to international legal matters, therefore its punctual research is relevant only from comparative point of view. It would be interesting to compare States' positions on concrete issues or States' tactics at different stages of realization of international legal norms. This article concerns the question whether comparative studies of international legal policy can be integrated into existing fields of comparative foreign relations law or of comparative research of international law.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The article surveys theoretic questions primarily on the base of doctrinal sources. The retrospective analysis of the comparative method in international law is based on works published by Russian and foreign experts during the XX century. Particular attention is drawn upon works of founders of comparative research in international legal studies. The concept of foreign relations law in the scholarship and practice of the U.S. is researched on the base of national case law, which formulated the principle of executive exceptionalism in State foreign policy. Research work is realized with the use of analysis, synthesis, systematisation, as well as methods of historical and comparative method.RESEARCH RESULTS. The Article consistently reveals meaning and the content of international legal policy as one of the authors of the concept, French lawyer and diplomat G. de Lacharriere, presented it. The Article examines the history of foreign relations law in the U.S. and presents its doctrinal estimations from viewpoint of American constitutional law. The research work specifies different points of view on content of foreign relations law and approaches to its justification. Indeed international legal policy and foreign relations law can be compared as two types of State’s approach to its legal position on the international scene. There are six parameters for comparison: sources, functions, subjects of both concepts, questions on allocation of foreign powers in the State, on relationship between international and national law, on the role of national courts in interpretation and application of international norms. In consideration of “national interest” concept the attribution of international legal policy to international organisations or supranational association is judged as incorrect. The article examines the question of applicability of comparative method in the international law within the discourse among scholars on how differently modern States evaluate international legal norms. Analysis of the tendency to contrasting States’ approaches to the international law encompasses its development from notions “international law of transitional period”, “international legal systems”, to notions “national approach”, “legal style”, “legal culture”. Brief survey of comparative international law gives perspective on diversity of approaches to comparable aspects of the international law. Comparative studies of international legal policy could get consolidated among them.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. At first sight the comparative method is hardly applicable to the international law. However the universality of the international law doesn’t exclude variety of approaches to it. The research into international legal policy determined by national interests of every State allows to systemize positions of a State into a single strategy. At the same time comparative method doesn’t only provide classical comparison of States’ positions by issues, but also offers to compare inner-workings of the international legal policy and shaping factors. Nowadays in the context of trends on diversification of international relations (fragmentation, regionalisation), growing popularity of the comparative method translated into comparative foreign relations law and comparative international law. However international legal policy doesn’t correspond with categorial apparatus of comparative foreign relations law. International legal policy is nor able to apply methodological tenets of comparative international law due to its multivalued content. Most likely comparative studies of international legal policy can become a new approach within comparative international law, which should be based on the principles of concreteness and consistency.