Going Beyond Parochialism And Fragmentation In The Study Of International Relations

International Relations (IR), as a discipline, is a western dominated enterprise. This has led to calls to broaden the scope and vision of the discipline by embracing a wider range of histories, experiences, and theoretical perspectives – particularly those outside the Anglo-American core of the West. The ongoing ‘broadening IR projects’ – be they ‘non-Western IR’, ‘post-Western IR’, or ‘Global IR’ – are making contributions in this regard. However, some careful thinking is needed here in that these attempts could also lead to a national or regional ‘inwardness’ that works to reproduce the very parochialism that is being challenged. The main intellectual concerns of this edited volume are problematising Western parochialism in IR; giving theoretical and epistemological substance to pluralism in the field of IR based on both Western and non-Western thoughts and experiences; and working out ways to move the discipline of IR one step closer to a dialogic community. A key issue that cuts across all contributions in the volume is to go beyond both parochialism and fragmentation in international studies. In order to address the manifold and contested implications of pluralism in in the field of IR, the volume draws on the wealth of experience and research of prominent and emerging IR scholars whose contributions make up the work, with a mixture of theoretical analysis and case studies. This book will appeal to scholars and students interested in Global IR and promoting dialogue in a pluralist IR.

This volume on international studies pedagogy helps us think purposefully about the worlds we teach to our students and it shows us why engaging in reflective practice about how and what we teach matters. The Handbook also provides strategies to engage students in a variety of ways to reflect on and engage with the complexities of the world in which we live.

The Global IR research programme promulgates a borderless ecology of cultures that has only an inside without an outside. This borderless ecology of cultures reinvents the human condition (including the condition of ‘the international’) as perpetually interconnected at the level of consciousness. While Western-centric IR theories depend on (neo-)Kantian philosophies to emphasize the time-space bounded identities of human beings living in visibly divided phenomenal worlds, the de-Kantian philosophies of the Global IR research programme – exemplified by the Tianxia, Advaita, and Nishida Kitaro’s Buddhism-inspired theories – recuperate the temporally-spatially indivisible phenomenal-noumenal flow of human life, thereby facilitating back-and-forth movement between the Westdominated ‘one world’ and the non-West-embodied ‘many worlds’. The central objective of the book is to demonstrate how this back-and-forth movement offers opportunities to conceive of and found a new world order that recognizes the temporally-spatially indivisible human condition on earth. The book delineates a set of guiding principles to promote an innovative practice of theory-building and policy-making that transcends the geo-centric limitations of knowledge-production and knowledge-application, thereby establishing the futuristic foundation of the Global IR research programme.

This cutting-edge volume brings together a diverse roster of scholars to shed light on the reconfiguration of twenty-first century Latin American regionalism. Reflecting on both the multiplicity of regional integration across Latin America (LA) and the theoretically pluralist turn in contemporary scholarship on LA politics and International Relations, this edited volume proposes an ‘integrative pluralist’ methodology to deciphering the complexity of regionalisation projects, from both above and below. The book charts the contemporary evolution of older regionalisation schemes, such as the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR), as well as more recent twenty-first century regional innovations, including the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), Pacific Alliance (AP), and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). Complementing this more traditional institutional perspective, the book also charts the underexplored dynamics of regionalism from below, in the context of region-wide networks of political organisation among indigenous and peasant movements. Set against the backdrop of a more critical reading of the historical origins of regionalism, this volume aims to contribute to the ever-growing conversation among scholars within and beyond Latin America on the actors, processes, contradictions, and prospects for regional cooperation. In offering a more holistic perspective on Latin American regionalism from above and below, this volume will be of interest to both newcomers to the field and more seasoned scholars working within/across disciplinary boundaries, from International Relations and International Political Economy to Historical Sociology and Institutionalism. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Globalizations.

How and why was it possible for a small state such as Thailand to challenge great powers France and Japan during the Second World War? Putting ontological security theory into dialogue with status seeking approaches, Charoenvattananukul uses a case study of Thailand in the early 1940s to interrogate the dynamics and logic of a small state foreign policy. During this period, Thailand’s foreign policy can appear to be surprising, if viewed through a lens of survival imperatives which would assume that passivity towards more powerful states is the optimal policy. As the majority of states are small- and medium-sized it is very important to understand the imperatives that drive such states, especially in their interactions with great powers. In applying these frameworks to a small state, this book makes a unique and valuable contribution to the field of international relations theory. It will also be of great interest to scholars of twentieth century Thai history and of the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War.

The Research Handbook on the Sociology of Emotion investigates the role of emotions in key institutions understood as the frames and fabrics of society. It takes a critical look at society-framing institutions such as the state, the military, the market, and international organizations.

Despite attempts to redress the balance, international relations (IR) as a discipline is still dominated by Western theories. The contributors in this book explore the challenges of constructing an alternative, with a dialogue between global and local approaches. Drawing on scholars with backgrounds in the United States, Europe, Asia and South America, this volume attempts to critically engage with and reflect upon existing traditions of IR theory to produce a deeply pluralist approach. Traditions, cultures, histories and practices from around the world influence their respective theoretical understanding and in turn explain why the Western tradition of IR is insufficient. This book provides great insight for scholars of IR from around the world, looking for more diversity in IR theory.

This book seeks to reposition international relations (IR) theory by providing insights into non-Western concepts and theories. By engaging with understandings of power, identity, the state and the individual from a range of states outside of the Western hemisphere, the contributors to this book introduce new methods for understanding aspects of IR in context considerate ways. Engagements with Western theories and cases highlight how we need to reposition traditional understandings to allow non-Western approaches to IR develop alongside and inform their Western counterparts. Moreover, the book reinforces the need to move beyond the traditionally used Western-centric lenses without removing them completely, instead it advocates a harmonisation between them to reduce generalisations across the local, state and regional levels.