Rethinking Power, Institutions and Ideas in World Politics

Whose IR?

Amitav Acharya

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781134636044
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Politik

The study of international relations, has traditionally been dominated by Western ideas and practices, and marginalized the voice and experiences of the non-Western states and societies. As the world moves to a "post-Western" era, it is imperative that the field of IR acquires a more global meaning and relevance. Drawing together the work of renowned scholar Amitav Acharya and framed by a new introduction and conclusion written for the volume, this book exposes the narrow meaning currently attached to some of the key concepts and ideas in IR, and calls for alternative and broader understandings of them.

The need for recasting the discipline has motivated and undergirded Acharya's own scholarship since his entry into the field over three decades ago. This book reflects his own engagement, quarrels and compromise and concludes with suggestions for new pathways to a Global IR- a forward-looking and inclusive enterprise that is reflective of the multiple and global heritage of IR in an changing and interconnected world. It is essential reading for anyone who is concerned about the history, development and future of international relations and international relations theory.

Part I
IR theory and its discontents

1
International Relations Theories And Western Dominance: Reassessing the Foundations of International Order¹

In the field of international relations, there is now a growing recognition that what passes for “theory” has been, and continues to be, shaped mainly by the Western ideas, experiences, and practices. Stanley Hoffmann once famously described the field of international relations as an “American social science.”² If this is true of the entire field, it is even more so of its theory, although the latter is more accurately characterized as “Western,” rather than merely “American,” despite the latter’s greater claim to “social scientifism.” International relations as a field of study is no longer the exclusive preserve of either American or Western universities. Some of the fastest growth in the discipline are taking place in non-Western countries, especially China, India and even Indonesia. In China, for example, some four dozen universities are now conferring bachelor degree in international studies. Yet, IR theory remains stubbornly Western, incorporating relatively few insights and voices from the non-West.

Why this is the case? One rare investigation into this question, by a project led by myself and Barry Buzan, addressing the question “Why Is There No NonWestern IR Theory?” came up with a number of possible explanations. These explanations range from the hegemonic status of Western scholars, publications and institutions in IR, to a realization that Western IRT has discovered the right path to understanding IR, or the right answers to the puzzles and problems of the day, to a serious lack of institutional resources, the problem of language, and the close nexus between IR academics and the government which discourages theoretical work. We also found an uncritical acceptance of Western theory, a lack of confidence to take on Western theorists, blind deference to scholars from prestigious Western institutions, and too much political and policy engagement for IR scholars in universities in the developing world. In this situation, what passes for theory here is mostly theory-testing, scholars looking at Western thinking, and applying to the local context, rather than injecting indigenous ideas and insights from local practices to the main body of IR theory.

Of these, the hegemonic status of Western IRT is of particular importance. To elaborate, the question of Western dominance in IR theory is:

… not about whether Western IRT has found all the right paths to truth. It is about whether, because Western IRT has been carried by the dominance of Western power over the last few centuries, it has acquired a Gramscian hegemonic status that operates largely unconsciously in the minds of others, and regardless of whether the theory is correct or not. Here one would need to take into account the intellectual impact of Western imperialism and the success of the powerful in imprinting their own understandings onto the minds and practices of the non-Western world … the process of decolonisation left in its wake a world remodeled, sometimes badly, on the lines of the European state and its ‘anarchical society’ form of international relations. The price of independence was that local elites accept this structure, and a good case can be made that they not only did so under duress, but absorbed and made their own a whole set of key Western ideas about the practice of political economy, including most conspicuously and most universally, sovereignty, territoriality and nationalism.³

But if we assume some form of Western dominance in IR theory exists, can we come to some agreement as to what it actually means, or how is it manifested? Is Western dominance merely an intellectual question, i.e. establishing the “non-universality” of IR theory, or a normative one, extending to an examination of whether and how IRT has legitimized the West’s dominant position in the international system? And finally, how is Western dominance reflected in some of the principal approaches to international order?

I should note here that it is not my aim to start a new “debate,” as happened in the past between idealists and realists, or traditionalists and behaviouralists, or rationalists and post-positivists. This would amount to taking an extreme position for and against something or someone. I do not dismiss, much less denounce, the contribution of IR theory in spreading the discipline of international relations in the non-West. I also acknowledge that IR theory is not a monolith, and that some theories are more sensitive to non-Western experience and hence more cognizant of the dominance of the West over the non-West than others. These include postcolonialism, feminism, and even some versions of what may be called “subaltern constructivism,” i.e. social constructivism that recognizes the two-way diffusion of ideas and norms and examines the patterns of socialization leading to community-building in the non-Western world. I also do not consider the problem of Western dominance as a grand conspiracy by Western intellectual elites and their leaders to keep the rest of the world down and out. Instead, I view Western dominance as inevitable, perhaps even necessary, deriving from the West’s recent historical position. Instead of being a grand conspiracy, I see it as a series of loosely connected intellectual discourses, which have excluded the non-West, due as much to the intellectual conditioning associated with Western power and influence as to the ignorance or laziness of the theorist, or his/her proclivity for generating testable hypotheses by keeping the relevant samples relatively small and familiar, and thus Western.

Despite these caveats, I think we do have a problem in IR theory’s claim to universality that is worthy of serious intellectual investigation. But before setting out to do so, let me offer some clarifications about the key terms that I will use and my definition of the problem to be investigated.

Western dominance and international order

I first turn to the notion of Western dominance. This is a difficult task. Normally, dominance means physical subjugation of the weak by the strong. But there can be other, softer forms of dominance. The Gramscian notion of hegemony offers a useful framework for capturing the essence of dominance. First, dominance, like the Gramscian notion of hegemony is both material and ideational. Since IR theory is essentially a set of ideas, it is a natural arena where Western dominance would be clearly manifested. Second, drawing upon the well-known formulation of Robert Cox that “Theory is always for someone and for some purpose,”⁴ IR theory can be generally understood as serving the purpose of the dominant Western actors. Last but not the least, dominance, like hegemony, is both sustained by coercion and consent, but consent may be the more important element. It is therefore not surprising to see many scholars in the non-West accepting and using IR theory without much hesitance, at least initially, and that the field of international relations has progressed in the non-West despite having been rooted in Western historiography and foreign policy experience.

Dominance can take many different forms: exclusion, ethnocentrism, marginalization, oppression, contempt, ignorance, etc. In this chapter, I will define Western dominance in terms of four dimensions: (1) auto-centrism (2) universalism, (3) disjuncture, and (4) agency denial. Together, they have contributed to four essential tendencies in IR theorizing.

1. Auto-centrism refers to the tendency of theorizing about key principles of mechanisms of international order from mainly Western ideas, culture, politics, historical experiences and contemporary praxis. Conversely, it is reflected in the disregard, exclusion and marginalization of non-Western ideas, culture, politics, historical experiences and contemporary praxis. Part of this auto-centrism can be attributed to a sense of superiority of the Western pattern over non-Western one.⁵

2. False universalism refers to the tendency to view or present Western ideas and practices as the universal standard, while non-Western principles and practices are viewed as particularisms, aberrations or inferiorities. As Steve Walt noted in justifying his selection of Middle East case studies to develop a theory about the origin of alliances, “international relations scholars have long relied on historical cases and quantitative data drawn from European diplomatic history without being accused of a narrow geographic, temporal, or cultural focus.”⁶ Much of what passes for IR theory might be similarly construed as European diplomatic history and contemporary American foreign policy management.

3. Disjuncture refers to the lack of fit between what passes for IR theory and the experience of the non-Western world, although Western scholars seldom see this as an obstacle to theory-building. We have serious problems when applying theories of conflict, cooperation, institution-building, norm diffusion dynamics that dominate the literature of IR to the non-West.

4. Agency denial refers to the lack of acknowledgment of the agency of non Western states, regional institutions, civil society actors in contributing to world order, through additions and extensions to the principles and mechanisms which were devised by the West and by creating new ones. Non-Western actors are seen as consumers rather than producers, or as passive recipients rather than active borrowers of theoretical knowledge claims.

I should stress here that these four dimensions are not mutually exclusive, but inter-related and run parallel with each other. But the scope of my analysis of Western dominance does not stop with an investigation of these four dimensions. This is not just a question about investigating how the development of IR theory has mainly been a Western enterprise and contribution. I have framed the title of this chapter in a deliberately ambiguous manner. My argument is that these above four tendencies in IR theory, which reflect the dominant position of the West in the international system, have also legitimized Western dominance of the international system. Most academic studies of IR theory’s lack of universality focus mainly on the issue of Western intellectual hegemony. But no consideration of Western dominance in the formulation of IR theory can be complete without looking at the other part of equation: how IR theory, while itself being a product of Western dominance, has also legitimized Western dominance. This interactive relationship between IR theory and Western dominance is at the core of my investigation. Simply put, the development of IR theory is reflective of the dominant position of the West in the international system. And conversely, IR theory has helped to legitimize that dominance.

While international relations theory has a broad and complex domain, let me look specifically at the ordering principles and mechanisms in world politics. This is based on the assumption, contestably so perhaps, that issues and mechanisms of international order dominate the theories of international relations and constitute the core of the theory of the discipline. IR theory is in many ways about investigating the sources, mechanisms and limitations of international order-building. In this project, I look specifically at four ordering elements:

1. Sovereignty: The organizing principle of international order

2. Powers: Great Power relationships

3. Institutions: International and regional institutions

4. Values ...