Search

This article examines the political and legal controversies around a counterterrorism programme conducted by the Dutch government to support the so-called moderate groups in Syria between 2015 and 2018. The controversies centred around the question how the Dutch government was able to define and support armed moderate groups in Syria and distinguish them from terrorist organizations. The objective of the article is to take up this question and unpack how the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs constructed and justified their definition of material support for moderate groups deployed in this programme, against existing definitions of terrorism funding and terrorist groups embedded in European counterterrorism financing regulations. Connecting to the debates around materiality in both International Relations and International Law, this article follows the material-semiotic practices through which definitions of terrorism come into being. The empirical analysis draws on interviews with legal professionals, policy documents and court transcripts, and provides a detailed overview of how multiple and even conflicting definitions of terrorism and terrorism financing are constructed by the Dutch state. Taking this interdisciplinary approach to materiality and based on the empirical analysis, I propose that this controversy on defining terrorism and terrorism financing reflects a Eurocentric assumption about the knowledge and responsibilities of the Western state in the War on Terror. While the empirics are grounded in the Dutch context, my analysis is relevant for multiple European countries who engaged in similar operations between 2015 and 2018, as well as for future counterterrorism efforts targeting terrorist groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing scholarship has demonstrated that theorising about security is Eurocentric. This leaves us with a partial account of the concept of security, which is presented as universal. This in turn generates explanatory problems because we are only seeing part of the picture. Yet there have been few attempts to move beyond critiques of Eurocentrism to examine the concept of security 'elsewhere'. This paper takes China as its starting point, asking: what can looking at China tell us about security? In answering this question, the paper makes two contributions. First, it presents new empirical findings, building a conceptual history of security in China. Drawing on 140 key texts dating 1926–2022, the paper traces the emergence of the concept of security in China and its evolution through three explicit security concepts. Drawing on postcolonial insights it demonstrates that these concepts are hybrid, evolving out of multiple domestic and international influences. They have similarities as well as differences with the Eurocentric concept that dominates International Security Studies (ISS) and produce a discrete approach towards security that has been overlooked in a discipline that uses 'Europe to explain Asia'. Second, considering these insights, the paper demonstrates that the universal concept of security that underpins theorising in ISS is partial and misleading. Differences in security concepts matter for theorising security and for understanding security policy. Consequently, I argue that we need to provincialize the concept of security: a truly global security studies is of necessity a provincial one attuned to difference and similarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we conceptualize and demonstrate how historical International Relations (IR) can be employed to critically engage with the populist uses of history at present. In this endeavour, we focus on myths as analytical nodal points. We revisit the rich interdisciplinary literature on myths to conceptually connect historical research that unsettles myths with political critiques of myths in terms of their naturalizing effects at present. We also expand the critical agenda of historical IR research into targeting the prevalent historical myths of Self and Other that are employed to promote antagonism in contemporary politics. We illustrate the potential that historical IR research holds in illuminating and debunking the contemporary populist uses of history through the case of the relations between Europe and the Ottoman Empire and its relationship with present-day anti-Western populism in Turkey. Via the notion of myth, we combine a critical discourse analysis of the ample historical references in Erdoğan's populist discourse with original historical analysis of the varied interactions between the Ottoman Empire and European states in the period invoked in those references. In doing so, we shed light on the relatively neglected Tanzimat (1839–1877) period in Euro-Ottoman history by drawing on pioneering secondary literature as well as our own analysis of primary sources. We demonstrate how the developments of this period debunk the myths of 'Eternal Antagonism' and 'Europe the Protagonist' and how they can inform less antagonistic Self/Other relations that are conducive to a more cosmopolitan co-existence in contemporary Turkey–Europe relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on the origins of modern territoriality and the modernist conception of territory has largely been confined to Europe and its colonial histories. Few attempts have been made to understand modern territoriality from an alternative epistemic starting point. This article moves beyond critiques of Eurocentrism by examining the territorial metamorphosis of the Qing Empire to modern China. Like the United States and Russia, China has retained its early modern continental colonial possessions. In order to explain the territorialisation of the multi-ethnic Qing empire, this article engages empirically with cartographic and textual representations of China from Confucian literati scholars, European Jesuit cartographers and the Manchu imperial court from the 17th to the early 19th centuries. The empirical study shows that by the early 19th century, a new territorialised conception of 'China' closely resembling that of modern territoriality had emerged. This 'modern' and Sinocentric form of territoriality encompassed areas that were hitherto seen as foreign and non-Chinese. In opposition to the extant Eurocentric historiography, this article traces the emergence of modern territoriality in imperial China to a nexus of European cartographic techniques, Qing imperial conquests and the literati synthesis of Manchu imperial and Sinocentric forms of territoriality. By showing the deep historical processes and global entanglements behind the emergence of modern China as a territorial state, the article makes a case for a polycentric account of modern territoriality [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical international theory is confronted with a fundamental 'problem of orientation', whose answer defines its capacity to critically analyse world politics. This problem derives from how the capacity for critique is inherently connected with the need to, at least partially, escape time- and space-bound points of view and attain a more cosmopolitan perspective that permits an assessment of the regressive/progressive tendencies of the human past, present and possible futures. The search for this cosmopolitan standpoint of orientation has frequently led to a reliance on grand narratives of human development from the perspective of which critical orientation can be disclosed. However, grand narratives themselves have frequently relied on metaphysical categories and stadial conceptions of history that reproduce forms of Eurocentrism that ultimately undermine their adequacy as means of orientation. A fundamental suspicion of grand narratives and need for 'reflexivity' that discloses forms of exclusion embedded in theoretical perspectives have thus become common topics in the field. However, this growing concern with reflexivity is also associated with a tendency for greater philosophical abstraction and a growing gap between theory and practice. This article considers the role of grand narratives in critical international theory and explores the possibility of post-Eurocentric and post-philosophical grand narratives that provide an alternative answer to the problem of orientation and recover the link between theory and practice. With reference to recent developments in the field, namely, the work of Richard Devetak and Andrew Linklater, the article considers the possibility of a historical–sociological approach to grand narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most commonly treaded pathways to address the widely recognized Eurocentric biases in International Relations has been the initiation of intellectual efforts toward the incorporation of non-Western world views. However, the greater assimilation of knowledge produced by non-Western scholars from local philosophicalexperiential vantage points -- that is, the integration of Chinese, Indian, or Brazilian outlooks expressed under the rubric "non-Western International Relations" -- cannot make International Relations less Eurocentric or more "Global" if the following slippery grounds are overlooked: (1) if non-Western International Relations theories employ non-Western philosophical resources for generating a derivative discourse of Western/Eurocentric International Relations theories, thereby failing to transcend the conjectural boundaries of Western/Eurocentric International Relations; and (2) if non-Western International Relations theories manufacture an exceptionalist discourse that is specifically applicable to the narrow experiential realities of a native time-space zone, thereby failing to offer an alternative universalist explanation that grants a broadspectrum relevance to Western/Eurocentric International Relations. In the light of these realizations, the present article aims to explore if "Sufism" -- as a non-Western intellectual resource -- is capable of offering a fertile ground for crafting a non-derivative and non-exceptionalist Global International Relations theory. In order to do this, the article employs the insights gained from the poetry of a 13th-century Sufi scholar, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī. The article draws the conclusion that Sufism, as an established philosophy with a grand temporal-spatial global spread, upholds a "threefold attribute" -- namely, epistemological monism, ontological immaterialism, and methodological eclecticism -- which gives it a unique foundational status to formulate a non-Eurocentric Global International Relations theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes that ‘internal colonisation’ provides a necessary lens through which to explore the relationship between violence and race in contemporary liberal government. Contributing to an increasing interest in race in International Relations, this article proposes that while racism remains a vital demarcation in liberal government between forms of worthy/unworthy life, this is continually shaped by colonial histories and ongoing projects of empire that manifest in the Global North and South in familiar, if not identical, ways. In unpacking the concept of internal colonisation and its intellectual history from Black Studies into colonial historiography and political geography, I highlight how (neo-)metropolitan states such as Britain were always active imperial terrain and subjected to forms of colonisation. This recognises how metropole and colonies were bounded together through colonisation and how knowledge and practices of rule were appropriated onto a heterogeneity of racialised and undesirable subjects both within colonies and Britain. Bringing the argument up to date, I show how internal colonisation remains diverse and dispersed under liberal empire — enhanced through the war on terror. To do this, I sketch out how forms of ‘armed social work’ central to counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq are also central to the management of sub-populations in Britain through the counterterrorism strategy Prevent. Treating (neo-)metropoles such as the UK as part of imperial terrain helps us recognise the way in which knowledge/practices of colonisation have worked across multiple populations and been invested in mundane sites of liberal government. This brings raced histories into closer encounters with the (re)making of a raced present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critiques explanations of the rise of the West in the early modern period premised on the thesis that military competition drove the development of gunpowder technology, new tactics, and the Westphalian state, innovations that enabled European trans-continental conquests. Even theories in International Relations and other fields that posit economic or social root causes of Western expansion often rely on this “military revolution” thesis as a crucial intervening variable. Yet, the factors that defined the military revolution in Europe were absent in European expeditions to Asia, Africa, and the Americas, and conventional accounts are often marred by Eurocentric biases. Given the insignificance of military innovations, Western expansion prior to the Industrial Revolution is best explained by Europeans’ ability to garner local support and allies, but especially by their deference to powerful non-Western polities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Food sovereignty' emerged from grassroots peasant mobilisations, and has been spread globally by a democratically organised social movement, la Via Campesina. This process has seen food sovereignty influence global political discourse, transform national constitutions and be incorporated into a proposed United Nations declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas. By examining the role of grassroots actors in the global South in the construction of this emerging global norm, I militate against tendencies of West-centrism and elitism in existing literature on the contemporary diffusion of norms. By also discussing the potential marginalisation of grassroots peasant voices in recent United Nations discussions, I suggest that these elitist and West-centric tendencies may also exist in the norm diffusion process itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transformation of the Eurocentric epistemological base of International Relations, without inadvertently generating a ‘derivative discourse’ of Western International Relations, requires an intellectual flight over rigid boundaries of Western scientism, thereby reorienting the discipline of International Relations itself towards a post-Western epoch. As such, post-Western International Relations theory can be largely viewed as an offspring of scholastic explorations aimed at breaking epistemological imperialism in International Relations. Not surprisingly, the non-Western ‘rising powers’ in global politics are taking particular interest in designing a post-Western International Relations theory. While the notion of ‘Tianxia’ has emerged as a Chinese conceptual response to the budding intellectual curiosity surrounding post-Western International Relations, the Indian scholarly scepticism towards formulating ‘systemic’ theories projects a hazy image of the status of post-Western International Relations theory in India. This article aims at reconsidering the absence of post-Western International Relations theory in India by evaluating the fundamental Indian scriptures as a potential epistemological guide to theorise International Relations. In order to do that, the article awakens the concept of ‘Advaita’ as an untapped epistemological resource. The article is divided into four sections. The first section traces the academic space for post-Western International Relations theorisation in India. The second section evokes the notion of ‘Advaita’ as an epistemological-methodological tool to craft post-Western International Relations theory. The third section compares ‘monism’ as the common underlying epistemological foundation of ‘Tianxia’ and ‘Advaita’. Finally, the fourth section sets out to establish the credentials of ‘Advaitic monism’ as an intellectual strategy to formulate post-Western International Relations theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approaching the centenary of its establishment as a formal discipline, International Relations today challenges the ahistorical and aspatial frameworks advanced by the theories of earlier luminaries. Yet, despite a burgeoning body of literature built on the transdisciplinary efforts bridging International Relations and its long-separated nomothetic relatives, the new and emerging conceptual frameworks have not been able to effectively overcome the challenge posed by the ‘non-West’. The recent wave of international historical sociology has highlighted possible trajectories to problematise the myopic and unipolar conceptions of the international system; however, the question of Eurocentrism still lingers in the developing research programmes. This article interjects into the ongoing historical materialist debate in international historical sociology by: (1) conceptually and empirically challenging the rigid boundaries of the extant approaches; and (2) critically assessing the postulations of recent theorising on ‘the international’, capitalist states-system/geopolitics and uneven and combined development. While the significance of the present contributions in international historical sociology should not be understated, it is argued that the ‘Eurocentric cage’ still occupies a dominant ontological position which essentially silences ‘connected histories’ and conceals the role of inter-societal relations in the making of the modern states-system and capitalist geopolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates the limits of postcolonial International Relations’ anti-Eurocentrism through an interrogation of its ambivalent relation with the category of ‘the universal.’ It argues that a decisive defeat of Eurocentrism, within and beyond International Relations, requires the formulation of a non-ethnocentric international social theory which postcolonial approaches, à la poststructuralism, reject on the grounds that it involves the idea of the universal equated with socio-cultural homogeneity. Yet, postcolonial approaches also theorize colonial modernity through deploying forms of methodological internationalism that broach the universal. Through a critical engagement with the wider field of postcolonial theory, and an anatomy of the notion of the universal in Hegel and Trotsky, this article argues that homogeneity is not an intrinsic quality of the concept of the universal, but a result of its specifically internalist mode of construction. Supplanting Eurocentrism therefore requires an explicit theoretical incorporation of the universal. But one which is fundamentally rethought away from being an immanent self-transcendence of the particular, and re-comprehended as a radical amenability to, and constitutiveness of, alterity. This is, the article argues, a defining feature of Trotsky’s idea of uneven and combined development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing on the work of cultural anthropologists Clifford Geertz and Marshall Sahlins, I suggest a layered conceptualization of diplomacy as consisting of myths, sociabilities and practices which allows us to open the question of diplomacy’s Euro-centrism to empirical scrutiny. As do all known diplomatic systems, European diplomacy has its roots in the social systems of kinship and religion. It is rooted in Christian mythology, and this mythology informs its sociabilities and practices. Three mini-case studies (of diplomatic immunity, permanent representation and the institution of dean of the corps diplomatique) demonstrate that this mythology shines through in present-day diplomacy as well. Since diplomatic practices bear the mark of a European cultural context, it privileges the life chances of those native to that context. In this sense, diplomacy is Euro-centric. I then go on to argue that, empirically, this does not seem to be a particularly pressing problem. The real problem may be external to diplomacy itself, and concern the idea that European diplomacy was uniquely peaceful. As I demonstrate by means of a mini-study of Iroquois diplomacy, this is simply not the case. If the erroneous idea of uniquely peaceful European diplomacy is paired up with a framing of relations between European and non-European polities in terms of peaceful diplomacy, the result may easily be that we occlude other aspects of those relations, such as conquest and colonialization. The Euro-centrism of diplomacy that matters is thus less to do with diplomatic practices than with mnemonic practices about diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

David Held's model of cosmopolitan democracy is thus far the most articulate response to the quest to democratize global governance. After criticizing the territoriality, Eurocentrism and linearity of proposed cosmopolitan democracy, I argue that a necessary condition for a global democratization is the development of a global, and pluralist, security community. Therefore it is imperative to tackle questions of who 'we' are and where 'we' are heading, and also to address explicitly the problem of cultural violence. Further, I argue against totalizing blueprints that are not grounded in realist analysis of the relevant context, concrete embodied actors, social relations and mechanisms, and transformative possibilities. Finally, in terms of space, democratic alternatives should not automatically follow the logic of territoriality. With a post-colonial globalist consciousness, we should work for new forms of democratic governance, new forms of democratic participation, representation and accountability, in the context of radically open world history. Concrete utopias can also be innovative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]