Bi-Quarterly Political Knowledge

De-westernizing of International Relations and its consequences for Regional Studies

Document Type : Science - Research (International Relation)

Author

Faculty member of Imam Sadiq University

Abstract

International Relations as an academic discipline, originating from the West, has been influenced by Western traditions of thought and this has led to its Eurocentric nature reproduced through specific closures and strict standards of theorizing. In fact IR scholars in modern era influenced by the European Enlightenment and its endorsement of autonomous reason took the supremacy of modernity for granted and considered non-western ideas so unimportant and irrelevant that they could easily ignore and omit it from their theories without having any trouble understanding, explaining and interpreting world politics. Since the last part of the twentieth century, however, this has been challenged. The emergence of reflectivist theories with their broad definition of theory, the expansion of international agenda due to significance of new international issues, and the agency of non-Western international actors have somehow broken the meta-theoretical and theoretical boundaries of IR. The result has been pluralism and the coexistence of approaches and theories.
Fortunately with the collapse of confidence in the way Western modernity has understood the world, there is now a growing openness in international relations to what different perspectives may have to offer to the world. Some preliminary steps have been taken to construct non-western theories of IR based on different concepts and presumptions. Although they are still in an embryonic stage, we will hear and read more about them in a not too distant future.
In particular, so scolars are trying to establish an independent and distinct mate-theory derived from Islamic principles and rules in order to designate Islamic ontology, epistemology and methodology which can help us study and understand international relations in a religious framework.
The main argument of this article is that this pluralism paves the way for non-Western IR scholars especially in Regional Studies to produce their own theories and narrative of international relations and to be free from Eurocentrism. This article has a descriptive- analytical method and uses Library Research Methods for data gathering.

Keywords

Main Subjects

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Bi-Quarterly Political Knowledge
Volume 16, Issue 1 - Serial Number 31
ESSAY
April 2020
Pages 191-218
  • Receive Date: 28 November 2019
  • Revise Date: 05 February 2020
  • Accept Date: 28 January 2020