GLOBALIZING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Transcription

1 PALGRAVE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS GLOBALIZING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SCHOLARSHIP AMIDST DIVIDES AND DIVERSITY Edited by Ingo Peters and Wiebke Wemheuer-Vogelaar

2 Palgrave Studies in International Relations Series Editors Knud Erik Joergensen Department of Political Science University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark Audie Klotz Department of Political Science Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs Syracuse University, New York, USA

3 Palgrave Studies in International Relations, published in association with European International Studies Association, provides scholars with the best theoretically-informed scholarship on the global issues of our time. The series includes cutting-edge monographs and edited collections which bridge schools of thought and cross the boundaries of conventional fields of study. More information about this series at

4 Ingo Peters Wiebke Wemheuer-Vogelaar Editors Globalizing International Relations Scholarship Amidst Divides and Diversity

5 Editors Ingo Peters Freie Universität Berlin Germany Wiebke Wemheuer-Vogelaar Freie Universität Berlin Germany Palgrave Studies in International Relations ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / Library of Congress Control Number: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover illustration: S.T. Ylap Conceptual / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London

6 To Jasper and future generations of global scholars

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8 PREF ACE Where and when did it all start? Interestingly, where and when it had already gone wrong was in 1977, in the United States. Stanley Hoffmann s infamous article An American Social Science: International Relations is normally taken as the fanfare sparking off the debate on how international versus parochial and ideological International Relations (IR) as a discipline in general, and IR theory in particular, are. Western IR theory has never existed as a monolithic bloc of scholarship, but entailed already within its own confines manifold critical debates about all kinds of theoretical, ontological, epistemological and methodological issues. However, the core of the discipline, as much as most of its body of pertinent literature, especially in the subfield of IR theory, is, as of today, coming from and being coined by the West. More or less, Western theories dominate university syllabi as much as theory-driven research, while Western standards dominate the field s definition of proper academic work. What qualifies a scholar to become a professor? Which submitted papers are qualifying for being published in the discipline s flagship journals and publishing houses? And not least, what is a theory and what is it good for? Thus, the debate on IR significantly being an imbalanced, exclusive and parochial discipline comprises issues of substantial theorizing and metatheory as much as questions about the sociology of the discipline. But where is the rest of the world, and what about the rest of the world? It has, of course, always been out there and has taken care of its own priorities, not least defined by its own histories, cultures and traditions of knowledge production. But it has been included in the traditionally exclusive club of IR scholarship only to marginal degrees. The debate sparked vii

9 viii PREFACE by Hoffman took on different waves, directions and focal points, searching for truly internationalizing IR. Views on proper knowledge production vary with its local focus, local ascribing here to variations of place and time, geographic, cultural and political differences in all parts of the globe. That is why this book starts from the premise that geo-epistemological differences need to be represented in the discipline, and doing justice to these premises, the discipline of IR ought to be globalized, that is, become inclusive and pluralistic in terms of the geographical sources of its knowledge base, not just tolerating, but appreciative of divides and diversity! Nevertheless, yet another book about so-called non-western IR, written by predominantly European authors? Yes, but no. Yes, the vast majority of contributors to this volume are native Europeans and/or have been educated in the West. We cannot but write with our own academic and social premises in mind. But no, this book is not so much about non- Western IR. Within the almost four years of this project, Global IR transformed from what felt like a niche discourse to the dominant topic when talking about IR as a discipline. 1 This book is therefore an attempt to reflect upon how we as scholars wherever we may be located can deal with this urgent topic in the context of our research. How can we understand IR in an international, disciplinary context? How can we study its increasingly diverse aspects? And how can we unlearn what traditional textbooks taught us about IR, but what we came to query? We very much hope that the gracious readers will enjoy the various perspectives advanced in this volume and that even the not-so-sympathetic reader might still accept the challenges we pose as being legitimate. NOTE 1. We documented our experiences with teaching and studying IR as a global(izing) discipline in our contribution to the forthcoming textbook of the Worlding Beyond the West series: Appeltshauser et al.: The Global IR Debate in the Classroom in: Theorizing International Politics from the Global South: A World of Difference, edited by Nizar Messari, L.H.M. Ling and Arlene B. Tickner.

10 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS No (wo)man is an island! This is an analytical as much as a normative statement, another premise of this project and our understanding of social science! Hence, it is time to advance a passionate thanks to all who helped to render this project possible and bring it to fruition: first and foremost, our thanks go to the authors of this volume. We grew together as a group over the course of more than four years. All of you better said, all of us took very big steps in the past years: you graduated from your MA programs, started your PhD research, moved to the other side of the world and back, some got married, gave birth to babies and yet we managed to not only stay in touch, but to flourish together academically and to become (even better) friends. Thank you for your dedication, creativity and academic excellence! Still, despite all the energy we invested, this project would not have been possible without generous financial support: we therefore thank the Research College The Transformative Power of Europe at Freie Universität Berlin (in particular Thomas Risse, Tanja Börzel, Anne Morgenstern, and Katja Pomianowicz), for facilitating our two authors workshops in Berlin in December 2013 and May We also thank our research assistant Christina Salerno for her editorial work on earlier versions of the contributions, and last but not least, the two research assistants of the Research College, Catharine Craven and Michael Giesen, for their relentless efforts of spell-checking and editing of the final book manuscript! Furthermore, we thank the Ernst-Reuter-Stiftung for financing our trip to New Orleans to attend the ISA annual meeting 2015, at which ix

11 x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS we presented our project in the framework of a Presidential Roundtable. For this opportunity, in turn, we would like to thank then-isa President Amitav Acharya, who supported this project with enthusiasm. In addition, we also thank Arlene Tickner, Mike Tierney, Daniel Maliniak, Bilgin Ayata, and Christian Bueger, who all commented on earlier versions of this book. Another generous sponsor has been the College of William and Mary, where we held our third authors workshop in cooperation with the TRIP Global Pathways program. First of all, we would like to thank all of the Global Pathways students for an inspiring and fruitful exchange about our common research topic. Second, we would like to thank the Reves Center for International Studies (in particular Steve Hanson and Dawn Marie Eck) and the Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations (in particular Mike Tierney, Nicky Bell, and Michael Campbell) for sponsoring and facilitating the workshop. Special thanks are also due to our commissioning editors at Palgrave, Sarah Roughly and Hannah Kaspar. We also thank Palgrave s former editor for IR, Ellie Davey- Corrigan, who commissioned our book in the first place, and our anonymous peer reviewer for his/her useful comments on the first draft of this book. Last but not least, we thank our two external authors, L.H.M. Ling and Peter Marcus Kristensen, for their excellent concluding comments. You provided the cherries on top of our ice cream! If you do like this volume, please tell the world, if not, please tell the editors. Of course, the editors alone remain accountable for any flaw the reader might still find. Berlin, August 2015 Wiebke Wemheuer-Vogelaar & Ingo Peters

12 CONTENTS 1 Introduction: Global(izing) International Relations: Studying Geo-Epistemological Divides and Diversity 1 Wiebke Wemheuer-Vogelaar and Ingo Peters Part I A Divided Discipline: Geo- Epistemological Obstacles to a Truly Global IR 29 2 The Self and the Other in IR: Lessons from Anthropology 33 Alina Kleinn 3 A Model of International Relations (IR) Theory Production: Russian Cases of Worlding 55 Ivan Lydkin 4 Intellectual Gatekeeping The Metatheoretical Challenges of Incorporating Africa into International Relations Theory 81 Keshia Afia Fredua-Mensah 5 Constraining Structures: Why Local International Relations Theory in Southeast Asia Is Having a Hard Time 107 Anchalee Rüland xi

13 xii CONTENTS Part II Practicing Diversity? International Relations (IR) Scholarship Beyond the West Chinese International Relations (IR) Scholars Publishing Practices and Language: The Peaceful Rise Debate 135 Sabine Mokry 7 Contesting the Secularization Paradigm: A Study of Religion State Connections in Iranian International Relations (IR) 165 Luisa Linke-Behrens 8 Concepts of Indigenousness and Postcolonialism in Australian International Relations (IR) 187 Julita Dudziak Part III Unlearning International Relations (IR): Disciplinary and Academic Position(ing)s Women s Rights in Muslim Thought: Pushing the Boundaries of Human Rights Advocacy and International Relations (IR) Scholarship 217 Sandra Bäthge 10 African In/Security and Colonial Rule: Security Studies Neglect of Complexity 239 Laura Appeltshauser 11 Diversity as a Challenge? Decolonial Perspectives on Democratization 265 Laura Kemmer

14 CONTENTS xiii Part IV Conclusions Conclusions: Wor(l)ds Beyond the West 291 Peter Marcus Kristensen 13 By Way of Conclusion 307 L.H.M. Ling Index 319

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16 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Laura Appeltshauser studied political science and international conflict studies at Freie Universität Berlin, Sciences Po Paris and King s College London. She is interested in critical and interdisciplinary approaches to global politics, and her research focuses on the intersection between peace and conflict studies, de/postcolonial approaches, and epistemology. Sandra Bäthge graduated from the master s program International Relations at Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Universität Potsdam. She is a research associate at the department of sociology at Saarland University. Her research interests include international development cooperation, environmental politics, climate change, sustainable development, human and women s rights, gender and feminist theory. Julita Dudziak is a graduate student of International Relations at Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland. Her research focuses on human rights, women and minorities issues as well as the Far East region. She is preparing to become a doctoral candidate at Jagiellonian University in Institute of Middle and Far East. Keshia Fredua-Mensah graduated from the master s program International Relations at Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Universität Potsdam. Her research focuses on postcolonial and decolonial thinking in IR, racism and intersectionality, as well as on international security, peace and conflict. xv

17 xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Laura Kemmer is a PhD candidate in the Graduate School Loose Couplings. Collectivity at the Intersection of Digital and Urban Space at the Universität Hamburg and associate member of the DFG-funded International Graduate Research Program The World in the City at the Center for Metropolitan Studies, TU Berlin. Her research interests include urban transformation and everyday life, infrastructuring, collectivization processes, postcolonial and critical approaches. She is working on her doctoral thesis on the Bonding of human and non- human actors around the infrastructures of street/tram in a neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. Alina Kleinn is a research associate at the department of International Organizations and Public Policy of the Universität Potsdam. She is working on the project Consideration of Expert Knowledge International Public Administrations as Policy Experts. Her research interests include the role of international organizations in domestic politics, especially in education policy and many aspects of international development cooperation. Peter Marcus Kristensen is a researcher at the University of Copenhagen. His main field of research is the sociology of the International Relations discipline, rising powers and non-western perspectives on international relations. His recently submitted PhD project explores non-western perspectives on security, power shifts and future world order including fieldwork in China, India and Brazil and more than 100 interviews. His articles on the sociology of IR have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the European Journal of International Relations, International Political Sociology, International Studies Review, International Studies Perspectives, Journal of European Public Policy, Pacific Review and Third World Quarterly. Lily H. M. Ling is Professor of International Affairs at The New School in New York. Her research focuses on developing a post-westphalian approach to world politics through the notion of multiple worlds or worldism. She has authored four books including The Dao of World Politics: Towards a Post-Westphalian, Worldist International Relations (2014) and Imagining World Politics: Sihar & Shenya, A Fable for Our Times (2014). Professor Ling is also co-editor, amongst others, of Theorizing International Politics from the Global South: A World of Difference (co-edited with Nizar Messari and Arlene B. Tickner, Routledge, forthcoming) and Decolonizing

18 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xvii Asia? Unlearning Colonial/Imperial Power Relations (co-edited with Pinar Bilgin, Ashgate, forthcoming). Luisa Linke-Behrens graduated from the master s program International Relations at Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Universität Potsdam. She is a research fellow at the Collaborative Research Center Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood at Freie Universität Berlin and an associate at the Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies. Her research focuses on statehood and sovereignty, external governance actors, comparative and Latin American regionalism and Global International Relations. Ivan Lydkin graduated from the double master s program International Relations at Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Universität Potsdam, all in Germany, and Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) in Russia. He is now preparing for his doctoral studies. His research interests include IR theory and sociology of science in Russia. Sabine Mokry graduated from the master s program International Relations at Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Universität Potsdam. Currently, she is pursuing her second master thesis in China Studies/Sinology in which she investigates quoting patterns in Western news reports about China. Her main research interest is China s role in the world as well as its perceptions, both in the country itself and internationally. Ingo Peters is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Freie Universität Berlin. He is the executive director of the Center of Transnational Relations, Foreign and Security Policy, and (elected) Dean of Studies at the Department of Political and Social Science, Freie Universität Berlin. His main fields of study comprise German foreign policy, European security governance, European Union foreign policy, transatlantic relations and IR theory. Anchalee Rüland is a PhD candidate at the European University Institute. Her PhD project deals with the problem of norm conflict in Southeast Asia. Her research interests include Non-Western IR, questions of norm diffusion and contestation as well as human rights.

19 xviii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Wiebke Wemheuer-Vogelaar is a PhD candidate at the Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies and a research associate of the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) project at the College of William and Mary. For her dissertation Wiebke researches the global spread of International Relations Theories with a particular focus on the discipline s periphery and investigates cases of theory translation involving non-western sources of knowledge. At TRIP she is the principal investigator of the Global Pathways project, which is dedicated to studying IR in China and Latin America. Her research interests include theories of international and transnational relations, global IR scholarship, post-colonialism, scientometrics, and the sociology and history of science.

20 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ASEAN CCP CDA CEDAW CLS CNKI CSIS CSR CSR (UN)DRIP EU FH GMO IMF IPE IPIS IR IRFA IRT ISA ISR ISEAS JCU MA MGIMO/МГИМО Association of Southeast Asian Nations Chinese Communist Party Critical Discourse Analysis Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women Creatively Listening and Speaking (Dialogical Method) China National Knowledge Infrastructure Center for Security and International Studies (Indonesia) Corporate Social Responsibility Center for Strategic Research (Iran) (United Nations) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples European Union Freedom House Genetically Modified Organisms International Monetary Fund International Political Economy Institute for Political and International Studies (Iran) International Relations Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs International Relations Theory International Studies Association Institute for Strategic Research (Iran) Institute for Southeast Asian Studies James Cook University Townsville Master of Arts Moscow State Institute of International Relations xix

21 xx LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS NGO PCR SSCI SEA SNSC TRIP(S) UK UN UNDRIP/DRIP US USA WISC WoS ZIB Non-Governmental Organization Peoples Republic of China Social Science Citation Index Southeast Asia Supreme National Security Council (Iran) Teaching, Research and International Policy (Survey) United Kingdom United Nations United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples United States United States of America World International Studies Committee Web of Science Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen (German Journal for International Relations)

22 LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 3.1 A model of IRT production 65 Fig. 6.1 References languages of publication across sample 148 Fig. 6.2 Proportion of references in the respective other language 149 Fig. 6.3 References types of publication 149 Fig. 7.1 Evaluation authors 174 Fig. 7.2 Evaluation topic, in % 175 Fig. 7.3 Evaluation argumentation, references to religion, in % 176 Fig. 7.4 Cross-evaluation religious argumentation and topic, in % 177 Fig Daoistic dialectics: Balanced Yin/Yang relations 309 xxi

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24 LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1 The global(izing) IR debate: Reconstructing the evolving debate about geo-epistemological diversity 6 Table 1.2 Parallels to previous debates in IR 12 Table 1.3 Conceptual divides and regional diversity 18 Table 6.1 Summary of theoretical framework and expectations 141 Table 6.2 Selected English articles 144 Table 6.3 Selected Chinese articles 146 Table 7.1 Categories of analysis 169 Table 8.1 The results of quantitative research conducted on articles in IR journals in Australia; Published between 2009 and Table 8.2 Categories of critical discourse analysis 199 Table 8.3 The results of articles from Australian aboriginal studies 204 Table 8.4 The results of articles from aboriginal history 205 xxiii

25 CHAPTER 1 Introduction: Global(izing) International Relations: Studying Geo-Epistemological Divides and Diversity Wiebke Wemheuer-Vogelaar and Ingo Peters The discipline of International Relations (IR) currently finds itself on a road toward more geographical diversity in terms of its sociological makeup as well as in terms of the intellectual origin of its theoretical approaches. The Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA) in 2015 provided ample proof of this: under the conference theme Global IR and Regional Worlds and the chairmanship of its first non- Western President, Amitav Acharya, it featured a large variety of panels on post- and decolonial understandings of world politics as well as post- and non-western approaches toward IR. A historical record of 300 panels and roundtables a quarter of the conference program were dedicated to W. Wemheuer-Vogelaar ( ) Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science, Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies, Freie Universität Berlin I. Peters Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science, Center for Transnational Studies Foreign and Security Policy, Freie Universität Berlin The Author(s) 2016 I. Peters, W. Wemheuer-Vogelaar (eds.), Globalizing International Relations, DOI / _1 1

26 2 W. WEMHEUER-VOGELAAR AND I. PETERS Global IR (Acharya 2015 ; see also Acharya forthcoming ). However, IR is still a long way away from being a fully balanced and pluralist discipline, able to provide equal opportunities for scholars and their approaches, no matter what their origin. This persisting bias is confirmed by the most recent TRIP (Teaching, Research and International Policy) survey, which shows that roughly 77 percent of all IR scholars who have filled in the survey perceive IR to be a Western dominated discipline, while 61 percent agree with it being American-dominated (see Wemheuer-Vogelaar et al. forthcoming ). This conflict between steadily increasing diversity and persisting dividing lines lies at the heart of this volume. What divides the discipline of IR? What does IR scholarship on different sides of these divides look like? And which traits of IR do we need to unlearn in order to open up opportunities for alternative approaches? These questions, as such, are not essentially new. Over the past five to ten years, the discipline has witnessed a growing debate about its (un)international character. We frame this debate in the following as the Global(izing) IR Debate. While this debate has raised many important issues, it has also been marked by at least three shortcomings, which this book tries to avoid and rectify: 1. The Global(izing) IR Debate has been torn and weakened by a persisting conceptual opacity and a tendency toward dualism: Western/ non- Western, core/periphery, Global North/South, Euro-centrism/ Western-centrism, and so on. These dichotomies are used interchangeably within and across articles and books, and at the same time, using them seems to create more problems than it solves. Hence, this book starts out from the assumption that the prevalent dichotomies in the debate, which distinguish between the West and the non-west, restrict analytical perspectives and hinder grasping the multiple and intersectional divides that exist in the discipline of IR. As a consequence, we start out from the more basic assumption that knowledge is dependent upon space and time, and therefore, the location and context of knowledge production become the focus of our attention. We thereby avoid the pitfall of dualism by (a) conceiving of geo-epistemology as a concept which overarches the aforementioned dichotomies and allows for a particularistic understanding of the discipline s divides and diversity, and (b) by explicitly framing each chapter of this book around a unique geo-epistemological divide, that is, around one specific bias

27 INTRODUCTION: GLOBAL(IZING) INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS... 3 that separates mainstream IR from other interpretations of the international (for more details, see the next subsection). 2. The debate has largely revolved around normative issues. While the assertion that IR is a Western-centric discipline has been declared a truism, the real question is what this bias unfolds in the academic reality of teaching and studying, researching and publishing IR, and how it plays out in different situations and locations. Hence, Globalizing International Relations: Scholarship Amidst Divides and Diversity bridges this gap by presenting empirical case studies on a variety of dividing lines and cases of sociological and conceptual diversity. We simultaneously move beyond single-case descriptions of IR in country/region X (see Tickner and Wæver 2009 ; Acharya and Buzan 2007a ) and either zoom in on more concrete discourses within a location, or zoom out to provide an inter-local comparison. 3. While so far the debate has raised many important issues that all IR scholars should be made aware of, it does not address how these issues can and should be integrated into everyday research. Our book contributes to filling this gap by providing not only explicit empirical case studies, but also advice on how to study the identified dividing lines, and hence, particular aspects of IR scholarship beyond the West. Accordingly, the authors of all chapters provide reflections on their choice of research question and methods. The introductions to each part of this book provide additional reflections on the questions of methodology and epistemology in the context of the respective parts. In detail, the three parts address three different research questions: What divides IR in light of geo-epistemological diversity? Each of the chapters of Part I illustrates one or more concepts that figure prominently in the Global(izing) IR Debate, including target audiences, gatekeeping, and Othering. How is IR practiced beyond the West? Each of the chapters of Part II provides empirical evidence in support or rejection of the sometimes rather abstract claims made in the Global(izing) IR Debate. The authors address their specific research questions by means of qualitative and quantitative analyses of journal articles, citation patterns, authors biographies, and political discourses surrounding academic research.

28 4 W. WEMHEUER-VOGELAAR AND I. PETERS Which theoretical alternatives are there for Western IR concepts? Each of the chapters of Part III goes beyond the typical critique in the debate about concepts that do not fit (Tickner 2003), by analyzing publications of authors from beyond the West who address these concepts in alternative ways. Thereby, the chapters emphasize conceptual diversity within local discourses without falling for the temptation of searching for full-fledged non-western IR theories. The remainder of this chapter begins with a discussion of the terminology frequently used in the Global(izing) IR Debate, such as the West and non- West, and explains our approach of geo-epistemology. We then reconstruct the debate about the discipline s (un)global character and demonstrate parallels to and differences from previous grand debates in IR, looking at both the methodological and the sociological level. The chapter concludes with an overview of each of the book s three parts and individual chapters. GEO-EPISTEMOLOGY: THE WEST, THE NON-WEST AND THE SPACE BETWEEN Defining the concepts Western and non-western is at best a difficult and at worst a dangerous endeavor (Hutchings 2011 ). Throughout the Global(izing) IR Debate these concepts have been defined in terms of geography, geopolitics, civilizations, religion and research culture. Accordingly, in an effort to describe alternatives to today s Western IR, the concept which stands in opposition to Western has ranged from Eastern (Hobson 2012 ) and the Global South (in cases where the West is used as the Global North; Nayak and Selbin 2011a ) to non-western (Acharya and Buzan 2007a ), post-western (Chen 2011 ), and the periphery (in contrast to a Western core; Tickner 2013 ). Broadly speaking, non- Western usually refers to a geographical or geopolitical distinction from the West, while the term post-western carries a desire to transcend the IR discipline in its current form. Focusing on one of these concepts would have dramatically restricted the scope of this book. As an alternative we thus speak of geoepistemological divides and diversity (see Mignolo 2009 ; Stoffle 2013 ), which can be found in many different forms and along many different dimensions. The concept of geo-epistemology is grounded in the geography of knowledge literature (Agnew 2007 ; Preston 2003 ; Harding 1998 ), arguing that knowledge and processes of knowledge production are not

29 INTRODUCTION: GLOBAL(IZING) INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS... 5 independent from space and time, but contingent upon respective places (in a narrow, geographical sense), histories, and identities. Our interpretation of location thus goes beyond the recognition of geographical places. It includes locations of any kind may they be of a political, geographic, gender, ethnic, religious or cultural nature. Thus, variations over space and time imply diverse identities (based on specific historical processes and evolving traditions), as well as diverse conceptualizations of what the research agenda is or should be (diverse ontologies) and how theory or theorizing is done or ought to be done so as to produce sound social sciences, including issues of epistemology and proper research methods. Consequently, each of this book s chapters starts out from an individual conceptualization of geo-epistemological divides/diversity and of what, if applicable, it regards as West and beyond (see Table 1.3 ). A good example of this case-dependent strategy is Julita Dudziak s chapter on Australia: while other contributions on the IR discipline have placed Australia comfortably in the box of Western countries (Sharman and True 2011 ; Cox and Nossal 2009 ; Wesley 2001 ), Dudziak actively questions this categorization at the outset of her chapter. Australia s colonial past and its questionable treatment of Aborigines and Torres Straight Islanders lead her to question whether indigeneity and postcolonialism play any role in Australian IR scholarship. Another example is Sandra Bäthge s critical approach to the equation: international West = women s rights versus Islamic non-west = no women s rights. In her chapter, she neither accepts the Othering inherent to the clash-of-civilizations assumption of inherently incompatible norms, nor the representation of Islam and its understanding of women s rights as a homogenous entity. Instead, Bäthge set out to engage with a particular strand of non-western conceptual thought and asks how gender equality and women s rights are established in Islamic feminist scholarship. THE GLOBAL(IZING) IR DEBATE: RECONSTRUCTING THE EVOLVING DEBATE ABOUT GEO-EPISTEMOLOGICAL DIVERSITY What we are going to conceptualize as the Global(izing) IR Debate in the following is the canon of literature, published primarily in major IR journals, that addresses the discipline s geo-epistemological dimensions. The aim of this section is to provide the reader with an overview of what

30 6 W. WEMHEUER-VOGELAAR AND I. PETERS Table 1.1 The global(izing) IR debate: Reconstructing the evolving debate about geo-epistemological diversity Main question Central aims Method Representative contributions American Social Science strand Conceptualnormative strand Empirical strand Is IR an American Social Science? What is Westerncentric about IR and how to overcome it s biases? How is IR practiced beyond the West? Identify factors that shape IR; case studies on Western alternatives to U.S. American IR Raise awareness for the overpowering dominance of Westphalian narrative in IR theory and practice; suggest alternative conceptualizations of the international Describe how IR is done in countries and regions beyond the West Critical analysis as well as empirical case studies Critical de- and re-construction of IR concepts, theories and practices Case studies; partially paired with quantitative data analyses Hoffmann 1977, Wæver 1998, Friedrichs 2004, Kristensen 2012, Turton 2015 Inayatullah and Blaney 2004, Bilgin 2008, Tickner 2003, 2013 Hobson 2009, 2012 Chen 2012, Worlding Beyond the West, volumes 2 and 3, Acharya 2014 Aydinli and Mathews 2000, Huang 2007, Worlding Beyond the West, volume 1, Acharya and Buzan 2007a, Sharma 2010 Source : Authors we regard as the cornerstones of the literature on global(izing) IR and to introduce some core concepts and ways of studying IR that are picked up by the authors of this volume. We chose to speak of global(izing) in this volume, because it combines the all-encompassing scope of the term global (Acharya 2014 ), while leaving room for globalizing tendencies and processes that are still shaping the discipline. This debate about the not so international discipline