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Begin New Search Topic International Relations Theory Political Geography Global Focus Content Type Journal Article Journal All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace

1. Are We There Yet? A Global Investigation of Knowledge Inclusion in International Relations Theory Curricula

Author:
Jacqui Ala
Publication Date:
01-2024
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
It is now rather well established that most International Relations (IR) theories are predicated on Western knowledges. This potentially limits their analytical capacity to explain international relations beyond Western ideological values or interests. However, in recent years there has been a substantial increase in scholarship not only critiquing the Western centric nature of International Relations theory but also exploring the contributions that knowledges from the global South make to the field of IR theory. Thus, the status quo is shifting, albeit slowly. Nevertheless, the impact as well as the implication of this shift toward knowledge plurality for the IR theory curricula has not been paid adequate attention. Consequently, this article investigates whether the demand for knowledge plurality in the realm of IR theory research has made inroads into the arena of pedagogy resulting in the generation of knowledge plural IR theory curricula. Moreover, it examines the different choices and interpretations made by educators in endeavouring to create knowledge plural IR theory curricula in various global contexts. Further, it endeavours to discern the factors that have informed and/or shaped respondents’ curricula and pedagogical choices pertaining to the selection, structuring and transmission of IR knowledge at tertiary education institutions in different geographical contexts. Ultimately, it reflects on the implications of the increase in knowledge plural curricula for the development of greater knowledge plurality within the discipline.
Topic:
International Relations, International Relations Theory, Decolonization, Knowledge Systems, and Curriculum
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Globalizing IR: Can Regionalism offer a path for other Sub-Disciplines?

Author:
Hakan Mehmetcik and Hasan Hakses
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
Global International Relations (IR) research promotes more spaces for a broader spectrum of histories, insights, and theoretical perspectives beyond the conventional dominant Western ones in the IR discipline. The primary goal of this paper is to highlight that the study of Regionalism has a significant role in supporting the initiative of ‘globalizing IR’ by representing a sub-discipline that is open to new ideas, theories and methods, especially those emanating from non-Western contexts. As such, Regionalism is one of the sub-disciplines of IR and International Political Economy (IPE) with a tremendous potential to showcase global-IR trends. This article utilizes a bibliometric analysis as a proxy for mapping out the diverse and complex intellectual structure of Regionalism as a sub-discipline of IR. Our findings indicate that the remarkable rise in the total number of contributions from non-Western scholars to the Regionalism literature in the last decade suggests that unlike the theory generating mainstream studies Regionalism studies have become dominated by non-European/non-Western contexts.
Topic:
International Relations, International Relations Theory, Regionalism, and Bibliometric Analysis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. The Rise and Fall of Homegrown Concepts in Global IR: The Anatomy of ‘Strategic Depth’ in Turkish IR

Author:
Ali Bakir and Eyüp Ersoy
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
Asymmetry of knowledge production in global international relations manifests itself in a variety of forms. Concept cultivation is a foundational form that conditions the epistemic hierarchies prevalent in scholarly encounters, exchanges, and productions. The core represents the seemingly natural ecology of concept cultivation, while the periphery appropriates the cultivated concepts, relinquishing any claim of authenticity and indigeneity in the process. Nonetheless, there have been cases of intellectual undertakings in the periphery to conceive, formulate, and articulate conceptual frames of knowledge production. This paper, first, discusses the fluctuating fortunes of homegrown concepts in the peripheral epistemic ecologies. Second, it introduces the concept of ‘strategic depth’ as articulated by the Turkish scholar Ahmet Davutoğlu and reviews its significance for the formulation and implementation of recent Turkish foreign policy. Third, it examines the causes of its recognition and acclaim in the local and global IR communities subsequent to its inception. The paper contends that there have been three fundamental sets of causes for the initial ascendancy of the concept. These are categorized as contemplative causes, implementative causes, and evaluative causes. Fourth, it traces the sources of its fall from scholarly grace. The paper further asserts that the three fundamental sets of causes were also operational in the eventual conceptual insolvency of strategic depth. The paper concludes by addressing remedial measures to vivify concept cultivation in the periphery and to conserve the cultivated concepts.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, International Relations Theory, and Strategic Depth
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and Global Focus

4. Tianxia (All-Under-Heaven): An Alternative System or a Rose by another Name?

Author:
Mehmet Şahin
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
Tianxia is considered as an alternative institutionalization to govern the international system. It refers to world governance that is regulated by a world institution. Accordingly, a world institution plays the harmonizer role under this system. States, on the other hand, choose their economic models and the leader organizes the relations among different units. This paper thus argues that Tianxia is an alternative framework to Western-oriented IR theories. In that sense, this article aims to explore the similarities between the philosophical idea of Tianxia and Western-oriented IR Theory. More specifically, the article explores the issue from the international system perspective. The epistemological gaps and ontological similarities between the two frameworks will be demonstrated.
Topic:
International Relations, Governance, International Relations Theory, and International System
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Global Focus

5. Widening the World of IR: A Typology of Homegrown Theorizing

Author:
Ersel Aydınlı and Gonca Biltekin
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
It is rare that a recognized voice from non-Western world makes an impression in International Relations theory. While a few studies have looked at the structural and institutional constraints that contribute to such lack of recognition, part of the problem stems from confusion around the definition of what theorizing out of the non-Western world actually is. Based on a review of studies that embody indigenous conceptualizations of international phenomena in the periphery, we first define such ‘homegrown’ theorizing as original theorizing in the periphery about the periphery. By elaborating on these conceptualizations’ specific methods in building theories, we then provide a typology of homegrown theories and assess each theory building method in terms of its potential for global acceptance and further development. We substantiate our arguments on global acceptance by drawing on a comparison of the citation counts of 18 homegrown theories. In doing so, we try to give voice to some of the most prominent scholarly and intellectual efforts stemming from the periphery, and provide a guide for Western scholars on how to engage with homegrown theorizing in a more intellectually stimulating manner. The article concludes by highlighting a number of critical factors in opening up space for different voices in the world of IR.
Topic:
International Relations, International Relations Theory, Academia, and Inclusion
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Homegrown Theorizing: Knowledge, Scholars, Theory

Author:
Deniz Kuru
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
In recent years, the discipline of International Relations (IR) has entered another of its turns: the homegrown turn. This new turn focuses on possible contributions to IR theorizing using non-Western knowledge and/or scholarship. This article deconstructs the idea of homegrown theorizing by focusing on its constitutive part, dealing separately with the aspects of knowledge, scholar, and theory, questioning thereby the differing meanings of homegrownness. Such an approach provides an initial framework that accomplishes two things: First, the paper discusses today’s core Western IR community and its disciplinary sociology in terms of the main factors engendering present critiques of its scholarship. Second, it then becomes possible to pay attention to peripheral non-Western IR’s position at a time of gradual post-Westernization, both world politically and within the discipline. Engaging with the pitfalls of Western IR and elaborating on the reasons not only explains the emergence of IR’s homegrown turn, but also provides the basis for understanding how scholars engaging in homegrown theorizing can learn from the (past) mistakes of core scholarship. Dealing with the impact of globalization, Eurocentrism, presentism, and parochialism as the main problem areas of (Western) IR, the article concludes by providing a list of lessons to be taken into account when engaging in homegrown theorizing within the periphery.
Topic:
International Relations, Globalization, Sociology, International Relations Theory, and Eurocentrism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. Would 100 Global Workshops on Theory Building Make A Difference?

Author:
Knud Erik Jörgensen
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
The paper rests on the assumption that theoretical knowledge is valuable. However, such an assumption cannot be taken for granted. Indeed the first objective is to examine the comparative advantages of theoretical knowledge. Second, if 100 theory building workshops would make a difference, what exactly would the difference be? After all, movie production is said to be dominated by Hollywood but Bollywood produces more movies than Hollywood. Nonetheless, the world market is dominated by Hollywood. Hence, if a distinction between academic domestic and global markets is applied, theory building for a number of domestic or regional markets might impact ‘consumption’ patterns in domestic or regional markets but not necessarily the world market. Moreover, the apparent need for 100 workshops rests on the assumption that the IR discipline is under American hegemony but this assumption is severely challenged by empirical research showing that American hegemony remains a fact in institutional terms but not in terms of theoretical fads and debates being followed in the rest of the world. In short, intellectual global hegemony is largely a chimera. Finally, the paper argues that 100 workshops might be necessary but could turn out to be waste of time and for two reasons. While theorizing a bygone world is fine, the workshops should address contemporary issues and be future-oriented. Furthermore, the workshops should contribute to redefine the (contested) core of the discipline.
Topic:
Markets, Hegemony, International Relations Theory, and Discipline
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. Conceptual Cultivation and Homegrown Theorizing: The Case of/for the Concept of Influence

Author:
Eyüp Ersoy
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
The absence of theoretical perspectives in International Relations originating in the worldviews and experiences of human geographies outside the West has elicited persistent calls in the discipline for homegrown theoretical frameworks based on indigenous practices and intellectual sensibilities. Responding to the veritable marginalization of non-Western viewpoints in the discipline belying the plurality of global experiences, a diverse range of studies on homegrown theorizing has ensued. Inasmuch as the initial step in any social theorizing is pertinent to concepts, studies of homegrown theorizing have necessarily engaged conceptual cultivation by drawing on local conceptual resources. Most of these studies, nonetheless, have evinced an analytical proclivity to forge an exclusive and immutable semantic affiliation between concepts and what they signify. Transmuting conceptual indigeneity into conceptional idiosyncrasy, this insular practice of homegrown theorizing can incur manifold degenerative shortcomings. On the other hand, in the lexicon of international relations, influence is a ubiquitous word which is yet to be rigorously conceptualized. By virtue of imparting indigenous properties, a systematic conceptual cultivation of influence is propounded in this study, which arguably transcends the prohibitive semantic inflexibility and associated shortcomings of conceptual exclusivity in homegrown theorizing.
Topic:
International Relations, International Relations Theory, Academia, and Power
Political Geography:
Global Focus

9. The Hegemony of Governmentality: Towards a Research Agenda

Author:
Jonathan Joseph
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
This contribution sets out a research agenda that explores the promises of combining theories of hegemony and governmentality in the study of world politics. It is argued that certain forms of governmentality are ‘strategically selected’ and form part of hegemonic strategies while hegemonic strategies are enhanced by techniques of governmentality. It is also important to look at the underlying context that allows for micro practices to be ‘colonised’ by macro actors and which drives such actors to use such techniques. The theory of hegemony is seen as better at highlighting the context in which strategic action takes place, while governmentality is better at showing the workings of the technologies and techniques that are deployed by strategies of governing. Hegemony and governmentality therefore form part of the back and forth between macro and micro, structure and agency, institution and practice, highlighting different aspects of this constant interaction.
Topic:
Government, Hegemony, International Relations Theory, Michel Foucault, Critical Realism, and Antonio Gramsci
Political Geography:
Global Focus