Decolonizing International Relations

I’m still making my way through the last two chapters, but I felt like posting now. I’ll follow up with some more thoughts later. Krishna mentions Heidegger’s “idea of knowledge as the simultaneous act of disclosure/concealment” (p. 93). This brings us full circle to the first day of class. And since this is the last discussion post on a book, this is a perfect time to run through a few of the key ideas we’ve discussed throughout the semester. Let me start with a question that was on my mind while reading this text: If all theories conceal, how do we judge a theory as better or worse than another? Are we stuck to only ever criticize the internal validity of a theory as per Jackson?… Except Jackson was concerned with the internal validity of the philosophical ontological orientations that underlie theoretical inquiry, not with the substance of theories themselves (to what degree is this binary real?). Sjoberg’s account of what is substantively missing from mainstream IR theories—gender as a systemic hierarchical mechanism—implicitly suggests that gender-sensitive/Feminist theories are more useful than those that ignore gender. This argument is evidently convincing to all of us, but what do Feminist theories conceal? Can we turn reflexivity back onto our own work? Decolonizing International Relations answers (echoing a modified version of Inayatullah and Blaney’s argument) by stating that re-examining lost histories might be a solution.

The solution to universal, generalized, and Eurocentric IR theories is the recovery of “the means of production of… world history” by the “dispossessed, by agreement, or by force” (p. 38). Halperin argues that the development of a more accurate history—that goes beyond European mythology of self-improvement, enlightenment, and privilege—makes visible that which mainstream IR theory obscures (p. 59-60). Pasha makes the case that Liberalism conceals its own sinister undertones and its limits, but that a closer look at those undertones and limits can shake IR’s foundations (…a more radical account might argue not that liberal tolerance has limits (see p. 69), but that it is fictitious). For Krishna, re-examining claims that the 19th century was peaceful shows that mythology is inherent in IR work based on that assumption (i.e. Singer’s conflict data, de Mesquita’s rational utility calculations, and Rummell’s democratic peace)(p. 92-93).

Two themes emerge. First, and most obviously, a retelling of history is vital to decolonizing, critical inquiry. I am leaning toward thinking that alternative history is not the same as telling alternative narratives. Critically reinterpreting the West (as Krishna’s discussion of Grotius does, p. 95-98) is not exactly a standpoint revision as articulated by (Ann) Tickner, Sjoberg, and Harding. Second, that theory itself is not sufficient for solving the trouble theory has gotten us into. This is echoed by Krishna: “IR discourse’s valorization and fetishization of ‘theory’ becomes more comprehensible as a ‘strategy of containment’” (p. 93). What provides us guidance for improving the methodology and substance of our theories if not a dualist goal of objective production of knowledge about a mind-independent world? We need something else to go beyond theory, and I am not sure what that is. Perhaps a different type of theory (i.e. practice-based theory)? Perhaps ethics?

If we decide that theory is not sufficient, how do we convince others of this? Among the most frequently recurring questions we have posed to ourselves this semester is: “how do we (or ought we to try to) get the mainstream to hear our arguments and change accordingly?” It bothers each of us when PTJ says that he knows of nearly no mainstream political scientist to have read his book, or to know that many who would read it would summarily and reflectionlessly (ß word I just made up—Academia, I think I’m ready) dismiss it. The same goes for the works of (Ann) Tickner, Inayatullah & Blaney, Sjoberg, Harding, Jones, (Arlene) Tickner & Blaney, Neumann, Onuf, and Adler & Pouliot. Can those who think themselves as representatives of the scientific orthodoxy be convinced that equally acceptable alternatives exist? If, as Halperin argues, “decolonizing IR requires not just the willingness—which was always there—of the subordinated to write world history, but also, crucially, the means of production of that world history to be recovered by the dispossessed, by agreement, or by force” (the complete version of the abridged quote I cited in the pervious paragraph, p. 38), and if agreement is impossible in the face of belittlement, ridicule, and disciplining by mainstream gatekeepers, is iconoclasm and (some sort of academic) revolution the only option that actually promises some results? Or is "resistance futile?" 

Thinking IR Differently--Security and the International

Before I get into the contributions in sections A and E, I'd like to add a bit to Willow's discussion of the introduction and the framework of the book. The introduction's discussion of the feedback on the previous volume, in which Inanna Hamati-Ataya cautions them not to limit the considered contributions non-Western scholars to a local or particular knowledge, and to see them as current or potential contributors to more universal or cross-cutting knowledge creation projects, seems relevant to Willow's question about how our biases and knowledge of the author's identity inhibit our ability to see the full value of works by people outside the core. It also reminded me of an earlier discussion, on how, even within SIS, the contributions of international students are valued when they provide "local expertise" or look at their home state or region through the lenses of IR, but are seen as puzzling or misdirected if they are focused on puzzles outside the student's home country or not immediately, obviously related to their experiences as a non-Westerner--to revisit the example we used in class, when Patrick speaks about his interest in land grabs, he is taken seriously, but if he said his research interest was in Chinese diplomacy, he would be regarded with a confusion that would not apply to a Western scholar with the same interest. Scholars from outside the West are limited in the topics on which they can expect to be heard, yet those same legitimating topics position scholars as second class or not doing "big" problems--writing chamber music because that's what they can get performed, and then being judged as inferior composers because they're not writing for orchestras, even though such works would never be staged if they were written. My own question about the introduction focuses on the way the editors position the project of the case study chapters--first, to ask "what does thinking on key IR concepts and categories look like in different parts of the world?" then to ask why thinking is that way in that place and to consider the implications. I hope we can discuss, broadly, the value of this as a project--what benefit do we derive from considering these variations in understanding and articulation of the IR concepts that are utilized across the core and periphery? Section A: Security The discussion I'd like to highlight here is from Tickner and Herz' chapter on Latin America and the lack of reflection/localization/contestation of security concepts, the centrality of the state system, and theories imported from the core. In the introduction, the editors note that this challenge is not unique to Latin America, but is a broader issue in scholarship outside the West (and, I think, within it as well). Given the local and geopolitical explanations offered by the authors for the lack of theoretical exploration, how do we understand the possibilities for such reflection and contestation to be expanded in the future? Section E: The "International" How might we leverage alternative understandings of what constitutes the "international"? I suppose my question here is similar to that for the broader project--how does, or should, our scholarship change as a result of destabilizing the concept of the international and acknowledging the variation that exists in understanding what constitutes the international? To return to Hamati-Ataya's critique, how do we go beyond seeing these understandings as mere descriptive data, perhaps useful in feeeding into the construction of universal theory or explaining puzzles about the non-West, and instead incorporate these insights into our larger understanding of the world and how we relate to it?

Thinking IR Differently- audience receptivity and judgment

1. Introduction- Receptivity of audience

In my undergrad feminist musicology class one day, the professor brought up studies done that showed reactions to European tradition women composers from the same time periods versus canonized male composers. The judgments of women's work was always done against the men's work, with women's work being labeled as inferior, or not up to the standard of the large orchestral composers. For example, Fanny Mendelssohn (the sister of Felix) predominantly composed music for the salon (chamber music), musicologists judge it as less than her male counterparts because it not orchestral. But, women composers would not (and still are very minimally) be programmed in public performances of large orchestral (the "big" stuff) works. There are a few processes at work here. One is the historical process of how composers got canonized in the European tradition- and orchestral works are valued as the biggest measure of achievement. But, then, there were some orchestral works written by women composers, so why aren't they played? They are judged differently. That was the point my professor made- that even scholars trying to get these works recognized were sometimes guilty of this same way of marking compositions as inferior- whether because of it being for a salon, or because of the even more troublesome ingrained internalized judgments. Fanny even published some of her works under Felix's name to get around restrictions during their lifetime for the publication of women's works. If an audience listens and does not know who wrote the work (gender, race, etc) will that change their receptivity to the piece?

What happens to people's perceptions about a work when they know who wrote something and where it comes from? One of my friends recently posted something on Facebook about racism that drew some immediate reactions from a couple of her white friends. She is originally from India but has been living in the US for over 20 years. Anyway, she then said in response, "would it change what you think if I told you that Jon Stewart said this last night?" After that, the responses changed.

These two examples bring me to the point in the Tickner and Blaney book, in the introduction, where they are discussing how non-core scholarship is measured against, judged, and "coded as 'bad' or second-class version of 'good' and 'serious' core scholarship."(p. 7) What do you think of their approach of "engagement with difference" as "Dussel's 'trans-modern pluriverse'- a kind of cosmopolitanism in which diversity flourishes." (p. 11). ? How do audiences listen to and receive scholarship without coming to it with their own attachments to concepts and categories?

2. Chapter 6- The State of the African State and politics
Grovogui seeks to define the most salient aspects of African politics as more complex than many approaches have taken (conflict, state failure and civil wars). He articulates a balance between acknowledging African agency while also stating that "Africans have not been the primary or sole agents of the regimes of politics, economy, culture and morality that have operated on the continent for the better of four centuries." (p. 134) How should scholars address this complexity? He mentions Mariane Ferme's anthropological work (p. 129) as an antidote to Kaplan's Coming Anarchy essay (and he emphasizes that Kaplan's book is an essay and not a study (p. 127). Does Grovugui succeed in creating a convincing argument for shifting the onotology/epistemology for how to study African States?

Public Practice

Why "competent" practices?

Like Duvall and Chowdhury, though perhaps for slightly different reasons, I question this. Maybe it's the word choice I dislike: 'competent' implies for me some sort of previously established 'rule' (and hence power) of what 'correct' or 'good' behavior means. And of course there are such rules. We don't go around wearing our underwear on the outside (at least mostly...). But it leaves unquestioned the fact that somebody/ies got to decide and implement said [sartorial] correctness in the first place - that these practices were constructed as 'competent' at some point in the past and probably replaced some other set of 'competent' - now 'incompetent' - practices [i.e. corsets or hoop skirts]. 'Competent' also connotes a certain judgement value as well. Not just in that if you see a man walking around in his underoos you might think he was nuts. But also as the analyst, you are making that judgement (good/bad; right/wrong) in categorizing one set of practices as one or the other. This seems problematic to me.

I mean, I get that we (as analysts) also live within a world of established ways of being, and therefore we partake of the same (or similar) tacit knowledge that we study, and I certainly don't mean to suggest that it is possible to take the analyst out of the equation all together in the mind/world dualist way. And I also get that the authors in this book are calling attention to practices that unfold within established ways of being and doing. But can't there be something else? Duvall and Chowdhury point out that not everyone feels the same way about what's going on, and whether or not a given practice should be considered common. They therefore argue that 'competent' misses the spaces of contestation where 'incompetent' tries to assert itself as the new Background. True. But I think I prefer 'dominant' or something else that softens the normative bite of judgement attached to the scholar as she categorizes. The word irks me.

Also, is there such a thing as 'private' practice? Or is that akin to Wittgenstein's private language games?

And what is a non-discursive practice, anyway?

I have been thinking a lot recently about the relationship between discourse and practice. Without really knowing the answer to the last question, I'm tempted to disagree with Foucault's distinction between discursive and non-discursive practices: in that - as Adler & Pouliot point out in their introduction, practices are inherently social, and it strikes me that all social interactions must have some sort of 'language' (broadly speaking) that necessitates a common understanding of what's going on. Lene Hansen develops this a bit further in her chapter (which, as a poststructuralist, made the most sense to me) - when she distinguishes that specific practices only make sense (or don't make sense) with regard to a general practice (292-294).

Finally, if language and practice are intertwined so that one doesn't make sense without the other, or, more radically, one is the other, how do you design/structure a research project in a way that reads logically (linearly) yet accurately describes this co-constituted, recursive, simultaneous meaning-making?

I have A TON more to say about this book - particularly about Bially Mattern's and Hansen's chapters - as well as Pouliot's previous articles on practice and how this relates to Neumann's own description of practice, so I might post again or save it for class. But these are my initial reactions to the book.

Oh, right. Another comment: Adler & Pouliot say that their aim is to create space in IR for scholars of all paradigmatic/methodological backgrounds to partake in a single conversation, but does this really work? They might all be talking about 'practices', but are they talking to each other or merely over? I haven't made up my mind.

Rethinking Diplomacy: Iver Neumann (2012), At Home With the Diplomats...

I enjoyed reading this book. Please, consider the following assertion about the word diploma:  “a document…[that] had to be folded and kept in a wooden contraption that shielded it against the wind” (p 21), this is a metaphor for a discursive attempt to fix the meaning of a concept or a variable. Even though Neumann is very specific in his case study (the Norwegian MFA), he convincingly problematizes knowledge production that is based on unquestioned assumptions. In this work, Neumann espoused three processes that deserve attention. In reconstructing the historiography of “diplomacy,” both as a discourse and a praxis, 1) Neumann addresses the canon, he challenges Satow (1917) and Harold Nicolson (1939) fixed notion of diplomacy (p. 21). 2) He identifies credible recessive voices, citing James Der Derian (p. 24) and Ragnar Numelin (p. 23). 3) Finally, he engages in a peripheral conversation about the Norwegian diplomacy, including gender and sexuality. Although I like the book, I am not quite sure whether I grasp the practice and discourse interplay, does Neumann mean that a discourse necessarily leads to practice, paves the way for practice, comes from practice, or contains practice, and vice versa?      

Neumann argues that in defining “diplomacy as the conduct of official relations between the governments of independent states” (p. 4), Satow (1917) excludes forms of diplomacies that might have developed prior to the emergence of the Westephalian state. Here is my question, since by definition a definition is a conscientious effort to establish the contours of a concept or phenomenon, how do we meet Neuman’s challenge when we define IR concepts?  

Neumann’s definitional challenge leads me to ask another question. When we analyze an argument should we consider first the internal logic of the argument at hand to see whether its conclusions flow logically from the premises, or do we focus primarily on assumptions upon which the premises are predicated? In other words, is Neumann’s definitional challenge pertinent for the internal logic of an argument? 

Finally, Neumann demonstrates that the effectiveness of the dominant discourse of diplomacy is based on a centralized narrative (p. 23) that elides substantial differences (p. 24), and erases discursive instabilities (p. 25). Now if we add the definitional challenge to this equation, while we consider a theory as a centralizing attempt, is it even possible to construct theory?