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?"