Theories of Global Politics meet International Relations theories

Theories of Global Politics meet International Relations theories

The study of world politics developed via a series of famous encounters, sometimes called the ‘great debates’. The first major encounter, dating to the early twentieth-century, was between utopian liberalism and realism; the second between traditional approaches and behaviouralism; the third between neorealism/neoliberalism and neo-Marxism.

These encounters have always been emphasized among those who teach world politics: they provide a mental map of the way the academic subject has developed over the past century. But they are also substantially important. They have enriched the discipline because they have forced theorists of different stripes to further sharpen their arguments and, occasionally, to try to synthesize insights from other theories and approaches. The most recent encounter is between established International Relations (IR) theories and what we term theories of Global Politics (GP). This is where the action is in the study of world politics today.

The GP challenge

GP theorists raise both methodological and substantial issues in their criticism of established theories and approaches. They argue against positivist methodology with its focus on observable facts and measurable data and its ambition to scientifically explain the world of international relations. GP theorists emphasize that IR theorists (like all other theorists of human affairs) are an integrated part of the world they study. There is no objective truth, no ‘gods-eye view’ standing above all other views.

GP theorists echo the French philosopher Michel Foucault, who famously argued that truth and power cannot be separated; indeed, the main task of these dissident approaches is to unmask that intimate relationship between truth and power. ‘Truth claims’ are always linked to historical context and especially to power. The broader task is to examine the world from a large variety of political, social, cultural, economic, and other perspectives.

The radicalness of this criticism can be illustrated by a brief comparison with one of the established IR approaches, social constructivism. Social constructivists argue that the international system is constituted by ideas, not material power. This focus on ideas and discourse is something constructivists share with post-structuralism, a GP theory. But for post-structuralists, it is ideas and discourse all the way down; there is not a world out there we can study independently of the observer.

When this is the case, general theories are not possible, because concrete, historical context is always decisive. Yet IR theories purport to be general theories about international relations. GP theorists find that a misleading claim; there are competing views about how the world hangs together and what makes it tick. Since there is no objective reality, say post-structuralists, knowledge cannot be neutral. Therefore, language and discourse must be in focus; they are essential for the construction of reality. The dominant theories of IR must be exposed for what they are; stories from a certain point of view that must be confronted with other, alternative stories.  

On this basis, GP theorists have revisited some of the founding moments of the study of world politics, to expose what they see as myths and to show how very different stories can be told. A case in point is early liberalism, part of the first encounter mentioned above. This has traditionally been seen as a progressive approach to world politics, with the noble aim of making ‘a world safe for democracy’, in the words of the US president Woodrow Wilson, a key voice in early liberal thought.

Postcolonial scholars point out how Wilson was a staunch defender of racial hierarchy in the United States and that he did not press for self-determination for non-European peoples. They argue more generally that imperialism and race played a very significant role in the early study of IR. The discipline’s first journal, founded in 1910, is what we know today as Foreign Affairs; but its original name was the Journal of Race Development. The early liberal hopes for peace and democracy, then, were confined to the ‘civilized’ West. From early on, they were combined with considerations of imperial domination and racist supremacy in other parts of the world. This shows how there are always different stories to tell, and how even well-established points of consensus can be challenged by these alternative readings.

In this pursuit, the substantial emphasis of GP-theorists differs: post-structuralists emphasize power and discourse, postcolonial scholars emphasize voices of the Global South, feminist and queer theory emphasize gender and sexuality, and green theory emphasizes the environment.

Making the encounter productive

For more than a century, the study of world politics has benefited from the different encounters between theories and approaches. Students of world politics should thus not lament or grieve over the many different, sometimes puzzling, approaches that have emerged in the discipline. Together, they create a vast and diverse field of opportunities for a better understanding of world politics.

However, to get a productive dialogue between different perspectives, it is important that the participants in the debates keep an open mind. The present intense and sometimes explosive debate between IR and GP theories has frequently not moved in that direction. There has often been a tendency to move towards confrontation in ways that belittle the opponent, creating strawmen which are easy to destroy.

We find the tendency towards confrontation to be unproductive. The major dividing line in the discipline, in our view, is not between IR and GP. It is between, on the one hand, scholars on both sides who seek confrontation, often combined with reductionism and myopia, and, on the other hand, scholars on both sides who want to pursue cooperation which promises to advance our grasp and comprehension of what is going in the world and how we can understand it. Therefore, we should avoid an overemphasis on dividing lines between different approaches. Instead, we should look for possibilities of cooperation that promise to advance our knowledge and understanding of the world.

*Some sections of this blog post are taken from the chapters of Introduction to International Relations and Global Politics.

_{Featured image by Lara Jameson via Pexels.}

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