C01(b) - Workshop: The State of IR Scholarship I
Date: Jun 2 | Time: 08:45am to 10:15am | Location:
Chair/Président/Présidente : Célia Romulus (Queen's University)
Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : J. Andrew Grant (Queen's University)
The Historiography of China's Rise: A Struggle for Narrative Autonomy in IR Theory: Jarrett Wilde (Tsinghua Univeristy)
Abstract: The story of International Relations (IR) has always been recounted with a language endemic to the Anglo-Liberal political and international experience. This vernacular depicts all states as self-interested expansionists seeking to either oppose or support Liberal international order. This article explores the projection of Liberal ontological paradigms onto China’s “rise”. Micro-level analyses project upon China the identity of a rational calculator seeking material maximisation. Macro-level analyses project upon China the identity of a revisionist state to be evaluated, managed and contained according to the standards set by Anglo-Liberal orthodoxy. China’s “rise” is the rise of a narrative: China’s growing ability to identify and express itself in its own terms. In IR theory, this struggle manifests itself in the concepts of Wangquan, Zhongyong, and Tianxia that articulate China’s political and international experience using an indigenous vernacular.
Scattered and Unsystematic: The Taught Discipline in the Intellectual Life of IR: Aaron Ettinger (Carleton University)
Abstract: This paper addresses the “taught discipline” of International Relations. Prompted by Hagmann and Biersteker’s call for a critical pedagogy of IR, it argues that the field needs a sustained and systematic debate on the role of IR pedagogy. This call arises from the systematic neglect of IR teaching in disciplinary stock taking. In this genre of writing, scholars have presented rich and detailed portrayals of how professional IR works. But their focus is overwhelmingly on the “published discipline” and the “practiced discipline” of IR. This leaves a large gap in the field’s understanding of a major component of academic IR – teaching. To develop this point, the paper maps IR’s intellectual system of influence and exchange to demonstrate the attenuated influence of the taught discipline. Then it presents critical questions in order to initiate a robust debate on the place, purpose and scope of IR pedagogy. The purpose of engaging in such theorizing is to improve the quality and thoughtfulness of classroom teaching for the sake of students, and to explore the underappreciated potential of the taught discipline as a way of bridging divides IR and, ultimately, helping rejuvenate the intellectual life of IR.
International Relations as Religion: Assessing the “Theological” Turn in IR Theory: Michael Murphy (University of Ottawa)
Abstract: The recent theological turn in International Relations theory serves as an important case study in assessing and overcoming the Western-centrism of discipline. Some theorists, following Carl Schmitt’s thesis that “all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development…but also because of their systematic structure” (2005), have demonstrated the extent to which the supposedly secular and neutral core concepts of International Relations theory are in fact the product of the secularization of Christian theology in the West. In a historical sense, investigating the religious elements of International Relations theory can offer a more nuanced view of the historical development of the field’s core concepts than may otherwise be accessible. Attending to the secularization—that is, the embedding of theology within society at large—of Western Christianity in International Relations demonstrates how major conceptual building blocks of contemporary International Relations theory reify the Western ordering of international society. As Mustapha Kamal Pasha (2019) notes in a contribution to a recent special issue on political theology in International Relations, tracing alternative non-Western political theologies may ground radically alternative concepts for world order. Reflecting on recent developments, this presentation discusses how a turn to theology can help in identifying the conceptual evangelism of Western religion of IR, and its potential to help the discipline move towards a more robust and inclusive dialogue.
When Words Collide: A Cross-Linguistic Study of Agency and Responsibility in International Relations: Ruthie Pertsis (The Ohio State University)
Abstract: For a century, IR scholars have been debating the sources of conflict and cooperation, most assuming that actors in the international system, rational or not, are largely conscious of what drives them. Missing from the analysis has been the potential and, importantly, subconscious, role of language in international relations. With over seven thousand languages in existence, and research from other fields documenting cross-linguistic patterns of perception and thought, the English bias in IR that assumes that all people generally process the world in the same way is unsustainable.
Thus, in line with this year’s conference theme, this project treats language as a political divide to be confronted, specifically in our understanding of the divergent ways of knowing and navigating our world. In particular, instead of treating language as a marker of identity, it builds on research from other fields that suggests that, due to its centrality to experience, language may shape basic perceptions of and thoughts about reality and the world, and that different languages may shape those perceptions and thoughts differently. To test the relevance of this insight to the study of international relations, the project uses survey experimental methods to examine how the English and Russian languages allow for the notion of agency to be represented differently in the minds of their speakers, and how that informs different attributions of responsibility, blame, and punishment in the international system, particularly in cases of civilian casualties during wartime. Overall, this approach encourages a much more representative, and thus accurate, IR.