Re-Worlding the "West" in Post-Western International Relations : The "Theory Migrant" of Tianxia in the Anglosphere

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Hwang, Yih-Jye ; Bunskoek, Raoul ; Shih, Chih-yu:
Re-Worlding the "West" in Post-Western International Relations : The "Theory Migrant" of Tianxia in the Anglosphere.
In: Pan, Chengxin ; Kavalski, Emilian (Hrsg.): China's Rise and Rethinking International Relations Theory. - Bristol : Bristol University Press , 2022 . - S. 102-122
ISBN 9781529212969
DOI: https://doi.org/10.56687/9781529212969-009

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Abstract

The International Relations (IR) discipline developed over the course of the 20th century has predominantly focused on the concerns of powerful Western states and has elaborated conceptual frameworks that could be applied elsewhere (Smith, 2002). Mainstream IR scholars treat different regions of the world as test cases for their theories rather than sources of theory in themselves. The ‘non-West’ becomes a domain that IR theorists perceive as backward, hence requiring instruction in order to reach the ‘End of History’ encapsulated by Western modernity (Fukuyama, 1992). In response, over the past two decades the discipline has witnessed a post-Western quest urging IR scholars to ‘re-World’ subaltern voices. From a post-Western perspective, no single modernity exists to which all actors must aspire and no actor or set of actors is reified. Rather, it seeks out multiple worlds and hidden voices (Ling, 2002).
In its quest to rediscover ‘non-Western’ worlds, post-Western IR urges scholars to re-world non-Western sites by examining how Western IR discourses have been interpreted and appropriated in each particular site over time. This allows the ever-changing and differing meanings of IR to be released from the monopolistic grasp by one exclusionary epistemology, whereby agency can be rediscovered at non-Western sites for adaptation, feedback and reconstruction of the Western influences. Such worlding of the non-Western worlds, if successful, exposes the ‘provincial’ characteristics of the West, which has mistakenly presented itself as the universal, a result of Eurocentrism reinforced by the power of expansion (for example imperialism and post/neo-colonialism).