Global international relations and the essentialism trap

IF 2.2 1区社会学 Q1 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

International Theory Pub Date : 2023-11-01 DOI:10.1017/s1752971923000131

Michael Barnett, Ayşe Zarakol

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

Abstract Global IR is an encompassing term for a range of work that has set out to globalize the discipline in terms of its core concepts, assumptions, and substantive areas of study. Our symposium supports Global IR's goals but also offers some friendly critiques of the project with the aim of increasing its impact and durability. In this Introduction to the symposium, we posit that Global IR is vulnerable to a dynamic that limits its capacity to upend the status quo, which we term the ‘essentialism trap’. Essentialism captures a range of commitments oriented around the notion that the world is constituted by pre-formed, fixed, internally coherent, and bounded social forms. The trap involves the overuse of essentialist categories by radical projects, a process that can result in the reinforcement of status quo categories and assumptions. With reference to previous openings in IR that have succumbed to this trap, we identify the dynamics that lead to this trap and suggest ways in which Global IR can avoid it by leaning more into relationalism and global history, and, thereby, fulfil the promise contained in the range of movements it speaks with and for.

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全球国际关系与本质主义陷阱

全球国际关系是一个包含一系列工作的术语，这些工作旨在使该学科在核心概念、假设和实质性研究领域方面全球化。我们的研讨会支持Global IR的目标，但也对该项目提出了一些友好的批评，目的是增加其影响和持久性。在本次研讨会的介绍中，我们认为全球国际关系很容易受到一种动态的影响，这种动态限制了其颠覆现状的能力，我们称之为“本质主义陷阱”。本质主义抓住了一系列围绕世界是由预先形成的、固定的、内部连贯的和有限的社会形式构成的概念的承诺。这个陷阱涉及激进项目过度使用本质主义类别，这一过程可能导致对现状类别和假设的强化。参考之前国际关系中屈服于这一陷阱的开放，我们确定了导致这一陷阱的动力，并提出了全球国际关系可以通过更多地学习关系主义和全球历史来避免这一陷阱的方法，从而实现它所涉及和支持的一系列运动所包含的承诺。

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来源期刊

International Theory Multiple-

CiteScore

6.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Editorial board International Theory (IT) is a peer reviewed journal which promotes theoretical scholarship about the positive, legal, and normative aspects of world politics respectively. IT is open to theory of absolutely all varieties and from all disciplines, provided it addresses problems of politics, broadly defined and pertains to the international. IT welcomes scholarship that uses evidence from the real world to advance theoretical arguments. However, IT is intended as a forum where scholars can develop theoretical arguments in depth without an expectation of extensive empirical analysis. IT’s over-arching goal is to promote communication and engagement across theoretical and disciplinary traditions. IT puts a premium on contributors’ ability to reach as broad an audience as possible, both in the questions they engage and in their accessibility to other approaches. This might be done by addressing problems that can only be understood by combining multiple disciplinary discourses, like institutional design, or practical ethics; or by addressing phenomena that have broad ramifications, like civilizing processes in world politics, or the evolution of environmental norms. IT is also open to work that remains within one scholarly tradition, although in that case authors must make clear the horizon of their arguments in relation to other theoretical approaches.