Conclusion: The State of IR in Southeast Asia—Heavily Western but Still Evolving

Abstract:Based on cross-national surveys and reflexive stocktaking, this special issue seeks to gain a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges to advancing the debates on Global International Relations (IR) in six Southeast Asian academic communities, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. Reflecting on various political and socio-economic variables that have shaped the contours of the discipline, it is argued that the primary challenges to advancing Global IR are the dominance of existing mainstream IR theories in teaching and research, and the propensity for scholars based in Southeast Asia to conduct policy- and empirical-oriented research. However, amid these challenges, the contributors have argued that there are some opportunities for the development of Global IR in the region. These include prospects for pre-theorization and conceptualization based on the abundance of empirical-based research, support for familiarizing students with publications by local scholars and constructivism's growing popularity. Finally, the article proposes some measures to advance Global IR.