Postcolonial International Relations Theory

Both in the conventional accounts of International Relations discipline, as well as in foreign policies of various actors, the Global South has predominantly been defined with reference to a “zone of lack” which is “in need of aid and tutelage.” In recent decades, postcolonial IR approaches have problematized this representation through interrogating the reasons for and processes of its construction. While doing this, however, the postcolonial IR literature mainly focuses on the Global North actors’ discourses and practices on the Global South, and how non-core actors view their counterparts remains underexamined. Based on this gap in the literature, this study investigates whether and how Turkey, as a non-core actor in world politics, challenges or contributes to predominant representations of the Global South. As such, the study seeks to answer the question of “how do the politicians in Turkey understand the place of the Global South in world politics?” The study is structured around three sections. The first section looks at previous works done about Turkish foreign policy in the Global South. The second section presents our theoretical framework, and the selected research method. The third section analyses the discourses produced in the 2000s by political elites from both the ruling as well as the opposition political parties in Turkey about the Global South. The study concludes with discussing the implications of our findings.

Histories of the 'international' and the development of concepts such as security, capital, sovereignty and civilization have been predominantly concerned with three interlinked stories: the story of the rise of the West, the story of the development of capitalism and the story of the development of modernity. Recently critical perspectives have questioned these macro-narratives and their constitutive chronologies, teleologies and spatial imaginaries, interrupting the linear, progressive and parochial stories upon which the idea(s) of the 'international' is built. This workshop continues and furthers these discussions by reconstructing avowedly global histories of the 'international'. The workshop welcomes papers addressing how to (re)write global histories of the 'international' and, in particular, how to approach the relationship between history, theory and concepts, as well as the relational, multi-perspectival and intertwined quality of global histories. The workshop aims to engage with but are not limited to the following questions related to how to write global histories of the 'international': What political, legal and economic relations and experiences should be uncovered to write a global history of the international system? Where should the spatial sources and points of departure of these relations be located and how should the experiences and sets of ideas they express be understood? In what ways can we reconstruct the-now often neglected-connections and mutual influences between different events, sites, actors and concepts which in aggregate constitute parts of a global history of the 'international'? These questions point to how we can move beyond pre-existing boundaries of knowledges and geopolitical contexts in ascribing meaning to particular concepts and events that are constitutive for general understandings of the history of international relations, and how we can adjudicate between competing claims to history.

In an ever more globalized world, sustainable global development requires effective intercultural co-operations. This dialogue between non-western and western cultures is essential to identifying global solutions for global socio-political challenges.
Japan and International Relations, critiques the formation of non-western IR by assessing Japanese political concepts to contemporary International Relations discourses, to better understand knowledge exchanges in intercultural contexts. Each chapter focuses on a particular aspect of this dialogue, from international law and nationalism to concepts of peace and Daoism, this collection grapples with postcolonial questions of Japan’s indigenous IR theory.

Japan as Potential: Communicating across Boundaries for a Global International Relations: An Introduction, Felix Rösch and Atsuko Watanabe / Part I: Challenging International Law and towards a Global IR? Investigations into Japan’s Entry into the Westphalian System of Nation-States / Chapter 1. How Did Two Daos Perceive the International Differently? Atsuko Watanabe and Ariel Shangguan / Chapter 2. Japan's Early Challenge to Eurocentrism and the World Court, Tetsuya Toyoda / Chapter 3. Kōtarō Tanaka (1890-1974) and Global International Relations, Kevin M Doak / Part II. Empire-Building or in Search for Global Peace? Japanese Political Thought’s Encounter with the West / Chapter 4. Unlearning Asia: Fukuzawa’s Un-regionalism in the Late Nineteenth Century, Atsuko Watanabe / Chapter 5. Pursuing a More Dynamic Concept of Peace: Japanese Liberal Intellectuals' Responses to the Interwar Crisis, Seiko Mimaki / Chapter 6. Rethinking the Liberal/Pluralist Vision of Japan’s Colonial Studies, Ryoko Nakano / Part III. Local(ized) Japanese Political Concepts for a Twenty-First Century IR / Chapter 7. Who are the People? A History of Discourses on Political Collective Subjectivity in Post-War Japan, Eiji Oguma / Chapter 8. Amae as Emotional Interdependence: Analyzing Japan’s Nuclear Policy and US-Japan Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, Misato Matsuoka / Chapter 9. The Pitfalls in the Project of Overcoming Western Modernity: Rethinking the Lineage of the Japanese Historical Revisionism, Hiroyuki Tosa / Part IV. Forming an Imagined Community, yet Reaching People Globally? Japanese Popular Culture in Historical Perspective / Chapter 10. From Failure to Fame: Shōin Yoshida’s Shifting Role in the Mythology of Modern Japan, Sean O’Reilly / Chapter 11. Hayao Miyazaki as a Political Thinker: Culture, Soft Power, and Traditionalism beyond Nationalism, Kosuke Shimizu / Chapter 12. Who’s the Egg? Who’s the Wall? – Appropriating Haruki Murakami’s ‘Always on the Side of the Egg’ Speech in Hong Kong, Michael Tsang / Conclusion: Is there any Japanese International Relations Theory? Atsuko Watanabe and Felix Rösch /

Opening innovative ways to rethink global politics through the lens of Japanese political theory, this book explores the implications arising from the classic twin IR banners of anarchy and sovereignty, and instead focuses on the notions of difference and dialogue in order to elucidate the value-added of a global IR. It combines Japanese political thought and International Relations theory in a fresh and stimulating way, taking its cues from a close reading of historical and legal, as well as popular cultural sources. To this end, Rösch and Watanabe have succeeded in bringing together the best possible team of scholars in the fields of international law, international political theory and Japanese political theory, in particular from within Japan, but also from the anglophone world. The quality of this coherently structured volume is outstanding. It is a must read both in IR and political theory, as it has something to offer for different audiences: experts on Japanese external relations and readers interested in theories of IR, as well as those looking for novel sources on philosophical and anthropological thought on the contested notion of the global. This is scholarship of the finest kind!

Dirk Nabers, Professor for International Political Sociology, University of Kiel

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This book aims to overcome a difficulty that International Relations, the most international, but not necessarily global social science, is facing: by viewing Japan as ‘a potential’, it tries to put a global International Relations into practice. While this book looks at modern Japanese thought from an encompassing perspective, the chapters are surprisingly consistent in their concerted effort to elicit global implications from this local perspective. Dedicated students who are striving for going beyond conventional research and education will profit from reading this book. 

Shigeto Sonoda, Professor of Sociology, University of Tokyo

Recent commentary on India-Australia relations has defined the relationship as ‘natural’ and based on ‘shared values’ and ‘shared history’. The relationship has simultaneously been considered ‘neglected’. The paradoxical juxtaposition of a natural/neglected partnership is yet to be adequately explained. We consider the historical construction of liberalism in both states as a facet of state identity to argue that, far from creating a natural relationship, differing liberal identities have served to keep these two states apart. This is illustrated through case studies of divergent opinions over the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the rise of China.

Both in the conventional accounts of International Relations discipline, as well as in foreign policies of various actors, the Global South has predominantly been defined with reference to a “zone of lack” which is “in need of aid and tutelage.” In recent decades, postcolonial IR approaches have problematized this representation through interrogating the reasons for and processes of its construction. While doing this, however, the postcolonial IR literature mainly focuses on the Global North actors’ discourses and practices on the Global South, and how non-core actors view their counterparts remains underexamined. Based on this gap in the literature, this study investigates whether and how Turkey, as a non-core actor in world politics, challenges or contributes to predominant representations of the Global South. As such, the study seeks to answer the question of “how do the politicians in Turkey understand the place of the Global South in world politics?” The study is structured around three sections. The first section looks at previous works done about Turkish foreign policy in the Global South. The second section presents our theoretical framework, and the selected research method. The third section analyses the discourses produced in the 2000s by political elites from both the ruling as well as the opposition political parties in Turkey about the Global South. The study concludes with discussing the implications of our findings.

Histories of the 'international' and the development of concepts such as security, capital, sovereignty and civilization have been predominantly concerned with three interlinked stories: the story of the rise of the West, the story of the development of capitalism and the story of the development of modernity. Recently critical perspectives have questioned these macronarratives and their constitutive chronologies, teleologies and spatial imaginaries, interrupting the linear, progressive and parochial stories upon which the idea(s) of the 'international' is built. This section aims at furthering these discussions by reconstructing avowedly global intellectual histories of and narratives on the 'international'. To this end, panels in this section address the question of how to write global intellectual histories of the 'international'. The contributions to this section will address -but are not limited to -the following questions. What political, legal and economic relations and experiences can or should be uncovered to write a global history of the 'international'? Where should the spatial sources and points of departure of these relations be located and how should the experiences and sets of ideas they express be understood? In what ways can we reconstruct the -now often neglected -connections and mutual influences between different events, sites, actors and concepts which in aggregate constitute parts of a global history of the 'international'? There has been a recent turn to history in the disciplines of International Relations, International Law, and International Political Economy. This section seeks to further these discussions in broadening and rethinking the social and epistemic terrains of intellectual histories of the 'international'.