scholarly journals The ‘re-turn’ to empire in IR: colonial knowledge communities and the construction of the idea of the Afghan polity, 1809–38

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARTIN J. BAYLY
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Knowledge Communities ◽  
Imperial History ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Great Game ◽  
Exploration And Development

AbstractThis article seeks to add to the exploration and development of Imperial History's contribution to the discipline of International Relations (IR). Focusing on British perceptions of Afghanistan in the period preceding the first Anglo-Afghan war the article considers colonial knowledge as a source of identity construction, but in a manner that avoids deploying anachronistic concepts, in this case that of the Afghan ‘state’. This approach, which draws on the insights brought to IR by historical sociology, shows that engaging with Imperial History within IR can encourage a more reflexive attitude to core disciplinary categories. This not only reveals alternative approaches to the construction of specific political communities but it also allows for a more historicist mode in the use of history by IR as a discipline. Furthermore, by moving away from material based purely on diplomatic history, Afghanistan's imperial encounter can be recovered from the dominance of ‘Great Game’ narratives, offering an account that is more appreciative of the Afghanistan context.

Accent Policy and Accent Modification Enterprises as Potential Indicators of Intercultural Power Relations: A Call for an Updated Research Agenda

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brynne D. Ovalle ◽  
Rahul Chakraborty
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Cultural Organization ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This article has two purposes: (a) to examine the relationship between intercultural power relations and the widespread practice of accent discrimination and (b) to underscore the ramifications of accent discrimination both for the individual and for global society as a whole. First, authors review social theory regarding language and group identity construction, and then go on to integrate more current studies linking accent bias to sociocultural variables. Authors discuss three examples of intercultural accent discrimination in order to illustrate how this link manifests itself in the broader context of international relations (i.e., how accent discrimination is generated in situations of unequal power) and, using a review of current research, assess the consequences of accent discrimination for the individual. Finally, the article highlights the impact that linguistic discrimination is having on linguistic diversity globally, partially using data from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and partially by offering a potential context for interpreting the emergence of practices that seek to reduce or modify speaker accents.

American diplomatic history and international thought: a constitutional perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 322-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C Hendrickson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
American Founding ◽  
History Of ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
International Thought

This essay offers a constitutional perspective on the American encounter with the problem of international order. Its point of departure is the American Founding, a subject often invisible in both the history of international thought and contemporary International Relations theory. Although usually considered as an incident within the domestic politics of the United States, the Founding displays many key ideas that have subsequently played a vital role in both international political thought and IR theory. The purpose of this essay is to explore these ideas and to take account of their passage through time, up to and including the present day. Those ideas shine a light not only on how we organize our scholarly enterprises but also on the contemporary direction of US foreign policy and the larger question of world order.

scholarly journals The Politics of Brazilian Foreign Policy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrés Malamud ◽  
Júlio C. Rodriguez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
South American ◽  
University Departments ◽  
General Field ◽  
Foreign Ministry

From November 1902 through February 1912, four presidents governed Brazil. Throughout all this period, though, only one person headed the foreign ministry: José Maria da Silva Paranhos Jr., alias Baron of Rio Branco (20 April 1845–10 February 1912). This political wonder and diplomatic giant was to shape Brazil’s international doctrine and diplomatic traditions for the following century. His major achievement was to peacefully solve all of Brazil’s border disputes with its South American neighbors. Founded in 1945, Brazil’s prestigious diplomatic school carries his name, Instituto Rio Branco, and, since the early 2000s, Brazilian foreign policy has become the largest subfield of international relations in university departments across the country. Indeed, Brazilian foreign policy is to Brazilian academia what American politics is to US academia, namely, a singular phenomenon that has taken over a general field. In contrast with the United States, most in-depth research from about 1998 to 2010 came from foreign-based scholars; however, since then a large cadre of mostly young academics in Brazil have seized the agenda. Unlike the pre-2000 period, the orientation has been toward public policy rather than diplomatic history. That the top Brazilian journals of international relations are now published in English rather than Portuguese attests to the increasing internationalization of the field.

The Second Great Debate Revisited: Exploring the Impact of the Qualitative-Quantitative Divide in International Relations

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-476
Author(s):  
Quan Li
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Recent Decade ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Academic Communities ◽  
Great Debate ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Political Science Journals

Abstract Half a century after the “Second Great Debate” in international relations (IR) started, scholars still perceive the qualitative versus quantitative division as their principal divide, and yet we do not have a good grasp of the impact of this divide. My research explores how the divide shaped the incentives and behaviors of scholars and influenced the organization of our academic communities and knowledge production. The impact of the divide expressed itself in the distribution of research among methodologies in terms of relative quantity and impact. Less obviously, and yet more importantly, the divide influenced the distribution of quantitative research among different institution types, across fields and journals, and with respect to policy engagement. Using the TRIP database of 7,792 IR articles in twelve top journals from 1980 to 2014, I classify journal articles into three categories—quantitative-only, qualitative-only, and mixed-methods—and categorize author institutions into similar types—publishing quantitative research only, producing nonquantitative work only, and publishing various proportions of quantitative research. Notably, qualitative and quantitative works switched positions over time in terms of relative quantity and impact, with quantitative research more likely published but only slightly more cited in the recent decade. More importantly, the divide produced other less obvious but more serious outcomes. Among 1,111 institutions that ever published IR research in twelve top journals over thirty-five years, two-thirds published nonquantitative research only; fifty-three institutions published more than half of all quantitative articles; institutions publishing quantitative-only or nonquantitative-only research constituted two modal categories. Political science journals published more quantitative research, persistently and with growing convergence; IR journals also evolved toward publishing more quantitative research though with persistent divergence and forming two clusters. Quantitative articles and political science journals were significantly less engaged in providing policy prescriptions than qualitative articles and IR journals. To overcome this lasting and self-perpetuating divide, we must better understand its impact, learn to appreciate alternative approaches, and change the way we train future scholars.

Korea 1905–1945

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ku Daeyeol
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
World War ◽  
Colonial Korea ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

This important new study by one of Korea’s leading historians focuses on the international relations of colonial Korea – from the Japanese rule of the peninsula and its foreign relations (1905–1945) to the ultimate liberation of the country at the end of the Second World War. In addition, it fills a significant gap – the ‘blank space’ – in Korean diplomatic history. Furthermore, it highlights several other fundamental aspects in the history of modern Korea, such as the historical perception of the policy-making process and the attitudes of both China and Britain which influenced US policy regarding Korea at the end of World War II.

The Noble American Science of Imperial Relations and Its Laws of Race Development

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-42
Author(s):  
Robert Vitalis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
American Science ◽  
The Way

We now know that the ‘birth of the discipline’ of international relations in the United States is a story about empire. The foundations of early international relations theory are set in not just international law and historical sociology but evolutionary biology and racial anthropology. The problem is the way in which scholars today deal with the place of race in the thought of John Hobson, Paul Reinsch, and virtually all other social scientists of the era. The strand of thought that still resonates in our own time about empire, states, and the like is raised up and depicted as the scientific or theoretical core in the scholars’ work, while the strand that involves now archaic racial constructs is downgraded and treated instead as mere ‘language’, ‘metaphors’, and ‘prejudices’ of the era. To undo this error and recover in full the ideas of early international relations theorists it is necessary to bring the work of historians of conservative and reform Darwinism to bear on the first specialists and foundational texts in international relations.

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