The End of Cross-Cultural Relativism

1997 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amitai Etzioni
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Special Importance ◽  
The West ◽  
Normative Pluralism

Relativism is in retreat on many fronts; it is much less clear what will replace it. One kind of relativism of special importance to international relations is the notion that members of one culture should not “judge” those of others—especially that the West should not pass judgment on the policies and values of other societies. If this facet of unbounded, normative pluralism is waning, too, what will take its place? Such a matter seems rather abstract, but its policy implications are many.

scholarly journals Modern Problems of Historical Imagology in the Context of International Relations (“Our Ownˮ and “Othersˮ: Interaction and Perception of the Cultures of the West and Russia (for the anniversary of Viktor Leonidovich Malkov) / ed. T.L. Labutina. Saint-Petersburg, 2020)

2021 ◽  
pp. 231
Author(s):  
Irina Smirnova
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The West ◽  
Saint Petersburg ◽  
Cultural Dialogue

The review provides an overview of the collective monograph “Own” and “Others”: Interaction and perception of cultures of the West and Russia (For the anniversary of Viktor Leonidovich Malkov), which presents the results of the latest comparative studies in the field of cross-cultural dialogue between the countries of the West and Russia. The content of the book is viewed through the prism of such a conceptual trend in imagology as the perception of the image of “Own / Others” in the context of international relations (politics, culture, diplomacy, social conflictology, etc.).    

Explaining Job Satisfaction and Commitment Among Prison Officers: The Role of Organizational Justice

2019 ◽  
Vol 99 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis D. Boateng ◽  
Ming-Li Hsieh
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Organizational Justice ◽  
Correctional Officers ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The West ◽  
Job Commitment ◽  
Significant Support

The organizational justice doctrine has been applied widely in understanding the performance of criminal justice institutions. Although most of the research has been conducted in the West, few studies have focused on postcolonial societies. Given the importance of cross-cultural investigations, the current study attempts to test the validity of organizational justice theory in Ghana by exploring how key organizational justice components impact correctional officers’ perception of job satisfaction and job commitment. The results reveal significant support for organizational justice hypotheses in Ghana. Practical policy implications of the findings are discussed.

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geir Lundestad
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Modernization

There are no laws in history. Realists, liberals, and others are both right and wrong. Although no one can be certain that military incidents may not happen, for the foreseeable future China and the United States are unlikely to favor major war. They have cooperated well for almost four decades now. China is likely to continue to focus on its economic modernization. It has far to go to measure up to the West. The American-Chinese economies are still complementary. A conflict with the United States or even with China’s neighbors would have damaging repercussions for China’s economic goals. The United States is so strong that it would make little sense for China to take it on militarily. There are also other deterrents against war, from nuclear weapons to emerging norms about international relations. It is anybody’s guess what will happen after the next few decades. History indicates anything is possible.

scholarly journals Natural Constraints to Cultural Relativism Example: Ricci’s Pacific-Centered World Maps

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-397
Author(s):  
Elmar Holenstein
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Canary Islands ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Central State ◽  
The West ◽  
Gestalt Principles ◽  
Matteo Ricci ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Made In

AbstractNot everything that is logically possible and technically feasible is also natural, for example, placing China in the exact center of a world map. Such a map would not correspond to the laws of perception.Matteo Ricci, who was the first to create Chinese world maps on which the Americas were depicted, had to choose between two ideals, between a world map that obeys the gestalt principles of perception and a world map with the “Central State” China in its center. The first ideal mattered more to him than the second, although he took the latter into account as well. The result was a Pacific-centered map.Since we live on a sphere, what we perceive to be in the East and in the West depends on our location. It is therefore natural that in East Asia, world maps show America in the East and not – as in Europe – in the West. This was the argument underlying Ricci’s creation of Pacific-centered maps, and not the intention of depicting China as close to the center of the map as possible.It is only in East Asia that Ricci was the first to create Pacific-centered maps. World maps with the Pacific in the midfield were made in Europe before Ricci, motivated by the traditional unidirectional numbering of the meridians (0°–360°) from West to East starting with the Atlantic Insulae Fortunatae (Canary Islands).

Origins of the Taiping Vision: Cross-Cultural Dimensions of a Chinese Rebellion

1977 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 350-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip A. Kuhn
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Foreign Material ◽  
The West ◽  
Host Culture ◽  
Human Organization ◽  
Textual Material ◽  
Cultural Gaps

The transmission of systems of ideas across wide cultural gaps is hard enough to study on any scale of human organization. It is particularly hard when two large, complex cultures meet under traumatic circumstances, as did China and the West in the nineteenth century. The myriad variables in such a situation dictate special care in defining the specific terms and conditions under which ideas are transmitted. The present case suggests three points worth attention: first, the precise language of the textual material that impinges on the host culture; second, the underlying structure of the historical circumstances into which this material is introduced; third, the process whereby the foreign material becomes important to sectors of society outside the group that first appreciated and received it and thereby becomes a significant historical force.

The Ambivalent Relationship of Japan's Soft Power Diplomacy andPrincess Mononoke: Tosaka Jun's philosophy of culture as moral reflection

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-698 ◽  
Author(s):  
KOSUKE SHIMIZU
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Moral Reflection ◽  
The West ◽  
Soft Power Diplomacy

AbstractCulture is a demanding word, particularly when it is used in the context of the contemporary academic discipline of international relations (IR). It is often employed in order to distinguish one identity from another, allegedly illuminating idiosyncrasies embedded in a particular society or group of people. The essentialized understanding of culture is also detectable in the case of the current debate on the non-Western international relations theories (IRT). Non-Western politicians and scholars often employ the term culture in order to distinguish their values from alleged Western values. However, culture has another important function mainly advanced by a left-wing Kyoto School philosopher Tosaka Jun, that is, culture as a mirror for critical reflection for morality (Tosaka, 1966). This article is based on Tosaka's argument that culture has an important function for moral reflection beyond that of a mere means to identify one's distinctiveness from the West, and it criticizes Japan's soft power diplomacy or the total absence of it from that point of view. It also argues that this absence is the result of the soft power discourse's over-simplified interpretation of culture that results in confrontation between the West and the rest, particularly when it is employed in non-Western IRT discourses. Towards the end, I examine Miyazaki Hayao's films,Princes Mononokein particular, as examples of cultural works facilitating a moment of critical reflection, and I extract embedded messages of relevance to critical reflection on contemporary IR literature, particularly non-Western literature.

Islamic International Relations Towards a Theoretical Framework

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gubara Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The World

The Western originators of the multi-disciplinary social sciences and their successors, including most major Western social intellectuals, excluded religion as an explanation for the world and its affairs. They held that religion had no role to play in modern society or in rational elucidations for the way world politics or/and relations work. Expectedly, they also focused most of their studies on the West, where religion’s effect was least apparent and argued that its influence in the non-West was a primitive residue that would vanish with its modernization, the Muslim world in particular. Paradoxically, modernity has caused a resurgence or a revival of religion, including Islam. As an alternative approach to this Western-centric stance and while focusing on Islam, the paper argues that religion is not a thing of the past and that Islam has its visions of international relations between Muslim and non-Muslim states or abodes: peace, war, truce or treaty, and preaching (da’wah).

scholarly journals Women and Orientalism: 19th century Representations of the Harem by European female travellers and Ottoman women

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Thisaranie Herath
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Exchanges ◽  
Private Spaces ◽  
The Way

The inaccessibility of the Ottoman harems to European males helped perpetuate the image of the harem as purely sexual in nature and contributed to imperialistic discourse that positioned the East as inferior to the West. It was only with the emergence of female travellers and artists that Europe was afforded a brief glimpse into the source of their fantasies; however, whether these accounts catered to or challenged the normative imperialist discourse of the day remains controversial. Emerging scholarship also highlights the way in which harem women themselves were able to control the depiction of their private spaces to suit their own needs, serving to highlight how nineteenth century depictions of the harem were a series of cross-cultural exchanges and negotiations between male Orientalists, female European travellers, and shrewd Ottoman women. 

How Well Does R2P Travel Beyond the West?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faith Mabera ◽  
Yolanda Spies
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Western World ◽  
The West ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Domain State ◽  
The Status ◽  
Emerging Powers

R2P invokes the power-morality nexus in international relations and interrogates the rules of engagement that anchor international society. Conceptualization of R2P as a liberal Western construct can therefore be divisive, especially when operationalization of the norm—as happened during the 2011 intervention in Libya—feeds into a West-against-the-Rest narrative. This is unfortunate because the R2P doctrine has deep roots in the non-Western world—Africa in particular—and Global South perspectives continue to strengthen its conceptual development. Emerging powers challenge the status quo of structural power and their rhetoric on R2P often invokes mistrust of Western altruism in international politics. Their actions, on the other hand, prove that they are no less prone to realpolitik in the normative domain. State actors in the normative middle of international politics, including developed as well as developing countries, are well placed to bridge the West-versus-the-Rest schism and to provide leadership in the R2P discourse.

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