scholarly journals A Muslim Contribution to International Relations Theory: Aman (Peaceful Co-Existence and Mutual Respect) Theory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abd al-Fattah M. El-Awaisi
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Discourse ◽  
Clash Of Civilisations ◽  
Peace Study ◽  
Normative Considerations ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Academic Debate

In the last ten years, the world has witnessed much debate on new forms of the global phenomena of fundamentalism and extremism. It is clear that many view Muslims as “the other” or outsider and vice-versa; an attitude of “us and them”, “our community and their community”. The concept of a ‘clash of civilisations’ has become part of our everyday vocabulary. The objective of this article is namely to develop the theory of Aman (peaceful co-existence and mutual respect) as a Muslim contribution to normative considerations in international relations theory. It is found that the main four components of this theory are: the methodology of Tadafu’ (counteraction), the concept of Adil (justice), the principle of not excluding others, and the constructive argumentation methodology. The theory has been tested and implemented by examining, in particular, Umar Assurance of Aman and the negotiations between Salah al-Din and King Richard I ‘the Lionheart’ of England over Islamicjerusalem in 1191. It is hoped that this theory could help place Muslim contributions in the epitome of global discourse of international relations theory, set the scene to advance the current research on the Muslim contributions to international relations theory including peace study and conflict resolution, and open up and promote intellectual and academic debate and understanding of this Muslim contributions to shed light on new lines of explanation. Although Islamicjerusalem is the most delicate issue of dispute between the current two conflicting parties, it is hoped that this theory will provide a better understanding for the world leaders who are trying to return peace to the region.  

scholarly journals A MUSLIM MODEL FOR PEACEFUL CO – EXISTENCE AND MUTUAL RESPECT

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-78
Author(s):  
Abd al-Fattah M. El-Awaisi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Time ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Cultural Engagement ◽  
The Core ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Academic Debate

The core Muslim sources consider diversity and plurality to be the ba- sis of everything. Indeed, diversity and plurality in nations, religions, cultures, races, and religious laws is part of the design of the universe. With the cur- rent debate on multiculturalism and cultural engagement, there is an urgent need to understand the Muslim contributions to this critical topic. However, instead of examining the general views of Islam and Muslims on diversity and plurality or their general understanding of multiculturalism, culture engage- ment, peaceful co-existence, and mutual respect, the objective of this article is namely to develop a particular Muslim model related to Islamicjerusalem for Aman (peaceful co-existence and mutual respect). It is hoped that this model could set the scene to advance the current research on the Muslim contributions on this important topic at this critical time in 21st century, en- rich our understanding of multiculturalism and cultural engagement, address some of the sensitive, important and key issues on the subject, and open up and promote intellectual and academic debate and understanding of this Muslim model to shed light on new lines of explanation. Although Islamicje- rusalem is the most delicate issue of dispute between the current two con- flicting parties, it is also hoped that this model will provide a better under- standing for the world leaders who are trying to return peace to the region.

Varieties of Understanding

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
The World ◽  
Historical Tradition ◽  
Normative Considerations ◽  
Shed Light

According to a long historical tradition, understanding comes in different varieties. In particular, it is said that understanding people has a different epistemic profile than understanding the natural world—it calls on different cognitive resources, for instance, and brings to bear distinctive normative considerations. Thus in order to understand people we might need to appreciate, or in some way sympathetically reconstruct, the reasons that led a person to act in a certain way. By comparison, when it comes to understanding natural events, like earthquakes or eclipses, no appreciation of reasons or acts of sympathetic reconstruction is arguably needed—mainly because there are no reasons on the scene to even be appreciated, and no perspectives to be sympathetically pieced together. In this volume some of the world’s leading philosophers, psychologists, and theologians shed light on the various ways in which we understand the world, pushing debates on this issue to new levels of sophistication and insight.

Sovereignty at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard V. Smith
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Great Power ◽  
World War ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
The World ◽  
Paris Peace Conference

We have long known that the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 “failed” in the sense that it did not prevent the outbreak of World War II. This book investigates not whether the conference succeeded or failed, but the historically specific international system it created. It explores the rules under which that system operated, and the kinds of states and empires that inhabited it. Deepening the dialogue between history and international relations theory makes it possible to think about sovereignty at the conference in new ways. Sovereignty in 1919 was about remaking “the world”—not just determining of answers demarcating the international system, but also the questions. Most histories of the Paris Peace Conference stop with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on June 28, 1919. This book considers all five treaties produced by the conference as well as the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey in 1923. It is organized not chronologically or geographically, but according to specific problems of sovereignty. A peace based on “justice” produced a criminalized Great Power in Germany, and a template problematically applied in the other treaties. The conference as sovereign sought to “unmix” lands and peoples in the defeated multinational empires by drawing boundaries and defining ethnicities. It sought less to oppose revolution than to instrumentalize it. The League of Nations, so often taken as the supreme symbol of the conference’s failure, is better considered as a continuation of the laboratory of sovereignty established in Paris.

Introduction: Diversity and Disciplinarity in International Relations Theory

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Steve Smith
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Structural Realism ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
English School ◽  
International Theory ◽  
The World

This text argues that theory is central to explaining International Relations (IR) and that the discipline of IR is much more relevant to the world of international relations than it has been at any point in its history. Some chapters cover distinct IR theories ranging from realism/structural realism to liberalism/neoliberalism, the English school, constructivism, Marxism, critical theory, feminism, poststructuralism, green theory, and postcolonialism. Oher chapters explore International Relations theory and its relationship to social science, normative theory, globalization, and the discipline’s identity. This introduction explains why this edition has chosen to cover these theories, reflects on international theory and its relationship to the world, and considers the kind of assumptions about theory that underlie each of the approaches.

Challenges to Traditional International Relations Theory Posed by Environmental Change

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Dyer
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
Practical Challenge ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Over Time

Changes in the environment can impact international relations theory, despite enjoying only a limited amount of attention from scholars of the discipline. The sorts of influence that may be identified include ontology, epistemology, concepts, and methods, all of these being related to varying perspectives on international relations. It is likely that the most profound implications arise at the ontological level, since this establishes assumptions about, for example, whether the world we wish to understand is both political and ecological. However, more recently the recognition of the practical challenge presented by the environment has become widespread, though it has not yet translated into a significant impact on the discipline of international relations, even when theoretical implications are noted. It is now almost obligatory to include the environment in any list of modern international relations concerns, as over time it has become necessary to include peace, underdevelopment, gender, or race, as they quite rightly became recognized as significant aspects of the field. Moreover, the environment, as a relatively novel subject matter, has naturally brought some critique and innovation to the field. However, studies of the environment are also subject to such descriptors as “mainstream” and “radical” in debates about how best to tackle the subject. As is often the case, the debates are sharpest among those with the greatest interest in the subject.

American Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Clash Of Civilisations

This book brings together international relations scholars, political theorists, and historians to reflect on the intellectual history of American foreign policy since the late nineteenth century. It offers a nuanced and multifaceted collection of essays covering a wide range of concerns, concepts, presidential doctrines, and rationalities of government thought to have marked America’s engagement with the world during this period: nation-building, exceptionalism, isolationism, modernisation, race, utopia, technology, war, values, the ‘clash of civilisations’ and many more.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard V. Smith
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
The Self ◽  
Territorial State ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Paris Peace Conference

This book has sought to deepen the dialogue between history and international relations theory in examining a pivotal moment in the history of international relations. The Paris Peace Conference constituted a historically specific effort to reimagine “the world.” More specifically, it sought to replace anarchy under realism with “sovereignty.” The conference could not live comfortably with the radical liberalism of Wilsonianism, but the international contract made at the time of the armistice with Germany meant that the conference could not live without it. The territorial state and its discontents lay at the heart of sovereignty at the conference. Two logics of the state fought each other to a standstill in Paris—that of the self-help of realism, forever seeking unattainable “security,” and that of the state that exists only in relation to other states, toward some common end.

scholarly journals Theorising International Urban Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 030582982097168
Author(s):  
Ari Jerrems
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Academic Debate

Research across several disciplines has focused on the intersection between the international and the urban to shed light on transformations in global politics. Recently, this intersection has become the focus of critical International Relations scholars. Despite transversal interest, disciplinary boundaries often limit the scope of academic debate. In the interest of developing a transdisciplinary research agenda, this review article charts three different ways that scholars have theorised the relationship between the international, the urban, and the political across disciplines. A review of five recently published books, situated within a broader study of the literature, serves to do this.

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