The Major Problems of IR Theorizing Today

Since the emergence of the discipline of IR and its theorizing, the world has profoundly changed and the philosophy of science as well as the IR theory itself have evolved. After decades of great debates, IR theory has reached its peak today in terms of theoretical diversity. Whether this diversity is a good indicator or not is a controversial issue, it is certain that IR experienced varying disagreements on the methodological, epistemological, and ontological issues within itself. It soon became apparent, however that since IR had originated in UK and then spread to the US, it has followed a development path that has made some certain objects of analysis and subject matters vital while marginalizing the alternatives. This caused IR theory to mire into Eurocentrism while the major disagreements within the discipline have rendered its scientific status far from clear. The aim of this essay is to discuss and elaborate these two major problems of IR theorizing –its controversial scientific status, and its Eurocentric nature- in contemporary world.

            One of the major problems of IR theorizing has faced today is its scientific status. This concerns with finding an answer to the question that whether IR is a unique and independent discipline as far as its community's agreement over the fundamentals of this field is concerned. There are some underlying critics to IR in terms of its scientific competence.

The first issue problematizes IR’s indebtedness to other scientific fields. Significantly, IR has borrowed some of its key concepts from other fields such as game theory, neoliberal institutionalism from economics, postcolonialism from cultural studies, and poststructuralism from philosophy.[1] Accordingly, this created certain doubts on the IR as a self-contained field of study, casting doubts on its scientific credibility. The second, and the more important issue concerns with the general and widespread disagreement in the discipline over the subject matter to study, object of analysis, and the source of knowledge amongst the theorists. Critics contend that this caused the fragmentation of the discipline, transforming it into a sort of hybridity.[2]

The third issue is the impact of globalization. Although globalization is a long contentious concept whether it is real or perception, it has been successful to cloud the future of IR theorizing.[3] For instance, the traditionally strongest theory of IR, realism, has been exposed an ambiguity by globalization. The forces of globalization led questioning the future of the nation state. Therefore will the state as a unit of analysis preserves its position is doubtful. There are some views, such as from neo-Marxists scholars that an evolving world order is on the ground and empires are striking back while the nation state has begun to disappear.[4] Thus, the very fundamental assumption of the mainstream theories of IR, the centrality of state, has been strongly questioning by the growing literature. This obscures strong mainstream IR theories that are realism, liberalism, and even some forms of constructivism.

The forth issue concerns the structure of IR. The discipline has a hierarchical structure. This reflects power and knowledge relationships on the one hand and an enduring dependency relationship on the other. In terms of the former, the discipline has been managed by those who controls the leading journals, private foundations or public research councils. This small minority has the power to privilege some certain ‘knowledge goals and procedures’ over the others. Moreover, they are also the authority for designating the standards of the discipline. In terms of the latter issue, because of this concentration of authority power, the scholars over worldwide have become dependent on them to publish their works. Furthermore, this dependence is an enduring one which reproduces itself in time and place.[5] There are also critics of hierarchy that blamed the older generations of IR scholars for preventing younger ones to engage more to the activities within the discipline.[6]

            The second major problem for IR theorizing I desire to emphasize is its strong Eurocentric nature. The state of the study of IR came today is the problem of filling the gap between Eurocentric IR theories and postcolonial studies. According to that the main aim is to create a non-Eurocentric IR theory.[7] The proponents of postcolonialism argue that almost all theories of IR are Eurocentric, including critical ones such as Frankfurt School, feminism, or poststructuralism. Most of them privileges white over non-white, male over female and so on and they dichotomized as educated vs. undereducated, developed vs. underdeveloped etc. They are all making generalizations that originated from the experiences of the Western societies while overlooking the world views and realities of the Third World. These generalizations have been imposed on the whole world with their universalist claims.

It may be made a correlation between the emergence and development of modernity and the emergence and development of IR theorizing. Just like the consolidated perception that modernity can be achieved with a certain type of linear path outside the West, there has been similar perception that IR theory has clear fundamentals that outsiders of West can work on it and test it. However, it is obvious that it does not necessarily follow the same path. Take the mainstream IR theories, realism and liberalism. Neoliberalism sees state as central and unitary just like realism when analyzing the international politics. However could one say that every state is rational, unitary abstract entities? When realism and liberalism agreeing on such assumptions, they based on Western state structures which consists of stable democracy and long consolidated state mechanisms and institutions, even these considerations are not sufficient to make them rational and unitary. By comparison, when we look at the other regions of the world, it is hard to find stable regimes and state structures. This situation caused these actors to act somewhat differently in international arena because of both organizational choices and insufficient state capacity. This inevitably undermines the analysis of mainstream IR theories in terms of their presumption of functional similarity of states because of their misunderstanding of other regions’ characteristics.

            The development of IR theorizing has strongly influenced by the cold war. The super power competition paved the way for strategic studies to be facilitated by unprecedented US and Soviet military and industrial power. This provided motivations to scholars who desired and claimed to see the big picture while overlooking the realities of the ‘other’ and to make suggestions to decision makers to use its huge resources to project its power in most efficient way. Beside of the softening of this infamous geopolitics since the WWII, there was an ideological commitment originated from either nationalism or love for free economy, democracy, or socialism, driven by the worries of winning the cold war.

Thus, the development of IR theorizing has been one that related with power, identity, and values. Holding power and privileging some identities and values over other made enormous contribution to then evolving Eurocentric character of IR theorizing. The US led new international political and economic order after WWII was the best embodiment of these relations of power structures, social hierarchies, and discourses. Likewise, liberals’ general propositions about the international cooperation, norms, and ethics have been legitimacy seeking attempts that disguising the domination efforts at play behind the benign proposals.[8] It was not surprising that the US called its global war on terror operations as ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’. Thus the use of language, public and political discourses have direct effects on the hegemonic relationship between power, identity, and the subsequent knowledge production.

Although the shortcomings of realist and liberal accounts of IR are emphasized in this essay in terms of Eurocentrism debate, it is by no means other mainstream and most of critical theories are avoid Eurocentrism. They also fell into trap by making universal and cosmopolitan claims and truths which led them to propose solutions from their home to very different far places.

In consequence, it can be said that IR theorizing needs to put an emphasis on the realities of the whole word, not just the USA or Atlantic. The gap between the Eurocentric IR theories and postcolonial theory should be filled to eliminate power structures, social hierarchies, and neo-colonial discourses and to produce more proper knowledge about the world and about the ‘others’. Furthermore, keeping distance with Eurocentrism may open the doors for addressing the first major problem of theories of IR stated in this essay. An inclusive IR theory, then, may provide an agreement among the scholars on methodological, epistemological, and ontological matters or these differences may be welcomed anymore because of the embracement of diversity among IR community for further progress.

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[1] Waever, Ole (2013) Still a Discipline After All These Debates? in Dunne et. al. International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity (3rd. edn.) (Oxford, Oxford University Press), pp. 307

[2] Ibid., pp. 308

[3] Ibid., pp. 307

[4] An example of this argument can be found in Negri, Antonio and Hardt, Michael (2001) Empire (Cambridge, Harvard University Press)

[5] Waever, Ole (2013) Still a Discipline After All These Debates? in Dunne et. al. International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity (3rd. edn.) (Oxford, Oxford University Press), pp. 312-314

[6] A recent discussion related with this among some theorists over the special issue of European Journal of International Relations which was about ‘The End of International Relations Theory?’ The End of IR Theory as We Know It… Available at: http://thedisorderofthings.com/2012/08/03/the-end-of-ir-theory-as-we-know-it/  (Accessed: 04.01.2015)

[7] Yalvaç, F. (2014) Lecture Notes. [Postcolonialism: 30/12/2014]

[8] Grovogui N., Siba (2013) Postcolonialism in Dunne et. al. International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity (3rd. edn.) (Oxford, Oxford University Press), pp. 248-249