Article S6.8 Trajectory of a Scholarly Discourse: Case of International Relations Seminar Leader: Sophia Johnson Doctoral Student, Division of Global Affairs, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA sophiaj[at]pegasus.rutgers.edu It is important for a scholar to appreciate the scholarly discourse relevant to one’s domain of inquiry. Scholarly discourses can sometimes be shown to follow a trajectory, emerging at a certain juncture and evolving over time, either establishing themselves and becoming the norm or declining in their influence and possibly giving birth to new discourses. The trajectory of a scholarly discourse may be shaped by several factors: significant global events, social attitudes and viewpoints, changing focus of institutions which draw upon the discourse, and so forth. To illustrate this dynamic process, a specific discourse was taken up in this seminar as a case in point: the discourse of international relations. The scholarly discourse of international relations emerged after World War II, to help the observers of world affairs make sense of the emerging geo-political, socio-economic, and technological environments. Since then, the trajectory of this discourse can be traced through a sequence of theoretical perspectives that can be found in the literature of international relations. Several such perspectives can be discerned in the literature, for example, classical realism, neorealism, post-internationalism, and so forth. These perspectives seem to have evolved gradually, to better explain the changing global political environment over the years. It is not that there was no description of world affairs prior to World War II. By and large, the period before World War II was characterised by an idealism of peaceful coexistence of nations. Any disturbance to the peace was generally seen as a temporary dislocation from the equilibrium state of peaceful coexistence. In a decisive shift away from this, the theoretical perspective of classical realism focused on the concepts of power, interest, agency, and conflict, leading to an anarchist view of the international arena. Through the contribution of authors such as Hans Morgenthau and E. H. Carr, classical realism went on to become the dominant thought in international relations theory in the post-war period. The essence of this theory is captured in the following statement:
Hans Morgenthau taught and practised law in Frankfurt before fleeing to the US in 1937 as the Nazis came to power in Germany. This experience may have influenced his thinking on international relations. It is worth noting that the personal experiences of a thinker may be relevant in the development of a theoretical perspective. While pre-realist theories were largely Eurocentric with colonialism being the dominant world order, classical realism was rooted more particularly in the US, coinciding with the rising preeminence of the US in world political affairs following the Allied victory in the war. This period saw the gradual transfer of the loci of international power, thoughts, and institutions to the US and increase in decolonising activities with the formation of new nation-states. The classical realist theory was able to explain this development to a large extent. The task before classical realism at that time was to develop a conceptual framework that would help explain the reason behind the crisis of the western civilization in the first half of the twentieth century. Eventually, a breed of realist theories evolved, which offered various ideas on how to prevent another crisis from happening. One such theory was neo-realism, which suggested that certain international structures may constrain the behaviour nation-states. In the later part of the twentieth century, several events and processes taking place on the world stage began to challenge the realist perspective on international relations. The most notable among these was the process of economic globalisation. While it created opportunities for economic collaboration at an unprecedented scale and scope, it also led to various forms of inequality in the world. If it created a “flat” world in some respects (as argued by Thomas Friedman in his 2005 book, The World is Flat), it also created a “spiky” world in some other respects (Florida, 2005). One of the commentators on the flat-world notion was the economist Joseph Stiglitz. In his 2006 book, Making Globalization Work, he referred to the growing inequalities in economic growth, democratic governance, freedom of the press, and so on. He wrote:
The theoretical perspective of post-internationalism is a product of this period, that is, late twentieth century. It focuses on the presence of new structures and processes, as well as the shifting orientations that are transforming authority relations among actors on the world stage. A major contribution to this theoretical perspective is the 1990 book by James N. Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity. It recognises the role of “non-state actors” in shaping the social space of the world. In conclusion, the seminar demonstrated how the scholarly discourse of international relations emerged and evolved in the twentieth century, trying to explain the emerging global order. At any point in its trajectory, we find several competing theories, subscribing either to a prevailing discursive standard (say, realism) or deviating from it by focusing on the factors and issues the prevailing standard overlooks. As a researcher, one may have to decide whether to locate one’s inquiry within a standard discourse or go with a different one. Each option presents its own challenges and risks. References Florida, R. (2005, October). The world is spiky. The Atlantic Monthly, 48-51. Retrieved December 9, 2008, from http://insidework.net/resources/articles/is-world-flat-or-spiky Hans Morgenthau. (2008). Wikipedia. Retrieved December 10, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Morgenthau The World Is Flat. (2008). Wikipedia. Retrieved December 10, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_is_Flat
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