Going beyond Parochialism and Fragmentation in the Study of International Relations 9781138063006, 9781315161334

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Going beyond Parochialism and Fragmentation in the Study of International Relations

International Relations (IR), as a discipline, is a Western-dominated enterprise. This has led to calls to broaden the scope and vision of the discipline by embracing a wider range of histories, experiences, and theoretical perspectives – particularly those outside the Anglo-American core of the West. The ongoing ‘broadening IR projects’ – be they ‘non-Western IR’, ‘post-Western IR’, or ‘Global IR’ – are making contributions in this regard. However, some careful thinking is needed here in that these attempts could also lead to a national or regional ‘inwardness’ that works to reproduce the very parochialism that is being challenged. The main intellectual concerns of this edited volume are problematising Western parochialism in IR, giving theoretical and epistemological substance to pluralism in the field of IR based on both Western and non-Western thoughts and experiences, and working out ways to move the discipline of IR one step closer to a dialogic community. A key issue that cuts across all contributions in the volume is to go beyond both parochialism and fragmentation in international studies. In order to address the manifold and contested implications of pluralism in in the field of IR, the volume draws on the wealth of experience and research of prominent and emerging IR scholars whose contributions make up the work, with a mixture of theoretical analysis and case studies. This book will appeal to scholars and students interested in Global IR and promoting dialogue in a pluralist IR. Yong-Soo Eun is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Hanyang University, South Korea, and Editor-in-Chief of the Routledge series IR Theory and Practice in Asia. Yong-Soo is broadly interested in International Relations (IR) theory, pluralism in social and international studies, emotion studies in IR, and the international politics of the Asia-Pacific region. He is the author of Pluralism and Engagement in the Discipline of International Relations (2016) and the co-editor of Regionalizing Global Crises (2014). His work has also been published in Review of International Studies, PS: Political Science and Politics, Perspectives on Politics, and The Chinese Journal of International Politics, among other venues.

IR Theory and Practice in Asia

This series will publish philosophical, theoretical, methodological and empirical work by prominent scholars, as well as that of emerging scholars, concerned with IR theory and practice in the context of Asia. It will engage with a wide range of issues and questions ranging from meta-theoretical underpinnings of existing Western-oriented IR theories to ways of theorising Asian histories and cultures. What Is at Stake in Building “Non-Western” International Relations Theory? Yong-Soo Eun International Relations as a Discipline in Thailand Theory and Sub-fields Edited by Chanintira na Thalang, Soravis Jayanama and Jittipat Poonkham Rethinking Middle Powers in The Asian Century New Theories, New Cases Edited by Tanguy Struye de Swielande, Dorothée Vandamme, David Walton and Thomas Wilkins Critical International Relations Theories in East Asia Relationality, Subjectivity, and Pragmatism Edited by Kosuke Shimizu Ontological Security and Status-Seeking Thailand’s Proactive Behaviours during the Second World War Peera Charoenvattananukul Going beyond Parochialism and Fragmentation in the Study of International Relations Edited by Yong-Soo Eun For the full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/IR-Theoryand-Practice-in-Asia/book-series/IRTPA

Going beyond Parochialism and Fragmentation in the Study of International Relations Edited by Yong-Soo Eun

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Yong-Soo Eun; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Yong-Soo Eun to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the author for his individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-06300-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-16133-4 (ebk) Typeset in Galliard by Apex CoVantage, LLC

We dedicate this book to the memory of our dear friend, colleague, and collaborator LHM (Lily) Ling, who very sadly passed away on October 1, 2018.

Contents

Acknowledgmentsviii List of contributorsx Introduction

1

YONG-SOO EUN

1 Opening up the debate over ‘non-Western’ International Relations

10

YONG-SOO EUN

2 When balance of power meets globalization

24

T.V. PAUL

3 Three-ness: healing world politics with epistemic compassion

40

L.H.M. LING

4 Relational ontology and the politics of boundary-making: East Asian financial regionalism

57

YONG WOOK LEE

5 Bringing the outside in: the limits of theoretical fragmentation and pluralism in IR theory

76

COLIN WIGHT

6 Globalising IR through dialogue

96

YONG-SOO EUN

7 Global emotion studies in IR: embracing non-Western voices

113

CHAEYOUNG YONG

Index134

Acknowledgments

As with any academic discipline, International Relations (IR) is expected to reflect what it studies, namely world politics. Since the end of the Cold War – more specifically, since the demise of the American unipolar ‘moment’ – the structure of world power has become increasingly decentralised and dispersed, and multiple forms and sources of agency in foreign affairs and international security have emerged, especially in East Asia. This transformation has been labelled in various ways, including a ‘shift from West to East’, a ‘G-Zero world’, a ‘multiplex world’, a ‘return to geopolitics’, and the ‘revival of tribalism’. Whatever term one uses, what is clear is that today’s world is no longer defined by the hegemony of any single nation or value. Does IR theory reflect this transformation and complexity? This was the key question behind the 2016 Hanyang and Routledge International Studies Workshop held in Seoul where nine IR scholars, including myself, met to discuss progress in IR theory and knowledge production in the discipline. This volume arises from that workshop. Although a few of the papers presented there are not included in the final manuscript, I (as the organiser of the workshop and editor of this volume) would like to express my sincere thanks to all of the participants for their intellectual contributions: Shaun Breslin (University of Warwick), T.V. Paul (McGill University), Yaqing Qin (China Foreign Affairs University), L.H.M. Ling (The New School), Tim Dunne (University of Queensland), Colin Wight (University of Sydney), Yong Wook Lee (Korea University), and Cheng-Chwee Kuik (National University of Malaysia). I also owe thanks to Chaeyoung Yong, who, although she joined this collaborative enterprise later, has nonetheless made a tremendous contribution to our endeavour. I would also like to thank Simon Bates and ShengBin Tan at Routledge for their great help, understanding, and support. I also acknowledge institutional support from Hanyayng University (HY-201800000003094). In addition, discussions put forth in this volume draw heavily on contributors’ previous studies. The first five chapters of the volume draw on five Special Section Articles published in Politics (2019), Volume 39, Issue 1, and Chapter 6 draws on my work previously published in The Pacific Review (2019), Volume 32, Issue 2.

Acknowledgments ix This edited volume is dedicated to Lily Ling. She will be remembered as an eminent scholar, an inspiring teacher, and a warm person. Her incredible insights into alternative thinking and sincere compassion for others will keep her alive in our conversation and efforts to create a positive force in a world where cynics abound.

Contributors

Yong-Soo Eun is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Hanyang University, South Korea and the Editor-in-Chief of the Routledge series IR Theory and Practice in Asia. Yong-Soo is broadly interested in International Relations (IR) theory, pluralism in social and international studies, emotion studies in IR, and the international politics of the Asia-Pacific region. He is the author of Pluralism and Engagement in the Discipline of International Relations (Palgrave 2016) and the co-editor of Regionalizing Global Crises (Palgrave 2014). His work has also been published in Review of International Studies, PS: Political Science and Politics, Perspectives on Politics, and The Chinese Journal of International Politics, among other venues. Yong Wook Lee is Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Korea University (Seoul, Korea). His research examines how identities, norms, and power affect and are affected by states and their practices within domestic and international contexts. His works appear in various academic journals, including International Studies Quarterly, Review of International Political Economy, and Review of International Studies. He is presently finishing up a book on East Asian financial regionalism. This project is a sequel to his earlier book, entitled The Japanese Challenge to the American Neoliberal World Order: Identity, Meaning, and Foreign Policy (Stanford University Press 2008). Prior to Korea University, he taught at Brown University and the University of Oklahoma. L.H.M. Ling (1995–2018) was Professor of International Affairs at The New School in New York City, USA. Her research focused on International Relations (IR) as a world-of-worlds or worldism. She authored four books: Postcolonial International Relations: Conquest and Desire between Asia and the West (2002), Transforming World Politics: From Empire to Multiple Worlds (co-authored with A.M. Agathangelou, York University, 2009), The Dao of World Politics: Towards a Post-Westphalian, Worldist International Relations (2014), and Imagining World Politics: Sihar & Shenya, A Fable for Our Times (2014). Two books are forthcoming: A Worldly World Order: Epistemic Compassion for International Relations (Oxford University Press) and Between India and China: An Ancient Dialectic for Contemporary Times (co-authored

Contributors xi with Payal Banerjee, Smith College, Rowman & Littlefield). Professor Ling has edited or co-edited the following anthologies: Asia in International Relations: Unlearning Imperial Power Relations (with Pinar Bilgin, 2017), India China: Rethinking Borders and Security (2016), and Four Seas to One Family: Overseas Chinese and the Chinese Dream (with Tan Chung, in Chinese and English, 2015). Along with John M. Hobson (Sheffield University), Professor Ling was the co-editor of the book series Global Dialogues: Developing NonEurocentric International Relations and International Political Economy, at Rowman & Littlefield International. T.V. Paul is James McGill Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He served as President of the International Studies Association (ISA) during 2016–2017. Paul is the author or editor of 18 books and over 60 scholarly articles/book chapters in the fields of International Relations, International Security, and South Asia. His most recent book is Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing from Empires to the Global Era (Yale, 2018). For more, see: www.tvpaul.com Colin Wight is Professor and Chair of Government and International Relations (IR) in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney, Australia. His Cambridge University Press book, Agents, Structures and International Relations (2006), examines the manner in which differing theories conceptualise the key units of analysis that are claimed to contribute to the processes of IR and attempts to show how these understandings play a role in substantive empirical research and the practice of international politics. He is also interested in all aspects of political violence and has recently published Rethinking Terrorism: Terrorism, Violence and the State (Palgrave, 2015). He moved to Sydney in January 2001, having previously worked at Exeter, Sheffield, and Aberystwyth. He also served as Editor in Chief of the European Journal of International Relations. He is currently completing a book on Pluralism and Fragmentation in International Relations Theory. Chaeyoung Yong is a PhD candidate in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews, United Kingdom. Her research interest is in IR theory, emotion, and International Relations of East Asia. She is currently working on a doctoral project titled Sovereignty Recognition Games and Affective Politics of East Asia. She recently published ‘Reflecting a “Pluralist Turn” in International Relations (book review)’, International Studies Review (2018) and ‘Can States Trust Each Other? (review article)’, History of European Ideas (2019).

Introduction Yong-Soo Eun

Diversity: an essential value The ontological hallmark of international politics is diversity. International politics is a place where ‘the encounter with difference across boundaries’, of individuals, groups, institutions, societies, religions, ideologies, nations, states, and regions (Jackson, 2016: 241), takes place daily; its system is best understood as a ‘complex open system’ in which emergent properties constantly crop up (Joseph and Wight, 2010). International Relations (IR) as a discipline studies causes, conditions, processes, mechanisms, and results of varying encounters in this fluid system; it is also a discipline that investigates not only present encounters but also those of the past and the possible future. As such, theoretical diversity and epistemic pluralism – which endorse and promote a multiplicity of truth claims and a plurality of explanations – ought to be appreciated and embraced by IR scholars. Of course, this is not a new revelation. We, as IR scholars, have long been calling for more diversity and greater pluralism in international studies. For example, IR scholars who favour a post-positivist epistemology and reflexive theory have persistently entered pleas for a pluralist IR. According to Thierry Balzacq and Stéphane Baele (2017: 2–4), since the so-called third debate in IR, which began in the mid-1980s, diversity has consistently remained ‘the strongest statement’ of post-positivist IR scholars. Friedrich Kratochwil (2003: 126) has noted that pluralism is ‘not . . . the second best alternative but actually the most promising strategy for furthering research and the production of knowledge’. Echoing this view, several scholars have advanced the discussion on pluralism: Patrick Jackson (2016), for example, has developed the metatheoretical rationale for ‘a pluralist science of IR’; Tim Dunne et al. (2013) and Colin Wight (2013) have advocated for an ‘engaged’ or ‘integrative’ form of pluralism in which IR scholars not only embrace theoretical diversity but also ‘integrate their insights into the substantive knowledge base of the field’. The need for pluralism is increasingly acknowledged by mainstream (positivist) IR theorists as well. American scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, for example, have argued that IR would be ‘much better off’ with ‘a diverse theoretical ecosystem’ in which ‘different theories and research traditions co-exist’ (Mearsheimer and Walt, 2013: 430). Another mainstream American scholar,

2  Yong-Soo Eun David Lake, has gone so far as to argue: ‘I as a “white man” am a beneficiary of the “mainstream” of the profession. . . . I would be a better scholar were I surrounded not by other white males but by a more diverse community of researchers’ (Lake, 2016: 1113). In short, the value of diversity is emphasised and appreciated by different IR communities and across theoretical perspectives; thus, pluralism seems to have become ‘the company all IR scholars want to keep’ (Levine and McCourt, 2018: 93). However, the current state of affairs falls short of what we have been calling for. It is especially true in terms of geographical or geo-epistemic diversity in international studies.

We are not there yet . . . Although since the 1980s the discipline has witnessed a theoretical ‘explosion’ and ‘proliferation’ (Kristensen, 2015: 260) and, as a result, we seem to have now arrived at ‘a plural, and pluralist, field’ (Rengger, 2015: 32), IR is still a ‘Westerncentric’ discipline. Much of mainstream IR theory is ‘simply an abstraction of Western history’ (Hobson, 2012; Ling, 2014; Buzan, 2016: 156); furthermore, IR continues to seek ‘to parochially celebrate or defend or promote the West as the proactive subject of, and as the highest or ideal normative referent in, world politics’ (Hobson, 2012: 1). Let us take our pedagogical practice as a case in point. Based on an analysis of what is taught to graduate students at 23 American and European universities, Hagmann and Biersteker (2014: 303) have found that ‘none of the 23 schools surveyed here draws on non-Western scholarship to explain international politics. World politics as it is explained to students is exclusively a kind of world politics that has been conceptualized and analysed by Western scholars’. Publishing provides another case in point. A recent empirical study shows that ‘hypothesis-testing’ works by American and other Global North scholars are published ‘approximately in proportion to submissions’ in flagship journals, while Global South scholars ‘fare less well’ in the review process (Breuning et al., 2018: 789). Put simply, notwithstanding ‘theoretical proliferation’ in IR and the on-going global power transformations characterised by ‘a shift to the East’, the discipline has not resulted in broader geographic or racial diversity in IR knowledge production or knowledge transmission. In this respect, critical IR scholars problematise the Western parochialism of the discipline, making a strong case for embracing a wider range of histories, experiences, knowledge claims, and theoretical perspectives, particularly those outside of the Anglo-American core of the West. In various names – ‘non-­Western’, ‘post-Western’, or ‘Global’ IR – heated debate over whether there are any substantial merits to ‘broadening IR’ by developing alternative approaches to ­Western-centric IR theory and what those alternatives would (or should) look like are taking place in contemporary IR (Hobson, 2012; Johnston, 2012; Ling, 2013; Acharya, 2014, 2016; Tickner, 2013, 2016; Buzan, 2016; Acharya and Buzan, 2017; Eun, 2016). Of course, contemporary events such as the rise of China have added momentum to attempts to develop new or indigenous

Introduction 3 theoretical frameworks. At the same time that China is rising, the Chinese IR community is attempting to establish the theoretical sources and normative rationales for alternative international studies by developing indigenous IR theories and concepts that reflect ‘Chinese characteristics’ (Qin, 2011, 2016a, 2016b; Yan, 2011; Zhang, 2012).

Issues at stake Despite this meaningful (and to some extent overdue) debate over IR theory in the context of opening the West-centred IR to alternative voices and perspectives, several acute questions still remain unclear or under-explored. For example, what is it that theory is meant to be doing when it comes to ‘broadening’ the theoretical horizons of IR? There are different understandings of what theory does (or what theory should do) in international studies (Dunne et al., 2013), and there are different ways of theorising international politics. Stefano Guzzini (2013: 533–535), for example, has proposed four modes of theorising – normative, meta-theoretical, ontological/constitutive, and empirical – each of which has different ends of science. Given this, the ongoing theory-building enterprises of the ‘broadening IR’ project need to ask themselves where or how they are situated in the debate on the meanings or roles of theory. Let us take an example from Chinese IR theory-building. As noted earlier, there has been growing interest in ‘indigenous’ theory-­ building in the Chinese IR community. The scope of ‘Chinese IR’ (i.e., indigenous Chinese thinking on International Relations) is largely accounted for by three established scholars and their historical or philosophical understandings of international politics: Qin Yaqing’s relational theory, Yan Xuetong’s moral realism, and Zhao Tingyang’s Tianxia theory. Although the intentions of individual scholars working on Chinese IR theory-building differ, this ongoing scholarly endeavour resonates with or has implications for Chinese political interests and official foreign policy. For example, although Zhao Tingyang’s Tianxia theory emphasises the principle of non-exclusion, a guiding assumption behind the theory resonates with the practical pursuit of an alternative international order that favours China. Zhao believes that Chinese IR scholars ought to develop an indigenous theory of International Relations in a way that opens up opportunities for China to play a greater and distinctive role in world politics. In his words, the historical significance of ‘rethinking China’ lies in recovering China’s own ability to think, reconstructing its world views, values, and methodologies and thinking about China’s future, Chinese concepts about the future and China’s role and responsibilities in the world. (Zhao, 2005: 14, see also Zhao, 2009) Going a step further, Liang Shoude spells out what ‘Chinese IR’ means. Chinese scholars, he suggests, should bring ‘Chinese characteristics’ to the fore in the study of international relations. ‘The end purpose of IR’ in China should

4  Yong-Soo Eun be ‘to safeguard China’s national sovereignty and to serve its national interest, and to carry on the historical tradition of Chinese culture’ (Liang 1994 quoted in Song, 2001: 61). The notion that disciplinary theory or knowledge needs to serve as a tool to promote the national interests is not uncommon in China; some even posit that ‘there is no separation’ between IR scholarship and governmentled foreign policy programmes in China (Wang, 2011: 533). A critical question becomes, then, how to develop alternative IR theories sensitive to the problem of the knowledge-power nexus? Another critical question that arises with the previous issue of alternative or indigenous IR theory-building enterprise is: How can we address theoretical divide or fragmentation? Many IR scholars observe that theoretical proliferation and pluralism have resulted in the fragmentation of the discipline. Since as early as 1989, terms such as ‘theoretical cacophony’ (Lapid, 1989: 238), ‘theoretical fragmentation’ (Wendt, 1991: 383), and ‘academic factionalism’ (Whyte, 2019: 1) have continued to appear in reflexive stocktaking on the state of the discipline. Our attempts (including this volume) to promote geographical or geo-epistemic diversity in international studies could complicate this state of ‘disarray’ (Wæver, 2013: 309) even further unless the question of how we can promote dialogue and engagement across theoretical divides in fragmented IR is addressed; a more detailed discussion is presented in Chapter 1, which maps the terrain of the ongoing debate over various forms of ‘non-Western’ IR theory-building enterprise and identifies what is missing in the debate.

Our contributions Neither the advocates nor the critics of the ‘broadening IR’ project properly address the aforementioned issues. Our book intends to fill this gap. First of all, as many scholars have already argued, we believe that IR needs to go beyond Western parochialism towards a pluralistic discipline in terms of the multiple dimensions of diversity, especially including geo-epistemic diversity. At the same time, however, we believe that there is also a need to go beyond fragmentation, a potential offshoot of our persistent pleas for diversity, and pluralism as a way to address that parochialism. That is, taking issue with ‘the current West-centrism of IR’ (Buzan, 2016: 156), we join in calling for more diversity and greater pluralism in IR theory and practice, yet we are also wary of a monotonic form of the ‘broadening IR’ project, for the issues at stake are not so simple. For instance, the more diversity IR has, the greater the number of dividing lines that are likely to emerge in the field, and the emergence of dividing lines would lead the already divided discipline of IR to what Colin Wight calls a ‘fragmented adhocracy’, which is a hindrance to knowledge accumulation and thus progress in IR. Against this backdrop, we hold that there is a need to go beyond both parochialism and fragmentation. Based on this shared assumption, our volume intends to address the following questions under three sets of subthemes, with the overarching title of Going beyond Parochialism and Fragmentation in the Study of International Relations.

Introduction 5 A first subtheme is problematising parochial IR from empirical and theoretical perspectives. Here we attempt to address the following questions: What is wrong with the existing set of Western-centric (i.e., mainstream) theories in IR from non-Western and global perspectives?; what is it that they do not (or perhaps cannot) tell us?; should we go beyond them?; and what would the benefits of doing so be? A second subtheme is rationalising pluralism and substantialising multiplicity. Under this theme, the questions we are interested in include: What theoretical or philosophical resources do we have in developing an alternative IR theory?; what is it that theory is meant to be doing?; and where or how can an alternative theory or meta-theory offer a greater understanding? A third subtheme is going beyond fragmented IR. Our key questions here are: What do rapid developments in the non-West imply for pluralism and fragmentation in IR theory?; how far can we go in encouraging pluralism, which may entail theoretical anarchy or a fragmented discipline?; and how can we establish and expand points of contact and common references across theories (and regions/cultures) in a fragmented IR? In sum, the main intellectual concerns of this book are problematising Western parochialism in IR, giving theoretical and epistemological substance to pluralism based on both Western and non-Western thoughts and experiences, and pondering the manifold and contested implications of pluralism and working out ways to move IR one step closer to a dialogic community. A key issue that cuts across all contributions in the volume is thus to go beyond both parochialism and fragmentation in international studies. Of course, each contribution approaches and debates this issue differently. Starting with T.V. Paul’s engagement, which calls into question mainstream IR security theory, our volume contributes to ‘broadening’ the parochial theoretical or epistemic horizon of IR. More specifically, in his chapter, Paul points out the imitations of neorealism and its signature arguments in Asian contexts and shows the usefulness of a pluralistic analysis. How can most small states in the South Asian region exercise influence on China and India and acquire substantial investment from both of the two big powers ‘without falling into the strategic orbit of either power?’, he asks. Although this question seems an ‘anomaly’ in the neorealist balance-of-power theory, Paul shows that ‘the state behaviour in the region . . . does not reflect the Cold War era style competition or cooperation but a mixed pattern of limited balancing and continued economic interactions’. This finding implies that we need theoretical and analytical diversity and dialogue keenly attentive to the relationship between ‘local’ agents and the ‘global’ economic environment. L.H.M. Ling follows up on the discussion about alternative ways of ‘knowing’ in IR and thus ‘doing’ IR with a deeper engagement with metatheory. Based on a thick understanding of local histories and indigenous philosophical knowledge in Asia, Ling suggests ‘epistemic compassion’ as an alternative to Eurocentric ‘epistemic violence’ marked by Hegelian dialectics. She argues that this epistemic compassion, which draws on Buddhist ontology (i.e., Interbeing) and a Daoist ‘trialectical’ epistemology (i.e., yin/yang dynamics), helps to prevent or mitigate

6  Yong-Soo Eun violence and increase the possibility of ‘local agency and global responsibility’; her careful discussion of China’s Belt and Road Initiative further elucidates her argument. With a broader focus on East Asian regionalism, Yong Wook Lee gives theoretical substance to ‘pluralistic’ thinking. In Chapter 4, Lee takes issue with the ‘individualistic ontology’ of mainstream IR theories derived mainly from Western history and Western philosophy of knowledge and suggests ‘relational ontology’ as an alternative. He argues that relational ontology, in which national interests are considered not as given outcomes but as emergent properties of specific relational contexts, can offer ‘a better analytical fit’ when it comes to understanding regionalism, particularly the dynamics of financial institutions in East Asia. Colin Wight turns our attention to the issue of theoretical fragmentation in IR and explains how it arises. Pointing out that theoretical fragmentation is ‘a severe barrier to the introduction of alternative visions of IR’, Wight identifies four factors that explain why IR has become ‘a fragmented adhocracy’; these include the ontological nature of the contemporary international political system and the academic division of labour in international studies. Among these factors, he underscores the way in which epistemology (or science) is understood in IR is the most problematic. IR scholars, Wight remarks, ‘treat [epistemology] as something one belongs to rather than something one uses’. That is, epistemologies in IR function as ‘identity markers’; new entrants to the discipline are thus to be faced with the problem of deciding which identity or ‘ism’ to join in order ‘to gain reputational advantage’. He notes that without rectifying such a limited understanding of epistemology and the current disciplinary structure of IR centred on a positivist way of knowing, opportunities for ‘a genuine opening up’ of IR to alternative voices will be limited. Although it seems ‘problematic’ viewed from the ideas put forth by Wight, Yong-Soo Eun takes ‘existing’ Western-centric IR theories as a necessary starting point for addressing the fragmentation of the discipline, more specifically ‘the West/non-West divide’ in international studies. On the basis of a premise that a conversation ‘among the likeminded’ – for example, among those interested in non-Western IR theory building – carries a great risk of the fragmentation of the discipline, Eun ponders how we can ensure ‘a two-way dialogue’ between Western and non-Western IR scholarships. To address this ‘how’ question, he discusses three different approaches to dialogue and clarifies what kind of thing dialogue should be in international studies. Defining dialogue as ‘reciprocal feedback from different perspectives for mutual learning’, Eun argues that an ‘instrumentalist’ approach to existing IR theories is appropriate, even necessary, to achieve this ‘mutual learning’. Non-Western IR scholars, Eun writes, need to ‘initiate’ dialogue; our efforts to advance indigenous perspectives on international relations should be ‘interlocked with existing IR knowledge claims, no matter how Western-centric their underlying epistemic or normative foundations are’. In the final chapter of our volume, Chaeyoung Yong looks to emotions, an intrinsic part of the social and political realm and thus also of international politics, for seeking or, more to the point, paving a useful pathway towards a more

Introduction 7 diverse and engaged IR. Based on a critical survey of a growing IR literature on emotions, Yong identifies and problematises the West-centrism in the literature. Then she shows in detail that to fully embrace non-Western experiences or voices in emotion studies will bring about substantial benefits in terms of rendering IR ‘more reflexive and pluralistic’. More importantly, Yong calls for an important caveat that emotion studies from non-Western perspectives should not be translated into a binary logic in which Western mainstream is treated as ‘the Other’. Rather, she notes that emotion and thus emotion studies can ‘bridge and connect multiple ideas between fragmented sides’. In this sense, Yong makes a case for ‘global emotion studies’ in which both Western and non-Western perspectives are appreciated and integrated when it comes to emotion studies. In sum, this volume unpacks concerns over the current West-centrism of IR, justifies the call for greater diversity and pluralism in the study and practice of IR, and addresses what is at stake in developing pluralistic international studies as a discipline from ‘global’ perspectives. Of course, the discussion in the volume is by no means exhaustive. Nor do I imply that the discussion offers fully satisfying answers to all of the complex questions and issues at stake regarding alternative IR theory-building enterprise and a broader project on ‘Global IR’. Far from giving definite answers, our collective work offers our own way outs and indicates critical aspects that we think IR needs to (re)consider in order to gain a firmer grasp on the complexities of the issues of diversity and parochialism in IR theory and practice. More research on our suggestions is thus essential and will be most welcome.

References Acharya A (2014) Global International Relations (IR) and regional worlds: A new agenda for international studies. International Studies Quarterly 58(4): 647–659. Acharya A (2016) Advancing Global IR: Challenges, contentions, and contributions. International Studies Review 18(1): 4–15. Acharya A and Buzan B (2017) Why is there no non-western international relations theory? Ten years on. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 17(3): 341–370. Balzacq T and Baele S (2017) The third debate and postpositivism. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies. Available at: https://oxfordre.com/­ internationalstudies/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.001.0001/­ acrefore-9780190846626-e-104 (accessed 21 August 2019). Breuning M, Feinberg A, Gross BI, Martinez M, Sharma R, and Ishiyama J (2018) How international is political science? Patterns of submission and publication in the American political science review. PS: Political Science & Politics 51(4): 789–798. Buzan B (2016) Could IR be different? International Studies Review 18(1): 155–157. Dunne T, Hansen L, and Wight C (2013) The end of international relations theory? European Journal of International Relations 19(3): 405–425. Eun Y-S (2016) Pluralism and Engagement in the Discipline of International Relations. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. Guzzini S (2013) The ends of International Relations theory: Stages of reflexity and modes of theorizing. European Journal of International Relations 19(3): 521–541.

8  Yong-Soo Eun Hagmann J and Biersteker T (2014) Beyond the published discipline: Toward a critical pedagogy of international studies. European Journal of International Relations 20(2): 291–315. Hobson J (2012) The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory, 1760–2010. New York: Cambridge University Press. Jackson PT (2016) The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations: Philosophy of Science and Its Implications for the Study of World Politics, 2nd edn. London: Routledge. Johnston AI (2012) What (if anything) does East Asia tell us about international relations theory? Annual Review of Political Science 15(1): 35–52. Joseph J and Wight C (eds) (2010) Scientific Realism and International Relations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kratochwil F (2003) The monologue of ‘science’. International Studies Review 5(1): 124–128. Kristensen PM (2015) Revisiting the ‘American social science’: Mapping the geography of international relations. International Studies Perspectives 16(3): 246–269. Lake D (2016) White man’s IR: An intellectual confession. Perspectives on Politics 14(4): 1112–1122. Lapid Y (1989) The third debate: On the prospects of international theory in a postpositivist era. International Studies Quarterly 33(3): 235–254. Levine D and McCourt D (2018) Why does pluralism matter when we study politics? A view from contemporary international relations. Perspectives on Politics 16(1): 92–109. Liang Shoude (1994) Lun Guoji Zhengzhixue de Zhongguo Tese [On Chinese characteristics of International Politics studies]. Guoji Zhengzhi Yanjiu 1:15–21. Ling LHM (2013) Worlds beyond Westphalia: Daoist dialectics and the ‘China threat’. Review of International Studies 39(3): 549–568. Ling LHM (2014) The Dao of World Politics: Towards a Post-Westphalian, Worldist International Relations. London: Routledge. Mearsheimer J and Walt SM (2013) Leaving theory behind: Why simplistic hypothesis testing is bad for IR. European Journal of International Relations 19(3): 427–457. Qin Y (2011) Development of international relations theory in China: Progress through debates. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 11(2): 231–257. Qin Y (2016a) A relational theory of world politics. International Studies Review 18(1): 33–47. Qin Y (2016b) Recent developments toward a Chinese school of IR theory. Available at: www.e-ir.info/2016/04/26/recent-developments-toward-a-chinese-school-of-irtheory/ (accessed 17 April 2018). Rengger N (2015) Pluralism in international relations theory: Three questions. International Studies Perspectives 16(1): 32–39. Song X (2001) Building international relations theory with Chinese characteristics. Journal of Contemporary China 10(1): 61–74. Tickner AB (2013) Core, periphery and (neo)imperialist international relations. European Journal of International Relations 19(3): 627–646. Tickner JA (2016) Knowledge is power: Challenging IR’s Eurocentric narrative. International Studies Review 18(1): 157–159. Wang Y-K (2011) Harmony and War: Confucian Culture and Chines Power Politics. New York: Columbia University Press. Wæver O (2013) Still a discipline after all these debates? In: Dunne T, Kurki M, and Smith S (eds) International Relations Theories. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Introduction 9 Wendt A (1991) Bridging the theory/meta-theory gap in international relations. Review of International Studies 17(4): 383–392. Whyte C (2019) Can we change the topic, please? Assessing the theoretical construction of international relations scholarship. International Studies Quarterly 63(2): 432–447. Wight C (2013) The dualistic grounding of monism: Science, pluralism and typological truncation. Millennium 41(2): 326–345. Yan X (2011) Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Zhang F (2012) ‘The Tsinghua approach’ and the inception of Chinese theories of international relations. The Chinese Journal of International Politics 5(1): 73–102. Zhao T (2005) Tianxia tixi: shijie zhidu zhexue daolun [The Tianxia System: ­Introduction to the Philosophy of World Institutions]. Nanjing: Jiangshu Higher ­Education Publishing House. Zhao T (2009) A political world philosophy in terms of all-under-heaven (tianxia). Diogenes 56(1): 5–18.

1 Opening up the debate over ‘non-Western’ International Relations Yong-Soo Eun

Introduction International Relations (IR) ‘marginalizes those outside the core countries of the West’ (Acharya, 2014: 647). That is, IR as a discipline is ‘too Western centric’ (Acharya, 2016; Tickner, 2013). IR scholarship has long been focused on questions of ‘importance to the great powers of the Eurocentric Westphalian system’ (Tickner, 2016: 158); much of mainstream IR theory is ‘simply an abstraction of Western history’ (Buzan, 2016: 156). Furthermore, IR continues to seek ‘to parochially celebrate or defend or promote the West as the proactive subject of, and as the highest or ideal normative referent in, world politics’ (Hobson, 2012: 1; see also Lake, 2016; Ling, 2013; Tickner, 2013). In this respect, many IR scholars have called for ‘broadening’ the theoretical or discoursive horizon of IR while problematising the Western parochialism of the discipline, and it is increasingly acknowledged that IR needs to embrace a wider range of histories, experiences, knowledge claims, and theoretical perspectives, particularly those outside of the West (Acharya, 2017). In addition, calling for more diversity in IR theory and greater pluralism in the discipline is justified due to not only the under-representation (or marginalisation) of non-Western worlds in the theoretical study of IR but also the intrinsic complexity, variety, and contingency inherent in twenty-first-century global politics (Breslin, 2011; Ferguson, 2015; Katzenstein, 2011, 2012; Lake, 2016; Paul, 2016). Of course, as will be discussed in detail in the following section, contemporary events such as the rise of China have contributed to the development of alternative (or indigenous) theoretical frameworks (Ling, 2014; Qin, 2011, 2016a; Yan, 2011; Zhang, 2012; Zhao, 2009).

Mapping the terrain of the ongoing debate over ‘non-Western’ IR In these contexts, whether there are any substantial merits to developing a ‘nonWestern’ IR theory and what such a theory would (or should) look like are topics of heated debate in contemporary IR. This interest in the theorisation

Opening up the debate over ‘non-Western’ IR 11 of ‘non-Western’ IR results largely from discontent with the epistemic value of mainstream theories, namely realism, liberalism, and constructivism, all of which have ‘Western’ – or, more specifically, ‘Eurocentric’ (Patomaki, 2007) – analytical or normative underpinnings (Acharya and Buzan, 2017; Johnston, 2012). Western/Eurocentric theories, the criticism goes, misrepresent and therefore misunderstand much of ‘the rest of the world’ (Acharya, 2014: 647). In addition, advocates of ‘non-Western’ IR theory building often point out that Asia has cultures, institutions, norms, and worldviews that are inherently different from those derived from or advanced in Europe.

Long-standing interests and growing endorsement Consider, for example, David Kang’s critique. In his well-known piece, ‘Getting Asia Wrong’, Kang (2003: 57–58) calls for ‘new analytical frameworks’, noting that ‘most international relations theories derived from the European experience of the past four centuries . . . do a poor job as they are applied to Asia’. Critiques of this kind have long served as a starting premise in theoretical studies on Asian IR. Almost two decades ago, Peter Katzenstein (1997: 1) wrote as follows: ‘Theories based on Western, and especially West European, experience have been of little use in making sense of Asian regionalism’. Similarly, Jeffrey Herbst (2000: 23) commented that ‘[i]nternational relations theory, derived from an extended series of case studies of Europe, has become notorious for falling short of accounting for the richness and particularity of Asia’s regional politics’. Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan have made a similar argument in their edited volume, Non-Western International Relations Theory: ‘The puzzle for us is that the sources of international relations theory conspicuously fail to correspond to the global distribution of its subjects. Our question is “why is there no non-Western international theory?” ’ (Acharya and Buzan, 2010: 1). Here, China’s rise has added momentum to long-standing attempts to build new or indigenous theoretical frameworks – especially within the Chinese IR community. Yaqing Qin at the China Foreign Affairs University argues that ‘Chinese IR’ theory ‘is likely and inevitabl[y] to emerge along with the great economic and social transformation that China has been experiencing’ (Qin, 2007: 313). The scholarly practices of building an IR theory ‘with Chinese characteristics’ are a case in point (Callahan, 2001, 2008). Although consensus on what ‘Chinese characteristics’ actually are has yet to be determined, many Chinese (and non-Chinese) scholars hold that the establishment of a Chinese IR theory or a ‘Chinese School’ of IR is desirable or ‘natural’ (Kristensen and Nielsen, 2013: 19; Qin, 2016b); in this light, Confucianism, Marxism, ‘Tianxia’ (all-­under-heaven), and the Chinese tributary system are all cited as theoretical resources for Chinese IR (see, e.g., Kang, 2010; Qin, 2016a; Song, 2001; Wan, 2012; Wang, 2011; Yan, 2011; Zhang, 2012; Zhao, 2009). In short, there has been a great deal of studies that aim to ameliorate the Western parochialism of IR. This trend includes a strong and increasing commitment to the development of ‘national schools’ among non-Western (in particular,

12  Yong-Soo Eun Chinese) IR scholars. In other words, many IR scholars in non-Western countries have made considerable attempts to discern their nations’ unique social ontologies or historical-cultural traditions in their quest to develop an indigenous IR theory or ‘non-Western’ IR.

Criticisms At the same time, a number of empirical, epistemological, and normative criticisms have been raised against attempts to develop a Chinese IR theory and (by extension) ‘non-Western’ IR. Empirically, Asian IR are not fundamentally different from those of Europe, in the sense that anarchy, survival, and the balance of power have been the key operating principles of state-to-state interactions since the pre-modern period. For example, based on a detailed archive analysis of China’s foreign relations under the Song and Ming dynasties, Yuan-kang Wang concludes that in the ‘anarchical’ international environment at that time ‘Confucian culture did not constrain . . . [Chinese] leaders’ decisions to use force; in making such decisions, leaders have been mainly motivated by their assessment of the balance of power between China and its adversary’ (Wang, 2011: 181). This finding leads Wang to defend the theoretical utility of structural realism based on the Westphalian system. Epistemologically, too, critics point out that it is ‘unscientific’ to emphasise and/or incorporate a particular culture or the worldview of a particular nation or region into IR theory, for a legitimately ‘scientific’ theory should seek ‘universality, generality’ (Choi, 2008; Song, 2001). Mainstream (positivist) IR theorists and methodologists argue that IR studies ought to seek observable general patterns of states’ external behaviour, develop empirically verifiable ‘covering law’ explanations, and test their hypotheses through cross-case comparisons. For example, Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba make it clear that generality is the single most important measure of progress in IR, stressing that ‘the question is less whether . . . a theory is false or not . . . than how much of the world the theory can help us explain’ (King et al., 1994: 101, emphasis in original). From this perspective, any attempt to develop an indigenous IR theory, be it non-Western or Western, is suspect because it delimits the general applicability of theory. In the case of a Chinese IR theory, criticism of this kind can increasingly be found in studies by younger Chinese IR scholars. According to Xinning Song (2001: 68), Chinese scholars, especially younger ones who have studied in the West, think that it is ‘unscientific or unnecessary to emphasize the so-called Chinese characteristics’. A similar criticism can be found among Korean IR scholars in regard to attempts to build a ‘Korean-style’ IR theory (Cho, 2015). Critics of the ‘Korean School’ of IR frequently ask: How can we make a distinctively Korean IR theory while trying to be as generalisable as possible? In Jongkun Choi’s (2008: 215) words, ‘any theorising based on Korea’s unique historical experiences must be tested under the principle of generality’. Normative criticisms of attempts to build a ‘non-Western’ IR theory highlight the relationship between power and knowledge. Critics point out that although

Opening up the debate over ‘non-Western’ IR 13 theory-building enterprises from the perspective of the ‘non-West’ commonly begin by problematising Western-dominated IR, the ongoing scholarly practices and discourses associated with ‘non-Western’ IR can also entail (or reproduce) the same hierarchic and exclusionary structure of knowledge production, which can fall prey to particular national or regional interests. For example, in his discussion of Chinese visions of world order, William Callahan doubts the applicability of Tianxia. He claims that what the notion of Tianxia does is ‘blur’ the conceptual and practical ‘boundaries between empire and globalism, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism’. Rather than help us move towards a ‘post-hegemonic’ world, Tianxia serves to be a philosophical foundation upon which ‘China’s hierarchical governance is updated for the twenty-first century’ (Callahan, 2008: 749). Supporting this view, Ching-Chang Chen (2011: 1) argues that: Re-envisioning IR in Asia is not about discovering or producing as many ‘indigenous’ national schools of IR as possible. Scholars . . . must also recognise and resist the pitfalls of equating the mere increase of non-Western voices with the genuine democratisation of the field, if they are to live up to their responsibility to jointly construct a non-hegemonic discipline. In a similar vein, Josuke Ikeda (2011: 12–13) argues that ‘there needs to be a “post-Western” turn rather [than a] “non-Western” [one] . . . in order to address another kind of “Westfailure” in IR theory’. In short, critics argue that although it is our ‘responsibility’ to make IR more pluralistic and democratic, ‘most intellectual endeavors to construct non-Western IRT in Asia run the risk of inviting nativism’ (Chen, 2011: 16). Most recently, Andrew Hurrell (2016: 149–150) has added that although developing culturally specific ways of understanding the world ‘undoubtedly encourages greater pluralism’, attempts to do so can also lead to a national and regional ‘inwardness’ that works to reproduce the very ‘ethnocentricities’ that are being challenged.

Response: ‘Global IR’ Sharing these concerns, more recent studies have begun to pay greater attention to the globalisation of IR in an attempt to render the discipline more inclusive. It sets out to safeguard against a tug of war between Western and non-Western IR and a subsumption of one of them in favour of the other. Amitav Acharya is probably the most passionate scholar in this regard. In his presidential address at the annual convention of the International Studies Association in 2014, Acharya explained what ‘Global IR’ is or should be. His background assumption is this: IR does ‘not reflect the voices, experiences and contributions of the vast majority of the societies and states in the world’ (Acharya, 2014: 647). Yet, instead of arguing for a counter (i.e., ‘non-Western’) approach, he presented the possibility of a ‘Global IR’ that transcends the divide between the ‘West and the Rest’. In his views, IR should be ‘a truly inclusive’ discipline that recognises its multiple and diverse foundations. What ‘Global IR’ calls for is not to discard or disavow

14  Yong-Soo Eun Western-centric IR but rather to render it more inclusive and broader so that it reflects voices and experiences outside the West more fully (Acharya, 2016). In this regard, Acharya and Buzan (2017) have recently noted as follows: While the development of national schools can contribute to the goal of a Global IR . . . our key concern about any national school is whether it can ‘deprovincialize’ – i.e. travel beyond the national or regional context from which it is derived in the first place. (Acharya and Buzan, 2017: 361)

What is missing in the debate? To summarise, the terrain of the ongoing debate over ‘broadening’ the theoretical horizons of IR embraces a wide range of socio-epistemic concerns with varying emphases; there are meaningful contributions and developments in this scholarly endeavour, whether ‘non-Western’, ‘post-Western’, or ‘Global’ IR. However, despite such a significant effort and discussion to go beyond the disciplinary dominance of Western IR scholarship, several critical questions and issues still remain unclear and under-explored. For example, neither advocates nor critics properly address acute issues and contested implications associated with various forms of ‘non-Western’ IR theorisation, namely theoretical pluralism. Although calls for the ‘democratisation’, ‘globalisation’, and ‘diversity’ of IR theory frequently appear in discussions, they remain a plea or an aspiration without specifying how they can be realised. Further, diversity in IR theory is often deemed to be an appropriate premise upon which the attempts to search for national or regional ‘characteristics’ are undertaken without pondering the manifold and contested implications that should actually be drawn from the premise. The remainder of this chapter intends to identify what is missing in the debate. I suggest that there are (at least) three sets of questions that require more careful attention in our discussion. First, does IR need to embrace theoretical pluralism? Second, to what extent has contemporary IR become pluralistic? Third, should IR pursue the promotion of dialogue and engagement across theoretical and spatial divides? Of course, each of these questions invites several subsequent questions. For instance, the question of whether pluralism needs to take place in IR requires us to think through the extent and types of diversity and pluralism that we (ought to) pursue. Likewise, the normative ‘ought-to’ question related to dialogue and engagement leads to additional questions, such as that of ‘how-to’. I will elaborate on these questions and their implications in the ensuing pages.

Does IR need to embrace pluralism? If so, how much? Obviously, pluralism is a core premise upon which ‘non-Western’, ‘post-­Western’, and ‘Global’ IR projects are all founded. As discussed earlier, ‘non-Western’ IR theory-building enterprises reject the long-lasting dominance of Western/American IR scholarship over the field and are dissatisfied with the corresponding

Opening up the debate over ‘non-Western’ IR 15 marginalisation of non-Western worlds in international studies. Their advocates persistently argue for the ‘broadening’ of IR beyond the disciplinary dominance of a particular region and call for embracing a wider range of theoretical, historical, or normative perspectives. In Acharya’s words, IR should ‘not impose any particular idea or approach on others but respects diversity’, and it should be grounded in ‘world history, theoretical pluralism’ (Acharya, 2016: 4–5). Qin’s ‘relational theory’ of IR, which emphasises ‘multiple cultures’ and the high degree of ‘intimacy’ in our ‘pluralistic world’ (Qin, 2016a: 39), is an attempt to give theoretical substance to Acharya’s idea of ‘pluralistic universalism’. Yet, a pluralistic approach as a ‘way of knowing’ is not without its critics: There are a considerable number of IR scholars who favour epistemic unity or theoretical synthesis over pluralism. For example, John Mearsheimer (2016: 147) has explicitly stated that he ‘disagrees’ with the growing calls for broadening the theoretical horizons of American-centric IR. They believe that pluralism can leave us with ‘a divided discipline’ that not only fails to speak with one voice but cannot agree on ‘what we should be studying’, and thus pluralism ‘masks’ the problem that we have ‘an incoherent field’ (Schmidt, 2008: 298; see also van der Ree, 2014: 218). In this vein, Michael Brecher and Frank Harvey (2002: 2) are deeply concerned with the lack of progress and knowledge accumulation in the field, pointing out that IR has difficulty ‘agreeing on what they have accomplished’ thus far. It is for these reasons that several scholars propose an epistemic synthesis, which has variously been referred to as a ‘paradigmatic synthesis’ of research traditions in IR (Brecher and Harvey, 2002), the theoretical ‘integration’ of different levels of analysis (Hudson, 2007), ‘analytic eclecticism’ based on the mixing and matching of approaches (Cornut, 2015; Sil and Katzenstein, 2010), ‘multi-method’ research that combines quantitative and qualitative methods and ‘middle ground epistemologies’ that combine positivist and interpretivist epistemologies (Bennett, 2015; Collier and Elman, 2008), and an ‘ontological synthesis’ based on ‘quantum consciousness theory’ (Wendt, 2015). The point is that pluralism as such is not without controversy, although the view appears unproblematic among proponents of broadening IR beyond American/ Western-centrism. Therefore, the ongoing ‘broadening IR projects’ – be they ‘non-Western’, ‘post-Western’, or ‘Global’ IR – ought to more fully address the contested implications of their underlying premise, namely diversity and pluralism. What is more, although it is increasingly agreed that diversity and pluralism are ‘desirable’ for a ‘better future’ for IR (Dunne et al., 2013; Hellmann, 2003; Jackson, 2015; Kratochwil, 2003; Lake, 2016), we also have to address how much – in other words, to what extent – IR should embrace pluralism. This question is of great importance in the ongoing debate because the answer affects the degree to which the contour and the contents of the ‘non-Western’ IR theory-building enterprises are to be either expanded (facilitated) or narrowed (constrained). Nevertheless, even in recent contributions to the broadening IR projects, this question is either ignored entirely or treated as something that can be ‘put aside’ (Bilgin, 2016: 5). I think the question of whether and to what degree IR needs to embrace pluralism can only be answered after we have a clear understanding of

16  Yong-Soo Eun the current state of diversity in IR. Put otherwise, we need to first examine and comprehend where IR currently stands in terms of diversity in order to determine where it should stand.

The extent of diversity in IR: ‘what types’ of diversity are we talking about? Contemporary IR literature in general and arguments regarding ‘non-Western’ IR theorisation in particular have a slim understanding of the extent to which contemporary IR has become diverse and pluralistic; this is mainly due to their partial and limited attention. The simplest way to understand the extent of diversity in IR scholarship is to look at how many knowledge claims exist. Even so, to understand diversity in this numerical sense is not as simple as it may appear because knowledge claims are associated with several complex dimensions, including ontological, epistemological, theoretical, methodological, praxical, and geographical ones. Furthermore, even if we zoom in on ‘theoretical’ dimension, we need to look at diversity in terms of not only the number of theories available in the field but also the epistemological, methodological, and empirical aspects of diversity, for all of them relate to theory building and theory testing. Unfortunately, however, the ongoing debate tends to focus attention on only the theoretical dimension; furthermore, theoretical diversity tends to be approached narrowly, in terms of the geographical origins of key IR concepts, theories, or theorists. For example, although the ‘Global IR’ project intends to transcend the West/non-West divide, its main claim is made along geographical or geopolitical lines: Either inside or outside of the West. It rests on geopolitical assumptions that IR often ‘marginalizes those outside the core countries of the West’ and that scholars beyond the Anglo-American core have the capabilities and resources necessary to render IR ‘truly’ global (Acharya, 2014: 647). In this sense, Wemheuer-Vogelaar et al. (2016: 18) note, ‘geography plays a central role in the Global IR Debate’, and ‘the Global IR literature repeatedly categorizes scholars into . . . regional and national schools’. Interestingly, their study (Wemheuer-Vogelaar et al., 2016: 24), based on the 2014 TRIP survey data, shows that non-Western IR scholars ‘are more likely to have geographically bounded perceptions of IR communities’ than their Western counterparts. Of course, it is true that non-Western worlds and their voices sit on the margins of the discipline; we must grapple with this marginalisation or underrepresentation. The point is not that these geographically based concerns are misplaced but that the current terrain of the ‘non-Western’ or ‘Global’ IR debate needs to extend to issues of epistemology and methodology in order to see the extent of the ‘parochialism’ of IR more clearly and thus ameliorate it. This is especially necessary, given that there are conflicting views of the extent to which IR has actually become diverse and pluralistic. A cursory survey of the IR literature on pluralism and the sociology of the field will suffice to illustrate this point. On the one hand, some scholars argue that the discipline has already become pluralistic and diverse. For example, Nicholas Rengger notes that contemporary

Opening up the debate over ‘non-Western’ IR 17 IR is ‘a plural, and pluralist, field. . . . Whether one likes it or not . . . that is simply the reality’ (Rengger, 2015: 32). Likewise, Tim Dunne, Lene Hansen, and Colin Wight argue that ‘IR now seems to have settled into an uneasy truce on the question of pluralism’ due to ‘the proliferation of theories’ in the discipline (Dunne et al., 2013: 405, 416). On the other hand, the argument that IR is still monistic and parochial is also repeatedly made, not only in the ‘non-Western’ IR theorisation literature but also in the IR literature on postpositivism and reflexivity. A recent work by Inanna Hamati-Ataya is a case in point. Calling for ‘strong reflexivity’, she argues that ‘three decades after the launch of the post-positivist critique, however, reflexive IR . . . remains located at the margins of the margins of the discipline’ (Hamati-Ataya, 2012: 670, 2014: 171–172). Similarly, in a discussion of the state of theoretical diversity in IR, Christian Reus-Smit (2013: 604) observes that ‘[t]raditionally, mainstream International Relations scholars (and political scientists) confined the field to empirical-theoretic inquiry on [positivist] epistemological principle. . . . The tenuous nature of this position is now widely acknowledged, increasingly by mainstream scholars’. And David Lake argues that ‘positivists either subsumed the critiques offered by the reflectivists . . . or just simply ignored and marginalized them’ (Lake, 2013: 570). It is in this respect that Patrick Jackson calls for ‘a broad and pluralistic definition of science’ based on a variety of ontologies (Jackson, 2011: 32, 193). Given all of the previous examples, the following question arises: What types of diversity are we talking about? Depending on our answer to this question, our understanding of the extent to which IR has become diverse and pluralistic will vary substantially, as will our rationales for and approaches to the ‘non-­Western’ and ‘Global’ IR projects. For example, if projects to broaden IR consider the issue of the hierarchy of knowledge in terms of not only geography (i.e., ­Western-centric IR) but also epistemology and methodology (i.e., the dominance of positivism), then their proposals can find common ground with post-positivist IR scholarship, whose epistemological underpinnings are marginalised by both the West and the non-West. Let us take an example from Chinese IR. Several scholars have expected that ‘US parochialism’ and growing interest in IR theory in the non-Western countries would lead to the ‘waning of American disciplinary power’ while opening up ‘new spaces’ for international studies (Tickner, 2013: 629; Tickner and Waever, 2009). Furthermore, considerable attempts to develop an indigenous IR theory ‘with Chinese characteristics’ have been made by Chinese scholars for more than two decades. Contrary to the general expectation, however, the research trends in the American and Chinese IR communities are quite similar in terms of epistemology and methodology. The latter also lacks sufficient attention to alternative or critical approaches. For example, according to the data provided by Eun’s empirical analysis, 78% of theoretical IR studies in China fit within the existing mainstream theoretical paradigms in IR – namely, neorealism and neoliberalism – both of which ‘lie within the methodological and epistemological ambit of positivism’ (Eun, 2016: 33). Recent studies on developments in IR theory

18  Yong-Soo Eun in China reach similar conclusions. David Shambaugh’s work (2011: 347) that analyses the articles published between 2005 and 2009 in Chinese IR journals demonstrates that realism, liberalism, and constructivism dominate Chinese IR theory articles – with realist articles being the most numerous. Similarly, Yaqing Qin (2011: 249) observes that ‘most of the research works in China in the last 30 years have been using the three mainstream American IR theories [realism, liberalism, and constructivism]’. What the previous discussion indicates is clear: The hierarchy of knowledge and scholarship is an issue that cuts across several realms of inquiry in IR, beyond the geopolitical influence or geo-historical origins of theory. In particular, the lack of diversity in IR can be seen in terms of epistemology and methodology, as the case of Chinese IR shows. The ‘marginalisation’ of post-positivist scholarship in IR exists everywhere, the West and the non-West alike. As it stands, however, the lack of epistemological or methodological diversity and how it is connected with the marginalisation of non-Western voices in IR do not receive the attention they deserve in the ongoing debate. Too much attention is being paid to only one dimension of diversity, namely the geographical origins or historical foundations of theory.

Should IR promote dialogue across theoretical and spatial divides? If so, how? What has been discussed thus far ultimately asks us to consider the issue of theoretical fragmentation, a potential offshoot of our persistent pleas for diversity and pluralism as a way to address ‘the current West-centrism of IR’ (Buzan, 2016: 156). That is, regardless of whether we achieved a consensus on the extent and types of diversity that we (ought to) pursue, the goal would remain the same from the perspective of the ‘broadening IR’ project, be it ‘non-Western’, ‘postWestern’, or ‘Global’ IR. To put it in the simplest terms, a shared goal means greater diversity. This, however, can raise concerns about the fragmentation of IR scholarship. For instance, the more diversity IR has, the greater the number of dividing lines that are likely to emerge in the field, and the emergence of dividing lines would lead the already divided discipline of IR to what Oren (2016: 571) calls a ‘fragmented adhocracy’, which is a hindrance to knowledge accumulation and thus progress in IR. This, as mentioned earlier, is part of the reason that some IR scholars take issue with pluralism (Schmidt, 2008: 298). In particular, greater divergence between the racially (or regionally) ordered professions of the field could place IR’s disciplinary coherence at risk. Daniel Levine and David McCourt (2018: 104) note that ‘a time may come – or, perhaps, has come – when IR scholars from different professional milieux lack any shared points of reference’. In response, scholars working on broadening IR, particularly in the name of ‘Global IR’, often suggest that IR needs to engage in active ‘dialogue’ across theoretical and spatial divides. Hurrell (2016: 150), for example, notes that Global

Opening up the debate over ‘non-Western’ IR 19 IR should aim to have ‘a far broader conversation’ regarding differently situated accounts and concepts about IR. Acharya (2011) makes this point clear: My main argument is that while one cannot and should not seek to displace existing (or future) theories of IR that may substantially originate from Western ideas and experiences, it is possible, through dialogue and discovery, to build alternative theories . . . that have their origin in the South. (Acharya, 2011: 620) Elsewhere, he has added that ‘encouraging debate and dialogue across perspectives . . . is a core purpose of the Global IR project’ (Acharya, 2016: 14, emphasis added). Going a step further, Acharya and Buzan posit that the project is ‘more likely to fail if it does not draw in the broadest group of scholars, including those in the Western mainstream’ (Acharya and Buzan, 2017: 354). ‘Encouraging dialogue’ is not as simple as it may appear, however. As Kimberly Hutchings aptly notes, ‘dialogue’ can be a mere exchange or encounter that is already ‘staged and scripted’ by the mainstream (namely the West and positivists in the case of IR); as such, it could turn out to be ‘a piece of rhetorical bullying’ (Hutchings, 2011: 645). In addition, a ‘staged and scripted’ dialogue across theoretical paradigms can lead to a tug of war between rival camps over truth claims and a turning inwards. Indeed, this is one of the hallmarks of the so-called great debates in IR; in response, some scholars suggest that IR ought to pursue ‘working-within-paradigms’ rather than ‘working-across-paradigms’ (Lake, 2013: 567, 580). Despite these concerns, many IR scholars, including Hutchings, do not oppose dialogue per se. Indeed, ‘vigorous’ dialogue across cultures and regions and active engagement between theoretical perspectives are frequently proposed by those who wish to broaden IR. Moreover, this is also the case in reflexive discussions regarding the prospects of IR and IR theory. The ‘integrative pluralism’ advanced by Dunne, Hansen, and Wight is a case in point. In ‘The End of International Relations Theory?’ they argue that IR should move towards ‘integrative pluralism’ in which not only diversity but also – and more importantly – ‘engagement’ across competing theoretical paradigms is encouraged (Dunne et al., 2013: 416–417). In a related vein, Patrick Jackson foregrounds ‘engaged pluralism’, which ‘brings unlike elements into dialogue with one another without fusing them into a specious synthesis’ (Jackson, 2011: 207). More than a decade ago, Yosef Lapid argued that if ‘pluralism . . . is the most feasible and deserving destination for the international relations theory enterprise in the foreseeable future, then dialogue must figure prominently on our agenda at the dawn of the twentyfirst century’ (Lapid, 2003: 129). In short, the importance of dialogue per se is readily acknowledged in the IR literature. The question then is how we can ensure proper dialogue and engagement across theoretical and spatial divides without subjugating marginalised perspectives or engaging in a narcissistic turf war. This question is important because what the

20  Yong-Soo Eun ‘non-Western’ theory-building project aims to achieve could fragment the field even further. It is also important because those who make a plea for active dialogue and engagement do not generally elaborate on how we could embark on this project. To be sure, there are a few exceptions (Bilgin, 2016; Hutchings, 2011); in general, however, our call for dialogue is not well matched by a corresponding elaboration of how it can be realised. As a result, ‘dialogue, a persistent dream in IR, remains elusive, recurrent cycles of small openings followed by closure’ (Pasha, 2011: 684). In the context of the ‘non-Western’ IR theorisation, in particular, the existing literature lacks a methodological understanding of how we can establish and expand useful ‘points of contact’ across fragmented understandings resulted from both the Western parochialism of IR and monological attempts to develop non-Western IR. In short, the question of how to promote a two-way dialogue between Western and non-Western IR scholarship needs to be tacked head-on. In this regard, it is first of all necessary to clarify what kind of thing dialogue is and should be precisely because, in social-scientific disciplines, dialogue can have several different connotations. Hutchings (2011: 639) comments, rightly in my view, that debate and discourse ‘help us to expand the parameters of our disciplinary imaginations and pave the way for a new era of discovery’. If so, the ongoing debate should become richer and wider. In order to open up parochial IR, the opening up of the current debate and the discourse thereof is also vital.

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2 When balance of power meets globalization T.V. Paul

Introduction Dominant international relations (IR) perspectives on balance of power and state behaviour are heavily focused on the European and United States–Soviet historical experience of yesteryear. The European model emerged out of a material condition of the colonial/imperial era and the Cold War rivalry and alliance system, although international institutions, democracy and economic interdependence helped shape the model in the post-World War II era. The realist conception of balancing, relying on arms build-up and alliance often have trouble explaining state behaviour in many parts of the world today, especially in South Asia and Southeast Asia. To many realists, small states are in general expected to balance powerful actors by joining countervailing coalitions or bandwagon with the most powerful one (Schweller, 2002: 10–18; Walt, 1987: 8; Waltz, 1979: 127). In South Asia, it seems most small states have avoided balancing and bandwagoning in the classic sense and retained their strategic autonomies up to a point. The question as to whether small states balance, bandwagon or remain neutral in a structural conflict involving two rising powers is an important issue unanswered in much of IR literature. The changes brought about by intensified globalization, especially economic globalization, have tied most countries at an unprecedented level. The South Asia region has also been globalizing in terms of extra-regional trade and economic relations, although intra-regional economic interactions still remain low. Smaller South Asian countries have been most active in developing high levels of trade links with China, Asia’s economic superpower and leading military power. However, very few of them have joined in a balancing or bandwagoning coalition with Beijing to extract more resources. Instead, they have engaged in complex bargaining to gain economic assistance from key states in the region, China and India in particular. Yet, they also have been able to muster considerable economic support from both without forming military coalitions with either. The two rising powers are motivated by the fear of the smaller states joining in a coalition with their opponent in the future, but they do not want to fully abandon burgeoning economic links between each other by upsetting the regional order too drastically. As a preventive strategy, the two rising powers attempt to outbid in

When balance of power meets globalization 25 giving economic concessions to the smaller states in the region (with China having an advantage given its deep pockets) without a whole lot of tangible results in return. As a Chinese scholar has contended, the new order has offered smaller states ‘room to maneuver’ and ‘upwards mobility’, although it needs to be seen how far this trend can continue (Xingi, 2017). This ‘power of the weak’ obviously has limitations but has worked thus far to their advantage. What explains the relative success of smaller states of South Asia to develop equidistance with key major powers in the security arena and at the same time extract resources from them? Why aren’t they balancing or bandwagoning in the classic sense? What explains the relative difficulty of both China and India to compel full allegiance and form balancing or bandwagoning coalitions with the smaller states in the region? The key argument I make is that the structural conditions created by economic globalization and the limited power competition between rising powers and established states have generated new opportunities and constraints on state behaviour, especially in the balancing arena for larger and smaller states alike. The new global security environment calls for revising our existing theories that privilege great powers or liberal theories that place too much significance in economic interdependence alone. Economic globalization and interdependence theories have not yet explained the special asymmetrical opportunities weaker actors gain in different strategic contexts similar to what is happening in the contemporary world. Weaker states have adopted asymmetrical strategies to extract resources from their larger neighbours who are aspiring to be leading states in the international system. What is new here from the Cold War days? Although a few allied states such as Korea, Turkey, Pakistan, Israel and Egypt were successful in extracting geostrategic rents from the United States during the Cold War era, the big difference was that these states had to offer services, especially military bases, to the major power ally. The weaker allies were able to influence US policy through formal bargaining, developing strong links with the US governmental agencies and influencing public opinion (Keohane, 1971: 161–182; Paul, 1992: 1078-1092). The Soviet Union also developed special relationships with several states in Asia, Africa and Latin America during the Cold War era. Often, the smaller states had to choose one superpower over the other in order to gain an advantage. The difference in the globalization era is that smaller states are able to extract concessions and resources from both China and India without formally or informally aligning with either. The absence of a Cold War-style rivalry and the high levels of economic interdependence between China and India enable many of the smaller states to avoid committing to an alliance with either side.

China, India and South Asian states China has pursued a ‘peaceful rise’ strategy, later christened as ‘peaceful development strategy’, during much of the post-Cold War era, that was, until 2012 or so, aimed at accelerating its economic might through intensified trade of manufacturing goods, while deliberately keeping a low profile in the security arena. It

26  T.V. Paul has managed to build up a huge foreign reserve, amounting to US$3.23 trillion in 2016 (Aizhu, 2016), while maintaining a growth rate averaging 8–10% for over two decades, which has come down to 6.9% in 2015 (BBC News, 2016). Despite the simmering disputes with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries and Japan over small islands or islets in the South China and East China Seas and India over occasional patrolling and intrusions by each other’s forces on contested territory or infrastructure building, China has not engaged in an active military conflict with any of its neighbours in nearly three decades. It has managed to settle some 17 land border disputes, except the ones with India and Bhutan (Fravel, 2008). The 2017 Doklam standoff with India in the trijunction of Bhutan, Tibet and India was a serious crisis, but neither side used lethal military weapons to advance themselves. Soldiers confronted each other, and while they were unarmed, some amount of mobilization was going on both sides as precautionary and for deterrent purposes. They managed to restore status quo ante after a 73-day crisis, although the rhetoric on both sides were quite antagonistic (Bhattacherjee, 2017). While intensifying its economic relations with India, China has engaged in the infrastructure development of countries such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh that has both economic and security implications. The construction and development of deep sea ports in places like Gwadar (Pakistan) and Hambantota (Sri Lanka) and border area roads (Nepal and Myanmar) have been part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) earlier known as One Belt, One Road (OBOR). The maritime element of it has been dubbed as part of what some call the ‘string of pearls strategy’ (Khurana, 2008: 1–22; Garver, 2012: 391–411). China has also used soft power by way of establishing Confucian institutes in different countries. Such institutes have been created in smaller states such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan and Bangladesh, although their value is yet to be seen. India has also adopted a soft power approach based on a series of new initiatives framed around concepts of ‘non-reciprocity’, ‘connectivity’ and ‘asymmetrical responsibilities’, which indicate a willingness to use economic attractiveness to persuade its neighbors rather than the use of coercive military capabilities. (Hazarika and Mishra, 2016: 144–145) In Nepal, China has increased its economic and infrastructure support, especially in the hydro-power and road construction sectors. The 2015 earthquake in Nepal generated much Chinese assistance (Murton et al., 2016: 403–432). But the most significant development is Nepal joining China’s BRI and as part of that gaining considerable investment for the development of infrastructure, roads and rail, air links and a possible trade route via China as parallel to the existing trade route with India (Dixit, 2017). China has promised some US$8.3 billion for infrastructure development, including the Kathmandu–Lhasa rail link, while India’s formal support remains at much less US$317 million, although Nepal depends on India in a variety of sectors, including fuel supply and remittances. This has meant India will no longer have the ability to place highly punitive

When balance of power meets globalization 27 sanctions on Nepal as it did on some previous occasions. In response to China’s increased activism in Nepal, India has ratcheted up its support for Kathmandu by pledging more economic assistance along with frequent visits to each other’s capital by Indian leaders and Nepali politicians. In recent years, Nepal has been somewhat successful in not giving in to either China or India in the area of military cooperation while reaping considerable economic benefits from both. In the summer of 2017, Nepal attempted to remain neutral during the Doklam crisis and was uneasy with the standoff prolonging as Nepal did not want to alienate either side. In November/December 2017 (Pant, 2017b), a coalition of Communist parties won the Nepal elections, defeating the pro-Indian Nepali Congress. The new regime is expected to strengthen economic relations with China. Some predict that this may bring the Indo–Nepal relations to more of an even keel, allowing additional manoeuvring space for Kathmandu (Pant, 2017a). In Sri Lanka, China has made major inroads by its infrastructure development programmes, especially by acquiring the Hambantota port on the southern side of the island state in a 99-year lease. The port was built with Chinese assistance, and in July 2017 Sri Lanka signed a US$1.12 billion agreement allowing a Chinese company to run the port due to huge operational costs and lack of profit. Following Indian protestations, Sri Lanka declared that the port will be used exclusively for civilian purposes and that China cannot bring naval vessels to the port (Al Jazeera, 2017). In May 2017, Sri Lanka had rejected a Chinese request to dock its submarine on this port, because of concerns by India as well as protests by Sri Lankan opposition groups (The Wire, 2017). In December 2017, Sri Lanka and China signed 99-year lease for Beijing to develop and use the port for civilian only purposes (The Hindu, 2017). The latter part of the agreement was a clear signal to India to consider the deal as not threatening India’s security interests in the Indian Ocean. Moreover, Sri Lanka is encouraging India to invest in the now closed airport in Hambantota. China has other infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka – especially the huge Colombo port city – and many highway developments. India is also actively developing projects in Sri Lanka and provides a large part of the Island nation’s railways, trucks and other transportation vehicles. India still remains Sri Lanka’s largest trading partner, and New Delhi has offered over 2.5 billion investment dollars in recent years (The Sunday Leader, 2017). The ability of Sri Lanka to harness resources from both China and India without substantially alienating either is an interesting phenomenon. Bangladesh has played a delicate balancing game between China and India. China has promised considerable economic assistance to Bangladesh, and it has been eager to join the BRI as well as India–Japan initiative linking Northeast India and Southeast Asia. In October 2016, Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding with China for a US$24.45 billion bilateral assistance for some 34 projects in addition to a pre-existing US$13.6 billion Chinese investment for joint ventures, thereby receiving a total of US$38.05 million in Chinese assistance. This materialized following a much smaller Indian contribution of US$2 billion for socioeconomic projects in Bangladesh. Although the Chinese funding is much larger, Bangladesh declared that it has no desire to be part

28  T.V. Paul of any geopolitical alliances and that it wants to ‘maintain good relations with everyone’ (Hosain, 2016). Under pressure from a possible China–Bangladesh active relationship, India had already softened its stand towards Bangladesh and signed a border settlement agreement in November 2011, which was ratified in June 2015 under which the exchange of 162 territorial enclaves spread on both sides of the border took place. Border connectivity and hydro-electric power generation were also part of the Indian commitment to Bangladesh. In addition, India is spearheading the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEK) grouping as a parallel to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which is somewhat inactive due to continued India–Pakistan rivalry. The new grouping consists of India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand (Yang, 2017). Similar to Sri Lanka and Nepal, Bangladesh has managed to obtain considerable economic investments by both China and India. Smaller South Asian states like Maldives have also been wooed by both China and India and have maintained somewhat of an equidistance in the security arena while attracting considerable financial windfall. Maldives has become a focal point of China in its efforts to gain access in the Indian Ocean area, especially for the BRI links. China has offered key infrastructure projects, including expansion of the international airport under a 50-year lease by a Chinese firm signed in December 2016, a bridge connecting the capital and the island where the airport is located and several other projects including the construction of a new port. Maldives also has a standing naval presence of India for its protection and has expressed keenness not to allow China any military facilities (GlobalSecurity.org, 2017).1 The December 2017 free trade deal gives China a major economic edge over India in Maldives. But immediately afterwards, Maldives politicians flew to Delhi to reassure India of no security concessions to China and expressed the Island state’s ‘India-first policy’ (Ramachandran, 2018). From a larger geopolitical and geo-economic perspective, the most significant project undertaken by China with a great geopolitical ramification is the ‘OBOR Plan’, now christened BRI, that connects key centres of South Asia, Central Asia, Russia and Europe with Chinese cities, almost replicating the ancient Silk Road network. Within that plan is the Maritime Silk Road linking many Asian ports with China through the Indian Ocean (Tiezzi, 2015). Pakistan and some other South Asian states figure prominently in these links, while India is significantly absent, raising concerns that selective trade and maritime relationships may cause geopolitical rivalry to resurface more prominently. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) linking Xinjiang to Gwadar Port is expected to cost some US$62 billion and include major infrastructure projects such as highways, rail links, energy projects and industrial parks (Markey and West, 2016). The success of BRI, especially the Indian Ocean maritime component, will require the help of many small littoral and island states, and this gives them an advantage, at least for the time being, in bargaining between China and India. In the geopolitical competition with India in South Asia, China has more success in creating a wedge between India and the smaller states that were

When balance of power meets globalization 29 traditionally close to New Delhi due to geography and cultural factors. However, even here the relationships have not matured to alignments as South Asian states have benefitted from the India–China-managed rivalry. As a Chinese scholar conceded: Currently India still lacks adequate resources, such as funds and professional technology, to provide more public goods in South Asia for regional development, thus providing room for China to fill the gap. However, China’s influence on South Asia has been so far constrained in the economic domains, while India has kept its strategic advantage in terms of geographic, historical, and cultural ties. (Yang, 2017) One of the key reasons for smaller states strategic manoeuvring is the absence of an intense balance of power game between China and India, which has enabled the smaller states to play off each other. India itself has been pursuing a mixture of limited hard balancing, soft balancing and diplomatic engagement strategy towards China. This is part of the umbrella hedging strategy of India, which implies a ‘wait and watch approach’, signalling to the other power that benign policies will produce benign responses, while aggressive policies could potentially generate hard balancing.2 The soft balancing strategy of India involves developing ententes with Japan and ASEAN countries as well as the United States. The newly initiated Quadrilateral talks among India, United States, Japan and Australia is another soft balancing effort directed at China. India’s soft balancing is limited to an entente with the United States and increased security and economic collaboration with Japan, Australia and Southeast Asian states such as Vietnam. Occasional military exercises with these countries are part of this strategy. India’s strategic cooperation with the United States has increased dramatically with the arrival of the Modi government in Delhi in 2014 (Kumar, 2016). However, it is yet to emerge as a full-fledged hard balancing alliance relationship as India still harbours a desire to maintain a non-aligned option or strategic autonomy as a recent document prepared by key Indian intellectuals show (Khilnani et al., 2012). The annual naval exercises (Malabar) and use of each other’s ports by United States and Indian naval ships are part of the limited hard balancing strategy of India. New Delhi’s limited hard balancing also involves building military capabilities and infrastructure on the border aimed at asymmetrically limiting the possibility of a Chinese aggression. The raising of several mountain divisions on the China border is part of the hard balancing. Yet, the Indian efforts remain asymmetrical with China showing more success in its infrastructure development on the border. India is also building up naval and nuclear capabilities as part of an asymmetrical hard balancing strategy. The deployment of most of these capabilities is at least five to ten years away, and meanwhile New Delhi has engaged in large-scale arms purchases to bolster its conventional capabilities. By 2016, India emerged as the sixth largest spender on defence and the number one importer of weapons systems in the world (Tian et al., 2017). Despite this build-up, the

30  T.V. Paul China–India relationship is yet to reach a full-fledged hard balancing competition, involving smaller allies in South Asia and beyond. India has had more success in developing a stronger soft balancing coalition with Japan under Prime Minster Shinzo Abe. This relationship now involves several economic and infrastructure projects, including high-speed rail networks as well as an annual naval drill Malabar exercises, Japanese involvement in developing the Iranian port at Chabahar and Japanese participation in India’s connectivity bids between its northeast and Southeast Asian countries. Regular summit meetings between the two countries also signify the importance that Japan and India give to this relationship (Mohan, 2017). India, however, finds it difficult to obtain full-fledged cooperation in the military realm from countries like Vietnam, despite its many commonalities in terms of threat perceptions vis-a-vis China (Brewster, 2009: 24–44; Dutta, 2011: 229–261; Mohan, 2012). India engages China through forums like BRICS, G-20 and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and has some similarities in viewpoints on a variety of issues including climate change and many aspects of global financial reform. More significantly, China has emerged as India’s lead trading partner. By 2011, India’s trade with China amounted to US$73.9 billion, showing a substantial growth during the past two decades (India Today, 2012). India has also shown that it can cooperate with China on oil exploration in African and Central Asian countries despite the competition that exists between the two for these resources (Reischer, 2012; Sharma, 2012). This conflict/cooperation patterns in India–China relations are quite different from New Delhi’s intense rivalry with Pakistan. Among all South Asian states, Pakistan is the most active traditional balance of power player in South Asia today. As India became friendly to the United States – and due to Washington’s continued military involvement in Afghanistan – ­Pakistan found itself with its long-standing alliance relationships under challenge. However, Islamabad has maintained its all-weather alliance with China, and Beijing has supported Pakistan’s nuclear and conventional weapons development. It has facilitated missile transfers to Pakistan, some of which are being deployed for nuclear delivery systems. The joint development of fighter aircraft is one of the key China–Pakistan military activities. However, Pakistan’s hard balancing strategy has major limitations. It no longer receives the kind of strong support it obtained from the United States until the 1980s and parity in treatment with India from Washington. The only major power country that is supporting Pakistan’s balancing quest is China, but even that is moderated by China’s economic relations with India. The Pakistani elite’s ambitious agenda and hobnobbing with terrorist groups have indeed caused hesitation among its allies. Moreover, other than geostrategic salience, Pakistan has few economic goods to offer to leading powers. Pakistan’s playing of ‘double games’ with the Taliban and the United States has generated much disapproval among elites and publics in many Western countries. It is unlikely that the Pakistani elite so immersed in hard realpolitik will abandon balance of power politics anytime soon, partly because of the geopolitical rents it receives and the intensely perceived threat from an increasingly powerful India.3

When balance of power meets globalization 31 Pakistan’s lack of active involvement in economic globalization and more specifically in global trade is indeed a cause for this continued adherence to traditional balance of power politics (Noshab, 2006: 341–362). Had Pakistan been economically globalized it would also have adopted less militaristic balance of power policies as India is pursuing vis-a-vis China today. This inverse example shows the moderating effect of economic globalization and interdependence in the contemporary era. Countries that are not sufficiently globalized such as Pakistan are bent on hard balancing, as the idioms with which they deal on a daily basis are military and national security, border control and support or opposition to insurgencies and terrorist activities rather than trade and investment.

China and India’s rise in the globalization era and the opportunities for smaller states The larger global context needs to be brought in here for understanding the manoeuvrability of smaller states in South Asia. The rise of China and India is occurring at a stage when economic globalization has become a key dimension of international politics. The two Asian giants have been major beneficiaries of economic globalization at the global level and have been able to insert themselves in a significant way as trading states and recipients of international investments. In 2016, 40% of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 37% of China’s GDP depended on international trade, numbers that are quite high for any country, in particular large economies with huge domestic markets (Sinha, 2016). Although a rivalry exists between the two states over territory, water, status and strategic conceptions, it has been a managed rivalry, and both sides have been making efforts to not to escalate their disputes, although they tend to erupt periodically, the latest in Doklam, the tri-junction of Bhutan, Tibet and India in the summer of 2017 (Paul, 2018). Interestingly, both sides were reluctant to use any lethal arms even in demonstrative form in the immediate theatre (Mastro and Tarapore, 2017). The process of economic globalization has been ongoing for a long period but in its most intensified form arrived in the post-Cold War era beginning in early 1990s. While globalization has multiple political, social, economic and normative manifestations, the most significant one is economic, that is, a large-scale global level process that is taking place by which capital, investment and manufacturing change their locations beyond the border of their originating countries. Globalization has been defined as ‘the expansion of socioeconomic and sociopolitical activities beyond the state on an international and trans- national scale’ (Ripsman and Paul, 2010: 9). Economic globalization is the most relevant of these dynamics to security behaviour. This is especially true for the Asia-Pacific region where the major growth stories, both in terms of GDP and inter-state trade figures occurred during the past two decades (Helleiner, 1994).4 Countries like China have made use of this structural opportunity, devising strategies that attracted many manufacturing units to its locations where abundant factor endowments in the form of labour and capital helped develop an exporting economy while decimating some

32  T.V. Paul manufacturing industries in the advanced industrialized world. State capitalism as practised by China has been quite effective in using globalization to the country’s advantage. India, although a latecomer in economic reforms, has also benefitted from global trade and investment, especially in the software and pharmaceutical industries. India has also used different normative mechanisms beyond material resources to enhance its global status (Basrur and De Estrada, 2017). Not that all Chinese or Indians have profited from this process, however. The technically qualified segment of the workforce has been the largest beneficiary, although a powerful middle class has emerged in both countries due to the newfound prosperity generated by the insertion of these countries into economic globalization. The continued GDP growth rates of the two states during the past two decades have been unprecedented for any country in modern times, except for post-war Japan and Korea in their early stages of development. Smaller states in Asia, especially in East and South Asia, have also benefitted from globalization, although some more than others. In the meantime, the trade volumes between China and India and China and other Asian states have increased manifold to the extent that Beijing has emerged as their lead trading partner, even though for China the reverse is not the case. For instance, the annual trade volume between China and India grew from US$2 billion in 2000–2001 to US$70.08 billion in 2016, although the trade deficit of India was US$46.56 billion (Krishnan, 2017). The increasing trade volume in the globalization era appears to have exerted some impact on the security behaviour of China and India towards one another. For one, both China and India are attempting to influence the behaviour of smaller states, but those efforts are constrained by the potential impact they may have on their own mutual relations. Despite the huge power asymmetry with their neighbours, both China and India are not able to fully translate it in to influencing the behaviour of smaller states in the region, although China has had more success than India in recent years due to its deeper pockets. More importantly, security rivals such as Japan and China and China and India have been expanding their economic relationships, a paradoxical behaviour from the point of view of Realism and balance of power. The absence of an intense security and economic rivalry enables smaller powers not to join either side in a military alliance but at the same time extract resources and infrastructure development funds using asymmetrical strategies. Both China and India also have made some efforts to rope in regional states as partners but not to the extent of seeking military alliances. The managed limited rivalry between China and India has allowed smaller states to play off one against the other and to gain maximum economic benefits. Domestic opposition to giving excessive concessions plays a role in the ability of the ruling elites of smaller states to balance the two powers. The smaller states of South Asia are also constrained by India’s geographical proximity and historic ties but are able to balance that with China’s higher levels of economic assistance to them. Explanations vary as to why security rivals such as China and India have intensified their economic ties, despite their security competition. Other than sheer commercial interests, it is argued that a strong reason might have been to show to

When balance of power meets globalization 33 the world that both countries are responsible stakeholders in the global economy (Rusko and Sasikumar, 2007: 99–123). This is plausible, but the question is why now they are more keen to project a good image via trade than in previous periods when trade between the two states had remained abysmally low. Intensified globalization and the benefits accruing from it may have encouraged the two countries to increase economic interactions even though their territorial dispute is continuing. But this behaviour defies traditional IR approaches such as realism and liberalism as both rising powers seem to follow elements of the two approaches but not either of them exclusively. Although the concepts of globalization and economic interdependence are not the same, increased globalization has led to heightened economic interdependence among key states involved in economic relations. To many liberal scholars, economic interdependence can reduce conflict among states in such relationships due to a variety of factors. The three dominant arguments in this respect are as follows: The increase in economic interdependence heightens the cost of conflict and economic losses if war erupts; powerful domestic groups, especially businesses, exert pressure on governments to avoid conflicts with their major trading partner countries and economically interdependent states avoid conflict to project the image of responsible stakeholders in the global economy (Rusko and Sasikumar, 2007: 107–109). More specifically, those mechanisms that produce peace among interdependent countries as analyzed by scholars are relevant here. It is argued that as the opportunity costs increase war becomes less likely among interdependent countries, interdependence increases the supply of costly signals states can send to each other and thereby avoid unnecessary conflict and, finally, the increasing ties among people in interdependent economies decrease conflict (Gartzke, 2007: 166–191; Oneal, 2012: 158–180; Owen, 2012: 107– 132; Rosecrance, 1986; Russett and Oneal, 2001). Stephen Brooks has argued that globalization has reduced conflict not because of trade but because of the way multinational corporations (MNCs) have organized themselves and produce their goods and services. From this viewpoint, the dispersal of MNCs in key geographical regions has acted as a major force for peace among great powers (Brooks, 2007). From these perspectives, the causal arrow goes the opposite direction also, that is, more economic interdependence produces less conflict. An unexplored reason for increased economic interactions among security rivals could be that success breeds success in the elite’s economic and political calculations, while expectations of populations change on what the state and market can deliver. For instance, it is very plausible that the middle class in both China and India expect continued economic growth and prosperity, and the regimes pin their legitimacy and survival on delivering sustained economic growth. In order to deliver continued growth, countries need to seek all avenues for trade and investment and overt military competition; alliance formation and armed conflict with significant trading partners can upset that search for economic prosperity. Assuming intensified globalization and the resulting interdependence reduce conflict but do not eliminate them, how do states with pre-existing rivalries and territorial disputes manage their relationships, especially balance of power

34  T.V. Paul competition that emanates from intra- and extra-regional forces? Given both are rising powers with great ambitions, a certain amount of conflict and rivalry exists among them, and they frequently engage in disputes, even when they have many avenues for institutionalized cooperation. Could balance of power politics be mellowed down as interdependence encourages states to resort to low-cost strategies to conduct their rivalry and competition? My argument is that they do. Globalized economies depend on the international market and have to be careful not to adopt highly offensive military doctrines or expansionist policies involving military alliances. Hard balancing, relying on military alliances and intense overt arms races can send the wrong signals to trading partners and reduce the possibilities for economic cooperation and interaction. Hence, they have to depend on low-cost balancing strategies utilizing institutions and limited ententes to deal with each other. The soft balancing mechanism is useful for this purpose along with diplomatic engagement (Paul, 2014: 11–18). This phenomenon calls for more eclectic and nuanced analysis of the conditions under which countries use mixed strategies enshrined in key IR paradigms, especially realism and liberalism. When competing great or rising powers are economically interdependent they also offer weaker states opportunities to develop bilateral and multilateral links with those powers more effectively. They are not fully bound by either but have limited bargaining space to extract economic goods from the competing powers. The larger powers are also restrained in seeking full allegiance from the smaller actors as it could provoke unnecessary backlash from the other state and against the smaller state itself. The relative success of smaller South Asian states to extract trading concessions and infrastructure development funds from both China and India point to this direction. State behaviour thus does not follow through established patterns of balancing and bandwagoning.5

Small states and the future of South Asian security order The strategies of the smaller states in South Asia have limitations. Even though China is offering greater economic assistance, they, except Pakistan, are unlikely to bandwagon or form an alliance with China militarily because if they do so they are likely to receive the wrath of India, the dominant power of the region and the United States, the global power that still has a strong naval presence in the Indian Ocean. However, India is under pressure as is evident in its efforts to restrain on a regular basis these states into allowing Chinese naval facilities, especially in strategically vital ports. If these states agree to offer such bases to China, they may invite balance of power competition into the region and thereby increased security competition between rising powers and established powers, an outcome that may harm these states themselves in the end. The fact that several of the smaller South Asian states have been able to manoeuvre somewhat effectively thus far from not becoming close military allies of China or India while receiving economic benefits from both shows that traditional realist or liberal approaches may not adequately capture small state behaviour in the region today. The weaker states have developed a kind of asymmetrical bargaining power in the

When balance of power meets globalization 35 era of globalization given that the two rising powers are competing, they are also cooperating in different domains. Is the somewhat mellowed level of balance of power competition in South Asia likely to continue in the years to come? The South Asian region is not immune to global shifts in power competition, especially involving China and the United States. A fundamental shift in the attitudes of regional states can occur if China adopts a more aggressive policy towards India and the East Asian neighbours in an effort to assert its primacy in the Asia-Pacific region and pushes the United States to actively create balance of power coalitions to contain the Chinese power and security threats. So, the ball is largely in the Chinese court, although US domestic politics may have some impact on Chinese behaviour, depending on how Washington pursues an active balance of power strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. China’s turn towards revisionism could be propelled by many factors including economic nationalism, the assertion of the PLA and political rivalry within the Communist Party. A sudden economic decline or downturn of China may encourage the regime to consolidate its economic position by competing more aggressively in the military arena. Conversely, US economic sanctions may generate nationalism among the Chinese public and the elite, somewhat similar to the US economic sanctions that led Japan to assume an aggressive position in the 1930s. The rise of nationalist forces could overrun the pragmatism that characterized the Chinese policy thus far. The evolving regional security order in South Asia, as in other parts of the AsiaPacific, holds potential for intense balance of power politics emerging as relations between the US, China and India evolve as the 21st century advances. The chances of a typical European style historical balance of power competition involving formal alliances is low in the region. Thus far, active hard balancing has been limited to India and Pakistan, although elements of it are present in the United States–China and China–India relations, more prominently in the past four years or so. The balancing behaviour still remains in the realm of soft balancing and limited hard balancing, and economic globalization has contributed much to this phenomenon. A decline of the globalization process or de-­globalization and an attendant weakening of economic growth in various countries can create conditions for resurgence of nationalism, especially in China. This is especially probable if the United States unilaterally imposes highly protectionist policies and the Chinese view them as efforts by Washington to weaken China precipitously. The opposite is also true, a rapid growth can make China more confident and take on the established order, especially by stroking the lingering territorial disputes. The balanced evolution in economic strengths coupled with institution building and sustained engagement among all states offer the best hope for peace and order in the Asia-Pacific, especially in South Asia.

Conclusion State behaviour in the 21st century defies the conventional wisdom inherent in both realism and liberalism suggesting that IR scholarship should develop more global roots than historical European and cold war patterns (Acharya, 2014:

36  T.V. Paul 451–467; Eun, 2016: 451–467). The rise of China has not produced the kind of heightened balance of power activity or rivalry or formation of exclusive power blocs. For liberalism, the increased trade interdependence has not produced the kind of linear progression towards liberal peace or security community. Instead, what we are witnessing is a mixed pattern and the impact of the forces that generate balance of power and globalization have colluded to make different dynamics in Asia-Pacific. This calls for more eclectic approaches to scholarly investigation and not just either/or paradigmatic views as prevalent in many IR discourses. Global IR perspectives may offer rich avenues for understanding change and continuity in the balancing behaviour of Asian states. Many Western IR perspectives relying on theoretical paradigms use European or Cold War era examples for both the phenomena, and Asia-Pacific behavioural patterns call for mixed approaches to the study of IR. Heightened economic relationships have dampened security competition and instruments of competition as well as strategies, but pre-existing conflicts simmer and states worry about China’s rise, in addition to its active militarization of the South China Sea and potentially the Indian Ocean. Despite this, state behaviour in the region thus far does not reflect the Cold War-era-style competition or cooperation but a mixed pattern of limited balancing and continued economic interactions even among countries with long-standing adversarial relationships with China, such as India. Small states have benefitted economically from this strategic climate between China and India without forming balancing coalitions. It is yet to be seen how long this trend will continue and whether the small states develop highly asymmetrical influence relationships with the two rising powers in the years to come.

Notes 1  China’s efforts at developing strong relationship with Seychelles has been stymied by the island nation’s strong links with India, at least for the time being. 2  For the concept of hedging, see Kuik Cheng-Chwee (2008: 159–185). 3  For more on this, see TV. Paul (2014) and Husain Haqqani (2013). 4  According to Baldev Raj Nayar (2005), geopolitics has played a significant role in the contemporary structuring of globalization. 5  The two exceptions are Pakistan and Bhutan. Pakistan has a strong security relationship with China, in recent years strengthened by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and China’s building and managing of the Gwadar Port. Bhutan is protected by India, according to a 1949 treaty between the two which was renegotiated in 2007, giving Bhutan more sovereign rights on foreign relations.

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3 Three-ness Healing world politics with epistemic compassion L.H.M. Ling

Introduction As this book indicates, a dilemma confronts Global International Relations (IR), that is, how to respect difference (pluralities) without being trapped by it (fragmentation). Epistemic compassion, I propose, offers a way out. It engages opposites or contradictions (like pluralities and fragmentation) such that a ‘trialectical-third’ emerges, reconciling the two even while acknowledging their conflicts and contradictions. More than a method and a process, epistemic compassion entails a specific spirituality. By spirituality, I do not mean religion per se (Masuzawa, 2005). Rather, I forward a simpler notion, that is, an open mind and heart when encountering Difference. Over time, epistemic compassion leads to a recognition of mutuality between selves and others, that is, ‘you are in me just as I am in you’ (ni zhong you wo, wo zhong you ni). In this way, we can heal the field of IR. Long dominated by Eurocentric theorizing in the name of Westphalia, conventional IR presumes world politics to occupy that space in-between states as full of anarchy, competition, self-interest, and murder (Amin, 2009; Hobson, 2012; Vitalis, 2015). Its legacy of violence may have started with Cortés’ execution of Montezuma in 1520 for the Catholic Empire (Quijano, 2007) but includes, as well, ‘epistemic violence’ (Spivak, 1988) that amounts to an ‘epistemicide’ (Santos, 2014). Such violence abates with epistemic compassion. Learning about Difference no longer stops at the water’s edge as a technicality only, where crossing epistemic borders makes no dent on relations between – and within – Self and Other.1 Nor will epistemic compassion allow states to continue rationalizing militarized power plays and their brutal repercussions as simply ‘world politics’ (Ferguson, 1994; Scott, 1998). Perhaps the best analogy for epistemic compassion comes from the bodhisattva Guanyin. A Buddhist deity, she dispenses mercy to the world’s needy with a ‘thousand arms and eyes’ all stemming from the same celestial body. As the Zen master Wansong (1166–1246) instructs, ‘[the bodhisattva’s] hands and eyes are not something attached to her body, which would make them separate entities, but rather [they convey] the totality of her being’ (Loori, 2009: xxxiii). Likewise, epistemic compassion embraces a ‘thousand’ ways of knowing and being but still affirms our world-of-worlds as a totality.2

Three-ness 41 This chapter proceeds in three parts. It opens with trialectics as a process. I draw on Daoist yin/yang theory and its premise of ontological parity to explain how epistemic compassion can arise. Next, I refer to an ethos from the ancient Silk Roads (2nd century BCE–15th century CE) as an early exemplar. Let me clarify, I am not examining the Silk Roads as history but as epistemology. Certainly, kings, khans, sultans, and emperors fought over the Silk Roads (Beckwith, 2009). But even if victorious, they left the Roads alone since each depended on trade and commerce to feed their troops. Accordingly, the Roads experienced epistemic compassion on a sustained basis (more later). Finally, I turn to Asian Capitalism as a contemporary example of epistemic border-crossings without compassion – until now. Could we use China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) as an opportunity to insert compassion into global development, thereby turning the latest phase of Asian Capitalism into a second-generation version of the Silk Road Ethos? The potential exists, I suggest. An alert before proceeding: This chapter itself requires epistemic ­compassion. We cross multiple epistemic borders: from the familiar (Eurocentrism, Westphalianism) to the less so (Daoism, yin/yang theory); dialectics to trialectics; the ­normative-cultural Silk Road (Ethos) to the strategic-economic (Asian C ­ apitalism); Buddhism to Islam; and Latin America to Africa to Asia. The reader, I hope, will undertake this journey with an open mind and heart. Only in this way can the joys and beauty, not just challenges, of epistemic compassion shine through. Let’s begin.

Trialectics: three-ness in action Pre-Westphalians have always valued epistemic compassion. These include the following: Buddhism’s pratītyasamutpāda (co-dependent arising), Hinduism’s darśana (‘auspicious sight’), Confucianism’s ren (‘mutual sociality’), ancient Greece’s poiesis (‘poetic inspiration’), Nguni Bantu’s ubuntu (‘human kindness’), the Lakota’s cosmology of ‘hoop’ or circle (‘all is related’), and Andeanism’s pachamama (‘earth/time mother’), just to name a few. Each teaches epistemic compassion through inter-subjectivity. It begins with an acceptance of the Other in the Self, thereby leading to reverberations or resonances between them that ultimately define both. Such recognition may induce fears, struggles, ambivalences, and/or rejection (Muppidi, 2016). Nevertheless, over time, epistemic compassion enables systematic, cumulative learning across epistemic borders such that the alien becomes familiar. Hybridities make this transition possible; otherwise, the original principals remain statically opposed, or they begin to annihilate each other. Here, I need to distinguish the Daoist conception of trialectics from Edward Soja’s (1996) use of the term in political geography and urban theory. Soja refers to trialectics as a ‘third space’ where hybrid-making takes place. A city, for instance, mixes various populations and their cultures, thereby producing hybrid identities and their spinoffs. Hybrid-making thus comes after the establishment of the original, different principles. In contrast, Daoism treats trialectics as a totality of the dao or the Way: Its hybrids exist and operate in tandem with the

42  L.H.M. Ling principles. Accordingly, Daoist hybrid-making serves as a premise, not consequence, of interaction between the principles. I elaborate further later. But first, another comparison requires clarification. Trialectics differ significantly from dialectics. In his classic model of dialectics, Hegel never recognized hybrid-making inside his principles. Neither could the master exist within the slave nor the slave within the master. Masters and slaves can only contradict each other, not entwine (Brincat and Ling, 2014). Hegelian dialectics (and Marxian programmes of revolution) thus tend to reinforce E ­ urocentric-Westphalian IR’s atomistic, competitive, and violent Self. A profound cultural delusion follows doubly: (1) The revolutionary Self thinks it can destroy the conservative Other without redounding the violence back onto itself,3 equally damaging, (2) the revolutionary Self thinks it can help the victimized Other without considering the possibility of its own, intimately produced negative effects.4 Daoist yin/yang theory dismantles such Self-delusions.

Daoist Yin/Yang Theory A dyad of opposites – yin (the female principle) and yang (the male principle) – begins Daoist theory. Laozi, the mythical founder of Daoism, did not discriminate between the two. ‘The meekest in the world’, declares the Daodejing (Classic of the Way, c. 4 BCE), ‘[can] [p]enetrat[e] the strongest in the world. . . . Nothing in the world can match it’ (Laozi quoted in Thompson, 1998: 17). Similarly, a small and invisible thing, like a neutron, does not suffer inferiority to a big and visible one, like the galaxy. Each connects to the other, creating a whole larger in meaning and impact than its parts. Accordingly, no part warrants greater attention or privilege than another part or a whole; likewise, no whole commands higher priority than any whole or part. Indeed, each part equates philosophically to the other even if they face asymmetrical constraints practically. Otherwise, equal agency or ontological parity could not apply. Ontological parity, Daoism asserts, inheres in all things (wanwu). Precisely so, it enables a mutual penetration between the two principals of yin and yang, whereby internal hybrids or entwinements – that is, yin-within-yang and ­yang-within-yin – embed the two principles in connections and complicities as much as their conflicts and contradictions tear them apart. Put in gender terms, Daoism recognizes the female-within-the male as much as the male-within-the female. One could say Daoism articulates an ancient version of contemporary queer theory (Ling, 2016). Daoism thus instructs balance as the best Way forward; imbalance leads to illness, collapse into extremes, and eventually death. Nothing and no one escapes the dao. Epistemic compassion arises naturally in this context. It triggers border-­ crossings of all types, across time and space, operationalizing what Feyerabend (1999) called an ‘abundance’ and ‘richness of being’. One typical example comes from learning a foreign language. The earnest student enters into a new language not only through vocabulary and grammar but also the worldview behind them. The Chinese term for ‘the people’, for instance, is laobaixing. It consists of three ideograms: lao for old, bai for one hundred, and xing for surnames. Hence, the

Three-ness 43 concept of ‘the people’ reflects ancient assumptions about family and community, lineage and tradition, patriarchy and hierarchy. In contrast, the English term, ‘the people’, may or may not carry these connotations. The word ‘citizen’ puts the matter more explicitly: Drawn from liberal theory, ‘citizen’ conveys an autonomous individual with legally protected rights and responsibilities. In Chinese, ‘citizen’ translates into gongmin or ‘public person’. Legal protections may or may not apply. The question remains ‘how do we know when epistemic compassion takes place?’ One exemplar comes from the ancient Silk Roads.

Epistemic compassion: worldliness between selves and others ‘We are still here’, Andean activist Humberto Cholango wrote to Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 (Cholango quoted in Cadena, 2010: 335). These four simple words belie a hard-earned triumph after centuries of annihilation attempted by one corner of humanity against another. ‘[We] have always been here’, Cholango underscored, ‘and will continue to be here’. He explained why: ‘Our religions never died [because] we learned how to merge our beliefs and symbols with the ones of the invaders and oppressors’ (Cholango quoted in Cadena, 2010: 334, original emphasis). Many mistake such resilience for naïveté. Much like the ‘Indians’ of Thanksgiving lore, white society constructs indigenous openness to foreigners as friendly but childlike, if not primitive. The Indians fed starving settlers in ‘New England’ only to be massacred by them later. How sad! But, really, how naïve. A realist would have perceived the asymmetry in military prowess and not welcomed the conquistadores like Montezuma did with Cortés or the Wampanoags to the dying Pilgrims. Indeed, Eurocentric-Westphalian IR builds on Hobbes’ contention that the State of Nature remains, always, ‘nasty, poore, brutish, and short’. Wherein lies the need for or utility of anything other than power calculations? In this way, Eurocentric-Westphalian IR erases local knowledges by privileging one externally imposed episteme – and it happens to come from the white male colonizer. On the contrary, I suggest, Montezuma and the Wamponoags demonstrated a worldliness motivated by epistemic compassion. It enabled subaltern resilience by helping them cross epistemic borders – what Cholango identified as ‘merg[ing] our beliefs and symbols with the ones of the invaders and oppressors’. Indeed, those lower on the social stratum have always had to know more about those from above than vice versa. W.E.B. DuBois (1903) called it ‘double consciousness’; Patricia Hill Collins (2000), the ‘outsider-within’. The pre-Westphalians also crossed epistemic borders with an open heart. Once again, the ancient Silk Roads provide an early exemplar. Despite the vast deserts of power and politics that surrounded the Roads (Frankopan, 2015), difference stimulated learning, creativity, joy, and a ‘mindful curiosity’ (Banerjee, 2016).

The Silk Roads The Roads consisted of not a single route but a series of linked networks. These brought into contact a variety of contrapuntal settings: for example, urban centres

44  L.H.M. Ling and desert oases, monasteries and medical clinics, centres of learning and diverse populations, and various forms of governance with their technologies of war as well as peace. Each mixed a wide range of cultures and peoples, lifestyles, and worldviews. All the great religions – Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Islam, Judaism, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, and so on – traversed the Silk Roads by land and by sea. Each taught a distinctive tradition yet also syncretized with one another in intimate, unexpected ways (Elverskog, 2013; Imamuddin, 1984). Indeed, the Roads represented more than a strip of geography, a venue for commerce, barter and trade from long ago and far away. They were also a way of life in a world-of-worlds enriched by exchanges and flows of languages/religions/goods, despite frequent conflicts and contestations. On the Roads, merchants, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, and nomads encountered princesses, nuns, shamans, scribes, and settlers (Gordon, 2009). They came from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean through Arabia, from Somalia to China through India and Persia, and from Venice to Java through India and China. The long, arduous, scenic, adventurous, deathstricken, awe-inspiring routes mandated interdependence but also reverence for wisdom and insight, learning from the signs and the esoteric, and a basic degree of humility and adaptability that led to a non-individualistic, non-predatory way of life. We call it the Silk Road Ethos (Ling and Perrigoue, 2018). Houses of Wisdom infused this ethos in high scholarship as well as daily life. They imitated and inspired one another from the Tang capital of Xi’an to Alexandria to Cordoba to Baghdad (Mansour, 2018). These centres of learning celebrated and syncretized cultural difference as the highest form of knowledge. For this reason, a renaissance in Islamic science coincided with the height of Silk Road trade from the 8th to 14th centuries (Al-Khalili, 2010). Christians, Muslims, Jews, and others pored over texts archived at these Houses of Wisdom, helping to advance medicine, physics, mathematics, and philosophy. Some, like Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Nafi, better known as Ziryab, adroitly combined abstract, theoretical knowledge like mathematics with more mundane arts like cooking. Not only did he inspire a ‘culinary revolution’ that changed the eating habits of Europeans, but Ziryab also unified many from different factions and walks of life with his passion for the arts: In a time when Muslims, Jews, and Christians in al-Andalus were still struggling to get along and keep conflicts from erupting, Ziryab made many of them forget their differences through the pure excitement he generated among all with whom he came in contact. (Nabhan, 2014: 174) Even after the onset of Westphalia, the Silk Road Ethos persists as an underlying, unspoken, unnamed legacy. Postcolonial and feminist scholars observe epistemic compassion at all sites and venues of subaltern resilience. It thrives through languages, cities, and borderlands, even under different structures of power like patriarchy and other hegemonic orders (Kataneksza et al., 2018). In addition, practitioners of conflict resolution, along with those who deal with the

Three-ness 45 everyday business of business, recognize the possibility of a trialectical-third from what may seem, at first, a locked and immutable situation (Senge et al., 2004; Lederach, 2005). The spillages, overlaps, and general messiness of ‘three-ness’ approximates what Mignolo (2012) calls ‘gnosis’: It defies borderings of any kind, especially those imposed by top-down, outside-in forces. A critical reader could ask: Isn’t this dangerously romantic? Wouldn’t epistemic compassion repeat the same mistake made by Montezuma and the Wampanoags that led to centuries of oppression, exploitation, and almost-genocide for their people? Moreover, early anti-colonial theorists judged epistemic bordercrossings a colonial burden. It nails in the colonized’s subjugation, they claimed. The native, as portrayed by Fanon (1963) in The Wretched of the Earth, always crouches in angry, unquenchable envy at the white settler’s possessions: his house, his food, his bed – preferably with the wife in it. Memmi (1991 [1965]: 107) described poignantly the theft by colonizers of that most precious gift in any human being: Speech: [T]he colonized’s mother tongue, that which is sustained by his feelings, emotions and dreams, that in which his tenderness and wonder are expressed, thus that which holds the greatest emotional impact, is precisely the one which is the least valued. It has no stature in the country or in the concert of peoples. If he wants to obtain a job, make a place for himself, exist in the community and the world, he must first bow to the language of his masters. In the linguistic conflict within the colonized, his mother tongue is that which is crushed. He himself sets about discarding this infirm language, hiding it from the sight of strangers. . . . [I]t is a linguistic drama. For this reason, anti-colonialists have tended to reject epistemic compassion, associating it with the West, the Colonizer, the Great Satan. Fanon (in)famously advocated killing the colonizer to rid the world of colonialism. A wave of revolutionary decolonization after World War II seemed to achieve this goal figuratively, if not sometimes literally. In the 1990s, a group of leaders from newly muscular East Asian economies launched ‘Asian Values’ to declare they could say ‘No!’ to what they considered the declining, degenerate West (Berger, 1996). The Asian Financial Crisis (1997–1998) dampened this surge in cultural-nationalism. But contemporary versions have re-surfaced since al Qaeda militants flew suicidal–homicidal planes into New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 (Agathangelou and Ling, 2004). Today, suicide bombings in the name of Islam daily headline our news, incurring reactionary populist movements in the name of white Christianity. Each opposes the other, seemingly eternal in their mutual hatred. Precisely so, I argue, we need epistemic compassion now more than ever. It can subvert the very hegemonic order that produces such hatred in the first place. Like ‘double consciousness’ and the ‘outsider-within’, subalterns know intimately their source of oppression. Here, Bhabha’s (1994) concept of postcolonial mimicry argues the case halfway. While Bhabha rightly points out that the

46  L.H.M. Ling fawning Other’s mimicry of the Western hegemonic Self may seem to reinforce the status quo, really, it disturbs its assumptions about colonial distance and superiority; he fails to recognize what happens when mimicry succeeds in substance, not just performance (Ling, 2002). When substantive mimicry takes place, as in Asian Capitalism, epistemic border-crossings pry open cognitive, emotional, and practical space to elude hegemony by transforming it. Put differently, epistemic border-crossings make ‘epistemic disobedience’ possible (Mignolo, 2009); it begins the ‘de-linking’ process to emancipation. Still, one can ‘de-link’ as a technique only. Compassion through learning often eludes. Asian Capitalism exemplifies the case. Put differently, Asian Capitalism implements the bodhisattva Guanyin’s ‘thousand arms and eyes’ in developmental policies but not her integrated celestial being in spiritual generosity or vision.

Asian capitalism: epistemic border-crossings To be fair, Asians could not have undertaken epistemic compassion given the times. Gunboat diplomacy and outright imperialism later ossified into a Cold War superpower rivalry clearly divided the globe into hegemons and satellites, cores and peripheries. Asian Capitalism internalized these inequities by feminizing and exploiting its own labour force, depriving it of voice or solidarity through low wages, non-unionization, and stereotypes of women workers as ‘nimble fingers’ and ‘docile natures’ (D’Costa and Lee-Koo, 2009; Han and Ling, 1998; Ling, 2004; Truong, 1999). A state like the Philippines now specializes in exporting nannies, nurses, maids, and ‘entertainers’ throughout the globe as a matter of national developmental policy. The government uses their remittances to balance domestic budgets yet offers little legal protection overseas or career advancements at home (Cruz, 2017). But change looms on the horizon. With China’s ascendance to the global stage backed by generations of successful regional development since the end of World War II, Asia now stands ready to face the West not just economically or politically but also normatively and epistemically. Could China’s ‘BRI’ make a new world? Specifically, could epistemic compassion return the Silk Road Ethos as an alternative mode and model of development, especially since the Chinese government advertises the BRI as its ‘new’ Silk Road? Let me begin by reviewing Asian Capitalism. I divide it into five decade-long phases: 1.0 (1960s), 2.0 (1970s), 3.0 (1980s), 4.0 (1990s), and 5.0 (2000s). Each phase demonstrates two types of epistemic border-crossings: (1) interstitial, that is, learning across space between Confucian-agricultural and Westphaliancapitalist norms, practices, and institutions and (2) precedential, that is, learning over time, drawing on the successes and mistakes of previous developers in the region. Only Asian Capitalism exhibits these features simultaneously. Asian capitalism 1.0 (1960s). Postwar Japan surged into the world’s second largest economy in the 1960s (Johnson, 1982). This would mark an impressive feat for any nation but especially one that had survived defeat in a world war, two atomic bombings, and an overhaul of all its major institutions, including the

Three-ness 47 emperorship and the signing of a new constitution under US supervision. Much of Japan’s post-war success, however, reflects its pre-war institutions like the zaibatsu. Formed during the Meiji era (1868–1912), these conglomerates enabled horizontal and vertical integration in key heavy industries. They reinforced the state with high employment and high profits; in turn, the state advanced their corporate interests as the nation’s interests. Many blame the zaibatsu for fuelling Japan’s war machine, motivating it to invade and occupy neighbours for precious raw materials. But Qing China also held a precedential, cautionary fascination (Masaki, 1958). Meiji leading lights viewed the first Opium War (1840–1842) as a direct consequence of China’s refusal to learn from the West. Not only did this recalcitrance provoke more predatory colonialism and imperialism in the region, it also rendered China ineffective in stanching the Western onslaught. Meiji leaders did not want the same to happen to Japan. For this reason, Japan crossed epistemic borders interstitially from the Confucian world order to the Westphalian one, with consequences still manifest today (Chen, 2017; Gao, 1997). Asian capitalism 2.0 (1970s). Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan learned much from post-war and pre-war Japan (Kohli, 1999). Precedentially, they shifted competition with the West from military to economic grounds while using the former to motivate the latter. The Korean state goaded society to pursue capitalist modernization, for example, with slogans like ‘Trade is War!’ Indeed, Japan had paid greatly for its military ventures. Starting from the Meiji period, Japan sought to join the Western imperialist club by colonizing neighbours: Taiwan (1895), Korea (1910), and Manchuria (1931). Imperial Japan, like its European counterparts, also grabbed extraterritorial concessions in China during the 1930s to 1940s. Declaring justification from the ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’, Japan invaded and occupied various parts of Southeast Asia during World War II, including Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vietnam. Yet Japan’s efforts provoked the only two atomic bombings on record. The rest of Asia learned with Japan the meaning of this lesson. Interstitially, the ‘four little dragons’ mirrored Japan’s integration of ConfucianShinto institutions with Western-capitalist practices. They, too, combined public leadership with private partnership to undergird developmental states. Taiwan formed enterprise associations; Korea, the chaebols. Elsewhere (Han and Ling, 1998), I show how 1970s Korea synthesized local traditions – that is, Confucian patriarchy – with global demands – that is, Western capitalist c­ ompetition – to empower the family-state. By 1996, Korea gained admission into the first-world club of advanced, industrialized economies: the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The success of the ‘four little dragons’ motivated another economy in the region to look outward: China. Asian capitalism 3.0 (1980s). Contrary to popular impression, post-Mao China did not develop de novo. Labels like the ‘Beijing Consensus’ or the ‘Beijing model’ overlook the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) interstitial and precedential learning from the region (Ling, 2002). In China’s case, interstitial learning involves hybridizing Marxist–Maoist socialism with Asian Capitalism and precedential learning, drawing on the successes and mistakes of its capitalist neighbours.

48  L.H.M. Ling Weak and disorganized after the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), China’s leaders decided to open its doors to the global economy by declaring ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’. They began by capitalizing rural peasant households into individual units of competition. With the countryside stabilized, the CCP next enriched the cities with rural subcontracts for urban factories, greater credit for entrepreneurs, special economic zones, and other structural incentives. After three decades of averaging 10% growth per annum, China has lifted 800 million out of poverty. The World Bank (2017) now cites China as the globe’s second largest economy. Other socialist states in the region like Vietnam and Myanmar soon followed suit. India became the latest and largest state in the region to join the trend. Asian capitalism 4.0 (1990s). India undertook neoliberal reform in 1991. It emphasized market enterprise and privatization after decades of government subsidies and state-directed growth (Ruparelia et al., 2011). In The Beautiful and the Damned, Deb (2011) details the seeming contradictions that confound a neoliberalizing India. These include the international arena as well. Despite residual tensions with China over the border and other issues (Ling et al., 2016), India still borrows – literally and metaphorically – from Chinese capitalism. A sharp critic of the BRI, India nevertheless became the first recipient of a $160 million loan in May 2017 from the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), of which India is the second largest shareholder (Panda, 2017). The New York Times reports that China heads the pack of global economies with 6.6% growth in 2017, but India follows with a close second at 6.2% (Goodman, 2018). The biggest shock to Eurocentric-Westphalian IR, however, came in 2013. In the latest phase of Asian Capitalism, China announced the ‘BRI’. Asian capitalism 5.0 (2000s). The BRI entails $1 trillion of investment in ­infrastructure-building. It aims to re-link China with Europe and Russia with a ‘road’ that cuts across Central and West Asia combined with a maritime ‘belt’ charted across the Indian Ocean. A new international political economy would stretch from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea, stopping midway to enlist the Red and Mediterranean Seas. The BRI’s projects range from building ports to facilitating industrial and financial cooperation. High-profile free-trade zones include those in Gwadar, Pakistan; Hambantota, Sri Lanka; and Chittagong, Bangladesh. High-speed rail will cover 5,000 km along the ancient trade routes. In February 2016, Iran and China inaugurated a cargo train route that will shorten the trip from Shanghai to Bandar Abbas to two weeks (Putz, 2016). The New York Times reports that China plans ‘train lines from Budapest to Belgrade, Serbia, providing another artery for Chinese goods flowing into Europe through a Chinese-owned port in Greece’ (Perlez and Huang, 2017). Two additional projects include the JakartaBandung high-speed railway and the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway. The BRI also involves six multi-dimensional ‘economic corridors’ (jingji zoulang) or ‘infrastructure connectivity’ (sheshi liantong): the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor (CMREC), New Eurasian Land Bridge (NELB), China Central and West Asian Corridor

Three-ness 49 (CCWAC), China-Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor (CICPEC), and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIMEC). Many fear the BRI may turn China into the world’s next ‘colonial overlord’ (Larmer, 2017a, 2017b). Five themes sound most often, especially about Chinese investments in Africa and Latin America: (1) environmental damage, where Chinese investments trample on ecological systems with their ‘pillaging and pilfering [of] the natural world’ alongside a US$19 billion trade in illegal wildlife; (2) extractive capitalism ‘gobb[ling] up mines around the world’; (3) non-­ transference of skills and high debts, thereby ‘ensuring that the work, skills and profits are kept largely in the Chinese family’; (4) cultural arrogance, where Chinese entrepreneurs treat local populations with disdain; and (5) military assistance, where the Chinese government trains local officers and soldiers. Trialectics for intervention. How can we subvert or avert similar tendencies in the BRI? A trialectical epistemology can intervene feasibly. By this, I mean a resurrection of the Silk Road Ethos cannot fall victim to reactionary accusations of ‘foreign’ interference by members of the CCP. As noted previously, the Chinese government itself values the historical–cultural relevance of the ancient Silk Roads for the BRI. To begin, we establish ontological parity between the Silk Road Ethos (yin) and the BRI (yang). Neither side stays in a static, pristine identity or role: the BRI bestriding continents, the Silk Road Ethos relegated to a dusty corner of the past. The two entwine vibrantly, producing the BRI-within-the Silk Road Ethos and the Silk Road Ethos-within-the BRI. Let’s see what results. Yin-within-yang: Silk Road Ethos-within-BRI. The BRI already contains the Silk Road Ethos within. Note this tone of cultural intimacy from President Xi when he refers to the ancient Silk Roads. The following quote comes from his announcement of the initiative in 2013 at Nazarbayev University: My hometown, in China’s Shaanxi Province, is the gateway to the ancient Silk Roads. Standing here, thinking back on history, I can almost hear the sound of camel bells echoing through the mountains [and] see the lonely swirls of mist from the vast deserts. All of this makes me feel very much at home.5 Indeed, Xi identifies what he calls ‘the Silk Road spirit’. It inspires five policy guidelines for the BRI: (1) a ‘spirit of justice’ (gongdao zhengyi), whereby ‘we should forge partnerships of dialogue with no confrontation (duihua bu duikang) and of friendship rather than alliance’ (jieban bu jiemen); (2) open thinking and sensitivities regarding ‘imbalances in development (fazhan shiheng), difficulties in governance (zhili kunjing), digital divides (shuzi honggou), and income disparities’ (fenpei chaju); (3) pursuit of a common prosperity through economic development; (4) green development ‘to strengthen cooperation in ecological and environmental protection (shengtai huanbao) and build a sound ecosystem (shengtai wenming)’; and (5) civilizational connections to ‘replace estrangement (gehe) [so that] mutual learning will replace clashes (chongtu), and coexistence (gongcun) will replace a sense of superiority’ (youyue) (Xi, 2017).

50  L.H.M. Ling A second entwinement – the BRI-within-the-Silk Road Ethos – makes the proposition less obvious and more difficult. Clearly, the Silk Roads did not experience a massive, state-directed investment scheme like the contemporary BRI. Nonetheless, those who lived in the era of the Silk Roads understood perfectly what it meant to have strangers in one’s midst, whether they were merchants, monks, or warriors. To represent the BRI-within-the-Silk Road Ethos, I refer to al-Ghazali’s rules of hospitality. Yang-within-yin: BRI-within-Silk Road Ethos. Severe travel conditions necessitated hospitality along the ancient Silk Roads. And dining etiquette enshrined this norm in daily life. One source comes from al-Ghazali (450–505 AH/1058– 1111), one of Islam’s great thinkers from the 12th century. In a chapter titled ‘On the Manners Relating to Eating’ (Book XI) in his celebrated work The Revival of the Religious Sciences, al-Ghazali sought to codify acceptable behaviour under the norms of Silk-Road hospitality (Ling and Perrigoue, 2018). We extract four instructions as a sample (Al-Ghazali, 2014: 14–42): 1 2

3

4

Non-Imposition. A host should not impose. Invitations should go only to those who can accept and with happiness. Consideration of One’s Own. To prevent feelings of resentment, the host should reserve portions of the dinner for his household before the guest arrives. Consideration of the Other, Including the Host. A guest should not focus exclusively on gratifying the stomach. The guest should also ‘gladden’ the host’s heart by not making extra demands. Conversely, the guest could make a suggestion but only if it would please the host. Dining at Ease. For both host and guest, being comfortable at the table is more important than increasing the meal by two dishes.

These rules of hospitality could translate easily into policy guidelines for the BRI: 1

2

Avoid Hegemonic Acts. Too often, the Self imposes its agenda (e.g., ­infrastructure-building) onto Others that are unwilling or ill-prepared to accept, producing undesirable outcomes (e.g., debt) that exceed the original intention to problem-solve (e.g., economic development). Drawing on al-­ Ghazali’s code of conduct, the BRI could take structural asymmetries into account and try to curtail them as much as possible. This means not just protecting investor claims but also the rights and interests of the recipient. The latter, moreover, means more than just the state or its ruling elites. The concept includes the entire national ‘household’ and its members. Consider One’s Own. Leaders need to consider the welfare of their own populace before inviting Others – like China’s BRI – into their midst. Otherwise, a sense of injustice will simply swell until, one day, it implodes the house. Correspondingly, the CCP needs to ensure that China’s domestic economy, infrastructures, and general development can sustain the BRI. The CCP has an obligation to the national household to make these criteria and their fulfilment transparent.

Three-ness 51 3 Consider the Whole Community. Neither power nor profits can decide everything. Leaders have a responsibility to ask: How else would the national household – the whole community – benefit? If costs exceed benefits, or only some members benefit while the majority of others pay the costs, then the plan or project or investment needs to be reconceived. This principle applies to the Chinese government as much as BRI recipients. 4 Ease, Not Instrumentality. Adding material incentives (an extra ‘dish’ or two) cannot substitute for a feeling of comfort between investor and recipient, regardless of who is host or guest and who is dominant or subordinate. Incentives may entice the present but ease in relations assures the future. Hence, BRI negotiations cannot focus on instrumental, material exchanges only. These must consider, also, how investors and recipients, whether they are national governments or transnational corporate investors, relate to local communities and vice versa. This stipulation echoes the first principle of non-imposition. Again, by way of comparison, I note that Eurocentric-Westphalian IR typically refers to Kant (1724–1804) for norms of hospitality (Zavediuk, 2014). Kantian hospitality stipulates that states have an obligation to welcome strangers as visitors and merchants but not necessarily as prospective citizens. Whether one agrees or not, the fact is that Kant lived almost entirely in his hometown of Königsberg (with short stints of teaching in Russia and Poland). His understanding of hospitality necessarily reflects the perspective and position of one who has never had to leave home on a permanent or even intermittent basis; consequently, he regards Others as the not-Self. This necessarily truncates the notion and practice of hospitality. Nussbaum (1994) assumes the same. She seems to contradict Kant by downgrading the significance of the state (‘patriotism’) in her theorizing about a globally facing citizenry (‘cosmopolitanism’). But she, too, views hospitality in instrumental terms, albeit to foster good relations. She cites as exemplar the advice the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius gave himself: ‘Enter into [another] person’s mind’, he wrote, so one ‘can judge another’s action with understanding’. Though admirable in intention, the problem lies in a continued presumption that Others provide a source of knowledge separate from the Self. One accumulates knowledge rather than learns from it. To Nussbaum, ‘we should work to make all human beings part of our community of dialogue and concern, base our political deliberations on that interlocking commonality, and give the circle that defines our humanity a special attention and respect’. Beneath the welcoming rhetoric lies an authoritarian streak: that is, exchanges between Self and Other proceed from established parameters of discourse usually set by the hegemon. They leave little room for or consideration of how Self and Other could transform each other, thereby altering the terms of engagement. Al-Ghazali may be welcoming a guest to his home. But his instructions on eating with Others focus on reciprocal relations: host and guest should ‘gladden’ each other’s heart. Al-Ghazali advises so because he knew then – as many do

52  L.H.M. Ling today – that reciprocity matters in a mobile world-of-worlds. Just as one welcomes guests to one’s home, so one may have to leave one’s home some day and become a ‘guest’ (migrant, refugee, asylum seeker, immigrant) in another’s, whether temporarily, permanently, or anywhere in between. A trialectical epistemology reframes global development generally and the BRI specifically. Not only does it give agency to the locality in BRI negotiations, but trialectics also provide a rationale for why those in power (yang) should listen to those less so (yin). Entanglements and entwinements (yin-within-yang, ­yang-within-yin) invariably ensue. And these will ultimately decide the future, not contracts or five-year plans or ‘enlarging’ our circle of humanity. Neither the dominant nor the subordinate can avoid their future of trialectical-thirds in a world-of-worlds.

Conclusion China’s BRI faces an historically dual opportunity. It can build on the interstitial and precedential learning mastered by Asian Capitalisms of the past while also benefitting from a deeply embedded, mutually produced Silk Road Ethos. Critical to the BRI’s success will be epistemic compassion. More than ‘de-linking’ from hegemony to attain emancipation, epistemic compassion will help to ‘relink’ with a spiritual openness and consideration of others. Extended to world politics, epistemic compassion floods Eurocentric-­ Westphalian IR. Its parched assumptions of chaotic anarchy and murderous competition melt and merge with the flows of multiplicity and oneness, continuity and change that trialectical-thirds unleash. Borders can no longer trap sovereignty into a singular ego since it dissolves in face of Self/Other reverberations from the past, in the present, and for the future. Nor can insecurities spiral since epistemic compassion grounds the national Self with Others. In showing alternative ways of relating to and resonating with Others, epistemic compassion stretches our imagination regarding action. It may include acts previously not considered part of world politics, such as policies mandated by conscience, history, and culture rather than bombs and rockets. With epistemic compassion, we can affirm, like Cholango to the Pope, that, despite centuries of attempted annihilation, ‘We are still here’.

Notes 1 This is the utilitarian position. In his utopian novel New Atlantis, Sir Francis Bacon (1627) describes his ideal population of Bensalem as remaining ‘the virgin of the world’ despite actively scouring the world for knowledge. This occurs because the Bensalemites use knowledge only, never internalizing it. Eurocentric-Westphalian IR continues this legacy by recognizing, at best, a co-presence of Self and Other but never their co-existence (Odysseos, 2007). 2 Nishida Kitaro, leading philosopher of the Kyoto School in the 1930s, first coined the term sekaiteki sekai, which Goto-Jones (2005) translates as ‘world of worlds’. But I prefer Arisaka’s (1996) interpretation of the term as ‘world historical formation’ since Nishida envelops his multiple worlds within a larger ‘bubble’ of  Western

Three-ness 53 modernity. In contrast, my conception of world-of-worlds emanates from multiple worlds (Ling, 2014). 3 For example, many revolutionary movements – like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – end up consuming its own members through purges, campaigns, and the like. Similarly, they use women guerrillas as revolutionary fodder during the struggle but return them to the bedroom or the brothel or the factory floor after winning the state. 4 Again, the CCP provides an instructive example. In the name of perpetual revolution, Mao and the Gang of Four forced individuals during the Cultural Revolution to renounce and condemn their most cherished relations such as parent–child, teacher–student, husband–wife, friend–friend, and siblings. 5 Author’s translation. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw-M8fjnMk0 (accessed 15 November 2016).

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4 Relational ontology and the politics of boundary-making East Asian financial regionalism Yong Wook Lee

Introduction As Peter Katzenstein (2005) noted, one of the key characteristics of world politics is the rise of regionalism in the face of globalization. The European Union’s recent economic and societal troubles notwithstanding, serious regional institutionalbuilding efforts can be observed elsewhere in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, the Middle East, and East Asia (Powers and Goertz, 2011). In this context, one of the most conspicuous phenomena in East Asian1 economic relations in the wake of the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) is the development of what Grimes (2009: 2) calls ‘East Asian financial regionalism’. Under the auspices of ASEAN Plus Three (APT), East Asian financial regionalism has been supported by three major initiatives: the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) in 2000, which was subsequently redesignated as the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM) in 2010 and which acts as the framework for a regional financial safety net; the Asian Bond Markets Initiative (ABMI, 2002), which targets regional financial market development; and an agreement to conduct in-depth research on the feasibility of an Asian Currency Unit (ACU, 2006) in order to reduce currency volatility. What is most striking about this regional institutional development is the exclusion of the United States. This exclusion is puzzling for two main reasons. First, the decision to spurn US input is unique in the history of East Asian economic cooperation. From the establishment of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 1966 through the Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference (PECC) in 1980 to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in 1989, all major regional economic institutional-building efforts have included the United States. Indeed, East Asian states have in the past actively sought US participation in the regional make-up of the Asia-Pacific due to their structural economic dependence on the US market and US investment (Kim and Lee, 2004: 207–212). The failure of then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir’s East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC) proposal in 1995, which excluded the United States, to garner support from other regional states is a case in point. Second, the exclusion of the United States seems to go against East Asian states’ immediate material interests. The inclusion of the United States, the largest investor in the global economy and home to the most advanced technical expertise in terms of financial market development, could have made it much easier for APT to institutionalize the CMIM (e.g.,

58  Yong Wook Lee greater access to bailout funding) and the ABMI (e.g., more expertise and investment from the United States in developing capital markets). In short, post-crisis East Asia seems to have moved from a ‘regional complex’ to a ‘regional society’ or a ‘regional community’ capable of ‘articulating the transnational interests of the emerging region’ (Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000: 3–4). What explains the development of this exclusionary form of East Asian financial regionalism? In addressing this question, I seek to demonstrate the analytical utility of relational ontology in the study of region-making and regional institutional development. Relational ontology refers to a philosophical position in which the relations between entities are ontologically more fundamental than the entities themselves. This contrasts with individualist ontology, in which entities are ontologically primary and their relations ontologically derivative. I make the theoretical and empirical argument that relational ontology provides a better analytical fit for the study of regionalism than the dominant individualistic ontology present in mainstream theories of regionalism, such as (neo) functionalism, neoliberal institutionalism, and realism. With this in mind, I suggest an alternative three-stage analytical framework for boundary-making that helps to capture the relational processes of making and sustaining a regional boundary. This analytical framework proposes three sequential stages – ‘proto-boundary’, ‘yoking’, and ‘rationalization’ – that lead to the formation of a clear boundary by defining what is meant by ‘outside’, thus establishing the ‘inside’ of the boundary. I develop this framework by drawing on Jackson and Nexon (1999), Abbott (2001), Tilly (1995, 2004), and Bucher and Jasper (2016), among others. Because none of these works alone cover the full range of collective boundary-making processes, I combine their insights within the three-stage framework. More specifically, I build on Abbott and Tilly for the proto-boundary and yoking stages and Jackson and Nexon and Bucher and Jasper for the rationalization stage. I also explore the possibility of translating this threestage framework into a more formal matrix of induction and deduction in order to generate empirically testable hypotheses. In particular, I offer three hypotheses for empirical analysis of the rationalization stage concerning the exclusion of the United States, the CMIM’s surveillance system, and the CMIM’s delinkage portion of bailout funding from International Monetary Fund (IMF) approval. Empirically, I show that exclusive East Asian financial regionalism emerged out of the confrontation between East Asian states and the United States in various international forums in the 1990s. A regional boundary for East Asia in terms of financial governance surfaced in relation to the neoliberal United States as an external other. The three cases I examine to illustrate this emergent proto-boundary for East Asia are the East Asian development model debate within the World Bank in 1993, the East Asian coalition in opposition to Western members at the APEC Osaka Meeting in 1995, and Japan’s Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) proposal in 1997.2 East Asian states yoked these events together in the formation of APT between 1997 and 1999. I finally illustrate how APT has rationalized the maintenance of the East Asian boundary in light of the development of the CMI/CMIM over the past 15 years. The CMI/CMIM is widely regarded as the most important institutional development in terms of defining post-crisis East Asian financial cooperation.3

Relational ontology and boundary-making 59 In so doing, I aim to make three interrelated theoretical and empirical contributions to the existing literature on constructivism and East Asian regionalism. First, the suggested three-stage analytical framework offers a relational mechanism in an empirically verifiable way that ties the formation of collective identity to the concrete institutional manifestation of regional cooperation. To the best of my knowledge, previous constructivist undertakings of regionalism have not sufficiently explored this link. Second, this theoretical specificity helps tackle the puzzle of what constitutes ‘East Asia’ in regional financial cooperation. In the study of the development of exclusionary East Asian regionalism, there have been contending claims regarding the source(s) of East Asian identity in previous constructivism-inspired research. But this issue (empirical indeterminacy) has remained unsolved in the absence of an appropriate analytical framework to assess the validity of each claim. My three-stage framework thus offers an analytically systemic way of tackling this empirical puzzle. Finally, my empirical analysis challenges the conventional wisdom that exclusive financial regionalism in East Asia only began after the AFC of 1997–1998. Although it is undoubtedly true that important institutional developments occurred after the AFC, I contend that the seeds of exclusive financial regionalism predate the AFC. To clarify the scope of my argument, I will discuss here what this chapter does not set out to do. First, I do not make any claims about the ‘real’ intentions or motivations behind the cooperative efforts of East Asian states. Although this issue is pertinent to our understanding of East Asian financial regionalism, the primary goal of this chapter is to describe the processual aspects of regional institutional building. Similarly, I do not claim to offer a definitive link between East Asian collective identity and the particular institutional form of, say, the CMI/CMIM. This chapter does not detail the negotiations between East Asian states in relation to the institutionalization of the CMI/CMIM; rather, I limit my empirical analysis to the identification of the parameters guiding the institutional preferences of East Asian states in the politics of regional boundary-making. This chapter is structured as follows. ‘Conventional explanations and a relational analytical framework’ develops a relational analytical framework for the institutionalization of regional cooperation through the politics of inclusion and exclusion. Before doing this, however, some limits to the existing arguments regarding exclusive East Asian financial regionalism are suggested. ‘Empirical illustration’ describes the development of East Asian financial regionalism in light of this relational framework. The ‘Conclusion’ concludes the chapter by suggesting future research directions.

Conventional explanations and a relational analytical framework The limits of trios: neorealism, neoliberalism, and constructivism Many neorealists assert that exclusive East Asian financial regionalism is the result of a strategy by East Asian states to counterbalance the United States in an effort to alter the international/regional power structure (e.g., Grimes, 2009). In

60  Yong Wook Lee contrast, neoliberals posit that it is the product of attempts by East Asian states to either reduce the transaction and information costs associated with intraregional economic interdependence or pressure from the private sector (e.g., Henning, 2013; Hiwatari, 2003). Although these rationalist accounts are suggestive, they have not been sufficiently corroborated by empirical evidence4 and do not reflect the facts behind the emerging East Asian financial regionalism. For example, there were no meaningful indications of change in either the military or the economic power structure of the region before or after the AFC (Ravenhill, 2002: 169–172). Given this, the exclusion of the United States is even more puzzling when considering the fact that most East Asian states were military allies of the United States at the time, and many remain so. In addition, because of the lingering negative effects of the economic difficulties surrounding the AFC, intraregional trade in East Asia dramatically declined following the crisis, although the overall export volume for each state in the region consistently increased (Katada, 2009). In other words, East Asian states came to rely more on external markets for their exports. As such, this material incentive for interregional trade could have led East Asian states to pursue a regional arrangement that would include as many important external trading partners as possible in their attempt to capitalize on these external markets. The exclusion of the United States, which was the destination for the bulk of East Asian exports, would not follow from this line of analysis. Another problem with the rationalist reasoning is that the private sector in the East Asian region was at best ambivalent about government initiatives targeting exclusive regional groupings (Hund, 2003; Ravenhill, 2002: 173–174). Moreover, the primary drivers of post-crisis financial cooperation were policy elites comprising government officials (from the Ministries of Finance in each state) and policy experts in international finance (Bowles, 2002; Tsunekawa, 2004), thus further weakening the claims of strong private sector influence. A number of constructivist-based studies have also attempted to explain the exclusionary nature of post-crisis East Asian financial cooperation. For example, Bergsten (2000), Deiter and Higgott (2002), Stubbs (2002), Terada (2003), and Yu (2003) all identify the establishment of APT as a clear, institutional manifestation of a deepening sense of regional ‘we’ consciousness. They commonly point to the importance of East Asian states’ shared experience of the AFC, which sparked a ‘shared’ humiliation and resentment of the US-led IMP response to the crisis.5 The AFC thus fostered a sense of common identity. The new push by East Asian states for an exclusive form of East Asian financial regionalism after the AFC was anything but the effect of a consolidated East Asian regional identity. These identity arguments seem to better explain the new interests that prompted East Asian states to pursue exclusionary East Asian financial cooperation. However, the problem is that these works do not come to a consensus on what constitutes ‘East Asia’ as a regional identity construct with significant causal power in their analysis of East Asian financial regionalism. The factors underlying the formation of a specific East Asian identity that have been suggested thus far

Relational ontology and boundary-making 61 include common recent historical experience (e.g., colonialism and the surge of nationalism), key common cultural traits or Asian values (e.g., the acceptance of hierarchy and respect for authority), export-oriented and mercantile approaches to economic development (i.e., developmental states), and cross-cutting patterns of foreign direct investment (FDI).6 Clarifying the content of ‘East Asia’ is crucial to the analysis of the decision by East Asian states to exclude the United States from their regional institutional building. This is because the content of collective identity dictates who is included or excluded when constructing a region (Abdelal et al., 2009; Hopf, 2002). As such, this under-specification of what actually constitutes East Asian collective identity makes it more difficult both to explain where exclusive East Asian financial regionalism originated from and to make reasonable predictions about where it is likely to head in terms of its institutions. I argue that this lack of consensus on East Asian collective identity in constructivist works is the result of the underutilization of relational ontology. This observation resonates with both a rationalist charge and constructivist self-criticism that empirical constructivist works are still individualistic in practice (Bucher and Jasper, 2016: 2–3; Jackson, 2003: 227–228; Kowert and Lego, 1996: 469). It means that empirical constructivist research tends to treat identity as an independent causal variable while insufficiently problematizing the questions of where and how this identity emerged. By taking social structures (be they ideas, norms, or identities) as exogenously given, constructivist research unwittingly undermines the proclaimed ontology of identity and interests as a product of intersubjective and contingent social interactions. In this context, the under-specification of East Asian collective identity in previous studies is due largely to their failure to situate the formation of East Asian self-understanding in historically specific relational settings or issue-specific relational settings. As a result, an analytical framework that captures the relational processes through which collective identities and interests are defined and redefined when constructing a region is called for.

An alternative relational analytical framework Based on the previous discussion, I propose a relational analytical framework that explicates the development of exclusive East Asian financial regionalism by linking it to the relational processes involved in the construction of a regional boundary by East Asian states. This framework breaks the linkage down into three stages: proto-boundary, yoking, and rationalization. Doing so allows the relational processes and mechanisms to be empirically verified in a systematic way. According to Tilly (2002: 41), relationalism, which is situated between individualism and holism, is ‘the doctrine [in which] transactions, interactions, social ties, and conversations constitute the central stuff of social life’. Following from this, it can be recognized that a substantial part of social reality consists of transactions among social units, that those transactions crystallize into ties, that they shape the social units involved, that they concatenate into variable structures. Identity will then

62  Yong Wook Lee become not an essential feature of an individual or a group but a characteristic and consequence of social interaction. (Tilly, 2002: 47; italics added) In this vein of relationalism, Tilly (2002: 46) claims that politics entails ‘a choice among ontologies’. Political actors organize a significant part of their social interaction around ‘the formation, transformation, activation, and suppression of social boundaries’ (Tilly, 2004: 213). As such, the crux of relational ontology in analytical terms is the notion that the properties of individual actors are not fixed. Rather, they always change in relation to significant others as a result of interaction. This notion can be logically linked to the multiple identities, roles, and interests that an individual actor is associated with in their world. The structure of identity and interests emerges and develops relationally in the process of an individual making contact with and subsequently marking boundaries with others in relevant contexts (Hall, 1999; Wendt, 1992). In this regard, Qin’s (2016: 4) concept of ‘actors-in-relation’ is pertinent. Qin argues that this concept is a useful heuristic for social studies where ‘the primary unit of analysis should be relations rather than actors per se’ (Qin, 2016: 4; italics original). It is because ‘an actor, at the moment of her existence, is simultaneously relational and the actor’s meaningful action can only occur in the relational web’ (Qin, 2016: 4). In fact, the constructivist understanding of regionalism echoes this relational ontology at least on a conceptual and theoretical level. According to the constructivist theorization of regionalism, regionalism involves the politics of identity. On the one hand, regions themselves are politically and socially constructed and contested. On the other hand, any regionalism inevitably draws lines, creating borders between members and non-members. Regionalism thus requires boundaries to differentiate insiders (i.e., members) from outsiders (i.e., nonmembers).7 A regional sense of ‘we-ness’ demarcates insiders from outsiders and determines the boundaries of a region. The issue, however, is how to empirically and analytically capitalize on these relational theoretical insights. As detailed earlier, the challenge facing constructivist empirical research on regionalism does not lie in the shortage of theoretical apparatus but rather in devising an alternative analytical framework that is empirically amenable to relational social ontology. The resultant framework should be able to guide empirically verifiable analysis on which East Asian collective identity distinguishes ‘us’ from ‘them’ when constructing an exclusionary form of financial regionalism. Given the relational ontology present in the continuous two-way process in which a region and member states are constitutive of each other, a practical problem arises as to where and how to start any analysis of the relational circle. One solution is to start it with boundaries, with the rationale being that boundaries always link the two main elements (i.e., states and region) together. Boundaries ensure that the process by which states and region influence each other is continuous and reciprocal. This chapter is by no means the first to suggest this analytical

Relational ontology and boundary-making 63 strategy. In fact, other studies that have explored the emergence, development, and transformation of collective identity (Abbott, 2001; Barth, 1969; Tilly, 2004) have pointed out the utility of this analytical approach.8 Abbott (2001: 261), for example, claims that: It is wrong to look for boundaries between preexisting social entities. Rather we should start with boundaries and investigate how people create entities by linking those boundaries into units. We should not look for boundaries of things, but for things of boundaries. (Italics added) In this vein, I combine insights from Jackson and Nexon (1999), Abbott (2001), and Bucher and Jasper (2016) to present a three-stage framework for regional boundary-making and its associated institutional practices. The three sequential stages of the framework are the emergence and maintenance of a boundary (‘proto-boundary’) as a critical basis for the formation of a regional collective identity (‘yoking’), which informs the regional practice of institutional building (‘rationalization’). As such, a sense of ‘we-ness’ (or a regional boundary) is empirically observable from the politics of inclusion and exclusion in the formative processes of establishing regional institutions. The starting point for Abbott’s analysis is the understanding that boundaries come before entities. Initially, only ‘sites of difference’ among individuals exist in the form of a potential boundary set, and these sites locally and randomly interact. Local interaction gradually produces stable dimensions of difference composed of two sides (Abbott, 2001: 265). These two sides are not yet social entities in any meaningful sense because they do not differentiate themselves based on a single, defining dimension of difference. Proto-boundaries emerge when these locally random sites of difference ‘line up into some kind of extended opposition along some single axis of difference’ (Abbott, 2001: 269; italics added). Fully fledged social entities eventually form via yoking, which is defined in terms of ‘connecting up two or more proto-boundaries such that one side of each becomes defined as “inside” the same entity’ (Abbott, 2001: 272). As such, the establishment of an entity (or collective identity) is a relational process built upon constructing a single whole out of local oppositions and differences (‘things of boundaries’). In particular, yoking (‘the process of connecting up’) requires conscious collective agency, without which collective identity cannot emerge, regardless of the size and intensity of any differences (Abbott, 2001: 271). Rationalization, the final stage of the proposed analytical framework, is about ‘giving reasons’ why an emergent collectivity should be tolerated and maintained (Jackson and Nexon, 1999: 314). Rationalization is the process of imbuing a newly yoked collective identity with an enduring quality capable of reproducing itself. The endurance of a social entity means that the entity has an ability to affect social causation (Abbott, 2001: 273–274). As such, rationalization implies the act of embodying collective identity in an institutional form. In this way, collective identity, which emerges out of boundary-making practices, can then become

64  Yong Wook Lee the foundation of institutional expression and practices. Rationalization (or ‘acts of identification’ in Bucher and Jasper’s words) is ‘the temporal fixing of meaning and the political process of boundary-drawing, which characterize political and foreign policy decision-making processes’ (Bucher and Jasper, 2016: 7). Similarly, Barth (1969: 15) observes in his study of ethnic identity that it is the ‘ethnic boundary that defines the group, not the cultural stuff that it encloses’ (italics original). He argues further that a group maintains its identity by ‘determining membership and ways of signaling membership and exclusion’ (Barth, 1969: 15). The continual expression and validation of a particular collective identity are thus threaded through the politics of membership. Extending this line of thought further, I suggest that it is possible to create a matrix of induction and deduction from the three-stage framework in order to generate empirically testable hypotheses. The key to this is that induction will function as the basis for the generation of deductive hypotheses. As such, constructing the matrix starts with induction. Induction begins by analysing the formation of a proto-boundary, which is predicated on the emergence of ‘a single axis of difference’ out of the extended opposition of local sites of difference. In the case of exclusionary East Asian financial regionalism, induction can be applied to analyze the series of confrontations between East Asia and the United States in various international and regional forums. The induction here aims to uncover the ‘single axis of difference’ arising from the deepening regional movement against the United States. When inductively analysing this situation, it is important not to make a priori assumptions about the existence of a conception of shared identity among East Asian states. The resultant ‘single axis of difference’ then functions as grounds for the creation of testable hypotheses with which yoking and rationalization can be empirically investigated. These hypotheses should specify how a region is defined, is maintained, and changes within the politics of regional boundary-making and the associated practices of exclusion and membership. Taken together, induction and deduction can produce empirically testable hypotheses that highlight the processual, interactive development of the kind of relationally defined collective self-understanding or groupness that makes certain regional collective actions possible. As discussed later, the divide between East Asian states and the United States on the role of the state in economic development and stability constituted the single axis of difference. A regional boundary for East Asia was forged in terms of financial governance when East Asian states coalesced into a single whole by externalizing the more neoliberal United States.

Empirical illustration In what follows, I illustrate the historical evolution of exclusionary East Asian financial regionalism in light of the three-stage analytical framework. For the proto-boundary stage, I present three cases: the East Asian development model debate within the World Bank in 1993, the East Asian coalition in opposition to Western members at the APEC Osaka Meeting in 1995, and the AMF proposal

Relational ontology and boundary-making 65 in 1997 by Japan, with the support of other East Asian states. For the yoking stage of the framework, I highlight the formation of APT by East Asian states. Finally, the rationalization stage is reflected in the development of the CMI/ CMIM. Given the limited space, the following empirical discussion of 30 years of institutional development cannot be much more than illustrative.9 Nevertheless, I present an analytical narrative that highlights the elements of boundary changes.

Stage 1: proto-boundary formation The World Bank and the East Asian development model The key analytical feature of the proto-boundary stage is to identify locally random sites of differences and to show how these differences merge into a single axis of difference with an emerging regional line of demarcation. In this regard, ‘sites of difference’ between East Asia and the United States began to appear in the 1980s when the United States initiated a neoliberal drive for economic development. The Washington Consensus, a term coined in 1989 by John Williamson to describe this push, symbolized the neoliberal drive by delegitimizing the role of government intervention while encouraging free market forces such as liberalization, deregulation, and privatization. As a result, the World Bank and the IMF, the twin pillars of international development and finance in the global economy, started to incorporate neoliberal ideas into their policy prescriptions and lending conditionality (structural conditionality). The global economy seemed to move towards the universal law of economic forces. Against this backdrop, Japan began to question in the late 1980s the validity of the neoliberalization of the global economy in terms of promoting the economic growth of individual countries. In particular, the United States and Japan strongly opposed each other within the ADB in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During this period, Japan, often in collaboration with the ADB’s Asian directors, argued against US attempts to universally apply the neoliberal model to East Asian states. Japan’s questioning, with the support of East Asian states, of the applicability of the US neoliberal model to Asian economic reality represented a relatively modest division between East Asia and the United States.10 It was not until the World Bank’s publication of The East Asian Miracle in 1993 that Japan and the other East Asian states started to loosely identify themselves as part of a whole in opposition to the United States, via the idea of an East Asian development model. Beyond the ADB, the United States and the World Bank sparked a confrontation with Japan on the appropriate model for economic development. The World Bank, for example, severely criticized Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) programme for encouraging state-led industrialization (e.g., in the provision of subsidized targeted credits for the industrialization of recipient countries). This criticism stung Japan, who in return pressured the World Bank to conduct a thorough study of East Asian experiences of economic development. Japan

66  Yong Wook Lee included Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand as part of East Asia, all of which (with the exception of Taiwan) were to be future members of the East Asian financial region. As a result, The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Diplomacy was published in 1993. For the purposes of this chapter, The East Asian Miracle situation is historically important because the concept of East Asia was first introduced in terms of its developmental identity.

The APEC Osaka meeting and the East Asian coalition Since its establishment in 1989, APEC has been subject to disagreement between the United States and East Asian member states in terms of its main institutional purpose. The United States has preferred to use APEC as a forum for facilitating trade and investment liberalization, while the East Asian states tend to assign more weight to its role in developmental cooperation. US liberalization efforts bore fruit with the Bogor Declaration in 1994, which laid out a liberalization timetable for the member states. The Bogor Declaration was, however, not wholeheartedly welcomed by every state. Against this background, Japan hosted the annual APEC meeting in Osaka in 1995. The major issue in Osaka was whether to set more specific goals for the APEC liberalization process based on the Bogor Declaration. The East Asian member states had become increasingly wary of the US-led liberalization agenda because it essentially meant they would have a much reduced role in the management of their own economy. In Osaka, they were presented with the choice of whether or not to endorse US free market ideals. What came out of the Osaka meeting was the embryonic form of an East Asian developmental alliance. Instead of the more structured, rule-binding liberalization advocated by the United States and Australia, the liberalization process that emerged from the Osaka meeting was ‘voluntary, unilateral, consensus-based, non-binding, lacking common time-tables, and uncertain as to comprehensiveness and comparability of members’ effort’ (Rapkin, 2001: 389). In addition to the ASEAN countries, China, Japan, and Korea (the Plus Three members of APT) joined forces to restore balance to the overall APEC agenda, which they claimed had become too heavily weighted towards liberalization. As an illustration of this, Yoshiro Sakamoto, Vice-Minister of International Affairs of the MITI at the time, claimed that ‘Japan should keep step with the rest of Asia by agreeing only to those U.S. proposals that are acceptable to the whole of Asia’ (Oga, 2004: 304). In the context of an emerging sense of ‘we-ness’ in East Asia, the Osaka meeting provided a venue for future APT members to develop a nascent sense of what they could achieve collectively within the confines of East Asia. As Webber (2001: 357) aptly puts it, ‘The creation of an at least limited sense of identity among East Asian states can be attributed to the perception of sharing a common opponent in APEC conflicts’. At the same time, however, the sense of we-ness around the concept of East Asia at this stage should not be overstated. After all, Mahathir’s

Relational ontology and boundary-making 67 proposals for an EAEC/Grouping between 1990 and 1995 did not generate sufficient enthusiasm among most East Asian states.

The AMF As noted previously, the most significant institutional development in East Asia after the AFC was the emergence of an Asia-only form of regional economic cooperation that excluded the United States. On this score, Japan’s AMF proposal during the AFC in 1997 was a watershed because Japan, with strong support from other East Asian states, explicitly excluded the United States from membership. As such, the AMF proposal played a pivotal role in consolidating an East Asian collective identity in relation to neoliberal United States. This episode crystallized into a single axis of difference from among the previous local (or regional) oppositions to neoliberal United States, thus forming a proto-boundary. In summary, Japan’s AMF proposal was a consequence of its struggle with the United States and the IMF over how the AFC should be managed. However, Japan’s uneasy relationship with the United States and the IMF did not arise spontaneously. After all, Japan insisted that it be allowed to provide the Thai government with financial assistance on the condition that the Thai government would seek IMF help first. Japan’s serious consideration of creating the AMF came only after ‘the discursive demolition of the Asian development model’ by the US Treasury Department (Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers) and the IMF (Hall, 2004). Sakakibara, Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Finance (MOF), who was known as the architect of the AMF proposal, recollected from his conversations with Rubin and Summers: I was saying from the outset that this [the Thai crisis] was a crisis of global capitalism. But in 1997, Larry’s view and Bob Rubin’s view were that it was an Asian crisis, and especially Asian policy management was the ­problem – Asian governments, Asian corruption and collusion, and the Asian structured economic system, which is close to the structure of the Japanese.11 In this context, after several consultations with East Asian states, Japan (via the MOF) decided to launch the AMF as a regional financial mechanism for the rapid disbursement of funds to crisis-affected countries. The AMF was envisioned, at least in the short term, as a way to defend the Asian model of economic development against the US-led imposition of neoliberal economic order on crisisaffected countries via the IMF. Sakakibara later noted that the exclusion of the United States was intentional so that the Asian leaders could discuss regional financial problems without US pressure,12 and ‘it was the desire to create a policy alternative to the IMF prescription that motivated the proposal to create the AMF’ (Sakakibara, 2001: 2). The AMF was not realized in the face of strong US and European opposition. However, Japan’s AMF proposal, sponsored by other East Asian states, represented a concrete manifestation of a regional collective identity that demarcated

68  Yong Wook Lee insiders from outsiders. By excluding the United States from membership for the first time in the context of regional financial cooperation, it helped mark a boundary for East Asia. Indeed, the original members of the envisioned AMF are now part of APT.

Yoking APT The yoking stage highlights that state actors come to define a regional entity by yoking proto-boundaries and turning axes of differences into a specific form of institutional practice. State actors’ conscious efforts to build a regional we-ness should thus be the focus of empirical examination. In other words, proto-boundaries will remain as they are if there is no political intervention or collective will of state actors to connect them together. I show later how East Asian political leaders reoriented their policy action from passive to active promotion of APT after their shared experience of the AFC. This point stresses that APT did not inevitably evolve into becoming the centre of East Asian financial cooperation. APT, which became the institutional nucleus of post-crisis East Asian financial regionalism, had modest beginnings. For example, no joint statement was issued by the attending heads of government at its first Summit Meeting in 1997 in Kuala Lumpur, and the name ‘ASEAN Plus Three’ itself was rarely used during the first two meetings. It was not until the third Summit Meeting in Manila, in November 1999, that a ‘Joint Statement on East Asia Cooperation’ was issued for the first time by the 13 heads of government. It can be said that the AFC was an essential foundation for the sharing of common experience, thus enhancing the significance of the APT forum. Thus, it is important to identify the make-up of this common experience, which helped to precipitate the move towards exclusionary East Asian financial regionalism. As noted by my discussion on the AMF and by many other scholars, the common experience that fostered a sense of we-ness was East Asian states’ shared ‘image of the region in adversity besieged by outsiders “ganging up” in their attempts to exploit the difficulties that East Asian governments faced’ (Ravenhill, 2002: 175). At the centre of this humiliation was the IMF’s US-led demolition of the East Asian economic model as a representation of crony capitalism. This cemented East Asian states’ binary sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’ by placing them in diametrical opposition to the neoliberal perspective of the causes and consequences of the AFC. This binary perspective can be observed in a series of speeches and statements around this time from East Asian political leaders. For example, remarks by Thai Deputy Prime Minister Supachai reflect the binary nature of identity: ‘We cannot rely on the World Bank [or] the International Monetary Fund but we must rely on regional cooperation’.13 In late 1998, Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong

Relational ontology and boundary-making 69 Phil called for an independent AMF by endorsing the ‘East Asian development model’.14 Korean President Kim Dae Jung also claimed that APT would also be able to speak for the region in discussions with other major economic blocs, such as the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Why should Asia, alone among the ‘three poles’ of the global economy, not have its own grouping? In the fourth APT Summit in Singapore in November 2000, Singaporean Prime Minister Goh firmly stated that it was important that the leaders of the 13 countries were starting to think of themselves as ‘East Asian’.15 One quote in particular summarizes the emerging sense of East Asian identity in financial cooperation: If we are lax in these efforts [the APT process] towards integration, we may invite more region-wide upheavals similar to the currency crisis. It is therefore important to understand how and in what sense this region, including Japan, is a community with common fate.16 As documented previously, the development of the APT shows the importance of state actors’ conscious choice in building an institutionalized cooperation in East Asia. On closer inspection, it is clear that East Asian political leaders seriously invested in APT and looked to elevate it into a central role after their shared experience of the AFC. These historical processes are captured by Peter Hall’s (2005: 153) notion of ‘a funnel of causation, in which a broad interpretation of major events and an associated set of preferences are developed in tentative terms and then consolidated as successive experiences are interpreted in the same terms’.

Rationalization How then was the rationalization of East Asian collective identity (i.e., the political process of boundary-drawing) institutionalized in the development of the CMI/CMIM? I draw three specific hypotheses from the previous discussion (i.e., from the sites of difference through to proto-boundaries and yoking). First, one expects to observe the continued exclusion of the United States from membership in the development of the CMI/CMIM. Second, policy initiatives for East Asian financial regionalism should focus on developing regulatory mechanisms allowing for the role of the state in managing US-led globalization, such as mechanisms for monitoring capital flow and surveillance. Finally, the CMI should continue to shift away from the IMF in terms of lending practice. Noting that these hypotheses are not meant to be fully tested in this short chapter, I demonstrate that the three hypotheses are empirically corroborated in terms of the parameters of exclusive East Asian financial regionalism. First, APT continues to exclude the United States from membership. Second, regulatory regionalism has also been observed

70  Yong Wook Lee in consideration of the CMI/CMIM’s gradual shift from ‘minimizing financial instability’ (i.e., short-term liquidity provision) to ‘managing’ regional financial cooperation (i.e., monitoring capital flow and providing regional surveillance). Finally, the IMF-delinked portion of the CMI/CMIM fund has gradually but steadily increased from 10% to 30%.

The CMI and CMIM The CMI was first conceptualized during the APT Summit in 1999 when the finance ministers of APT agreed to enhance ‘self-help and support mechanisms in East Asia’. The APT Finance Ministers’ Meeting in 2000 realized this in the form of the CMI. Subsequently, the CMI arranged a network of bilateral swaps among the central banks of East Asian countries to provide a ‘balance of payment support’ and ‘short-term liquidity support’. Thus, the CMI was initially envisioned as a first-order defensive mechanism that provided regional foreign exchange liquidity support (Amyx, 2004: 211–212). APT further strengthened the CMI in Istanbul on 6 May 2005. The Istanbul initiative doubled the size of the currency swaps under the CMI from the original US$39 billion, increased the amount of emergency liquidity available without IMF approval from 10% to 20%, and transformed bilateral swaps into two-way swaps, with the aim of making them multilateral in the future. On the heels of this Istanbul meeting, the East Asian states’ efforts to multilateralize the CMI began in earnest. From May 2006, APT started to work on the details of multilateralizing the CMI (Chey, 2009: 452). This was a response to practical, functional needs. Since its inception, one of the core institutional purposes of the CMI was to ensure the rapid provision of short-term liquidity to crisis-affected states in order to more expeditiously curb financial crises in their initial stages. As such, at stake was the CMI’s capacity to rapidly disburse necessary funds. The bilateral nature of the CMI’s swap arrangements would prevent it from delivering on this particular institutional promise. In order to activate a network of bilateral swap arrangements, an individual state has to bilaterally negotiate with partner states. A series of bilateral swaps takes considerable time to process, thus making it almost impossible for that state to receive timely financial support from the CMI. With this in mind, on 12 May 2009 in Bali, Indonesia, the finance ministers of APT agreed unanimously to multilateralize the CMI. APT finalized the details of the new multilateral currency swap scheme and successfully addressed the five key issues (total fund size, form of funding, legal modality, proportion of each state’s contribution, and decision-making processes/voting share). The total size of the fund was set at US$120 billion, funded by self-reserved reserve pooling. Legally, it acted as a single, legally binding contractual agreement, with individual contributions set at US$38.4 billion for China and Japan, US$19.4 billion for Korea, and the remaining US$23.8 billion split among the ASEAN countries. In terms of voting share, China, Japan, and the ASEAN countries would each have 28.4% and Korea 14.8%. The CMIM took effect on 24 March 2010. Since then,

Relational ontology and boundary-making 71 the APT increased the portion of the fund delinked from IMF approval from 20% to 30% in 2012, and this is expected to increase further from 30% to 40% in 2018. APT also doubled the CMIM’s total fund size in 2011; it now stands at US$240 billion. Another major institutional development was the finalization of a surveillance institution. The APT launched the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) in Singapore as a regional surveillance unit on 26 May 2011. A sister institution to the CMIM, the AMRO’s institutional purpose is to monitor and offer advice on the macroeconomic policy and performance of member states. In May 2013, APT unanimously agreed to grant the AMRO the status of an international institution status, officially becoming the first financial institution with this status in East Asia on 19 February 2016 after domestic ratification by the member states. Taken together, the development of the CMIM underlines that the three hypotheses resonate with the rationalization of East Asian collective identity drawn from empirical studies of the preceding proto-boundary and yoking stages. What started out as a simple mechanism for addressing short-term liquidity difficulties in the region has become an institutionalized framework for region-wide dialogue and cooperation. The CMIM now reflects not only self-assistance and support mechanisms but also capital flow monitoring, policy reviews, coordination, and collective decision-making. The CMIM may well be institutionally heading towards becoming a revived version of the AMF.

Conclusion This chapter has tracked the development of East Asian identity in relation to the United States in various institutional settings in light of a three-state analytical framework incorporating proto-boundaries, yoking, and rationalization. My findings suggest that the analytical framework is useful for the study of exclusive East Asian financial regionalism. In general, the framework can be extended to the formation of collective identity in other relational settings. The relational framework, however, requires further development and elaboration to provide a fuller account of East Asian financial regionalism. The framework, as it currently stands, captures only the processual aspects of region-building and does not include an analysis of motivations. A combinatorial analytical framework that integrates process with motivation is thus called for. An analysis of motivation is particularly important for the stage of yoking. There would be also cases where a region reaches the first stage or second stage of the framework but does not continue onto the next stage. As such, future studies may want to further specify conditions under which the three stages can be fully completed. My empirical findings indicate that, as long as East Asian identity is defined in relation to the United States in terms of competing perspectives on the neoliberal economic paradigm, the exclusion of the United States from East Asian financial cooperation will continue. This demonstrates how relational ontology works to shape the conception of a region and its distinctive institutional development

72  Yong Wook Lee through the practice of boundary-making. Finally, one further empirical implication for the future development of the CMIM can be offered in light of the previous analysis. A critical issue facing the CMIM is the setting of lending conditionality for the release of funds. Protracted discussion on lending conditionality is currently under way. The issue here is how to align this with ‘East Asian’ characteristics in the context of the IMF’s one-size-fits-all programme. Were it not for the establishment of different lending procedures and lending conditionality reflective of the unique conditions in East Asia, the rationale for the existence of the CMIM would weaken. In fact, if this were the case, it would likely function as a regional branch of the IMF without autonomy (Lee, 2015: 103–105). Flexibility in terms of local economic needs and conditions, accessibility, the speed of disbursement, and the prevention of moral hazard are all key to the design of CMIM lending conditionality.

Notes 1 By ‘East Asian states’, I mean the ASEAN Plus Three (China, Japan, and Korea) countries that have collectively engaged in a substantial degree of regional financial cooperation. 2 These three cases differ in terms of their main issue, economic development, trade, and finance. These differences reduce the possibility of case selection bias. 3 This chapter is part of a larger book-length project that encompasses the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI), the Asian Bond Markets Initiative (ABMI), and the Asian Currency Unit (ACU), the three policy initiatives I noted earlier. 4 Due to space limitations, I will only briefly point out the shortcomings of each rationalist approach. 5 For a detailed account of the politics of resentment, see Higgott (1998) and Hughes (2000). 6 See Deiter and Higgott (2002: 32), Stubbs (2002: 444–445), Terada (2003: 253–256), Yu (2003: 276–283), Nabers (2003: 124–129), and Oga (2004: 300–302). 7 For identity-based constructivist theorization of the formation of international and regional institutions, see Wendt (1994), Checkel (1999), and Cronin (1999). 8 The goal of these works is to illustrate the analytical processes of change and continuity of collective identity. As such, they do not move beyond this to account for, say, particular ways that regional institutional building arises from collective identity, which is one of the main concerns of this chapter. 9 For a more detailed account of each empirical case, see Kim and Lee (2004: 207–223) and Lee (2008: 119–135, 2015: 93–99). I adopted relevant parts from these works. 10 Admittedly, I can understand the emergence of this divide with the benefit of hindsight. History runs front to back, while researchers analyze history back to front. 11 Interview with Sakakibara, 15 May 2001, PBS. 12 Interview with Sakakibara, cited in Katada (2001: 11, footnote 26). 13 Cited in Yu (2003: 284). 14 Cited in Sohn (2005: 491). 15 Cited in Soesastro (2001: 2). 16 Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1999) cited in Nabers (2003: 121; italics added).

Relational ontology and boundary-making 73

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5 Bringing the outside in The limits of theoretical fragmentation and pluralism in IR theory Colin Wight Introduction The idea that International Relations (IR) is a Western-dominated, some might say Eurocentric, enterprise has long been accepted (Acharya, 2011; Hobson, 2012; Tickner, 2013). This has led to calls to broaden the scope and vision of the discipline by providing space for alternative voices to contribute to the conversation. What is the value of a subject that studies IR if it steadfastly refuses to be genuinely international? As the world has become increasingly interconnected, a Western vision of IR looks increasingly out of time and place. Yet even though the discipline, on the surface at least, seems open to alternative perspectives and voices, the possibility of non-Western voices joining the conversation is severely limited by particular structural impediments. Most of these are well known. The centres of expertise surrounding IR tend to be located in Western universities. These centres of excellence control the major journals and set the standards by which admission to the conversation is granted. In addition, English is the language of science, which means that those beyond the West are forced to use a language that is not their own. What is deemed interesting and/or important is governed by those exercising power in the field. I could go on, but these barriers and more have already been much highlighted and are probably already well understood. In this chapter, I want to concentrate my attention on two other structural factors that affect how alternative voices are received within the discipline. These factors do not function as barriers to entry but, instead, force alternative voices to engage in the conversation in a manner that negates the alterity that makes their contribution valuable. That is, they can only join the conversation through the negation of their otherness. The subaltern can only speak by ceasing to be the subaltern (Spivak, 1996). Underpinning this issue is the problem of theoretical and methodological pluralism. IR has tended to move away from what has been described as the ‘paradigm wars’ to what we might now call the ‘paradigm peace’. Some have embraced this peace and have suggested that ‘isms are evil’ (Lake, 2011). Others have suggested that we need to move beyond paradigms and embrace ‘analytical eclecticism’ (Sil and Katzenstein, 2010). The problem is not with the paradigms – or isms – themselves. Paradigms (isms) are nothing but

Bringing the outside in 77 the ways we talk about, think about, and interact with our chosen subject matter. If the paradigms have impoverished inter-theoretic debate, it is because of how we have employed them. And there is nothing intrinsic to the paradigms themselves that demands we treat them in this way. Paradigms, to paraphrase Alexander Wendt (1992), are what we make of them. We have treated and continue to treat the paradigms in ways that produce certain kinds of pluralism. The question is not whether to be for or against pluralism, it is what kind of pluralism we embrace and which type will be most conducive to allowing genuine alternative voices into the conversation without forcing them to adopt pre-existing modes of discourse already circulating within the field. I suggest that there are three versions of pluralism within contemporary IR and that only one can help facilitate a genuine opening up of IR to alternative voices. First is a pluralism that accepts theoretical diversity yet insists that this theoretical diversity has to be built on a bedrock of methodological unity (King et al., 1994). Second is the kind of pluralism that advocates letting a thousand theoretical flowers bloom. A type of ‘anything goes’ pluralism (Jackson, 2011; Jackson and Nexon, 2013). Third is what has been described as an ‘engaged pluralism’ (Lapid, 2003). I prefer the terminology of an ‘integrative pluralism’ because we need to go beyond a mere engagement with the other and towards a situation in which we genuinely integrate their insights into the substantive knowledge base of the field. For the sake of clarity, we can refer to these differing understandings of pluralism as modes of politics. Hence, the idea of pluralism constructed on a form of methodological monism can be likened to political absolutism. We can employ many theories in our inquiries as long as we all remain committed to the one scientific method (generally positivism). The ‘anything goes’ form of pluralism is equivalent to ‘apartheid for paradigms’ or ‘apartheid pluralism’ (Wight, 1996). The third, ‘integrative pluralism’, is closest to a form of multiculturalism. Current theoretical debate in the discipline does not seem conducive to this integrative form of pluralism. Theories seem to function as identity markers within a social system suffused by battles over resources and power. Understanding the different forms of pluralism is essential in terms of opening up space for global voices to enter the IR conversation. If mainstream, mainly Western, dominated IR theory struggles to listen to alternative voices from within its own limited inter-paradigmatic frameworks, then there is little chance that it will be open to non-Western voices. In addition, if non-Western global voices enter the terrain on the terms already set by the fragmentation of the ‘isms’, then opportunities for serious dialogue will be limited. Given the potential for non-Western voices to reconfigure IR theory along new and interesting lines, it would be a disaster if those voices adopted the frameworks that have stymied serious cross theoretical debate thus far. Indeed, the current theoretical landscape that confronts new entrants to the discipline might be one factor that increases their exclusion. Those global voices will have a greater potential of not repeating the mistakes of the past if they have a sophisticated understanding of the structural configuration that has produced ‘isms inertia’.

78  Colin Wight The piece is structured in the following manner. First, I provide more flesh on my arguments concerning the different forms of pluralism within the discipline. I also, in case there is any doubt, suggest that only ‘integrative pluralism’ can provide a space where alternative voices might make a genuine contribution to IR. Second, I turn my attention to epistemology and provide a critique of the dominant understandings of it in the discipline. My point is here to suggest that the dominant way the discipline treats epistemology is a serious barrier to the ‘integrative pluralism’ I suggest is essential to opening up IR to non-Western voices. Indeed, the way the discipline uses and understands epistemology forces us to embrace either ‘absolutist pluralism’ or ‘apartheid pluralism’. Third, I highlight the structure of disciplinary politics, which helps explain why the constant abuse and misuse of epistemology is so tenacious, despite the fact that most agree with the assessment. The point is that the discipline is structured in such a manner that for individuals the benefits of continuing to misuse epistemology far outweigh the collective benefits of rejecting this misuse. Collectively, the discipline would be much improved by moving beyond contemporary understandings of epistemology. But individually, the power structures of the field discipline any attempt to step outside this understanding. I will admit that I do not know how to move beyond this impasse, but the first step has to be highlighting it.

A plurality of pluralisms Since its inception at the end of World War I, the discipline of IR has seen a steady increase in the number of competing theoretical perspectives. Such has been the pace of this growth since the mid-1980s that it is probably an impossible task to catalogue them all, let alone possess a comprehensive understanding of them. There are almost as many approaches as there are theorists. Theoretical diversity is not necessarily a problem. Indeed, a commitment to theoretical pluralism is often assumed to be integral to all science. The growth of scientific knowledge requires the operation of an open-ended market in ideas. Unlike the natural sciences, however, the social sciences are unable to construct decisive test situations that can settle theoretical disputes to the general satisfaction of a majority of the research community. Given this epistemological uncertainty, accepting some degree of theoretical pluralism seems the rational choice. The question is how much pluralism, and of what form? In general, the commitment to theoretical pluralism can also be defended on the basis of a supposed relationship between democracy and science (Popper, 1959). Scientific progress, it is argued, is best achieved under conditions that foster debate and allow the challenging of conventional wisdom. Likewise, there is a widely held belief within the scientific community that the values of science – honesty, objectivity, and respect for the intrinsic merit of a wide range of ideas and opinions – are essential to a democratic culture. In democracies, diversity and the safeguarding of minority opinions are seen as essential goods, and any attempt to stifle alternative views or underrepresented groups is tantamount to giving up the democratic ideal.

Bringing the outside in 79 As with contemporary debates surrounding the limits of free speech in democratic societies, pluralism in the social sciences poses problems. One aim of any science is to scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) through knowledge claims in the hope of discarding those that fail to provide a valuable contribution to the overall stock of knowledge. Science is a competitive environment, and many social scientists are concerned that an open-ended commitment to pluralism may lead to a debilitating relativism and the loss of all critical standards (Sokal and Bricmont, 1998). An alternative view presents theoretical pluralism in an altogether differing light. According to this view, pluralism is tolerated because it represents a temporary phenomenon. Eventually, the social sciences will mature and develop a consistent scientific methodology such that theoretical disputes can be settled. Theoretical pluralism can be tolerated, but only on the basis of methodological unity. As Gary King et al. (1994: 9) put it, the ‘unity of all science consists alone in its method’. What the social sciences need is a rigorous – and clearly defined – set of scientific methods that constitute the framework through which theoretical disputes can be settled. The unity of method, it is hoped, will eventually lead to theoretical unity. The steady accumulation of knowledge generated through the application of scientific methods will ultimately place the social sciences on as secure an epistemological footing as the natural sciences. This position is still committed to pluralism, but pluralism is now a means, not an end. Pluralism is tolerated because it exists within a horizon of methodological unity. It is a pluralism that serves the purposes of unity: Unity-through-Pluralism (UtP). We can contrast the UtP position to the alternative view, which sees little or no prospect of any theoretical unification. According to advocates of this view, we should embrace a strategy of letting ‘a thousand theoretical flowers bloom’. Given the limited prospects of settling theoretical disputes at the epistemological level, the social sciences should embrace an open-ended commitment to all theoretical approaches. This position can be defended on two grounds. First, it is suggested that since theoretical diversity is itself a necessary component in the growth of knowledge, we should embrace a plurality of differing perspectives (Feyerabend, 1988). For the committed pluralist, unity is neither possible nor desirable, but instead it is the intrinsic good of pluralism itself which is to be defended. Pluralism here is an end, not a means. Only pluralism can deal with a multi-faceted and complex reality, and only pluralism can deliver substantial progress regarding knowledge. An alternative defence of pluralism rests on the belief that the epistemological uncertainty at the heart of all social science requires acceptance of all theoretical perspectives. According to this view, pluralism does not lead to more and better knowledge, but instead, given the lack of agreed epistemological standards for assessing competing knowledge claims, we should embrace all perspectives (Jackson, 2011). Theoretical perspectives according to this view are likened to political positions, with ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ functioning as ethical or aesthetic values (Campbell, 1998). Neither the UtP viewpoint nor the various defences of pluralism seem attractive positions for any science to adopt. Given the history of scientific progress,

80  Colin Wight it would seem inappropriate for any science to adopt theoretical conformity as a goal. Epistemologically, how would we know when we had reached a point where theoretical pluralism is no longer required? The history of science is replete with examples of well-established bodies of knowledge being overturned. Moreover, competing visions of science mean that there are no agreed standards for arriving at a unity of method (Chalmers, 1999; Godfrey- Smith, 2003).1 Pluralism for the sake of pluralism seems to lead to an incapacitating relativism, or what Yosef Lapid (2003) calls a ‘flabby pluralism’. A better term might be disengaged pluralism. No claim or viewpoint would seem to be invalid, and theorists are free to pursue their own agenda with little or no contact with alternative views. This is a disengaged pluralism because there is no attempt to specify the relationships between theories or to examine one’s own theoretical position in the light of alternative views. The absence of an agreed unity of method would also entail that the standards by which the various theories are to be judged would be internal to the theory (Jackson, 2011; Smith, 2004). This would be a disengaged form of pluralism with each theoretical perspective legitimating its claims solely on its own terms and with little reason to engage in conversations with alternative approaches. It is the kind of pluralism that finds its political expression in apartheid. Despite the intense theoretical debate that followed the ‘third debate’ (Waever’s ‘fourth’), IR now seems to have settled into an uneasy truce based on theoretical pluralism/fragmentation. Indeed, in some respects, the validity of the ‘ism’s’ themselves have been called into question (Lake, 2013). Analytical eclecticism (Sil and Katzenstein, 2010) now seems to be the mantra of the day. The question remains as to whether we simply embrace this fragmentation or attempt to work towards a more coherent view of global processes. My own view is that we should attempt to move towards a position that I will term ‘integrative pluralism’ (Mitchell, 2003). Integrative pluralism is not an attempt to forge competing knowledge claims into one overarching position that subsumes them all. It is not a form of theoretical synthesis (Kratochwil, 2003), nor is it a middle ground that eclectically claims to take the best of various theories to forge them into a ‘grand theory of everything’ (Wendt, 1999). Integrative pluralism accepts and preserves the validity of a wide range of theoretical perspectives and embraces theoretical diversity as a means of providing more comprehensive and multi-dimensional accounts of complex phenomena. This is not a suggestion that a summation of the various theoretical claims will produce a complete account; we could not know when any account was complete. Moreover, engaging in integrative pluralism carries risks, and some theories may not survive. In the course engagement, some theories may ultimately be rejected, and others may undergo substantial change and modification; hence, it is not a form of relativism. Which theories contribute to our overall stock of knowledge and which fall by the wayside, however, is not an issue that can be resolved solely in the heat of metatheoretical debate. The ultimate test of integrative pluralism will be practice, but this is a practice that cannot even begin unless we have some sense of its problems, possibilities,

Bringing the outside in 81 and practicality. Current theoretical debate in the discipline does not seem conducive to this discussion, and theories seem to function as identity markers within a social system suffused by battles over resources and power. Understanding the different forms of pluralism is essential in terms of opening up space for global voices to enter the IR conversation. If mainstream, mainly Western, dominated IR theory struggles to listen to alternative voices from within its own limited inter-paradigmatic frameworks, then there is little chance that it will be open to non-Western voices. In addition, if non-Western global voices enter the terrain on the terms already set by the fragmentation of the ‘isms’, then opportunities for serious dialogue will be limited. Given the potential for non-Western voices to reconfigure IR theory along new and interesting lines, it would be a disaster if those voices adopted the frameworks that have stymied serious cross theoretical debate thus far. Indeed, the current theoretical landscape that confronts new entrants to the discipline might be one factor that increases their exclusion. Those global voices will have a greater potential of not repeating the mistakes of the past if they have a sophisticated understanding of the structural configuration that has produced ‘isms inertia’. Getting around the current theoretical impasse will require an explanation of how it arises and an account of the limits, problems, and potentials of theorising in IR. I suggest four main factors to help explain theoretical fragmentation in the discipline. First is ontology. The contemporary international political system is best understood as a complex open system, which displays ‘emergent properties’ and degrees of ‘organised complexity’. Because all human systems have this form, they require a plurality of explanations to deal with phenomena at differing levels and the complex differentiation of causal mechanisms within levels. Since theory is a process of abstraction and since we cannot isolate particular mechanism in the manner of some of the natural sciences, then some form of theoretical pluralism is necessary and to be expected. Yet some of the natural sciences face a similar situation and have not regressed into a state of rampant theoretical fragmentation. So, complexity is not a sufficient explanation. Second is the academic division of labour, which compartmentalises knowledge into zones of expertise, which in turn structurally impedes the development of interdisciplinary research needed to explain complex systems. Third is the structure of IR as an academic discipline, which, using a framework developed by Richard Whitley (1984), I characterise as a ‘fragmented adhocracy’. Whitley views reputation as the currency of an academic discipline. A fragmented adhocracy is marked by a low degree of reputational interdependency between competing research groups, with few organisational impediments regarding the choice of theoretical framework, research methodology, or even core problematic. As a consequence, the research activity within the field proceeds in an arbitrary, incoherent, and at times ad hoc manner, with few sustained attempts to integrate new research with the existing configuration of knowledge. In such an intellectual structure, the potential for integrative pluralism is low. The fourth reason, however, is the most important, the most problematic, and, I suspect, the most difficult to change. This is the issue of epistemology, in particular

82  Colin Wight disciplinary accounts of its place in the practice of science. My ­argument here is simple: The way IR currently understands the issue of epistemology is ­confused, incorrect, and a severe barrier to serious debate across differing theoretical perspectives. I refer here to the widespread view that positivism, post-­positivism, rationalism, constructivism, feminism, and postmodernism, for example, are epistemological positions. For instance, according to Markus Kornprobst: The deepest and most consequential disagreements in the field are epistemological. Both the so-called ‘third debate’ (Lapid, 1989) between positivists and postpositivists and the ‘communicative stasis’ (Lapid, 2003: 130) that has succeeded it, speak volumes about the divisiveness of assumptions on how to produce knowledge. (Kornprobst, 2009: 87) And for Steve Smith: The key difference between rationalist and reflectivist approaches is that, broadly speaking, rationalist accounts are positivist, whereas reflectivist approaches oppose positivism . . . for now it is enough to note that the central differences between rationalist and reflectivist accounts are epistemological and methodological, and only secondarily about what the world is like (ontology). (Smith, 2010: 5) This account treats the debate between positivists and postpositivists as a debate between competing epistemologies. This is an error; positivism is not an epistemology but a philosophy of science. Moreover, the idea of a ‘feminist’ epistemology or a post-modern epistemology makes no sense. At best we might talk about feminist methods or postmodern methods. However, to ask of a positivist for example, ‘how do you know X’ and to receive the reply ‘because of positivism’ is not an epistemological position it is a statement of identity. As John Gunnell (1998: 7) argues, ‘epistemology, properly construed, is I will maintain a post-hot enterprise contingent on substantive theory and scientific practice’. Yet rarely, if ever, are we told why the differences between positivism and postpositivism are legitimately treated in epistemological terms. Never is it explained why epistemologies cannot be integrated and/or combined, apart, that is, from vague allusions to incommensurability (Wight, 1996). This is to misuse and abuse the term epistemology. It is a misuse and abuse of the term because epistemological positions do not operate as the a priori discontinuous and discrete entities this view suggests. I take it as given that the argument about complexity is a given. Likewise, the adverse effects of the academic division of labour in terms of impeding interdisciplinary work are not in doubt. Hence, the chapter will concentrate on the relationship between current understandings of epistemology and the structure of IR as an academic discipline. These two aspects are mutually reinforcing.

Bringing the outside in 83 Current understandings of epistemology in IR reproduce the disciplinary social structure, and the disciplinary structure reproduces the current understanding of epistemology. Before proceeding, however, a clarification on the issue of science. My position is based on what is known as scientific realism (Psillos, 1999). According to scientific realism, there is no such thing as the scientific method that can be applied in all domains and across all subject matters. Science is not one thing, it is many. There is no one scientific method, and each science needs to orientate its methods according to the specifics of its object domain. How we study sub-atomic particles will require different methods than how we study human societies. For the sake of expediency, I will merely define science as the attempt to come to understand and/or explain the chosen object domain through systematic and critical inquiry.

Epistemology in IR There is no epistemological basis to science as such, and theories do not have one epistemology. Science should – and does – use a range of epistemological supports (what I have elsewhere called epistemological opportunism), and there is no such thing as the scientific method; each science has to develop its own methods appropriate to the object under study (Wight, 2006). We need to get the theoretical claims, understood for the moment as ontology, on the table before we can challenge those making the claims as to how they know a particular claim is valid. Reflection on the practice and philosophy of science suggests that the place of epistemology in the research exercise is not as currently conceived in the social sciences. In short, a philosophy of science is not an epistemology. Positivism is a philosophy of science, not an epistemology. One reason why this account of epistemology has become accepted practice throughout the discipline can be located in the manner in which positivism attempted to delineate what could be counted as legitimate knowledge. Positivists claimed that only knowledge produced according to positivist principles could rightly be called knowledge. This explains why positivism came to be known as an epistemology. But we should no more accept this limited account of epistemology than we need to accept a positivist account of science. The fact that the discipline has yet to challenge this positivist appropriation of epistemology is evidence of how deeply embedded positivism remains within the field. None of this should be taken to imply that epistemology is unimportant. Epistemology is a vital aspect of the research enterprise. Its value, however, is post hoc and always in relation to specific knowledge claims, claims which are embedded with ontological considerations and/or derived from the application of particular methodological techniques. As such, a theorist or researcher has no chosen epistemological position before making a particular knowledge claim, and the specific epistemological support advanced for any given knowledge claim will vary depending on the content of that claim. Epistemological debate in science never operates in an ontological void.

84  Colin Wight There is one significant way, however, in which epistemological problems do militate against an integrated body of knowledge in both the natural and social sciences. In all the sciences, we may never ‘know’ that any given account is correct. Hence, we may be unable to decisively decide, for example, between an account of the causes of international terrorism that privileges issues of language and identity over an account that foregrounds material factors and national interest. Notice that what differentiates these two accounts is their respective ontological claims that causes of international terrorism, not a commitment to a cherished epistemological position. Of course, when confronted with these two accounts, we can and do compare them, and we reach personal and collective judgements about them. Moreover, we do so on the basis of a range of epistemological supports that the various accounts provide. What we are unable to say with absolute certainty is that one is right and the other wrong. We may, based on the evidence, prefer one account to the other, and in making this choice we will ultimately assess the arguments on either side. Moreover, the fact that we can never know that a given account is correct is an epistemological situation we would face even if we had only one account. Hence, contra the dominant understanding of the place of epistemology in the discipline, I suggest that each science demarcates its own object domain and, as such, each object domain will entail its own epistemic standards and methodology apropos its study. Thus, for example, biologists can be committed empiricists, whereas cosmologists, with limited access to empirical data, must embrace an epistemology more rationalist or pragmatist in nature. This is not to claim that biologists do not, at times, utilise rationalism or some other epistemological position or that cosmologists do not at times have access to empirical data to help in the validation of their theories. The point is that the object domain will be an influential factor in determining the most appropriate epistemology. This helps illuminate the point that epistemological considerations are derivative of ontological issues. Thus, the study of atomic particles will require a different methodology and/ or epistemology than will the study of chemical reactions. This allows us to see that the dividing line(s) is not between the natural and the social worlds but that between differing sciences. There is not one scientific method; there are many. The appropriate metaphor is not that of a sharp dividing line between natural and social science but that of a series of distinct sciences with potential areas of overlapping methodological and/or epistemological concerns and techniques. What provides the conditions of possibility for such overlapping epistemological and methodological frameworks is the simple fact that these ‘sciences’ are social practices orientated towards the production of human knowledge by humans. And humans only have a limited number of ways by which they come to know the world. There is no one scientific method or epistemology, that is, available to be rejected or accepted in relation to the study of the social world. In this respect, the aim is not to introduce a new orthodoxy (Kratochwil, 2000), a new metatheoretical position that obliterates all differences but, instead, to open up the possibility

Bringing the outside in 85 of an ‘engaged pluralism’ rather than the debilitating ‘disengaged pluralism’ that currently infects the discipline. And epistemology has a particular place in the practice of each of the sciences. Epistemology has a long and venerable tradition within philosophy. Etymologically derived from the Greek episteme, meaning knowledge and logos, meaning theory, it is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. At the heart of epistemology is an attempt to chart the difference between belief (doxa) and knowledge (episteme). Theories produce claims. Knowledge emerges when those claims are put to the epistemological sword. The main problems with which epistemology is concerned include the definition of knowledge and related concepts, the sources and criteria of knowledge, the kinds of knowledge possible and the degree to which each is certain, and the exact relation between the one who knows and the object known. Thus, epistemological questions are those concerned with the nature and derivation of knowledge, the scope of knowledge, and the reliability of claims to knowledge. In the social sciences, the situation is even more straightforward; epistemological questions are typically concerned with the grounds we have for accepting or rejecting beliefs. It is important to stress that although it will be argued that epistemology is primarily concerned with the grounds we have for accepting and/or rejecting beliefs, this should not be taken to imply that knowledge has no relationship to the objects of which it is knowledge. On the contrary, more often than not the grounds for the acceptance and/or rejection of a particular set of beliefs will be derived from the relationship between the knowledge and the object of such knowledge. Hence, ontology and epistemology, although analytically separable are always linked (Hollis and Smith, 1996: 112). For social scientists, the crucial question is what legitimates the move from doxa to episteme? If positivism is not an epistemology what is? There are basically five significant ways humans come to know the world. Perhaps the most important is empiricism. According to this view, we know something when we have experiences of the senses. Thus, we can know, theoretically at least, how many tanks a country possesses by counting them. We can know the liquid in the glass is whisky and not water by smelling it. We know there is music playing in the room next door because we hear it. The grounds we have for saying we know X is our experience of X. Another epistemology is rationalism. According to rationalism if we know all people are mortal and we know X is a person, then we know X is mortal. We do not need to experience X dying to know that X will die. We can infer the possibility of their death from the validity of the premises. Likewise, we know 2 + 2 = 4, but we do not need to observe every instance of 2 + 2 to know this. We can use logic to infer the outcome from the premises. Pragmatism is another epistemology. We can read thousands of books of guitar instruction, but we will not know how to play the guitar until we practice. Likewise, with driving a car. Reading car-driving manuals will tell us what we ought to do to drive a car. However, we will only know how to drive a car by practising. Pragmatism as an epistemology can also be understood as understanding

86  Colin Wight knowledge to be valid when we know it works. If a piece of knowledge allows us to do something, then there is some sense in which it is useful. Another important epistemology is conventionalism. We know X because we all agree X to be true. Strange as this may sound, this epistemology is fundamental to the nature of social reality and science. Specific pieces of paper only count as money because we all agree that they carry that value and play that function. People are only married because the rest of the society agrees what it means to be married, and those who are married have acted in accordance with those socially accepted rules. Conventionalism also plays a significant role in science. Often the empirical evidence is slight or inconclusive. In those instances, scientists will often collectively agree which is the correct theory or interpretation or which theory holds out the most practical promise. Kuhn (1962) built his account of scientific progress on conventionalism. Finally, there are epistemological positions based on authority. Before the Enlightenment, this was the dominant epistemological position. We claim to know something because it has come from a source of authority; the Church, the State, the community, and so on. Although the Enlightenment was supposed to have purged this epistemology from social life, it still plays a significant role. The ability of someone to speak with authority on a subject still carries epistemological force, although there are signs that this deference to ‘expertise’ (Nichols, 2017) is less accepted in a post-truth era (Ball, 2017; D’Ancona, 2017; Keyes, 2004; Levitin, 2016). In one sense, all epistemology is ultimately rationalist at heart. Even empiricism rests on a rational belief that there are such things as ‘experiences’. And this argument can be extended to pragmatism and conventionalism. As Derek Layder (1989: 45) puts it, ‘[i]n this sense all philosophy is rationalist’. Recognition of this allows us to see that rationalism stands at one end of a continuum, with empiricism at the other (Layder, 1989: 7–42). Viewed this way, we can see that all epistemological positions differ only in how they combine the extremities, rationalism, and empiricism of the continuum. All epistemologies, then, except for radical scepticism, which constitutes a denial of epistemology, are admixtures of rationalism and empiricism. This point can be reinforced when one considers that epistemology refers to an act of human knowing. Humans only have a limited number of ways of knowing as a result of their cognitive faculties. This is what Hollis (1979) has called the ‘epistemological unity of mankind’. Viewing epistemology as a continuum helps us to go beyond debates about the ultimate validity of forms of knowledge conceived of as an opposition between truth and untruth, as in the dispute between scientific or metaphysical forms of knowledge or rationalist versus empiricist explanations. These dichotomous ways of framing the issue, which surface regularly in the social sciences, do not do justice to the complexity and subtlety of the issues involved. Humans have many ways of knowing (the possibilities are limited, however), and these should not be viewed as mutually exclusive. Thus, for example, we experience the bent stick in the water, but we do not assume that the stick is bent in the water but straight when out. Rationalism and empiricism are both required

Bringing the outside in 87 to arrive at an adequate explanation of this phenomenon. Equally, this interplay of rationalism and empiricism is not restricted to Western scientific discourses, and antediluvian peoples reliant for their livelihood on fishing quickly developed a rational explanation for the experience of sticks bending in water, even if such explanations would not be considered scientific by Western standards. Nor should this be seen as a subsumption of empiricism under rationalism; instead, our experiences only make sense when rationally ordered. Thus as Feyerabend puts it, Things have to be done in concrete circumstances and not according to a general recipe. I regard the philosophical position of relativism as silly because it assumes what never happens, namely no exchange. I also regard the philosophical position of objectivism to be silly. They are two sides of the same coin. (Feyerabend quoted in Parascandalo and Hosle, 1995: 137) Here, Feyerabend is pointing out the futility of attempting to address epistemological questions in black and white terms and in advance of ontological considerations. He is advocating that we should be epistemologically pragmatic and reject all attempts to outline an a priori account of what constitutes knowledge. Often in IR, we find scholars tightly wedded to what I have elsewhere called the ‘foundational fallacy’ (Wight, 1996). According to this dogma, if we cannot have complete untarnished access to knowledge, there can be no knowledge. This position, as Feyerabend makes clear, is untenable and unnecessary. As William James (1956: 17) has argued, ‘when we give up the doctrine of objective certitude, we do not thereby give up the quest or hope of truth itself’. According to Susan Haack, what we do when addressing epistemological questions is something much less ambitious than hope to attain precise and infallible knowledge but something altogether more optimistic than the epistemological nihilism of deep scepticism (Haack, 1993). For Haack (1993: 2), epistemological justification is a matter of ‘A is more/less justified in believing’ something. All human knowledge is potentially fallible, but this does not mean that all knowledge claims are equally valid. Rejecting the idea that knowledge is an all or nothing affair, then, and following Roderick Chisholm (1989), I suggest that we conceive of an epistemic hierarchy:   6   5   4   3   2   1   0 – 1 – 2 – 3

Certain Obvious Evident Beyond Reasonable Doubt Epistemically in the Clear Probable Counterbalanced Probably False In the Clear to Disbelieve Reasonable to Disbelieve

88  Colin Wight – 4 Evidently False – 5 Obviously False – 6 Certainly False Such an approach is not without its problems, not least because the meaning of all of the previous ‘levels of knowledge’ would be susceptible to multiple interpretations. However, the epistemic hierarchy does allow us to follow Norbert Elias and reject static polarities such as ‘true’ and ‘false’. Contrary to a dichotomous view of knowledge claims, Elias (1978: 53) argues that ‘theoretical and empirical knowledge becomes more extensive, more correct, and more adequate’. In fact, as far as the actual practices of scientists are concerned, as opposed to philosophical descriptions of them, their activities tend to lend support to the view of epistemological eclecticism advanced here. That is, they appear to operate with epistemological positions functioning as ‘rules of thumb’ rather than all or nothing positions. The process is one where the scientist begins by using one rule of thumb, but if it fails to work, they introduce another. These rules of thumb, argues Feyerabend, constitute a ‘toolbox’: I mean, it’s just like rules of thumb: shall I use this rule now, shall I use that rule? Popper introduced into the toolbox the rule of falsification. His fault was to assume this is the only useful instrument, the only useful tool to apply to theories, instead of saying, ‘Well, we have increased our tool box’. Never throw away the tool box, never declare the tool box itself to be the one right thing or one tool in it, but use it, extend it, disregard it sometimes, according to the case with which you are dealing, because you never know what you will run into. (Feyerabend quoted in Parascandalo and Hosle, 1995: 123) This account demonstrates the importance of linking both epistemology and methodology to ontology as well as presenting scientists as little more than epistemological opportunists whose actual practices bear little or no relation to the dogmatic accounts produced by philosophers of science. Einstein makes this opportunism explicit, ‘[c]ompare a scientist with an epistemologist; a scientist faces a complicated situation. So, in order to get some value in this situation he cannot use a simple rule, he has to be an opportunist’ (Einstein quoted by Feyerabend in Parascandalo and Hosle, 1995: 117). Within each of various theoretical positions that currently circulate within social theory, we find just this epistemological opportunism and a range of epistemological supports used to defend specific knowledge claims. Foucault, for example, placed considerable reliance on empiricism (Koopman, 2015), whereas Derrida tends towards a more rationalist framework. However, Foucault also bases many of his knowledge claims on rationalism just as Derrida employs empiricist techniques. The same can be demonstrated of any theoretical position within IR. Certainly, particular theoretical positions can tend to privilege some epistemological

Bringing the outside in 89 supports over others, but this does not mean that whole theoretical tradition can be written off as epistemologically monistic. Moreover, even when theoretical positions do privilege one epistemological support, this is generally the result of a particular ontological, or methodological, set of commitments, not some a priori allegiance to that epistemology.

Disciplinary structure The fact of theoretical pluralism in the practice of research should not be taken to suggest that all theoretical positions are capable of being integrated straightforwardly. Some theories explicitly rule out consideration of alternatives. However, which ones can be integrated and which ones cannot require a disciplinary conversation prepared to accept that integrative pluralism is at least possibility? Current theoretical debate in the discipline does not seem conducive to this discussion. Theories seem to function as identity markers within a social system suffused by battles over resources and power. This should not surprise us. Academic disciplines, as social systems, are themselves complex self-organising systems and as such possess power dynamics and modes of inclusion and exclusion. As a self-organising system, however, we can at least recognise that we get the intellectual structure that we create (within the limits of already existing structures and environmental constraints), and this opens up the possibility of change, assuming, of course, we desire it. But change to what end? What institutional arrangements are more likely to facilitate tolerance, learning, and conversations? What are the conditions that might surround productive scholarly exchanges in the field? How might we restructure the field to increase levels of theoretical exchange? Answers to these questions can only be made on the basis of some theory that identifies some of the causal powers that create an intellectual structure that produces little integrative pluralism. According to Whitley (1984), scientific disciplines can be understood as reputational organisations. Reputational because reputation is that commodity academics desire most. He argues that organisations differ from one another, depending on the nature of their core task and the external demands to which they are exposed. Until Whitley’s work science was considered mainly as a monolith whose characteristics were the same irrespective of the discipline. Even Kuhn’s work treats science as an undifferentiated whole. In the sciences, the primary mechanism for members to obtain reputation and hence an enhanced position in the hierarchy of the field is by making contributions to the knowledge structure of their field. However, although all the sciences depend to some extent on reputation, the structural configuration varies across disciplines. Whitley identifies two mechanisms that explain the process of acquiring reputation: (1) degree of mutual dependency and (2) degree of task uncertainty. Mutual dependency is the process through which researchers in a discipline are dependent on colleagues to gain reputational currency. In IR, this mutual dependency is explicit. New entrants to the discipline need to make their mark,

90  Colin Wight and they need to build their reputations. One way to do this is to align oneself with a group of scholars to gain membership of the group and hopefully build up citations. Disciplines that have a practical focus will interact in multiple ways with their external environment; hence, reputational mutual dependency will be low, since the reputation of an individual researcher may be less dependent on colleagues than on external bodies. As one would expect in complex systems, differences in this dynamic can occur within systems. Hence, political scientists in America have a tradition of interaction with political policy-making elites that academics working in Britain and other parts of the world do not. The political system in the Unites States constitutes a more open environment for political scientists than does the British political system. Of course, this is not a uniform process, and some political scientists in Britain do gain some reputational status from external involvement. In a discipline that produces little in the way of applied knowledge, on the other hand, the researchers have to rely on each other for obtaining their reputation. However, in such disciplines, the process of gaining this recognition is much more dependent on the internal structure of the discipline. By task uncertainty, Whitley means the uncertainty that researchers face when attempting to solve a particular research problem. A primary function of all science is to produce original knowledge or to reorder existing knowledge in new and innovative ways. Yet, new knowledge does not emerge in a vacuum. New knowledge can only be accepted as new knowledge in relation to the already existing background knowledge of the field. If the background knowledge of the field is ordered, systematic, exact, and generalisable, then it increases the ease with which a new contribution can be assessed. If the background knowledge is chaotic and fragmented, then incorporating new knowledge into it becomes difficult. In effect, the new knowledge struggles to find a home. Although an unlikely scenario, an example of this might be a field that has one dominant paradigm. In such a field, the background knowledge will be well structured, clear, and comprehensible to all working within the field; hence the task uncertainty of an individual researcher will be low. Whitley also argues that task uncertainty has two dimensions: technical and strategic task uncertainty. Technical task uncertainty refers to the degree of disciplinary disagreement, inconsistency, and variability concerning the methods and procedures accepted to solve problems. In disciplines that are methodologically diverse, it will be difficult to interpret the relevance of research outcomes. Debate about appropriate methods can subsume and obscure the assessment of the validity of the research claims. For Whitley, this means technical uncertainty is high. On the other hand, if a particular method – or set of methods – has been universally accepted as the most appropriate to the field, the degree of technical task uncertainty is low. Researchers know which method to use because there is general agreement that a limited range of methods is appropriate to the subject matter. Strategic task uncertainty refers to the uncertainty researchers face deciding which problems are significant and what the ultimate goals of their research are.

Bringing the outside in 91 In disciplines displaying a high degree of strategic task uncertainty, researchers will be confronted with many different problems, and competing groups within the field will evaluate the relevance and importance of them differently. Whitley uses these two variables to identify a range of differing structural configurations for scientific disciplines. The most important in terms of the social sciences are Partitioned Bureaucracy, the Polycentric Oligarchy, and the Fragmented Adhocracy. IR, insofar as it can be considered a discipline, is a fragmented adhocracy. In disciplines of this type, there is a high level of task uncertainty both in strategic and technical terms. The solution to both types of uncertainty is to align oneself with one particular theoretical or methodological approach. In IR of course, the dominant divisions are assumed to be epistemologies. Hence, it makes sense to identify as belonging to a particular epistemological sect. This has the effect of further embedding the idea that approaches to research are epistemologies. This leads to sub-optimal outcomes where scholars treat epistemologies as something one belongs to rather than something one uses. In addition, in fields of this type, specific research methods can be more fashionable than others, but this may change over time because of the unstable overall situation. The fragmented nature of the field ensures that there is also low mutual dependence between researchers when the field is considered as a whole, which produces high levels of mutual dependency within particular theoretical traditions. IR also has minimal interaction with its environment when compared to other disciplines, but paradoxically its environment regularly invades or interacts with it. Practitioners, politicians, and media pundits regularly pronounce on international affairs. In addition, the hands-on expertise and ‘lived experience’ of these ‘outsiders’ means that they are often called upon to contribute to the disciplinary conversation. As Whitley puts it, [t]ypically, these fields are open to the general ‘educated’ public and have some difficulties in excluding ‘amateurs’ from competent contributions and from affecting competence standards. The political system is therefore pluralistic and fluid with dominant coalitions being formed by temporary and unstable controllers of resources and charismatic reputational leaders. (Whitley, 1984: 159) Fragmented adhocracies display intellectual variety and fluidity with no coherent specification of what the most critical areas of research are. Significant differences of opinion exist as to what the legitimate parameters of the discipline are. In the absence of clearly demarcated problem areas in need of research, interaction between theoretical perspectives tends to operate on the meta-theoretical level. Discussions surrounding ontology, epistemology, and the methodology of research replace the construction of new theories and research programmes. To the outsider, it is often difficult to identify what the participants do that makes them operate as a whole. There may be no robust coordinating mechanisms that systematically interrelate research results and strategies.

92  Colin Wight No single group controls the discipline and is able to enforce norms of agreed research practices and general research strategies. They may be some interconnection across research groups, but theoretical specialisation is a predominant feature. As a result, integration of research results into a general framework is not encouraged, and theoretical and empirical diversity is embraced for its own sake. Fragmented adhocracies function without coordination and central reputational control, which results in diversity, specialisation, and the lack of a theoretical centre or even a core problematique. The absence of such control allows room for more idiosyncratic research practices since the individual researcher does not have to appeal to the wider research – or public – community for reputational gain. Interestingly, Whitley (1984: 168) argues that often in fragmented adhocracies the only sustained controversy, over which the participants genuinely engage in debate, is that of theoretical diversity itself.

Conclusion Taken together, the current disciplinary structure of IR and the way epistemology is addressed mutually reinforce each other. In some respects, IR today is equivalent to what Tom Scheff (1995) calls ‘academic gangs’. New entrants to the field are faced with the problem of deciding which gang to join to gain reputational advantage. Their careers depend on it. In a fragmented adhocracy, the best way to achieve this is by aligning themselves with one approach. This is not an inevitable outcome, but those who attempt to challenge the social structure will be punished. ‘Which epistemology are you using?’ is a common question. In a fragmented adhocracy, the pressure to identify with one or other group is high. This takes place through training in PhD programmes, where students can face pressure to adopt the theoretical approach of their primary supervisor, but it also occurs in grant applications where specific language signals group membership and even in journals, which will often have a theoretical underpinning rather than an issue-specific one or perhaps a combination of both. The idea that we have one and only one epistemology which then determines how we do research feeds this structure. It also precludes the idea that we might be able to use multiple epistemologies in research. In the social sciences, then, we need to become much more relaxed about epistemological discussion. It is a post hoc dimension of research and, although important in the practice of science, we neither need to nor can stake out epistemological positions in advance of either theoretical or empirical claims. The aim here is not to provide secure epistemological grounds but instead to understand the limits to our knowledge claims and current uses of the term. If we are in the business of producing knowledge of social processes, we could surely benefit from an understanding of what knowledge is and what its limits are. Reflection on the practice and philosophy of science suggests that the place of epistemology in the research exercise is not as currently conceived in the social sciences. In short, a philosophy of science is not an epistemology. One reason why this account of epistemology has become accepted practice throughout the

Bringing the outside in 93 discipline can be located in the manner in which positivism attempted to delineate what could be counted as legitimate knowledge. Positivists claimed that only knowledge produced according to positivist principles could rightly be called knowledge. This explains why positivism came to be known as an epistemology. But we should no more accept this limited account of epistemology than we need to accept a positivist account of science. The fact that the discipline has yet to challenge this positivist appropriation of epistemology is evidence of how deeply embedded positivism remains within the field. It would be unfortunate if alternative global voices to IR were forced to replicate this structure, but insofar as they attempt to become part of the disciplinary community, this is the situation they will face. If we are genuine in our attempts to listen to alternative visions of what IR is and can be, we need to reflect on our own practices and the way in which those practices reproduce a particular kind of disciplinary structure. There is scope for agency. IR is what we make of it.

Note 1 I take it as given that international relations (IR) aspires to be a science. What that science might involve and what form it might take are the subjects of heated debate (see, for example, Jackson PT (2011) The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations: Philosophy of Science and Its Implications for the Study of World Politics. London: Routledge; Wight C (2006) Agents, Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Wight C (2007) A manifesto for scientific realism in IR: Assuming the can-opener won’t work! Millennium – Journal of International Studies 35(2): 379–398. What makes IR a science rather than art or poetry is that it attempts to provide accurate accounts and explanations of the phenomena under study.

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6 Globalising IR through dialogue Yong-Soo Eun

Introduction In the discipline of International Relations (IR), there has recently been a growing interest in the ‘broadening’ of the theoretical horizon of IR beyond the disciplinary dominance of Western/American IR scholarship (see, e.g., Acharya, 2014, 2016; Acharya and Buzan, 2010; Hobson, 2012; Kavalski, 2018; Ling, 2014; Qin, 2016; Tickner, 2013, 2016; Tickner and Waever, 2009). This interest in the broadening of IR results largely from discontent with the value of mainstream theories, namely realism, liberalism, and constructivism, all of which have ‘Western’ – or, more specifically, ‘Eurocentric’ – conceptual, analytical, and normative underpinnings (Patomaki, 2007: 575). In addition, ‘Western’ history is often regarded as ‘world’ history in traditional English schools’ accounts of international society (Buzan and Little, 2014). These Western/Eurocentric IR theories and accounts, the criticism goes, misrepresent and therefore misunderstand much of ‘the rest of the world’ (Acharya, 2014, 2016). In this respect, many IR scholars have argued that IR needs to embrace a wider range of histories, experiences, knowledge claims, and theoretical perspectives, particularly those outside the West. Here, China’s rise has added momentum to attempts to build indigenous theories about international politics or contemplate policy alternatives for global crisis (Breslin, 2011; Zeng and Breslin, 2016). The scholarly practices of building an IR theory ‘with Chinese characteristics’ are a case in point. Although consensus on what ‘Chinese characteristics’ actually are has yet to be determined (Eun, 2017), many Chinese (and non-Chinese) scholars hold that the establishment of a Chinese IR theory is desirable or ‘natural’ (Kristensen and Nielsen, 2013: 19); in this light, Confucianism, Marxism, Tianxia (all-under-heaven), and the Chinese tributary system are all cited as theoretical resources for Chinese IR (see, e.g., Qin, 2011, 2016; Wan, 2012; Xuetong, 2011; Zhang, 2012; Zhang and Buzan, 2012). Obviously, ‘non-Western’ IR theory-building enterprise is not without controversy. Critics point out that intellectual endeavours to construct Chinese and by extension non-Western IR (theory) can run the risk of inviting ‘nativism’ (Chen, 2011:15). Although developing culturally specific ways of understanding the world ‘undoubtedly encourages greater pluralism’, attempts to do so can also

Globalising IR through dialogue 97 lead to ‘a cultural and regional inwardness that may work to reproduce the very ethnocentricities that are being challenged’ (Hurrell, 2016: 149). Sharing these concerns, more recent studies have begun to pay greater attention to theoretical pluralism through which a pluralistic understanding of ‘globality’ is pursued while being wary of cultural exceptionalism (Katzenstein, 2016: 151–152). The ‘Global IR’ debate is a good example. Acharya (2014: 647), one of the most passionate scholars in promoting Global IR, claims that IR should become ‘a truly inclusive and universal discipline’ that is aware of its own multiple foundations. In this regard, Acharya (2016: 15) writes as follows: The challenge is ‘to demonstrate that concepts and theories derived from the non-Western or Global South contexts can also apply beyond that specific national or regional context from which they are initially derived’. However, despite such a meaningful debate over broadening the theoretical and practical horizons of IR and its recent contributions, an important question remains unclear or underexplored, namely, how to address theoretical fragmentation and divide. This is a critical issue closely associated with our constant pleas for diversity and pluralism as a way to rectify ‘the current West-centrism of IR’ (Buzan, 2016: 156). The (connected) issue of theoretical diversity and fragmentation needs to be subjected to much greater critical scrutiny than it has hitherto received. Although our persistent calls for more diversity in IR theory appear relatively straightforward, the issues at stake are not so simple. For example, the greater the diversity in IR theory, the greater the number of dividing lines that may emerge in the field, and the emergence of dividing lines would cause the already divided discipline to become what Oren (2016: 24) calls a ‘fragmented adhocracy’, which is a hindrance to knowledge accumulation and thus progress in the field. This is a main reason that some IR scholars take issue with pluralism in IR theory. ‘Pluralism’, they contend, ‘masks the fact that we have an incoherent field’ (Schmidt, 2008: 298). In other words, pluralism leaves us with ‘a divided discipline that not only fails to speak with one voice, but cannot even agree on what we should be studying, focusing on, or seeking to explain’, and, in some ways, this means ‘IR is at an end’ (see, for a fuller exposition of this issue, Sylvester, 2007: 551). A similar critique is also made by Brecher and Harvey (2002: 2) in their reflexive study of contemporary IR theory. Alternative and critical perspectives in IR, they observe, ‘encompass an array of research programs and findings that are not easily grouped into a common set of theories or conclusions’ and have ‘difficulty agreeing on what they have accomplished’. Rather than points of contact, distinctions between these perspectives are foregrounded. This seems to be especially so when it comes to the non-Western IR theorisation projects in which ethno-cultural ‘characteristics’ are sought at a national level. In this vein, at the same time as interest in non-Western (or post-Western) IR has been increasing, concerns about the ‘West-non-West divide’ have arisen (Acharya, 2011; Acharya and Buzan, 2017; Eun, 2016; Hurrell, 2016; Hutchings, 2011). Greater divergence between the nationally (or regionally) ordered professions of IR could place IR’s disciplinary coherence at risk. In Daniel Levine and David McCourt’s words (2018: 104), ‘a time may come – or, perhaps, has

98  Yong-Soo Eun come – when IR scholars from different professional milieux lack any shared points of reference’. In short, although the terrain of contemporary IR theory has become much wider since the late 1980s (Rengger, 2015) and the development of alternative theories is encouraged in IR scholarship, especially in nonWestern IR communities, this theoretical proliferation and its associated projects have also ‘no doubt produced monadic communities unable and unwilling to communicate with one another’ (Pasha, 2011: 685).

Calls for dialogue In response, scholars advocating for the broadening of IR – particularly in the name of ‘Global IR’ – often suggest that the field should pursue more active dialogue and engagement across growing theoretical and spatial divides. Andrew Hurrell (2016: 150), for example, notes that Global IR should aim to have ‘a far broader conversation’ regarding differently situated accounts and concepts about international relations. What these scholars call for is not to discard or disavow Western-centric IR but rather to render it more inclusive and broader so that it reflects voices and experiences outside the West more fully. Acharya (2014: 620) makes this point clear by saying that ‘while one cannot and should not seek to displace existing (or future) theories of IR that may substantially originate from Western ideas and experiences, it is possible, through dialogue and discovery, to build alternative theories . . . that have their origin in the South’. Elsewhere, he has added that ‘encouraging debate and dialogue across perspectives is a core purpose of the Global IR project’ (Acharya, 2016: 14). In a related vein, Acharya and Buzan (2017) highlight the importance of a ‘global conversation’ beyond the distinction between the West and the non-West. Since their seminal forum ‘Why There Is No Non-Western IR Theory’ was published a decade ago, there has been a great deal of studies that aim to ameliorate the Western parochialism of international studies and to move IR towards a more pluralistic discipline. This trend includes a strong and increasing commitment to the development of national schools among non-Western (in particular, Chinese) IR scholars. However, Acharya and Buzan (2017: 14) point out that the project of making IR more diverse and inclusive ‘cannot be a conversation among the likeminded’. They add: the project ‘is more likely to fail if it does not draw in the broadest group of scholars, including those in the Western mainstream’. In brief, we need a two-way ‘dialogue’ across ‘the West/non-West distinction’ in order to transform the current Western-centric IR into a global discipline without divide or fragmentation (Acharya, 2017: 822; Acharya and Buzan, 2017). As welcome as this call for ‘dialogue’ is, caveats are in order. As Kimberly Hutchings aptly notes, dialogue can be a mere exchange or encounter that has already been ‘staged and scripted’ by the mainstream (the West and positivists in the case of IR); in this respect, it could turn out to be ‘a piece of rhetorical bullying’ (Hutchings, 2011: 645). Furthermore, a ‘staged and scripted’ dialogue can lead to a tug of war between rival camps over truth claims, which in turn impedes progress in the discipline. In this regard, some scholars, such as David Lake,

Globalising IR through dialogue 99 even suggest that IR will be better off with pursuing ‘working-within-paradigms’ rather than ‘working-across-paradigms’ (Lake, 2013: 567, 580). Of course, despite the aforementioned concerns, many IR scholars, including Hutchings and Lake, do not oppose dialogue per se. Indeed, vigorous dialogues across cultures and regions and active engagement from alternative theoretical perspectives are frequently suggested not only by those who wish to broaden IR but also in reflexive discussions of the prospects of IR theory. ‘Integrative pluralism’, advanced by Tim Dunne, Lene Hansen, and Colin Wight, is a case in point. In ‘The End of International Relations Theory?’ they argue that dialogue and engagement across competing theoretical paradigms should be encouraged (Dunne et al., 2013: 416–417). In a related vein, Patrick Jackson foregrounds ‘engaged pluralism’, which ‘brings unlike elements into dialogue with one another without fusing them into a specious synthesis’, as a way of advancing IR (Jackson, 2011: 207). More than a decade ago, Yosef Lapid (2003: 129) proposed that if ‘pluralism . . . is the most deserving destination for the international relations theory enterprise in the foreseeable future, then dialogue must figure prominently on our agenda at the dawn of the twenty-first century’. In sum, the importance of dialogue per se ‘in a pluralistic, yet divided IR’ is readily acknowledged in the IR literature (Eun, 2016: 65). A critical question, then, is how we can ensure dialogue without subjugating marginalized perspectives or engaging in a narcissistic turf war. This timely and significant question remains unanswered or at best under-explored in the literature, however. To be sure, there are a few good exceptions (Bilgin, 2016; Hutchings, 2011); in general, however, our call for dialogue is not well matched by a corresponding elaboration of how it can be realised. As a result, ‘dialogue, a persistent dream in IR, remains elusive, recurrent cycles of small openings followed by closure’ (Pasha, 2011: 684). This chapter aims to address this critical issue. In ensuing pages, I, as a ‘non-Western’ IR scholar working on broadening IR, discuss specific ways to promote dialogue between Western and non-Western IR scholarship, a key to the success of ‘Global IR’ (Acharya, 2014, 2016; Acharya and Buzan, 2017).

‘How to’ promote dialogue in IR Diverse kinds and properties of dialogue: the Socratic, the Habermasian, and the Weberian In order to promote dialogue in international studies, it is first of all necessary to clarify what kind of thing dialogue is and should be. In general, dialogue is simply defined as ‘a discussion or conversation between two or more people or groups’.1 Yet in social-scientific disciplines, dialogue can have several different connotations; furthermore, there is ambiguity in how dialogue is understood and practiced in social and international studies. Dialogue can be ‘staged and scripted’ by the powerful, which inevitably involves subsumption or synthesis in their favour (Hutchings, 2011: 645).

100  Yong-Soo Eun Socratic ‘dialogue’, as depicted by Plato, provides a case in point. In Socratic dialogues, dialogue is a scripted version of a conversation in which the truth is already known by Socrates. Let us take an example from Euthyphro. When Socrates begins to have a dialogue with Euthyphro, Socrates expresses hope to ‘learn’ from him about the meaning of ‘piety’ (Kahn, 1996: 63–98); yet every time Euthyphro defines what piety is, Socrates rejects his definitions, pointing out flaws in them. Euthyphro’s definitions are flawed because they do not constitute what Socrates believes to be piety and/or good reasoning. At the dialogue’s conclusion, Euthyphro is compelled to correct his logic. That is, although Socrates tells that he wishes to learn through ‘dialogue’ with Euthyphro, what Socrates does is effectively ‘monologue’, in the sense that the direction and outcome are pre-determined. Likewise, in The Phaedo, Simmias is asked to tell what immortality is, yet his answers are refuted by Socrates, and he, too, is expected to revise his ways of knowing on the basis of Socrates’ own understanding of good reasoning. In short, Euthyphro (a merchant) and Simmias (a disciple) engage in dialogue with Socrates (a philosopher and teacher) passively, without generating new perspectives or facts. They are expected to recognise the truth given by Socrates, the powerful in terms of social status in those days. Such dialogue is little more than ‘rhetorical bullying’ (Hutchings, 2011: 646). Obviously, this is not the kind of dialogue scholars advocating for the broadening of IR call for. Dialogue can also be understood in a Habermasian manner, as ‘communicative action’ and the intersubjective practice of deliberation. Jurgen Habermas (1987) argues that reason-based communicative action is the foundation of knowledge and the path to discovering truth. Individuals in modern societies are capable of deliberating on a particular subject or problem collectively and rationally. Dialogue, understood as a deliberative practice based on communicative rationality, especially in an autonomous public sphere, is essential to adjudicating different truth claims and achieving deliberative democracy (Habermas, 1996: 27–30; see also Habermas, 1984: 48–95, 1987: 1–76). Although Habermasian dialogue does not entail ‘rhetorical bullying’, it still operates within a particular epistemological framework – namely rationalism – and thereby excludes other forms of knowledge production and approaches to dialogue, such as those based on intuition or emotion. In other words, this is dialogue that favours a particular way of knowing and creates (implicit) entry barriers to engaging in dialogue. Ultimately, this kind of dialogue would lead to conversations among like-minded agents who are subject to ‘Western modernity’ (Young, 1996: 131). Again, this is not the kind of dialogue that scholars working on broadening IR, especially those engaged in the ‘Global IR’ project, call for. Dialogue in social and international studies can also be referred to as a reconciliation of diverse perspectives. Patrick Jackson’s notion of ‘engaged pluralism’ is a representative case in point. He argues for ‘a pluralist science of IR’ in which ‘a variety of philosophical ontologies’ is accepted (Jackson, 2011: 32, 193); following from this metatheoretical commitment, methodologically diverse approaches can accordingly be brought into ‘dialogue with one another’ with equal scientific validity. This is a Weberian understanding of dialogue in the sense that dialogue

Globalising IR through dialogue 101 is regarded as a part of a collective reasoning (or in Weberian terms, a ‘collective concept’) associated with social-scientific knowledge production in which ‘science’ and ‘politics’ are distinguished clearly (Weber, 1988[1919]: 129–158). On close reading, what this implies is that dialogue does not stand independently of a priori conceptualisations about ‘scientific’ knowledge. Dialogue in social-­ scientific disciplines has an ontologically meaningful status only when several preconditions are satisfied. For instance, in order to have a meaningful dialogue, namely a reconciliation of diverse perspectives in IR, a broad definition of what counts as scientific methodology for international studies needs to be achieved first. Put otherwise, dialogue ‘as a (meta)theoretical reconciliation’ cannot begin unless equal scientific validity is granted to diverse approaches to international studies. Moreover, since dialogue in this understanding entails ‘value’ judgment of what we mean by ‘equally scientific’ (Jackson, 2011: 21), dialogue is by nature political action. Dialogue as political action goes beyond an ideal-typical treatment of ‘science as a vocation’ (Weber, 1988[1919]: 1–7) towards a socio-political constitution of science. Viewed in this sense, dialogue here inevitably involves the political issue of the power/knowledge nexus. Dialogue in which the value judgement of ‘equal’ scientific validity and a socio-political ‘constitution’ of science take place should be, according to Weber’s clear distinction between science and politics, restricted to a space where egalitarian mutual encounter and argumentation is possible. Yet, considering the enduring institutional, racial, discoursive, and gender hierarchy embedded in the structure of contemporary IR, this type of dialogue is likely to remain ‘ideal’ without much-needed actual ‘practice’.

What kind of thing should dialogue be? Dialogue’s goal and strategy What kind of thing, then, should dialogue be? I argue that dialogue needs to be understood and practiced as a reciprocal exchange of perspectives for mutual learning. By definition, this understanding of dialogue does not prioritise one side or the other. Nor does it have metatheoretical or methodological preconditions. Most of all, it sets out to safeguard against a tug of war between perspectives and a subsumption of one of them in favour of the other. Because dialogue is understood as mutual learning, it must involve the improvement of the existing knowledge that both sides in the dialogue have produced. One clear element of dialogue as mutual learning is thus complementary reciprocity. Between Western and non-Western perspectives, this complementary reciprocity can take place at and across theoretical, empirical, and meta-theoretical levels. There are no necessary or predetermined pairings. For mutual learning, for example, dialogue between Western international theory and non-Western local experiences and between non-Western philosophy and Western methodology can and should occur. Moreover, the type of dialogue advocated here extends beyond the customary concern about the geographical (or ethnical) origins of knowledge claims (i.e., the question of where they are from) to the question of where research interests or claims overlap and thus can complement each other. In any case, the

102  Yong-Soo Eun bottom line is that through continuous and reciprocal feedback from different levels, perspectives, and experiences, both sides in the dialogue learn, their understandings are complemented, and our knowledge improves. Of course, the previous definition of dialogue for itself does not generate dialogue. We also need to address the question of how to translate this definition into praxis. It is here, I think, that we need to return to the admonition of Acharya and Buzan, which I briefly mentioned earlier. They note that the project of making IR more diverse and inclusive is ‘likely to fail if it does not draw in the broadest group of scholars, including those in the Western main-stream’ (Acharya and Buzan, 2017: 14). A conversation ‘among the like-minded’ – for example, among those interested in non-Western IR theory building – not only ‘carries a greater risk of the fragmentation of the discipline’ (Acharya and Buzan, 2017: 21) but also fails to achieve mutual learning. The problem is that those in the ‘Western mainstream’ rarely initiate dialogue with non-Western IR scholars, especially those committed to unsettling the present status of the discipline. As Tickner (2011: 609, 611) puts it, they (the ‘winners’) have ‘rarely been willing to engage losers’ in a series of debates in the history of IR. Even if the ‘losers’ show great interest in dialogue, it is ‘not reciprocated by the mainstream’. Given this reality, non-Western IR scholars need to initiate dialogue, and, as a first step, we should attempt to find and expand points of contact with our Western counterparts. One way to do so is to take existing Western IR theories as a starting point for contact. This is an ‘instrumentalist’ approach to having dialogue in the present Western-centric state of IR. To be sure, this is not to say that alternative or indigenous international studies are unnecessary. There ought to be persistent attempts to develop theoretical insights and historical narratives on international relations from non-Western perspectives. However, our theoretical inputs or historical stories are likely to remain disparate or neglected if we do not succeed in sparking considerable interest and attention among ‘Western’ IR scholars. Given their social and geopolitical incentives and motivations, the major concerns of Western IR scholars, particularly those sceptical of the broadening IR project, are primarily with existing Western IR theories and histories. As such, in order to initiate dialogue, our efforts to advance non-Western perspectives on international relations should be interlocked with existing IR knowledge claims, no matter how Western-centric their underlying epistemic or normative foundations are. This ‘instrumentalist’ approach to existing IR theories, in which these theories are used critically or complimentarily from non-Western perspectives, can motivate Western IR scholars to listen more carefully to non-Western voices, which can in turn open up possibilities for dialogue between Western and non-Western IR scholars. This is not an endorsement of the current Western-centrism of IR or existing IR theories. To repeat, the goal is mutual learning, which must involve the improvement of the knowledge that both sides in the dialogue have produced. To achieve this goal, we, non-Western scholars, ought to examine and accumulate our different lived experiences and intuitions in international relations precisely because they are the basic resources for achieving the improvement

Globalising IR through dialogue 103 of knowledge and ‘greater diversity’ in IR, the ultimate goal of ‘Global IR’. Hence, when we use Western IR theory, we should do so in a critical and complimentary manner. At the same time, however, it should be emphasised again that our attempts to develop or highlight non-Western IR theory or history should not be ‘a conversation among the likeminded’, which would inevitably lead to the ‘fragmentation’ of the discipline (Acharya and Buzan, 2017: 21), a concern shared by many IR scholars (see, e.g., Brecher and Harvey, 2002; Oren, 2016; Pasha, 2011; Schmidt, 2008) and a situation that would make dialogue impossible. It is in this light that I call for an instrumentalist approach to dialogue. For example, beginning with existing Western IR theories as a point of contact and moving into interweaving our different lived experiences and intuitions about the international with them can be very useful in generating dialogue between Western and non-Western IR communities and thus enabling mutual learning.

An illustration: constructivist IR theory and East Asian history Let me explain the previous discussion in more detail in the context of promoting dialogue across ‘the West/non-West divide’. The focus here is on dialogue as mutual learning between Western-centric IR theory and local understandings of Asia, more specifically between constructivist IR theory and the indigenous knowledge and experiences of East Asian states. Most scholars agree that socially constructed attributes, such as national identity or nationalism, matter a great deal in the international relations of East Asia. IR and area studies have a wealth of literature advocating this view. According to constructivism, for example, social and ideational attributes form our conceptions of who we are and what we value; they in turn define the content of states’ ‘interests’ and therefore the way they ‘act’ in world politics (Wendt, 1994, 1999). It is ‘identity’ that constructs ‘a particular set of interests or preferences with respect to choices of action’ in international politics (Hopf, 1998: 175). Drawing on these constructivist insights, scholars interested in East Asian regional politics observe that ‘nationalism appears to be rising in a renascent Asia, stoking tensions, aspirations, pride, and identity politics’ (Kingston, 2015: 1). Shin (2015: 189) notes that ‘historical memories and national identity’ shape Northeast Asian interstate relations. Going a step further, Wang (2013: 16) claims that ‘different interpretations of history and differences in identity . . . must be seen as a cause for conflict’ between China and Japan. In this respect, concerned scholars suggest that East Asia narrow ‘the gaps in the perceptions of identity’ through ‘historical reconciliation’ so as to improve regional cooperation (Kwak and Nobles, 2013: 4). Further, these claims lead to the following analytical injunction: One needs to pay great attention to national identity or historical memory in order to make sense of the present and future of East Asian international politics (Arai et al., 2013; Glosserman and Snyder, 2015; Goh, 2013; Johnston, 2012; Kang, 2003; Kim, 2015; Rozman, 2012).

104  Yong-Soo Eun Despite the voluminous literature on the importance of national identity and its implications for East Asian international politics, the questions of how and when this ideational and social construct matters in the foreign policies of East Asian countries remain unclear. An attempt to answer this question requires both theoretical and empirical knowledge. That is, we need theoretical knowledge regarding the causal mechanisms and processes of national identity in relation to a state’s foreign policy and empirical observation of how specific aspects of this identity actually come to exercise a causal effect on certain foreign policies of East Asian countries. Unfortunately, however, it is often acknowledged that area studies on Asia lack the former (i.e., theoretical and methodological commitments to an understanding of causal mechanisms) and that theoretical IR studies do not pay due attention to the latter (i.e., empirical, local knowledge of individual Asian countries’ foreign policy). In effect, the two fields remain disparate although both acknowledge the importance of national identity. Hence, this is a point where dialogue (i.e., mutual learning and complementary reciprocity) can and should take place. For example, constructivist IR theory makes it possible to grasp the essence of East Asian international politics – namely the politics of identity – and understand the patterns of East Asian states’ external behaviour associated with nationalism. Let us take a concrete example from South Korean foreign policy behaviour vis-a-vis Japan and North Korea. South Korea often reacts more firmly and even aggressively to Japan’s history textbooks than it does to North Korea’s nuclear weapons. This appears puzzling. South Korea directly faces North Korea’s nuclear threats; in order to curtail the latter’s nuclear ambitions, South Korea needs to cooperate and coordinate with regional states, including Japan. Seoul also needs to consider the trilateral cooperation system of the United ­States-Japan-South Korea, which the US has pressured it to join. Additionally, South Korea and Japan are both democracies with thick economic ties; several economic institutions have been established to promote bilateral cooperation between the two countries. As such, one would expect South Korea to pursue comprehensive cooperation with Japan. Nevertheless, empirical reality shows the opposite. Why does South Korea behave as it does in relation to Japan? Existing (Western) IR knowledge claims, more specifically constructivist IR theory, can provide and define a range of explanatory possibilities; taking cues from it, we can have plausible answers to this puzzle by shifting our analytical focus from power politics or material interests to identity politics. However, constructivism – as a general theoretical perspective derived mainly from the Western history and experience – falls far short of answering how and when national identity actually matters to South Korea’s foreign policy actions. This is where indigenous knowledge in turn feeds back into an enrichment of constructivist IR theory and our overall understanding. For example, several indepth historical inquiries on South Korea demonstrate that South Koreans have long formed a clear set perception of Japan as the immutable ‘Other’. Since the colonial occupation of the early twentieth century, the idea of the Japanese ‘Other’, a foil to Korean ethnicity, has built bonds of national solidary and

Globalising IR through dialogue 105 social coherence among South Koreans. In postcolonial Korean society, Japan is still a powerful differentiator that reminds Koreans of who they are and who they are not. South Korean sentiment and, to an extent, even its history curricula support the idea that the Korean nation is not only distinct from Japan but ethnically superior as well (Choe, 2006; Kim, 2011; Koh, 1994; Lee and Jeong, 2010). In contrast, ethnicity remains today a reminder in both South and North Korea of ‘who they are’ despite the border between them. Neither territorial partition nor political separation completely erased the belief in a Korean identity based on a shared past, common ancestry, and ethnic homogeneity (Bleiker, 2001; Olsen, 2008). The view that all Koreans are ‘members of an extended family’ is a resilient one. Of course, during the Korean War of 1950–1953, the South and North adopted political identities that were not only distinct from but also in stark opposition to each other; due to this change, the more or less unitary system of ethnic national identity in South Korea gave way to an identity affected by multiple variables. Nonetheless, ethnic identity remains the most fundamental and rigid of these variables. In South Korea, the powerful idea of a mythic, historical Korean nation persists (Choe, 2006; Kim, 2011). For instance, while ethnicity (a cultural construct based on common ancestry, language, and history) is typically distinct from race (an immutable phenotypic and genotypic group), Koreans view the two as inseparable. In Korean discourse about identity, the terms ‘race’, ‘ethnicity’ and ‘nation’ are used interchangeably (Shin and Chang, 2004: 121). The governments of both South and North Korea, in this respect, continue to regard the reunification of Korea as the key to the ‘completion’ of the nation-state. Both consider the division of Korea after the Second World War a ‘temporary’ circumstance (Shin et al., 1999: 476). The leitmotif of ethnically based national identity is a critical component of policy discourses on the reunification of Korea. For example, in their policy discourses on North Korea, the South Korean governments, whether they were liberal or conservative, often evoked the Korean term danil minjok or han minjok, which literally means ‘a nation of one clan’ (Lee, 2010a, 2010b, 2012; Roh, 2006a, 2006b). Viewed in this light, South Korea’s behaviour towards Japan becomes understandable. When we consider the country’s long-standing ethnic identity, according to which Japan is regarded as an inferior Other, the negative image of Japan that South Korea has appears logical and even natural. What does all of this evidence imply? Knowledge about local historical experiences makes constructivism a more effective approach to understanding the dynamics and extent of national identity’s causal effect on foreign policy. Such knowledge is indeed necessary to determine which aspects of national identity are more rigid and thus exercise a more powerful causal influence on foreign policy and why. In short, this indigenous knowledge helps increase the analytical purchase of national identity, a key variable of constructivism. In other words, historicised research and local knowledge can add depth and sophistication to existing (Western-centric) IR theory by specifying its boundary and scope conditions. Taken as a whole, both sides learn, and our knowledge thus improves.

106  Yong-Soo Eun

Implications for Global IR and dialogue The discussion thus far has significant implications for the ongoing project to move IR towards becoming a more inclusive and pluralistic field of study and our calls for dialogue in it. First of all, the previous discussion should not be read as saying that constructivism alone can generate dialogue as mutual learning across ‘the West/ non-West divide’. More careful and sophisticated thinking is necessary here. As the existing constructivist literature indicates, national identity matters in international politics. South Korea’s foreign policy behaviour is no exception. But it is the historicised knowledge and ethnographically attuned approach that actually tells us how it mattered and when it mattered most. Such knowledge has shown that the impact of national identity depends on the types of national identity involved and on their degree of rigidity, which rigidity is dependent on collective memories and emotions regarding a state’s historical experiences. More specifically, multiple national identities can be preserved in a state over time, one of which is more rigid or fundamental than the others; its causal power (i.e., its constraining and enabling influence) over a state’s foreign policy overwhelms other types of national identity. Put simply, national identity operates within a ‘hierarchical’ setting. Hence, in order to increase the explanatory purchase of national identity (and by extension constructivist theory), analysts need to understand not just any national identity of a given state but the rigid one which sits at the top of the hierarchical layers of national identity. I would prefer to call this a ‘superior’ (or master) identity. The previous analysis suggests that IR theories, specifically constructivist theorists, should be attentive to indigenous context and ethnographically informed empirical research, precisely because the national identity that is superior is the one that has been stable over time, is shared across generations, and continues to engender emotional bonds in a given nation. In addition, as the case of South Korea’s national identity demonstrates, the substantive elements of the ‘superior’ national identity are derived from the nation’s collective historical experiences, especially its traumatic experiences – such as colonialism and war – in which the distinction between Self and Other (or Us and Them) is clear and consistent and thus underlies and ensures the social coherence and emotional solidarity of the nation. This, once again, requires IR (theory) to be attentive to the indigenous history and experiences of the nation under study. In sum, we should not only examine the various aspects of a state’s identity but also evaluate the rigidity/hierarchy of these aspects to correctly understand their effect. To this end, Western-centric IR theory, including constructivism, needs indigenous and ethnographic knowledge (of Asia) and vice versa. Indeed, dialogue between the two should take place. As many scholars have recently argued, looking at the world from a perspective that privileges Western veins of thought leaves much open to misinterpretation. But the opposite is also true. The recent calls for a more inclusive and broader IR that properly reflects that the histories, knowledge, and theoretical perspectives from outside the West do ‘not seek to displace existing (or future) theories of IR that . . . originate from Western ideas and experiences’ (Acharya, 2014: 620). Instead, the ultimate objective of this project to broaden IR is to recognise

Globalising IR through dialogue 107 Table 6.1  An example: dialogue in international studies Dialogue as mutual learning Western-centric IR theory (e.g., constructivism)

⟷

Indigenous knowledge and experiences in East Asia

Why do East Asian states behave as they do? – Provides general propositions (i.e., ‘national identity matters in international politics’) that help strip away what is peripheral and grasp the essence of the issue Enriched propositions

→

Makes sense of the complex local context and identifies whether the state behaviour under study is generalisable

←

Specified and circumscribed scope conditions

←

How does it matter? – National identity acts as a prism through which policymakers interpret situations to be compatible with prevailing societal norms – National identity contains normative regularities that make policymakers self-regulate their actions – Foreign policy may be based on certain national goals that are part of the national identity When does it matter? – When a particular identity that indicates the clear distinction between Self and Other is invoked – When a particular identity that forges national solidarity and emotional bonds is invoked – Such an identity (i.e., what this chapter calls ‘superior’ identity) is based on a nation’s collective experiences, especially traumatic historical experiences, which entail collective emotions on certain subjects or narratives

Benefits of having dialogue as mutual learning – Greater richness in understanding and higher precision in explanation – Better suggestions for real-world problems and policy issues – A broader and more inclusive IR (i.e., ‘Global IR’)

multiple foundations of thought and encourage dialogue across the West/nonWest divide in the study of global politics. If so, debates over Western versus non-Western IR or the superiority of one way of knowing over another should not be a major issue of concern for today’s

108  Yong-Soo Eun IR. Instead, the question to be debated is when and where each way of thinking offers greater insights. Most importantly, we should focus on developing productive interaction between differently situated or derived perspectives. Viewed in this light, it is unfortunate that ‘West-centrism’ and its alternatives are addressed or approached narrowly, in terms of the geographical origins of concepts, theories, or theorists, in the ongoing broadening IR project, be it non-Western or Global IR. For example, Wemheuer-Vogelaar et al.’s study (2016: 18, 24), based on the 2014 Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) survey data, shows that non-Western IR scholars tend to ‘have geographically bounded perceptions of IR communities’ and that ‘geography plays a central role in the Global IR debate’. Of course, it is true that non-Western worlds and their voices sit on the margins of the discipline; we frequently grapple with this marginalisation or underrepresentation. The point is not that these geographically based concerns are misplaced but that the non-Western or Global IR project needs to widen the discussion by considering the issue of marginalisation beyond geographical or ethnical concerns. To reemphasise, in the process of rendering IR more colourful and inclusive through dialogue, the focus of discussion should be brought not to the unpacking of the concern with the geographical foundations of knowledge claims but to the exploration of the potential (or previously unrecognised) similarities and overlaps between perspectives and thus realise the benefits of dialogue, namely mutual learning. To be clear, this is not to say that the varied or different life experiences of non-Western scholars – who have been excluded from the mainstream of the profession in IR – cannot or should not develop new or indigenous perspectives on international politics but rather that our aim should be to move IR one step closer to becoming a dialogic community. To paraphrase and reflexively extend a claim made by Acharya (2016: 15), a ‘challenge’ that we ought to take up is to ‘demonstrate’ how concepts, experiences, or perspectives ‘derived from non-Western contexts’ can be interweaved with Western-centric IR theory. For example, as Table 6.1 shows, by spelling out the theoretical meanings of local Asian experiences in relation to existing Western IR theory’s causal mechanisms or boundary conditions, we can establish and expand useful ‘points of contact’ across fragmented understandings resulting from both the Western parochialism of IR and monological attempts to develop non-Western IR. Following this undertaking, dialogue as mutual learning in international studies can take place. Rather than unquestioningly applying Western-centric IR theories or developing non-Western indigenous knowledge to replace those theories, we need to focus on promoting dialogue between them, with the aim of creating inclusive and complementary understandings of our complex world. After all, the issue is not who is right or where we are from but whether we can talk to each other.

Note 1  Oxford English dialogue

Dictionary,

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/

Globalising IR through dialogue 109

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110  Yong-Soo Eun Hopf T (1998) The promise of constructivism in international relations theory. International Security 23(1): 171–200. Hurrell A (2016) Beyond critique: How to study Global IR? International Studies Review 18(1): 149–151. Hutchings K (2011) Dialogue between whom? The role of the west/non-west distinction in promoting global dialogue in IR. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 39(3): 639–647. Jackson PT (2011) The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations: Philosophy of Science and Its Implications for the Study of World Politics. London: Routledge. Johnston AI (2012) What (if anything) does East Asia tell us about international relations theory? Annual Review of Political Science 15(1): 35–52. Kahn CH (1996) Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kang D (2003) Getting Asia wrong: The need for new analytical frameworks. International Security 27(1): 57–85. Katzenstein PJ (2016) Diversity and empathy. International Studies Review 18(1): 151–153. Kavalski E (2018) The Guanxi of Relational International Theory. London: Routledge. Kim MK (ed) (2015) Routledge Handbook of Memory and Reconciliation in East Asia. London: Routledge. Kim SB (2011) Identity Prevails in the End: North Korea’s Nuclear Threat and South Koreas Response in 2006. EAI Asia Security Initiative Working Paper 18. Seoul: East Asia Institute. Kingston J (2015) Asian Nationalisms Reconsidered. London: Routledge. Koh BC (1994) A comparison of unification policies. In: Kihl YW (ed) Korea and the World: Beyond the Cold War. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Kristensen P and Nielsen R (2013) Constructing a Chinese international relations theory: A sociological approach to intellectual innovation. International Political Sociology 7(1): 19–40. Kwak JH and Nobles M (eds) (2013) Inherited Responsibility and Historical Reconciliation in East Asia. London: Routledge. Lake D (2013) Theory is dead, long live theory: The end of the great debates and the rise of eclecticism. European Journal of International Relations 19(4): 567–587. Lapid Y (2003) Through dialogue to engaged pluralism: The unfinished business of the third debate. International Studies Review 5(1): 128–131. Lee MB (2010a) President Lee’s address for the 60th anniversary of the Korean war. President Lee Myung Bak Speeches, CHEONG WA DAE, The Office of President, Seoul, 25 June. Lee MB (2010b) Speech on 65th anniversary of national liberation. President Lee Myung Bak Speeches, CHEONG WA DAE, The Office of President, Seoul, 15 August. Lee MB (2012) The way for the North to survive is to voluntarily dismantle its nuclear weapons and to cooperate with the international community through reform and open-door policies. President Lee Myung Bak Speeches, CHEONG WA DAE, The Office of President, Seoul, 16 April. Lee NY and Jeong HW (2010) The Impact of North Korea’s Artillery Strike on Public Opinion in South Korea. EAI Issue Briefing on Public Opinion. Seoul: East Asia Institute. Available at: www.eai.or.kr/data/bbs/eng_report/201101281811046. pdf (accessed 7 March 2017).

Globalising IR through dialogue 111 Levine D and McCourt D (2018) Why does pluralism matter when we study politics? A view from contemporary international relations. Perspectives on Politics 16(1): 92–109. Ling HM (2014) The Dao of World Politics: Towards a Post-Westphalia, Worldist International Relations. London: Routledge. Olsen E (2008) Korean nationalism in a divided nation: Challenges to US policy. Pacific Focus 23(1): 4–21. Oren I (2016) A sociological analysis of the decline of American IR theory. International Studies Review 18(4): 571–596. Pasha K (2011) Western nihilism and dialogue: Prelude to an uncanny encounter in international relations. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 39(3): 683–699. Patomaki H (2007) Back to the Kantian idea for a universal history? Overcoming Eurocentric accounts of the international problematic. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 35(3): 575–595. Qin Y (2011) Development of international relations theory in China: Progress through debates. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 11(2): 231–257. Qin Y (2016) A relational theory of world politics. International Studies Review 18(1): 33–47. Rengger N (2015) Pluralism in international relations theory: Three questions. International Studies Perspectives 16(1): 32–39. Roh MH (2006a) Speeches on March first independence movement day address. President Roh Moo Hyun Speeches, CHEONWA DEA, The Office of President, Seoul, 1 March. Roh MH (2006b) Letters on South Korea-Japan relations. President Roh Moo Hyun Speeches, CHEONWA DEA, The Office of President, Seoul. Rozman G (ed) (2012) East Asian National Identities: Common Roots and Chinese Exceptionalism. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press. Schmidt B (2008) International relations theory: Hegemony or pluralism? Millennium 36(2): 105–114. Shin GW (2015) National identities, historical memories, and reconciliation in Northeast Asia. In: Rozman G (ed) Asia’s Alliance Triangle. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Shin GW and Chang PY (2004) The politics of nationalism in U.S.-Korean relations. Asian Perspective 28(3): 119–145. Shin GW, Fred J, and Yi G (1999) The politics of ethnic nationalism in divided Korea. Nations and Nationalism 5(4): 465–484. Sylvester C (2007) Whither the international at the end of IR. Millennium 35(3): 551–573. Tickner AB (2013) Core, periphery and (neo)imperialist international relations. European Journal of International Relations 19(3): 627–646. Tickner AB and Waever O (eds) (2009) International Relations Scholarship Around the World. New York: Routledge. Tickner JA (2011) Dealing with difference: Problems and possibilities for dialogue in international relations. Millennium 39(3): 607–618. Tickner JA (2016) Knowledge is power: Challenging IR’s Eurocentric narrative. International Studies Review 18(1): 157–159. Wan M (2012) Introduction: Chinese traditions in international relations. Journal of Chinese Political Science 17(2): 105–109.

112  Yong-Soo Eun Wang Z (2013) Perception gaps, identity clashes. In: Arai T, Goto S, and Wang Z (eds) Clash of National Identities: China, Japan and the China Sea Territorial Dispute. Washington, DC: Wilson Center. Weber M (1988 [1919]) Science as a vocation. In: Gerth HH and Mills CW (eds) From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. London: Routledge. Wemheuer-Vogelaar W, Bell N, Morales MN, and Tierney M (2016) The IR of the beholder: Examining Global IR using the 2014 TRIP survey. International Studies Review 18(1): 16–32. Wendt A (1994) Collective identity formation and the international state. American Political Science Review 88(2): 384–396. Wendt A (1999) Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Xuetong Y (2011) Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Young IM (1996) Communication and the other: Beyond deliberative democracy. In: Benhabib S (ed) Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Zeng J and Breslin S (2016) China’s ‘new type of great power relations’: A G2 with Chinese characteristics? International Affairs 92(4): 773–794. Zhang F (2012) ‘The Tsinghua approach’ and the inception of Chinese theories of international relations. The Chinese Journal of International Politics 5(1): 73–102. Zhang Y and Buzan B (2012) The tributary system as international society in theory and practice. Chinese Journal of International Politics 5: 3–36.

7 Global emotion studies in IR Embracing non-Western voices Chaeyoung Yong

Introduction In recent years, a comprehensive scholarly reflection on the role of emotion has been undertaken under the umbrella term ‘emotional turn’ in International Relations (IR) (Åhäll and Gregory, 2015; Ariffin et al., 2016; Clément and Sangar, 2018; Hutchison and Bleiker, 2014). The broad-ranging research on emotional phenomena in global politics has much potential to contribute meaningfully to practicing ‘pluralism’1 by producing plural narratives. The focus on emotions has constituted broader theoretical debates by rediscovering that the relationship between emotion and reason is no longer as dichotomic nor as contradictory as was previously believed (Jeffery, 2014; Markwica, 2018; McDermott, 2004; Mercer, 2010, 2014; Holmes, 2015, 2018; Rathbun et al., 2017; Sasley, 2010; Wheeler, 2018). A voluminous literature has revised the frameworks of decisionmaking beyond the rational actor model, which has dominated IR and political science (Kertzer and Tingley, 2018). In addition, renewed attention to the complex relationship between the body and emotions has produced a new wave of scholarship to account for the multifaceted bodily experience of political violence from local to global (Fierke, 2013; Hall and Ross, 2015; Ringmar, 2016; Solomon, 2015; Wilcox, 2015). Despite such fruitful contributions, the current research on emotion fails to question the issue of ‘Western-centrism’. Its broader meta-theoretical foundations still rely on ‘Western’ philosophical canons and scientific traditions, and this precludes potential exploration of ‘non-Western’2 ideas and ways of feeling. What, then, might be missing within ‘the Western-centric’ (mainstream) perspectives in emotion studies? This Western-centric orientation is problematic in many ways, which I discuss in the subsequent section. Furthermore, a paucity of systemic engagement with the emerging ‘non-Western’ or ‘Global IR’ (Acharya and Buzan, 2010, 2017; Acharya, 2014, 2016; Tickner and Waever, 2009; Bilgin, 2016) agenda within emotion studies is noteworthy. Emotion scholars’ explicit emphasis on the necessity of a ‘pluralistic approach’ (Bleiker and Hutchison, 2018: 336) is in line with voices for pluralising IR. However, aside from a few cases (Ling, 2014a; Qin, 2016), the call for broadening IR, which aims at excavating marginalised voices, stories, and experiences, has not investigated the role

114  Chaeyoung Yong of emotion in non-Western contexts thoroughly. Hence, the purpose of interrogating the place of non-Western voices (e.g., concepts, experiences, philosophy) is not to fix the identity of ‘non-Western’ emotion research but to reflect on how successful we have been so far in bringing excluded voices into the field. This chapter has two purposes: first, to elucidate why IR needs a genuinely ‘global’ study of emotion in achieving pluralism by actively embracing non-­ Western voices; second, to elaborate on the merits of doing it. Such a move towards ‘global emotion studies’ may promise ‘geo-epistemological diversity’ that problematises a diversity of places, histories, and identities in the process and the outcomes of knowledge production (Wemheuer-Vogelaar and Peters, 2016: 5). This discussion can appeal to researchers who invest in emotions by offering non-Western sources of ideas as a viable path to develop their own rationale for exploring marginalised emotional experiences. Also, this approach helps us to rethink the potential value of engagement between the mainstream IR and nonWestern theorising, thus foregrounding pluralism which calls for complementary encounters among different knowledge claims without subsuming diversity to universalism. To this end, this chapter first explores the case of Western-centrism in emotion studies by demonstrating how non-Western contexts, perspectives, and traditions have not been sufficiently explored. I will discuss what might have been neglected in the Western-centric approaches to emotions. The next section explores several potential outcomes of incorporating non-Western voices on emotion into the current study on emotion. I argue that emotion studies can offer significant practical value in building a more reflexive and pluralistic IR by finding new grounds in common across geographical and theoretical boundaries beyond the West.

Western-centrism in emotion studies To what extent has the current study of emotion explored non-Western contexts empirically and engaged with non-Western thoughts metatheoretically? Within the empirical study of emotion, few scholars have investigated cultural or regional differences and emotional phenomena in encounters across civilisations (for example, see Fattah and Fierke, 2009; Fierke, 2013; Hutchison, 2016; Koschut, 2017a; Solomon, 2018; Ross, 2014; Shepperd, 2013). Surprisingly, within three recently published edited volumes on emotion,3 only two out of 30 empirical studies explore non-Western contexts (Japan, Coicaud, 2016; South Asia, Parashar, 2015). Most of the empirical studies have focused on Western regions or countries including critical/reflexive analysis of Western methods of militarism and strategic culture (Delori, 2018; Wasinski, 2018). Indeed, the socio-constructivist research on emotion has paid attention to the particularities of place, history, and culture in which emotions vary significantly according to intersubjective meanings that shape a society’s moral order. Studies on various forms of representation practices and rituals that influence individual/collective emotion according to (racial, national, ethnic, and gendered) ‘feeling rules’4 and ‘emotion culture’5 highlighted the (re-)production of different cultural meanings

Global emotion studies in IR 115 (de Buitrago, 2018; Gregory, 2015; Guittet and Zevnik, 2015; Hutchison, 2014; Parr, 2015; Ross, 2014). And yet, scholars have overwhelmingly focused on Western contexts and neglected to explore everyday life in the non-Western societies, thereby bringing a limited cross-cultural or in-depth understanding of politics of emotion. From two other critical directions, feminist and postcolonial works have long challenged the gendered, racial practices and the conventional binary of reason/ emotion that constitute specific bodies as masculine/feminine, rational/emotional, or superior/inferior (Ahmed, 2014; Åhäll, 2015; Ling, 2014b; Shepherd, 2015; Sjoberg and Gentry, 2007). Recent studies revisit how socially constituted gendered forms of feeling rules differentiate, silence, or legitimise the bodies, both male and female (Basham, 2015; Howell, 2015; Penttinen, 2013), and yet, these contributions still remain in the Western contexts of militarism and warmaking. With a critique of the dominant narrative of women involved in violence, Parashar turns to non-Western contexts to narrate the untold the story of women’s anger in support of wars and armed conflict in Kashmir, India, and Sri Lanka. Still, further studies should be conducted on non-Western emotional experiences of modernity, which are co-constituted by colonialism and imperialism with the intersections of race/ethnicity, gender, and class. Some scholars acknowledge limitations and delineate future agendas. Reeves (2018: 122) writes that her auto-ethnographical analysis of affective experiences at London’s Imperial War Museum as European/Western heritage may run the risk of reproducing ‘a privileged Anglo-European perspective on world politics’. Van Hoef (2018: 69) points to the necessity of investigating non-Western ideas by mentioning ‘non-Western conceptualisations of friendship are still very much underexplored’. However, I find the absence of serious engagement with non-Western conceptualisation of emotional concepts, thoughts, and theories at meta-theoretical level, which might be problematic. Accordingly, emotion studies still face a challenging task of navigating the interaction between Western and non-Western. What is striking is that engagement with the non-Western world is restricted to dealing with experiences and patterns as ‘raw data’. Despite some degree of diversity within post-positivist research, minor revision of existing theories or paradigmatic research tends to treat the non-Western world as merely one of ‘undiscovered’ cases or a testing ground. Some research often chooses to associate itself with positivist terms to make its knowledge claim on emotional patterns and behaviours into a hypothesis for empirical generalisation (Heller, 2018: 80; Holmes, 2015), thereby precluding further engagement with non-Western concepts, theories, and worldviews. Recent commitments within Global IR to greater elaboration and inclusion of post-Western/Westphalian ideas facilitate decentring Western/Westphalian concepts and theories and seeking a new metatheoretical foundation (Chan et al., 2001; Ling, 2016: Qin, 2016; Shahi and Ascione, 2016; Shani, 2008; Shilliam, 2010; Yan, 2011); however, these practices are rarely found in emotion studies. At stake here is whether there are fundamentally problematic issues related to Western-centric research on emotion. The first concern is that if we prioritise

116  Chaeyoung Yong disentangling abstract emotion from the context for generalisation or cross-case comparison across times and spaces, this might produce an ahistorical, homogenous conception of emotions that can be universally applied. Arguably, making ideal-typical categories of emotions seems useful to observe and analyse the impact of a specific emotion on a wide range of political outcomes for an analytical and methodological purpose (Clément and Sangar, 2018: 11; Crawford, 2014). Scholars, however, tend to distil and define hastily a specific emotion as a fixed and universal category. For example, while Hall seeks contextualisation of emotional display and its meanings, his categorisation of emotional diplomacy with anger, guilt, and sympathy largely presupposes their core affective feeling is ‘universal’ (Hall, 2015: 32). The underlying assumptions of this move are that discrete emotion may function as an independent variable or constitutive cause of political phenomena and individual/collective behaviours and that research can reveal that pattern. While these assumptions have been mainly justified by the positivist goal of comparison and generalisation, many have challenged the idea that a particular emotion is an ontologically separate entity free from social and cultural contexts that shape its display and meanings (Lakoff and Johnson, 2008; Wetherell, 2012; Scheer, 2012; Mattern, 2011). Post-positivist works do focus on a discrete emotion, yet they first explore contexts in which emotions emerge and disappear within a cluster of related and often conflictual emotions that are shown by actors’ languages and practices (Fierke, 2013; Solomon, 2018; Ross, 2018). Caution is needed when applying a certain category of emotion to other nonWestern contexts where that category might not always be present or might be ‘lost’ (Frevert, 2011; Dixon, 2003; Frevert et al., 2014; Jordheim et al., 2015). Complex dynamics of emotion in non-Western contexts defy any facile appropriation of emotional concepts which differ in their broader semantic context as well as distinctive affective experiences. With historical scrutiny, an understanding of ‘fear’ as a ‘basic’ or ‘universal’ emotion, for example, is slowly collapsing under the weight of the cultural and contextual reading of situated meaning (Plamper and Lazier, 2012; Laffan and Weiss, 2012; Ahmed, 2014, Ch. 3). The meanings and experiences of fear demonstrate historical, regional, and cultural variation. For example, in the context of the cultural and violent political encounter between the Spanish colonisers and indigenous people in California, the word fear itself was ascribed to the indigenous population in the Spanish colonial writings that identify natives as weak, whereas it was absent in indigenous accounts (Haas, 2012). The lack of effort to historicise and contextualise emotion terms prevents us from rethinking disappeared, hidden, or silenced emotions in different regional and cultural spaces and times (Boddice, 2018: 89). Interrogating appearance and disappearance of one or a bundle of emotions is politically significant since it uncovers rules and power dynamics behind it. The power of the word in a respective context and transmission of one to another are not only embedded in a structural power context but also constitute a new reality (AbuLughod and Lutz, 1990; Liu, 2004). Semantic change is not just a linguistic matter but a political matter that transforms how one feels emotions in a certain

Global emotion studies in IR 117 way. For example, in Joseon Korea in the late nineteenth century, the sense of shame (suchi) had been an emotional response to an immoral situation based on neo-Confucian morality. This emotion transformed into the one with negative feelings of humiliation in the face of Western civilisation and emergence of Japan, which had been seen as morally inferior to Korea (Park, 2015). As foreign intervention deepened, feelings of resentment, grievance, and ‘righteous anger’ (euibun) appeared as a crucial affective experience for a Korean subject when protesting against an unjust situation. Thus, specifying political context should be the first priority to explore why a certain emotion is named and articulated at a given time. Second, identifying the geo-epistemological dimension of the research reveals another possible barrier to overcoming Western-centrism: the overdependence on modern scientific findings and Western knowledge over other types of knowledge, namely non-Western thoughts. Extant research on individual-level emotional phenomena has borrowed insights and findings from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and psychology.6 Western-centrism can be reproduced by relying on a particular type of knowledge without investigating the heterogeneity and historicity of that knowledge, which underpins a contextual understanding of emotions (Gross, 2006). More precisely, we tend to neglect the fact that ‘science’s knowledge claims . . . give it the power to influence what society more broadly considers – feels – to be true’ (Boddice, 2018: 87). However, having less precise criteria for judging different theoretical and empirical claims drawn from any natural or human sciences, IR scholars have sometimes been less cautious about borrowing such knowledge when it is compatible with their political or ideological purposes (Bell, 2015; Kurki, 2015). The tendency towards only importing a certain type of knowledge with the invocation of ‘science’ to bring epistemic authority or validity may reproduce our neglect of other types of knowledge such as philosophy, common knowledge, or cultural traditions by regarding them as not equal to scientific theories (Qin, 2018a; Fierke, 2019; Ling, 2018; Katzenstein, 2018). Nor do I argue that emotion researchers should explore ‘only’ traditions of thought other than ‘science’. Differentiating ‘religious or philosophical idea’ from the ‘non-West’ versus ‘scientific knowledge’ from ‘the West’ is misleading, as the former has provided a systemised knowledge qualified as science. The point I make here is the tendency towards one-sided communication. While IR has endeavoured to be distinguished as a ‘scientific’ discipline (Neumann, 2014), there is much room for multiple communication with various sources of ideas as ‘the borders, barriers, and boundaries of the academic field of IR itself are not fixed, but constantly re-negotiated’ (Åhäll and Gregory, 2015: 225).

Making a case for global emotion studies In this section, I argue globalising emotion studies with greater geo-epistemic diversity can make profound scholarly contributions to the field by embracing non-Western voices on emotion, that is to say, non-Western conceptualisation,

118  Chaeyoung Yong perspective, experience, and traditions of thought on emotion beyond the West. In doing so, the study of emotion can not only overcome Western-centrism but also offer significant value in terms of generating rich theoretical, empirical, and normative insights. First and foremost, exploring non-Western thought will shed new light on the current study of emotion by deepening theoretical debates on emotion. A variety of non-Western philosophical ideas can provide entirely different answers to the ontological and epistemological questions regarding not only the relationship of body-emotion-cognition but also the desirability and function of emotions in human society. Various Asian philosophies on emotion, for example, the Buddhist notion of Middle way (Madhyamaka) (Varela et al., 2017; see also Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna’s Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (2013)) and Confucian moral philosophy on emotion can provide a useful path towards understanding the practice of embodied cognition (Seok, 2012; Virág, 2017). As the mind-body problem beyond the Cartesian paradigm lies at the heart of how we understand emotion in various disciplines including IR (Solomon, 2015; Hall and Ross, 2015), elucidating how non-Western philosophy conceptualises emotion(s) may bring insights into the current debate. Beyond the conception of emotion itself, the epistemology and ontology of relationality, which foregrounds the logic of relationality as the metaphysical component of actors and social world, is paving the way to reconsidering our view of agency, emotions, and ethics (Braun et al., 2018; Fierke, 2019; Kavalski, 2017; Ling, 2014a; Qin, 2016, 2018b; Zanotti, 2017, 2018). This idea attempts to decentre the Western conceptions of individualistic ontology and rationality, which largely underpin the mainstream IR theory of world politics. The turn to relationality revisits the role of emotion not only in redefining the rational and egoist self but also in reconsidering how we can understand and cooperate with others in a world of interrelatedness. Building upon Daoist yin/yang dialectics and using the illustration of the new Silk Roads, Ling (2018: 35) presents an idea of ‘epistemic compassion’, which means ‘an open mind and heart when encountering difference’ as a way to heal ‘Eurocentric-Westphalian IR’s atomistic, competitive, and violent self’ (Ling, 2018: 37). This type of research demonstrates that insights from non-Western philosophical and historical ethos can provide both analytic and normative values in rethinking various emotional relationships (from intersocietal to interstate) based on a self-centred and individualistic actor. Drawing on the burgeoning studies on moral emotions, an exploration of non-Western traditions of thought on emotion as meta-theoretical sources provides some clues to answering how to respect the different Other with compassion rather than with fear and rejection, thus transforming violence. Second, taking non-Western philosophies seriously will lead us to have a nuanced understanding of the relationship between emotion and religion, thus providing strong empirical accounts. Many Western-centric descriptions linking a particular emotion to a particular culture or region have concrete political effects that reproduce a power hierarchy between the West and non-West. Moïsi (2009) describes famously that ‘the Asian world today is characterised especially

Global emotion studies in IR 119 by hope, the Arab-Islamic world by humiliation and the Western world by fear’. Without a careful reading of historical pain and suffering from the perspective of regional history, such an oversimplified narrative may reproduce the identity of ‘non-West’/‘the Other’ in relation to ‘the West’ by linking a particular emotion to further ‘rage’ (see for example Lewis, 1990), hatred, and a source of violence. Rather, a sophisticated approach to traditions of thought and religion allows us to explain how emotion is performed by actors in religious contexts and why it leads to political acts; for example, how the act of ‘the suicide terrorism/ martyrdom’ in the contemporary Middle East is interpreted differently in Islam (Fierke, 2013: 194–218). Moreover, IR studies can understand better why religious actors engage with certain activities in peace and violence (see for example Fattah and Fierke, 2009; Lehr, 2019) by incorporating emotions more substantially into interpreting religious belief, rules, and practices that shape different forms of display and concealment of emotion, while not necessarily essentialising the inherent nature of religion or tradition. Third, empirical studies from a comparative cultural perspective can balance the Western-centric conceptions of emotion and ways of approaching emotion. Observing intercultural contestation and symbolic politics in non-Western contexts will lead us to discover how different social meanings are attached to emotions and how the social meanings are constituted and shared across political groups. Some studies demonstrate the value of exploration of the multiple sociocultural and intersubjective processes through which people actually attribute (cultural, national, or gendered) meanings to acts of compassion in practice. Fierke argues that empathy is shared among in-groups that consider that the act of self-sacrifice arises from compassionate intent to communicate the sufferings of a community, while out-groups express negative emotions towards the acts they perceive as harmful (Fierke, 2013: 563). She examines the case of self-­ immolation of Vietnam activists in both the cultural context of Buddhist traditions and the political context of American involvement in the Vietnam war in the 1960s. Her analysis contrasts with Welland’s study on the making of the soldier as a compassionate actor in war-making in Afghanistan (Welland, 2015). Welland explains how two different processes of compassion (feeling on behalf of another who suffers, suffering together with another) work to conceal violence in war and justify the Western counter-insurgency policy. Rather than imposing abstract ideas or standards of what a compassionate act is or should look like, an improved understanding of the meanings and practices of emotion can be achieved by actively excavating different worldviews and sociocultural contexts, rather than by relying solely on scientific theories. Fourth, along parallel lines, broadening our attention to a non-Western world is helpful to interrogate the rise of trans- and multi-cultural emotional exchanges, which cannot be fully explored within a framework of national or monocultural boundaries. Ling (2014b, 581) underscores how multiple affective lives exist in and ‘intersect between’ cultural, racial, and national boundaries by deconstructing affective conditions of institutional racism, imperialism, and colonialism. How non-Western and Western emotional experience and practice of emotions may

120  Chaeyoung Yong be embedded within and even co-constitute the Western and non-Western world needs further investigation. For example, the way in which emotions work in the process of civilising varied historically according to a set of boundary-making feeling rules of civility/barbarian in the encounters between different cultures/regions (non-Western-Western, among Western) (Pernau and Jordheim, 2015). A certain set of good emotions such as fearlessness, honour, and pride were often cultivated in constituting a civilised community (nation) in opposition to cowardliness, dishonour, and shame (Pernau and Jordheim, 2015: 11–12). In China, through transmission of Western knowledge, reordering and regulating the hearts, minds, and bodies of the Chinese people was geared towards civilising and modernising the state with the goal of weisheng (nourishing life) (Messner, 2015). On the other hand, the emotional/rational distinction that was transposed to the dichotomy between the East/West took a different form in Meiji Japan under the civilising project. Japanese intellectuals, who had been distanced from the former centre of civilisation of ‘rational’ China under Confucian ideals, started to interpret the ‘emotional’ aspect of Japan’s patriotism, loyalty, and national spirit as strong and unique compared to the ‘rational’ West (Benesch, 2015: 261). Coupled with a contextual understanding of non-Western emotional phenomena, a historical investigation on the co-constitutive relationship between Western imperialism and non-Western powers in building global politics (Acharya and Buzan, 2019; Dunne and Reus-Smit, 2017; Phillips, 2016) would render emotion studies conducive to interweaving Western and non-Western emotional experience. Also, a transnational phenomena pushed scholars to analyse hybridity of emotional words and experiences beyond the West/non-West divide yet with different valence, energies, and meanings in respective contexts such as a concern for human dignity as ‘global emotionology’ (Fierke, 2015) or resentment in contemporary terrorism (Brighi, 2016), women’s anger within the MeToo movement (Chemaly, 2018), and circulations of affect in the Arab Spring (Pearlman, 2013; Solomon, 2018). Lastly, embracing non-Western emotional voices can produce a normative form of knowledge which furnishes us with a value-laden perspective within a social situation (Jackson, 2015: 956). Listening to non-Western voices leads us to comprehend not only how local actors’ understanding of empathy works in the conflictual context (e.g., the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; see Head, 2016) but also what it means to act ethically with compassion and love within different epistemes, such as within Daoist traditions (Ling, 2014a: 21; for Asian philosophies see also Ling and Chen, 2019). The burgeoning literature on moral sentiments (Pagano and Huo, 2007) also falls into pitfalls of Western-centrism, relying on Western philosophical and scientific traditions (Prinz, 2007; Jeffery, 2014; Nussbaum, 2013; Tappolet, 2016). The works on empathy (Crawford, 2014), for example, are criticised for assuming a normative, progressive, and universalist characterisation of empathy originating from biological or ideological orientation (e.g., Western-liberal idea) without scrutinising the socio-political conditions in which it may or may not work (Head, 2016: 97; Ross, 2018). Contrary to the prevailing myth that empathy can function as a universal moral code for all societies, caution appears where actual practices vary historically depending on racial,

Global emotion studies in IR 121 ethnic, and national norms and structure of the communities (Asmann and Detmers, 2016; Ure and Frost, 2014). Thus, sensitivity to non-Western contexts will prevent researchers from suggesting misguided implications that neglect complex political situations or naturalise a certain ideological purpose (Bell, 2015: 125). A turn to non-Western contexts resonates with a recent strand of research, which provides a wide array of marginalised everyday stories, experiences, and narratives of people (individual and collective) (Barkawi, 2011; Beattie et al., 2019; Guillaume, 2011; Parashar, 2015; Åhäll, 2018; Sylvester, 2013a, 2013b; Holland and Solomon, 2014; Solomon and Steele, 2017). This approach also offers fruitful aesthetic knowledge so as to evoke ethical ideas indirectly by delivering a felt sense of everyday experience of emotions in the face of wars or conflicts (Bleiker, 2001, 2018; Schlag and Geis, 2017). Emotion researchers can go further by exploring individuals’ wider emotional worlds of non-Western such as systemic material violence, institutions, memories, histories, and collective meanings that surround people. Without falling into a universalising tendency or mere description of the subject, these attempts to uncover the everydayness of non-Western life-worlds and emotions enable us to connect broader patterns of systemic power relations within/through which the subject is constituted (Hamati-Ataya, 2018: 14; Saeidi and Turcotte, 2011: 694). As Sabaratnam (2013) argued, the agenda of producing normative knowledge for peace-building or emancipation may reproduce Eurocentrism by disregarding the agency of ‘the local’, characterised as context, custom, traditions, and difference in the everyday environment and prioritising ‘the interveners/the West’. Thus, re-evaluating the relationship of knowledge claim and the agency of the non-Western should be elaborated to politicise the mode of dominance that reproduces a misguided division of ­‘Western/global’ and ‘non-Western/local’ as ontologically given. The remaining question is how exactly global emotion studies can advance pluralism in the field with a sustained effort to pursue engagement and ‘dialogue’.7 What I mean by pluralism is the coexistence of different ways of producing knowledge rather than a fixed hierarchy under the dominance of one particular form of knowledge production. Granted, our goal is to escape the fragmentation of the field by reorienting IR towards being more inclusive and global as a discipline, rather than towards maintaining a ‘Western/non-Western divide’. Considering this, emotion studies, which currently exist in between the mainstream theories and non-Western IR theory-building, can and should play an active role in promoting multiple dialogues. Here, a form of dialogue between IR/emotion studies and the non-Western world should be a ‘reflexive’ and ‘transformative’ one that recognises a plurality of voices and ‘multiplicity’ and promotes selfreflection, thus transforming self/other identity (see Valbjørn, 2017; Inayatullah and Blaney, 2004; Bilgin, 2014; Ling, 2014b). As discussed earlier, dialogue with and by the non-Western world can the transform current orientation of emotion studies from Western-centrist to global. Then, enlarged emotion studies, which has a place for all theories and ideas, can stimulate various types of combinations and intersections in IR, and this might bring about fundamental changes in identity of each participant either –Western or non-Western – or a third one.

122  Chaeyoung Yong What happens if current IR takes emotion seriously to practise pluralism? For the Western/mainstream IR scholars, understanding emotion would make these scholars not remain in a weak foundation that blocks pluralism in IR, that is sticking to single and conventional concepts, theories/paradigms, or methodology. A strong critique of the rational actor model by emotion researchers already promotes elaboration and development of new frameworks to investigate complex emotional phenomena in politics (Holmes, 2015; Kertzer and Tingley, 2018; Renshon et al., 2017). While it is still limited in terms of its substance, I would argue that a sign of growing self-reflection has been shown within the paradigm of rationalism. If we pay more sophisticated attention to historicised and nonWestern experiences through dialogue, this will encourage existing Western-­ centric/mainstream IR theory on emotion to expand its position. However, as many pointed out (Hutchings, 2011: 646; Tickner, 2011: 617), the hierarchical form of dialogue reproduces continued division of labour between Western theories on emotion and non-Western emotional experiences, which comes from institutional, geographical, methodological, racial, and gender hierarchies within the field. Such dialogue does not fundamentally alter the identities of participants or the nature of the research. Rather, bringing emotion into our dialogue can motivate us to disturb current modes of researching in IR. In doing so, an exit from dominant and singular narrative is thinkable and possible, if by no means easy. Furthermore, seriously reconsidering the role of emotion can bring benefits to the Global IR project in answering the crucial question of ‘how to approach Global IR’ (Bilgin, 2016: 137; Hurrell, 2016), a question that lies at the centre of the ongoing debate. Global IR researchers could problematise systemic and deep-rooted epistemological assumptions (e.g., Western-centrism, rationalism) within the field by revealing how the emotional aspect of marginalised actors is silenced. Dialogue with a non-Western world aims to decentre socially situated concepts that hamper us from listening to stories and emotional experience. The road to global emotion studies can be one of the paths to curtail Western-­centrism in IR by unpacking the traces of power in the discipline through increased selfreflexivity and a critique of dominant knowledge production. As discussed, looking at non-Western ways of being and living or their ‘moral imaginations’ inspired by various philosophies (Ling and Chen, 2019) involves an understanding their ways of feeling. It is possible to embolden their exploration of non- or post-Western theory-building by investigating emotional ideas to modify and compete with the mainstream theories. Furthermore, mainly reflexive scholarship introduces emotion/affect not just as an analytical category but as a methodology to invoke researchers’ reflexivity and creativity (Åhäll, 2018) in shaping our understanding of ‘the political’ (Sylvester, 2011; Reeves, 2018). Incorporating affective relations between the researcher and actors under study into the process of inquiry leads scholars to see global problems in a different light. While any of our knowledge claims cannot fully ‘represent’ marginalised people’s (i.e., the subaltern’s) desire and emotions (Spivak, 1988)8, thinking about and through emotion has provided crucial insights into the way we approach non-Western/global actors.

Global emotion studies in IR 123 In addition, the rationale for dialogue with non-Western philosophies is not merely to add an alternative body of theory that exists outside waiting to be discovered, as this move does not sufficiently challenge Eurocentrism/ Western-­ centrism as a mode of knowledge production that structures geoepistemology and constructs ‘non-West’ as a fixed ‘Other’ (Çapan and Zarakol, 2019: 126–127). Rather, it is to recognise how non-Western ideas and experiences have shaped world politics, which has not been adequately acknowledged. This is because non-Western scholarship and sources of knowledge are left out of IR’s conventional narrative of Western-centrism due to many barriers such as disciplinary practices of intellectual gatekeeping (Fredua-Mensah, 2016) or language (i.e., the dominance of English). In order to reconcile the dichotomy of Western/non-Western, global emotion studies should understand a constitutive and hybrid relationship between the non-Western and Western world in terms of both knowledge production and ‘worlding’ or ‘being in the world’ (Tickner and Blaney, 2013). Following Bilgin, I contend that it is necessary to recognise the non-Western world by ‘considering contribution and contestations of peoples and states from the Global South’ which is ‘constitutive outside’ (Bilgin, 2018). More importantly, building upon previous efforts, bringing non-Western voices into emotion studies is targeted to reflect on multiple and diverse foundations through ‘mutual learning among civilizations’ (Acharya, 2014), not through ‘cultural exceptionalism’. Although non-Western philosophies are useful for critiquing the Western-centred epistemology/ontology, it should be noted that to dialogue with the non-Western world is not to replace or dismantle Western views or theories. As Ling emphasised (2014a: 18), there is a dialectical relationality and/or intimate interdependence between the Westphalian world and multiple worlds. In this sense, I contend that acknowledging non-Western voices is to ‘enrich’ existing IR (Acharya, 2016: 6) as well as to avoid essentialism or parochialism.

Conclusion While recent studies on emotion have generated numerous insights in the field of IR, they have underexplored non-Western contexts, experiences, and traditions of thought, which may provide a profound means of broadening IR. This chapter has demonstrated that emotion researchers have tended to base their theoretical foundation of emotions on concepts and knowledge derived mainly from the West and so might reproduce Western-centric and universalised conceptions of emotion, which undermines cultural and regional differences in the non-West. This tendency, in turn, leads to hierarchical knowledge production: ‘the West’ producing theory, using ‘the non-West’ as ‘raw data’ and fitting it to a conventional framework, which runs the risk of constraining or blocking genuine pluralism in IR. I have argued that bringing non-Western voices and thoughts back into the field will contribute not only to deepening current debates in emotion studies but also to building a more plural and reflexive IR. As discussed earlier, in advancing global emotion studies, emotion researchers can translate

124  Chaeyoung Yong their thought-provoking insights from non-Western traditions into rich empirical studies. They should become more accustomed to exploring different types of knowledge as well as alternative ideas and concepts beyond IR’s dominant knowledge production. Also, I believe the project of Global IR will be an unfinished project if it overlooks emotional experience (related feeling rules and thoughts) of the non-West. Given the importance of engagement and dialogue to promote pluralism, the study of emotion should stimulate multiple dialogues with non-Western sources of ideas as well as with the mainstream, thereby creating new meaning and enhancing the possibility of transformation of IR. In this sense, evoking ‘emotion’ is not to keep a fixed identity against the mainstream as ‘the Other’ but to bridge and connect multiple ideas between fragmented sides. Lastly, as many have argued, pluralism should be practised with the attitude of ‘opening mind and heart’ (Ling, 2018: 1) when encountering ‘difference’ while not precluding the possibility of ‘complementarity’ (Fierke, 2019; Katzenstein, 2018; Qin, 2018a) beyond the Western/non-Western binary. I thus hope this chapter can be a reflection of practising pluralism in order open a space for such discussion.

Acknowledgments The author would like to thank this book’s editor, Yong-Soo Eun, for encouragement. She thanks Karin M. Fierke and Vivienne Jabri, both of whom generously shared their unpublished manuscript on global conversation and provided invaluable feedback on this draft. For insightful comments on earlier drafts, she is also grateful to Chaesung Chun, Ahmed Abozaid, and panels at ISA Toronto 2019 and at the BISA PhD/ECR conference 2019.

Funding The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this chapter.

Notes 1 Recent studies seek to unpack this issue to clarify the goal and implications of pluralism in the field. Dunne et al., 2013; Eun, 2016; Jackson, 2016; Levine and McCourt, 2018; Wight, 2019. 2  I share the idea that the distinction between ‘the West’ and ‘the non-West’ is problematic in terms of delimiting potential dialogue as ‘an exchange between multiplicity and contradiction’ (Hutchings, 2011: 646). Here, the invocation of ‘non-Western’ is not to ask its particular geographical origin but to include ‘nonWestern ways of being and knowing’ (Acharya, 2016: 4; Acharya and Buzan, 2019: vii) and alternative episteme and agency that are not rooted in the Eurocentrism (Ling and Chen, 2019). While acknowledging serious weaknesses of parochialism and ethnocentrism, my intention is to problematise the tendency towards the generalising or universalising of Eurocentric/Western conception of emotion and affective experience. Following ‘Global IR’s’ goal, the term of ‘global emotion studies’ seeks to transcend ‘the West/non-West’ binary.

Global emotion studies in IR 125 3  Åhäll L and Gregory T (eds) (2015) Emotions, Politics and War. London: Routledge; Ariffin Y, Coicaud J-M, and Popovski V (eds) (2016) Emotions in International Politics: Beyond Mainstream International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Clément M and Sangar E (eds) (2018) Researching Emotions in International Relations: Methodological Perspectives on the Emotional Turn. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. 4  The term of feeling rule or ‘emotionology’ refers to a set of norms and rules that regulate the expression of appropriate emotions in a given context. Stearns and Stearns (1985: 813) first coined the term to ‘distinguish the collective emotional standards of a society from the emotional experiences of individuals and groups’. 5  According to Koschut (2017a: 179), emotion culture is understood as ‘the complex of standardised emotion vocabularies, norms, and beliefs about particular emotional expressions that facilitate the cultural construction of power, community, and identity’. 6  For the influence of neuroscience works on IR, see McDermott, 2004, 2014; Hatemi and McDermott, 2011; Holmes, 2018; Renshon et al., 2017; Jeffery, 2014. Recent genetic, biological, and evolutionary works focus on how the genetic, neural level and social environment intersect Kertzer and Tingley, 2018, 14. 7  For the discussion on the meanings and types of dialogue in Global IR, see Acharya, 2011; Bilgin, 2014; Eun, 2018; Hellmann, 2003; Hutchings, 2011; Valbjørn, 2017. Fierke and Jabri discuss some of the issues covered in this part and to which I have had pre-publication access. Fierke KM and Jabri V (2019) Global conversations: Relationality, embodiment and power in the move towards a Global IR. Global Constitutionalism 1–30. 8  On Spivak’s question of how the subaltern can speak and the importance of ‘translation’, see Maggio, 2007. According to Robinson, this question involves the ethics of communication that anchors the role of care, vulnerability, and responsibility in encounters with research subjects and their experience by acknowledging power and hierarchy. See Robinson, 2011. On the issue of negotiating emotional difference during the investigation, see Parashar, 2011.

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Index

Note: Page numbers in italic indicate a figure and page numbers in bold indicate a table on the corresponding page. Abbott, Andrew 63 Abe, Shinzo 30 Acharya, Amitav: critique of Eurocentric IR 11; on dialogue in Global IR 19; on Global IR 13 – 14, 97, 98 adhocracy 18 Al-Ghazali, Abu Muhammad ibn 51 ASEAN Plus Three (APT): Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) and 70; constructivist analysis of 60; East Asian collective identity and 66, 69; exclusion of United States from 69; financial regionalism and 57, 68 – 69, 69; yoking and 68 Asian capitalism 46, 47 Asian Currency Unit (ACU) 57 Asian Financial Crisis, the 57, 67 Asian IR 12 Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) 67 – 68, 71 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) 26 balance of power: China and 33 – 34, 36; India and 33 – 34; Pakistan and 30; realist conception of 24; in South Asia 34 – 35; south Asian nations and 29 Bangladesh 27 – 28 Beautiful and the Damned, The (Deb) 48 Belt and Road Initiative, the: Asian capitalism and 48; colonization and 49; epistemic compassion and 41, 46, 52; Maritime Silk Road and 28; Silk Road Ethos and 46, 49; ‘string of pearls strategy’ and 26; trialectics and 49 – 50, 52 Bhabha, Homi 45 – 46 Bhutan 36n5

boundaries 62 – 63, 64, 72 Brecher, Michael 15 Brooks, Stephen 33 Buddhism 5, 118 Buzan, Barry 11, 19 Callahan, William 13 capitalism 32 Cartesianism 118 Chen, Ching-Chang 13 Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) 57, 69, 70 – 71 Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM): Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) and 70 – 71; financial regionalism and 57 China: Asian capitalism and 47 – 48; Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and 26; balance of power and 24 – 25, 29, 32, 33 – 34; capitalism of 32; economic development of Bangladesh and 27 – 28; economic development of Sri Lanka and 27; economic globalization and 31 – 32; globalization and 24 – 25; India-Nepal relations and 26 – 27; infrastructure development of other countries of 26; Japan and 26; the Maldives and 28; Pakistan and 36n5; ‘peaceful development strategy’ of 25; ‘peaceful rise’ strategy of 25; Seychelles and 36n1; South Asian security and 34; trade volume of 32; weisheng and 120 China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), India and 28

Index  135 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), revolutionary movements and 53n3, 53n4 Chinese IR 18; Chinese foreign policy and 3, 4; generalisability of 12; globalising IR and 96; nativism and 96 – 97; socioeconomic transformation of China and 11; theory building and 3; US parochialism and 17 Cold War, the 24, 25, 36 collective identity 61 – 64 Confucianism 118 constructivism: dialogue and 103 – 105, 107; emotions and 114; national identity and 104 – 106; regionalism and 59, 62; relational ontology and 62 conventionalism 86 Cortés 40 Daoism 5, 41 – 42 democracy 78 dialogue: approaches to 6; constructivism and 103 – 105, 107; defined 6, 99 – 100; emotions and 121; fragmentation and 102, 103; Global IR and 18 – 19, 98; Habermasian 100; hierarchical form of 122; instrumentalist 102; marginalised perspectives and 99; as mutual learning 101, 107, 108; pluralism and 101, 122 – 123, 124; as political action 101; realisation of 20; as rhetorical bullying 18 – 19, 98; rhetorical bullying and 100; Socratic 100; Weberian 100 – 101 diversity: Chinese IR and 18; fragmentation and 97; fragmented adhocracy and 97; international politics and 1; theory building and 16; types of 17 Dunne, Tim 1, 17, 19 East Asia 61 East Asian Miracle, The (Birdsall, et al.) 65 economic globalization 25, 31 economic interdependence 33, 34 Einstein, Albert 88 Elias, Norbert 87 emotion culture 125n5 emotionology 125n4 emotions: Buddhism and 118; Cartesianism and 118; civilising processes and 120; Confucianism and 118; constructivism and 114; dialogue and 121; diversity and 6 – 7; gender and 115; Global IR and 113, 115,

124; pluralism and 114, 121 – 122; positivism and 115; post-positivism and 116; rational actor model and 122; relational ontology and 118; scientific study of 117; violence and 118 – 119; the West and 113 empathy 120 – 121 empiricism 85 – 87 engaged pluralism 85, 99; see also integrative pluralism; pluralism epistemic compassion: border-crossing and 42, 43; BRI and 52; colonization and 45; Daoism and 41; Difference and 40; epistemic disobedience and 46; epistemic violence and 5; intersubjectivity and 41; Silk Road Ethos and 46; spirituality and 40 epistemic disobedience 46 epistemic violence 5, 40 epistemology: conventionalism and 86; empiricism as 85; fragmentation and 6; fragmented adhocracy and 92; misuse of 78; ontology and 85; philosophy of science and 83, 92; positiivsm and 83; positivism and 93; post-positivist 1; pragmatism as 85; rationalism as 85; science and 81 – 82; scientific method and 83, 84; the social sciences and 85 Fanon, Frantz 45 fear 116 Feyerabend, Paul 87, 88 financial regionalism 69 foundational fallacy, the 87 fragmentation: adhocracy and 6, 18, 91; dialogue and 102, 103; diversity and 97; inclusivity and 121; of ‘isms’ 80, 81; pluralism and 4, 18, 97; theoretical proliferation and 4; West/ non-West divide and 6 fragmented adhocracy: diversity and 97; epistemology and 92; fluidity of 91; International Relations as 6, 18, 91; lack of coordination of 92 gender 115 geography 16, 108 Global IR: cultural exceptionalism and 97; dialogue and 18 – 19, 98; diversity and 17; emotions and 113, 115, 124; geography and 16, 108; inclusiveness of IR and 13 – 14; mutual learning and 102 – 103

136 Index globalization 25 Guanyin 40, 46 Gunnell, John 82 Haack, Susan 87 Habermas, Jürgen 100 Hall, Peter 69, 116 Hamati-Ataya, Inanna 17 Hansen, Lene 17, 19 hard balancing 35 Harvey, Frank 15 Herbst, Jeffrey 11 hospitality 51 Houses of Wisdom 44 Hurrell, Andrew 98 Hutchings, Kimberly 20, 98 hybridity 41 identity 61 – 64, 104 – 106, 107 India: Asian capitalism and 48; balance of power and 24 – 25, 29, 32, 33 – 34; Bhutan and 36n5; China-Nepal relations and 26 – 27; economic globalization and 31 – 32; globalization and 24 – 25; Japan and 30; the Maldives and 28; soft power approach of 26; South Asian security and 34; trade volume of 32 integrative pluralism: defined 80; dialogue and 99; engagement across theoretical paradigms and 19; epistemology and 78; see also engaged pluralism; pluralism international politics, diversity and 1 International Relations (IR): emotional turn in 113; Eurocentrism of 10 – 11, 76; international politics and 1; nonWestern 10; theoretical horizons of 3 intersubjectivity 41 Jackson, Patrick: on dialogue 99; engaged pluralism of 19, 100; on pluralistic definition of science 17; pluralist IR and 1 James, William 87 Japan: Asian capitalism and 47; Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) and 67; China and 26; civilising processes in 120; East Asian collective identity and 65 – 66; India and 30; Korea and 105 Kang, David 11 Kant, Immanuel 51 Katzenstein, Peter 11, 57

Keohane, Robert 12 King, Gary 12, 79 Kitaro, Nishida 52n2 Korea 47, 105 Korean IR 12 Korean War, the 105 Kornprobst, Markus 82 Kratochwil, Friedrich 1 Lake, David 2, 17, 99 Laozi 42 Lapid, Yosef 19, 80, 99 Levine, Daniel 18, 97 – 98 liberalism 33, 36 Maldives, the 28 Maritime Silk Road 28 McCourt, David 18, 97 – 98 Mearsheimer, John 1, 15 Montezuma 40 multinational coporations (MNCs) 33 mutual dependency 89 – 90 national identity 104 – 106, 107 nativism 96 – 97 neorealism 5 Nepal 26, 26 – 27 New Atlantis (Bacon) 52n1 non-Western IR 13 – 14, 16, 17, 20 Nussbaum, Martha 51 ontology 85 Opium War, the 47 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 47 Pakistan 30, 31, 34, 36n5 paradigms 76 – 77 parochialism 17 philosophy of science 83, 92 pluralism: criticisms of 15; dialogue and 124; diversity and 1 – 2, 15 – 16; emotions and 121 – 122; engaged 85, 99; fragmentation and 97; integrative 19, 77, 78, 80, 99; neorealism and 5; non-Western IR and 14; paradigms and 77; relational theory and 15; unity of the sciences and 79 – 80; see also engaged pluralism; integrative pluralism positivism 82, 83, 93, 115 post-positivism 18, 82, 116 post-positivist epistemology 1 pragmatism 85 – 86 proto-boundaries 63, 64

Index  137 Qin, Yaqing 11, 18, 62 rational actor model, the 122 rationalism 85, 86 – 87 rationalization 63, 64, 69, 71 realism 83 regionalism: ASEAN Plus Three (APT) and 68 – 69; the Asian Financial Crisis and 57; Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) and 57; collective identity and 71; constructivism and 59, 62; relational ontology and 58 relationalism 61 relational ontology: boundaries and 72; collective identity and 61 – 62; constructivism and 62; defined 6, 58; emotions and 118; regionalism and 58 relational theory 15 Rengger, Nicholas 16 – 17 reputation 89, 89 – 90, 90 Reus-Smit, Christian 17 Revival of Religious Sciences, The (Al-Ghazali) 50 science 78 scientific method 83, 84 scientific realism 83 Seychelles 36n1 Shambaugh, David 18 shame 117 Shoude, Liang 3 – 4 Silk Road Ethos, the 44, 46 Silk Roads, the 41, 43 – 46 social sciences 85 soft balancing 34 Soja, Edward 41 Song, Xinning 12

South Asia 24 – 25 Soviet Union, the 25 Sri Lanka 27 ‘string of pearls strategy,’ the 26 structural realism 12 subaltern, the 76 Taiwan 47 task uncertainty 90, 90 – 91 theoretical proliferation 4 Tianxia 13 Tingyang, Zhao 3 trialectics: BRI and 52; Daoism and 41 – 42; dialectics and 42; hybridity and 41; process of 41; yin/yang theory and 42 United States, the 34, 57, 60, 69 Unity-through-Pluralism (UtP) 79 Verba, Sidney 12 violence 118 – 119 Walt, Stephen 1 Wang, Yuan-kang 12 Wansong 40 Washington Consensus, the 65 Wendt, Alexander 77 Westphalia 44 Whitley, Richard 81, 89 Wight, Colin 1, 4, 17, 19 World War II 105 yin/yang theory 42 yoking 63, 64, 68 zaibatsu 47