Abstract
Eurocentrism is a form of knowledge that is rooted in the ontic and epistemic foundations of modernity/coloniality. It is a hegemonic mode of knowing and representing, claiming universality for itself.
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Notes
- 1.
For Quijano, Eurocentrism can be described as: (1) ‘a peculiar articulation of dualism between (capital-precapital, Europe-non-Europe, primitive-civilized, traditional-modern, etc. and a linear one dimensional evolutionarism from some state of nature to modern European society; (2) the naturalization of cultural differences between human groups by means of their codification with the idea of race; (3) the distorted-temporal relocation of all these differences by relocating the non-European in the past’ (Quijano, 2007, p. 169).
- 2.
For Quijano, coloniality is a pattern of relationship that comprises at the outset, the colonization of the imagination of the dominated. It gets interiorized into the psyche of the dominated and becomes an existential ontological condition of the oppressed (Quijano, 2007, p. 169).
- 3.
The metaphor of ‘The End of IR Theory?’ was framed by the editors of the special issue of the European Journal of International Relations, volume 19, issue 3 which bears the same title.
- 4.
This work agrees with the argument of Reus-Smit (2013, p. 589) that we cannot completely deny the role of meta-theoretical assumptions in any form of the process of knowledge production. As he indicates, it is an imperative to recognize the heuristic value of meta-theory and it must not be left alone to philosophers as suggested by Fred Halliday (1995, p. 745).
- 5.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak uses the word catachresis to signify a process of appropriation whereby, the colonized applies a particular term to a thing that it does not properly denote. When the colonized take and re-inscribe something that was traditionally an element of imperial culture, it becomes what she designates as catachresis. Catachresis occurs, when the concepts such as parliamentary democracy and nation that emerged out of a specific ontic and epistemic context of Europe, are adopted by postcolonial societies. In the process of such adoptions, those concepts end up not literally representing the correct narrative of their actual genealogy (Spivak, 1991).
- 6.
The term appropriation is used in the technical discourse of postcolonial criticism, to describe the ways in which postcolonial societies take over aspects of imperial culture, language, the metropolitan institutions and modes of thought to interpret their own socio-cultural identities. The colonized engages in such acts of appropriation, for the purpose of gaining cosmopolitan appeal for the native socio-cultural and political formations (Ashcroft et al., 2002, p. 15).
- 7.
The term mimicry in the language of the postcolonial criticism of Homi Bhabha referred to the act of the colonized to adopt the socio-cultural values, civic virtues, political morality and institutional values of the colonizer. Such mimicry, for Bhabha, was threatening for the colonized because copying the attitudes, behavior, manners and values amounted to a kind of menacing mockery. It was a mockery as although colonized copied the colonizer, but as a result of this, the former began to appear as a disfigured replica of the latter (Bhabha, 1984, p. 127).
- 8.
John C. Garnett categorizes grand theories and mid-level theories by designating them as general and partial theories. For Garnett (1984, Chapter 2), general theories tend to provide an organizational and holistic perspective on the subject by laying down conceptual maps. In this manner, they impart a unified vision of the discipline. Contrarily, partial theories are more concerned with details of specific phenomenon, rather than the grand metanarratives that are considered quintessential for the organization of the discipline.
- 9.
Here, the adoption of the mid-level theories that adhere to the principle of analytic eclecticism in place of grand theory does not entail that we should accede to the calls of the proponents of analytic eclecticism, for completely bypassing the trajectory of metatheoretical inquiry and forget approaches like the systems analysis. Analytic eclecticism such as Sil and Katzenstein argued for entirely giving up the ontological and epistemological foundations of knowing, in our root to gain practical knowledge (Sil & Katzenstein, 2010, pp. 412 and 417). Contrary to such assertions of analytic eclecticism, we seek to propose that the purview of metatheory in the context of IR must be broadened in a manner to liberate the same from its ethnocentric encapsulation. To substantiate this, we can borrow here from the words of Reus-Smit (2013, p. 589) that we should aim at achieving a greater metatheoretical imagination and an expansive and ambitious kind of eclecticism. In any case, the advocacy of Sil and Katzenstein (2010, p. 412), pertaining to the development of middle range theories by drawing selectively from diverse research traditions may have immense heuristic utility if we try and do it by adopting a reductionist approach.
- 10.
Paradigms for Thomas Kuhn, also designated by him as the disciplinary matrix, means the theories, concepts, instruments, techniques, laws, values and metaphysical assumptions that scientists use as their foundational framework for carrying out experimentation and explanation (Kuhn, 1970, pp. 182–189).
- 11.
For Kuhn (1970, pp. 66–76), a crisis occurs when a particular anomaly tends to undermine the practice of normal science. In such a circumstance, doubts arise regarding the validity of the theoretical framework on the foundations upon which normal science is being practiced. Owing to this, the scientists confront a kind of lack of confidence in their pursuit of knowledge.
- 12.
Chris Brown (2013, pp. 483–484) has argued that there are no grand theories in the discipline of International Relations. IR has been a consumer, rather than the producer of grand theories. Brown brings in the categorization of grand theories that was made by Quentin Skinner (1985) to substantiate his argument. However, the present work has drawn from the work of Martin Griffiths’s and agrees with him by describing Kenneth Waltz’s neorealism as a grand theory. In his book, Realism, Idealism and International Politics, Martin Griffiths’s designated Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Walz and Hedley Bull as grand theorists of the discipline of International Relations (1992, p. 8). This work uses the term grand theory as it has been described by Martin Griffiths's and not in the sense of Quentin Skinner.
- 13.
- 14.
In the perspective of Robert Cox, theories like neorealism can emerge to be a problem-solving theory. Such theories take the world as it finds it, with the prevailing social and power relationships and the institutions into which they are organized, as the given framework of action. Hence, Cox rejects problem solving theories because they are placed on the false premise that the socio-political order is fixed. However, for him, they are not fixed but are subjected to constant change (Cox, 1986, pp. 208–209 and 211).
- 15.
Neorealism is plagued by the heuristic parochialism of looking at the ontologies of the international system, in terms of the notions of transhistorical character of spatialities and, the complete autonomy of the domain of political from other spheres of human life (Rosenberg, 2000, p. 81). Situated upon such an ontic proposition, Waltz’s conception of the international system gets sequestered beyond any kind of transgressions impelled by the spatio-temporal dynamics. It happens as neorealism’s discursive vocabulary is governed by historicist logic of teleology and the materialist determinism of structure that obfuscates the possibility of bringing any epistemological explanation based on the transformational logic (Hobson, 2000, pp. 26–30). Such a historicism of stasis freezes the ontology of the political institutions in the current world order by entirely negating the feasibility of any future transformation (Ashley, 1986, pp. 258, 289 and 290–291).
- 16.
The epistemology of neorealism is rooted in the ahistorical emphasis upon the structuralist constant, in determining the systemic ontologies of the domain of the international (Cox, 1986, p. 211). Implying that it locates the same in terms of its transhistorical character. Meaning that the ontologies of the sub-systemic interactions among the micro-structures can be subjected to an explanation that is grounded in a synchronic historicist teleology (Walker, 1993, pp. 6–25 and 88–115). Such an explanation is part of neorealist emphasis on the presentist use of history that is a focus on transhistorical epistemologies rather than that of looking at historical specificities for decoding the systemic contours of contemporary IR. Based on such convictions, neorealism claims scientific rigor that is based on a positivist logic and instrumental rationality which qualifies it to become an explanatory theory to decode the objective realities of the empirical spatio-temporalities of contemporary international system (Rosenberg, 2000, p. 81). In accordance with such an epistemology of neorealism, the international system is tableted in a static conception of space and time (Waltz, 1979, pp. 65–66; Gilpin, 1981, p. 211).
- 17.
One of the greatest limitations of positivism has been its over-emphasis on the suspension of normative preferences which tends to provide a tendentious picture to the phenomenon of international. This also happens because positivism, through its endeavors to transcend history, runs into an enormous danger of getting entrapped into an unconscious ideology. History itself on its part, for structural realism is based on a methodology that separates the subject and object wherein events are conceived as an infinite series of objectified data. Such an approach to history seeks universal laws of behaviour (Cox, 1986, p. 248).
- 18.
The problem with deductive reasoning is that the conclusion of a deductively valid argument cannot say more than what is already implicit in the premises; implying that such arguments does not extend our knowledge because their conclusions merely reveal what the premises have already stated (Ladyman, 2002, p. 20).
- 19.
History itself for neorealism merely assumes an instrumentalist value wherein it is not used to reimagine the present. Rather, historical evidence only emerges to be a data set regarding the past for the mere purpose of confirming the propositions of grand theoretical narratives of the present. History for the grand theoretical discourses such as neorealism, hence, only commends a functionalist value that facilitates the delineation of cycles of history for the purpose of mere demarcation of the historical time (Cox, 1986, p. 212; Hobson, 2002: p. 5; Barnett, 2002a, 2002b, p. 100). In this sense, history gets reduced to a kind of laboratory where generalizations about IR tend to be tested (Rosecrance, 1973, p. 25). Owing to this, John Ruggie argues that Waltz’s theory is embedded in a mere reproductive logic that is devoid of any transformational logic (1986: 151).
- 20.
Kenneth Waltz’s systems theory adheres to a monistic Westphalian epistemology. According to him, Statehood itself is a systemic attribute and its causes originate at the systems level. These attributes are the structural matter of the organization of the system’s elements (Waltz, 1979, pp. 79 and 99). Signifying that there is one monolithic Westphalian language to define the nature and behavior of the State that emanates at the systemic level.
- 21.
- 22.
For Waltz (1979, p. 116), Emile Durkheim’s (1893) depiction of the solidarity and mechanical societies provides the best explanation of the two ordering principles. In this way, Waltz brings in the sociological dimension of the domestic analogy to explain the functioning of the international system (Rosenberg, 2013, p. 199).
- 23.
David Dessler describes Waltz’s system theory as a paradigmatic case of the ‘positional theory’. In a positional theory, system structure is the result of the positioning of the ontologically prior units. The system in this sense is the product of the unintended consequences of interacting units (Dessler, 1989, p. 448). Thus, in accordance with the positional theory, structure is the unintended environment in which action takes place. Such an environment of the structure is hermetically guarded against any transformations and the units inevitably need to mediate the structure without inducing any change (ibid., pp. 466–467).
- 24.
Deductive logic is the study of valid arguments. Deductive reasoning is the way of knowing wherein, from a small number of premises, it is possible to derive an enormous number of conclusions (Ladyman, 2002, p. 20).
- 25.
The term structuration has been borrowed here from the social theory of the creation and reproduction of social systems, known as the theory of structuration which is largely linked to the works of Anthony Giddens (1979, 1984), Roy Bhaskar (1979, 1989) and Pierre Bourdieu (1977) and Thrift (1983). The structuration theory transcends both the individualistic and structuralist dichotomies and brings in Anthony Gidden’s notion of the duality of structures which meant that the structural properties of the society are both the medium and outcomes of the practices that they organize (Giddens, 1979, p. 69). For Roy Bhaskar, society is the necessary structural condition of all human activities. But these structures that pre-exist humans are reproduced and transformed by our everyday activities. In this sense, the society does not exist independently of agency (Bhaskar, 1989, pp. 3–4). Similarly, through the concept of ‘habitus’ that is the position practices mediating between the individual's subjective worlds and the socio-cultural worlds into which they are born, Bourdieu has contributed to the development of the structuration theory (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 79).
- 26.
For Trotsky, the law of unevenness is a general law of the historic process that reveals itself most complexly in the destiny of backward countries. From this universal law derives the law of combined development by which we mean the drawing together of the different stages of the journey, a combining of separate steps, an amalgam of the archaic with the more contemporary forms (Trotsky, 1932, pp. 5–6).
- 27.
- 28.
Constructivism has been regarded by Steven Walt as one among the three standard approaches for studying international politics besides neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism (Walt, 1998, p. 35).
- 29.
Neorealism adheres to the rationalist approach to analyze international politics (Zehfuss, 2002, p. 3). The most significant neorealist assumption about world politics embedded in rationalism is the notion that States are unitary and rational actors. Such a belief is grounded in the attitude of the rationalists to take into account only those forms of knowledge that are considered to be reliable (Smith, 2000a, 2000b, pp. 382–383). This is because the rationalists consider that actors and concepts are exogenously given and they act in this pregiven world on the basis of instrumental reason (Katzenstein et al., 1998, p. 679). In this sense for the rationalists, identities and interests are given (Wendt, 1999, p. 33).
- 30.
The rationalists subscribe to the tenets of positivism in accordance with which, the social phenomenon can be explained in the same way as the natural world. For the positivists, facts can be separated from values and their goal is to uncover regularities. According to the positivists, scientific enquiry must rely upon empirical validation or falsification (Smith, 1996, p. 16).
- 31.
Alexander Wendt’s constructivist restatement of the nature of the international system can be framed in terms of the vocabulary of David Dessler’s ‘transformational model’. In a transformational model, structure consists of materials for action and these materials tend to undergo transformations when actions happen in the environment. The materials are not incidental to action, but they act as the medium through which actions themselves are made possible (Dessler, 1989, pp. 466–467).
- 32.
For Giddens, structuration meant that social systems get constituted and tend to be constantly reproduced through a dialogue between both the agent as well as the structure. In this process, neither of the two is in any form of primordial position and hence, mere application of either the micro or the macro analysis alone would be insufficient to understand the process by which social systems are constituted. Hence, the analysis of such an interaction for Giddens must be situated in a post-empiricist framework of the analysis of the abstract forms of social relations. This would allow us to problematize ontology, viewed from the perspective of the human experience of space and time, in order to understand the nature of social relations. History in this sense becomes one of the primary ontological questions for decoding the complex patterns of social relations in distinct spatio-temporal circumstances (Giddens, 1984, pp. 3–11).
- 33.
- 34.
For scientific realists, there can be no single scientific method. This implies that different phenomena require different modes of investigation and models of explanation. Hence unlike the positivists, for the scientific realists, the essence of science is not the method. Rather, the conduct of scientific realism is underpinned by the metaphysical issues pertaining to ontology (Wight, 2006, p. 19). Thus, scientific realism does not accept the argument that what is there in the world is dependent upon what we know or believe (Wendt, 1999, p. 51).
- 35.
For Steve Smith, the positivists by and large adhere to four fundamental assumptions. They include the unity of science thesis, the distinction between facts and values, the belief in regularities and a commitment to an empiricist epistemology (Smith, 1996, pp. 15–16).
- 36.
Rationalism offers a fundamentally behavioral conception of the structures and processes. In accordance with this, they change behavior but not identities and interests (Wendt, 1992b, p. 392).
- 37.
The agent–structure problem in IR itself has emanated as a product of the debate regarding the role of ontology in the making of the phenomenon of ‘political’. In accordance the belief in regularities and a commitment to an empiricist epistemology (Smith, 1996, pp. 15–16). Rationalism offers a fundamentally behavioral conception of the structures and processes. In accordance with this, they change behaviour but not identities and interests (Wendt, 1992b, p. 392). The agent structure problem in IR itself has emanated as a product of the debate regarding the role of ontology in the making of the phenomenon of ‘political’. In accordance with this, the theoretical plurality in IR is not the product of the contending discourses on epistemology or methodology. Rather, underlying the divisions in the theoretical landscape of IR is the competing discourses on ontology. This is the case because politics itself happens to be a terrain of competing ontologies. In the sense of ontology, politics involves the contested visions of how the world is and how it ought to be (Wight, 2006, p. 2).
- 38.
Wendt elaborates this by using structurationist and symbolic interactionist sociology. He borrowed two constructivist principles from symbolic interactionism. First is that people act on the basis of the meanings that objects and other actors have for them (Wendt, 1992b, pp. 396–397). Second is that these meanings are not inherent in the world but are developed in interaction (ibid., p. 403).
- 39.
Chapter 3 of this book discusses the agent–structure problem in IR.
- 40.
According to Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, Reification is ‘the apprehension of the products of human activity as if they were something else than human products, such as facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, manifestations of divine will. Reification implies that man is capable of forgetting his own authorship of the human world, and further that the dialectic between man, the producer, and his products is lost to consciousness. The reified world is experienced by man as a strange facticity, an opus alienum over which he has no control rather than the opus proprium of his own productive activity’ (Berger and Luckmann, 1966, p. 89).
- 41.
For the purpose of enunciating a structurationist theory of IR, Wendt introduced the agent–structure problem. In accordance with the structurationist theory, the dichotomy between individualism and structuralism must be rejected and replaced with the phenomenon of the duality of structures and the duality of praxis. By doing this, the agent and the structure can simultaneously be seen as both the mode as well as the means of the reproduction of social objects. On the basis of this, Wendt proposes a structurationist solution to the agent–structure problem at the level of the State and the State system (Wight, 2006, pp. 187–188).
- 42.
According to Alexander Wendt, the agent–structure problem emerges from two ontological propositions about social life that underpin all social scientific inquiry. On the one hand, human beings and their associations are purposeful actors whose actions reproduce and transform the society in which they live. On the other hand, the society itself is made up of social relations that shape the interactions between these purposeful actors. In this sense, the agent–structure debate pertains to two interrelated problems of which one is ontological, and the other is epistemological. The ontological problem pertains to the nature of the agents and structures and the epistemological problem is related to the choice and integration of different types of explanation within the theories of social behavior (Wendt, 1987, pp. 337–339).
- 43.
The classical approach to IR takes into consideration, history, philosophy, and law for building its epistemology. Acutely conscious of its temporal and geographic context and the limitations associated with it, the classical approach propounded by the English school neither makes scientific claims, nor calls for the adoption of the methods of natural sciences (Ayoob, 2002, p. 31).
- 44.
For Edward Said, contrapuntal reading means the understanding of the dominant discourse, through an awareness of both the metropolitan history as well as other histories. In the contrapuntal analysis, the world and the text can be seen together, to provide an atonal ensemble of the dominant, in-between, as well as the submerged (Said, 1993, pp. 51 and 318).
- 45.
As regards the dissemination of European modernity to non-European geographies, Dipesh Chakrabarty has stated that Europe can be provincialised provided there is recognition of the phenomenon that although the origins of modernity were European, its penetration into hitherto non-modern, non-European areas makes it secluded from the roots of its origin. This also means that there cannot be a modular transfer of the ideas of modern Europe into the non-European spaces. Rather when transfers happen, they need to be disassociated from their ontic conditionalities.
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Kumar H.M., S. (2023). The Limitations of Grand Theory. In: Decolonizing Grand Theories. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4841-3_2
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