Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables, figures and boxes
- Contributors
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Guide to online instructor resources
- Introduction: The origins and changing agendas of international relations
- Part 1 Theories of International Relations
- Chapter 1 International Relations theory in an age of critical diversity
- Chapter 2 Liberalism
- Chapter 3 Realism
- Chapter 4 Marxism and critical theory
- Chapter 5 Feminism
- Chapter 6 Postmodernism
- Chapter 7 Constructivism
- Chapter 8 Postcolonialism
- Part 2 International history
- Part 3 The traditional agenda: States, wars and law
- Part 4 The new agenda: Globalisation and global challenges
- References
- Index
- Figure and text acknowledgements
Chapter 8 - Postcolonialism
from Part 1 - Theories of International Relations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: aN Invalid Date NaN
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables, figures and boxes
- Contributors
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Guide to online instructor resources
- Introduction: The origins and changing agendas of international relations
- Part 1 Theories of International Relations
- Chapter 1 International Relations theory in an age of critical diversity
- Chapter 2 Liberalism
- Chapter 3 Realism
- Chapter 4 Marxism and critical theory
- Chapter 5 Feminism
- Chapter 6 Postmodernism
- Chapter 7 Constructivism
- Chapter 8 Postcolonialism
- Part 2 International history
- Part 3 The traditional agenda: States, wars and law
- Part 4 The new agenda: Globalisation and global challenges
- References
- Index
- Figure and text acknowledgements
Summary
This chapter considers the relevance of postcolonialism to the discipline of ‘international relations’ (IR). It argues that postcolonialism advances a powerful critique of traditional approaches to IR (see chapters on realism and liberalism) since it calls into question the discipline’s foundational ontological and epistemological assumptions. In particular, it challenges the dominant assumption that states are the basic units of IR and that we should examine the relations between these units in the context of an anarchical system. Postcolonialism refocuses our attention on the constitutive role played by colonialism in the creation of the modern world and sees international relations as hierarchical rather than anarchical. It sees academic disciplines such as IR – and Western rationalist, humanist and universalist modes of thinking in general – as complicit in reproducing colonial power relations and seeks normatively to resist practices of colonialism in its material and ideational forms, whether political, economic or cultural.
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- Information
- An Introduction to International Relations , pp. 108 - 119Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024