Rethinking the “International” or the “Global”

Concepts are analytical tools. The way we approach an issue often distinguishes itself from other methods through the concepts we employ. Many periods of scientific leaps—what those familiar with the philosophy of science might call Kuhnian paradigm shifts—are fundamentally related to concepts. As conditions change and new insights are gained, concepts are either abandoned entirely in favor of new ones or transformed in terms of their content.

The discipline of “International Relations” is one of the fields where such discussions of conceptual change or transformation occur most intensely, as a result of the nature of the subjects it addresses. The “power asymmetries” that stand at the forefront of the topics it covers make it an arena of power struggles from the very beginning regarding how the discipline's fundamental concepts are determined. Even the name of the discipline is a subject of debate. Without delving into the vast literature of nationalism theories regarding when nations emerged, it suffices to state that if the twentieth century—a period that opened with the term “nation” and saw “nations” become the dominant political units—had not occurred, this discipline would certainly not be referred to in this way.

Of course, neither history nor science stands still. The new forms that the struggles studied by the discipline took toward the last quarter of the past century began to cause the discipline to outgrow its shell. Taking “nations” as the primary object of reference was found insufficient by many authors. The necessity of attributing agency to new and original subjects, beyond nation-states, began to be discussed. Especially as the process called “globalization” gained momentum, the adjective “global” began to come to the fore more prominently. Although the discipline continues to be called “International Relations” in many places today due to traditional naming and institutional entrenchment, different designations such as “global politics” have increasingly come into use. Many textbooks are also being published under this name.

In science, and especially in social science disciplines, explanatory power is highly valued. Increasing explanatory power itself emerges as a serious normative goal. On the other hand, many different political-ethical positions also have normative claims. Beyond the claim of increasing explanatory power, some progressive or more equality-oriented political-ethical positions value and seek to reinterpret the history of the “global” instead of the “international” in order to reduce and eventually eliminate the damage caused by the manifestations and even falsifications of power asymmetries that have favored the “West” in the field of social sciences to date. This discussion is also taking place within the International Relations (IR) discipline itself under the name “Global IR,” and symposia are being organized on this subject. For example, one of the recent issues of International Theory, one of the leading journals of the discipline, consists of articles derived from papers presented at a symposium on this topic.

Each of these articles is worth discussing at length. One written by Michael Barnett and George Lawson is particularly noteworthy because it mentions Global IR as three separate “visions” of the “global,” the “global history” approach, and finally “global historical sociology.” While the authors emphasize that theoretical efforts toward Global IR are trying to make progress in focusing on connections between different political units and correcting distortions stemming from “Western-centric” approaches in the discipline, they also add a caveat that dichotomies inherent to the discipline, such as “West”-“non-West” or “center”-“periphery,” lead to a kind of immutable essentialism through political units that are treated as if they have a trans-historical ontology. At this point, the “global history” approach from the discipline of historiography seems to come to the rescue with its emphasis on transboundary connections.

The thesis that the West, or any other unit of analysis attributed with political agency, reached its current state through mutual relations and interactions with other parts of the global—rather than through formation processes based solely on itself, or more accurately, on factors and developments limited to its own interior—constitutes the highly explanatory aspect of the “global history” approach. It should be noted here that the term “transboundary” likely has a broader analytical scope than the concept of “international,” which is why it is used in place of the latter. Nevertheless, the fact that the “global history” approach does not place enough emphasis on power asymmetries constitutes its deficient aspect regarding the global. According to the authors, global historical sociology is quite promising in closing this gap by effectively utilizing the positive aspects of both Global IR and the global history approach in an integrated manner.

It is not correct to think that these are merely empty academic activities. Whether you look at it through the concept of hegemony or the concept of speech acts, as Barnett and Lawson also argue, to the extent that Global IR approaches fail to produce sufficient responses to claims of historical continuity or essentialist analytical approaches at the theoretical and conceptual level, they will contribute to the legitimization of such claims and, in fact, contribute to the reproduction of ongoing inequalities at the global level. The realization and proper analysis that everything is historical and in relation to one another is of vital importance for at least mitigating inequalities and preventing chauvinistic political claims.