Take an example of the Western-centric view of knowledge in international relations: nationalism. The West looks on nationalism as a problem that we have to solve in order to maintain international peace and security, as nationalism was one of the causes of the two World Wars in the 20th century. Nationalism here is evaluated as “negative” in Western International Relations. We cannot deny this negative aspect of nationalism, but, at the same time, the evaluation of nationalism from the viewpoint of the non-West is completely different. For example, it is very difficult to deny that India could not have been independent from the British Empire without nationalism. It is, therefore, possible for us to evaluate nationalism as “positive” in the context of Asian international relations.

It should be kept in mind, however, that the craft of theories of “non-Western” international relations is NOT “anti-Western” international relations theory. This is very important. We should be very careful of the risk of falling into a dichotomy between the West and non-West.

We still need Western international relations theory. We really do. But it is not enough to understand and explain affairs in Asia and Africa more deeply. This is because theories of Western international relations are based on mainly Western history, philosophy and so on.

Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan posed a stimulating question in their book entitled Non-Western International Relations Theory: why is there no non-Western international relations theory? They contended that Western international relations theory needed more voices from other parts of the world. Of course, this is not the first attempt to build theories of non-Western international relations. For example, Kevin C. Dunn and Timothy M. Shaw edited Africa’s Challenge to International Relations Theory. However, Acharya and Buzan’s book was the first to comprehensively examine the methodology and epistemology of Western international relations theory.

Since Acharya and Buzan’s text, IR scholars in Asia have attempted to propound their “national” schools of IR with an eye to the “English” school in the field of international relations. Several articles and books have been devoted to the study of indigenous international relations such as “Chinese” international relations, “Japanese” international relations etc. These national-based theories of IR aim to diversify the field.

But these sorts of nationalistic international relations are very dangerous in terms of intellectual hegemony. For instance, Prof. William Callahan points out that the emergence of Chinese IR implies a new type of hegemony (here, Tianxia) through the eyes of empire in the 21st century with their knowledge of Confucianism. In other words, Chinese IR theory attempts to rethink the international order by using its own terms. Hence, it might be able to say that theories of non-Western IR also risk installing hegemony. We have to keep in mind that the construction of theories of non-Western IR should not replace Western IR theory.

We need sunglasses for a much better understanding of our world, with a “Western” lens on one side and a “non-Western” lens on the other. The collaboration with Asian and African studies is expected to enrich the epistemology and methodology of IR theory. The experience and knowledge of ASEAN have the potential to open the door to building non-Western theories of IR under the name of the ASEAN way. Actually Prof. Acharya, in his book Rethinking Power, Institutions and Ideas in World Politics, has asked scholars and students of IR to look at the importance of theories of IR from the viewpoint of ASEAN. I expect that we will be able to study international relations more deeply by using non-Western theories of IR, which are “made in ASEAN”.

***

Dr. Shiro Sato is an exchange professor at the London School of Public Relations, Jakarta and a lecturer in international relations at the School of International Liberal Arts at Osaka International University.

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