2026/03/17 by Frank Gerits · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Communism, Protests, Social Movements #Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics #Race, History, and American Society
paper · doi:10.1093/isagsq/ksag039
openalex publication_date 2026/03/17 · openalex created_date 2026/03/20 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/10
Abstract International Relations Theory (IR theory) has been cast by its critics as a Eurocentric discipline, obsessed with the bipolar international system that the Cold War competition between the Soviet Union and the United States created. While historians have laid bare the imperial roots of IR theory in the 1920s, they overlook the influence of African ideas on Realist, Idealist and Marxist theory after 1945. African decolonization raised questions about whether the post-1945 international system was truly bipolar or potentially multipolar. It also brought pan-African schemes of autonomous development to the fore, creating doubt in the U.S. about the ability to successfully deliver modernization programs, industrialization and foreign aid to the Global South. While realists like Hans Morgenthau were skeptical, Liberals like Joseph Nye felt modernization could only successfully be executed by Africans themselves while Wallerstein viewed foreign aid as a cynical imperial tool. Leading figures in the American academic field of international relations were forced to respond to African decolonization as they were developing their foundational work.