Historicising Eurocentrism and anti-Eurocentrism in IR: A revisionist account of disciplinary self-reflexivity

2015/09/21 by Deniz Kuru · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #International Relations and Foreign Policy #Political Conflict and Governance #International Development and Aid #Eurocentrism #Historiography #Scholarship #Epistemology #Reflexivity #Sociology #Ideology #Social science #Political science #Philosophy #Anthropology #Law #Politics

paper · doi:10.1017/s0260210515000315

openalex publication_date 2015/09/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

Abstract The role of Eurocentrism in International Relations (IR) has become a focal point for critical scholarship. However, anti-Eurocentric scholars tend to overlook the extent to which Eurocentrism is a tempo-spatial phenomenon whose roots and development need to be analysed in a way that takes its internal differences into account. This article rejects a single notion of Eurocentrism, proposing instead to understand Eurocentrism through its three forms: historical-contextual, ideological, and residual. This differentiation can provide a means for dealing with the challenges of Eurocentrism in a more self-reflexive manner without seeing it as omnipresent and unchanging. It also offers to approach Eurocentric IR from a perspective that considers the role of historiographical differences in understanding the rise of European powers. This means that IR cannot base its explanatory frameworks on a single ( the ) historical record. Understanding the limits of Eurocentrism and of anti-Eurocentrism provides a better means for dealing with the formerʼs problematic impact on IR scholarship.

Citations

• The Oxford Handbook of International Relations
• The Global Transformation: The Nineteenth Century and the Making of Modern International Relations1
• Beyond Dichotomy: Conversations Between International Relations and Feminist Theory
• The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline: American and European Developments in International Relations
• The Big Bangs of IR: The Myths That Your Teachers Still Tell You about 1648 and 1919
• Avatars of Eurocentrism in the critique of the liberal peace
• The postcolonial moment in security studies
• The ‘Western-Centrism’ of Security Studies: ‘Blind Spot’ or Constitutive Practice?

Cited by

• Eurocentrism [wikipedia]

Related

• Operationalising the decentring agenda: Analysing European foreign policy in a non-European and post-western world
• Overcoming Eurocentrism? Global History and the Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law
• Problematising the Global in Global IR
• The postcolonial moment in security studies
• Before the “West”: Recovering the Forgotten Foundations of Global Order