Neoclassical Realism, Global International Relations, and the unheard echoes of Realist practices from the South
| Published date | 01 February 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241230858 |
| Author | Luíza Cerioli |
| Date | 01 February 2025 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241230858
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2025, Vol. 27(1) 369 –386
© The Author(s) 2024
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DOI: 10.1177/13691481241230858
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
Neoclassical Realism, Global
International Relations, and
the unheard echoes of Realist
practices from the South
Luíza Cerioli
Abstract
Neoclassical Realism popularised by including context into a structuralised worldview. However,
far from a novelty, Global South scholars have been promoting similar Realist course corrections,
reducing parsimony, and increasing explanation. This article compares Ayoob’s Subaltern Realism,
Escudé’s Peripheral Realism, and Yan’s Moral Realism, showcasing how originality is displayed
via hybridisation, mimicry, and denationalisation of ideas. There are two complementary goals:
first, stress similarities and differences between these strands and Neoclassical Realism and,
second, challenge the ongoing project of subsuming Realism to the Global International Relations
agenda through Neoclassical Realism, as it has yet failed to incorporate these Global South ideas.
I argue that acknowledging that these theories can promote core–periphery dialogue and instigate
progress within the canon is essential for any Global North scholar interested in a ‘globalized
Realism’. Finally, socioeconomic asymmetries and interdisciplinarity are central to building a
Global International Relations Realism as well as recognising the persistent inequalities within
International Relations knowledge production.
Keywords
Global IR, Global South, homegrown theories, Neoclassical Realism, Realism
Introduction
Neoclassical Realism (NCR) gained popularity by doing something scholars have long
been craving: including history and particularities into a Realist worldview in which the
anarchical international system drives interstate relations (Kitchen, 2010; Lobell et al.,
2009; Meibauer et al., 2021). Today, NCR is a diverse analytical umbrella for Realist
authors that complements a systemic framework with unit-level variables to differentiate
actors, historicise and contextualise their actions, and enable space for agency despite
pressures from anarchy (Foulon and Meibauer, 2020; Vasileiadis, 2023). Initiated by
Department of International and Inter-Societal Relations, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany
Corresponding author:
Luíza Cerioli, University of Kassel, Untere Königsstraße 71, Kassel 34117, Germany.
Email: luizacerioli@gmail.com
1230858BPI0010.1177/13691481241230858The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsCerioli
research-article2024
Original Article
370The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 27(1)
Global North scholars, NCR is quickly spreading to the Global South as an efficient tool
to understand foreign policy decision-making, grand strategy change, and other interna-
tional relations phenomena (Cerioli, 2023; Cha, 2000; Gelot and Welz, 2018; Şahin,
2020). Moreover, NCR has also been promoted as a venue to globalise Realism (Buzan
and Acharya, 2019; Foulon and Meibauer, 2020), expanding its analytical horizons and
contributing to the development of global questions and perspectives. In other words, a
venue to board Realism in the train of pluralising and diversifying the International
Relations (IR) discipline (Acharya, 2014; Alejandro et al., 2017; Bilgin, 2015; Blaney
and Tickner, 2017; Shani, 2008).
However, if one looks closer, there are noticeable similarities between NCR and ideas
previously developed by other Realist scholars in the Global South that employed home-
grown theorisation. Subaltern Realism (Ayoob, 1998, 2002), Peripheral Realism (Escudé,
1992, 1998) and Moral Realism (Yan, 2019) – respectively, from the Middle East, Latin
America, and Asia – are also course corrections that reduce mainstream Neorealist parsi-
mony within the Realist canon to include particularities that increase explanative value.
This article stresses the importance of proactive learning from these adjectivised Realisms
to keep advancing the NCR agenda, particularly if it wants to promote itself as part of the
Global IR (GIR) initiative. In this article, I demonstrate how these approaches have
adapted the Realist tradition to the realities of the Global South via practices such as
hybridity, mimicry, and denationalisation of ideas. Nevertheless, despite their originality,
applicability, and popularity within their regions of origin, these theories have been
mostly overlooked within the IR mainstream and have failed to travel from the periphery
to the centre of knowledge production. Facing the reasons for this selective exclusion and
seeking ways of overcoming it is essential for NCR to engage with GIR in the first place.
Like NCR, these three Global South’s Realisms have rejected law-like generalisations
and focused on local and contextual particularities to explain international behaviour –
but, differently from NCR, they have seldom crossed their origin borders. I argue that
such selectivity originates from an inherent inequality in how knowledge is produced and
consumed globally. Suppose the IR disciplinary field is a moving body constantly improv-
ing itself to explain the world better. In that case, it is easy to imagine that theoretical
traditions are continuously adapted as they travel from one situation to another. One could
expect that this would create a circular process of learning and progressing, in which dif-
ferent schools would reassess, evaluate, and dialogue with these adaptations, moving the
discipline forward. Nevertheless, the field’s practices reflect global power asymmetries:
ideas produced in the Global North are quickly heard worldwide, but those from the
Global South tend to be muted when attempting to cross their borders. This way, course
corrections like NCR – as necessary as they are – are sold as entirely innovative. However,
for those proactively listening, the silencing of the Southern homegrown theories can be
deafening.
Many scholars have been acting to reduce such silences, detecting, mapping, and
examining how international politics has been thought of differently worldwide (Acharya,
2011; Alejandro, 2019; Alejandro et al., 2017; Ersel and Biltekin, 2018; Hurrell, 2016;
Sabaratnam, 2011). Among those is the GIR initiative, which aims to reform the disci-
pline and its main paradigms via pluralisation, diversity, and inclusion, making inquiries
that reflect the world’s intricate power diffusion and its many social-economic and politi-
cal changes (Acharya, 2014; Gelardi, 2020). In an exciting contribution, Foulon and
Meibauer (2020) argued that NCR has the paradigmatic flexibility to subsume the Realist
tradition into GIR, reducing its own Western biases by exploring cases from the Global
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