Postcolonial Theory and the Critique of International Relations
| Author | Sanjay Seth |
| DOI | 10.1177/0305829811412325 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
MILLENNIU
M
Journal of International Studies
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
40(1) 167–183
© The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829811412325
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Corresponding author:
Sanjay Seth, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.
Email: s.seth@gold.ac.uk
Article
Postcolonial Theory and
the Critique of International
Relations
Sanjay Seth
Goldsmiths, University of London
Abstract
This article in three parts offers the beginnings of a postcolonial critique of mainstream
International Relations (IR). The first part argues that IR, where it has been interested in history
at all, has misdescribed the origins and character of the contemporary international order, and
that an accurate understanding of the ‘expansion of the international system’ requires attention
to its colonial origins. The second part suggests that IR is deeply Eurocentric, not only in its
historical account of the emergence of the modern international order, but also in its account(s)
of the nature and functioning of this order. The human sciences are heirs to a tradition of
knowledge which defines knowledge as a relation between a cognising, representing subject and
an object, such that knowledge is always ‘of’ something out there, which exists independently of
its apprehension. The third part of the article suggests that knowledges serve to constitute that
which they purport to merely cognise or represent, and that IR theory serves to naturalise that
which is historically produced.
Keywords
colonialism, epistemology, international relations, political theory, postcolonial theory
This is an article by someone whose interests in philosophy, Indian history and postcolo-
nial theory make an engagement with ‘the international’ both mandatory and rewarding.
But in seeking to ‘think’ the international and the global, I find that turning to the disci-
pline of International Relations (IR) – or at any rate to the mainstream of the discipline,
in which I include the English School – is not of great help, and is often a hindrance. This
article is, therefore, a postcolonial critique of mainstream IR. There have been many
critiques of IR – constructivist, feminist, poststructuralist and others; this journal has
been one of the main fora where such intellectual dissent has been nourished. I draw
168 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 40(1)
freely from such critiques, and some of the issues raised and the points argued in this
article have been highlighted by others who do not write under the aegis of postcolonial
theory.1 What is nonetheless distinctive about the critique offered here is that it seeks to
systematically ‘provincialise Europe’ – in a threefold sense: it challenges the centrality
accorded to Europe as the historical source and origin of the international order; it que-
ries the universality accorded to moral and legal perspectives which reflect and repro-
duce the power relations characteristic of the colonial encounter, and which are thus far
from being universal; and it questions the epistemological privilege accorded to an
understanding of knowledge which is blind to the constitutive, and not merely represen-
tational, role of knowledge. The article does not offer a better way of ‘doing’ IR. Indeed,
criticisms imply alternatives, but here I principally offer a postcolonial critique of the
discipline, not a postcolonial way of practising it.
In the first part of the article I argue that mainstream IR, where it has been interested
in history at all, has misdescribed the origins and character of the contemporary interna-
tional order, and that an accurate understanding of the ‘expansion of the international
system’ requires attention to its colonial origins. In the second part I suggest that main-
stream IR is deeply Eurocentric, not only in its historical account of the emergence of the
modern international order, but also in its account(s) of the nature and functioning of this
order. The third part of the article addresses the human sciences as heirs to a tradition of
knowledge which defines knowledge as a relation between a cognising, representing
subject and an object, such that knowledge is always ‘of’ something out there, which
exists independently of its apprehension. What this overlooks is that knowledges serve
to constitute that which they purport to merely cognise or represent, and that IR theory
serves to naturalise that which is historically produced. By the logic of my own argu-
ment, the same is true of other knowledges, such as liberal political theory; the difference
is that whereas the unitary, rational individual of liberal political theory has almost
assumed the status of an axiom, testifying to the success of historical processes, and of
discourses (not least liberal political theory itself), in naturalising the individual, the
naturalisation of the nation-state and the world order is much less secure. This is pre-
cisely what makes ‘the international’ an interesting and revealing sphere of investigation,
and one that can and should be integrated into wider philosophical and ethical debates;
but inasmuch as mainstream IR scholarship serves as the agent of such naturalisation, it
obscures rather than illuminates what is interesting about the international.
History
A great deal of IR displays little interest in history, for history is unimportant if the defin-
ing feature of the international order is considered to be the transhistorical fact of ‘anar-
chy’. Kenneth Waltz writes that ‘the enduring anarchic character of international politics
accounts for the striking sameness in the quality of international life through the millennia’.2
Waltz recognises that there have been differing international systems in the course of the
1. In addition to works cited in the footnotes, I have been influenced by work by – and, in some cases,
conversations with – Sankaran Krishna, Barry Hindess, Mustapha Pasha, Naeem Inayatullah, David
Blaney, Andrew Linklater, Branwen Gruffydd Jones and Mike Shapiro, amongst others.
2. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw Hill, 1979), 66.
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