Spruyt, Hendrik. The World Imagined: Collective Beliefs and Political Order in the Sinocentric, Islamic and Southeast Asian International Societies. A Conversation with My Interlocutors
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298211050666 |
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| Author | Hendrik Spruyt |
| Subject Matter | Book Forum |
https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298211050666
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2021, Vol. 50(1) 278 –288
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/03058298211050666
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Spruyt, Hendrik. The World
Imagined: Collective Beliefs and
Political Order in the Sinocentric,
Islamic and Southeast Asian
International Societies. A
Conversation with My
Interlocutors
Hendrik Spruyt
Northwestern University, USA
Keywords
Political order, Collective beliefs, International institutions
First things first, I am extremely grateful to Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Adom
Getachew as the organisers of this symposium; the members of the Best Theory Book
Award Committee; and to the editors of this journal for providing the space to discuss
The World Imagined. I am honoured to be part of this forum with such accomplished
scholars whose work has influenced my own. I am indebted to all for their careful read-
ing, praise, and critiques.
In the following I will try to address some of their remarks without suggesting any
final conclusions to what will surely be a continuing dialogue. While a few themes arose
across my interlocutors, each contributor also raised specific questions. The comments
raise a host of diverse questions that I will try to address by discussing four general issues
that comparative scholarship on cultural collectivities inevitably faces: conceptualising
the object of study; accounting for the origins of collective beliefs and their change;
justifying a particular categorisation of society; and substantiating the independent
causal effect of culture and belief systems.
Corresponding author:
Hendrik Spruyt, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, Scott Hall,
601 University Place, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
Email: h-spruyt@northwestern.edu
1050666MIL0010.1177/03058298211050666Millennium – Journal of International StudiesSpruyt
research-article2021
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