A Civilizational Turn in International Relations: Emergence of an Asian School?

• Main Authors: Boyu Chen, 陳柏宇
• Other Authors: Chih-yu Shih
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/28158345198402606889

博士 === 國立中山大學 === 政治學研究所 === 99 === Samuel Huntington provoked great debate among international relations (IR) theorists with an article titled ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ and thus caused ‘civilizational turn’ in international studies. While criticizing Huntington’s mode of analysis, the IR theorists seek alternative ways of interpreting civilization. This civilizational turn has also emerged in the discussion of ‘non-western IR theories’. Reflecting the Eurocentrism of the discipline, some of the IR theorists have kept searching alternative ways of theorizing the world through cultures and historical experiences originated in the non-western areas, which conceive of learning across different ways of being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology). This dissertation analyzes the possibility of an Asian school of international relations through civilizational analysis of non-western IR theories with Asian perspectives. While Asia is often regarded as a highly heterogeneous area both culturally and economically, this dissertation explores the compatibilities or even commonalities among discourses of Asian intellectual communities on civilization which may consist of a school of thought serving to enrich and dialogue with contemporary IR theories. The dissertation consists of three case studies: Confucian ‘Harmonious world’, Nishida’s philosophy on ‘nothingness’ and postcolonial India with principles of non-violence, nonalignment and subaltern studies. Based on different ontologies and epistemologies, these three schools of thought contribute a common alternative way of interpreting world politics: the middle way, which provides the rationale for the possibility of an open Asian regionalism.