Non-Western Contributions to Rid the International Relations Discipline from Western Epistemological Hegemony: Reform or Revolution?
Abstract
Most theoretical schools of International Relations developed by Western scientific communities are not concerned with solving problems of non-Western states and societies, and often fail to explain their international relations. One reason of this failure is their disregard of the historical and contemporary experiences of non-Western societies, let alone their knowledges and cultures. This study explores the roots of excluding the knowledges and history of non-Western societies from the International relations discipline – roots that go back to the colonial attempts to destroy the knowledges of colonized peoples systematically. The study also sheds light on some notable contributions of non-Western International Relations scholars to rid the discipline from Western epistemological hegemony through reform or radical change. While some scholars attempt to reform Western schools and views through using non-Western knowledges and historical and contemporary experiences, such as the Latin American scholars who developed the dependency theory, others have doubts of this method and offer new propositions reflecting non-Western knowledges and experiences away from the discipline’s schools and views which they deem nonreformable. The study also presents ideas to help the Islamic Civilizational Paradigm school, which endeavors to reform and restructure the discipline based on an Islamic epistemology and Muslim historical and contemporary experiences, to meet the challenges of disseminating it globally.
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International RelationsInternational TheoriesWestern HegemonyNon-Western KnowledgesIslamic ParadigmCivilizational Perspective
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