Postcolonial Approaches to Global Politics

Eight Postcolonial approaches to global politics

Learning objectives

· Acquire a basic understanding of postcolonial approaches to IR, especially the postcolonial deconstruction of established IR narratives as inherently Eurocentric

· Consider the extent to which the international system today remains fundamentally colonial in terms of its structure and functioning

· Reflect on some of the criticisms that have been made of postcolonial perspectives, particularly from more materialist standpoints

The impact of the colonial past on International Relations today

In the summer of twenty twenty-one, the military forces of the United States and its allies withdrew from Afghanistan, bringing an end to a twenty-year occupation of the country. The US had originally invaded Afghanistan in late two thousand one to destroy the Taliban, a militant Islamist organization implicated in the terrorist attacks of nine eleven. Two decades later, however, the Taliban once again controlled much of Afghanistan, compelling Western forces to beat a hasty, humiliating, and chaotic retreat. This played out most memorably at Kabul Airport, where terrified Afghans risked their lives in an attempt to escape the country. Western media and politicians wrung their hands over the fact that twenty years of occupation and investment had failed to bring stability to Afghanistan. More critical observers, however, suggested that history was repeating itself in the harrowing scenes from Kabul Airport. Indeed, the West's flight from Afghanistan in twenty twenty-one was only the latest chapter in a long tradition of imperial entanglement in the country, from the first British expedition in eighteen thirty-eight up until the Soviet invasion of nineteen seventy-nine. Afghans have been fighting (and expelling) European armies for some two hundred years.

Why have countries from the 'Global North' repeatedly tried to occupy and control parts of the 'Global South' - such as Afghanistan - over the course of recent centuries? On what basis does the West consider itself justified in defining 'liberal democracy' as a superior and universal system of government which can and should be imposed on 'non-Western' nations such as Afghanistan - with violence, if necessary? In recent decades, in the field of International Relations, such critical questions around the historical role of the West in the international system have been most purposefully posed by scholars adhering to postcolonial approaches. This chapter provides an introduction to and evaluation of such approaches. It delineates the intellectual origins of postcolonial IR, as well as the key claims made by its adherents, and the criticisms made by its detractors.

The first section briefly lays out the historical development of postcolonial approaches to IR and establishes their fundamental principles. The following three sections expand on some of postcolonial IR's core argumentative and analytical points. The second section examines postcolonialism's claim that the mainstream, 'Western' study of IR is founded on a set of essentially Eurocentric and colonial assumptions, the third section surveys alternative, postcolonial readings of the historical development of the international system, and the fourth section elaborates on the claim that the contemporary international system remains basically colonial in its structure and logic. The final two sections focus in turn on some of the latest developments in postcolonial approaches to IR, and on some of the criticisms it has sustained.