Chapter 12 Revision Guide

Postcolonial writings can be loosely defined as scholarship, which highlights the history and politics of colonialism: the conquest, domination, subjugation, and exploitation of primarily non-Western people and lands by European powers.

One of the central discussions in the field of postcolonial theory is how much in the post of colonialism we are at the current moment.

Postcolonial IR draws attention to the historicity of the discipline, which, it argues, began in the post-Second World War Euro-American world. As such, it is shaped by issues and politics most relevant to such regions.

Postcolonial writings are shaped by a commitment to highlight absences and erasures in this story and dominant narrative of IR as a discipline.

In doing so, postcolonial IR theory seeks disciplinary pluralization to open space for a multiplicity of perspectives, lifeworlds and practices. It also underscores questions of Third World inequality and racial justice in the discipline.

Because it is largely interdisciplinary, postcolonial writings have contributed to the discipline from a variety of theoretical angles.

Marxist postcolonialists have examined the ways in which capitalist and colonial forces work in conjunction to highlight colonial practices as structural domination.

Examinations of cultural domination have also been crucial.

Edward Said has become one of the most important founders of postcolonial studies in this regard. Questions of cultural domination lie at the heart of Said’s seminal 1978 book, Orientalism. In it, he examines the institutions and processes of knowledge production that helped establish the cultural superiority of Europe in the 18^th and 19^th Century as a core component of European colonization projects.

Still evident today, these entrenched cultural practices are highlighted by postcolonial IR theorists.

Finally, poststructuralist postcolonial writers have interrogated the discursive production of identity in and through various (often binary) categories of difference (race, ethnicity, nation, gender, sexuality).

In postcolonial IR scholarship, all three of these aspects come to the fore on a variety of issues. In terms of structural domination, this is highlighted in understandings of sovereignty. As an institutionalization of the Westphalian state, dominant ideas about sovereignty are regarded to emerge out of a colonizing practice based on a Eurocentric notion of political ordering that has been the source of considerable tension and violence in current postcolonial states.
In terms of cultural domination, postcolonial IR is sceptical of liberal humanitarianism and the industry of development. Much scepticism is owed to the (Western) elitist approach to such activities, where there is often minimal meaningful interaction with the objects of aid.

Most significantly, such projects are grounded in a set of colonial preconceptions about Third World peoples as ‘deficient’, measured in terms of the absence of, or distance from, European values—inability to exercise rationality, existence of backward ascriptive social institutions, proclivity to excess (of emotion, affect, desires), overreasoned moderation and deliberation, and so on (Escobar 1994; Krishna 2009).

Such dichotomous understandings of identity have shaped much of the nuclear security discourse, where the architecture of nuclear non-proliferation is built on deep-seated presuppositions and prejudices about who should be the legitimate and responsible custodians of nuclear weapons (Biswas 2014).

Nonetheless, postcolonial theories remain largely neglected in the IR discipline. This is seen largely due to the fact that postcolonial theorizing privileges epistemology that focuses on the colonized to understand the makings of the world more fully.

This perspectival shift has two key implications: it undermines much of IR’s conventional concepts and wisdoms (e.g. the so-called ‘long peace’ of the ‘Cold War’ was neither peaceful nor cold for much of the Third World); it reveals the Third World as an active, articulate agent with alternative visions and distinct aspirations.

Crucial to postcolonial IR is its commitment to recognize the multiplicities that form the world. A key methodological contribution to theorizing has emerged here: contrapuntality. Developed by Edward Said, it highlights multiple and overlapping worlds in the crafting of the international in showing historical awareness of complex interdependence. It thus helps pay due attention to the contributions of non-Europeans to the makings of the modern world (Mitchell 2000).

Both its epistemological and methodological interceptions of the discipline means that postcolonial theory has carved out a space for narrative writing in IR.

The narrative approach rests on the idea that decolonizing the IR discipline means more than just revealing its epistemological exclusions, gaps, and erasures, or decentring the formative figure of the West in analyses and explanations. It also requires rethinking the forms and aesthetics through which a dispassionate IR colonizes its others.

Postcolonialism is a term used to characterize a multiplicity of perspectives, traditions and approaches from different regions, historical contexts and academic disciplines.
It refers to thought that contests the Western rationalist, humanist and universalist modes of thinking. It also rejects thought characterized by assumptions of ‘native essentialism’ and highlights the importance of alternative conceptions of society, law and morality.
Postcolonialism points to the forms of violence that went with the European creation of international order. Postcolonialism, drawing on antecedent revolts by colonial populations, rejects the ‘pre-ordained’ world presented by the international order created by the West.
Postcolonialism notes that knowledge claims never give a full account of events: it is important to examine critically the seemingly neutral academic institutions for colonial structures of power.
Postcolonialism is sceptical of everyday knowledge, expert knowledge as well as Western critical theorists’ efforts to save the rest of the world. These forms of knowledge tend to hide implicit justifications of imperialism.
Postcolonialism does not seek to entirely reject the Western canon of thought, but it advances critical examinations of reason, history and culture within this tradition. In reading Kant, for example, postcolonialists note the prejudices characteristic of this cosmopolitan’s thinking.
Three conclusions arise from postcolonial readings of the Western canon:

It is not sufficient to simply embrace categories such as international order, society or ethics: we must also note the political effects of these terms derivative from colonial history.
There are double movements of presence and erasure in Western moral debates. For example, while West sees itself as the leader in human rights, it fails to mention the role of Western universalism and morality in Nazism, Fascism and Stalinism.
Postcolonialism, although it does not dispense of reason and universalism, is sceptical of the objectivism and neutrality implied by Western disciplinary narratives.

With regard to International Relations, postcolonialism harbours a suspicion of the universalisms and rationalizations of liberal thinkers, and the mutuality and co-constitutions of norms emphasized by constructivists.
Postcolonialism is associated with the study of identity and culture. They study identities in their fluid contexts. They see both dangers and opportunities in the transformations in identity and culture.
Said’s Orientalism emphasized the techniques of power at work in Western language and representations of the Middle East. Orientalism illustrates the struggles over knowledge and power in representations of non-European societies.
One can utilize Said’s framework in analysing today’s images of the Middle East. Discourses of terrorism characteristic of the war on terror feed into three key tenets of Orientalism, which present a particular view of history and distort historical co-dependencies and cultural nuances:

- Existence of separate hierarchical spheres of civilizations.
- Need to defend Western values against corrupt Non-Western ones.
- Necessity of moderate Arabs to join the Western framework.

Postcolonial theorizing requires that one is able to challenge disciplinary common sense in IR. A consideration of postcolonialism in the context of Libyan intervention for example exposes some problematic dynamics embedded in the intervention.
Case Study. Although Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968, its nuclear program has been under continuous scrutiny by the USA and other Western countries.
Four main fears of Iranian proliferation and potential emergence of nuclear weapons from Western perspectives include: an Iranian attack on Israel; weapons-trade with terrorist groups; a domino-effect in regional proliferation; the disintegration of the NPT, and by extension world security.
Case Study continued. Realist perspectives link state security to military capabilities. From here, nuclear proliferation by Iran demonstrates consistent logic, given its ‘insecure’ geopolitical position among hostile states.

Case Study continued. However, the Western Press usually presents Iran as a weak regional state, which considers nuclear weapons as a means to install its regional power and hegemony. Following this logic, it is commonly assumed that an aggressive, ‘irrational’ Iran cannot be contained or deterred like other, more responsible (Western) nuclear powers.

In other words, the stereotypes that so easily conjure up a fear of nuclear Iran currently emerge out of an already existing colonial (and postcolonial) archive of negative representations and anxieties.

Case Study continued. Faced by the ‘P5 plus 1’ (the five permanent members of the UNSC plus Germany), discussions on Iran’s nuclear program represent a brute exercise of power and force in which the range of options open to Iran is quite minimal. From a Western perspective, the agreement reached in the summer of 2015, may in this sense be regarded a relative success.

Instead of exclusive focus on one small ‘rogue state’, a postcolonial approach helps generate a larger discussion about the responsibilities that ensue on all, especially the powerful, to chart out a path to universal disarmament.

Conclusion. In a world of increasing inequalities of wealth and the growing desperation of large numbers of people around the world, the questions that postcolonial IR raises are urgent.
Postcolonial IR theory offers a distinct epistemological perspective that enriches our understanding of existing global dynamics and raises questions about the politics of knowledge and writing with which all IR scholars need to grapple.