IR theory needs to look at concepts, practices, and experiences in a global way
Theory and international politics are explored in all of my classes. International Theory, the core BSc IR theory class, introduces non-Western notions of theory and world order from the very beginning, and explores how visual artifacts provoke different types of theory, including infrastructures of feeling.
Both Visual International Politics and Global Politics of China compare mainstream theories (realism, liberalism, constructivism) with new and different Chinese approaches to harmony, empire, and world order. Maps in particular can display egalitarian order or hierarchical order.
Rather than assume that we need to use “Western” theory to understand China (and other countries in the Global South), these classes use Chinese, Asian and Middle Eastern concepts, practices, and experiences to understand IR in general.
Students critically engaged with The Politics of Walls journal article in Roland Bleiker's Conceptions of World Politics course in 2018.
