Lessons from IR and Implications for PACS
KNOWLEDGE PLURALISATION, GLOBAL IR, SUBSTANTIALISM, RELATIONALISM, CHINESE IR, CONFUCIAN PEACE THEORY
This entry examines two main positions in the literature on knowledge pluralisation in IR over the last two decades: substantialism and relationalism. Substantialism treats actors in international relations as bounded, self-contained entities determined by their internal qualities, while relationalism treats all as interdependent, entangled, and mutually constituted through their interactions. Understanding the differences between these two positions helps to clarify how interventions across different fields, including Peace and Conflict Studies, should be undertaken.
Dr. Sinan Chu is a research fellow at the Institute for Asian Studies, the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA). He primarily researches the politics of contemporary China, focusing on ethnic policy, ideology, knowledge production, and intellectual discourse.
Available in English: Knowledge Pluralisation
Different approaches to knowledge pluralisation in International Relations (IR) share a similar interest in challenging Eurocentrism in our understanding of world politics. However, their specific diagnoses and solutions differ, which, in turn, determines how their interventions will proceed and what the results will likely be. In this entry, I discuss two main positions in the literature on knowledge pluralisation in IR over the last two decades: substantialism and relationalism. Substantialism assumes that actors in international relations are bounded and defined by their internal qualities. Categories such as the West, the non-West, Islamic civilisation, and Chinese civilisation are self-standing entities whose characteristics and identities predate their encounters with others. On the other hand, relationalism treats all objects as interdependent, entangled, and mutually constituted through their interactions. The aforementioned categories are therefore meaningful only when studied in relation to one another within a specific context. Not every work falls neatly into either “camp”; rather, the proposed divisions are simplifications that highlight commonalities and differences in diagnosing biases in knowledge production and measures to correct them. Understanding these differences helps to clarify how interventions across fields, including Peace and Conflict Studies, should be undertaken.
Knowledge Pluralisation in IR
International Relations (IR) scholars, particularly those drawing on neo-Gramscian Marxism and postcolonialism, have long argued that mainstream theoretical paradigms overlook or trivialise the perspectives and experiences of peoples and communities outside Europe and North America, and they are thereby complicit in perpetuating the West’s physical and epistemic violence against the Rest (Agathangelou & Ling, ; Cox, ; Tickner, ). These critiques highlight the limitations of IR, which has largely been developed within Western academia and draws in particular on European knowledge traditions and experiences.
Building on these critiques, several intellectual projects have been launched since the 2000s to examine the problem and identify possible remedies. Notable examples include “non-Western IR theories” (Acharya & Buzan, ), “geo-epistemologies and worlding beyond the West” (Tickner & Wæver, ), “post-Western IR” (Bilgin, ; Shani, ; Shih & Yu, ), “Global IR” (Acharya, ), “pluriversal IR” (Querejazu, ) and “relational IR” (Ling, ; Kurki, ), among others. Many others have joined the discussion by debating those proposals’ merits and shortcomings (Anderl & Witt, ; Barnett and Zarakol, ; Eun, ; Eun et al., ; Fonseca, ; Hellmann & Valbjørn, ; Hurrell, ; Lake, ), surveying the global sociology of IR (Lohaus & Wemheuer-Vogelaar, ; Kristensen, , ; Risse et al., ; Wemheuer-Vogelaar et al., ), or engaging with various knowledge traditions around the world (Chen, ; Chu, ; Li, ; Lu, ; Makarychev & Morozov, ; Shahi & Ascione, ; Tickner, ).
These projects, and the broader discussion about knowledge pluralisation, represent a concerted effort by the global IR community to move beyond critique and investigate how to address the discipline’s Eurocentric bias with the help of the historical, cultural and intellectual traditions and lived experiences of peoples and communities commonly considered “non-Western”. Since each project has its own diagnoses of and solutions to the problem, navigating this complex and evolving field can be challenging for anyone interested in knowledge pluralisation, whether in IR more broadly or in the specific field of Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS). The contrast between postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, which Georgi () examined in his entry, provides an excellent example. To date, several studies have attempted to map the different intellectual currents in this literature (Aydınlı & Biltekin, (; Bilgin & Smith, ; Gelardi, ; Vasilaki, ).
In contrast, this entry does not seek to present a systematic survey. Rather, I shall organise my discussion around the dichotomy of substantialism vs. relationalism, introduced to the IR literature by Patrick T. Jackson and Daniel Nexon () in response to a call made by Mustafa Emirbayer () to a sociology audience. The dichotomy highlights the distinct ontological assumptions that undergird various existing approaches to IR knowledge pluralisation, allowing for a more productive discussion of their merits and limits.
In what follows I will first outline the basic idea of each position with examples from the extant IR scholarship. I will then discuss their implications for knowledge pluralisation in PACS, drawing lessons specifically from the case of Chinese IR. This example helps to illustrate the limitation of a substantialist approach to knowledge pluralisation, and the potential payoff of a relationalist one. The former, as the discussion will show, encourages non-Western interventions that possess the paradoxical potential to both challenge Eurocentric knowledge paradigms and perpetuate ethnocentric theorising by reproducing binaries (e.g. East vs. West) or universalising specific normative visions (e.g. tianxia as a Chinese cosmopolitanism for all). The conclusion summarises the key lessons for PACS scholarship from distinguishing between those two approaches.
Substantialist Pluralisation
Substantialism treats the entities and categories we commonly employ in our analysis, such as the West, the non-West, China, Latin America and Islam, as self-standing and existing prior to encounters or interactions with others. Their attributes are taken to stem from internal, inherent features that exist and operate independently of their relationships and interactions with the outside, but which shape how they behave and interact with others in fundamental ways. The logic by which one actor (or group of actors), e.g. Latin American countries, behaves cannot be assumed to be the same as or similar to that of another, e.g. China or Europe. Rather, one must investigate empirically how a particular actor perceives and thinks about itself and the world, what its interests are, and what it sees as the most appropriate way to advance those interests (Acharya & Buzan, ). Accordingly, the existing theoretical inventory of IR is biased toward a Eurocentric perspective because it has been built mainly, if not solely, on the ideas, perspectives and historical experience of Europe (or the West) (Qin, ). By downplaying or omitting the world beyond the “West”, these tools are necessarily limited in terms of their analytical scope and validity.
Consequently, the logical solution is to identify and incorporate the trivialised or excluded elements into IR. This remedy can take two different forms. A weaker argument for knowledge pluralisation from a substantialist position, or weak substantialist pluralisation, calls for adjusting existing theories in the light of new empirical material drawn from the historical and contemporary experience of international relations in non-Western sites. The “non-West” is perceived here as a repertoire of empirical data, or “native informant servants” (Agathangelou & Ling, ), that helps to refine or revise existing (Western) theories. Examples of this position appear in works that explicitly or implicitly reject the need for theoretical knowledge from non-Western intellectual traditions, emphasising instead the need for existing theories to engage more with “non-Western” empirical phenomena (Neuman, ; Ikenberry & Mastanduno, ; Johnston, ; Reus-Smit, ). Accordingly, being open to updating existing theories through more carefully investigating the “non-West” is sufficient to address the former’s limitations and enable theoretical progress. This is the position assumed by much of the mainstream IR scholarship, which continues to employ, engage with and revise theories developed by Western academia, with little to no attempt to advance IR theorising through engagement with other intellectual traditions (e.g. Mearsheimer, ).
By contrast, a strong substantialist pluralisation demands engaging not only with empirical phenomena from non-Western sites but also with non-Western actors’ perceptions, interpretations and analytical frameworks. The assumption here is that different cultures and histories lead to different ways of understanding world politics (e.g. Qin, ). Therefore, theoretical perspectives informed by ethnic, national or civilisational frameworks that differ from Euro-American IR should be incorporated into IR’s inventory (Barkawi et al., ). To this end, the IR curriculum should include schools of thought that inform “non-Western” international relations, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Hinduism and others. Compared with the above position, strong substantialism moves beyond incorporating more “data” to include a diversification of interpretive and analytical tools. Projects searching for non-Western IR theory (Acharya & Buzan, ), worlding beyond the West (Tickner & Wæver, ), and the well-known Global IR (Acharya, ) all in some ways embody this position due to their focus on fixing the representational deficit of non-Western intellectual contributions to IR theorising. Some versions of pluriversal IR also come very close to it (e.g. Parasram, ).
In sum, weak or strong substantialist pluralisation emphasises the (re)incorporation of what is absent or suppressed into existing knowledge. The “non-West” could be invited back in as new “data” or new “theoretical or conceptual language” in order to help correct IR’s over-reliance on, and consequent over-determination by, Western historical and philosophical perspectives.
Relationalist Pluralisation
In contrast, relationalist pluralisation challenges the very category of “West” vs. “non-West” – as well as similar dichotomies such as core vs. periphery, Global North vs. Global South – that mark the divide of knowledge and power across space and time. In contrast to the substantialist position, relationalist pluralisation does not regard terms such as China, Africa, Latin America or the West as possessing any fixed or intrinsic features. Rather, each label acquires its meaning only in relation to others, with reference to specific historical and political contexts. To take a well-researched example, the identity of the “West” represented by the US and Europe during the Cold War cannot be understood without reference to the idea of the “East” represented by the Soviet bloc, and vice versa (Neumann, ). Similarly, the meta-geographical category of the “non-West” only makes sense when contrasted with the idea of the “West” (Bilgin, ). In short, no actor in world politics possesses an intrinsic identity independent of its relations with others. The question is how these conceptual categories and the relationships between them are (re)produced, and what their political and social implications are.
Departing from this, relationalist pluralisation emphasises uncovering, problematising and ultimately subverting the conceptual categories in the study of international relations, which are both socially constructed and often hierarchically ordered and laden with strong normative connotations. Accordingly, the problem with our knowledge is the often-essentialised conception of actors, their identities and interests, and the logic of their behaviour in world politics. The lack of relational understanding not only leads researchers to miss the context-specific meanings that are key to understanding why and how certain actors behave in particular ways, but also makes IR knowledge complicit in reproducing the inequalities and violence it attempts to uncover, examine and critique. Knowledge pluralisation cannot be achieved merely by opening disciplinary discourse to alternative intellectual traditions (Vasilaki, ). Without reflecting on why and how certain actors, ideas and traditions are relegated to the “non-West”, the “periphery” or the “Global South”, or taking for granted what the “Western” IR stands for, the hierarchy of power and knowledge will remain intact, or even be reinforced (Murray, ).
Therefore, it is important to examine how the practice and knowledge of international relations have developed beyond Europe and North America, and how key conceptual categories and their unequal relationships have been (re)produced through complex historical processes including empire, migration, colonialism and global capitalism. Investigating the social constitution of categorisations such as West vs. non-West, core vs. periphery, and liberal democracy vs. authoritarianism is a crucial step toward a genuine pluralisation of knowledge in IR. There are already some good examples of this position in the extant literature under the label of post-Western IR, such as Shih and Hwang’s () study on the reception and appropriation of Chinese philosophical ideas by Anglophone IR scholarship, some strands of Global IR (Fierke & Jabri, ), as well as the recent “relational turn” scholarship (Kurki, ).
Implications for Peace and Conflict Studies
Since the early 2000s, scholars of Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) have shown increasing awareness of the limitations of Western academic concepts and security policies and practices, as evidenced by the discussion around the idea of the “local turn”, which emphasises, among other things, hearing and heeding “voices from below” (Richter & Tripathi, ). The dichotomy of substantialism vs. relationalism can be a useful tool for comparing the different approaches to knowledge pluralisation and examining their (potential) implications in the context of PACS.
Substantialist pluralisation emphasises the need to bring the “non-West” back in. Specifically, weak substantialism would recommend investigating non-Western empirical phenomena more proactively, whereas strong substantialism focuses on how non-Western actors have conceived of and practised peace and how they have coped with conflict, both historically and today. Accordingly, combating Eurocentrism mainly involves incorporating the “non-West” into existing knowledge as either new “empirical data” or new “theoretical/conceptual language”, which could lead to either improved “Western” theories or a more pluralistic theoretical toolkit. Some of the work addressing the “local turn” in PACS reflects a similar position (e.g. Wolff, ).
However, a substantialist approach does not address how the bias was created in the first place, or why it persists when the initial conditions no longer exist. If the legacy of colonialism and the persisting disparities between the “West” and the “non-West” are responsible for the imbalance in knowledge production, a simple “affirmative action” fix at the output end is unlikely to be sufficient (Barnett & Zarakol, ). Researchers might discover alternative concepts and practices of peace and conflict resolution from non-Western sites that contrast interestingly with what the existing literature offers – but those concepts and practices are not necessarily better simply because of their “non-Western” identity. Instead, focusing solely on the issue of representation could inadvertently reproduce ethnocentrism by replacing Eurocentrism with similarly parochial perspectives that perpetuate rather than challenge the binary logics (e.g. the West vs. the Rest), the essentialised national, cultural or civilisational categories, and epistemic frameworks rooted in Western modernity in our existing knowledge (Chu, ; Hellmann & Valbjørn, ; Makarychev & Morozov, ; Tolay, ).
In contrast, relationalist pluralisation would interrogate how certain notions of peace and conflict emerged, diffused and became dominant, while other competing perspectives were marginalised or silenced through specific historical processes such as imperialist expansion, colonialism and geopolitical rivalry. Moreover, understanding the significance of historical European colonialism and its contemporary legacy in the practice and knowledge of world politics today should direct our attention to the enduring mechanisms of power, i.e. how it shapes our knowledge and being, rather than to the historically contingent actors who hold and exercise that power. In other words, while the present condition – including our ideas and practices related to peace, peace-building, peace-keeping, conflict resolution and so on – has been fundamentally shaped by Western imperialism and colonialism, the important question to ask from the perspective of knowledge pluralisation is not merely what other, different notions of peace and conflict might exist outside the dominant liberal peace discourse endorsed by Western academia, governments and international institutions, but rather how certain notions became dominant while others were trivialised or delegitimised. This shift in focus not only opens new ground for empirical enquiry, but also enables a critical examination of similarly problematic concepts and practices related to peace in non-Western sites.
The limitations of the substantialist approach are exemplified by the scholarship on Chinese IR, which endorses the critique of Eurocentrism and knowledge pluralisation in IR, yet exhibits many of the same problems as existing theories. IR scholars in China have long argued for formulating theories based on the country’s “particular geo-culture” (Ren, ). Over the past two decades several mainland Chinese academics have endeavoured to do precisely that, i.e. develop distinctively “Chinese” IR theories. Some of their notable products, such as Moral Realism (Yan, ), Relational Theory (Qin, ), the Tianxia System (Zhao, ) and Symbiosis Theory (Ren, ), are often presented as alternative IR theories based on indigenous intellectual resources that contribute to the pluralisation of IR’s theoretical inventory (Lu et al., ). Targeting the shortcomings of “Western knowledge” and the perceived West-dominated international order, these theses tend to depict China as inherently peaceful, open and non-coercive in managing its relations with others, and therefore capable of providing better solutions to global challenges. For example, the Tianxia System explicitly attributes interstate conflicts to the West’s “individualist ontology”, while Relational Theory and Moral Realism emphasise the importance of morality in promoting peace, an element that both frameworks see as lacking in mainstream Western IR.
However, critics have shown that these theories tend to overlook hierarchy, repression and violence in both historical and contemporary China’s domestic politics and foreign relations, while continuing to view the world through a static binary lens, treating categories such as “China” and “the West” as possessing, and defined by, fixed and essentialised features (Callahan, ; Chu, ; Lu, ). Consequently, the “Chinese School” reproduces many of the same problems that motivated the critique of Eurocentrism in the first place. A further example, more relevant to PACS scholarship, is the so-called “developmental peace” thesis promoted by some Chinese scholars as an alternative to liberal peace (He, ). Similar to the “Chinese School”, the “developmental peace” thesis criticises existing norms and practices as Western-centric, while arguing that China’s experience offers a meaningful corrective. Upon scrutiny, however, the thesis does little to challenge ethnocentric theorising: not only does it reduce the norm of liberal peace and developmental peace to the essentialised civilisational categories of “the West” and “China”, but its empirical record also falls short of the claim (Abb, ; Wong, ).
We can see the payoff of relationalism by taking a critical look at the debate over the so-called “Confucian Peace Theory” (CPT). Similar to the above examples, CPT also promotes an apparently “Chinese” critique of established Western IR theories – in this case, specifically the “Democratic Peace Theory”. However, unlike the dominance of mainland Chinese academics behind Chinese IR scholarship, CPT has been notably advanced by several Western scholars working outside China (Kang, ; Kelly, ). Variations notwithstanding, CPT usually holds that imperial China maintained peaceful relations with its neighbours due to the common recognition of a single civilisational center in the region (China), grounded in a shared cultural script (Confucianism) (Kelly, ). The long period of peace in East Asia was thus interpreted as a product of the shared Confucian cosmology across the region, and some even suggested that it was the “civilisational character” of East Asian peoples to submit to a single centre representing the highest forms of knowledge and virtue (Fairbank, ). However, recent studies have shown that the picture was far more complicated. Although imperial China and its Confucian neighbours waged fewer wars among themselves during the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries than their European counterparts, the apparent peace concealed trade asymmetries, frontier conflict, and legitimacy struggles (Choi & Kwon, ; Phillips, ). At the same time, the imperial Chinese court clashed violently with its non-Confucian neighbours, such as the Mongols from the North and Turkic Muslims from the Northwest (Millward, ). In summary, empirical evidence considerably complicates the claim of an alternative theory of interstate peace as CPT’s advocates would have liked. This is the same diagnosis we have heard about the Chinese IR.
However, a relationalist enquiry would take the critique further. Rather than dwelling on the empirical question of whether historical East Asia was indeed more peaceful or what role Confucianism played, a relationalist enquiry asks what counted as “peace”, “peace” for whom, what “Confucianism” was to those who lived during that time, and how people perceive themselves across the vast space known as “China” today. In other words, we need to interrogate the language and conceptual coordinates of CPT (and its mainstream literature interlocutors) to reveal how power has shaped our knowledge about peace and conflict in historical East Asia and beyond.
Departing from these questions, we can see that labelling certain periods as “peace” while overlooking heterogeneous relationships and persistent contestation is itself an act of speaking from and for the power centre, well aligned with the longstanding Sinocentric historiography and worldview, both historically and today, and actively promoted by the Chinese government domestically and abroad. Attributing “peace” to a single cultural marker, “Confucianism”, while subsuming diverse peoples and countries under it as a seemingly common denominator, further echoes Huntington’s talk of civilisational clashes and the “East vs. West” binary (Hui, ).
Viewed from this perspective, the problem of CPT is not just a question of lacking empirical support. By presenting an alternative vision of international peace that seemingly contrasts with existing knowledge while remaining silent on questions of what counts as peace or peace for whom, CPT reproduces the colonial dynamics in the so-called liberal peace, wherein the West offered a definition of peace and prescriptions for attaining it in places it had previously colonised (Obamamoye & Lemay-Hébert, ). At the same time, essentialising East Asia as a place defined by Confucianism suggests that the discourse of CPT is likely driven by an interest in, if not a fascination with, uncovering why and how things have worked differently in the “Orient”. Therefore, beyond uncovering how the discourse of “Confucian Peace” eschews violence and overlooks historical and contemporary injustice – similar to liberal notions of peace – relationalism reminds us of the need to question how the embedded Eurocentrism in our disciplinary discourse has incentivised the search for alternative, exotic knowledge allegedly informed by experiences from non-Western sites, such as CPT, which ironically perpetuates rather than addresses problems with existing knowledge.
Conclusion
In this entry I have examined two approaches to knowledge pluralisation in IR – substantialism and relationalism – and discussed their implications for similar efforts in PACS. Although they share the goal of overcoming Eurocentrism in our existing knowledge, their diagnoses and solutions differ in important ways. As I have tried to illustrate with the example of Chinese IR theories and Confucian Peace Theory, a substantialist approach tends to reproduce ethnocentrism. Fixating on the category of the “West” not only prevents us from addressing the relational dynamics behind power hierarchies in world politics, but also obscures other similarly problematic notions and practices from non-Western sites, such as Sinocentrism and the imperial practices of historical Chinese regimes. A genuine pluralisation of knowledge requires not only knowledge about and from peoples and places beyond the West, but also an understanding of why and how some became part of the “West” and others became the “Rest”, and of what it means to speak from those positions both historically and today. For scholars in PACS and other fields, it is important to be critically aware of the pitfalls of substantialist pluralisation, in particular the paradoxical potential of non-Western intellectual interventions encouraged by such an approach to simultaneously challenge the dominant Western paradigm and perpetuate ethnocentrism in knowledge production.
Reference
Abb, P. (2025). Is There a Chinese ‘Developmental Peace’? Evidence from the Belt and Road Initiative’s Impact on Conflict States. Journal of Contemporary China, 34(155), 861–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2024.2378043
Acharya, A. (2014). Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds: A New Agenda for International Studies. International Studies Quarterly, 58(4), 647–59.
Acharya, A., & Buzan, B. (eds.) (2010). Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives On and Beyond Asia. Routledge.
Agathangelou, A. M., & Ling, L. H. M. (2004). The House of IR: From Family Power Politics to the Poisies of Worldism. International Studies Review, 6(4), 21–49. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1521-9488.2004.00448.x
Anderl, F., & Witt, A. (2020). Problematising the Global in Global IR. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 49(1), 32–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829820971708
Aydınlı, E., & Biltekin, G. (2017). Widening the World of IR: A Typology of Homegrown Theorizing. All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace, 7(1), 45–68. https://doi.org/10.20991/allazimuth.328427
Barkawi, T., Murray, C., & Zarakol, A. (2023). The United Nations of IR: Power, Knowledge, and Empire in Global IR Debates. International Theory, 15(3), 445–61. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752971923000167
Barnett, M., & Zarakol, A. (2023). Global International Relations and the Essentialism Trap. International Theory, 15(3), 428–44. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752971923000131
Bilgin, P. (2008). Thinking Past ‘Western’ IR? Third World Quarterly, 29(1), 5–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436590701726392
Bilgin, P., & Smith, K. (2024). Thinking Globally About World Politics: Beyond Global IR. Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56572-4
Callahan, W. A. (2008). Chinese Visions of World Order: Post-Hegemonic or a New Hegemony? International Studies Review, 10(4), 749–61.
Chen, C.-C. (2012). The Im/Possibility of Building Indigenous Theories in a Hegemonic Discipline: The Case of Japanese International Relations. Asian Perspective, 36(3), 463–92. https://doi.org/10.1353/apr.2012.0018
Choi, I., & Kwon, M. (2025). Ontological Complexity of Interpolity Orders: The Encounter between Chosŏn and Tibet in Qing. European Journal of International Relations, 31(1), 28-52. https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661241228470
Chu, S. (2022). Whither Chinese IR? The Sinocentric Subject and the Paradox of Tianxia-Ism. International Theory, 14(1), 57–87. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752971920000214
Chu, S. (2025). The Chinese IR Trio and Good International Citizenship. In Good International Citizenship and Non-Western International Relations: Perspectives and Cases from the Global South, edited by C. Efstathopoulos & H. Mehmetcik. Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90815-6_4
Cox, R. W. (1981). Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 10(2), 126–55.
Emirbayer, M. (1997). Manifesto for a Relational Sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 103(2), 281–317. https://doi.org/10.1086/231209
Eun, Y.-S. (2018). Beyond ‘the West/Non-West Divide’ in IR: How to Ensure Dialogue as Mutual Learning. The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 11(4), 435–49. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/poy014
Eun, Y.-S., Kristensen, P. M., & Shahi, D. (2025). “How (Not) to Advance Global IR: A Rejoinder. International Theory, 17(2), 268–86. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752971925100043
Fairbank, J. K. (ed.) (1968). The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations. Harvard University Press. http://archive.org/details/chineseworldorde0000unse
Fierke, K. M., & Jabri, V. (2019). Global Conversations: Relationality, Embodiment and Power in the Move towards a Global IR. Global Constitutionalism, 8(03), 506–35. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2045381719000121
Fonseca, M. (2019). Global IR and Western Dominance: Moving Forward or Eurocentric Entrapment? Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 48(1), 45–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829819872817
Gelardi, M. (2020). Moving Global IR Forward—A Road Map. International Studies Review, 22(4): 830–52. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viz049
Georgi, R. (2024). Postcolonial and Decolonial Differences. Rewriting Peace and Conflict, March 1. https://rewritingpeaceandconflict.net/2024/03/01/postcolonial-and-decolonial-differences/
He, Y. (2021). A Tale of Two ‘Peaces’: Liberal Peace, Developmental Peace, and Peacebuilding. In New Paths and Policies towards Conflict Prevention, edited by C. J. Fung, B. Gehrmann, R. F. Madenyika, & J. G. Tower. Routledge.
Hellmann, G., & Valbjørn, M. (2017). Problematizing Global Challenges: Recalibrating the ‘Inter’ in IR-Theory. International Studies Review, 19(2), 279–82. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/vix009
Hui, V. T.-b. (2023). ‘Getting Asia Right’: De-Essentializing China’s Hegemony in Historical Asia. International Theory, 15(3), 480–98. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752971923000143
Hurrell, A. (2016). Beyond Critique: How to Study Global IR? International Studies Review, 18(1), 149–51. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viv022
Ikenberry, G. J., & Mastanduno, M. (eds.) (2003). International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific. Columbia University Press.
Jackson, P. T., & Nexon, D. (1999). Relations Before States: Substance, Process and the Study of World Politics. European Journal of International Relations, 5(3), 291–332. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066199005003002
Johnston, A. I. (2012). What (If Anything) Does East Asia Tell Us About International Relations Theory? Annual Review of Political Science, 15, 53–78. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.040908.120058
Kang, D. C. (2007). China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia. Columbia University Press.
Kelly, R. E. (2012). A ‘Confucian Long Peace’ in Pre-Western East Asia? European Journal of International Relations, 18(3), 407–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066111409771
Kristensen, P. M. (2015). International Relations in China and Europe: The Case for Interregional Dialogue in a Hegemonic Discipline. The Pacific Review, 28(2), 161–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2014.948568
Kristensen, P. M. (2018). International Relations at the End: A Sociological Autopsy. International Studies Quarterly, 62(2), 245–259. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqy002
Kurki, M. (2020). International Relations in a Relational Universe. Oxford University Press.
Kurki, M. (2022). Relational Revolution and Relationality in IR: New Conversations. Review of International Studies, 48(5), 821–36. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210521000127
Lake, D. A. (2016). White Man’s IR: An Intellectual Confession. Perspectives on Politics, 14(04), 1112–22. https://doi.org/10.1017/S153759271600308X
Li, X. (2021). Saving National IR from Exceptionalism: The Dialogic Spirit and Self-Reflection in Chinese IR Theory. International Studies Review, 23(4), 1399–1423. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viab012
Ling, L. H. M. (2013). The Dao of World Politics: Towards a Post-Westphalian, Worldist International Relations (1st edition). New International Relations, Routledge.
Lohaus, M., & Wemheuer-Vogelaar, W. (2021). Who Publishes Where? Exploring the Geographic Diversity of Global IR Journals. International Studies Review, 23(3), 645–69. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viaa062
Lu, P. (2019). Chinese IR Sino-Centrism Tradition and its Influence on the Chinese School Movement. The Pacific Review, 32(2), 150–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2018.1461681
Lu, P. (2026). Beyond Decolonization: Mutual Learning in the Bidirectional Dynamics of Chinese and Western IR Theories. The Pacific Review, 39(3), 660–689. https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2025.2573482
Lu, P., Ren, X., Erskine, T., Guzzini, S., Buzan, B., Jahn, B., & Rosenberg, J. (2024). Forum: Debating the Chinese School(s) of IR Theory. The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 17(3), 277–305. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/poae015
Makarychev, A., & Morozov, V. (2013). Is ‘Non-Western Theory’ Possible? The Idea of Multipolarity and the Trap of Epistemological Relativism in Russian IR. International Studies Review, 15(3), 328–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/misr.12067
Mearsheimer, J. J. (2016). Benign Hegemony. International Studies Review, 18(1), 147–49. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viv021
Millward, J. A. (2024). How ‘Chinese Dynasties’ Periodization Works with the ‘Tribute System’ and ‘Sinicization’ to Erase Diversity and Euphemize Colonialism in Historiography of China. The Historical Journal, 67(1), 151–60. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X2300050X
Murray, C. (2020). Imperial Dialectics and Epistemic Mapping: From Decolonisation to Anti-Eurocentric IR. European Journal of International Relations, 26(2), 419–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066119873030
Neuman, S. (ed.) (1998). International Relations Theory and the Third World. Palgrave Macmillan.
Neumann, I. B. (1999). Uses of the Other: “The East” in European Identity Formation. Borderlines 9. University of Minnesota Press.
Obamamoye, B. F., & Lemay-Hébert, N. (2025). Liberal Peacebuilding in the Global South: Crisis, Continuity, and Non-Western (African) Agency. In The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies: Perspectives from the Global South (1st edition), edited by S. Tripathi & S. Richter. Bloomsbury Academic. https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/encyclopedia?docid=b-9798881842390
Parasram, A. (2023). Pluriversal Sovereignty and the State of IR. Review of International Studies, 49(3), 356–67. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210523000165
Phillips, A. (2018). Contesting the Confucian Peace: Civilization, Barbarism and International Hierarchy in East Asia. European Journal of International Relations, 24(4), 740–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066117716265
Qin, Y. (2018a). A Multiverse of Knowledge: Cultures and IR Theories. The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 11(4), 415–34. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/poy015
Qin, Y. (2018b). A Relational Theory of World Politics. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316869505
Querejazu, A. (2016). Encountering the Pluriverse: Looking for Alternatives in Other Worlds. Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 59(2). https://doi.org/10.1590/0034-7329201600207
Ren, X. (2020). Grown from Within: Building a Chinese School of International Relations. The Pacific Review, 33(3–4): 386–412. https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2020.1728573
Ren, X. (2024). The Gongsheng School of International Relations: China’s Experience. In Gongsheng Across Contexts: A Philosophy of Co-Becoming, edited by B. Song & Y. Zhan. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7325-5_12
Reus-Smit, C. (2017). Cultural Diversity and International Order. International Organization, 71(4), 851–85. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818317000261
Richter, S., & Tripathi, S. (2025). Introduction: Advancing Peace and Conflict Studies with the Global South: Building Bridges and Creating Solidarities. In The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies: Perspectives from the Global South (1st edition), edited by S. Tripathi & S. Richter. Bloomsbury Academic. https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/encyclopedia?docid=b-9798881842390
Risse, T., Wemheuer-Vogelaar, W., & Havemann, F. (2022). IR Theory and the Core–Periphery Structure of Global IR: Lessons from Citation Analysis. International Studies Review, 24(3), viac029. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viac029
Shahi, D., & Ascione, G. (2016). Rethinking the Absence of Post-Western International Relations Theory in India: ‘Advaitic Monism’ as an Alternative Epistemological Resource. European Journal of International Relations, 22(2), 313–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066115592938
Shani, G. (2008). Toward a Post-Western IR: The Umma, Khalsa Panth, and Critical International Relations Theory. International Studies Review, 10(4): 722–34.
Shih, C.-y., & Hwang, Y.-J. (2018). Re-Worlding the ‘West’ in Post-Western IR: The Reception of Sun Zi’s the Art of War in the Anglosphere. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 18(3): 421–48. https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/lcy009
Shih, C.-y., & Yu, P.-t. (2015). Post-Western International Relations Reconsidered: The Pre-Modern Politics of Gongsun Long. Springer.
Tickner, A. (2003). Seeing IR Differently: Notes from the Third World. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 32(2), 295–324. https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298030320020301
Tickner, A. B. (2008). Latin American IR and the Primacy of Lo Práctico. International Studies Review, 10(4), 735–48. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2486.2008.00829.x
Tickner, A. B., & Wæver, O. (eds.) (2009). International Relations Scholarship Around the World. Worlding beyond the West 1. Routledge.
Tolay, J. (2021). Inadvertent Reproduction of Eurocentrism in IR: The Politics of Critiquing Eurocentrism. Review of International Studies, 47 (5): 692–713. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210521000176
Vasilaki, R. (2012). Provincialising IR? Deadlocks and Prospects in Post-Western IR Theory. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 41(1), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829812451720
Wemheuer-Vogelaar, W., Bell, N. J., Morales, M. N., & Tierney, M. J. (2016). The IR of the Beholder: Examining Global IR Using the 2014 TRIP Survey. International Studies Review, 18(1) 16–32. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viv032
Wolff, J. (2022). The Local Turn and the Global South in Critical Peacebuilding Studies. PRIF Working Paper, no. 57 (March). Frankfurt.
Wong, K. C. (2021). The Rise of China’s Developmental Peace: Can an Economic Approach to Peacebuilding Create Sustainable Peace? Global Society, 35(4), 522–40. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2021.1942802
Yan, X. (2011). Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power. Edited by Daniel A. Bell and Zhe Sun. Translated by Edmund Ryden. The Princeton-China Series. Princeton University Press.
Zhao, T. (2021). All Under Heaven: The Tianxia System for a Possible World Order. Edited by Odd Arne Westad. Translated by Joseph E. Harroff. Great Transformations 3. University of California Press.
How to cite this entry:
Chu, S. (2026, September 30). Knowledge Pluralisation: Lessons from IR and Implications for PACS. Virtual Encyclopaedia – Rewriting Peace and Conflict. BMFTR – Network Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23060533. https://rewritingpeaceandconflict.net/knowledge-pluralisation/
Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Emma Pritchard, Álvaro Okura de Almeida, and Juliana González Villamizar in a thought-provoking roundtable on truth commissions, transitional justice, and post-/decolonial approaches to time and temporality.
Podcast
Amya Agarwal & Swati Parashar in conversation with Fabricio Rodríguez and Viviana García Pinzón
