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A Civilizational Turn in International Relations: Emergence of an Asian School?

Samuel Huntington provoked great debate among international relations (IR) theorists with an article titled ¡¥The Clash of Civilizations?¡¦ and thus caused ¡¥civilizational turn¡¦ in international studies. While criticizing Huntington¡¦s mode of analysis, the IR theorists seek alternative ways of interpreting civilization. This civilizational turn has also emerged in the discussion of ¡¥non-western IR theories¡¦. Reflecting the Eurocentrism of the discipline, some of the IR theorists have kept searching alternative ways of theorizing the world through cultures and historical experiences originated in the non-western areas, which conceive of learning across different ways of being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology).
This dissertation analyzes the possibility of an Asian school of international relations through civilizational analysis of non-western IR theories with Asian perspectives. While Asia is often regarded as a highly heterogeneous area both culturally and economically, this dissertation explores the compatibilities or even commonalities among discourses of Asian intellectual communities on civilization which may consist of a school of thought serving to enrich and dialogue with contemporary IR theories. The dissertation consists of three case studies: Confucian ¡¥Harmonious world¡¦, Nishida¡¦s philosophy on ¡¥nothingness¡¦ and postcolonial India with principles of non-violence, nonalignment and subaltern studies. Based on different ontologies and epistemologies, these three schools of thought contribute a common alternative way of interpreting world politics: the middle way, which provides the rationale for the possibility of an open Asian regionalism.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0627111-141623
Date27 June 2011
CreatorsChen, Boyu
ContributorsYi-ren Tseng, Teng-chi Chang, Chih-yu Shih, Yuan-horng Chu, L. H. M. Ling, I Yuan
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0627111-141623
Rightswithheld, Copyright information available at source archive

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