Reintroducing friendship to international relations: relational ontologies from China to the West

Nordin, Astrid; Smith, Graham M.

doi:10.1093/irap/lcy011

Cited by 20 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…This is by no means a common position in the field of IR, which has traditionally preferred the default assumption of enmity, or rivalry, as the natural state of affairs. Yet, over the last two decades, scholars have started a serious discussion over the ontology of friendship and how it plays out in international relations (Berenskoetter, 2007; Haugevik, 2018; Koschut and Oelsner, 2014b; Nordin and Smith, 2018b; Roshchin, 2017). The relevant argument for our purpose is that friendship is more than, and qualitatively different from, an alliance in terms of both ontology and behavioural implications.…”

Section: Friendship and Solidaritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Friends in war: Sweden between solidarity and self-help, 1939–1945

Pashakhanlou¹,

Berenskötter²

2020

Cooperation and Conflict

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This article scrutinizes the assumption that friends support each other in times of war. Picking up the notion that solidarity, or ‘other-help’, is a key feature of friendship between states, the article explores how states behave when a friend is attacked by an overwhelming enemy. It directs attention to the trade-off between solidarity and self-help that governments face in such a situation and makes the novel argument that the decision about whether and how to support the friend is significantly influenced by assessments of the distribution of material capabilities and the relationship the state has with the aggressor. This proposition is supported empirically in an examination of Sweden’s response to its Nordic friends’ need for help during the Second World War – to Finland during the 1939–1940 ‘Winter War’ with the Soviet Union, and to Norway following the invasion of Germany from 1940 to 1945.

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Section: Friendship and Solidaritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Friends in war: Sweden between solidarity and self-help, 1939–1945

Pashakhanlou¹,

Berenskötter²

2020

Cooperation and Conflict

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“…This geo-linguistic tradition is said by many to rely on a 'Chinese ontology, the ontology of relations, instead of the western ontology of things' (Zhao 2006, 33-34). It understands relationality as core to a Chinese contribution to theorizing world politics, and looks for its expression in concepts drawn from Chinese tradition, such as 'friendship/relations' (guanxi, Qin 2009Qin , 2016Nordin and Smith 2018;Kavalski 2018), 'harmony' (hexie, Nordin 2016a, b; Huang Chiung-Chiu and Shih Chih-yu 2014), and a 'Daoist dialectic' (Zhongyong/yin-yang dialectic, Qin Yaqing 2016; Ling 2014). As others have noted, such theoretical writings 'are already making a difference by exposing the limitations of mainstream IR theories in the regional context.…”

Section: What To Start With: Relations or Things?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards global relational theorizing: a dialogue between Sinophone and Anglophone scholarship on relationalism

Nordin

Smith

Bunskoek

et al. 2019

Cambridge Review of International Affairs

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“…The self in these theories either has no other, or is unable to 'relate' to otherness. As such, these types of analyses may deploy the language of the 'relationality' of 'self' and 'other,' but remain firmly defined by what other literatures on relationality have termed an 'ontology of things,' as opposed to a 'relational ontology' (Jackson and Nexon 1999;Nordin and Smith 2018 Zhao 2006b, 33). Zhao has also put forward one of the most influential proposals for how to theorise through relations developing the Ancient Chinese concept of Tianxia, which he variously translates as 'the world,' 'empire ', or 'All-under-heaven' (Zhao 2005;2006b).…”

Section: Typology: Four Forms Of Relationality 1) Role Relationality:mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For discussion of the way this hierarchy in Zhao plays out specifically through 'friendship' as one of the five Confucian relationships, seeNordin and Smith (2018).2 See Nordin (2016a) andNordin (2016b) for discussion of this move in broader comparisons of European democracy and Chinese harmony.…”

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confidence: 99%

Relating self and other in Chinese and Western thought

Nordin

Smith

2019

Cambridge Review of International Affairs

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Recent debates in International Relations seek to decolonise the discipline by focusing on relationality between self and other. This article examines the possibilities for preserving a particular type of otherness: 'radical otherness' or 'alterity'. Such otherness can provide a bulwark against domination and colonialism: there is always something truly other which cannot be assimilated. However, two problems arise. First, if otherness is truly inaccessible, how can self relate to it? Does otherness undermine relationality? Second, can we talk about otherness without making it the same? Is the very naming of otherness a new form of domination? This article draws out and explores the possibilities for radical otherness in Sinophone and Anglophone relational theorising. It addresses the difficulties presented by the need for a sense of radical otherness on the one hand, and the seeming impossibility of either detecting it, or relating to it, on the other. By constructing a typology of four accounts of otherness, it finds that the identification and preservation of radical otherness poses significant problems for relationality. Radical otherness makes relationality between self and other impossible, but without radical otherness there is a danger of domination and assimilation. This is common to both Sinophone and Anglophone endeavours.

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Reintroducing friendship to international relations: relational ontologies from China to the West

Cited by 20 publications

References 24 publications

Friends in war: Sweden between solidarity and self-help, 1939–1945

Friends in war: Sweden between solidarity and self-help, 1939–1945

Towards global relational theorizing: a dialogue between Sinophone and Anglophone scholarship on relationalism

Relating self and other in Chinese and Western thought

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