Remembering the Future — Utopia, Empire, and Harmony in                 21st-Century International Theory

Callahan, William A.

doi:10.1177/1354066104047849

Cited by 16 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…They may surface only during particular moments, such as perceived crises, when policymakers are expected to clarify the direction they intend to take society and the kind of world they want to live in. As scholars have shown, such moments see an increase in the publication of utopian literature (Drass and Kiser 1988) and create openings for ideational entrepreneurs to influence the worldview of decision makers (Callahan 2004, 2008; Dueck 2004). The best way to see visions at work is to look at the process of realization in which actors try, in the case of utopias, to bring imagined possibilities into being.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reclaiming the Vision Thing: Constructivists as Students of the Future1

Berensköetter

2011

International Studies Quarterly

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This article argues that constructivists committed to reflexivity should be students of the future. It notes that both conventional and critical approaches do not sufficiently engage with the problem of future uncertainty in the process of identity formation and neglect its behavioural implications. Against this backdrop, the article regrounds constructivism in a temporal ontology and the argument that humans, in the face of contingency, seek to establish visions of a meaningful future. It discusses how visions, as utopias and ⁄ or dystopias, define possibilities of being and thereby provide actors with a sense of direction, and it differentiates between ''robust'' and ''creative'' visions to highlight two ways in which such possibilities are manifested. In doing so, the article encourages constructivists to become more attentive in identifying the visions which enable and bind creative agents in the process of realization.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reclaiming the Vision Thing: Constructivists as Students of the Future1

Berensköetter

2011

International Studies Quarterly

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“…54 Discussion of Great Harmony thus reemerged at the turn of the twenty-first century, but in a curious place: the alternative academic space of communist party schools, policy institutes and military research institutes that run parallel to elite universities. 55 Rather than arguing that Confucianism had replaced communism, these articles generally looked at how Great Harmony could-or could not-work with Marxism in China. Those who argued that Great Harmony could help Marxism looked to the links between Confucian thought and radicals such as Taiping Rebellion leader Hong Xiuquan, Kang Youwei, Sun Yatsen and Mao Zedong.…”

Section: Qualitative: Great Harmony and A New Kind Of Superpowermentioning

confidence: 99%

History, Tradition and the China Dream: socialist modernization in the World of Great Harmony

Callahan¹

2015

Journal of Contemporary China

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“…The Chinese government demands not only foreign policy advice, but also new ideological concepts to guide Chinese foreign policy. As Callahan (:569–570) argues, material power is insufficient, “world leadership demands an ideology to order the globe symbolically.” The Hu administration has put forward two important official foreign policy concepts in recent years. Peaceful Rise , originally developed by scholar Zheng Bijan from the Central Party School, was a response to “China threat” theories developed by US scholars in the 1990s (Glaser and Medeiros ).…”

Section: Externalist Layers: Sociopolitical and Materials Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructing a Chinese International Relations Theory: A Sociological Approach to Intellectual Innovation

Kristensen

Nielsen

2013

Int Polit Sociol

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Chinese scholars are debating whether, and how, to innovate a Chinese theory of International Relations (IR). This article examines the driving forces behind this theoretical debate. It challenges the commonsensical link between external events in the subject matter (i.r.) and theorizing (IR), which suggests that the innovation of a Chinese IR theory is a natural product of China's geopolitical rise, its growing political ambitions, and discontent with Western hegemony. We propose instead a sociological approach to intellectual innovation which opens the black box of knowledge production, and argue that theoretical innovation, in China and elsewhere, is best understood as an interplay between internal and external layers. The internal academic context comprises intellectuals pursuing prominence, with each intellectual trying to carve out a maximally distinct position in order to receive attention from their peerstheorizing a Chinese IR theory being one important way of doing this. The external layer-which ranges from power politics to sociopolitical developments-affects this process indirectly by providing more research funds and autonomy to the more immediate institutional environment where control over rewards such as research funds, promotion, and publications affects what kind of work is done, with theorizing being increasingly rewarded.The International Relations discipline (IR) has long been known as an "American social science," dominated by US scholars, theories, and methodologies (Hoffmann 1977;Waever 1998;Smith 2000). A recent study of IR communities around the world shows that this has changed little, with the possible exception of China (Tickner and Waever 2009:336). Reading through the literature on IR in China, one is struck by references to debates about developing "IR with . The Chinese attempt to produce a distinctly national international theory is a unique case, and the puzzle of this paper is "Why has there been an innovational drive to develop Chinese IR theory?" Our main argument is that theoretical innovation should be understood 1 We would like to thank Ole Waever for his valuable comments on several drafts and all the Chinese scholars who agreed to participate in the interviews. We also thank Daniel Bell, Henrik Breitenbauch, Geir Helgesen, Chung-In Moon, Rens van Munster, Casper Sylvest, Morten Valbjørn, and the two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments. Lastly, we are grateful to the Augustinus Foundation for providing the funds that made our field trip possible. The usual disclaimer applies.

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Remembering the Future — Utopia, Empire, and Harmony in 21st-Century International Theory

Cited by 16 publications

References 17 publications

Reclaiming the Vision Thing: Constructivists as Students of the Future1

Reclaiming the Vision Thing: Constructivists as Students of the Future1

History, Tradition and the China Dream: socialist modernization in the World of Great Harmony

Constructing a Chinese International Relations Theory: A Sociological Approach to Intellectual Innovation

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