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

Abstract

This co-authored text represents the output of the research project 'Futures of Global Relations', led by Astrid H. M. Nordin, the first meeting of which was funded by the Chiang-Ching Kuo Foundation and the Lancaster Institute for Social Futures.

The end of China’s romance with Central and Eastern Europe

“…At the same time, this study seeks to make a meaningful contribution to the interdisciplinary conversations between the fields of International Communication (IC) studies and International Relations (IR). The realization that we live in an interconnected and hypermediated world points to an underlying ontology informing a notion of communication as potentially global, yet far from transparent and disinterested, which makes it possible to contextualize the critical shifts in world affairs (Constantinou, 2008;Nordin et al, 2019;Kavalski, 2008c). As Tehranian (1997) has argued, the cross-pollination between IC and IR discloses the empowerment of the 'peripheries of power to progressively engage in the international discourse on the aims and methods of the international system' by drawing attention to the competing goals of order, liberty, equality, community and identity.…”

Enfolding wholes in parts: quantum holography and International Relations

“…Beyond this general consensus, the relational scholarship is not homogenous. As well as marked by various geo-cultural focuses and different emphases on position versus process (Fierke, 2017; Jackson and Nexon, 2019; Nordin et al, 2019; Qin, 2018; Reddekop, 2014; Shih, 2016; Trownsell et al, 2019), this literature comes with diverse disciplinary and methodological flavors such as relational sociology (Jackson and Nexon, 1999; Pratt, 2017), practice theory (Jackson and Nexon, 2019; McCourt, 2016), critical realism (Patomäki, 2002), social network analysis (Hafner-Burton et al, 2009; McClurg and Young, 2011; Zhang, 2015), systems theory (Albert et al, 2010), complexity theory (Bousquet and Curtis, 2011; Nexon, 2010), and assemblage thinking (Acuto and Curtis, 2014).…”

“…Here, the important question is whether the world indeed exists holographically. One can explore such knowledge by turning to different cultural or geo-linguistic traditions for relevant insights, as many have done in the “Global IR” and relational turn genres (Acharya, 2011; Ling and Chen, 2018; Nordin et al, 2019; Qin, 2018). Indeed, the idea of holographicity (if not necessarily the concept per se) can be found in many spiritual traditions and cosmological thoughts (Di Biase, 2009: 215; Pan, 2018: 346).…”

“…Despite its name, International Relations (IR) has long been predicated on a Newtonian substantialist ontology of things , rather than an ontology of relations , which are “the important missing dimension in most theories of IR” (Wight, 2006: 296). In recent years, IR’s “deep Newtonian slumber” (Ruggie, 1998: 194) has been disturbed by a “relational turn” (Bousquet and Curtis, 2011; Jackson and Nexon, 1999; Kavalski, 2018; McClurg and Young, 2011; Neumann, 2013; Nexon, 2010; Nordin et al, 2019; Nordin and Smith, 2018; Qin, 2018; Shih, 2016; Trownsell et al, 2019). Challenging two versions of Newtonian substantialism: atomism (individualism) and structuralism (structuralist-substantialism) (Zanotti, 2017; see also Wendt, 1999: 26), the gist of this turn is that the fundamental reality is not independent things, but relations.…”

‘Provincialising’ the Belt and Road Initiative: Theorising with Chinese narratives of the ‘Digital Silk Road’ (数字丝绸之路)

“…These positive values undergirding the DSR draw on an assemblage of Chinese traditions (notably Confucianism and Daoist dialectic) to foreground a relational ontology that is premised on egalitarian and inclusive 'Self-Other' geopolitical interactions. This Chinese-inflected DSR is thus instructive in offering new concepts that are contextually grounded, thereby contributing to the broader movement of stimulating dialogues between Sinophone and Anglophone scholarship for a global relational theorising of world politics (Nordin et al, 2019). But as Liu (2021) cautions, there is no guarantee that Chinese idealist geopolitical strategies will be realised when put into practice.…”