What is the relationship between international politics in general and culture/beliefs (both as culture and as civilization), and why does it attract interest? The present scholarly book aims to reconstruct the academic discussion regarding this relationship, from the perspective of the International Relations field.
It reflects critically and historiographically on the inclusion of “culture” and “beliefs,” as concepts and themes, within International Relations, serving the need to develop critical and systematic thinking regarding the cultural/cultural characteristics of international politics or the international-political features of culture/beliefs.
Consequently, it focuses on the connection between uneven development in the international system and cultural superiority as a political stance. The resulting narrative includes continuous dialectical references, during the exploration of the interplay between “international” and “culture/beliefs.”
Examples of these references include concern for the development of a disciplinary field and the importance of interdisciplinarity, guardians of International Relations and their associated skeptics or traditionalists, the realistic discourse on international affairs and its counterpoint, the liberal interpretation of the “political” and its suspicion, Western experiences/practices and similar non-Western ones, communitarianism and cosmopolitanism, relativism and universalism, and the essentialist approach to “international” and “culture/beliefs,” including anti-essentialist perspectives. Lastly, understanding culture/beliefs as a factor of power and as a framework that privileges certain expressions of power.
In summary, the contribution of culture/beliefs to International Relations is dual, involving both the stabilization and disruption of the discipline, i.e., the “(de)stabilization” of it and its corresponding comfort zone.
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