The politics of anti-Westernism in Asia : visions of world order in pan-Islamic and pan-Asian thought
29 Jun 2007-
TL;DR: The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia offers a rare, global perspective on how religious tradition and the experience of European colonialism interacted with Muslim and non-Muslim discontent with globalization, the international order, and modernization as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In this rich intellectual history, Cemil Aydin challenges the notion that anti-Westernism in the Muslim world is a political and religious reaction to the liberal and democratic values of the West. Nor is anti-Westernism a natural response to Western imperialism. Instead, by focusing on the agency and achievements of non-Western intellectuals, Aydin demonstrates that modern anti-Western discourse grew out of the legitimacy crisis of a single, Eurocentric global polity in the age of high imperialism. Aydin compares Ottoman Pan-Islamic and Japanese Pan-Asian visions of world order from the middle of the nineteenth century to the end of World War II. He looks at when the idea of a universal "West" first took root in the minds of Asian intellectuals and reformers and how it became essential in criticizing the West for violating its own "standards of civilization." Aydin also illustrates why these anti-Western visions contributed to the decolonization process and considers their influence on the international relations of both the Ottoman and Japanese Empires during WWI and WWII. The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia offers a rare, global perspective on how religious tradition and the experience of European colonialism interacted with Muslim and non-Muslim discontent with globalization, the international order, and modernization. Aydin's approach reveals the epistemological limitations of Orientalist knowledge categories, especially the idea of Eastern and Western civilizations, and the way in which these limitations have shaped not only the contradictions and political complicities of anti-Western discourses but also contemporary interpretations of anti-Western trends. In moving beyond essentialist readings of this history, Aydin provides a fresh understanding of the history of contemporary anti-Americanism as well as the ongoing struggle to establish a legitimate and inclusive international society.
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TL;DR: The aim in this article is to amplify the call, articulated across a range of disciplines relevant to international politics, for a paradigm shift that decentres the study and practice of Euro...
Abstract: The aim in this contribution is to amplify the call, articulated across a range of disciplines relevant to international politics, for a paradigm shift that decentres the study and practice of Euro...
124 citations
Dissertation•
01 Feb 2020
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address the question of how states, meaning organized political communities, were historically able to secure their sovereignty through gaining the recognition of other states by reinterpreting aspects of the existing Ottoman legacy of statehood and international norms.
Abstract: This thesis addresses the question of how states, meaning organised political communities, were historically able to secure their sovereignty through gaining the recognition of other states. As sovereignty refers to the presence of a state’s authority, its existence is premised on states and other internal and external actors recognising claims to sovereignty. Therefore, states, such as the Ottoman Empire, which historically had a different understanding of legitimacy, faced challenges to their sovereignty following the emergence of new global understandings of sovereignty in the late nineteenth century. The Ottoman Empire was distinct in that it was the only Islamic state that was not subject to and was able to avoid completely falling under the influence of then-dominant European states. However, the Ottoman Empire still experienced European intervention and there was a desire to end forms of European extraterritorial jurisdiction. Ottoman elites, who were affiliated with the reformist Young Turks, sought to secure recognition of their state’s sovereignty by reconstituting it along novel international standards of legitimate statehood. These standards were based on the concepts of “civilised”, “militarist”, “popular” and “national” statehood, and were reinterpreted by the Young Turks in the course of their efforts to secure the recognition of European powers. These efforts included diplomacy with European powers, institutional reform and conceptual innovation. However, it also involved engaging in practices associated with sovereignty such as the control of territory. In all of these areas, the Young Turks reinterpreted aspects of the existing Ottoman legacy of statehood and international norms, to secure their claim to sovereignty. Therefore, the Ottoman state elites sought to convey an impression of governing a state that could be recognised as sovereign by other European powers. Ultimately, the remnants of the Young Turks, secured international recognition of their state, reconstituted as the nation-state of Turkey in 1923.
111 citations
Cites background from "The politics of anti-Westernism in ..."
...Middle Eastern Studies, 39(2), pp. 194 - 203....
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...International Journal of Middle East Studies, 38(1), pp. 55 - 77....
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...Intelligence and Foreign Office officials were wary of any threat posed to Britain’s colonies in Egypt and India and Britain’s presence in what is now termed the Middle East (Aydın, 2007: 135 – 136; Yenen, 2018: 77)....
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...As Celal Nuri, a delegate of the republic’s assembly suggested, this meant that if there was to be a caliph, he could only be elected by representatives from all Muslim nations (Turnaoğlu, 2017a: 229 - 230)....
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...Middle Eastern Studies, 42(1), pp. 123 - 132....
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01 Jan 2012
TL;DR: In this paper, a racial theory of international politics and the Demise of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-1923, and the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty are discussed.
Abstract: ......................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... iv Vita ............................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables............................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ............................................................................................................... ix Chapter One: Introduction ..............................................................................................1 Chapter Two: A Racial Theory of International Politics ................................................. 31 Chapter Three: Race and the Demise of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-1923 ......... 91 Chapter Four: Race and the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty ......................................... 165 Chapter Five: Race and the 1988 Exon-Florio Amendment ......................................... 233 Chapter Six: Conclusion ............................................................................................. 295 References ................................................................................................................... 322 Appendix A: List of Texts Used in Chapter Three Content Analysis ............................ 357 Appendix B: List of Texts Used in Chapter Four Content Analysis .............................. 363
111 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a short history of the rise of the contemporary idiom of global history, and a prospect for a future in which scholars may find, through collaboration, alternatives to the European weights and measures of the past, and to the dominance of Anglophone historians.
Abstract: Global history has come under attack. It is charged with neglecting national history and the ‘small spaces’ of the past, with being an elite globalist project made irrelevant by the anti-globalist politics of our age, with focusing exclusively on mobile people and things, and with becoming dangerously hegemonic. This article demonstrates that global history is, intertwined with a focus on the nation and the local, on individuals, outsiders, and subalterns, and on small and isolated places. Moreover, global history has directly addressed immobility and resistances to flow, and remains relatively weak in the discipline, versus the persistent dominance everywhere of national history. The article offers a new short history of the rise of the contemporary idiom of global history, and a prospect for a future in which scholars may find, through collaboration, alternatives to the European weights and measures of the past, and to the dominance of Anglophone historians. It argues that we should no more reverse the ‘global turn’ than we should return history’s gaze only to propertied white men. Rather than a retreat from global history, we need it more than ever to fight against myths of imperial and national pasts, which often underpin nationalist populisms.
111 citations
28 Feb 2019
TL;DR: The authors argue that IR needs to continue this globalizing movement if it is to cope with the rapidly emerging post-Western world order, with its more diffuse distribution of wealth, power and cultural authority.
Abstract: This book presents a challenge to the discipline of international relations (IR) to rethink itself, in the light of both its own modern origins, and the two centuries of world history that have shaped it. By tracking the development of thinking about IR, and the practice of world politics, this book shows how they relate to each other across five time periods from nineteenth-century colonialism, through two world wars, the Cold War and decolonization, to twenty-first-century globalization. It gives equal weight to both the neglected voices and histories of the Global South, and the traditionally dominant perspectives of the West, showing how they have moved from nearly complete separation to the beginnings of significant integration. The authors argue that IR needs to continue this globalizing movement if it is to cope with the rapidly emerging post-Western world order, with its more diffuse distribution of wealth, power and cultural authority.
99 citations