Taking Stock of the Global IR Debate: What Is the “Non-West”?

Inaugural session of the new CERI seminar: “Global IR in the planetary era”. 

• Speaker: Chu Sinan (German Institute for Global and Area Studies – GIGA, CERI)
• Discussants: Stéphanie Balme (CERI) and Mathias Delori (CERI)

This lecture revisits the ongoing debate on Global International Relations (Global IR) by examining the different ways scholars have sought to move beyond the dominant modes of knowledge production associated with “Western IR.” It argues that four broad intellectual positions can be identified, each offering a distinct answer to a central question: What is the “non-West”?

The presentation unfolds in three parts. It first develops a typology of these four approaches, based on two key distinctions: whether International Relations is understood as a single, universal body of knowledge or as a plural conversation among different knowledge traditions; and whether the categories of “West” and “non-West” are treated as fixed and self-contained or as relationally constituted.

Building on this framework, the lecture examines the intellectual premises underlying major efforts to decentre International Relations, including non-Western IR, post-Western IR, worlding beyond the West, Global IR and pluriversal IR. It concludes by reflecting on the evolution of these debates and identifying key directions for future research on the discipline's global transformation.