Article in International Studies · April 018 doi: 10. 1177/0020881718790687 citations reads 4,427 author: Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects

 

Western IR Theories 

Western IR theories have been traditionally interpreted as a reflector of Eurocentrism, a concept 

that, at its very base, speaks of the total dominance of the West over the non-West (Jones 2006; 

Kayaoglu 2010). Eurocentrism is best explained as an ideological project, a political-cultural 

project of uneven power relations with the West exerting its power, influence and hegemony 

over the non-West (Sayyid 2007, pp. 309 – 310). In this dominant versus dominated relationship, 

Western values, such as freedoms, democracy and human rights are promoted, and exported, as 

universal values which the non-West should accept, imitate and nurture. In other words, what fits 

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the West should (or must) fit the non-West. Western political philosophies and IR theories are 

mostly founded on this basic underlying current of the project of Eurocentrism. Hence, Western 

IR theories seek to “parochially celebrate and defend or promote the west as the proactive 

subject of, and as the highest or ideal referent in, world politics” (

Hobson 2012, p. 1)

. On the way 

towards its march for universalism, the West negates cultural and racial differences by assuming 

that all peoples act the same way across cultures, which contemporary research has, however, 

proved wrong (Henrich and Boyd 1998; Nisbett 2004). Of course, there are postcolonial-inspired 

dissenting voices in Western IR theories that question the march towards universalism, 

problematize the relations of power and dominance but they remain more or less on the 

theoretical margin (See, for example, Hall and Jackson 2007; Jahn 2006; Nair 2007; Tickner and 

Waever 2009; Seth 2013).  

 

At the empirical level, the basic ideas, concepts and methods of inquiry of Western IR theories 

largely draw their origins from the Westphalian peace treaties of 1648 and the Enlightenment 

that started around the same time unleashing European impulses for rationalization, scientific 

inquiry and individualism. The peace treaties were the culmination of the Thirty Years’ War 

(1618 – 1648) sparked by the Protestant Reformation with its initiation in 1517 by the great 

religious reformer Martin Luther. The Reformation was a strong protest against the temporal and 

spiritual domination of the Catholic Church, which soon won support from various feudal rulers 

who were eager to throw out the yoke of Church domination and expand the realms of their 

authority (Kissinger 2014, p. 19). The signing of the Westphalian peace treaties, at the macro 

level, had undercut the papacy and destroyed the possibility of developing a single Christian 

European order, as attempted by the Holy Roman Empire.

 

 

What emerged out of the peace treaties had far-reaching impacts not only for Europe but the 

whole world: it created a system of independent states with the principle of non-interference in 

each other’s internal affairs backed by the concept of state sovereignty; all European states, small 

or big, were granted equal status and thus they replaced empires or religious confessions as the 

building blocks of post-1648 European order; and, the separation of religion from public life 

drawing up a clear dividing line between the temporal and the spiritual (Kissinger 2014, p. 26). 

These principles, with the spread of European colonialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth 

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centuries, were subsequently exported to territories in Africa, Asia and the Americas laying 

ground works for European universalist claims for superior values (Chatterjee 1993; Loomba 

2005). Ordering of relations between the colonized territories and the European colonial powers 

did not necessarily follow the principle of sovereign equality but the concept of ‘formal 

hierarchy’ – a top-down structure of relationships where the Western states exercise ‘hyper-

sovereignty’ and the non-Western states survive on ‘conditional sovereignty’ (Hobson 2012, p. 

19). The non-West retains ‘conditional sovereignty’ as long as they meet the domestic and 

external conditions (such as democratizations, economic development policies, liberal 

international trade policies etc.) set by the West.       

 

Despite negative consequences for the colonized world, the Westphalian peace treaties had 

produced three significant outcomes: (a) the declaration of the independent state as a form of 

political organization with a single locus of political authority for a specifically culturally and 

linguistically cohesive people within a specific territory; (b) the principle of sovereign equality to 

avoid problems of protocols and future conflicts; and, (c) the policy of secularism. Old authority 

structures, such as the empires failed to last long in their old forms. The aspiration of the Holy 

Roman Empire to follow into the footsteps of its predecessor –the Roman Empire that lasted 

from 27 B.C. to 476 A.D. was seriously dashed by the emergence of the new political units and it 

finally disintegrated in 1806. In keeping with the principle of sovereign equality, all European 

states started enjoying equal status in the management of interstate issues and affairs. 

Westphalian peace treaties also resulted in a kind of religious pluralism with the state being 

committed not to privilege any particular religious confession domestically or intervene in other 

states’ internal affairs on religious grounds (Hobson 2012, p. 19

)

. In other words, religion would 

remain cut off from politics, what was conveniently labelled secularism.  

 

At a close scrutiny, the Westphalian peace treaties also created the idea of multiplicity – the 

recognition of various European societies as constituent parts of Europe but no permanent 

European political structure to govern European interstate relationships. That made the concept 

of balance of power – the adjustments and readjustments of power relations to deter potential 

aggressors –the mainstay of relations between European states (Kissinger 2014, pp. 27–28).  The 

Westphalian order was also limited in its scope; it was an exclusive settlement between central 

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and West European rulers and had no participation even from neighboring great empires of the 

day – the Russian Empire or the Ottoman Empire. Russia was at the time busy with developing 

its own order based on principles that sharply contradicted those of Westphalia. The Russian 

order sought to promote a unified religious orthodoxy, territorial expansion all around, and a 

system of imperial rule under the command of an absolute monarch. The Ottoman Empire, with 

control over vast swathes in the Middle East, Europe and Africa, challenged Europe’s new 

multistate order with its concept of Islamic universal order to subdue and incorporate the 

remaining Dar Al Harb (non-Islamic territories) (Kissinger 2014, pp. 4–5).  

 

The limited scope of the peace treaties and Europe’s concept of multiplicity as antidotes to a 

universal European order notwithstanding, the Westphalian achievements seriously convulsed 

and convoluted European political thought. Political theorizations began to develop and flourish 

being influenced by two important outcomes of the Westphalian peace treaties – the nation-state 

as the foundational unit and a marked drift from cosmological to secular values and outlook.

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Religion was discarded by the new political theorists because it was seen as the casus belli of the 

tragic and painful wars, particularly the Thirty Years’ War (

Laustsen and Waever 2000, p. 706)

. 

Thomas Hobbes (1588 –1679) published his classic Leviathan in 1651 just three years after the 

Thirty Years’ war had come to an end in Westphalia to justify post-1648 secular political order. 

He introduced the concept of the “state of nature” where life was totally insecure, short and 

brutish, what he called “war of all against all”, thus providing theoretical fodders for the 

development of realist theories of Western IR. John Locke (1632 – 1704), who is widely viewed 

to have greatly influenced the American Declaration of Independence, adopted a similar secular 

approach but attempted to temper Hobbes’ theory of absolutism. He rejected Hobbes’ gloomy 

concept of human nature arguing that humans possessed reason and tolerance as their great 

attributes and that humans had a natural right to “life, health, liberty and possessions”, which the 

government must ensure. These debates over domestic governance and order, however, did not 

resolve the problems of order, stability and peace in the international arena. 

 

The Hobbesian concept of anarchy was conveniently extended and applied to explaining the 

space beyond the domestic, with the concepts of power, balance of power and national interests 

                                                           

 

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as the paramount factors in defining and maintaining interstate relations. In our modern context, 

the development of the powerful theory of realism, as Hans Morgenthau articulated and 

published his six principles of political realism in 1948, and Kenneth Waltz further scientifically 

refined classical realism by the end of the 1970s, what came to be known as structural realism or 

neorealism, aptly reflects this trend. Both brands of political realism – classical as well as 

structural underpin international anarchy and balance of power, derived from the European 

experience, to resolve the problem of anarchy and maintain order and stability in the 

international arena.  

 

The ideas of John Locke, Adam Smith and others, on the contrary, pushed the rival theory of 

liberalism beyond the domestic domain to provide alternative solutions to international problems 

of anarchy, violence and cooperation (See, Powell 1994). The liberal theorists accepted the state 

as a basic organizing unit in world politics but saw interstate interdependence and cooperation as 

an effective instrument to tide over anarchy and violence (Keohane and Nye, 2000). The liberal 

emphasis on individualism and market-led economic development, as championed by the US 

following World War II, was seen as universal truths applicable to all societies regardless of their 

historical trajectories and cultural constructs (See, Buzan 2004, pp. 154–165). Other influential 

Western IR theories, such as the English School and historical sociology privilege European 

history and the remaking of the world in Europe’s image. The post-positivist critical theory, 

constructivism and postmodernism originate from Western normative values and philosophy of 

knowledge. While critical theory resents Western policy of exclusionism and advocates human 

emancipation, constructivism seeks to promote shared norms and understandings in world 

politics, postmodernism questions the relationship between power and knowledge and 

deconstructs the so-called universal truths the West has developed and nurtured in the last few 

hundred years, especially after Westphalia (Acharya and Buzan 2010, pp. 8–10).

 

 

This brief analysis of the historical context and cultural outlook of Western IR theory highlights 

two important points: a) mainstream Western IR theories (realism, neorealism, liberalism, 

neoliberalism) take the nation-states, spawned by the Thirty Years’ War, more or less for granted 

as the basic ontological units to understand and explain the domestic and the international, 

though there are intellectual grievances against this ontological given primarily coming from the 

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non-mainstream theoretical traditions – critical, Marxist, postmodern, postcolonial, postsecular 

and cosmopolitan approaches. Clearly, it means that IR scholars are divided over the post-

Westphalian ontological given of IR;  and b) the epistemologies of the dominant Western IR 

theories of classical realism, neorealism as well as liberalism, based on this ontological 

foundation, have sought to produce and disseminate knowledge throughout the global with firm 

roots in Western history and political philosophy.