Towards Global International Relations: Reflections on International Relations in the Past 100 Years

Social Sciences in China Review

No.4, 2019

Towards Global International Relations: Reflections on International Relations in the Past 100 Years (Abstract)

Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan, trans. Zhang Falin

The development of the international relations discipline is closely related to its practice. Investigating the development trajectory of the international relations discipline in the past century, we can find that it has experienced a process moving from the initial extreme core-peripheral structure to the slow and stable integration of the core and the periphery, and then to global international relations. We can analyze the connection between the discipline and the reality of international relations from five stages: the 19th century and the First World War (1815-1919); between the two world wars and the Second World War (1919-1945); the Cold War and the period of decolonization (1945-1989); and the post-Cold War period (1990-now) and the next few decades. In the coming decades, the era of global international society centered on the West will be continued, and at the same time, global society will move toward deep pluralism. In a deeply pluralistic international society, wealth, power, and cultural authority will be distributed more evenly and globally. This transformation will also determine the future of the international relations discipline and promote its development from European-centered traditional international relations to more inclusive global international relations.