Core, Periphery and (Neo)Imperialist International Relations

Abstract

This article analyzes the core–periphery dynamics that characterize the International Relations discipline. To this end, it explores general insights offered by both science studies and the social sciences in terms of the intellectual division of labor that characterizes knowledge-building throughout the world, and the social mechanisms that reproduce power differentials within given fields of study. These arguments are then applied to International Relations, where specific factors that explain the global South’s role as a periphery to the discipline’s (mainly US) core and the ways in which peripheral communities place themselves vis-à-vis International Relations’ (neo)imperialist structure are both explored.

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European Journal of
International Relations
19(3) 627 –646
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066113494323
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E
JR
I
Core, periphery and
(neo)imperialist
International Relations
Arlene B. Tickner
Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia
Abstract
This article analyzes the core–periphery dynamics that characterize the International
Relations discipline. To this end, it explores general insights offered by both science studies
and the social sciences in terms of the intellectual division of labor that characterizes
knowledge-building throughout the world, and the social mechanisms that reproduce power
differentials within given fields of study. These arguments are then applied to International
Relations, where specific factors that explain the global South’s role as a periphery to
the discipline’s (mainly US) core and the ways in which peripheral communities place
themselves vis-à-vis International Relations’ (neo)imperialist structure are both explored.
Keywords
core–periphery relations, domination, International Relations theory, knowledge
production, the discipline of International Relations
Introduction
Reflexivity is everywhere. If one had to choose a single buzzword that is driving cur-
rent debates within the field of International Relations (IR), especially those that are
about IR itself, the ‘R’ word would be at the top of the list. Indisputably, the post-
positivist, critical, or dissident wave that began over two decades ago has allowed for
greater awareness and understanding of disciplinary dynamics. How ‘authoritative’
knowledge about world politics is produced; why theorizing has evolved as it has; how
United States domination operates; how boundaries are enacted, defended, and chal-
lenged; how ‘outsiders’ are kept at bay; and how ‘others’ see things in the world differ-
ently are only some of the questions that have been visualized. With reflexivity, a
Corresponding author:
Arlene B. Tickner, Professor of International Relations, Political Science Department, Universidad de los
Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.
Email: atickner@uniandes.edu.co
494323EJT19310.1177/1354066113494323European Journal of International RelationsTickner
Article

628 European Journal of International Relations 19(3)
certain degree of geocultural sensitivity has also been forthcoming, allowing for a
wider picture of IR in distinct corners of the globe.
We have learned, among other things, that the discipline is gendered, ethnocentric, and
rooted not only in problems of war and peace, but also in the challenges posed by imperial-
ism, including issues of race. We have also discovered that although IR in the United States
has become increasingly parochial, the fact that its meta-theories do not travel especially
well to the rest of the world does not mean that its power over the intellectual means of (re)
production in global IR has necessarily diminished, even though gradual change in the
field’s center of gravity is slowly becoming visible (Cox and Nossal, 2009; Wæver, 1998,
2007). We know that theory-building is a ‘dreaded’ enterprise in many IR communities in
the so-called ‘periphery’ and ‘non-West,’ although the reasons for this have yet to be fully
analyzed; also, that the field looks strikingly similar in diverse geographical sites, even if
many of its key concepts (state, anarchy, security, power) do not exactly fit (Acharya and
Buzan, 2010; Tickner and Blaney, 2012a; Tickner and Wæver, 2009a ).
And yet, many aspects of the inner workings of IR continue to be underexplored,
including its ‘geography,’ that is, its placedness or situatedness (Agnew, 2007). What
role specific locations have in the making of scientific knowledge, how local experience
is transformed into shared generalization, and, vice versa, how local scholarship is influ-
enced by global forces, are all questions that have only begun to be addressed. Among
the distinct facets of this spatial component of reflexivity that beg to be examined further,
the core–periphery dimension1 that continues to characterize global IR is especially
intriguing. Despite diverse calls to decolonize, decenter, and pluralize the study of world
politics (Inayatullah and Blaney, 2004; Jones, 2006; Nayak and Selbin, 2010; Shilliam,
2011;Tickner and Blaney, 2012a,), and to research how the field operates outside of the
Western center, the actual mechanisms involved that account for IR’s resilience as a
(neo)imperial field have yet to be examined systematically and empirically. Sociology
and historiography have only gotten so far in explicating how highly asymmetrical inter-
actions are enabled and (re)assembled through distinct disciplinary tropes. Moreover, the
geopolitical dimension of core–periphery dynamics is either downplayed or ignored,
even by Foucauldian and Bourdeiuian readings that underscore power relations that play
out in fields of study such as IR.
The present article attempts to address this lacuna, apparent in most IR scholarship,
by identifying what reflexivity has helped us learn about core–periphery relations and
what we still know too little about, and by suggesting moves that might help fill this
gap. To this end, I make use of some general insights offered by science studies, in
particular the work of Bruno Latour on ‘imperial science’ (1987, 1999), to suggest one
way of appreciating core–periphery dynamics. Latour’s model is helpful for identify-
ing the assembly of global fields of inquiry and the creation of what the author refers
to as ‘centers of calculation,’ to which distinct peripheries are subsequently networked,
but his analysis, as well as that of other Northern scholars of science, is less helpful in
understanding the specific roles played by peripheral scholars and scholarly institu-
tions, as well as how both participate in the transport and insertion of ‘global’ knowl-
edge into Southern locales.
I then discuss the ways in which the core–periphery dynamics described in science
studies are reflected in the social sciences, and in the everyday workings of global IR,

Tickner 629
looking specifically at the how US dominance and the operation of social spaces such as
scholarly journals relate to and reinforce power differentials within the field. I follow
with a summary of existing knowledge about IR in the non-core, paying special attention
to those aspects that may best explain its role as a ‘periphery’ to the discipline’s (mainly
US) core. These include the relative absence of theory, a strict adherence to the state as
the principal unit of analysis, and the gravitation of scholarly work around ‘practical’
issues considered of use in thinking about foreign policy.
In the last section, I focus on some of the ways in which the global South places itself
vis-à-vis the core–periphery structure of the discipline. I conclude with a series of ideas
for moving forward. One of the paradoxes that the article exposes is that the deeply
rooted core–periphery structure that characterizes global IR, in which scholars and
institutions from both are actively involved, makes operating ‘behind’ or ‘within’ the
field counterproductive in many ways. Therefore, one of the alternatives that is posed
for developing scholarship, and in particular, theory, that is meaningful for understand-
ing (and transforming) global politics is to move ‘beyond’ disciplinary boundaries and
its principal agents.
Modern science and its (neo)imperialist impulse
Post-Kuhnians, feminists and postcolonialists, a heterogeneous bunch that form part of
the field known as science studies, have contested the idea of ‘science’ for decades by
showing that modern ideas such as objectivity, scientific method and the nature/culture
dichotomy are poor gauges of how knowledge is actually constructed. According to
Sandra Harding (2008: 3), one of the remaining challenges is to undo the modernity/
tradition binary that still shapes scientific philosophies and practices, and that was left
essentially unfazed by postmodern critiques of the modernist project.
Northern science studies have been concerned mostly with interrogating the social and
historical processes by which modern, Western scientific knowledge has been constructed,
and less interested in its effects upon power and knowledge in other parts of the world.
Conversely, both feminist and postcolonial science studies expose how modern science is
complicit in asymmetrical relations of power, given its natural tendency toward imperial-
ism, and its colonialist attitudes and practices (Haraway, 1991; Harding, 2008; Raj, 2007;).
Authors such as Donna Haraway (1991) and Bruno Latour (1993) challenge the tradi-
tional boundaries upon which modern science has been built — modern/premodern,
human/non-human, fact/value, nature/culture — by showing that such distinctions are
distorting and that they obscure the social processes by which scientific knowledge is
constructed. While for Haraway, modern, Western, masculine ideas of science allow
humans to pretend to exercise superior, universally valid knowledge by employing god-
tricks, Harding attributes this attitude to ‘exceptionalism,’ or ‘the belief that Western
sciences alone among human knowledge systems are capable of grasping reality’ (2008:
3). For Latour, such ploys point to the fact that the Western subject has never actually
been modern. All three suggest that nature and the social and political dimensions of
human existence are not separate, discrete spaces, but rather, are always implicated in
each other. Accepting this idea challenges the way in which science and knowledge is
understood. As a result, for Latour what is needed is further study of the ‘messy middle,’

630 European Journal of International Relations 19(3)
that is hybrids that bridge the false human/non-human divide or analyses of the ‘co-
production’ of science and societies (1993: 134).
Although modern, Western science and other sciences are equally local, and histori-
cally and socially specific, one of the key factors that distinguishes them is the former’s
ability to mobilize resources, objects and people in such a way that it can travel world-
wide. Latour’s work (1987, 1999) is especially helpful for understanding the social pro-
cesses by which (core) science becomes internationalized. The author’s research
questions are somewhat removed from the relation between science and domination.
Nevertheless, his analyses suggest that long-distance social control is one of the keys to
scientific development and that global knowledge networks that establish clear divisions
of labor between distinct locales and actors are fundamental to this process. Therefore,
and perhaps unintentionally, Latour’s insights are helpful for envisioning the construc-
tion and operation of (neo)imperial science.
From a Latourian perspective, for the world to become ‘knowable’ objects of study
and language must be made to correspond through processes of manipulation and trans-
lation. This is because theory does not mirror nature, but rather, scientists are responsi-
ble for converting nature into words (or theory). In a fascinating case study of soil
analyses in the Brazilian Amazon, the author observes that ‘if virgin forest is to be
transformed into a laboratory, the forest must be prepared to be rendered as a diagram’
(Latour, 1999: 43). From the tagging of trees, to photograph-taking, map-making and
the collection of soil samples, Latour traces the steps through which the Amazon is
translated into codes that are compatible with previously existing (core) knowledge,
thus preparing it for international transport to Paris. The transformation of objects of
study such as the Amazon into ‘inscriptions’ is referred to as ‘circulating reference’
(Latour, 1987: 226–227; 1999: 73). Such mediations that take place between the world
and language/theory allow for the conversion of the local or the particular into mobile,
immutable and combinable resources, abstractions of reality that can be easily moved
and combined (Latour, 1987: 223).
Scientific development consists then of repeated ‘cycles of accumulation’ (Latour,
1987) whereby inscriptions are gathered from myriad sites distributed across wide
expanses of territory, immutable mobiles are constructed and redeployed, and associa-
tions or networks between human beings and the objects they study are created. Although
for Latour knowledge results from the distinct and scattered activities that take place in
such networks, the fact that this process is controlled by ‘centers of calculation’ that are
both capable of the highest order of abstraction, that is, theory (1987: 241–242), and that
attract the most amounts of money, prestige and people, points to the existence of hierar-
chical relations between different sites.
For example, when Columbus began to represent the new world with maps or
Alexander von Humboldt to name its flora — both endeavors that required diverse tech-
nological, economic and political resources available only in the core — pieces of the
local order in the Americas were converted into immutable mobiles and transported to
centers of calculation, where enthusiasm with these discoveries sparked enough interest
to initiate a cycle of accumulation. In addition to discovering ‘things,’ such journeys to
the periphery also entail encounters between people who occupy differing social roles
and levels of authority. In the cases of Columbus and von Humboldt, as well as that of

Tickner 631
the Amazon (Latour, 1999: 24–79), Latour is relatively uninterested in the instrinsic
value of peripheral ideas and minds, focusing instead on how local resources are har-
nessed to ‘know’ new objects of study and are eventually effaced to make them compat-
ible and combinable with Western science.
A related way of looking at this problem is by means of an intellectual division of
labor that mirrors the global capitalist order (Mignolo, 1998: 47). Born out of modernity
and developed during the postwar period in correlation with the social construction of the
first, second, and third worlds, the first world/North has come to be viewed as the pri-
mary producer of ‘finished goods’ or scientific theory, while third world/South sites con-
stitute sources of ‘data’ or, in the best of cases, local expertise, while interpretation — a
decisive stage in theory-building — occurs in the North, where knowledge is produced
and circulated in order to be consumed worldwide.
The fact that, for Latour, the application of science to the world consists of creating and
extending networks from core to periphery highlights the power exercised by centers of
calculation across wide geographical spaces and the ways in which scientific enterprises
allow them to ‘possess’ the periphery. Contrary to the author’s claims, however, ‘immuta-
bles’ as such do not exist, given that knowledge is highly changeable, as Said’s (1983)
idea of ‘traveling theory’ clearly suggests. Therefore, how knowledge is transformed
through distinct processes of accommodation, negotiation, and rejection is a crucial ques-
tion (see Raj, 2007). In science studies, the problem of scientific development outside the
core was first examined by George Basalla (1967), who developed a model for analyzing
how knowledge originating in Europe (and by extension the United States) traveled to the
rest of the world. In keeping with modernization theory’s cumulative and evolutionary
assumptions, Basalla argues that science undergoes three stages of development: a pre-
liminary phase where non-scientific societies act as passive sources of data, called impe-
rial science; colonial dependence, characterized by the promotion of like-minded scientific
institutions in the periphery by the West; and national science, in which societies break out
of dependent relations and create autonomous, national scientific traditions, although
based upon the standards of the West. Among the shortcomings of Basalla’s scheme, its
linear, sequential, progressive structure, and blindness to the cultural, historical, and eco-
nomic contexts within which knowledge diffusion takes place, stand out. More impor-
tantly, the author’s idea of scientific progress assumes that different locales would be best
served by emulating Western science and tying their fate to global networks in which the
rules of the game have already been predetermined by the core, with which national sci-
ence can never aspire to truly autonomous status (Wade, 1993).
Knowledge divides
Inferring from Latour, core–periphery seems to be an appropriate heuristic tool for
describing and understanding global knowledge production and diffusion. However,
solid metrics for examining its constitutive structures and dynamics continue to be
sparse, especially in social science fields such as IR. Wiebke Keim (2008, 2011)
attempts to fill this void by proposing that core–periphery relations be evaluated empiri-
cally along three interrelated dimensions, development/underdevelopment, autonomy/
dependence, and centrality/marginality, via factors such as material infrastructure,

632 European Journal of International Relations 19(3)
internal organization, conditions of scholarly existence and reproduction, and interna-
tional visibility and recognition. In the discussion that follows I make use of Keim’s
analytical framework to describe the knowledge divides that are most prevalent in both
the social sciences and IR.
Social sciences around the world
The Unesco 2010 World Social Science Report points to severe asymmetries in a number
of realms, including size, material and human resources, institutional conditions, and
quality of research systems, within and between countries and regions around the globe.
As I will discuss subsequently, these are all easily extendable to IR. Bibliometrics have
become a common and important measure of academic influence, but are only partially
effective in analyzing the place and productivity of the global South (Hanafi, 2011;
Keim, 2008; Unesco, 2010;). Nevertheless, both participation in internationally recog-
nized peer-reviewed journals and citation patterns suggest that the geography of social
science knowledge production is characterized by an entrenched core–periphery struc-
ture. According to Keim (2008: 28), 58% of the total literature covered by the Social
Sciences Citation index is authored or co-authored by scholars affiliated with the United
States, while all of Western Europe accounts for 25%, Latin America for 1%, and the
entire African continent for less than 1%. Peripheral scholars themselves reproduce these
asymmetries by referring overwhelmingly to core literatures. Over half of the journal
articles published in Latin American and Asian journals refer to US sources, while
European sources account for over half of the citations in African journal articles
(Gingras and Mosbah-Natanson, 2010: 152).
Conversely, only a small handful of countries and institutions in the global South are
visible in international social science publications. In the case of sub-Saharan Africa, for
example, South Africa and Nigeria represent more than 60% of the region’s social sci-
ence production in ISI journals (Mouton, 2010: 63). Brazil and Mexico, in turn, publish
far more than the remaining Latin American countries together (Keim, 2008: 28). The
fact that an outrageous percentage of institutions of higher education do not conduct
research of any kind partially explains disparities in the periphery and within individual
countries (Unesco, 2010) in terms of their investigative capacities.
Language is also an issue, considering that 80% of academic-refereed journals in the
social sciences are edited in English (Unesco, 2010: 143). In the case of the Arab East,
Sari Hanafi (2011) attributes the compartmentalization of scholarly activity precisely to
the language divide. While private, for-profit universities encourage their professoriate
to publish internationally (meaning in English) in order to raise their global competitive-
ness, the main language of academic expression used by public ones is Arabic, in order
to communicate with local societies and states. Language of publication determines not
only the audiences (global or local) to which scholars speak, but also research themes
and methodologies. Although some forms of social science, such as public advocacy or
public research, are prevalent means of intellectual engagement in many peripheral sites,
especially those that are locally oriented, they are often ill-suited for academic journals,
with which their international marginality is reinforced (Hanafi, 2011: 301; Mouton,
2010: 65).

Tickner 633
Diminishing local, public resources and the concomitant rise of foreign actors, both
state and non-state, in determining the types and content of scholarly research constitutes
a related source of dependence and underdevelopment (Unesco, 2010). Throughout the
global South a near-universal trend is the appearance of an extreme version of Mode 2,
‘engaged,’ or ‘donor-driven’ knowledge production (Asher and Guilhot, 2010; Losego
and Arvanitis, 2008) that is narrowly focused, short-term, and adapted to demand, and
whose authority is derived from sources other than academic peer review. Many scholars
give priority to this kind of research simply for material reasons, as a supplement to low
academic wages and unstable employment conditions.
Notwithstanding the conditions described, global (social) science has experienced
increasing levels of internationalization and interconnectedness, as measured by research
collaboration and scholarly mobility, among others (Keim, 2011; Losego and Arvanitis,
2008; Unesco, 2010). In Latourian terms, this process points to the success with which
core academe has established knowledge networks throughout the world by harnessing
distinct peripheral sites and inserting them into the intellectual division of labor.
Philanthropic foundations have been key players in this process, as they have been active
in cultivating elite academic institutions (or ‘centers of excellence’) in the global South
with which Northern centers of calculation can link up, in stimulating research in spe-
cific areas, and in supporting the creation of international knowledge communities.
Indeed, as Inderjeet Parmar’s (2012) research on the international programs of Ford,
Carnegie, and Rockefeller illustrates, foundations are crucial political agents whose key
operative venue and main product are knowledge networks that facilitate the creation
and maintenance of relations of intellectual domination. In the specific case of IR, for
example, the role of the Ford Foundation in training IR specialists, framing research
agendas, strengthening institutional infrastructures, and creating links between local
scholars and regional and global communities has been ostensible in regions such as
Latin America and South Asia (Behera, 2004; Tickner, 2009).
IR: An extreme case of asymmetrical knowledge?
IR displays traits similar to those observed in the social sciences. However, its political
economy stands out due to its origins in a single country, the United States, and to US
hegemony and domination over both academic production and political practice. Thirty-
five years after Stanley Hoffmann’s (1977) depiction of IR as an American social sci-
ence, some of the basic contours of the discipline have changed surprisingly little
(Biersteker, 2009; Crawford and Jarvis, 2001; Smith, 2000; Tickner and Wæver, 2009a;
Wæver, 1998). IR textbooks continue to be written mainly by American (and British)
authors and rely upon ‘Americocentric’ (Nossal, 2001) or Eurocentric representations in
which the United States and Europe are normally at the core of world politics. Publishing
patterns in specialized IR journals indicate the pervasiveness of these same scholars
(Aydinli and Matthews, 2000; Friedrichs and Wæver, 2009; Wæver, 1998). And IR
teaching, especially in the area of theory, revolves largely around US-authored
approaches.
IR exhibits an internationalized structure characterized by the coexistence of a global
discipline dominated by the United States with distinct regional and national nodes

634 European Journal of International Relations 19(3)
where varying degrees of influence, interdependence, and interaction with the US core
can be observed (Wæver, 2007; see also Wæver and Tickner, 2009). At the global level,
a hierarchy of journals, universities, and scholars concentrate control over the means of
intellectual production (Wæver, 2007: 297). One of the major paradoxes of US domi-
nance is that the field’s extreme parochialism there (Biersteker, 2009; Wæver, 1998)
makes it increasingly autistic to what the rest of the world has to say. Jonas Hagmann and
Thomas J. Biersteker’s analysis of the required reading lists of core graduate IR theory
courses in 23 US and European universities (2012) points to the generalized dominance
of ‘rationalist’ modes of thought (quantitative, formal theory, applied rational choice)
— more pronounced in the former than in the latter — the near invisibility of ‘radical’
approaches (neo-Marxism, feminism, postmodernism, post-structuralism, post-colonial-
ism), and complete non-recognition of non-Western or peripheral authors.
European institutions outside of the UK are less self-referential than their American or
British counterparts in that their openness to foreign texts is greater, but parochial teaching
patterns are endemic to them as well.2 The 2011 Teaching and Research in International
Politics (TRIP) survey confirms similar non-pluralism worldwide: in the opinion of the IR
professoriate from 11 countries located outside of Europe and North America, not a single
non-Anglo-American has exerted the greatest influence on IR in the past 20 years, or pro-
duced the most interesting or best scholarship (Maliniak et al., 2012: 48–50).
Although Biersteker (2009: 324–325) cautions that the lack of reflexivity and self-
understanding of the nature of ‘American IR’ makes it arrogant and vulnerable to mis-
takes in both foreign policy and academic practice, waning US economic, political, and
even meta-theoretical power has been largely unmatched by loss of control over the
intellectual means of production in IR. Intuitively, this suggests that other structural fac-
tors reinforce US power, and mitigate pluralism and diversity.
The United States has more degree-granting institutions, IR faculty, students, and dis-
sertations, holds more and larger academic conferences, and publishes more journals
than anywhere else in the world (Biersteker, 2009). The 2011 TRIP survey illustrates
how much size matters. Of the 7294 professors included in a universal sample collected
in 20 different countries, over half (3751) are located in the United States, while the clos-
est contenders size-wise include the United Kingdom (842) and Canada (488) (Maliniak
et al., 2012). In specific countries such as Argentina and Colombia, and to a lesser degree,
Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa, smaller pools of IR scholars combine with lower lev-
els of formal academic training: in the first two cases, only a third of professors hold a
PhD or its equivalent.
In addition to training future generations of US scholars, many practicing and aspiring
academics from outside the United States have been educated or will seek out their doc-
toral degrees there, encouraging the intellectual reproduction of the US IR model. The
fact that this country grants more PhDs than any other place in the world and equally
important, more PhD fellowships, is not just a matter of academic capital, but finance
plain and simple. Also, 50% of the IR professoriate in 20 countries believes that obtain-
ing a PhD there gives the candidate an advantage in her/his home job market (Maliniak
et al., 2012: 51).
The majority of IR theorizing also continues to take place in the United States. One
recent snapshot of the state of the field — the geographical distribution of authors of articles

Tickner 635
in top journals — points to the role of the United States as the principal geographical loca-
tion from which theory is developed and put into circulation. In their examination of articles
published in five leading English-language IR journals (International Organization,
International Studies Quarterly, International Security, Review of International Studies, and
European Journal of International Relations), Jörg Friedrichs and Ole Wæver (2009) show
that US-based scholars dominate the first three (US) journals, accounting for between 80%
and 100% of the articles published in any given year between 1970 and 2005. Even in the
latter two (non-US) ones, American authorship continues to account for an average of 33%
of all articles, surpassed only by British-based scholars. In comparison, authors stationed in
Europe fare quite poorly, representing on average less than 10% of articles in the US and
British (Review of International Studies) journals and 34% in the European one (European
Journal of International Relations). In tandem with general findings in the social sciences,
the ‘rest of the world’ is essentially invisible in all five publications. A close-up of publica-
tion trends during the last decade leads Friedrichs and Wæver (2009: 274) to conclude not
only that US dominance is not in decline, at least in terms of the publication game, but also
that it actually seems to be growing.3 The general ascendance of international publishing,
especially in outward-looking institutions, as one of the main criteria for extending recogni-
tion in academic communities throughout the world only reinforces the centrality of US and
European publications, most likely breeding greater homophily, which works at cross-pur-
poses to intellectual pluralism.
Admittedly, publishing patterns are just one way of measuring the state of academic
disciplines, constituting one among many social spaces in which intellectual battles take
place (Hagmann and Biersteker, 2012). Nevertheless, the research article plays a key role
in disciplining everyday academic life. Also, the fact that journals that enjoy interna-
tional visibility and recognition favor specific sites points to their role in reinforcing
global academic asymmetry.
If the majority of authors in the top IR journals are US- and European-based, one
would expect those theories, methodologies, and topics in vogue there — in which non-
North American and non-European scholars may be uninterested or with which they
have a hard time engaging — to be prevalent in their articles. Besides issues of English-
language proficiency, appropriate use of the specialized language of IR and forms of
scholarly writing then constitute significant entry barriers to participation in publishing
activities. As a strict keeper of the intellectual division of labor, the more theoretical a
journal, the less likely it will be to make room for peripheral contributions. And when
Southern participation in specialized IR journals actually does occur, it is usually limited
to expertise on a specific country (Aydinli and Matthews, 2000: 297).
Consider the following commentary by an anonymous peer reviewer on one of my
first attempts to publish a research article in a US journal. Keep in mind, also, that ‘z’ is
not considered a ‘top’ IR journal, that I am a native English speaker, that I received my
PhD in the United States, and that I had a fairly strong previous publication record,
although mostly in Spanish. After regretting to recommend that the article not be pub-
lished, especially since its author seems ‘hard-working and well-intentioned,’ the peer
reviewer goes on to critique my research design, affirming in particular that the qualita-
tive content analysis that I conducted is no ‘content analysis’ at all, but actually just ‘my
impression.’

636 European Journal of International Relations 19(3)
‘He’ goes on to say:
Again, I apologize for being so negative. My suspicion is that this manuscript represents the
work of a younger scholar, perhaps a first submission, and I would very much like to be
encouraging. But the author should know that this is not the type of work that is typically
published in our scholarly journals. (1 October 2002; emphasis added)
Instead, the reviewer suggests that I look at ‘research note’ models in other publica-
tions such as Latin American Research Review, where I might have better luck getting
published.
This anecdotal example is useful for illustrating the power function of journals
(and academic publications writ large). Peer review is allegedly based upon a meri-
tocratic model designed to filter out ‘bad’ scholarship in as ‘objective’ a manner
possible. And yet, the criteria for determining academic excellence, according to
authors such as Pierre Bourdieu (1988), are rooted in the ideational and social spe-
cificities of academic fields, their authoritative practices, and the rules of the game
that uphold them. Increasingly, ‘good’ IR scholars are those capable of speaking to
the latest networked debates that are frequently borne of closed, invitation-only ven-
ues of difficult access for ‘outsiders.’ The implicit message that comes across in this
case is that although my ‘impressionistic’ manuscript might be considered accepta-
ble elsewhere, such as in area studies, it does not qualify as IR because scholarship
in this field reflects higher intellectual standards and because my subject matter
does not fall within its limits. In consequence, by invoking the ‘science card’
(Jackson, 2011), dominant definitions of ‘scientific’ or ‘worthy’ scholarship are
employed in order to downgrade what is epistemologically, theoretically, methodo-
logically, or thematically different to inferior knowledge, thus reinforcing core–
periphery relations.4
IR in the periphery
During the past decade or so, critical self-reflection in IR and research that examines the
evolution of the field in the ‘rest of the world’ have grown on parallel but separate tracks.
The former has been concerned primarily with unearthing the internal dynamics of the
discipline and with exposing relations of power contained therein, while the latter is
more interested in exploring IR’s inadequacy for understanding key global problems of
concern to the periphery and the ways in which the discipline has unfolded in distinct
non-core settings.
While scholars belonging to the first camp self-identify with reflexivity, the second
group can hardly be classified in the same way. Not only has it been less sensitive to
historiographic, sociological, and epistemological debates, it is by and large uninterested
in them, making non-core IR scholarship just as non-reflexive (if not more so) than its
core counterparts. Many peripheral scholars have also largely embraced theories and
concepts developed in the United States and Europe instead of revolting against them,
despite the common mantra that they are sorely inadequate for understanding problems
and dynamics in the global South.

Tickner 637
Systematic interrogation of the evolution and conduct of scholarly activity in different
national and regional sites, has exposed IR’s lack of pluralism, as well as shedding light
on its intellectual, social and core–periphery structure, and reasons why the latter has
remained relatively unchallenged (Acharya and Buzan, 2010; Tickner and Blaney,
2012a; Tickner and Wæver, 2009a). One possible explanation has to do with the role of
peripheral IR in the discipline’s intellectual division of labor, which might be understood
in analogy with area studies (Tickner and Blaney, 2012b: 8). Namely, local or national
variants may exhibit a similar relation to global IR that area studies do to traditional
disciplines. For Cheah (2000: 8–9), area studies differ from disciplines in ways that rein-
force their inferiority: in particular, they are involved in empirical description and not
theory-building, and they answer to the ‘local’ instead of the ‘universal.’
The shape adopted by IR around the world largely mirrors these characteristics. Much
peripheral scholarship tends to description of local or regional events and problems
instead of conceptualization of the world, serving at best as ‘raw materials’ for the grand
narrative constructed by theorists of the core. Indeed, one of the traits that stands out the
most in non-core approaches to IR, with the exception of countries such as China, Japan,
Russia, and Turkey, is the lack or unimportance of theory (Acharya and Buzan, 2010;
Tickner and Wæver, 2009b). Theory is not considered especially useful for resolving the
very ‘pressing’ and ‘real’ problems faced by many countries. Perhaps more so than in
other areas of the social sciences, IR’s intellectual genesis in the needs of states to pro-
duce knowledge translateable into policy formulas explains the demand for ‘relevant’
and ‘applicable’ know-how. As a result, with few exceptions, recognition of theorizing as
a source of ‘scientific authority’ (Bourdieu, 1988) is virtually non-existent. Also, private
donors, both local and foreign, upon which scholarly practice largely depends in the
periphery, dissuade theoretically inspired work by targeting practical, applied
knowledge.
When ‘theorizing’ actually does take place, it is largely undetectable to core eyes
because it often looks quite different. In the case of Latin America, for example, instead
of data testing, empirical observations, and the defense of hypotheses as the standards of
theoretical knowledge, ‘theory’ basically consists of concepts and definitions ‘borrowed’
from existing theories and used to describe specific problems (Abend, 2006). This largely
explains the tendency to ‘pick and choose’ from different US theories in eclectic ways,
as well as the ‘common-sense’ versions of realism and liberalism that are observable in
IR both in this region and around the global South (Tickner and Wæver, 2009b).
In all fairness, theory is not a widely cherished enterprise anywhere along the IR
knowledge chain. Also, despite growing recognition that it holds diverse meanings for
distinct intellectual communities everywhere, a pluralist definition has been largely
overshadowed by the dominant core reading of theory as ‘correlation-plus-empirical
generalization followed by causal mechanisms’ (see Guzzini, 2013) that is rooted in the
rationalist or neopositivist underpinnings of knowledge (Jackson, 2011).
According to Stefano Guzzini (2007, 2013), this reductionist view can be traced to
prevailing attitudes in Western IR’s very constitution: that theory should be useful for
explaining world events, and thus necessarily grounded in historical experience of
reality; and that there is little need for new theories, given that IR is all about the ‘unal-
tered truths’ of state action, and convincing explanations for this already exist. In

638 European Journal of International Relations 19(3)
consequence, discussions of theory are largely limited to its function as a tool for
understanding the world, which is susceptible to fine-tuning if overtaken by events on
the ground,5 and the role of theorists to deciding which one is best suited to analyze
them.
By attaching limits to what theory means, what kinds of theorizing are admissible,
and who is authorized to theorize, core IR establishes considerable obstacles to theory
formation in the periphery that, combined with local institutional hindrances, limit the
periphery’s capacity to become an autonomous ‘ideas maker’ (Guzzini, 2007), at least
within the official boundaries of the field. Although, admittedly, disciplinary power may
be muted by the fact that peripheral IR communities make use of ‘hollowed out’ versions
of core theories, divorced from their meta-theoretical assumptions (Tickner and Wæver,
2009b: 337), the opposite is equally likely. For instance, colloquial use of the concept of
securitization in regions such as Asia and Latin America, with little concern for the wider
ontological and epistemological foundations underlying it, severely limits the critical,
constitutive function of this theory, and thus its transformative intellectual potential.
Stated somewhat differently, the widespread use of theory minus methodology allows
the predominant view of ‘no need for theory’ to reproduce, blocking conditions for local
theory development.
Critical analyses of IR scholarship outside the core reflect a general consensus that
one of the reasons why standard discourses, and dominant theories and categories, are
adopted somewhat mechanically in the periphery, even though they are ill-fit for the task
of explaining its role in world politics, has to do with reluctance to question IR’s main
unit of analysis: the state (Behera, 2010: 97; Makdisi, 2009: 187; Tickner and Blaney,
2012a; Tickner and Wæver, 2009a). Western and non-Western scholars alike, mostly
operating outside the discipline, have pointed insistently to the inadequacies of the
Westphalian state model for understanding societal organization and governance patterns
in many parts of the world, as well as the state’s failure to provide basic well-being to its
peoples, in part due to its artificial or imported make-up. And yet, peripheral IR seems
wedded to the state, ontologically, epistemologically, and even materially.
Similar to many of their core counterparts, peripheral academic communities
assume the national state as their point of departure for most scholarly inquiries and
seek to create knowledge of use to it, even though they rarely exert a direct influence
upon state practice. As a result, research agendas in IR throughout the global South
seem to parallel those of the foreign policy agendas of states, reinforcing the idea that
theory should operate as a toolbox that derives from the realities that states must
address in their international dealings. A major criterion of recognition in ‘x’ IR, then,
is its ability to make sense of the foreign policy challenges faced by ‘x’ country, as well
as to provide knowledge relevant to the development of state action in the world. In
terms of IR’s intellectual and social make-up, this means that the political relevance of
ideas is a key source of academic recognition, sometimes even greater than academic
publications.
Paradoxically, intellectual elites and universities throughout the periphery, especially
when they are outward-looking in nature, exhibit strong links to global networks that
tie them to funders, academic institutions, and political agendas in the core, either
former colonizers in Europe or the United States. In such cases, their ties to centers of

Tickner 639
calculation are often stronger than those that bind them to local states and interests, dou-
bling the imperialist effects of core–periphery relations.6 Thus, one of the trade-offs that
internationalization poses for peripheral scholars is precisely that access to resources,
people, and ‘thinking space’ that would be otherwise unobtainable comes at the price of
occupying a subordinate, ‘local expert’ role, and accepting research themes that might be
far removed from national(ist) perspectives and needs.
Peripheral placing
As hinted at previously, Northern post-Kuhnian analyses such as that developed by
Latour are largely uninterested in how power accrued by centers of calculation trans-
lates into scientific (neo)imperialism, or its effects upon knowledge-building in those
sites that occupy the lower rungs of global knowledge chains (Harding, 2008: 42–43).
In part, this is due to the Eurocentric assumption that the periphery is a ‘non-actor’
upon which power/knowledge is simply enforced, when in fact peripheral scientific
communities place themselves vis-à-vis core–periphery structures in myriad ways. In
the case of IR, several kinds of strategy seem to stand out:7 ‘fitting in,’ also described
by See Seng Tan as ‘self-orientalism’ (2009: 128); ‘domination by invitation’; and
‘delinking.’
‘Fitting in’ is perhaps the most prevalent way in which peripheral IR has responded to
(neo)imperial dynamics and US domination in the field (Bilgin, 2008; Chen, 2011;
Tickner and Blaney, 2012b: 4). It is premised (implicitly or explicitly) on recognition of
the existence and centrality of the core, and thus entails academic moves by which the
global South attempts to position itself favorably in relation to the core–periphery
dichotomy. Although not being different can be an intentional and even self-empowering
strategy, as Ching-Chang Chen (2011) and Pinar Bilgin (2008, 2012) both argue, the
search for similarity under conditions of highly asymmetrical interaction often translates
into ‘second class citizenship,’ in the sense that it is coded as bad or immature scholar-
ship (Tickner and Blaney, 2012b: 7). The invisibility of the ‘rest of the world’ in key IR
journals, as discussed previously, underscores this tendency. Also, treating scientific
development in the periphery as predetermined by a global network — in which the
United States monopolizes centers of calculation (the highest order of abstraction in
Latourian terms), followed by Great Britain and parts of Western Europe — even if it is
hybrid, or ‘almost the same but not quite,’ precludes the possibility of engaging with
other traditions, both in the West (from outside the IR discipline) and beyond (including
the periphery’s own local intellectual resources).
Even in cases in which attempts have been made to stake out a position of ‘difference’
from within the boundaries of IR, such as in ‘Chinese,’ ‘Japanese,’ or ‘Russian’ schools
of IR thinking, what is interesting about these bids themselves is that they usually attempt
to stake out territory and acknowledgment by positioning themselves vis-à-vis the US
version of the discipline. This highlights the fact that IR outside of the core operates in
the shadow of an already-existing network in which the standards of regulation and what
constitutes an ‘authoritative’ contribution to the debate are already pre-established, mak-
ing embracing the rules of the game, or even defending the status quo, a precondition
for recognition. At best then, ‘fitting in’ offers the possibility of movement from the

640 European Journal of International Relations 19(3)
periphery to a semi-periphery (a status presently occupied by Western Europe, Canada, and,
perhaps, Australia). At worst, it simply reinforces the marginal status of peripheral IR.
‘Domination by invitation,’ on the other hand, consists of local state, academic, or pri-
vate sector elites conducting explicit campaigns geared to reinforce relations of domination
with US (or Western) bearers of knowledge in order to provoke intellectual development.
Dependency theory provides a simple explanation for how and why this occurs. One of the
main problems that the dependency literature attempts to engage with is the interaction
between local social, economic, and political structures and the global system, and the
ways in which local elites and states are active players in the internalization of capitalist
logics that facilitate foreign domination (Cardoso, 1977; Cardoso and Faletto, 1978;). The
degree to which dependence was (and is) the result of factors endemic to the periphery, in
particular, elite groups torn between the pursuit of national projects and the immediate,
particularistic gains to be accrued from alliances with the core, is something largely lost
upon Northern audiences that assume — in keeping with the view of the global South as
a non-subject — that dependency is caused solely by core exploitation of the periphery.
Just as the ambivalent nature of local elites and state bureaucracies make them inca-
pable of pursuing an autonomous national political and economic project, given their
permanent temptation to ally themselves with core countries and other like-minded for-
eign actors, they also tend to attach to the core intellectually, in order to harness the
potential benefits to be derived from complacent and close interaction. The examples of
this kind of interaction between periphery and core abound — the favoring of core
knowledge as more authoritative and scientific in comparison to local variants constitut-
ing just one — underscoring the tendency of peripheral elites to undermine local intel-
lectual production and to privilege US and Western knowledge as superior.
‘Delinking’ is practiced, among others, by pan-Arab institutions and networks, as
well as Islamic ones, in the study of both world politics and specific issues such as
security (Bilgin, 2012; Makdisi, 2009; Shani, 2008; Tadjbakhsh, 2010). It is distin-
guishable primarily by the fact that it stakes out a position of difference outside of or in
opposition to core IR, and is unconcerned with passing as ‘real’ IR, unlike the other two
strategies. Contrary to ‘radical’ or ‘dissident’ scholarship in the West that has branded
itself as ‘different’ (Hamati-Ataya, 2011: 270) and has been accepted by the mainstream
as an incomprehensible but tolerable alternative to thinking about world politics, past
experience suggests that peripheral thinking that has attempted to take this route has
been disavowed not only as ‘unscientific,’ but also as ‘ideological’ and ‘dangerous’
(Blaney and Inayatullah, 2008: 664–667).
Indeed, in a seminal article on the consumption of dependency in the United States,
Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1977: 15) argues that significant distortion took place
when it traveled north, entailing both the replacement of local problems of interest to
social scientists in Latin America by a Northern research agenda and its (re)making.
Although theories subject to travel (Said, 1983) should not be expected to mutate in one
direction (North–South) and not in the other (South–North), the fact that dependency
was rebuilt in the image of then-dominant understandings of scientific knowledge, and
that typologies, variables, hypotheses, and other empirical standards of measurement
were attached to it in order for it to be made into a proper ‘theory,’ points to the elusive-
ness of change within a core–periphery structure. Moreover, the fact that Northern

Tickner 641
(social) science is so deeply implicated in (neo)imperialism and hegemony makes it an
especially poor candidate for determining what aspects of peripheral knowledge to keep
and which to discard.
Delinking strategies, similar to Marxist dependency theory (of which Cardoso is not
an exponent), are premised on the assumption that an essentially causal relationship
exists between development and underdevelopment, and autonomy and dependence, and
that the only way for the periphery to cease being one is by completely severing ties with
the core. And yet, under conditions of academic internationalization, it is hard to imagine
knowledge projects completely free from core meddling. From a Northern perspective,
as Latour’s work illustrates, delinking from given scientific communities is inexcusable
as it threatens their very foundations: global networks. Therefore, unless potential
‘delinkers’ remain relatively unpublicized and inaccessible, even to ordinary scholars in
the periphery, they run the risk of losing their potential power as autonomous roads to
locally specific and locally relevant knowledge.
Similar to national IR communities in the United States or Europe that are character-
ized by diversity, eclecticism, and internal power differentials, so too are academics in
distinct peripheral sites compartmentalized, as hinted at previously. As a result, the
Southern professoriate does not necessarily share the same ‘placing’ strategies, and it is
likely that all three are employed simultaneously by scholars occupying different social
(and political) roles. For example, those seated at outward-looking universities may be
highly integrated with the IR’s disciplinary core (in the United States, Great Britain, or
Western Europe) and attuned to its rules of the game, albeit in a subordinate role, through
academic training abroad, participation in international publishing venues and confer-
ences, and foreign funding. The lion’s share of the peripheral IR professoriate that has an
interest in ‘fitting in’ is likely concentrated among this ‘globalized elite,’ meaning that
much of its scholarly endeavors are directed toward other foreign interlocutors instead of
local counterparts. Indeed, one of the main ironies of existing critiques of the invisibility
of peripheral perspectives on world politics is that they are conducted more for a core
audience than for the periphery.
A second level, accounting for much of the IR professoriate in the ‘rest of the world,’
comprises groups of scholars that operate mainly at the local or national level. In many
of these sites, little direct intellectual exchange may take place with the core, which by
no means implies that they are isolated from the effects of US domination or from the
global intellectual network. However, the workings of scientific (neo)imperialism
under which such scholarship operates may be different, as well as its attitudes toward
core–periphery relations.
Conclusion
The center–periphery configuration of IR favors analytical categories and research pro-
grams that are defined by academic communities within the North while also reinforcing
Northern dominance within international practice itself. The precariousness of the global
South as both an agent of IR knowledge and a global actor seems directly related to such
self-referential practices in the field. Kenneth Waltz’s (1979: 72) well-known statement
that ‘[i]t would be … ridiculous to construct a theory of international politics based on

642 European Journal of International Relations 19(3)
Malaysia and Costa Rica,’ while glaringly elitist and ethnocentric, continues to provide
a fairly accurate picture of the state of the field today.
Even if, following Jackson (2011), one were to embrace a pluralist, post-foundational
definition of ‘science,’ the core–periphery structure that is entrenched in global IR (and,
indeed, nearly all social science) would remain basically untouched. All other things
being equal, acknowledging diversity is not enough, basically because scientific centers
of calculation cannot simply recognize or tolerate Southern contributions without under-
mining their own power, privilege, and place in the global knowledge chain. That is, at
the heart of the ‘transnational’ IR discipline is a (neo)imperialist structure by which
peripheral nodes do not operate in a self-contained manner, but are rather part and parcel
of a global intellectual division of labor.
To repeat a well-suited metaphor used by Navnita Behera (2010: 103), IR scholarship
in the periphery has been ‘boxed in’ figuratively, conceptually, and materially by a disci-
plinary structure within which existing strategies for responding to (neo)imperialist prac-
tices have been relatively futile. Although she rightly suggests that what is then needed
is to ‘step out’ of the box, my discussion suggests that this is not so simple, given that the
core–periphery dimension that characterizes global IR is characteristic of Western ‘sci-
ence’ networks writ large. So perhaps the problem is how to do away with boxes
altogether.
Latour’s work suggests that different actors and sites occupy distinct rungs of
scientific networks. Although (neo)imperial science is grounded in an asymmetrical
structure whose core is located in centers of calculation, but whose power and influ-
ence depend upon knowledge’s ability to circulate, it is possible that ‘faraway’
places, in terms of geographical and disciplinary location, language, and funding,
although still part of the network, are less touched, given the lower rungs that they
occupy in the hierarchy. Is it conceivable then that ‘distance’ may translate into less
direct influence, allowing for higher malleability, even of ‘traveling theory’? If so,
peripheral IR scholars who define themselves largely in relation to global IR, and are
thus closer to its centers of calculation, are much less equipped to think differently
about world politics.
If peripheral IR is ‘boxed in,’ so too is its core, given that the rationalist positivism
that is still dominant in the control of intellectual (re)production (at least as measured in
journals and graduate readings, as suggested above) leaves little room for innovative
thinking, or for the creative use of raw materials supplied by the periphery. In other
words, the core–periphery structure that still characterizes global IR may be stifling the-
ory equally in its current centers of calculation.
As United States economic and political power in the world wanes, it would seem
only natural that the core of IR, long occupied by this country, should also shift toward
new centers. Wæver (1998, 2007) indeed points to the emergence of a ‘reflectivist’ con-
tender in Europe, and has portended for over a decade that US parochialism will inevita-
bly lead to its demise as the main center of gravity for the field of IR. In this vein,
growing interest in IR outside the core, in particular, in ‘rising’ countries such as China,
India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, or even Japan and Southeast Asia, could be inter-
preted as a bid to shore up US disciplinary power by adjusting its boundaries such that
these ‘newcomers’ can be fitted in.

Tickner 643
If the theoretical knowledge of world politics that brews behind IR is stifled, inade-
quate, and (neo)imperialist, perhaps moving beyond IR — toward other fields of study,
other places, and other sources outside the university — is the way forward (Tickner and
Blaney (2013) engage with this question in depth). In sum, ‘seeing’ the discipline differ-
ently, as the product of multiple know-hows scattered across the philosophical, geo-
graphical, and subject spectrum, is not enough to overturn the tremendously skewed
distribution of intellectual power that exists between core and periphery. Decolonizing
IR also requires, at minimum, engagement with philosophy of science and the political
economy of knowledge (Saurin, 2006: 25), and historicization of the links between
knowledge production, circulation, certification, and reappropriation (Raj, 2007: 233).
Acknowledgements
I am deeply grateful to David Blaney, Nicolas Guilhot, and Inanna Hamati-Ataya for their incisive
critiques and constructive suggestions on previous drafts of this article. I also thank my colleagues
at Universidad de los Andes, the EJIR editorial team, and the anonymous reviewers for their
comments.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.
Notes
1. Although for reasons of political correctness and opposition to dichotomous language some
may object to the continued use of these terms, core–periphery-like dynamics similar to those
described by dependency theory in the 1960s and 1970s are still palpable, not only within
global capitalism but also in academic practice, and thus warrant their preservation. I use
‘core’ and ‘periphery’ interchangeably with ‘North’ and ‘South’.
2. An exacerbated form of parochialism is observable in Latin America too, where US and
British authors dominate IR theory course syllabi, regional ones rarely appear, and the pres-
ence of local theories, in particular, dependency, is negligible (Tickner, 2009: 42).
3. An interesting exception to US dominance is to be found in the area of security, where
Western Europe in particular has developed theories, including critical security studies and
securitization theory, that deviate significantly from their United States counterpart, and have
even begun to travel to other sites across the globe. See Wæver (2012).
4. By no means does this mean that scholarship of poor quality is not produced in the periphery,
as it is almost everywhere. However, it is likely that if core parameters were more amenable
to multiple types of research, cutting-edge work would become more visible when and where
it exists.
5. Thus the need, as insinuated by Latour, for initiating new cycles of accumulation by which
resources are mobilized and unfamiliar ‘things’ brought back from ‘exotic’ sites previously
off the radar of core IR!
6. Admittedly, more detailed case studies on this specific aspect of the discipline in diverse
peripheral countries need to be conducted in order to assess the merits of this claim.
7. My discussion picks up on Friedrichs and Wæver’s (2009: 262–267) explanation of the dis-
tinct ‘coping mechanisms’ adopted by semi-peripheral IR communities in Western Europe.
Given the preliminary nature of this exercise, I only briefly sketch out what each strategy
looks like, well aware that a procedure for identifying them empirically is still wanting.

644 European Journal of International Relations 19(3)
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Author biography
Arlene B. Tickner is Professor of International Relations in the Political Science Department at the
Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. She is the co-editor (with Ole Wæver) of International
Relations Scholarship around the World (2009), and of Thinking International Relations Differently
(2012) and Claiming the International (2013) (with David L. Blaney), all part of the Routledge
Worlding beyond the West series.