Blinkered learning, blinkered theory: how histories in textbooks parochialize IR

Abstract

Calls for a more ‘global’ International Relations (IR) based on theories grounded in world rather than Western histories have highlighted the Eurocentrism of history within the discipline. Global IR literature, however, neglects the role of tempocentrism in fostering that Eurocentrism. Tempocentric IR portrays the past as an extrapolation of the (Eurocentric) present, suggesting an inevitability and normality to Western dominance of international, and obscuring non-Western significance. It also deprives IR theory-building of a broader pool of examples to inform existing theories. This article locates those centrisms in the textbooks of the discipline, whilst drawing on interdisciplinary research to reveal the disproportionate influence of the first years of higher education over students’ future worldviews. It is here that students are exposed to a historical grand narrative that establishes the boundaries of their enquiries and outlines what is, and what is not, significant. For a more ‘global’ IR, therefore, it is suggested that textbook historical narratives require reconstructing in two ways. First, textbook history should be presented through connections and relations rather than substances. Second, historical chapters should reveal the multiple layers of time, including the deeper past, that have been instrumental in constituting the international relations of today.