In this episode of the World Stage podcast, NUPI’s Cedric de Coning is in conversation with Amitav Acharya and Stein Tønnesson on the emergence of non-Western and Global International Relations.

The discipline came into being as an academic field during the past half-century when the US and its Western allies were the driving force behind globalization and the establishment of the global governance architecture. As a result, IR scholarship was mostly pre-occupied with international relations from a western perspective, and western – especially American – scholars, universities and research institutes dominated the field. Global IR is a movement to open up the field to non-western or Global IR theorizing and research.

Amitav Acharya is a distinguished Professor of international relations at American University in Washington D.C. and one of the leading proponents of a movement in International Relations scholarship to globalize the theory and focus of IR research.

Stein Tønnesson is a former Director of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo. His research has focused on the dynamics of peace and conflict in Asia.

Cedric de Coning is a Research Professor with NUPI’s Center for United Nations and Global Governance, and the coordinator of the Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network (EPON).