Schmidt’s
political discourse of anarchy provides criticism to the existing histories
concerning the International Relations discipline. He provides an alternative
approach to historiography of academic International Relations to reconstruct
its accurate evolution: critical internal discursive. The aim is to recuperate forgotten
ideas and elucidate on conceptional changes in the discourse through
conversations between academic scholars belonging to this field of inquiry. According
to him, the pragmatic reasons towards adopting this approach is due to the
hegemonic discourse of IR that is constructed due to the disciplinary trends,
mostly emerging from American universities instead of external factors that
could shape political discourse of politics.
These universities became the
primary environment where the understanding of IR historical development
emerges from. It is in such a scenario, where the conceptional underpinning of
an academic field becomes parochial in nature. The
interpretation of IR theory has been politicized in the past as individuals are
acquainted with the hegemonic interpretation of notions like anarchy and
sovereignty. Instead of following one dominant discourse on the historical
development of the field, a more holistic approach can only be acquired through
critically engaging in a conversation with other academics pertaining to the
same field which is provided by the methodology placed forth by Schmidt.
International Relations have historically been guided
by the conception of politics without a central authority. The shift in
understanding, conceptualization, meaning and significance of the concept of anarchy in global politics, through a discursive historical
conversation demonstrates the importance of Schmidt’s approach to historiography
whereby the present structure of IR academia can be understood.
A
discursive approach is much needed to provide a disciplinary historical account
for the field of IR and point out the conceptional changes that took place in
the academic field.
Yes a discursive approach is helpful. I think Schmidt did an excellent job of complicating the traditional narrative that exists in the field and has broadened our understanding of the academic study of international relations.
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