Conclusion

Abstract

The key determinants of the legitimacy and credibility of the process of discovery and knowledge have undermined the universalist ambition of IR. These are Eurocentrism and statecentrism. Eurocentrism has generated archives, lines of inquiry, and modes of signification that posit Europe as morally coherent and ontologically superior and therefore the source and inspiration of international morality and norms. For its part, statecentrism takes the modern state to be necessarily and empirically the primary agent of international order and morality and thus conflates its absence with lawlessness or anarchy. Related assumptions are inadequate at best. Indeed, rather than provide inspiration to other international systems, modern “Europe” instituted practices and norms that undermined the autonomy and viability of other regional systems and their units as condition of its own ascent to hegemony. Nor did the Westphalian system of sovereignty chart the course for other regional orders that sought to attain emancipation and justice through equality and autonomy.