Worldviews in International Relations

The course aims to provide students with an understanding of the declining centrality of the West and of the growing pluralism that characterizes the current international system, as reflected in the articulation of different worldviews. First, the course will focus on the rise of non-Western powers and the spatial transformations of the post-Cold War international system. Second, it will address their implications for International Relations (IR) Theory and reflect on the ongoing efforts to decentralize IR by developing non-Western schools.

By the end of the course, students will have developed analytical skills that are useful to navigate an increasingly pluralized world, where Western centrality is rapidly declining. In particular, they will be able to: i. identify the main drivers behind the reduced centrality of the West in international politics; ii. locate this trend within the broader historical evolution of the international system; iii. identify the main points in the current contestation of the Western-centric tradition of IR Theory; and iv. engage with the ongoing theoretical attempts at establishing alternative, non-Western or "post-Western" traditions within IR Theory