World Politics
A Critical Introduction to International Relations
- Catherine Goetze - University of Tasmania, Australia
World Politics: A Critical Introduction to International Relations offers an engaging and accessible exploration of critical theories in international relations. Drawing on a rich array of narratives and perspectives, it provides a systematic introduction to feminist, queer, decolonial, and other critical approaches.
The book examines how politics in the 20th and 21st centuries have been instrumental in creating, shaping, and perpetuating global hierarchies of power and status. It critically analyses how the Eurocentrism embedded in the international system is the result of deliberate, often violent, political actions aimed at establishing world order. These actions continue to influence daily lives and shape societies in profound ways.
Complete with practical examples, case studies, and vignettes, this textbook is an essential resource if you are looking to decolonise, feminise, and integrate a broader range of critical perspectives into your study of International Relations.
nstructors have access to a range of online materials that have been carefully curated to support their teaching, including a Teaching Guide, PowerPoints and a testbank.
Catherine Goetze is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Tasmania, Australia.
Supplements
When Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney denounced the so-called ‘rule-based world order’ as ‘fiction’ that was covering up the ‘asymmetries,’ no one in the community of IR scholars was surprised.
On socials, many shared their dismay that it needed a white, wealthy, Western man to say out loud what they already knew and argued. Yet, it was a powerful demonstration of the tenacity of the ‘fiction’ of the ‘liberal world order.’ In the classroom, in front of eager students of IR whose knowledge comes from mainstream, Eurocentric analyses, the greatest challenge in teaching critical approaches to IR is having to dismantle these myths, the naturalized Eurocentrism of IR and its many inherent, tacit assumptions about states, order, rationality, reason and progress. Decentring the West, looking for ‘where the women are’ (to paraphrase Cynthia Enloe) and learning to understand how to see the queerness of the social world - and of IR - is not only a useful exercise in critical thinking.
It also helps students navigate an increasingly complex and anxiogenic world, think about alternatives and about their role, options and futures. The critical skills students learn when deconstructing myths like that of the ‘rule-based order’ also help them to understand other complex social phenomena and to make sense of other politics that might appear nonsensical. Yet, decolonizing, feminising, queering and decentring the curriculum often also pushes students out of their comfort zones.
In this webinar, Catherine Goetze will discuss some of the ‘tricks’ she uses in World Politics that can help teachers and students alike to think outside the box and critically examine the world. By teaching students how to see the world using approaches to IR like feminist, queer, and post/decolonial IR or critical IPE and historical sociology, we offer a toolkit of transferable skills around thinking critically and robust, rigorous analysis in a way that’s not dogmatic.
Goetze's volume discusses IR theory from a fully critical angle, taking a much-needed feminist and decolonial perspective as starting point. Written in an accessible style and illustrated with a vast amount of clear examples, World Politics is called to successfully lead a full generation of students into the complexities of contemporary global affairs.
