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Review Essay, Barkawi and Laffey, ‘The Postcolonial Moment in Security Studies’.

INRL4001: Introduction to International Relations 1: Perspectives

Module Leader: Maia Pal

Section 1

Barkawi and Laffey’s argument is centred around their criticism of the Eurocentric

nature of security studies. They argue that Eurocentric, or mainstream accounts of

security studies ‘misrepresent the role of the global South in security relations’

(Barkawi and Laffey, 2006, pp. 329), and that in order to understand security

relations, one must acknowledge the role of both Europe and other powers in making

history. Their aim with this article is to ‘lay[s] the groundwork for the development of

a non-Eurocentric security studies’ (ibid, pp. 329). The writers are quick to address

the reasons for issues with pre-existing literature on security studies. They argue that

the Eurocentric basis of the discipline means that the global South and other non-

European powers are either misrepresented or are forgotten about altogether. As a

result, they call for a reframing of security analysis. Barkawi and Laffey also argue

that organisations such as Al-Qaeda are transnational networks, which means that

they, like non-European states, are largely ignored by traditional security studies,

because the traditional discipline focuses on states as key actors. They go on to

argue that Al-Qaeda needs to be understood in the context of the long historical

patterns of North-South warfare, and that the categories used to understand security

studies must be reframed and re-evaluated in order to do this.

Barkawi and Laffey do well to address the gaps in the existing research around

security studies. They argue that security studies is traditionally concerned with

relations between powers, and specifically, the relations between stronger and

weaker states. They also argue, however, that more recent events challenge this

idea, that states face an ‘existential threat’ (ibid, pp. 329) from transnational networks

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like terrorist groups. Therefore, existing traditional security studies concepts are

difficult to relate to current issues, explaining yet again the need for the reframing of

security studies. Additionally, the authors address the fact that International

Relations as a discipline is Eurocentric by nature, and therefore that it ignores its

own racial and imperialist construction in both the USA and Europe. The existing

research also has problems in the fact that the traditional history of the discipline

claims that IR was birthed in 1910/1914, based almost solely on the model of the

European nation-state, once again proving that the very nature of the discipline is

Eurocentric. This makes for a very interesting basis for Barkawi and Laffey’s

argument that International Relations and security analysis need to be reframed to

account for the global South and other non-European states, because it is very

difficult to separate the discipline from its Eurocentric nature, so it seems almost

impossible to imagine how the writers are going to even begin to ‘lay[s] the

groundwork’ (ibid, pp. 329) for a non-Eurocentric security studies when the discipline

itself was created from a Eurocentric perspective.

The introduction establishes the issues with the existing research, as does the

section entitled ‘Makers of Modern Strategy....’ These sections, together with

‘Security Studies and Eurocentrism’ are used to establish a discussion of the article’s

focus: the Eurocentric nature of security studies, and how this came to be. ‘World

War II…’ establishes the importance of the war, labelling 1945 a ‘moment of

freedom’ (ibid, pp. 340) for Europe and America, but it also challenges the

conventional (Eurocentric) views associated with the ‘good war’ (ibid, pp. 340). ‘The

Holocaust…’ is used to show that the Holocaust was central to both realist and

liberal approaches to security studies, and that it ‘sets the standard for…

unacceptable behaviour’ (ibid, pp. 340), which thus ignores the centuries of ‘Western

imperial genocides’ (ibid, pp. 340), contributing to the argument that the traditional

discipline ignores its own racist and imperialist history.

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Section 2

In International Relations as a discipline, Eurocentrism is seen as the concept that

the field focuses almost solely on the international relations of European states, and

glorifies their actions during conflicts, whilst largely ignoring and/or vilifying the roles

of almost all other states and organisations. Both historically and contemporarily, it

can be seen that there is a focus on international relations as interactions between

European or Western states, also ignoring the importance of the influence of other

powers. There is a problem with the existing research here as well, in that even if a

researcher were to focus on the global South, for example, they would be extremely

likely to use concepts that they have derived from the history of European state

development, which are likely to be very different to those of the global South, and

are therefore less accurate, creating flaws in the research.

Realists focus on states as the main actors, specifically what we would consider to

be great powers within the world. A realist perspective is, by definition, Eurocentric,

because it would not even consider looking at the global South (neither states, nor

anything else), and even if a realist were to look at a country like China, for example,

which could be considered as a rising power in the modern world (T-House, 2019,

6.50) they would, similar to the issues with the existing research mentioned above,

use a Eurocentric point of view to examine China, because that lense allows a realist

to use their own concepts for making sense of what it is they want to understand,

meaning that the very essence of their research is, like the discipline itself,

Eurocentric.

Liberals celebrate liberal institutions- the rule of law, democracy, and so on.

However, liberalism fails to account for the ways such institutions have consistently

throughout history been used for exploitation in the global South. For example, the

decades of suffering endured by enslaved African people, or the prolonged US

involvement with the authoritarian regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba. Similar to the gaps

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in the existing research, liberals are Eurocentric because they also ignore the racist

and imperialist history of the great powers in our society.

In ‘Makers of Modern Strategy…’, Barkawi and Laffey draw on the neorealist theory

of a self-help logic, in which states seek to maximise their own security. They argue

that the point of colonial warfare is partly to defeat an enemy, but also to

‘subordinate him at the lowest cost and in a way to guarantee permanent

pacification’ (ibid, pp. 335. Gottman, in Earle 1986, pp. 234-5). The authors also refer

to the realist theory of a zero-sum definition of power. They quote Edward Luttwak,

who claims that ‘strategy is not a neutral pursuit and its only purpose is to strengthen

one’s side in the contention of nations’ (Lawrence 1987, pp. 307), suggesting that, in

line with this theory, when one state gains, the other states involved lose. In ‘World

War II…’ Barkawi and Laffey address the core debate between liberals and realists,

stating that it involves the ‘amelioration of great power conflict’ (Barkawi and Laffey,

2006, pp. 338). They discuss the idea of ‘war-proneness’ (ibid, pp. 338) of different

kinds of regime. Liberals believe in the possibility of lasting peace. Realists do not,

because they argue that there is too high a level of mistrust between states, which

realists view as black boxes.

Section 3

In this section I will comment on how Barkawi and Laffey’s arguments bear reference

to my own education with regards to ‘The Holocaust and the character of the West’,

in terms of both the ways in which my education is challenged, and the ways in

which my education is confirmed.

Barkawi and Laffey’s writing supports a lot of what I was taught about the Holocaust,

especially at secondary school level. The Allies were often presented as the good

guys, the liberators, as saviours and opposers of wrongdoing. The authors discuss

the idea of an ‘image of the West as the preventer of genocides’ (ibid, pp. 341). This

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view was always present in what I was taught. Being taught from a British

perspective, Allied success was glorified and celebrated. Like Barkawi and Laffey

say, ‘Germany… somehow [became] not Western’ (ibid, pp. 341). The Germans are

consistently vilified in British teaching of the Holocaust and World War Two, even

though it could be argued that the Allies were equally villainous.

What I have been taught is also challenged by Barkawi and Laffey’s writing. A lot of

secondary school level teaching of history is fiercely Eurocentric. Students are often

taught that the Holocaust was an atrocity, which of course it absolutely was, but few

other Western-led mass genocides are covered by the curriculum. I was also taught

that the Holocaust of World War Two was the only Holocaust to ever happen, but

what about, for example, the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? If a holocaust

can be defined as a mass genocide (often by fire), could those events be considered

a holocaust? If not, is that because British students are so frequently taught that we

were the good guys in the war? Barkawi and Laffey propose the idea that the

Holocaust ‘set[s] the standard for what is considered unacceptable behaviour’ (ibid,

pp. 340). Obviously, the Holocaust was the responsibility of a European state, but as

I said before, Germany was perceived as being ‘not Western’ (ibid, pp. 341), but that

fact doesn’t make what I was taught any less Eurocentric, or perhaps realist, given

that there was a significant focus on states that were significant powers at the time.

How can we claim that the Allies fought for the safety of Europe when we unleashed

such deadly nuclear power on Japan, and then not label it a Holocaust? Why are we

taught that the Allies were any better than the Axis forces?

Word count: 1588

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Bibliography

Barkawi, T. and Laffey, M. (2006) ‘The Postcolonial Moment in Security Studies’,

Review of International Studies, 32(2), pp. 329-352.

Gottmann, J. (1945) ‘Bugeaud, Gallieni, Lyautey: The Development of French

Colonial Warfare’, in Earle, E. M. (ed.) Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought

from Machiavelli to Hitler. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 376-407.

Lawrence, P. K. (1987) ‘Strategy, the State and the Weberian Legacy’, Review of

International Studies, 13(4), pp. 295-310.

T-House (2019) John Mearsheimer vs. Yan Xuetong: Can China rise peacefully? 21

October. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xokkGnBOgiU&t=414s

(Accessed: 16 November 2020).