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Ten years on since the Arab uprisings we are in a position to assess how the nexus between knowledge, discourse and practice had a bearing on the trajectory of the protests. They represented hope and change for millions of Arabs in the region, but to what extent was that the case for onlookers in Europe and the US, and did western discourse on events in the Middle East matter? While the toppling of longstanding dictators was met with jubilation by Arab populations, it conversely created anxiety and fear in many western governments. This was reflected in the shift from an initially celebratory discourse in western commentary to disappointment, pessimism and disavowal of the uprisings. Within a year, op-eds and academic articles were asking whether the 'Arab Spring' had turned into an 'Islamist winter', reverting to Orientalist narratives about the inevitability of conflict, bloodshed and sectarianism in the Middle East. I argue this discourse had implications for the outcome of the uprisings as 'latent Orientalism' translated into 'manifest Orientalism' and western states hesitated to support opposition groups they initially encouraged and emboldened. I begin the article with a study of western discourse in the first year of the uprisings, which I then situate within a long durée history of western policy and representation of the Middle East. In the final sections I consider the role of scholarship and think tanks as mediators of Orientalist discourse. ; Publisher PDF ; Peer reviewed

In this article, I ask three key questions: First, what is the relationship between militarism and race? Second, how does colonialism shape that relationship to produce racial militarism on both sides of the imperial encounter? And, third, what is the function of racial militarism? I build on Fanon's psychoanalytic work on the production of racial hierarchies and internalization of stigma to argue that militarism became a means through which the European imperial nation-state sought to mitigate its civilizational anxiety and assert itself at the top of a constructed hierarchy. In particular, I argue that European militarism is constituted by its colonization and historical constructions of the so-called Muslim Orient, stigmatized as a rival, a threat and an inferior neighbour. However, this racial militarism and civilizational anxiety is not only a feature of the colonial metropole, but also transferred onto colonized and postcolonial states. Drawing on examples of racial militarism practised by the Syrian regime, I argue Europe's racial-militarist stigmas are also internalized and instrumentalized by postcolonial states via fleeing and transferral. Throughout the article, I demonstrate that racial militarism has three main functions in both metropole and postcolony: the performance of racial chauvinism and superiority; demarcation of boundaries of exclusion; and dehumanization of racialized dissent in order to legitimate violence.

In this article, I ask three key questions: First, what is the relationship between militarism and race? Second, how does colonialism shape that relationship to produce racial militarism on both sides of the imperial encounter? And, third, what is the function of racial militarism? I build on Fanon's psychoanalytic work on the production of racial hierarchies and internalization of stigma to argue that militarism became a means through which the European imperial nation-state sought to mitigate its civilizational anxiety and assert itself at the top of a constructed hierarchy. In particular, I argue that European militarism is constituted by its colonization and historical constructions of the so-called Muslim Orient, stigmatized as a rival, a threat and an inferior neighbour. However, this racial militarism and civilizational anxiety is not only a feature of the colonial metropole, but also transferred onto colonized and postcolonial states. Drawing on examples of racial militarism practised by the Syrian regime, I argue Europe's racial-militarist stigmas are also internalized and instrumentalized by postcolonial states via fleeing and transferral. Throughout the article, I demonstrate that racial militarism has three main functions in both metropole and postcolony: the performance of racial chauvinism and superiority; demarcation of boundaries of exclusion; and dehumanization of racialized dissent in order to legitimate violence. ; Publisher PDF ; Peer reviewed

The International Affairs Centenary Special Issue on "Race and Imperialism in International Relations: Theory and Practice" was published two years ago in the aftermath of the global Black Lives Matter movement; it marked an atypical period of introspection by many scholars, departments, and journals of International Relations on the general paucity of attention given to matters of race and imperialism in IR research and teaching.

THe short-term contributions of the Special Issue have been worthwhile, but there remains a continued concern and challenge that with greater attention paid to race and imperialism in IR, these issues will become co-opted into the game of academic production, sanitised as intellectual curiosities, instead of being treated as matters of life and death that need to be opposed practically and not just on paper.

Is there an academic–policy divide, and does that gap need to be bridged? For decades, International Relations (IR) scholars have reflected on their roles and responsibilities towards the 'real world', while policy-makers have often critiqued the detachment of academic research. In response, there have been increased calls for academics to descend from their 'ivory tower'. However, the articles in this 100th anniversary special issue of International Affairs interrogate this so-called theory–policy divide and problematize the exchange of knowledge between academics and practitioners, highlighting the colonial underpinnings of their historical entanglements. In this introductory article we bring together the core arguments of the special issue contributions to delineate three prominent dynamics in the academic–practitioner nexus: the role of academia as a supplier of knowledge for colonial policies; the influence of imperial practice and policy-makers in shaping IR and academic knowledge production; and the contestation from academics and/or practitioners against racial hierarchies in knowledge production and policy-making. Confronting the exclusions, amnesias and denials of colonialism in the theory and practice of International Relations is the necessary first step in any process of repair towards a more just and viable politics. ; Publisher PDF ; Peer reviewed

Abstracts
Declaration of positionality and the confession of privilege as a way of revealing unequal power dynamics in knowledge production has become an increasingly encouraged reflexive practice in international relations and other disciplines. However, we interrogate the potentially negative implications of this methodology, occurring through a reification of material, assumed, and imagined hierarchies between people, which then is advertised and (re)produced by its utterance. We further query the modernist origins of reflexive methodology, which has inspired the practice of declaring positionality, and argue that its underpinning coloniality has bearings for its use today. We then explore how this coloniality manifests: Thus, first, we consider the extent to which publicly acknowledging privilege paradoxically acts as a means of centering whiteness through the narcissistic gaze and an assertion of legitimacy. Second, we argue positionality statements offer a redemption of guilt for the hegemonic researcher. And lastly, rather than ameliorating unequal power dynamics in the production of knowledge, we contend positionality statements may constitute hidden power moves in which one is able to signal and reinstate one's authority vis-à-vis people, but especially women, of color. We end with a call for a reparative scholarship that acknowledges these limitations in positionality statements.

A study of US-Syria relations, this book analyzes the legacy of mistrust between the two states and continuities and discontinuities over time. It challenges the purely realist and power-political explanation that is dominant and points to a politically embedded set of ideas rooted in anti-colonial Arab nationalist ideology

This article explores three key arguments: Firstly, it seeks to demonstrate the contradictions and limits within Kantian hospitality, and its links to colonialism and practices of racialisation. The acclaimed universalism of Kant's law of hospitality forecloses a discussion of its dualism, and erases the historical, racist context in which it was conceived. The prioritization of concept over conception allows Kant's theory on race to be obscured from official discourse and framing of policies while it still courses through inherited perceptions and theories.  Secondly, in making my case, I will be applying the notion of coloniality, coined by Aníbal Quijano and later developed by Walter Mignolo, to the existing but small body of critical discourse on Kant and race. Debates initiated on the peripheries of philosophy, law and anthropology in the 1990s have led the way in this regard. However, given the time that has elapsed, it is notable that their work has received little scrutiny in political theory and International Relations theory, and thus warrants renewed attention. I argue that the notion of coloniality provides a useful lens through which to do so, and a vehicle through which to apply those excavations to a contemporary context. Finally, the article explores the extent to which Kantian thought constitutes 'modern' cosmopolitanism, and draws attention to the inadvertently complicit role of second-generation cosmopolitans in the erasure of race from the study of Kant. The relationship between the collective erasure of race and racism in academia and European practice towards refugees and immigrants is briefly considered.

Faye Donnelly is a Lecturer in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. She is the author of Securitization and the Iraq War: The Rules of Engagement in World Politics (Routledge, 2013). Her most recent article, 'The Queen's Speech: Desecuritizing the Past, Present and Future of Anglo-Irish Relations' has been published in the European Journal of International Relations. Jasmine K. Gani is a Lecturer in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. She is the author of The Role of Ideology in Syrian-US Relations: Conflict and Cooperation (Palgrave 2014). Her latest article, 'The Erasure of Race: Cosmopolitanism and the Illusion of Kantian hospitality ' is forthcoming in Millennium Journal of International Studies. She tweets @JKGani. ; Publisher PDF