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"Taming the Imperial Imagination marks a novel intervention into the debate on empire and international relations, and offers a new perspective on nineteenth-century Anglo-Afghan relations. Martin J. Bayly shows how, throughout the nineteenth century, the British Empire in India sought to understand and control its peripheries through the use of colonial knowledge. Addressing the fundamental question of what Afghanistan itself meant to the British at the time, he draws on extensive archival research to show how knowledge of Afghanistan was built, refined and warped by an evolving colonial state. This knowledge informed policy choices and cast Afghanistan in a separate legal and normative universe. Beginning with the disorganised exploits of nineteenth-century explorers and ending with the cold strategic logic of the militarised 'scientific frontier', this book tracks the nineteenth-century origins of contemporary policy 'expertise' and the forms of knowledge that inform interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere today. The book develops in three parts, each of which corresponds to a theme. Part one on 'knowledge' examines how British colonial knowledge of Afghanistan was constructed through the experience of early British explorers and their published travel accounts, focusing in particular on the works of Mountstuart Elphinstone, Alexander Burnes, and Charles Masson. Part two on 'policy' looks at how key policy decisions leading to the First Anglo-Afghan War were shaped by the knowledge provided by an Afghanistan 'knowledge community' based on this earlier body of work and the interpretations made by colonial officials. Part three on 'exception' considers the impact of the First Anglo-Afghan War on diplomatic relations, and charts the emergence of a particular 'idea' of Afghanistan mediated by inter-imperial visions of order, and the intellectual and cultural influences of a particular British frontier mentality"--

AbstractAdvocates of global international relations (IR) present IR as a Eurocentric discipline that should now diversify its theoretical and empirical focus to the non-west. This paper turns this argument on its head, arguing that IR was 'global at birth'. Concentrating in particular on the implications that global IR debate has for our understanding of the historical development of disciplinary knowledge, the article argues that both conventional and critical stances within this debate tend to express a substantialist conception of knowledge formations, one which encourages diffusionist ideas of the spread of knowledge from an origin to a destination, and essentialist representations of specific geographies of knowledge. In order to address this, the paper proposes a relational sociology of disciplinary knowledge that offers a more historically grounded understanding of the ongoing, provisional, connected, and configurational nature of knowledge construction, without losing sight of the hierarchies that inflect this. The article applies this framework to archival work on the intellectual history of international thought in India, offering an approach that allows a global account of the development of disciplinary IR that operates within and beyond imperial frames, encompassing the entangled histories of colonial, anti-colonial, and postcolonial lineages of what became known as 'International Relations' in the 20th century.

The Eurocentric critique of the International Relations discipline has brought welcome attention to non-European international thinkers, and anti-colonial or anti-imperial thinkers in particular. Frequently these thinkers and associated movements are rightly described in thematic terms of emancipation, equality, and justice, in opposition to the hierarchical worldview of empires and their acolytes. Notwithstanding the broad validity of this depiction, a purely oppositional picture risks obscuring those aspects of 'non-European' international thought that evade simple categorisation. Drawing upon archival material and historical works, this article applies approaches offered by global intellectual history to the works of late colonial Indian international thinkers, exploring the mixed registers of equality and hierarchy, internationalism and imperialism present in their writings. Concentrating on three 'sites' connected by the common themes of diaspora and mobility: the plight of Indians overseas in East Africa; the concept of 'greater India'; and the international political thought of Benoy Kumar Sarkar, the article complicates the internationalism/imperialism divide of the early twentieth century, showing how ostensibly opposed scholarly communities sometimes competed over similar forms of knowledge and ways of ordering the world. This offers a framework by which the contributions of global intellectual history can be applied to the study of international political thought.

AbstractThe Eurocentric critique of the International Relations discipline has brought welcome attention to non-European international thinkers, and anti-colonial or anti-imperial thinkers in particular. Frequently these thinkers and associated movements are rightly described in thematic terms of emancipation, equality, and justice, in opposition to the hierarchical worldview of empires and their acolytes. Notwithstanding the broad validity of this depiction, a purely oppositional picture risks obscuring those aspects of 'non-European' international thought that evade simple categorisation. Drawing upon archival material and historical works, this article applies approaches offered by global intellectual history to the works of late colonial Indian international thinkers, exploring the mixed registers of equality and hierarchy, internationalism and imperialism present in their writings. Concentrating on three 'sites' connected by the common themes of diaspora and mobility: the plight of Indians overseas in East Africa; the concept of 'greater India'; and the international political thought of Benoy Kumar Sarkar, the article complicates the internationalism/imperialism divide of the early twentieth century, showing how ostensibly opposed scholarly communities sometimes competed over similar forms of knowledge and ways of ordering the world. This offers a framework by which the contributions of global intellectual history can be applied to the study of international political thought.

This article offers a new perspective on 'buffer states' — states that are geographically located between two rival powers — and their effect on international relations, with a particular focus on the imperial setting. The article argues that such geographic spaces have often been analysed through a structuralist-functionalist lens, which has, in some cases, encouraged ahistorical understandings on the role of buffer states in international affairs. In contrast, the article offers an approach borrowing from the literature on ontological security and critical geopolitics in order to access the meanings that such spaces have for their more powerful neighbours. The article draws upon the case study of Afghanistan and Anglo-Afghan relations during the 19th century and finds that, in this case, due to the ambiguity of Afghanistan's status as a 'state', and the failure of British policymakers to establish routinized diplomatic engagement, Anglo-Afghan relations exhibited a sense of ontological insecurity for the British. These findings suggest previously unacknowledged international effects of 'buffer states', and may apply to such geographic spaces elsewhere.

This article seeks to add to the exploration and development of Imperial History's contribution to the discipline of International Relations (IR). Focusing on British perceptions of Afghanistan in the period preceding the first Anglo-Afghan war the article considers colonial knowledge as a source of identity construction, but in a manner that avoids deploying anachronistic concepts, in this case that of the Afghan 'state'. This approach, which draws on the insights brought to IR by historical sociology, shows that engaging with Imperial History within IR can encourage a more reflexive attitude to core disciplinary categories. This not only reveals alternative approaches to the construction of specific political communities but it also allows for a more historicist mode in the use of history by IR as a discipline. Furthermore, by moving away from material based purely on diplomatic history, Afghanistan's imperial encounter can be recovered from the dominance of 'Great Game' narratives, offering an account that is more appreciative of the Afghanistan context. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractThis article seeks to add to the exploration and development of Imperial History's contribution to the discipline of International Relations (IR). Focusing on British perceptions of Afghanistan in the period preceding the first Anglo-Afghan war the article considers colonial knowledge as a source of identity construction, but in a manner that avoids deploying anachronistic concepts, in this case that of the Afghan 'state'. This approach, which draws on the insights brought to IR by historical sociology, shows that engaging with Imperial History within IR can encourage a more reflexive attitude to core disciplinary categories. This not only reveals alternative approaches to the construction of specific political communities but it also allows for a more historicist mode in the use of history by IR as a discipline. Furthermore, by moving away from material based purely on diplomatic history, Afghanistan's imperial encounter can be recovered from the dominance of 'Great Game' narratives, offering an account that is more appreciative of the Afghanistan context.

AbstractAs of the first week of February 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over two million people dead across the globe. This essay argues that in order to fully understand the politics arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to focus on the individual and collective experiences of death, loss, and grief. While the emerging scholarly discourse on the pandemic, particularly in political science and international relations, typically considers death only in terms of its effects on formal state-level politics and as a policy objective for mitigation, we argue that focusing on the particularities of the experience of death resulting from COVID-19 can help us fully understand the ways in which the pandemic is reordering our worlds. Examining the ambiguous sociopolitical meaning of death by COVID-19 can provide broader analytical comparisons with other mass death events. Ultimately, the essay argues that centering the impact of the pandemic on the experience of death and loss directly poses the question of how politics should value human lives in the post-pandemic world, helping us better formulate the normative questions necessary for a more ethical future.

As of the first week of February 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over two million people dead across the globe. This essay argues that in order to fully understand the politics arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to focus on the individual and collective experiences of death, loss, and grief. While the emerging scholarly discourse on the pandemic, particularly in political science and international relations, typically considers death only in terms of its effects on formal state-level politics and as a policy objective for mitigation, we argue that focusing on the particularities of the experience of death resulting from COVID-19 can help us fully understand the ways in which the pandemic is reordering our worlds. Examining the ambiguous sociopolitical meaning of death by COVID-19 can provide broader analytical comparisons with other mass death events. Ultimately, the essay argues that centering the impact of the pandemic on the experience of death and loss directly poses the question of how politics should value human lives in the post-pandemic world, helping us better formulate the normative questions necessary for a more ethical future.