Despite IR theory’s Western origins, it can still reveal useful insights when applied to Asia, particularly when combined with a focus on policy consequences

Moreover, theory is too “Western”. Thus, even among those writers on Asian IR that are theoretically oriented, disagreement persists as to whether IR theory is relevant to studying Asia, given its origin in, and close association with, Western historical traditions, intellectual discourses and foreign policy practices. International relations theory, like the discipline itself, has been, and remains, an “American social science” to quote Stanley Hoffman’s much quoted phrase.3 The recent advances made by the “English School” and continental European constructivism have not made IR theory “universal”; it might have entrenched and broadened the Western dominance. The question of how relevant is IR theory to the study of Asian security have evoked strikingly different responses. On the one hand, David Kang has seized upon the nonrealization of realist warnings of post-war Asia being “ripe for rivalry” to critique not just realism, but Western IR theory in general for “getting Asia wrong”.4 In analyzing Asian regionalism, Peter Katzenstein comments: “Theories based on Western, and especially West European experience, have been of little use in making sense of Asian regionalism.”5 Although Katzenstein’s remarks specifically concern the study of Asian regionalism, they can be applied to Asian IR in general. And it is a view widely shared among Asian scholars. On the other side, John Ikenberry and Michael Mastanduno, defend the relevance of Western theoretical frameworks in studying the international relations of Asia. While intra-Asian relationships might have had some distinctive features historically, this distinctiveness had been diluted by the progressive integration of the region into the modern international system. The international relations of Asia has acquired the behavioral norms and attributes associated with the modern inter-state system which originated from Europe and still retains much of the features of the Westphalian model. Hence, the core concepts of international relations theory such as hegemony, the distribution of power, international regimes, and political identity, are as relevant in the Asian context as anywhere else.6

To this writer, this debate is a healthy caveat, rather than a debilitating constraint, on analyzing Asian international relations with the help an admittedly Western theoretical literature. To be sure, theoretical paradigms developed from the Western experience do not adequately capture the full range of ideas and relationships that drive international relations in Asia. But IR theories - realism, liberalism, constructivism and critical IR theories - are relevant and useful in analyzing Asian IR provided they do not encourage a selection bias in favor of those phenomena (ideas, events, trends, relationships) which fit with them and against that which does not. IR scholars should feel free to identify and study phenomena that are either ignored or given scarce attention by these perspectives. They should also develop concepts and insights from the Asian context and experience, not just to study Asian developments and dynamics, but also other parts of tGutmhe world. In other words, Western IR theory, despite its ethnocentrism, is not to be dismissed or expunged from Asian classrooms or seminars, but universalized with the infusion of Asian histories (Sam Kim essay), personalities, philosophies, trajectories and practices.

To do so, one must look beyond the contributions of those who write in an overtly theoretical fashion, explicitly employing theoretical jargon and making references to the theoretical literature of IR. A good deal of empirical or policy-relevant work may be regarded as theoretical for analytical purposes because they, like the speeches and writings of policymakers, reflect mental or social constructs that side with different paradigms of international relations.7 To ignore these in any discussion of theory would be to miss out on a large and important chunk of the debate and analysis of Asian IR.