Atanu Acharya
Biographic Data
| ID | 672260 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Atanu Acharya |
| GIVEN NAMES | Atanu |
| FAMILY NAME | Acharya |
| SIGNATURE | ACHARYA A |
| AFFILIATIONS | American University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7861-5895 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 105 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2472 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 105 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 18 |
To Create a New World Order, Look to History
The liberal international order is often described as a Western invention, yet its core principles—democracy, free trade, and human rights—have deep, neglected roots in non-Western civilizations. From the cultural pluralism of the Persian Empire and the moral edicts of Emperor Ashoka to the maritime legal traditions of the Indian Ocean, history reveals that global stability does not depend on Western hegemony. As US dominance recedes and the worl…
Thinking beyond a polarized world: Why multiplexity matters
This article acts as a conclusion to the special section in this issue of International Affairs. It draws on the articles included in the special section and the broader research project behind it, which seeks to offer a reading of power and pluralism in the post-liberal era, building on the concept of a ‘multiplex world order’ first introduced in Acharya's 2014 work The end of American world order. The article presents four key dimensions of mul…
New Perspectives on Trust in International Conflicts
This forum proposes to rethink the specific conditions and dynamics under which trust can endogenously emerge in international conflicts. Traditionally, International Relations (IR) scholars have viewed trust and conflict as opposites or antagonists, with trust being seen as essential to overcoming conflict, and conflict seen as corrosive of trust. However, this framing is of limited use when it comes to understanding the complex role of trust in…
The once and future world order
Living the Asian century: An undiplomatic memoir
Thank You to Reviewers
Before the Nation-State: Civilizations, World Orders, and the Origins of Global International Relations
The dominant perspectives on International Relations (IR) focus on the rise of the Western civilization and the global expansion of the European Westphalian system as their starting point. This leads to a narrow Eurocentric understanding of IR that obscures the role and contribution of other civilizations to the evolution of world order. However, during the last 5000 years, many civilizations have risen, fallen, and survived. This essay focuses o…
Beijing's global media offensive: China's uneven campaign to influence Asia and the world
Journal Article Beijing's global media offensive: China's uneven campaign to influence Asia and the world Get access Beijing's global media offensive: China's uneven campaign to influence Asia and the world. By Joshua Kurlantzick. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2022. 560pp. £22.99. Isbn978 0 19751 576 1. Available as e-book. Amitav Acharya Amitav Acharya American University, USA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google S…
Multipolar or multiplex? Interaction capacity, global cooperation and world order
This article uses a new concept-multiplexity, rather than multipolarity or liberal hegemony-to describe and analyse the changing world order. Instead of conventional measures like economic or military power, it uses 'interaction capacity' among states, or the relative ability of nations to exercise leadership and organize cooperation as the key world order measure. Using a new dataset composed of post-Second World War treaties to measure interact…
How to Problematize the Global
International Relations (IR) has long been criticized for taking a particular (Western) experience as basis for formulating theories with claim to universal validity. In response, recent discussions have therefore centered on making IR ‘truly global’, that is, more inclusive and less parochial in its language and substance. But the concept of the global underpinning this discussion is both illusive and strongly contested. It requires problematiza…
Before the “West: Recovering the Forgotten Foundations of Global Order
During the past two decades, there have been growing calls for broadening the discipline of international relations (IR) by giving due recognition to the history, culture, ideas, and agency of non-Western states and societies. Several aspects of this trend are noteworthy. First, it originated from the growing dissatisfaction by non-Western scholars with the Western (US and European) dominance of the IR field, a dominance that obscures and margina…
Race and racism in the founding of the modern world order
While race existed as a cultural marker in earlier history, a mutually-reinforcing link between racism, slavery and empire is a distinct product of western Europe and the US-led world order. Yet, mainstream scholarship on International Relations has obscured the question of race or worse, legitimized its exclusion in discussions of world order-building. At the same time, demand for racial equality from anti-colonial forces presented an alternativ…
Re-imagining International Relations: World Orders in the Thought and Practice of Indian, Chinese, and Islamic Civilizations
Buzan and Acharya challenge the discipline of International Relations to reimagine itself in the light of the thinking about, and practice of, international relations and world order from premodern India, China and the Islamic world. This prequel to their 2019 book, The Making of Global International Relations, takes the story back from the two-century tale of modern IR, to reveal the deep global history of the discipline. It shows the multiple o…
Discussion of the Forum: A conversation between Arlene B. Tickner, Andrew Hurrell and Amitav Acharya
Unpacking the dynamics of weak states’ agency
This introductory article provides rationales and contextual background for the special issue which examines how weak states in Asia actualise and exercise their agency in the twenty-first century regional or global environments. The article opens with a consideration of why attention is drawn to the agency of the weak. Weak states are often treated as ‘objects’ of international politics rather than ‘subjects’, and their foreign policy actions ar…
Asean and Regional Order: Revisiting Security Community in Southeast Asia
Founded in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has emerged as one of the most successful regional organizations in the world. This book discusses the future of ASEAN against a backdrop of a growing US–China rivalry and the security implications of COVID-19. Chapters in this book move through a history of ASEAN and its multilateral institutions, including the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the East Asia Summit (EAS), featuring…
Forum on Pedagogy: The Introductory Course in International Relations: Regional Variations
This forum explores how societal contexts affect how instructors teach introductory undergraduate courses in international relations (IR), global politics, and international studies. Contributors teach at universities in China, Ecuador, India, Morocco, South Africa, the United Kingdom–Scotland, and the United States. Because instructors vary the structure, content, and pedagogical approaches in their courses (and perhaps most in their introductor…
The United Nations: Managing and Reshaping a Changing World Order
The Myth of the “Civilization State”: Rising Powers and the Cultural Challenge to World Order
“Civilization” is back at the forefront of global policy debates. The leaders of rising powers such as China, India, Turkey, and Russia have stressed their civilizational identity in framing their domestic and foreign policy platforms. An emphasis on civilizational identity is also evident in U.S. president Donald Trump's domestic and foreign policy. Some analysts argue that the twenty-first century might belong to the civilization state, just as…
The Making of Global International Relations: Origins and Evolution of IR at its Centenary
This book presents a challenge to the discipline of international relations (IR) to rethink itself, in the light of both its own modern origins, and the two centuries of world history that have shaped it. By tracking the development of thinking about IR, and the practice of world politics, this book shows how they relate to each other across five time periods from nineteenth-century colonialism, through two world wars, the Cold War and decoloniza…
From Heaven to Earth: Cultural Idealism' and 'Moral Realism' as Chinese Contributions to Global International Relations
The discipline of International Relations (IR) is increasingly being criticized for ignoring and marginalizing states and societies outside of the core countries of the West. The idea of a 'Global IR' has been proposed since 2014 a pathway toward a bridging the 'West and the Rest' divide and thus develop a more inclusive discipline, recognizing its multiple and diverse foundations. At the same time, there is a trend toward developing theories, or…
Multiple modernities in a multiplex world
The decline of the Western-dominated world order is not leading to multipolarity, as many traditional pundits assume, but to multiplexity . A Multiplex World has multiple layers of governance, including global, interregional, regional, domestic, and sub-state. Moreover, the idea challenges two of the core ideas of liberal modernity: its association of economic development with growth of the Gross Domestic Product and its conflation of security wi…
Constructing Global Order: Agency and Change in World Politics
For a long time, international relations scholars have adopted a narrow view of what is global order, who are its makers and managers, and what means they employ to realize their goals. Amitav Acharya argues that the nature and scope of agency in the global order - who creates it and how - needs to be redefined and broadened. Order is built not by material power alone, but also by ideas and norms. While the West designed the post-war order, the n…
East of India, South of China: Sino-Indian Encounters in Southeast Asia
This volume will explore the role of India and China in regional geopolitics, with a focus on Southeast Asia. It highlights some of the key events and turning points in the evolving equations since the times of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indias first prime minister. In six chapters, it shows how Indias prominent position in devising the regional architecture in Asia was diluted after the Bandung era, especially after the Indo-China war in 1962. The author…
Chou En-Lai at Bandung
This chapter looks at how India’s relationship with China evolved prior to and during the Bandung Conference and the impact of the conference in fuelling Sino-Indian mistrust, although the Nehru–Chou rivalry at Bandung was clearly exaggerated by Western media and spies. By and large, Nehru, as the key player in Asian regionalism at this stage, succeeded in the goal of ‘introducing’ communist China to the rest of Asia—something that would have tak…
How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism
Questions about norm diffusion in world politics are not simply about whether and how ideas matter, but also which and whose ideas matter. Constructivist scholarship on norms tends to focus on "hard" cases of moral transformation in which "good" global norms prevail over the "bad" local beliefs and practices. But many local beliefs are themselves part of a legitimate normative order, which conditions the acceptance of foreign norms. Going beyond …
Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds: A New Agenda for International Studies
The discipline of International Relations (IR) does not reflect the voices, experiences, knowledge claims, and contributions of the vast majority of the societies and states in the world, and often marginalizes those outside the core countries of the West. With IR scholars around the world seeking to find their own voices and reexamining their own traditions, our challenge now is to chart a course toward a truly inclusive discipline, recognizing …
Norm Subsidiarity and Regional Orders: Sovereignty, Regionalism, and Rule-Making in the Third World1
This paper proposes a new conceptual tool to study norm dynamics in world politics. Termed norm subsidiarity, it concerns the process whereby local actors create rules with a view to preserve their autonomy from dominance, neglect, violation, or abuse by more powerful central actors. After a theoretical discussion of the definition, motivations, and effects of norm subsidiarity, the paper offers a case study of normative action against Cold War a…
Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia: Asean and the Problem of Regional Order
In this third edition of Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia, Amitav Acharya offers a comprehensive and critical account of the evolution of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) norms and the viability of the ASEAN way of conflict management. Building on the framework from the first edition, which inspired the establishment of the ASEAN Political-Security community, this new edition has been extensively updated and r…
Why is there no non-Western international relations theory? An introduction
In Section 1, we outline the conceptual framework, rationale, and objectives of the Special Issue. Next, we clarify what we mean by 'international relation theory (IRT)', which would serve as the basis for organizing the case studies. We then examine several possible explanations of the absence of non-Western IRT, such as the belief that Western IRT has discovered the right path to understanding international relations so as to preclude the need …
After Liberal Hegemony: The Advent of a Multiplex World Order
While the West woke up to the threat to the liberal international order when Donald Trump was elected U.S. president, its decline was apparent even at the height of the Obama-Clinton era. What follows the end of the U.S.-dominated world order is not a return to multipolarity as many pundits assume. The twenty-first-century world—politically and culturally diverse but economically and institutionally interlinked—is vastly different from the multip…
Ideas, identity, and institution‐building: From the ‘Asean way’ to the ‘Asia‐Pacific way
This article examines the extent to which the development of multilateral institutions in the Asia‐Pacific region may be viewed as an exercise in identity‐building. It argues that institution‐building in this region is more of a ‘process‐orientated’ phenomenon, rather than simply being an outcome of structural changes in the international system (such as the decline of American hegemony). The process combines universal principles of multilaterali…
The Emerging Regional Architecture of World Politics
This article examines the importance of regions in shaping world order. Reviewing two recent books that claim that the contemporary world order is an increasingly regionalized one, the author argues that regions matter to the extent they can be relatively autonomous entities. While both books accept that regions are social constructs, their answer to the question of who makes regions reflects a bias in favor of powerful actors. A regional underst…
Dialogue and Discovery: In Search of International Relations Theories Beyond the West
Scholars of International Relations (IR) increasingly realise that their discipline, including its theories and methods, often neglects voices and experiences outside of the West. But how do we address this problem and move the discipline forward? While some question whether ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ (or ‘post-Western’) are useful labels, there are also other perspectives, including those who believe in the adequacy of existing theories and app…
Human Security: East versus West
Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; on leave as Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto. This article is based on a paper presented at the 15th Asia Pacific Roundtable, Kuala Lumpur, 4-7 June, 2001. The author would like to thank two anonymous referees for their valuable comments on an earlier draft of the article. We need to fashion a new…
Advancing Global IR: Challenges, Contentions, and Contributions
This Presidential Issue, with contributions by scholars from Asia, Australia, the Middle East, South America, Africa, Europe, and the United States, illustrates how the idea of Global international relations (IR) could serve as a framework for both scholarly debate and empirical research and analysis. This issue is divided into two main parts. The first part contains nine feature articles that illustrate the multiple dimensions of a Global IR res…
Power Shift or Paradigm Shift? China's Rise and Asia's Emerging Security Order
This essay proposes a new theoretical framework for analyzing the rise of China and its impact on Asian security order. While the rise of China is reshaping Asia's military balance, the region has also witnessed equally important and longer-term changes, especially economic interdependence, multilateral institutions and domestic politics. The implications of these changes are not fully accounted for by the different types of security orders propo…
The R2P and Norm Diffusion: Towards A Framework of Norm Circulation
The case of R2P calls for greater attention to agency and feedback in norm dynamics. New international norms are more likely to spread if the responsibility for their creation and diffusion is seen to have been more broadly shared than being credited to any particular group. Many new norms have multiple sources and contexts, yet there is a tendency to credit them to their final point of articulation. Moreover, once created, norms do not remain un…
Why is there no Non-Western International Relations Theory? Ten years on
A decade ago in 2007 we published a forum in International Relations of the Asia-Pacific (IRAP) on ‘Why there is no non-Western IR theory?’. Now we revisit this project ten years on, and assess the current state of play. What we do in this article is first, to survey and assess the relevant literature that has come out since then; second, to set out four ways in which our own understanding of this issue has evolved since 2007; third to reflect on…
The Myth of the “Civilization State”: Rising Powers and the Cultural Challenge to World Order
“Civilization” is back at the forefront of global policy debates. The leaders of rising powers such as China, India, Turkey, and Russia have stressed their civilizational identity in framing their domestic and foreign policy platforms. An emphasis on civilizational identity is also evident in U.S. president Donald Trump's domestic and foreign policy. Some analysts argue that the twenty-first century might belong to the civilization state, just as…
Will Asia's Past Be Its Future
Post-Cold War debates about Asian security have been dominated by Aaron Friedberg's inuential image of a region seemingly "ripe for rivalry." 1 Friedberg stressed Asia's lack of stability-enhancing mechanisms of the kind that sustains peace in Europe, such as its high levels of regional economic integration and regional institutions to mitigate and manage conict.Other pessimists foresaw regional disorder stemming from Asian states' attempts to ba…
Culture, security, multilateralism: The ‘Asean way’ and regional order
(1998). Culture, security, multilateralism: The 'ASEAN way' and regional order. Contemporary Security Policy: Vol. 19, CULTURE AND SECURITY Multilateralism, Arms Control and Security Building, pp. 55-84
From Heaven to Earth: Cultural Idealism' and 'Moral Realism' as Chinese Contributions to Global International Relations
The discipline of International Relations (IR) is increasingly being criticized for ignoring and marginalizing states and societies outside of the core countries of the West. The idea of a 'Global IR' has been proposed since 2014 a pathway toward a bridging the 'West and the Rest' divide and thus develop a more inclusive discipline, recognizing its multiple and diverse foundations. At the same time, there is a trend toward developing theories, or…
Democratisation and the prospects for participatory regionalism in Southeast Asia
This article explores the impact of democratic transitions in Southeast Asia on regional co-operation, and the relationship between this process and the development of a non-official regionalism. Until now, regionalism in Southeast Asia has been essentially elite-centred and politically illiberal. The emergence of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was founded upon the common desire of its members, which had by then retreated significantl…
Race and racism in the founding of the modern world order
While race existed as a cultural marker in earlier history, a mutually-reinforcing link between racism, slavery and empire is a distinct product of western Europe and the US-led world order. Yet, mainstream scholarship on International Relations has obscured the question of race or worse, legitimized its exclusion in discussions of world order-building. At the same time, demand for racial equality from anti-colonial forces presented an alternativ…
Studying the Bandung conference from a Global IR perspective
Mainstream international relations scholarship has ignored or disparaged the significance and legacies of the Bandung conference. The author argues in favour of its importance, not only for any serious investigation into the evolution of the post-war international order, but also for the development of Global IR as a truly universal discipline: a global international relations. Few events offer more fertile ground for rethinking the established b…
Do norms and identity matter? Community and power in Southeast Asia's regional order
This article reviews Michael Leifer's contribution to the study of Southeast Asian regionalism, particularly the role of ASEAN and the ASEAN Regional Forum. Unlike some who portray Leifer as a realist or a neo-realist who totally dismissed the role of ASEAN in the regional order, this article argues that the real difference between Leifer's and the newer constructivist understanding of Southeast Asia is not so much over whether regionalism matter…
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations: Security Community" or "Defence Community
JN May 1989, the former foreign minister of Malaysia, Abu Hassan lOmar, called on the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to form a Defence Community which would take them to new heights of political and military cooperation.I Though not clearly defined, the concept merits serious attention from anyone interested in ASEAN's past and future. Since its inception, the chief political goal of ASEAN has been to prevent, man…
State Sovereignty after 9/11: Disorganised Hypocrisy
This article examines the implications of the 9/11 attacks and the US-led ‘global war on terror’ for debates about state sovereignty. To support its attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush administration put forth a ‘selective sovereignty’ thesis that would legitimise intervention in states that are accused of supporting terrorists. This new rationale for intervention was paradoxically justified as a means of ensuring a ‘well-ordered world of s…
Idea-shift’: How ideas from the rest are reshaping global order
An ‘idea-shift’ is taking place that may be of greater consequence for global governance than is the ongoing ‘power shift’ or the rise of new powers. A number of non-Western thinkers and practitioners - who may be called idea-shifters - have contributed to new concepts and approaches that have radically altered the way we think about development, security and ecology, among other areas. Their ideas are often dismissed or downgraded in the West as…
Problems in Australian Foreign Policy January‐june 1986
Problems in Australian Foreign Policy, July—December 1985
The United States Versus the USSR in the Pacific: Trends in the Military Balance
In recent the United States and the Soviet Union have repeatedly accused each other of relentlessly expanding and modernizing their military forces and presence in the Pacific region. most far-reaching military development of recent years, says the Reagan Administration, been the dramatic increase of Soviet power in East Asia and the Pacific and the Indian Oceans.1 The Soviets have returned the compliment; as one commentator put it, Striving for …
Arms Proliferation Issues in Asean: Towards a More “Conventional” Defence Posture
The armed forces of the ASEAN countries have embarked upon a major drive to modernize their air and naval capabilities. But does this reflect a shift in emphasis from internal security operations to conventional warfare? This paper finds that the air and naval forces of four ASEAN countries are moving beyond internal secur ity and coastal defence roles. A number of factors have affected this transition, especially the declining credibility of the…
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations: Security Community" or "Defence Community
JN May 1989, the former foreign minister of Malaysia, Abu Hassan lOmar, called on the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to form a Defence Community which would take them to new heights of political and military cooperation.I Though not clearly defined, the concept merits serious attention from anyone interested in ASEAN's past and future. Since its inception, the chief political goal of ASEAN has been to prevent, man…
The “New World Order” and International Security after the Gulf War: An Assessment
Regional Military-Security Cooperation in the Third World: A Conceptual Analysis of the Relevance and Limitations of Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)
In the Third World, regional military-security cooperation has evolved through three frameworks. The advent of the Cold War saw the emergence of two competing frameworks, one of which may be termed `autonomous' and the other, `hegemonic'. A review of these frameworks and their practical manifestations points to some important lessons concerning the limitations of regional military-security cooperation in the Third World. By using these lessons as…
Cambodia, the United Nations and the problems of peace
(1994). Cambodia, the United Nations and the problems of peace. The Pacific Review: Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 297-308
A regional security community in Southeast Asia
(1995). A regional security community in Southeast Asia? Journal of Strategic Studies: Vol. 18, The Transformation of Security in the Asia/Pacific Region, pp. 175-200
Transnational Production and Security: Southeast Asia ́ “Growth Triangles”
Transnational Production and Security: Southeast Asia ́ “Growth Triangles”
Fiscal Burden Sharing
The authors argue that a reformulated system of refugee protection must proceed using a distributive-developmental framework for fiscal burden sharing. Such a framework would have to appeal to the national security interests of donors, rather than to humanitarian or altruistic motives. The funds provided should be tied to concrete, time-specified goals which will contribute to the well being of refugees. They argue that this approach should be pu…
Ideas, identity, and institution‐building: From the ‘Asean way’ to the ‘Asia‐Pacific way
This article examines the extent to which the development of multilateral institutions in the Asia‐Pacific region may be viewed as an exercise in identity‐building. It argues that institution‐building in this region is more of a ‘process‐orientated’ phenomenon, rather than simply being an outcome of structural changes in the international system (such as the decline of American hegemony). The process combines universal principles of multilaterali…
Culture, security, multilateralism: The ‘Asean way’ and regional order
(1998). Culture, security, multilateralism: The 'ASEAN way' and regional order. Contemporary Security Policy: Vol. 19, CULTURE AND SECURITY Multilateralism, Arms Control and Security Building, pp. 55-84
The Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty
Introduction: Reconceptualizing Southeast Asia
Imagined Proximities: The Making and Unmaking of Southeast Asia as a Region
A concert of Asia
A Concert of Asia
Southeast Asia's Democratic Moment
Among the multiple effects of the current economic crisis is the challenge it has posed to authoritarian rule. While governments of the region emphasize the social dislocation and potential for political instability caused by the economic downturn, Musa Hitam, a former Malaysian deputy prime minister, has pointed out that the present social, economic scenario, the human rights cause seems to be [the] winner here.1 Contrasting the political chaos …
Mondialisation et souveraineté: Une réévaluation de leur lien
Les Etats en Asie ont generalement considere favorablement la mondialisation malgre le risque qu’elle a toujours fait peser sur leur souverainete. La mondialisation n’a pas seulement ete employee pour augmenter la puissance et la position des Etats dans le systeme international, comme on pourrait l’attendre de relations internationales conventionnelles, mais aussi d’une maniere plus fondamentale, pour assurer la securite et la legitimite du regim…
Human Security: East versus West
Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; on leave as Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto. This article is based on a paper presented at the 15th Asia Pacific Roundtable, Kuala Lumpur, 4-7 June, 2001. The author would like to thank two anonymous referees for their valuable comments on an earlier draft of the article. We need to fashion a new…
Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia
Regional Institutions and Asian Security Order: Norms, Power, and Prospects for Peaceful Change
Redefining the dilemmas of humanitarian intervention
Nothing in the UN Charter precludes a recognition that there are rights beyond borders. What the Charter does say is that ‘armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest’. But what is that common interest? Who shall dee ne it? Who shall defend it? Under whose authority? And with what means of intervention? Koe Annan (1999). The Responsibility to Protect: The Report of the International Commission on Humanitarian Intervention and State…
Political science (86 works) · Law (63 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (55 works) · Sociology (53 works) · Politics (51 works) · Law (44 works) · Economics (38 works) · Political economy (31 works) · International Development and Aid (28 works) · History (27 works)