Blogs

Captive Minds, Coloniality and International Relations

Captive Minds, Coloniality and International Relations

Ever since Stanley Hoffman1 exposed International Relations as a hegemonized discipline, there has been a growing trend among International Relations scholars to unveil the knowledge and power structures which sustain the hegemony of the West in knowledge production...

Reading Between the Lines: The Devil is in the Interpretation

Reading Between the Lines: The Devil is in the Interpretation

“…now is not the moment to blame the victim,” writes Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Steven Tian, and Dan Raviv in Time Magazine1 while defending the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made Gaza the world’s largest ‘open-air prison’2 and killed thousands of...

‘Eurocentrism’ in the Field of International Relations (IR)

‘Eurocentrism’ in the Field of International Relations (IR)

The field of International Relations (IR) adopts a ‘Eurocentric’ gaze in envisioning world politics. With Eurocentric biases contaminating IR, the discipline is identified as being parochial and not representative of the non-Western realities. Various scholars from...

‘Decolonizing’ higher education in Pakistan: If not now, when?

‘Decolonizing’ higher education in Pakistan: If not now, when?

A body of discourse is emerging on the practice of ‘decolonization’ within education and the larger social sciences. Putting it plainly, decolonization means “the undoing of colonialism.”1 Decolonization signifies a range of positions that argue that despite former...

The Use of Human Shields in Contemporary Armed Conflicts

The Use of Human Shields in Contemporary Armed Conflicts

The 21st century has brought about multiple problems for democracies engaged in armed conflicts. One such major problem that has caught the attention of international humanitarian watchdogs is the use of civilians as human shields during hostilities. Despite existing...

Re-Thinking FATF and its Widening Mandate

The 21st-century interstate conflict has taken a shift from conventional kinetic warfare towards other means, one being the use of legal warfare, to achieve similar strategic state interests. The international legal establishment influenced by global powers has taken...