{"id":12904,"date":"2011-10-21T10:18:35","date_gmt":"2011-10-21T15:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=12904"},"modified":"2011-10-21T12:42:34","modified_gmt":"2011-10-21T17:42:34","slug":"research-aims-to-explain-a-global-reality-turned-upside-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2011\/10\/research-aims-to-explain-a-global-reality-turned-upside-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Research explains a global reality turned upside down"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pierre

Pierre Liz\u00e9e<\/p><\/div>\n

A professor\u2019s new book is shedding light on the study of global politics in what is increasingly being referred to as the \u201cpost-Western world.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Whole New World<\/em> by Pierre Liz\u00e9e<\/a>, an associate professor of Political Science<\/a> who specializes in international relations, argues that the very discipline in which he works must change in order to make sense of our current global political climate.<\/p>\n

\u201cPast models of international studies can no longer adequately explain what is happening in the world,\u201d said Liz\u00e9e.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistory is reversing itself all around us. For the past four centuries it\u2019s been the West that has defined the rest. And what we\u2019re seeing now is the exact reverse movement. The rest is now defining the West, and a lot of this has to do with the rise of countries like China and India.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistory is changing its course and that\u2019s what this book is about,\u201d he said. \u201cThe very nature of how we think about global politics needs to be readjusted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking into account the hierarchical changes that Liz\u00e9e talks about on the global stage, how are we to understand a new world order no longer primarily focused on the West? How should we think about and interpret ideals like power, democracy and economic development in our changing world?<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these themes have traditionally been understood in relation to the Western experience of these realities,\u201d Liz\u00e9e said. \u201cBut now we have non-Western actors defining these global realities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe image the West has of itself is changing,\u201d he said. \u201cThe West always defined itself, not only as a leader, but as a force for good in the world. Now the West has to accept that others are defining its destiny and that\u2019s something completely new.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Liz\u00e9e, these seismic shifts in global politics have rendered past models of understanding international relations wide of the mark. This is due to the fact that scholars from America and Europe produced these paradigms, which is where global power has resided for the past century.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a gap between the world we need to explain and the explanations we have for that world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Going beyond the U.S.-centric slant of many other works on these issues, Liz\u00e9e questions our notions of global politics in order to catch up to the new world emerging around us. He also asks how the U.S. should reinvent its international role now that the rise of China has brought an end to American exceptionalism.<\/p>\n

So what does that mean for Canadian foreign policy?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. is no longer the U.S.,\u201d said Liz\u00e9e. \u201cThe U.S was the one pole of power for so long and Canada acted on that basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe answer seems to be \u2018we need to do more with China\u2019.\u201d \u201cWell, it is much more that. It is helping to rebuild an entire global system that can no longer operate on the basis upon which it has operated for the past 100 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liz\u00e9e, who received a Brock Chancellor’s Chair for Research Excellence to support his work, has researched this project for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked on this book for the past 10 years \u2014 travelling, living and teaching in Asia,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve essentially been living in two worlds. And it\u2019s been very interesting being a Westerner in Asia during this period because during this period we have seen the remarkable rise of Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liz\u00e9e is a well-known commentator on world politics. His opinion pieces have appeared in Canadian and international newspapers like the Globe and Mail<\/em>, Toronto Star<\/em>, Japan Times<\/em> and Jakarta Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He has also done work in diplomatic and policy circles in North America and Asia, and recently helped write a report on the Responsibility to Protect for the office of the U.N. Secretary-General.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Read past Brock News<\/em> researcher profiles<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The East is overshadowing the West when it comes to global politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,1,5],"tags":[42,3325,31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12904"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12904"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12910,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12904\/revisions\/12910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}