Political science emerged as a response to the challenges of imperial administration and the demands of colonial rule. While not all political scientists were colonial cheerleaders, their thinking was nevertheless framed by colonial assumptions that influence the study of politics to this day. This book offers students a lens through which to decolonize the main themes and issues of political science – from human nature, rights, and citizenship, to development and global justice. Not content with revealing the colonial legacies that still inform the discipline, the book also introduces students to a wide range of intellectual resources from the (post)colonial world that will help them think through the same themes and issues more expansively. Decolonizing Politics is a much-needed critical guide for students of political science. It shifts the study of political science from the centers of power to its margins, where the majority of humanity lives. Ultimately, the book argues that those who occupy the margins are not powerless. Rather, marginal positions might afford a deeper understanding of politics than can be provided by mainstream approaches.
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Robbie Shilliam. Decolonizing Politics
Table of Contents
Guide
Pages
Series Title. Decolonizing the Curriculum series
Decolonizing Politics. An Introduction
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
–1– Introduction
Aristotle’s World
Organization of the Book
–2– Political Theory
Kant: Humanitas and the Anthropos
Wynter: Man1 and Man2
Conclusion
–3– Political Behavior
The Science of Race Heredity
Eugenics and Behaviorism in the United States
Fanon’s anti-colonial psychiatry
Conclusion
–4– Comparative Politics
Colonialism and the Paradox of Comparison
Political Development and the Committee on Comparative Politics
Under-Development and Dar es Salaam University
Conclusion
–5– International Relations
Good Imperial Governance
International Society
A Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific
Conclusion
–6– Conclusion
References
Index
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Robbie Shilliam
If we looked at them now, we would say that the Greeks had Puerto Rican tastes. Right? Because the stones were painted brightly. They were not these bleached stones. Time went by, and they sort of whitened and weathered, the classics began to be thought of as something bleached-out and rain-spotted, distant. (Brown and Johnson 1996, 183).
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But, once again, it’s important to note that Aristotle’s defense of the polis against imperial degeneration is at the same time a defense of the model colony-city – a small, autonomous, and hierarchical society. This conservative defense not only requires Aristotle to make a distinction between slave, barbarian, and citizen, regardless of which peoples might populate such distinctions at any time. It also requires a defense of the patriarchal household that provides the opportunity for male heads of those households to be citizens.
In modeling the small self-determining colony-city, Aristotle presumes that the nature of politics is best served by patriarchal hierarchy, although not imperialism. But is a hierarchical polis the only regime through which humans can deliberate in order to attain and preserve the good life? Put another way, has nothing of value for the good life ever been thought of or said by those who exist at the bottom of or outside of that hierarchy: metics, women, slaves, and barbarians?
