A humane analysis of a violent liberal international order

• Published in: International politics (Hague, Netherlands) Netherlands), 2023-02, Vol.60 (1), p.250-258
• Main Author: Parmar, Inderjeet
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Colonialism; Crises; Development Studies; Elites; Foreign Policy; International Political Economy; International Relations; Knowledge; Original Article; Political power; Political Science; Political Science and International Relations; Political Science and International Studies; Power; War
• ISSN: 1384-5748; 1740-3898
• DOI: 10.1057/s41311-022-00414-8

Siba Grovogui has written a compelling, insightful and thought-provoking series of observations on an ongoing dynamic war crisis and achieved something quite extraordinary—real-time analysis based on research, scholarship, and deep personal and philosophical reflections. Above all, in my view, he has humanely but incisively shown the inner struggles and dilemmas this particular war has unleashed, the complexities it illuminates to the critical mind, set against the political simplicities that great power wars and their power elites demand. The essays reflect in both personal and global terms how Russia’s war on Ukraine is felt, experienced, understood, contested. Grovogui has globalised and historicised the war in a many-sided way. It enriches our understanding and knowledge and complexifies it. He also highlights in no uncertain terms the crisis of credibility that is now festering in the liberal international order’s core states, a spectre that the Ukraine war is being used to exorcise. Only time will tell how successful that attempt is (Cooley and Nexon 2022 ). The essays are necessarily controversial—or they will be precisely for mobilising knowledge that muddies the waters. Knowledge is not neutral. What counts as knowledge—effective knowledge—depends on where we stand. Some knowledge is comfortable, confirmatory, feel-good. Other knowledges, from unorthodox sources beyond the boundary, are unsettling, uncomfortable, expose repressed painful memory, reframing context and revealing more than some might like. Knowledge in a time of war is particularly significant. It becomes simplified and weaponised. What follows is a selective discussion of some of the matters raised in Grovogui’s essays—my understanding of some of the points made, extension and amplification of some of them via different examples. I have also taken the liberty of discussing other matters that have become interesting as the conflict, and the battle of ideas surrounding it, has developed.