Politics Program Presents

A World Safe for White Democracy: Colonial Southeast Asia and the Making of the US Led Liberal International Order 

This talk offers a revisionist account of the formation of the U.S.-led international order by centering the colonial political economy of Southeast Asia in three key moments: US entry into the Pacific War, the formation of NATO, and the perceived absence of a NATO equivalent in Asia. Despite its significance, Southeast Asia is rarely foregrounded in International Relations accounts of global order. Yet both historiography and primary sources reveal that the region’s colonial political economy was central to U.S. foreign policy in Europe, Northeast Asia, and the South Pacific. By recentering Southeast Asia, the talk argues that the self-characterized “liberal international order” was not simply illiberal or hypocritical; rather, it is more accurately understood through what Charles Mills terms “racialized liberalism”—the belief that only white people are fully capable of democratic self-governance, making white freedoms especially sacred. More broadly, the talk suggests that globalizing International Relations requires more than incorporating non-Western cases or theories; it demands a shift in analytical vantage point—reconsidering where we look from, not just what we look at. 

This talk is part of the Politics Assembly, a new weekly workshop in the Politics program for students and faculty to gather to discuss.

---

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].

Time: 11:30 am – 1:00 pm EDT/GMT-4

Location: Olin Humanities, Room 205

Subscribe: Save this Event: Subscribe / .ics File