Dipesh Chakrabarty and John M. Hobson on Eurocentrism and criticism of international relations

The authors present and analyse the theoretical project of Dipesh Chakrabarty, an important figure of Postcolonial Studies, aiming at "provincializing" some European sociohistorical developments, as well as the critic of Eurocentrism made by John M. Hobson, a well-known advocate of Neo-Weberian Historical Sociology in International Relations. Following the presentation of these contributions to Postcolonial approaches and to the turn toward anti-Eurocentrism in Neo-Weberian analysis, the authors argue that these theories tend to build on a critic of a long-deserted kind of Marxism, which makes them disregard the articulation between the modernity of international relations and the emergence of a global capitalist order. The authors conclude by stating the importance of a return to classical social theory to sharpen the evaluation of the role of past and contemporary Eurocentric practices in international relations.