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Race and Racialization in International Relations A Coloring the Lines through Culture? Race and Racialization in International Relations A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Sema Binay IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Raymond Duvall September 2016 Sema Binay © September 2016 Acknowledgements I wish to express my gratitude for the members of my committee. My advisor, Raymond Duvall has been very patient and encouraging as I was developing ideas and taking the time to write. He has been, and continues to be a source of inspiration for raising and thinking through tough questions. Joan Tronto was especially kind, supportive and generous with her time throughout the process. I owe a lot to her unwavering belief in my project, and I am grateful for her guidance. I also thank Antonio Vazquez-Aroyyo and Eric Sheppard for being in my committee, for their encouragement and well-deserved critique. Also, I appreciate deeply my colleagues who participated in our dissertation group, including Mark Hoffman, Charmaine Chua, Garnet Kinderwater, Eli Meyerhoff, Ismail Yaylaci, David Temin, and Darrah McCraken. I am also grateful to the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, for providing financial and intellectual support. Special thanks for Jessie Eastman, whose extensive administrative support was invaluable. My dear friends, Evren, Eylem and Jen: I am unequivocally indebted for our conversations, your friendship and generosity. Last, but not least, this dissertation could not have been possible without the unwavering support, love and patience of my dear husband. Thank you, David. I love you dearly. ii To Leyla, with hope for a better future. iii Abstract This dissertation analyzes the ways in which racial constructs processes of racialization operate in international politics and become consequential in constituting the contemporary global order. Specifically it asks: in the wake of the diffusion of domestic and international norms against racism, how are we to understand race and effects of racialization at the level of the international? In order to answer this question, I develop a theoretical framework of racialization that explains how human groups, including cultural and religious groups, are (re)defined as discrete entities with inherent dispositions and ordered hierarchically as to shape the actions and identities available for various actors. Although explicit racial hierarchies in inter-state politics became less prominent with decolonization and through international norms against racism, I argue that racialization continues to constitute domestic and global hierarchies through structural and productive power relations. As can be seen in racialization of Muslims and the debates about the rise of China, expressions of cultural difference and their association with various forms and objects of threat are a consequential medium through which racialization occurs in the contemporary global order. iv Table of Contents Chapter 1 – Introduction 1 The Puzzle and the Significance of the Question 5 The Project 9 Research Design 13 Chapter Outline 13 Chapter 2 -Towards a Global Theory of Racialization 20 Historical Lineages 22 A Racialized World Order? 48 Racialization in the Contemporary World Order 65 Chapter 3 - Finding Race in IR 68 Conceptualizing Absence 73 Early Twentieth Century to 1939: Race and the Origins of IR 82 Race in Post World War II International Relations 94 Anarchy and Sovereignty 103 Chapter 4 – Islamophobia and Racialization of Muslims 123 Religion and Racialization 129 The West-Christianity-Whiteness 132 Islam and Muslims in America 135 Muslims in the United States in the Twentieth Century 155 9/11, The War on Terror and Muslims 165 Chapter 5 - Racialization of China Debates 180 The Rise of China Debates: Either Opportunity of Threat 182 China as the “Other” of Liberal International Order 184 Early 20th Century Racialized Imaginary of the International 191 and the Yellow Peril Chapter 6- Conclusion 201 Bibliography 207 v Chapter 1: Introduction The election of Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States in 2008 gave way to debates about whether the United States was now a “post-racial” society.1 The idea, or rather the hope, of those who supported the post-racial hypothesis was that African Americans have achieved, or will soon achieve, racial equality in the United States, and that the United States could transcend its racial divisions, leading some to argue that in this era civil rights laws were becoming unnecessary.2 Yet, substantial evidence reveals that this is not the case. Not only the attacks on Obama during his campaign that focused on his race and allegedly being a Muslim (Rachlinski and Parks, 2010), but also the more structural indicators such as the mass incarceration of African Americans at extraordinary levels (Alexander, 2012), and the achievement gap between Black and White Americans in terms of academics, employment and wealth (Paige and Witty 2009) show that race and racism continue to affect social, political and economic relations in the United States. Similarly, as Jones (2008) argues, despite the formal 1 See for instance “A New Post-Racial Political Era in America” NPR.ORG (Retrieved: 04.20.2016). 2 For example, In Shelby v. Holder in 2013, the Supreme Court invalidated a section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which required states with particularly severe histories of racial discrimination to obtain federal approval to change their electoral laws. In the ruling, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. emphasized the progress made in terms of abolishing voting tests, erasing racial disparities in voter registration and turnout, and attainment of political office by African Americans, and offered those changes as the background on which to refuse federal overseeing of voting rights. 1 transcendence of racism in modern institutions of world order, global inequalities in power and wealth retain a fundamentally racialized character produced through centuries of colonial dispossession. Of course there has been undeniable progress in fighting racism through the twentieth century, yet, many scholars maintain that racism has not disappeared but has adapted to the normative environment that disavows explicit racial bias. Ian Lopez explains how race became central to American electoral politics via the appeals to a coded language, a process that he calls “dog whistle politics,” which operates on two levels: inaudible and easily denied in one range, yet stimulating strong reactions in another. Accordingly, the new racial politics presents itself as strongly opposed to racism but at the same time appeals to subliminal racial grievances and color-coded solidarity through references such as “the undeserving poor,” “illegal aliens,” or “sharia law” (2013: 5-6).3 Recent election campaigns by the presidential candidates that espouses mottos such as “take America back” or “make America great again” follow the same logic as they construct and appeal to racial resentment and grievances in order to receive support from working and middle class Americans by attributing their “insecurity” to racial difference. The progress for racial equality in US politics due to the civil rights movement was paralleled by the proliferation and legalization of international norms against racism 3 Lopez argues that the hidden message racial dog whistle politics seeks to transmit violates a strong moral consensus and national values supporting equality and opposing racism. Thus, those blowing a racial dog whistle know that they would be condemned if understood as appealing for racial solidarity among whites, so the veiled references to threatening nonwhites are accompanied by emphasizing the lack of any direct reference to a racial group as well as accusing the critic for opportunistically alleging racial victimization (p. 4). 2 as well. Yet, if race is far from having disappeared as a factor that shapes peoples' lives and continues to matter in domestic politics via structural inequalities and appeals to a coded language, how did the normative changes at the international level affect the ways in which racial constructs shape international politics? In other words, do the legal, institutional, and normative commitments against racism render racial constructions irrelevant for the conduct of international politics? Or, is race still a relevant category of analysis for international politics? If so, what are the processes through which racial thinking operates and what are the effects of racial thinking in international politics? How are we to understand race and effects of racialization at the level of the international?4 Moving from these questions, my goal in this dissertation is to achieve a better understanding of the ways in which racial constructs and processes of racialization operate in the contemporary world order that is characterized by the acceptance of racial equality on legal and normative grounds. Did racial constructs cease to play a role in international politics after decolonization and proliferation of the norms of racial equality? If not, how are racial categories constructed and how do they operate at the level of the international? If racism adapts to new norms rather than disappearing, how do the historically existing categories of racial difference become articulated with the “new” perceptions of external threat? What are the results of such processes of 4 It should be noted that my argument is not limited
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