“Global Historical IR and East Asia”
University of Southern California and Berggruen Institute
Inho Choi
Date: Monday, March 27, 12.30
Location: A-130
Abstract:
Inho Choi investigates East Asian international thought and diplomatic history to generate new concepts for understanding international orders in East Asia and beyond. He will first show how East Asian states cultivated their moral personhood, what he calls the virtue of state, to gain international status and increase the stability of international order through moral alignment among the states. He examines the cultivation of the virtue of state in three consecutive international orders in East Asia: the early modern interstate ritual order, the 19th-century sovereignty order, and the 20th-century liberal international order. Then, he extends the study of the virtue of state into the key foundational components of historical East Asian international orders: the transnational cultural elite shi, Chineseness, and ontological complexity. The study of East Asian international orders promotes the globalization of International Relations by creating a conceptual foundation that can elucidate both Western and non-Western experiences.
Short Bio:
Inho Choi is a USC-Berggruen fellow at the University of Southern California and Berggruen Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University. He specializes in international orders, early modern East Asian history, and interstate diplomacy. In particular, he investigates East Asian international history to reconstruct the foundational concepts of International Relations. His works on early modern East Asian international order and the current Chinese IR theory appeared in International Relations of the Asia Pacific and Review of International Studies. He is currently working on a book project titled The Virtue of State: Evolution of International Moral Order in East Asia. It investigates the implicit international moral order generated by the states’ cultivation of their moral personhood.
*GE-250/1 points will be given.