The Imperial Discipline: Race and the Founding of International Relations.

• Author: Davis, Alexander E.

The Imperial Discipline challenges the accepted origin of the discipline of International Relations (IR). Authors Davis, Thakur, and Vale focus on 'Round Table' society, i.e., the network formed by the British imperial societies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and India, in tracing the actual origin of the discipline. In doing so, they uncover unexplored archives to assert that race played a major role in the founding of the discipline. Tracing the journey of the Round Table across continents, The Imperial Discipline moves beyond the unquestioned Eurocentric origin of the discipline. The authors argue that it was the efforts of the Round Table network that in fact led to the establishment of the discipline of International Relations (IR) as we know it.

While the Round Table aimed at achieving a more efficient imperial governance and sought to place the empire in a position of controlling world affairs, it eventually led to placing the Global South in an important position in the founding of IR. It was in this period that IR scholarship became intertwined with imperial racial thought. The first chapter details the role of Lionel Curtis in propagating the 'scientific method of the Round Table' (p. 20). The launch of the eponymous journal, The Round Table, initially sought to further imperial ambitions but eventually began to focus more on international issues during the inter-war period. The chapter locates the ways in which knowledge was produced and the manner in which the key players around the Round Table disseminated the imagination of 'the international' intertwined with the notion of the Commonwealth. The second chapter engages with the proliferation of the Round Table network into Canada. Curtis' role remained central in that the Canadian Institute of International Affairs could be viewed as the beginning of IR in Canada. Despite the shortcomings of imperial IR due to the diversity of views among the major institutional actors, the Canadian internationalist vision reflected some traits of Curtis' vision' to 'control and maintain world affairs' (p. 59).

The third chapter engages with the development of international thought in Australia. Locating the genesis of the discipline of IR in colonial history, the chapter engages with the role of the Round Table and the establishment of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. Curtis' arrival in 1910 and his efforts to concretize the ideas of the Round Table...