Western nihilism and dialogue: prelude to an uncanny encounter in International Relations

Recognition of other cultural mappings and sensitivities can facilitate meaningful dialogue in International Relations. On this assurance, the naturalised history of the discipline becomes more susceptible to rival accounts that materialise in other locales. Limits to dialogue, however, are internal to International Relations, a product of particular histories and settlements. This article probes some of the limits imposed by the spectres of nihilism on International Relations as theory and practice. These limits originate principally from the repudiation of Transcendence and the collapse of Western metaphysics as well as the imposition of a framework of ‘post-politics’ drawn from reading obituaries of the death of the liberal modern Western subject worldwide.