A “Jakarta School?”: Nita’s Response

Nita Says:

Thanks a lot for responding my comment and wrote it down as a new posting. My point was actually triggered by my own curiosity. Indeed, dealing with science or studies and whether it is necessary to sort of “regionalizing” or “localizing” them are rather trivial subjects to explore. After a few years in the past dealing with European security and now being a new kid on the block with regard to Southeast Asian security, I always have a question whether we really need to have a “Jakarta School” instead of developing the existence schools from the Western world, like one of the Copenhagen School. I believe it is always “nice” to have a “Jakarta School”, a “Singapore School” or any kind of labeling that we want to add, but the two pivotal questions are: does it mean that at the end we will sort of segregate knowledge and science based on its “spatiality”? Isn’t it really the matter of need or rather as a prestige to have ‘our own’ approach?

For sure, optimistic scholars will not buy the argument of “the sake of prestige”, even though some of them also still have no clear idea how to detach themselves from the Western approach. They could be Asian, Africans, or people who come from Latin America. But most of them are studying in the Western world, or at least they read Western literatures. Therefore, detaching ourselves from the root of the knowledge is another complicated story to tell. Moreover, as you pointed out, and I also cannot deny, language barrier indeed matters.

In the literatures of IR, we learn that there have been debates on theories and methodologies. Scholars raised new ontological questions and revised their epistemological perspectives. And security is one of the most interesting fields in which I consider “regionalizing” of school of thought is somewhat necessary. One of the explanations is quite simple, as what I’ve learned from Alagappa’s masterpiece on Asian Security, as follows: if we talk about regional security, for instance, it can be investigated independently from any other regions; in contrast with the economic domain where regional economic activities are becoming integrated into the global economy, the security domain seems to be witnessing the development of a more independent regional system. Of course I can not and will not argue that developing a specific school corresponds to the Third World is a simple task.

What I am also trying to say here is that there is always a space for local/regional scholars to (still) pursue their dreams of exposing the peculiarities of their region, which also includes constructing a future “Jakarta School”. By paraphrasing Alexander Wendt: “security is what scholars/people make of it…” (but after all, I am a realist at heart, but constructivist on paper). So, keep up the good work in constructing and deconstructing ideas…

©2007May 27th, 2007 at 1:29 pm (Nita)

A “Jakarta School?”: A Response to Nita

This feed is taken from my comment to Nita who is now studying in Italy. I decided to bring forward into the front page because I think it is an important issue to be addressed. Responding to my review on “Non-Traditional Security in Asia: Dilemma of Securitization”, NITA wrote on May 17, 2007 as follow:

[....Instead of having the “Copenhagen School” for theorizing “securitization”, I think Asian countries, or broadly speaking the Third World, should develop a different perspective on securitization. As the issues to be securitized are broader than those in the Western hemisphere, there are also a lot of features of the works of Buzan, Waever, and co. which do not perfectly fit the political and security contexts within which Third World countries operate. Maybe it is time for “Jakarta School” to better theorize the above phenomenon…
Bapak, ditunggu tulisan-tulisan berikutnya…”

MY RESPONSE:Hi Nita,
Thanks for your intriguing comment. I apologise for belated response as in the last month I am bz concentrating on editing my thesis.
Well regarding your critics to the conceptual building of “Copenhagen school” in IR or security studies, I am in line with you that ideally kind of concept(s) and theory(ies) could emerged from Asia or/and developing world. As I mentioned in the chapter on the concept of ’securitization’ is easily mislead to be applied in some countries in developing world, because ’securitization’ may end-up with politicization and ‘criminalization. To some extent. For country such as Indonesia, there had been a situation where, in the past, similar types of securitization been applied during the Pak Harto’s Orde Baru regime, however, the regime used very soft word (euphemism) under the banner of harmony, security and stability. In sum, I also mentioned that dealing with securitization, for some country, there is a need to address ’semantic issues’ as well as the ‘political set-up’. By ‘political set-up here, I mean that ’securitization’ require ‘democratic political system’ so there will be ‘checks and balances’ when such policies (i.e., securitization) went wrong.

Moreover, with regards the needs to develop theory from Asia or developing world, I am totally agree with you, because there are a lot of local wisdom that needs to be addressed locally or regionally. I remember about three years ago I have an email exchange with my Australian colleague who is now reside in the Netherlands, he said to me that there are lots of Asian wisdom that not extracted in theory building in social sciences (in our field is IR & Security). I have bee thinking since I write my thesis that there is serious problem in the lacking of Asia theories in social science, but I tell you, the problem was not in the construction and sophistication of the subject matter, rather, it is because the hegemony of the English language in the discourse on social sciences. Means any Asian if they would like to write an international standard it must be written in English, and this is the problem for Asian, because English is not their language.

While, several studies in politics, IR, International management, may of them have paid attention to cultural issues e.g., Geertz Hofstede in management science, or Snyder, Colin Gray, Alastair Johnston, Peter Katzeinstein, etc who have paid attention to cultural issues in IR. But, I think we can borrow the idea from Ken Booth on the aspect of ethnocentrism, I mean from his book Strategy and Ethnocentrism, that in deferent meaning, there is also ethnocentrism issues in development of social sciences (not only is strategic studies).

So, such great idea to develop an endogenous concept that born from the developing world to address the issues (politico-security) i.e., in Asian region is badly needed in near future as many problem becoming worst just because of the ‘narrow-minded’ thinking in formulating (security or military) policies such as we seen such as the US military operation Iraq or Afghanistan than created more problem rather than to solve it.

As a final remark, try to see some writings like Mohammad Ayoob on The Third World Predicament, or other book from Chung-I-Moon, or say the Article written by Kishore Mahbubani, few years ago in Foreign Affairs (I forget the exact time of publication), or Muthiah Alagappa or Amitav Acharya they are among great contribution to the conceptual discourse on IR in Souhteast Asia / Asia Pacific from non-European perspectives/scholars.

Finally, the door is open for us to contribute to the development of concepts or theories in IR from our region –possibly what you mentioned as a “Jakarta school”.

Salam dari Shrivenham, Oxfordsire

©2007/05/27