Guest Lecture: From Kautilya to Nondualist Global International Relations

The lecture will take place on Tuesday, 7 July 2026, at 18:15 in Lecture Hall II in the university building at Wittelsbacherplatz 1. All interested participants are warmly invited to attend!

The lecture is part of the seminar “India in International Relations” taught by Dr. Philipp Gieg and is a joint event of the India Forum at the Institute of Political Science and Sociology and the India Competence Centre of the University of Würzburg (ICCUW).

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Abstract

This lecture explores how India’s foreign relations can be understood beyond the binary frameworks that dominate much of International Relations (IR) theory. It does so by situating the analysis within the evolution of Global IR, which can be understood through three broad generations.

The first generation, often described as non-Western IR, expands the discipline by including non-Western ideas and thinkers such as Kautilya, largely within existing theoretical frameworks such as Realism. The second generation, associated with postcolonial and decolonial approaches, seeks to juxtapose alternative knowledge traditions of the West and the non-West, yet retains their analytical separation.

The lecture then introduces a third generation – nondualist Global IR – which moves beyond both inclusion and juxtaposition by reconceptualizing global politics as a non-separable field in which difference and interconnectedness co-exist. It shows how India’s relations with major powers, particularly in the context of India-China-US interactions, cannot be fully understood in terms of fixed alliances, rivalries, or enmities, but are better seen as dynamically interconnected processes combining cooperation and competition.

By presenting India’s foreign relations through this progression – from inclusion, to juxtaposition, to nondualist reconstruction – the lecture highlights how post-binary approaches can offer clearer and more flexible ways of understanding contemporary global politics.