ABSTRACT
Colonial empires administratively organised a world in which the circulation of goods, humans and knowledge would benefit European powers. Faced with 'Western dominance', 'the rest' is either constrained by structural postcolonial relations or engaged in counter-hegemonic strategies which potentially lead to the advent of a 'post-Western' world. Inspired by critical theory, post-structuralism, postcolonial and subaltern studies among others, critical scholars have put forward few solutions to deal with Eurocentrism and Western dominance in the discipline. The critical literature in International Relations (IR) has succeeded in exposing the discipline's lack of diversity and putting Western dominance of IR on the disciplinary agenda. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book investigates the existence of local specificities described by the critical literature, focusing on the contributions of India and Brazil to theoretical, thematic and demographic diversity of 'Global IR'.
