Teorier om fred og harmoni: viden, magt og kontroversen om Kinas opstigning

Abstract

This article maps the emergence and development of Chinese discourses about China’s rise in international politics. It examines how the production of knowledge, particularly theories on international relations and grand strategy, develop in their travels between the scienti c and political as well as the international and national. Taking its point of departure in the sociology of science, the article sets out to understand the interplay between social, political, and intellectual conditions for knowledge production in today’s Interna- tional Relations (IR) research in China. Contrary to the conventional notion that Chinese social science is determined by political preferences, the paper argues 1) that the ideal of (pure) science and (dirty) politics as two separate spheres is di cult to sustain in the empirical analysis of knowledge production (in China and elsewhere) and 2) that more often than not important policy ideas and theories, such ‘Peaceful Rise’, the ‘Chinese School’ or ‘Harmonious World’ have emerged from a productive relationship between science and politics. e analysis of Chinese IR discourse shows that Chinese scholars and experts might play a more in uential role in the formulation of foreign policy concepts than usually assumed.