Mohammed Ayoob (born 1942) is a Distinguished Professor of International Relations at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

's James Madison College and the Department of Political Science. He is also Coordinator of the Muslim Studies Program at Michigan State University. Within

international relations theory International relations theory is the study of international relations (IR) from a theoretical perspective. It seeks to explain causal and constitutive effects in international politics. Ole Holsti describes international relations theories as a ...

he is known for this theory of subaltern realism.

Subaltern realism

Ayoob first proposed his theory of subaltern realism in the 1980s and further developed it in the 1990s. The theory is a critical rejoinder to the neorealism of

Kenneth Waltz Kenneth Neal Waltz (; June 8, 1924 – May 12, 2013) was an American political scientist who was a member of the faculty at both the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University and one of the most prominent scholars in the field of ...

and others, including the domestic analogies that neorealism employs. It aims to provide an analytical tool for grasping the major determinants of Third World state behavior, the dominant concerns of Third World state elites, and the root causes of conflict in the Third World. The theory emphasizes the divergence of Third World conditions from those of industrialized core states, and has gone on to criticize mainstream International Relations theory for excluding the Third World. It proposes an alternative conceptualization of security and emphasizes the inequality in IR theorizing.

Principles

The subaltern realism theory advocates that third world states are generally weak, and are often economically and militarily dependent on external benefactors, mostly industrialized states. Therefore, third world states are more concerned with relative gains and short-term benefits than long-term benefits and absolute gains. Additionally, third world states interactions are limited to their immediate neighborhood, especially in the security sphere, and as such they will choose to interact with other states who possess similar characteristics. They are therefore much less concerned with security matters of an international level.Ayoob, Mohammed: "Inequality and Theorizing in International Relations: The Case for Subaltern Realism", International Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 3. (Autumn, 2002), pp. 27-48 David Dreyer has also written on the subject.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ayoob, Mohammed 1942 births Living people American international relations scholars Michigan State University faculty Aligarh Muslim University alumni