Kautilya and Non-Western IR Theory

The classics are marvelous works which stand many re-readings without losing their force. In fact, they almost demand rereading, as a Beethoven symphony demands replaying (Cowan and Guinness in Invitation to the Classics. Baker Books, Grand Rapids, p. 12, 2006).

Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra is a source of inspiration for scholars who are interested in conceptualizing Indian IR and/or Global IR. However, when the ‘formulaic principles’ of Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra are used to study specific case-studies in IR, no intellectual attempt is made to ‘qualify’ these formulaic principles by bringing in the insights drawn from the philosophical substructures of Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra—namely, Sāṃkhya, Yoga and Lokāyata (literally meaning ‘numbers’, ‘aggregate’, and ‘worldly ones’ respectively). Due to the neglect of Sāṃkhya, Yoga and Lokāyata as the philosophical foundation of Arthaśāstra (which definitely bears an extra-Political Realist stance), Kautilya is habitually considered as comparable to those Western scholars who are sympathetic to ‘Political Realism as realpolitik’. Against this orthodox trend, this chapter aims to systematically expose the extra-Political Realist elements in the philosophical underpinnings of Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra, thereby reconstructing this classical text as a document of ‘Political Realism between realpolitik and moralpolitik’.

Aśoka’s Mauryan Empire is a remarkable exemplar of Kautilyan ‘Political Realism between realpolitik and moralpolitik’. Noticeably, Aśoka’s Mauryan Empire—as a fusion of realpolitik and moralpolitik—offers a non-Western alternative to the ‘rationalist-reflectivist debate’ on legitimate exercise of power in Eurocentric IR. The rationalist-reflectivist debate on legitimate exercise of power in Eurocentric IR revolves around the diverged doctrines of realpolitik and moralpolitik: as such, ‘realpolitik’ (as in rationalist theories of Classical Realism and Neorealism) legitimizes the exercise of power in international politics even if it has antagonistic tensions with abstract moral-ethical concerns, whereas ‘moralpolitik’ (as in reflectivist theories of Critical International Theory, Feminism, Postmodernism etc.) does not legitimize the exercise of power in international politics if it has antagonistic tensions with abstract moral-ethical concerns. Counter to these diverged doctrines in Eurocentric IR, this chapter sets out to install Aśoka’s Mauryan Empire as a peculiar meeting point of the ‘commonalities’ between two ancient Indian political thoughts: (i) ‘Kautilyan’ (usually depicted as realpolitik); and (ii) ‘Buddhist’ (generally accepted as moralpolitik).

The academic discipline of IR has evolved along the ‘great debates’ including the rationalist-reflectivist debate. It is Alexander Wendt’s Social Constructivism that has plausibly tried to bridge this rationalist-reflectivist gap through a ‘middle-grounded theory’, thereby projecting the fourth great debate as rationalist-constructivist-reflectivist debate. Although these great debates help in clarifying the varied assumptions that IR scholars make in their theories, it is lamented that they contemplate less on how to explain international politics and more on the contests of a quasi-religious belief in the power of one or another ‘ism’. Against these great debates, the ‘eclectic theory’ could emerge as a more progressive pathway to capture the future of international politics. Since Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra does not subscribe to rigid oppositions between rationalist-realpolitik and reflectivist-moralpolitik, it not only absorbs a few claims of Wendt’s Social Constructivism, but also offers a fruitful ground for crafting a non-Western eclectic theory of IR that can potentially uplift both Indian IR and Global IR.

The problem of ‘presentism’—that is, the lack of intellectual balance between continuity and change—subverts the process of using classical texts for meaningful theoretical-practical understanding of contemporary International Relations (IR).