Real-world events often seem to catch the Social Sciences by surprise leading to serious policy failures. Western scholars and practitioners rarely anticipate the moves of their interlocutors in the South but tend to “flatten” the world into one coherent homogeneity. A global approach that incorporates the historical experiences and philosophical traditions of the “South” may help us overcome the problem. A global approach means that we no longer allow the marginalisation of the “rest” – of the regions outside of the developed world’s liberal core – from the mainstream debate in research and policy. This does not mean being “critical” for the sake of it, but engaging with theoretical and empirical content from the regions on its own terms. The two keywords are inclusiveness and pluralism, with an attention to the following issues. • The recognition of cultural difference must be sufficiently nuanced so as to not paint other polities and economies with a broad brush of crude stereotypes. This requires context-sensitive empirical research. • The methodological toolkit is eclectic, but guided by three principles: interdisciplinarity, multilevel research, and Comparative Area Studies. • Key risks include succumbing to token inclusiveness and misinterpreting the agenda to serve a fundamentally “critical” discourse. • Key challenges include developing a research dissemination strategy targeted at mainstreaming the marginalised, which demands publication in the top, highimpact outlets; and finding the right balance between “flattening” the world into a misperceived homogeneity and a reductionist “indigenisation”.
Real-world events often seem to catch the Social Sciences by surprise leading to serious policy failures. Western scholars and practitioners rarely anticipate the moves of their interlocutors in the South but tend to “flatten” the world into one coherent homogeneity. A global approach that incorporates the historical experiences and philosophical traditions of the “South” may help us overcome the problem. A global approach means that we no longer allow the marginalisation of the “rest” – of the regions outside of the developed world’s liberal core – from the mainstream debate in research and policy. This does not mean being “critical” for the sake of it, but engaging with theoretical and empirical content from the regions on its own terms. The two keywords are inclusiveness and pluralism, with an attention to the following issues. • The recognition of cultural difference must be sufficiently nuanced so as to not paint other polities and economies with a broad brush of crude stereotypes. This requires context-sensitive empirical research. • The methodological toolkit is eclectic, but guided by three principles: interdisciplinarity, multilevel research, and Comparative Area Studies. • Key risks include succumbing to token inclusiveness and misinterpreting the agenda to serve a fundamentally “critical” discourse. • Key challenges include developing a research dissemination strategy targeted at mainstreaming the marginalised, which demands publication in the top, highimpact outlets; and finding the right balance between “flattening” the world into a misperceived homogeneity and a reductionist “indigenisation”.