Dreadful but predictable response to the @SecDialogue #SecuritizationTheory imbroglio. Demanding that basic standards of scholarship be upheld, and insisting on a clear, defensible definition of racism, now constitutes "assault" on female scholars. 1/8 https://twitter.com/swatipash/status/1263720576478326789

The letter also shows why debate, let alone reconciliation, is impossible on this subject. It simply asserts *as fact* that all existing scholarship is racist and colonial. This is the *axiomatic* starting point of Critical Race Theory. It is not a hypothesis to be tested.

2/8

For those who believe that assertions about the world must be subjected to rigorous and critical scrutiny, rather than simply being accepted as an ideological basis for all research, Critical Race Theory is just that - a *theory* - one possible truth among many.

3/8

The problem is that its adherents don't seem to think this way. Apparently, to them, Critical Race Theory is The Truth, and only debate which accepts this is legitimate. Conversely, attacking The Truth is heretical, an attempt to "silence debate", an "assault", "toxic", etc

4/8

That different parts of the IR discipline cannot even engage each other in civilised conversation signals its profound fragmentation. That so many people abandon the basic tenets of a scientific approach to studying reality is a sign of intellectual crisis.

5/8

And by "scientific" I don't mean positivist. I am a Marxist post-positivist. But I don't claim my viewpoint is The Truth, consider it beyond falsification, engage in shoddy scholarship, insist all reading lists become Marxist, try to pack departments with Marxists, etc.

6/8

There is - ironically - a deeply imperialist bent to some "decolonial" activism, which tries to colonise all reading lists in the name of decolonising curricula, and demands everyone submit to its perspective. To me, this anti-pluralism is antithetical to academic life.

7/8

Postcolonial/ decolonial research agendas are valid, should exist within, and enrich the IR discipline. I have suppored decolonial scholars to get grants, jobs, etc. But theirs is only one viewpoint among many. This evangelist approach is damaging to its own cause.

8/8