Beyond the North Atlantic: Ali Mazrui, Hedley Bull, and the Remaking of International Relations
The 1960s were a crucible for International Relations (IR) as a discipline. The world was witnessing the tumultuous birth of postcolonial nations, especially across Africa, and with it, a essential challenge to the established order. The dismantling of empires didn’t usher in a neat moral resolution, but rather ignited contestation and positioned the “Third World” as a new battleground for superpower influence. Simultaneously, IR itself was undergoing internal shifts - the rise of behavioralism in the US, the debates within the “English School” in Britain, and a growing tension between rigorous scientific aspiration and the necessity of normative reasoning. It was into this moment of profound change that Ali A. mazrui arrived, fundamentally unsettling the discipline’s boundaries.
For decades, IR had largely been defined by a “North Atlantic imagination.” Mazrui, a Kenyan-born academic, didn’t simply study Africa; he spoke from it, offering a crucial, previously marginalized perspective and a distinct moral framework for understanding global politics. He challenged the discipline to move beyond observing Africa and to actively listen to its voice.
Standing in contrast, yet inextricably linked, was Hedley Bull. A leading figure in the English School tradition, Bull was a theorist of order, deeply rooted in Anglo-australian IR scholarship. His work skillfully blended a pragmatic realism with a considered ethical framework. He embodied the discipline’s ongoing struggle to reconcile the realities of power with the demands of justice. The dynamic between Mazrui and Bull – marked by both mutual respect and subtle divergence - provides a powerful lens through which to examine the evolution of IR, its moral compass, its engagement with the Global South, and its enduring tension between universalism and Eurocentric biases.
As Mazrui’s intellectual career blossomed, it was intrinsically linked to the wave of African decolonization. Ghana’s independence in 1957 sparked a cascade of liberation movements, transforming Africa from a silent periphery into an active participant in shaping global norms. The 1955 bandung Conference had already begun to articulate an choice vision of world politics.Mazrui grasped this shift intuitively. He didn’t approach IR as an abstract system, but as a lived experience. “I experienced international relations as a person before I studied it professionally,” he later observed, contrasting his approach with the increasingly detached methodologies taking hold in North American IR departments.
By the early 1960s, at makerere University in Uganda, Mazrui had forged a unique intellectual identity: deeply grounded in african moral experience, yet globally articulate. His early publications (Mazrui,1963a,1963b,1963c,1967a,1967b,1967c) signaled the emergence of a voice that refused to be confined by provincialism or deference. Remarkably, Mazrui drew seamlessly from diverse intellectual traditions – Islamic theology, Victorian political thought, Swahili history, and Western liberalism – making him difficult to categorize. He wasn’t easily placed within existing ideological boxes. Rather,he occupied a liminal space,injecting a vital restlessness into the
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