Asia: China “The Universality of International Relations Theory and the Particularity of the Self”

This chapter is largely devoted to exploring how to deal with the relationship between the universality of theory and the particularity of the self. Theories can help us gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the political world, but we distort them or ignore them based on self-serving emotional biases. In the context of the classroom, this paper proposes to build bridges between theory and the particular self by introducing students to various concepts. This process facilitates the categorization and analysis of social facts. It also encourages students to reflect on the nature of the concepts thereby gradually deepening their understanding of not just the concept but also of the theory as a whole.