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Scholars have increasingly noted the Eurocentric bent of the field of international relations, including the so-called Westphalian Model. But university teaching on international relations remains relatively unchanged. This is a significant challenge, since this orthodoxy affects how we understand world affairs. A similar Eurocentric inclination is also evident in the increasingly popular scholarship on the history of international organizations.

This paper was originally written for an international relations/global history workshop in Germany and is part of my larger project arguing for the incorporation of extra-European experiences and sources in our understanding of international relations. Here I accentuate the Eurocentrism of the national sovereignty focus of traditional international relations research and appeal for greater attention to the lateral relations of imperial politics.  I offer suggestions for both theoretical and empirical (re)integration of imperial politics into our understanding of international relations based on several case studies in Asia.