An affinity toward protecting difference underpins this postcolonial critique of liberalism, one that can also be located in a number of theoretical positions developed by midcentury realists. Indeed, critiques of liberalism in both postcolonial and realist formulations express a shared sensibility to the preservation of difference, of communities defining themselves in their own way. In the middle of the twentieth century, on the heels of fascist movements in Europe, we should not be surprised that forms of realist theorization were wary of universalist or “utopian” drives that aimed to transform the world according to the morality of particular nations. In their place, realists such as Morgenthau and Aron, Neibuhr and Carr, produced arguments that sought to temper US power in the post-WWII setting, to not mistake US national interest for the globe’s. At the end of the twentieth century, on the heels of US hegemony and liberal global order, we should not be surprised that postcolonial theorists, attuned to the ways in which imperial practices persisted in different modalities, sought to provincialize what was already taken as universal.
affinity toward protecting difference underpins this postcolonial critique of liberalism, one that can also be located in theoretical positions developed by realists critiques of liberalism in both postcolonial and realist formulations express a shared sensibility to the preservation of difference, of communities defining themselves in their own way forms of realist theorization were wary of universalist or “utopian” drives that aimed to transform the world according to the morality of particular nations realists produced arguments that sought to temper US power to not mistake US national interest for the globe’s