The field of International Affairs (IA) – or Global Studies - remains deeply and pervasively rooted in the Western-centric view of the world.  While many publications address the coloniality of different aspects of IA, this book is about the field as a whole. The open access book provides essential readings on decolonizing IA, with chapters spanning multiple disciplines and areas of intervention.  It will help reshape the teaching of IA, and provide new foundational resources for research. The authors contend that researchers and practitioners must have a keen understanding of the political stakes leading to the growing call to decolonize the global order and the institutional, social, and ecological realities that shape them. The book introduces various theoretical and political movements that have sought to critique and remake the academic study and practice of international affairs. Most importantly, it offers an alternative way of thinking about contemporary problems and a framework for analysis that can inspire their future work as researchers or practitioners.

Sakiko Fukuda-Parr is Professor of International Affairs at The New School, New York City.  She is President of International Association for Feminist Economics, co-leads the Collective on the Political Determinants for Health at the University of Oslo, and was Chair and Member of the UN Committee on Development Policy (2010-24). She was lead author of the Human Development Reports 1995-2004 and has published widely on human rights and development, capabilities approach, technology, food security, global health, global goals, gender, and the politics of measurement. Her co-authored book, Fulfilling Social and Economic Rights (with T. Lawson-Remer and S. Randolph, OUP 2016), is winner of the Grawemeyer Prize for Ideas to Improve the World Order.

Sean Jacobs is Professor of International Affairs at The New School,New York City, and was founder and editor of Africa Is a Country between 2009 and 2023. He is a former Fulbright and Commonwealth Scholar and has held fellowships at The New School, New York University, and Harvard University. His research and creative practice have been funded by various foundations: Mellon, Shorenstein, Ford, Open Society, and Shuttleworth. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.