Why is mainstream international relations blind to racism? Ignoring the central role of race and colonialism in world affairs precludes an accurate understanding of the modern state system

Worldwide protests against police racism and brutality and the toppling of statues commemorating white supremacists have led to a public reckoning in the United States and many other countries—forcing citizens and governments to confront the historical legacy of systemic racism and the enduring inequalities it has created. A similar reckoning is long overdue within the academic discipline of international relations (IR).

Beginning with its creation as an academic discipline, mainstream IR has not been entirely honest about its ideological or geographic origins. It has largely erased non-Western history and thought from its canon and has failed to address the central role of colonialism and decolonization in creating the contemporary international order.

Foreign Policy asked nine leading thinkers in the field how IR has fallen short and how the research, teaching, and practice of it must change.