About the Journal

What is Global Thought?

Global Thought is an interdisciplinary field that critically engages with the interconnected structures, ideas, and power relations shaping the contemporary world. It goes beyond traditional international relations by integrating insights from political economy, history, philosophy, sociology, cultural studies, and systems theory to interrogate how institutions, imaginaries, and practices operate across—and often transcend—national boundaries.

At its core, Global Thought aims to:

  • Analyse global power dynamics outside the framework of the nation-state

  • Examine both historical and contemporary forms of globalisation and imperialism

  • Critique Eurocentric and Western-dominant epistemologies, while remaining open to globally-oriented theoretical systems that may emerge from within them

  • Advance pluralistic, comparative, and decolonial approaches to knowledge

  • Address transnational issues such as migration, climate change, digital capitalism, global justice, and planetary governance

Rather than offering a singular worldview, Global Thought foregrounds complexity, contestation, and the uneven geographies of global interdependence.

It is likely that interested readers may have authored work which could, with minor alterations, be oriented toward addressing the themes and problematics of Global Thought and be considered for publication. If you would like advice about altering or drafting a piece of work for publication with INTER-, please be in touch at inter-journal@st-andrews.ac.uk and we would be happy to help.

Competing Definitions of Global Thought

There are multiple traditions and debates that shape the evolving field of Global Thought:

  • Critical Global Thought
    Associated with scholars such as Walter Mignolo, Dipesh Chakrabarty, and Boaventura de Sousa Santos, this tradition critiques Eurocentrism and emphasises epistemic decolonisation—foregrounding subaltern, Indigenous, and marginalised knowledge systems.

  • Pragmatic Global Thought
    This orientation focuses on practical, policy-oriented responses to global challenges such as governance, inequality, and human rights in an increasingly interdependent world.

  • Historical Global Thought
    Drawing from world-systems theory (e.g., Immanuel Wallerstein) and global history (e.g., Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Kenneth Pomeranz), this approach seeks to understand the longue durée of global integration and the structural continuities shaping world orders.

  • Comparative Global Thought
    Focused on how diverse civilisations, traditions, and philosophies conceptualise globality, this perspective includes work from both Western and non-Western intellectual lineages—placing Confucian, Islamic, Indigenous, and other traditions in conversation with global theory.

The Position of INTER-

INTER- emerges from the tradition of Critical Global Thought, committed to pluralism, epistemic humility, and a reflexive interrogation of the global. However, we do not hold that critique of Eurocentrism demands the wholesale dismissal of theoretical systems that originate in the West. Instead, we invite productive engagement with global theories—including second-order systems theory, structuralism, and other models—when they are used reflexively and in service of expanding, rather than foreclosing, global understanding.

We accept submissions from across the full interdisciplinary spectrum of Global Thought. Whether your work is rooted in decolonial theory, complexity science, comparative cosmology, political ecology, or beyond—we welcome your contribution.

Submit your draft today.

Focus and Scope

INTER- (ISSN 2976-7628) is led by an editorial board of alumni with an international team of peer-reviewers. We publish bi-annual open access journal issues across interdisciplinary studies through the lens of Global Thought. We are student-friendly and run a blog on our main site which can host smaller essays and articles, including submissions based on coursework. 

The journal aspires to forge a new, non-hierarchical space where knowledge is commoned and existing pedagogical structures questioned. We want to provide frequent opportunities to both current students and alumni with both publishing and editorial roles. Ideologically, we believe there is no such thing as neutral research and that thought is a project we all share in common, with material implications. We are biased toward decolonial, praxis-oriented, transgressive work which innovates, challenges boundaries and strengthens solidaristic relationships.

Publisher

Graduate School for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of St Andrews.

Review Policy

Double blind: Anonymous reviewer/Anonymous author. 

Copyright

Copyright is retained by authors.

Open Access Policy

Unless otherwise noted all content published by INTER- is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), which allows liberal reuse of the final published work as long as appropriate attribution is made. For more information please follow this link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Privacy and Consent Policy

The data collected from registered and non-registered users of this journal falls within the scope of the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals. It includes information that makes communication possible for the editorial process; it is used to inform readers about the authorship and editing of content; it enables collecting aggregated data on readership behaviours, as well as tracking geopolitical and social elements of scholarly communication.

This journal’s editorial team uses this data to guide its work in publishing and improving this journal. Data that will assist in developing this journal platform (Open Journal Systems – OJS) may be shared with its developer Public Knowledge Project (PKP) in an anonymized and aggregated form, with appropriate exceptions such as article metrics. The data will not be sold by this journal or PKP nor will it be used for purposes other than those stated here.

Registered Users

Users who register with this journal, including authors and peer reviewers where applicable, consent to having their personal information stored in the University’s journal hosting platform (OJS) and processed by the platform and journal editorial teams. Authors published in this journal are also responsible for the human subject data that figures in the research reported in the journal.

Those involved in editing this journal seek to be compliant with industry standards for data privacy, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision for “data subject rights” that include (a) breach notification; (b) right of access; (c) the right to be forgotten; (d) data portability; and (e) privacy by design. The GDPR also allows for the recognition of “the public interest in the availability of the data,” which has a particular saliency for those involved in maintaining, with the greatest integrity possible, the public record of scholarly publishing.

All users whose details are stored in the University’s OJS installation can exercise their rights of the individual, as they are detailed in the GDPR. If you have a user account and wish to have it deleted, please email journal-hosting@st-andrews.ac.uk