INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS- THEORIES AND PROBLEMS

intervention of particular critical theory perspectives, such as Marxism, Frankfurt

school critical theory, post-structuralism, and feminism. Others, however, focus

exclusively on critical theory and/or its principal critical theorists in order to take

full(er) stock of the increasing influence and changes in this approach to IR. The

same applies to journals, which adopt either an omnibus or a pluralist attitude, or a

more context-specific one, by publishing only articles with a critical theory focus.

The Critical international relations theory is a diverse set of schools of thought

in international relations (IR) that have criticized the theoretical, meta-theoretical

and/or political status quo, both in IR theory and in international politics more

broadly – from positivist as well as post positivist positions. Positivist critiques

include Marxist and neo-Marxist approaches and certain (“conventional”) strands

of social constructivism. Post positivist critiques

include poststructuralist, postcolonial, “critical” constructivist, critical theory (in

the strict sense used by the Frankfurt School), neo-Gramscian, most feminist, and

some English School approaches, as well as non-Weberian historical

sociology, “international political sociology”, “critical geopolitics”, and the so-

called “new materialism”.

Max Horkheimer, one of the founders of the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research

established in 1923, coined the term critical theory in 1937. While the school

failed to produce what could be called a systematic theory, it drew on, and

interweaved, various philosophical strands and prominent themes of political and

social thought, including historical materialism (Marxism/Western Marxism),

Freudian analysis, cultural disenchantment, Hegelian dialectics, and totality. Yet

by the 1940s, many of the first-generation Frankfurt school thinkers sought to

counter the emasculation of critical reason, dialectics, and self-conscious theory

with a focus on the negativity of dialectics. In the 1980s, Jürgen Habermas’s

communicative action theory would provide a so-called critical turn in Frankfurt

school critical theory by resituating reason and social action in linguistics. It was

during this time that international relations (IR) theorists would draw on

Habermas’s theory and that of other critical theorists to critique the limits of

realism, the dominant structural paradigm of international relations at the time.

The first stages of this critical theory intervention in international relations

included the seminal works of Robert Cox, Richard Ashley, Mark Hoffman, and

Andrew Linklater. Linklater, perhaps more than any other critical IR theorist, was

instrumental in repositioning the emancipatory project in IR theory, interweaving

various social and normative strands of critical thought. As such, two seemingly

divergent critical IR theory approaches emerged: one that would emphasize the 3

predominantly on the revolutionary transformation of social relations and the state

in international political economy (historical materialism). Together, these critical

interventions reflected an important “third debate” (or “fourth,” if one counts the

earlier inter-paradigm debate) in IR concerning the opposition between

epistemology (representation and interpretation) and ontology (science and

immutable structures). Perhaps more importantly, they stressed the need to take

stock of the growing pluralism in the field and what this meant for understanding

and interpreting the growing complexity of global politics (i.e., the rising influence

of technology, human rights and democracy, and non state actors). The increasing

emphasis on promoting a “rigorous pluralism,” then, would encompass an array of

critical investigations into the transformation of social relations, norms, and

identities in international relations. These now include, most notably, critical

globalization studies, critical security studies, feminism, postmodernism, and post

colonialism.

It is important to note that the Critical theory incorporates a wide range of

approaches all focused on the idea of freeing people from the modern state and

economic system – a concept known to critical theorists as emancipation. The idea

originates from the work of authors such as Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx who, in

the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, advanced different revolutionary ideas of

how the world could be reordered and transformed. Both Kant and Marx held a

strong attachment to the Enlightenment theme of universalism – the view that there

are social and political principles that are apparent to all people, everywhere. In the 4

modern era, both authors became foundational figures for theorists seeking to

replace the modern state system by promoting more just global political

arrangements such as a federation of free states living in perpetual peace (Kant) or

communism as a global social and economic system to replace the unequal

capitalist order (Marx). Critical theory sets out to critique repressive social

practices and institutions in today’s world and advance emancipation by supporting

ideas and practices that meet the universalist principles of justice. This kind of

critique has a transformative dimension in the sense that it aims at changing

national societies, international relations and the emerging global society, starting

from alternative ideas and practices lingering in the background of the historical

process.

THE BASICS OF CRITICAL THEORY

Although critical theory reworks and, in some ways, supersedes Kantian and

Marxian themes, both authors remain at the base of the theory’s lineage. Through

critical philosophy, Kant discussed the conditions in which we make claims about

the world and asserted that the increasing interconnectedness of his time opened

the door for more cosmopolitan (i.e. supranational) political communities. Marx’s

critical mode of inquiry was grounded on the will to understand social

developments in industrialised societies, including the contradictions inherent in

capitalism that would lead to its collapse, the suppression of labour exploitation

and the setting up of a more just system of global social relations. This way, the

writings of Kant and Marx converge to demonstrate that what happens at the level

of international relations is crucial to the achievement of human emancipation and

global freedom. Consequently, the tracing of tangible social and political

possibilities or change (those stemming from within existing practices and institutions) became a defining feature of the strand of critical thought entering IR

via authors reworking Marxian and Kantian themes during the twentieth century.

CONCLUSION

Of course, neither Marx nor Kant was IR theorists in the contemporary sense. Both

were philosophers. We must therefore identify two more recent sources for how

critical theory developed within the modern discipline of IR. The first is Antonio

Gramsci and his influence over Robert Cox and the paradigm

of production (economic patterns involved in the production of goods and the

social and political relationships they entail). The second is the Frankfurt school –

Jürgen Habermas in particular – and the influence of Habermas over Andrew

Linklater and the paradigm of communication (patterns of rationality involved in

human communication and the ethical principles they entail). There are two themes

uniting these approaches that show the connective glue within the critical theorist

family. First, they both use emancipation as a principle to critique, or assess,

society and the global political order. Second, they both detect the potential for

emancipation developing within the historical process, but consider that it may not

be inevitable. The paradigms of redistribution and recognition relate to what Nancy

Fraser (1995) has called the two main axes of contemporary political struggle.

While redistribution struggles refer directly to the Marxist themes of class

struggles and social emancipation, recognition struggles have to do with

aspirations to freedom and justice connected to gender, sexuality, race and national

recognition. Therefore, while Cox focuses on contemporary redistribution

struggles, Linklater turns to questions of identity and community as more

significant than economic relations in today’s quest for emancipation.