Critical Theory(And Post-Modernism)

Positivist Review

• Neo-Realism and Neo-Liberalism – two sides of the same coin?

• Similar assumptions:– Potential for cooperation (disagree over how

much)– Positivist methodologies– Objective approach– Emphasis on “high politics”

Positivist Review

• “explanatory” theories

• see the task of theory as being to report on a world that is external to our theories.

• Want to uncover regularities in human behaviour

• Explain the social world in the same way as natural scientists explain the natural world.

Critical Theory: Origins

• Can trace back to the enlightenment.

• Kant, Hegel, Marx

Critical Theory: Origins

Frankfurt school:

• Understand the features of contemporary society by understanding its historical and social development

• Trace contradictions in the present; open up the possibility of transcending contemporary society with its built-in forms of domination.

Critical Theory: Origins

• emphasis here is on:– Analysing social structures – Determine power structures, which ones

cause abuse– Intention is on overcoming these structures

and abuse.

• Identify possibilities for social transformation

• This is the link with Kant, Marx, etc.

Critical Theory and IR

• By 1980s, there is dissatisfaction with positivist approaches

• Robert Cox, “Social Forces, States and World Order: Beyond International Relations Theory”, Millennium Journal of International Relations, (1981)

• Andrew Linklater, Men and Citizens, (1982)• Mark Hoffman, “Critical Theory and the Inter-

Paradigm Debate”, Millennium Journal of International Relations, (1987)

Critical Theory and IR

• Robert Cox– Borrowing from Horkheimer (uses “traditional”)– “problem solving” vs “critical theory

• “Problem-Solving” theory:– accepts the prevailing definitions; tries to solve

the problems these definitions generate.

• Critical theory– look at the way the problem serves particular

interests, shuts down different debates and solutions

Critical Theory and IR• Robert Cox con’t:

• Postitivist methods:– take the world as an untheorized given– trying to work out how to better theorize, given

the world

• Critical theory:– recognizes that the theorist is situated within

the historical circumstances of the time.

Critical Theory and IR“Theory is always for someone and some

purpose” – not just a neutral thing we are trying to get

across. – Speaks from a particular moment in history– seeks to understand why and how it came to

be – what possibilities for change there might be.

Critical Theory: Research

• Takes issue with positivism and “scientific” methods– Not neutral– World is historically constructed.– Liberalism not an emancipatory theory.

• Challenges the idea of immutable “structure”/looks at prospects for greater human freedom.– Realism, rational choice suggest present world is pre-

determined. (states, boundaries, war, etc.) – Imagine international relations beyond borders. Shared

humanity across borders.

Critical Theory: Research

Draws on Marxism

• ultimately sees it as a flawed theory

• wants to create a “historical sociology” with an emancipatory purpose

– Look at historical developments – how power structures have evolved, and how they may be overcome.

Critical Theory

Critical theory:

• judges social arrangements by the way they embrace open dialogue

• envisages new forms of political community (local or global)

• emphasizes unconstrained discourse to rethink national boundaries and examine the possibility of escaping them.

Critical Theory

• Critical theory– Emphasis on “emancipatory” theory.– Lost purpose of IR?

• Impact:– Gramsci and “Hegemony”– Feminism

Post-Modernism

• aka post-structuralism

• aka deconstruction

• aka post-postivism

• Closely related to critical theory, but some important differences

• No set-definition of what post-modernism is.

Po-Mo: Foucault & Power

• Genealogy: focus on the process by which we have “constructed” origins, given meaning to particular representations of the past.– guide daily lives and set clear limits to political and

social options. – po-mo to expose the processes of exclusion – Idea that one cannot study history objectively

• Knowledge is not immune from the workings of power – what we know depends on power in our lives.

Derrida and Deconstruction

• World is a “text” that must be interpreted. – World is constructed like a text.– Cannot refer to anything “real” – only

“interpretive experience”– Quoting Montaigne: “We need to interpret

interpretations more than to interpret things”

• stable and natural concepts and relations are artificial concepts.

Derrida and Deconstruction

• Society relies on artificial, seemingly opposite distinctions. – Good/bad, male/female, civilizational barbaric

• Arranged hierarchically – society tends to prefer one over the other. (ie: order to anarchy)

• Deconstruction show that terms are really an illusion. – Terms are mutually constitutive – Cannot have ‘other’ without ‘self’

• Differences between two terms mask differences within terms.

Critical vs Po-Mo

• Some po-mos agree with critical theorists aims. • Yet others disagree: Critical theory/Marxism

presents new “meta-narratives” and its own truth claims.

• Derrida,sympathetic:– “new International” should be supported – violence, inequality, exclusion, famine, and thus

economic oppression affect humanity on huge scale

• Yet, others see the emancipatory projects as just another claim to power for which we must be sceptical.

Criticism• Positivists:

– this is not social science, not verifiable– Can’t offer a theory of IR. Only deconstructs– Keohane: rationalist vs reflectivist

• Is this fair?– Have done positivist vs post-postivist to death!– But many critical theorists see themselves as

engages with current issues– Writing for a different audience than IR

academics