Critical Theory in International Relations and Security Studies

Interviews and Reflections

Shannon Brincat, Laura Lima, Joao Nunes, Shannon Brincat, Laura Lima, Joao Nunes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9780415601580
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136505713
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book provides an assessment of the legacy, challenges and future directions of Critical Theory in the fields of International Relations and Security Studies.

This book provides 'first-hand' interviews with some of the pioneers of Critical Theory in the fields of International Relations Theory and Security Studies. The interviews are combined innovatively with reflective essays to create an engaging and accessible discussion of the legacy and challenges of critical thinking. A unique forum that combines first-person discussion and secondary commentary on a variety of theoretical positions, the book explores in detail the interaction between different theories and approaches, including postcolonialism, feminism, and poststructuralism. Scholars from a variety of theoretical backgrounds reflect on the strengths and problems of critical theory, recasting the theoretical discussion about critical theory in the study of world politics and examining the future of the discipline.

Both an introduction and an advanced engagement with theoretical developments over the past three decades, Critical Theory in International Relations and Security Studies will be of interest to students and scholars of International Politics, Security Studies and Philosophy.

1 Introduction

Shannon Brincat, Laura Lima and João Nunes

DOI: 10.4324/9780203145494-1

The idea for this volume came out of a desire to assess the trajectory of critical thinking in the study of world politics. We saw critical theory as having reached an impasse, after the highly successful period in which its popularity surged – almost to the point of becoming ‘mainstream’ or common sense in some parts of the academic world. We the editors are part of a generation of researchers for whom the word ‘critical’ has become, to a great extent, a household name. The proliferation of ‘critical approaches’ led us to ask a number of questions. Does it still make sense to use the ‘critical’ label to designate an approach or methodology? Is there an emerging ‘critical orthodoxy’? What has the critical literature achieved? Where has it failed or remained silent? What are its limits and challenges? How can critical thinking be pushed forward? Finally, what has happened to ‘traditional’ (‘uncritical’) thinking? We set out to provide a fresh perspective upon the ‘critical turn’ in International Relations and Security Studies – one that would revisit its origins, celebrate its eclecticism, consider its limitations and open doors to future developments.

Critical theory in world politics has been surveyed and assessed on a few occasions.¹ The perspective adopted in this book is different in three important ways. To begin with, our starting point was the strand of critical theory reaching back to Kant, Hegel, Marx and the Frankfurt School. This choice is justified by our own intellectual background – when this project was firstly discussed, we had ongoing research projects that applied insights from this strand of critical thinking – and also by the fact that we had been working in proximity with authors who made important contributions to the fields of International Relations and Security Studies by drawing on this form of critical theory. Importantly, however, and while this lineage would remain a reference point throughout the project, we did not envision a ‘balance-sheet’ of a specific body of work or a theoretical tradition. Rather, we used this understanding of critical theory as an entry-point into a broader discussion about the different meanings of critical thinking. We started with critical theory as a range of authors and texts, and sought to explore the ways in which critical thinking can be seen as a broader attitude of thought, a disposition towards the world, a lens through which to grapple with the diversity of social life. On another level, we started within a ‘circle of proximity’ – shared research interests among us editors, a number of authors we were familiar with – and set out to explore the limits of what we knew by confronting the familiar with some difficult questions, by probing into its shortcomings, by opening up this body of work to scrutiny and criticism.

The second way in which this volume differs from its predecessors is closely interlinked with these intellectual motivations. The format we chose for the book was determined by the objective of exploring the breadth and reach of critique by taking the standpoint of a particular strand of critical thinking. Relying once again on our ‘circle of proximity’, we interviewed four scholars who we saw as important figures in the use of critical theory in the study of world politics. We considered that the work and life of these four scholars could prompt different kinds of reflections. We thus asked a number of scholars from diverse critical persuasions to comment on these interviews. Our selection of interviewees and commentators was not driven by a desire to follow or establish a canon, but by the objective of promoting self-reflection and a dialogue that was as open as possible. This volume does not claim to provide a definitive account of what critical theory is or a truthful narrative of its origins and development. We are well aware that the way in which this volume has been organized, and its participants selected, is in itself a particular narrative – which necessarily entails drawing certain boundaries and even some exclusions. Different ways of addressing the critical turn in world politics would yield different results.² Those are the necessary limitations of a project of this nature – but we have sought to minimize any bias by opening the discussion to contributors from a broad range of backgrounds and critical orientations.

We have refrained from establishing a common understanding of ‘critical theory’ and even from imposing a common designation. As the reader will immediately notice, our contributors have different things in mind when they write ‘critical theory’: some prefer to stick to the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, others to its broader Marxist meaning, and still others use critical theory to denote a variety of critical approaches, including post-colonialism, feminism and post-structuralism. Although the format of the book was conceived as dialogical, the conversation we envisaged never aspired to a consensus or a common denominator between the authors; rather, the objective was to showcase the variety of ways in which critique has been pursued in the study of world politics, and to open the floor to a discussion about some of its most important themes and challenges. At the same time, however, we endeavoured to prevent the discussion from turning into a cacophony – in this context, having the interviews as reference points proved immensely useful.

Ultimately, the dialogical format followed in this book reflects more adequately what ‘doing critique’ is: to be open to the world, to engage with others and to confront the limits of one’s own thinking. The format breathed life into what is often seen as a dry, abstract and impersonal process. As has been shown elsewhere, interviews can provide valuable opportunities for illuminating the human dimension of scholarship.³ At the same time, interviews are windows that reveal how intellectual work is at once personal, social and political – thereby requiring different kinds of negotiations between the three. This is particularly important in the case of critical thinking, which has always emphasized the way in which knowledge is socially embedded and driven by interests. In this context, doing critique means also exploring the ways in which personal experiences, ways of seeing the world and ways of acting in the world are interconnected. The interviews and reflections in this volume show that critical enquiry is not merely an intellectual process of reason alone. Rather, critique is a lived experience, which feeds on the cross-fertilization between different areas of activity, academic and non-academic (as the interview with Robert Cox illustrates). At the same time, critique often involves complex negotiations between the ethical, the political and the historical (Andrew Linklater); or between the academic and the personal (Ken Booth). It may involve the interplay of academic work and political activism and struggle (Richard Wyn Jones). The idea of critique as a lived experience is present, in different ways, in some of the responses to the interviews: for Jacqui True, for example, the congruence between the way in which critique is ‘preached’ and ‘practiced’ is central when assessing the merits of a work that claims to be critical; as Mark Neufeld suggests, critical thinking must be given new life through the reinjection of a passionate commitment; Kimberly Hutchings speaks of the necessity of ‘turning towards the world’. In sum, this volume shows that critique must be lived as well as theorized.

The third way in which this volume is distinctive is its dual focus on International Relations and Security Studies. Although we consider both fields to fall under the general rubric of world politics, we found it important to specify them. To begin with, a great number of the contributors to this volume have been important figures on both fields. Secondly, the field of Security Studies has recently witnessed extremely dynamic theoretical debates, to the extent that it is no longer possible to talk of it as a subfield of International Relations. Rather, we think that the birth of Critical Security Studies and the growing popularity of critical approaches to security have altered the traditional relationship between the two fields of study.⁴ Instead of Security Studies being subsidiary of International Relations, we are now witnessing a more intensive cross-fertilization between the two – and, very often, the field of security leading the way in terms of theoretical innovation. This volume displays some of the synergies that can be created by bringing together these two areas of enquiry.

How the Volume is Organized

The volume is divided into two parts. The first (Part I), features four interviews conducted with Robert W. Cox, Andrew Linklater, Ken Booth and Richard Wyn Jones. Our objective as interviewers was to provide the opportunity for these scholars to reflect about the development of critical theory in their work, to gauge their views on the impact of their work and to discuss the challenges and possible directions for future research. While taking into account differences in research interests, methods and subject-fields between the four interviewees, we organized our questions around five common areas of enquiry:

1. their initial engagement with critical theorizing;
2. the importance of a commitment to emancipatory change in their work;
3. the impact of their work on the discipline(s);
4. the practical implications of their work and of critical thinking more generally; and
5. their thoughts on the challenges and future developments of critical thinking.

The interviews were mostly conducted through various face-to-face meetings (with the exception of Wyn Jones’s, which resulted from electronic exchanges), and were digitally recorded. The interviewees were involved in editing the transcripts of the interviews, and thus had the opportunity to change and elaborate their views.

The second half of the volume (Parts II–IV) includes commentaries on these interviews, penned by a number of scholars from various theoretical, normative and interpretive backgrounds – united by their engagement with critical thinking in International Relations and/or Security Studies. Here, our objective was to provide a forum in which different debates surrounding critical thinking could be developed, and in which a diverse range of voices could be heard. The commentators were asked to use the interviews in Part I as a starting point for reflections on the legacy, shortcomings and future of critical theory. The degree of engagement with the interview material varies, but, all of the reflections can be seen as responses to the interviews in Part I or as broader responses to critical thinking as a whole. We have divided these ten commentaries in three parts – Origins (Part II), Limits (Part III) and Future Directions (Part IV). This division is merely an indication of what we considered the most important theme of each chapter. In fact, most (if not all) of the chapters can be seen as addressing these three themes, or at least as having important implications for each of them.

We have deliberately steered away from adding a concluding chapter. Although some of the main themes coming out of this dialogue will be highlighted below, and even though we will go so far as to venture some ideas as to what this might mean for critical thinking, we are very reluctant to engage in the exercise of closure that a conclusion would imply. It is best to let the contributions speak for themselves and to allow the readers to draw their own conclusions. We believe that the primary contribution of this volume is the way it shows the extraordinary diversity of critical theorizing as applied to the study of world politics and, more importantly, the way it seeks to strengthen the critical field as a site of permanent contestation, questioning and self-reflection. We believe that the critical spirit is stifled when one attempts to encapsulate it into formulas or common denominators; in contrast, it thrives when one seeks to learn instead from its example of permanent unrest.

Origins … and Departures

Thinking about origins is important when assessing a theoretical approach. This project began with a particular narrative of the origins of critical theory in the study of world politics: we observed that 2011 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Robert Cox’s ‘Social Forces, States, and World Orders – Beyond IR Theory’ (1981) and of Richard Ashley’s ‘Political Realism and Human Interests’ (1981). These two articles are indeed significant in that they signalled the moment in which insights from critical theory were self-consciously applied to the study of world politics. These two articles were not scattered efforts; in fact, they reflected a broader movement in the discipline. At about the same time, Andrew Linklater’s book Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations (1982) contributed to setting the agenda of a critical-theoretical approach to International Relations theory; not long afterwards, Ken Booth’s (1991) ‘Security and Emancipation’ showed how critical thinking could be used to radically rethink understandings and transform practices of international security.

In these works, one can witness the formation of a critical approach to IR theory. But that is not the same thing as saying that critical theory in the study of world politics originated with these works – or that a line of intellectual influence can be drawn from the thought of Kant, Marx, the Frankfurt School, up to the contributions of these authors. Whilst conducting the interviews and observing the debate that they sparked, we realized that our initial assumptions regarding the ‘intellectual tradition’ of critical theory in world politics were somewhat misplaced – or at least that they needed to take into account a broader perspective. The reality of intellectual life is messier than we originally thought, and critique – as an attitude of thought and a lived experience – cannot be neatly summarized into a coherent narrative.

For example, it was particularly illuminating to learn that Robert Cox was heavily influenced by the thought of Edmund Burke, one of the founding figures of modern conservatism, and that he does not see the Frankfurt School as being part of his intellectual inheritance. Andrew Linklater, on the other hand, while explicitly drawing on the Frankfurt School, cannot be considered a ‘follower’ in that he has used in creative ways the historical sociology of Norbert Elias – who, as Linklater suggests, can be seen as one of the ‘flag-bearers’ of the critical tradition. Ken Booth reveals how he encountered ‘critical theory’ almost by chance, and how it helped him bring together a series of notions about world politics he had developed through other means.⁵

The responses to the interviews go even further in complicating the narrative about the origins of critical theory. Mustapha Pasha’s analysis of the subject of critical international theory explores the origins of critical thinking within a particular Protestant cosmology, and shows how the ‘logic of Western Reason’ underlies the emancipatory commitment. In his contribution, Richard Devetak provides an in-...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Interviews
• Part II Rethinking the Origins
• Part III Debating the Limits
• Part IV Future Directions
• Index