Critical theory and international relations: Knowledge, power and practice

By Stephen Hobden

Critical theory is one of the most important and exciting areas within the study of international relations. Its purpose is not only to describe how the world operates but also to help us imagine how we might achieve a more equitable and sustainable way of life. Presenting key concepts and thinkers, notably Theodor Adorno and Michel Foucault, this book provides an evaluation of the field and suggests how critical thinking can contribute to confronting the challenges of the twenty-first century. It argues that current critiques of critical theory in international relations can only be overcome if we engage with ideas from outside of the western tradition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Feb 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781526131980

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Critical theory and international relations

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Critical theory and contemporary society

Series editors:

David M. Berry, Professor of Digital Humanities, University of Sussex

Darrow Schecter, Professor of Critical Theory and Modern European History, University of Sussex

The Critical Theory and Contemporary Society series aims to demonstrate the ongoing relevance of multi-disciplinary research in explaining the causes of pressing social problems today and in indicating the possible paths towards a libertarian transformation of twenty-first century society. It builds upon some of the main ideas of first generation critical theorists, including Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse and Fromm, but it does not aim to provide systematic guides to the work of those thinkers. Rather, each volume focuses on ways of thinking about the political dimensions of a particular topic, which include political economy, law, popular culture, globalization, feminism, theology and terrorism. Authors are encouraged to build on the legacy of first generation Frankfurt School theorists and their influences (Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber and Freud) in a manner that is distinct from, though not necessarily hostile to, the broad lines of second-generation critical theory. The series sets ambitious theoretical standards, aiming to engage and challenge an interdisciplinary readership of students and scholars across political theory, philosophy, sociology, history, media studies and literary studies.

Previously published by Bloomsbury

Critical theory in the twenty-first century Darrow Schecter

Critical theory and the critique of political economy Werner Bonefeld

Critical theory and contemporary Europe William Outhwaite

Critical theory of legal revolutions Hauke Brunkhorst

Critical theory of libertarian socialism Charles Masquelier

Critical theory and film Fabio Vighi

Critical theory and the digital David Berry

Critical theory and disability Teodor Mladenov

Critical theory and the crisis of contemporary capitalism Heiko Feldner and Fabio Vighi

Previously published by Manchester University Press

Critical theory and demagogic populism Paul K. Jones

Critical theory and epistemology Anastasia Marinopoulou

Critical theory and human rights David McGrogan

Critical theory and feeling Simon Mussell

Critical theory and legal autopoiesis Gunther Teubner

Critical theory and sociological theory Darrow Schecter

Critical theory and dystopia Patricia McManus

Critical theory and social pathology Neal Harris

Critical theory and international relations

Knowledge, power and practice

Stephen Hobden

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Stephen Hobden 2023

The right of Stephen Hobden to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by Manchester University Press

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www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 5261 3195 9 hardback

First published 2023

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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Contents

Preface and acknowledgements

1 Critical Theory: what is it, and why should we study it?

2 The critique of traditional/problem-solving theory

3 The limits to knowledge

4 The operation of power: why are things ‘this way’, and not ‘that way’?

5 Practice: avoiding the ‘big hole with a lot of dead people in it’

6 Can Critical International Relations Theory be more than critical?

Bibliography

Index

Preface and acknowledgements

This book emerges from a Master's level course, ‘Critical Theories of International Relations’ that I have taught at the University of East London for more than a decade. In writing this book I acknowledge that I am ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ who have inspired my interest in this area – in particular Richard Wyn Jones, Stephen Roach, Nick Rengger and Daniel Levine. So, do we need another book? That you are holding this book implies my answer. In tackling this subject anew this book aims to address several issues. There are two significant developments in philosophy that I found have relevant. One of these is the widespread re-engagement with the work of Theodor Adorno. For many, Adorno's somewhat pessimistic stance appears to speak more directly to our times. Furthermore, I wanted to develop an argument that linked first-wave Critical Theory with the work of Foucault to provide a critique of Western ideology. In this undertaking I have been heavily influenced by the work of Amy Allen and Deborah Cook. I also wanted to include a discussion of complexity-based posthumanism. Together, the critique of Western thinking that Adorno and Foucault provide and the more-than-human world suggested by posthumanism suggest the need for a thinking beyond the Western cosmology. The conclusion suggests a way forwards for Critical International Relations Theory that looks to engage with thinking beyond the Western tradition.

Working at the University of East London is ‘interesting’, in the Chinese curse sense of the word. I would like to thank all my colleagues, past, present and future for their support and companionship. UEL has been described as a radical university. In the light of the neoliberal wave sweeping through the higher education system – to which the work of Foucault and Adorno, discussed in this volume, addresses directly – whether that designation still holds is questionable. However, I know that my colleagues remain totally committed to providing an education which challenges the givens in our society, and I am proud to work alongside them.

Thank you to the readers, both of the original book proposal and an earlier draft of the completed manuscript. Where I have been able to address your comments the book has been strengthened. Also, my gratitude to David Berry and Darrow Schecter, as series editors, and Alun Richards and Tom Dark at Manchester University Press for both their encouragement and their patience. This book has taken far too long to come to fruition! I am highly indebted to Jessica Cuthbert-Smith, who has done a fantastic job in copy-editing the book.

My thanks to all the students who have endured ‘Critical Theories of International Relations’, their comments, arguments, disagreements influence every page of this volume. The book is dedicated to all the postgraduate and undergraduate students that I have had the pleasure of working with at UEL. I have learnt far more from you than you can possibly imagine.

Finally, Reader, thank you for picking this book up. You may find many evasions, silences, misrepresentations and downright errors. Please contact me and let me know, and let's discuss how we can take this project forwards.

1

Critical Theory: what is it, and why should we study it?

Critical thought alone, not thought's complacent agreement with itself may help bring about change. (Adorno, 1998c: 122)

Why Critical International Relations Theory?

International Relations deals with the big issues of contemporary global society. The discipline emerged under its own banner in the wake of the First World War, with the aim of contributing to the promise of it being ‘a war to end all wars’. War has been a central concern of the discipline for realists, who see war as an inevitable feature of international relations and consider that its occurrence can only be mitigated by a balance of power, and liberals, who consider that through economic development, trade and cooperation war can be reduced even if not totally eliminated. For some, climate change has replaced war as the most significant threat to the continuation of the species (for example, Hamilton, 2010; Scranton, 2015). In short, the discipline, both past and present, deals with existential concerns. One measure of the current concatenation of crises that we confront is the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ ‘Doomsday Clock’, currently set at 100 seconds to midnight – the closest to Armageddon that it has been since it was initially set up in 1947. The global situation, by this account, is more precarious or fragile than at any time during the Cold War. However, International Relations has a problem in that it is often perceived as ‘Western’, or more specifically an ‘American’ social science (Hoffmann, 1977; Smith, 2000) – one that reflects the power and interests of the West or in particular the United States. Some theoretical perspectives have appeared as a direct challenge to such Western-focused thinking, such as postcolonialism, or the various forms of feminist theory which have pointed to (among other things) the significant, though unacknowledged, role that women play in international relations. Given what is at stake in the practice of international relations, it is perhaps not surprising that theoretical positions which represent particular sets of interests have emerged which challenge the more established approaches within the discipline.

Related to the issue of what is at stake is the question of what the discipline has achieved as it reaches its centenary. Thankfully there has been no system-wide ‘hot’ war since 1945, and inter-state war has also reduced over the past fifty years.¹ However, conflict between people remains endemic in the form of war, and the possibility of nuclear war has not been eliminated. According to certain scholars, war between some combination of the nuclear weapon states is far from unimaginable (Carpenter, 2015; Larsen and Kartchner, 2014). Our relationship with the rest of nature is in a parlous state, with some arguing that climate change is contributing to conflict around the globe and creating large numbers of climate refugees. Throughout the world ugly forms of nationalism are reappearing. The words of Bertolt Brecht, from his play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, referring to the persistence of fascism, appear eerily prescient today: ‘though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again’. If the dreams of the founders of the discipline of International Relations was a peaceful world, then in the early twenty-first century we appear to be as far away as ever, if not further.

It is time for a rethink. One of the most exciting developments in International Relations has been the emergence of what have been labelled ‘critical theories’.² This is a rather diffuse group of approaches which includes feminist theory, Frankfurt School-influenced Critical Theory, and ‘posts’ of various persuasions: Poststructuralism, Postcolonialism and Posthumanism. There is a lot that differentiates these perspectives, but they have at least one tenet in common: the world could be other than it is. There is not a natural and inevitable way that things must be. These perspectives would, therefore, reject the realist claim that we have to accept the world as it is and that we do more damage when we try to change it. Critical theorists also reject the liberal claim that liberal democracy is an inevitable, or necessarily superior, form of social organisation. Critical perspectives would argue that capitalism, while not the cause of all our problems, has been a disastrous path to follow, both regarding our relations with our fellow humans and, perhaps even more devastatingly, concerning our relations with the rest of nature. If we take realism and liberalism to be the dominating forms of thought within International Relations, then for critical theorists these approaches are not supplying us with the solutions to the problems that we confront, but rather are exacerbating those problems. If we are to survive the current century, then we need to do some serious rethinking as a species. It might be a somewhat overused metaphor, but we live on a fragile overcrowded spaceship whose resources we are using up faster than they can be replenished. We need to think about how to organise ourselves to survive. We cannot go on as we are and so we need to reconsider the ways in which we reflect on the world. More conventional approaches to thinking about international relations argue that more of the same are our best hope. Critical theorists would argue for an urgent reappraisal.

What this book is (and is not) about

In the light of such a reappraisal, the aspiration of this book is to provide an account and evaluation of the development of critical theory within International Relations. The intention is not to provide a comprehensive account of all the varieties of critical theory that have appeared in International Relations, which would not be possible within one book. Its focus will be on the contribution of three forms of critical theory: Frankfurt School-influenced Critical Theory, Foucauldian-influenced poststructuralism, and posthumanism, a comparatively recent addition to the spectrum of critical theories.

This may appear a rather arbitrary choice of focus, and my intention is not to devalue other forms of critical theory. Feminist thinking can rightly make the claim to be one of the first critical contributions to have appeared. Both feminist and postcolonial thought have had seismic impacts on the discipline.³ Feminist theory will appear at various points in the form of critiques of omissions in existing critical theory. Earlier in the book postcolonial theory will play a similar role, but towards the end its influence will be found in a broader critique of Western reason that the book starts to develop in the conclusion.

The choice to focus on Frankfurt School Critical Theory and Foucauldian poststructuralism reflects the considerable interest among students of International Relations in the work in this area. Adorno's work, in particular, has been undergoing a considerable re-evaluation in the past two decades both within International Relations and within the social sciences more generally. The possibility of fascism re-emerging even in democratic societies was a core concern of Adorno, and given his prescience on this point his work is worthy of reconsideration.⁴ Foucault's later work on the notion of governmentality has also aroused considerable interest within International Relations. A further development is recent work which has sought to bring the work of Foucault and Adorno into conversation with each other.⁵ We will highlight how, in different ways these two theorists provide a critique of the notion of Western reason. Both the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing climate crisis highlight the significance of human relations with the rest of nature, and hence the inclusion of discussions of posthumanism in this book. Posthumanism seeks to rethink human relations with the rest of nature, to de-centre the human, and to think through the implications of considering humans as another species as opposed to an essential one.

The book is structured around three questions that are relevant to Critical Theory and International Relations: what and how do we know; what is power; and how should we live? All critical theory raises questions of knowledge, with an underlying assumption that practices of knowledge production are neither neutral nor final. Quite how far this point will be pushed varies by perspective, as we will see, with poststructuralist theorists arguing that all knowledge production is contingent on social conditions. Others will argue for temporary foundations, which – while open to challenge – will provide the basis for provisional knowledge claims.

The second area of concern is about power. Power remains a contested concept across the social sciences. Foucault's work has provided one of the most influential accounts of power, which has had an enormous impact on thinkers in International Relations in challenging conventional notions of the operation of power. We will look at the utility of this approach but also consider how power has been conceptualised in other critical viewpoints.

The third area of discussion in this book concerns practice. A common characteristic of critical theory is that the world can be otherwise. To paraphrase Marx, people make history. If the world can be otherwise, and we are dissatisfied with how it is, then can we remake the world in ways which we would prefer? Such a question raises a plethora of issues, such as who gets to decide how the world ‘should’ be, and just how we get from the world as it is to the world as we would prefer it. The twentieth century is littered with social experiments which, at least in their rhetoric, claimed to have the intention of improving life, but ended in the most horrific oppression. Any plan to ‘change the world’ does so in the shadows of the Soviet gulags and the Chinese Great Leap forwards. If we find the global distribution of wealth and power unacceptable, our treatment of other species abhorrent, and are concerned about the long-term impacts of climate change, then it seems incumbent on us as citizens to take some form of action. All critical theory has some implications for how we should live.

In developing an account and evaluation of critical theory I am not seeking to provide a fixed definition of different perspectives, nor am I attempting to propose a grand synthesis by cherry picking the ‘best’ elements of each approach to produce a unified critical theory of international relations. All of these traditions are continually changing and mutating and defy ultimate definition. As we will see, they are all incommensurate in some senses. For example, it is hard to retain the notion of an emancipatory goal if you believe that there are no absolute grounds for making distinctions between knowledge claims. Yet, we will also find that there are areas of overlap and similarity. Although in International Relations the term ‘emancipation’ is very much associated with Critical Theory, in much of his writing Adorno eschewed emancipatory goals and advocated forms of practice which bear comparison to the notion of resistance associated with Foucault.

Before evaluating the various forms of critical theory, however, we need to have some guidance about the term. To consider a definition is the prime function of the subsequent sections of this introductory chapter, where we will make a start on considering what is meant by the term ‘critical’ by discussing some canonical texts and provide a brief sketch of the development of various forms of critical thinking in International Relations.

One way to try to gauge what constitutes critical theory is to consider a theory that is regarded not to be critical. In Chapter 2 we look at two examples of what could be called mainstream International Relations: Neorealism, developed from the work of Kenneth Waltz; and Social Constructivism in the form initially proposed by Alexander Wendt. Based on the definitions of critical theory that we derive in this chapter, we will examine whether it is justified to designate these two perspectives as not being examples of critical theory. We will discover that these assessments are more complicated than might originally appear to be the case.

Chapters 3, 4 and

5 respectively address the three questions of knowledge, power and practice. Chapter 3 will assess the ways in which various theoretical perspectives have raised questions about our knowledge claims. For the early theorists of the Frankfurt School our theoretical perspectives were always limited because they, in turn, were products of a totally reified society. Later theorists, in particular Habermas, perceived this argument as a theoretical dead end and suggested that through communicative action, while we might not achieve truth in an absolute sense, we could find the basis of communication to overcome differences. This argument has been developed by Rainer Forst's more recent work on practical reason. However, as we will see, it is Habermas’ work that has had the largest impact on Critical International Relations Theory. For Foucault knowledge is a social product, and, rather than establishing truths about the social world, his work is more concerned with asking why certain statements come to be understood as true. Posthumanists, especially those who draw on complexity thinking, argue that our knowledge of the world will always be partial and speculative given the unpredictability of the complex adaptive systems which existence comprises. This perspective warns of the difficulties involved in making predictions, especially in policymaking, and of the need to develop ways of living with complexity. In Chapter 3, we also address feminist and postcolonial writers who have pointed to Western and male bias in both critical and non-critical thinking.

In Chapter 4 we turn to the question of power. Foucault's work provides the most influential analysis of power of the twentieth century. This work has had a significant impact on International Relations, in particular the development of the notions of biopower and governmentality when applied beyond the domestic arena. The notion of biopower has come into use in relation to the actions of governments to address the COVID-19 pandemic and we will consider some of these arguments. For the early Frankfurt School the definition of power as a concept was less a concern than tracing the operation of power in maintaining society as it is. Adorno and Horkheimer, for example, are famous for their work on what they called the ‘culture industry’ – the role of the popular media in legitimating and reproducing a particular form of social arrangement. For posthumanists, power has frequently been seen in relational terms, with those operating in a complexity framework assessing the notion of the fitness landscape to analyse the capacity of powerful actors to manipulate the environment for others.

In Chapter 5 the discussion will focus on the political projects that emerge from the critical approaches discussed in the book. Frankfurt School-inspired critical theorists within International Relations have concentrated on the notion of ‘emancipation’. Andrew Linklater in particular has drawn on Habermas’ work to consider the possibilities for a ‘transformation of political community’. More recently Honneth's work on recognition has received considerable attention as a way of rethinking inter-civilisational relations. However, the concept of emancipation raises several questions, such as who gets to decide what emancipation is, and how we move from the situation that we are in to an emancipated one. Poststructuralists have been particularly wary of the term ‘emancipation’, suggesting that emancipatory projects inevitably involve replacing one set of oppressive relations with another. The focus for poststructuralist thinkers is on revealing power relations and the practice of ‘resistance’. Does this, however, imply ultimately a nihilistic perspective and the abandonment of any hope of a more progressive world order? Posthumanists have pointed to the embeddedness of human social systems within a range of non-human systems and the interconnections between human and non-human natures, suggesting, for some, the possibility of developing a posthuman politics. Yet, in the complex world that posthumanists depict, there are difficulties of policy implementation – does this imply that all political options are doomed to failure? Alternatively, can we, in Edgar Morin's (2008: 96) words, develop ‘the art of working with uncertainty’.

The book concludes with an assessment of the differences and similarities between various forms of critical thinking. There are certainly major epistemological and ontological differences, but there are also shared concerns and areas of overlap. They are all concerned with issues of knowledge, power and practice, and all have a concern with how this world might be other than it is. A theme that links all the approaches in this book is the critique of ‘Western’ forms of thinking. The conclusion argues that, as a way forward for critical thinking, we should examine the possibility of thinking beyond the Western ‘cosmology’.

What is Critical Theory?

Critical theory in International Relations encompasses a wide variety of theoretical perspectives, with different ideas about what critical means and what are the implications of developing a critical position. As Kimberley Hutchings (2001: 80) notes regarding critical theory in International Relations, ‘it is no easy matter to pin down what being critical means or to work out whether there is anything in common among the perspectives that all see themselves as critical’. The term ‘critical theory’ itself can be traced to an essay written by Max Horkheimer in 1937, which we will discuss later in this section. The term ‘critical’ when associated with philosophical practice, however, has a much longer tradition, with Socrates and the ‘Socratic method’ being cited as the origins of critical thinking in the Western tradition (Herrick, 2014). In the non-Western tradition Buddhist thought is frequently identified as an example of critical thinking. In the Kalama Sutta, often described as the ‘Charter of free enquiry’, Buddha (quoted in Dawes, 2016: 130) advises the following:

Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, ‘The monk is our teacher.’ Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are bad; these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,’ abandon them.

In Japan, this tradition continues with the recent emergence of ‘Critical Buddhism’ (Shields,

2011).

In the Western, post-Enlightenment, philosophical tradition the notion of critique is associated with the work of Immanuel Kant. Three of Kant's works, The Critique of Pure Reason, The Critique of Practical Reason and The Critique of Judgement, outlined the basis of Kant's thinking on knowledge, practice and aesthetics respectively. Echoing the sentiments of Buddha, Kant in his essay ‘What is Enlightenment’, describes enlightenment as ‘man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance.’ We should ‘dare to know!’ (Kant, 1991: 1). While in this book we are primarily concerned with issues that Kant raised in Critique of Pure Reason with regard to the possibilities of knowledge, and in The Critique of Practical Reason with regard to practice, critical theory and especially the works of Foucault and Habermas have engaged widely with his legacy. Hutchings points out, however, that the Kantian legacy is mixed. While raising the question of the possibilities for knowledge as a rejection of Humean scepticism, Kant opened a new set of questions which continue to haunt critical theory to this day. Hutchings (2001: 86) argues that a paradox lies at the heart of the Kantian project: ‘whereas the purpose of critique is to trace the limitations of reason in order to engage with critique, reason (in the form of the work of the critic) takes on powers that appear to transcend that limitation, which the critic needs to account for.’

Hegel, despite, unlike Kant, rarely using the terms critique and critical in his work, is even more significant in the development of critical thinking. The issues that he wrestled with remain central to critical thought today. Much of the work of the early Frankfurt School thinkers, especially Adorno and Marcuse is an extended dialogue with Hegel's thinking. His influence is most clearly seen in Marcuse's Reason and Revolution, originally