Critical Theory: International Relations’ Engagement With the Frankfurt School and Marxism

Abstract

Critical International Relations theory (CIRT) is not only an academic approach but also an emancipatory project committed to the formation of a more equal and just world. It seeks to explain the reasons why the realization of this goal is difficult to achieve. What is crucial is not only the social explanation, but also politically motivated action to achieve an alternative set of social relations based on justice and equality. Critical theory in International Relations (IR) is part of the post-positivist turn or the so-called “fourth debate,” which followed the inter-paradigm debate of the 1970s. The post-positivist period in IR consists of a plurality of theoretical and epistemological positions that opened up wide-ranging critique of the neorealist “orthodoxy” that has dominated the discipline since the beginning of the 1980s. Critical theory has challenged the mainstream understanding of IR, spurred the development of alternative forms of analysis and approaches, and emergedas the main alternative to mainstream IR. Two traditions of critical thought in IRtrace back to or are based on the views of Karl Marx. The first is the normative Critical Theory (CT) of the Frankfurt School. The second one is a structural critical tradition based on a critique and analysis of the political economy of capitalism. It is argued in the paper that the normative aspects of the critique of International Relations has to be integrated with the structural and historically specific critique of capitalism to make them politically relevant and adequate for a social critique of international relations.