“GREENING” THE CRITICAL THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS WITH THE CONCEPT OF WORLD-ECOLOGY

Abstract

The article signals the need for a deepened theoretical analysis of environmental issues in International Relations studies. It initializes the idea of “Greening” the Critical Theory of International Relations with critical concepts from other sciences. Thus it proposes the scope of Critical Theory of IR to be expanded to cover not only the relations between power and capital, but the relations of power-capital-nature. It shows common points between the Critical Theory of IR and the concepts of world-ecology and the Capitalocene by Jason W. Moore and proposes reforming some founding definitions that the Critical Theory of IR is based on. This includes re-conceptualizing the critique of capitalism as a way of organizing nature, but also distancing oneself from the Cartesian dichotomy of Society + Nature, which is an obstacle to properly including environmental issues in IR research. The article aims to find some way of incorporating the concepts of world-ecology and the Capitalocene by Jason W. Moore into the Critical Theory of International Relations, thus “Greening” it and updating it to be able to exert some influence upon the ways of thinking about and researching the biggest threat that humanity has ever faced and its relation to the contemporary international relations.