The silence of the academics: international social theory, historical materialism and political values

Abstract

This essay notes that the relationship of political values to social theory is an important but unresolved question for all social theory, but notes that in the discipline of International Relations the discussion is particularly undeveloped. Contemporary trends in IR theorizing are evaluated in order to contexualize the increasingly assertive forms of historical materialist thinking, derived from Marxian social theory, which are being given serious attention in the discipline. I argue that Marxian theory is at one and the same time empirical, normative and emancipatory, and conclude that while much of the new historical materialist thinking in IR advances our understanding of international relations empirically and theoretically, and offers a significantly ‘better’ explanation of the ‘international’ than Realism or other theories can, it is deficient because of its inattention to the centrality of normative and emancipatory questions at the heart of Marxian historical materialism. I further argue that because historical materialism necessitates, within the logic of its own theoretical construction, specific political values, a revisionist historical materialism that ignores these values, calls into question the theoretical integrity of the latter approach.