Post-Modern Views and Critiques of IR

1. Post-Modern Views and Critiques of IR

2. A commonality of Post-Modern views of IR is an emphasis on how political action is affected by language, ideas, abstract concepts, and norms. • Our beliefs and expectations about how the world works are influenced by these deeper issues and influence identities. • How we identify ourselves, each other, and our world implicate our actions. We provide and define our world with a human-made context.

3. Postmodernism is often referred to as “Critical Theory” and challenges other theories.In fact, besides constructivists, post-modern theory seeks to tear down, or deconstruct, existing theories without providing alternatives.This means to examine the deeper meaning of language discourse, such as the meaning of words and ideas and trace their effect on political action.

4. Here is an example: Post-modern feminists attempt to show how war and international politics are filled with sexually or male-gendered language and symbols. Examples include talking about the pre-occupation with phallic shaped weapons and their potency. Other feminists in this tradition go further and even question the overly rigid definitions of gender as being socially created, not biological.

5. Can you think about any ways in which socially defined roles of gender affect international relations, war, or politics more generally? What about torture? Are people more horrified if a female soldier is captured and tortured than a male soldier? Is this rooted in socially defined notions of chivalry, or are women simply more valuable than men?

6. Post-modernists take issue with Realism and other theories • Actors are missing: women, MNCs, poor countries, classes, etc. • States are not unitary and thus not rational – states are abstractions • Thus, no such thing as national interest. • Definition of power is limited mostly to tangible measures, not power of ideas, norms, words, etc.

7. At the root of post-modern thinking is the assertion that there is no single objective reality. This is similar to saying that no single conception of the world could be true since it would be open to interpretation and likely exclude some actors or dimensions. For example, Realists are wrong to focus only on the major powers and a limited notion of power, and thus miss the role of norms, ideas, and other issues that fall outside the theory of Realism.

8. Another example: The Realist belief that the system is anarchic leads them to conclude that power politics is the only way to conduct world politics in order to survive. However, this belief is myopic and leads to policy prescriptions that make war more probable. In other words, Realism is a self-fulfilling prophesy. If people expect war, prepare for war, spread the threat of war, war is more likely to occur, which reinforces the original fear of war.

9. In contrast, Constructivistsdo offer more than critical theory. They argue that international regimes or other discourses can be created to change the world. Though ideas may take a long-time to spread, when they do they fundamentally alter the way people see the world and thus political behavior.

10. Though Constructivists would not agree with the idealist conception of a universal ethic, they would argue that subjective norms can be created that improve the human condition. For example, Constructivists argue war could be rendered illegitimate as a means of conflict resolution if people believe it to be barbaric or passé. Thus, war may become obsolete.

11. Does this sound absurd? Well, constructivists would say that you have a mental block that makes it impossible to allow. If people begin to think this way, over time the world can be changed – after all, it is a human creation. This is what constructivists would say happened to slavery. While idealists see slavery as immoral, constructivists say what counts is that people came to see it as illegitimate.