Writing a preface : critical social theory and the search for "thinking space" in international relations

Abstract

In recent times many of the "givens" of post-World War Two International Relations have undergone remarkable and dramatic change. The Cold War it seems is over, once mortal enemies are recipients of food aid and questions of the ozone layer, AIDS, satellite surveillance and global drug cartels are the stuff of everyday International Relations analysis. In this situation patterns of thought and behaviour regarded, traditionally, as corresponding with a universal, essential "reality" in International Relations have come under increasing scrutiny and challenge. This thesis seeks to make a contribution to the widespread reassessment of contemporary International Relations now taking place. It does so in bringing to the debate the perspectives of a broad critical literature which has urged a more tolerant, selfreflective and sophisticated approach to theory and practice in a period resonant with old dangers and unique opportunities. It does so, more specifically, from a Critical Social Theory perspective which over that past decade has introduced to the International Relations agenda a range of approaches to knowledge and human society previously alien to it. In particular, Critical Social Theory scholarship has located the ostensibly detached tradition and discipline of International Relations as an intrinsic element of a much larger cultural and philosophical enterprise, which, in the post-Enlightenment era, has become the dominant way of "knowing" the world and which has successfully transformed a particular "meaning" of reality into "reality" per se. This, singular, homogeneous and narrowly focused image of the world has become International Relations in the post-World War Two period, establishing the boundaries of legitimate and relevant theory and research and underpining the "art of the possible" in policy terms. From a variety of Critical Social Theory perspectives scholars have sought to alert the International Relations community to the problems and dangers of this approach in an increasingly complex world. This is a central concern of this thesis which, via post modernist influences in particular, critically addresses issues crucial to future global power relations, in order that they be accorded a more serious and sophisticated treatment and that possibilities and potentials for thinking, speaking and acting in different ways be no longer silenced and excluded in the traditional manner.