Critical Theorists and international relations

Critical Theorists and International

Relations

A wide range of critical theorists is used in the study of international politics, and

until now there has been no text that gives concise and accessible introductions to

these figures. Critical Theorists and International Relations provides a wide-ranging

introduction to thirty-two important theorists whose work has been influential in

thinking about global politics.

Each chapter is written by an expert with a detailed knowledge of the theorist

concerned, representing a range of approaches under the rubric ‘critical’, including

Marxism and post-Marxism, the Frankfurt School, hermeneutics, phenomenology,

postcolonialism, feminism, queer theory, poststructuralism, pragmatism, scientific

realism, deconstruction and psychoanalysis.

Key features of each chapter include:

a clear and concise biography of the relevant thinker

an introduction to their key writings and ideas

a summary of the ways in which these ideas have influenced and are being used in

international relations scholarship

a list of suggestions for further reading.

Written in engaging and accessible prose, Critical Theorists and International

Relations is a unique and invaluable resource for undergraduates, postgraduates and

scholars of international relations.

Jenny Edkins is Professor of International Politics at Aberystwyth University. Her books

include Global Politics: A New Introduction, with Maja Zehfuss (Routledge, 2008).

Nick Vaughan-Williams is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of

Exeter. He is co-editor of Terrorism and the Politics of Response (Routledge 2008).

Contributors: Claudia Aradau; James Brassett; Angharad Closs Stephens; Martin

Coward; Neta Crawford; Elizabeth Dauphinee; François Debrix; James Der Derian;

Robin Durie; Kimberly Hutchings; Vivienne Jabri; Peter Jackson; Catarina Kinnvall;

Milja Kurki; Cristina Masters; Rens van Munster; Himadeep Muppidi; Andrew

Neal; Louiza Odysseos; Patricia Owens; Columba Peoples; Fabio Petito; Vanessa

Pupavac; Diane Rubenstein; Mark Rupert; Latha Varadarajan; Nick Vaughan-Williams;

Ritu Vij; Maja Zehfuss

Interventions

Edited by:

Jenny Edkins, Aberystwyth University and Nick Vaughan-Williams, University

of Exeter

‘As Michel Foucault has famously stated, “knowledge is not made for under￾standing; it is made for cutting.” In this spirit the Edkins – Vaughan-Williams

Interventions series solicits cutting edge, critical works that challenge main￾stream understandings in international relations. It is the best place to contribute

post disciplinary works that think rather than merely recognize and affirm the

world recycled in IR’s traditional geopolitical imaginary.’

Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawai’i at Mãnoa, USA

The series aims to advance understanding of the key areas in which scho￾lars working within broad critical post-structural and post-colonial traditions

have chosen to make their interventions, and to present innovative analyses

of important topics.

Titles in the series engage with critical thinkers in philosophy, sociology,

politics and other disciplines and provide situated historical, empirical and

textual studies in international politics.

1. Critical Theorists and International Relations

Edited by Jenny Edkins and Nick Vaughan-Williams

Critical Theorists and

International Relations

Edited by

Jenny Edkins and Nick Vaughan-Williams

First published 2009

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2009 Editorial and selected matter; Jenny Edkins and Nick Vaughan￾Williams; individual chapters the contributors

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced

or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,

now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,

or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in

writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Critical theorists and international relations / edited by Jenny Edkins and

Nick Vaughan-Williams.

p. cm. – (Interventions ; 1)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. International relations. 2. Critical theory. 3. International relations–

Philosophy. I. Edkins, Jenny. II. Vaughan-Williams, Nick.

JZ1242.C76 2009

327.101–dc22

2008036410

ISBN 10: 0-415-47465-5 (hbk)

ISBN 10: 0-415-47466-3 (pbk)

ISBN 10: 0-203-88184-2 (ebk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-47465-8 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-47466-5 (pbk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-203-88184-2 (ebk)

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s

collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

ISBN 0-203-88184-2 Master e-book ISBN

Contents

Notes on contributors viii

Introduction 1

JENNY EDKINS AND NICK VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS

1 Theodor Adorno 7

COLUMBA PEOPLES

2 Giorgio Agamben 19

NICK VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS

3 Hannah Arendt 31

PATRICIA OWENS

4 Alain Badiou 42

CLAUDIA ARADAU

5 Jean Baudrillard 54

FRANÇOIS DEBRIX

6 Simone de Beauvoir 66

KIMBERLY HUTCHINGS

7 Walter Benjamin 77

ANGHARAD CLOSS STEPHENS

8 Roy Bhaskar 89

MILJA KURKI

9 Pierre Bourdieu 102

PETER JACKSON

10 Judith Butler 114

CRISTINA MASTERS

11 Gilles Deleuze 125

ROBIN DURIE

12 Jacques Derrida 137

MAJA ZEHFUSS

13 Frantz Fanon 150

HIMADEEP MUPPIDI

14 Michel Foucault 161

ANDREW NEAL

15 Sigmund Freud 171

VANESSA PUPAVAC

16 Antonio Gramsci 176

MARK RUPERT

17 Jürgen Habermas 187

NETA C. CRAWFORD

18 G.W.F. Hegel 199

RITU VIJ

19 Martin Heidegger 205

LOUIZA ODYSSEOS

20 Immanuel Kant 217

KIMBERLY HUTCHINGS

21 Julia Kristeva 221

VIVIENNE JABRI

22 Emmanuel Levinas 235

ELIZABETH DAUPHINEE

23 Karl Marx 246

MILJA KURKI

24 Jean-Luc Nancy 251

MARTIN COWARD

25 Friedrich Nietzsche 263

ROBIN DURIE

vi Contents

26 Jacques Rancière 266

RENS VAN MUNSTER

27 Richard Rorty 278

JAMES BRASSETT

28 Edward Said 292

LATHA VARADARAJAN

29 Carl Schmitt 305

LOUIZA ODYSSEOS AND FABIO PETITO

30 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak 317

CATARINA KINNVALL

31 Paul Virilo 330

JAMES DER DERIAN

32 Slavoj Žižek 341

DIANE RUBENSTEIN

Bibliography 354

Index 389

Contents vii

Notes on Contributors

Claudia Aradau is Lecturer in International Studies in the Department of

Politics and International Studies, The Open University (UK). Her

research interrogates the effects of politics deployed at the horizon of security

and of catastrophe. She has worked on the securitisation of human traf￾ficking and migration, governing terrorism and exceptionalism. Her current

research focus lies in the exploration of the political and historical relations

between security, freedom and equality. She is the author of Rethinking

Trafficking in Women: Politics out of Security (Palgrave, 2008). She is

currently co-writing a book on the politics of catastrophe together with

Rens van Munster.

James Brassett is RCUK Fellow and Assistant Professor, Department of

Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick. His work on

the politics of global ethics has been published in journals such as Ethics

and International Affairs and Millennium.

Angharad Closs Stephens is Lecturer in Human Geography at the University

of Durham and studied for her PhD in International Relations at Keele

University. Her research work focuses on contemporary attempts to

imagine political community without unity, drawing on ideas of time, and

inspired by postcolonial and feminist theories in particular. She has

recently published in Alternatives: Global, Local, Political and with Nick

Vaughan-Williams, is co-editor of Terrorism and the Politics of Response

(Routledge). She is co-convenor of the BISA Poststructural Politics

Working Group.

Martin Coward is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of

Sussex, UK. His research focuses on post-structuralist theory and poli￾tical violence. He is author of Urbicide: The Politics of Urban Destruction

(Routledge, 2008). He edited a Special Issue of the Journal for Cultural

Research on Jean-Luc Nancy (Volume 9, Number 4, 2005).

Neta C. Crawford is Professor of Political Science and African American Studies

at Boston University. She is the author of Argument and Change in World

Politics: Ethics, Decolonization and Humanitarian Intervention (Cambridge

University Press, 2002) and the co-editor with Audie Klotz of How Sanc￾tions Work: Lessons From South Africa (Macmillan, 1999). She has writ￾ten about argument, ethics, war, and peace in Ethics & International Affairs;

International Organization; International Security; Perspectives on Politics;

Naval War College Review; Orbis; and the Journal of Political Philosophy.

James Der Derian is Watson Institute Research Professor of International

Studies and Director of the Institute’s Global Security Program at Brown

University. Der Derian also founded and directs the Global Media

Project <http://www.watsoninstitute.org/globalmedia> and the Information

Technology, War, and Peace Project <http://www.infopeace.org> at the

Watson Institute. He has also made three documentaries with Amedia Pro￾ductions, VY2K, After 911, and Culture War. His most recent book is Vir￾tuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network.

Elizabeth Dauphinee is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political

Science at York University. She is the author of The Ethics of Researching

War: Looking for Bosnia (Manchester University Press, 2007) and has

published articles in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Security

Dialogue, and Dialectical Anthropology.

François Debrix is Associate Professor of International Relations at Florida

International University in Miami. He is the author of Re-Envisioning

Peacekeeping (1999) and Tabloid Terror: War, Culture, and Geopolitics

(2007). He is currently editing a book (with Mark Lacy) titled The Geo￾politics of American Insecurity. His work has appeared in journals such as

Millennium, Alternatives, Philosophy and Social Criticism, and Geopo￾litics. Over the years, he has translated several of Jean Baudrillard’s texts

for the journal C-Theory.

Robin Durie is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Exeter. He has

published on the philosophy of time, and on theories of difference and

immanence, as well as on complexity theory. Committed to trans-dis￾ciplinary practice, he has collaborated with artists, architects, physicists

and biologists in the past, and is currently working on two major trans￾disciplinary projects studying the evolution of culture in human and non￾human societies, and sustainability. He has also collaborated widely with

non-academic partners in health-care and community regeneration work.

Jenny Edkins is Professor of International Politics at Aberystwyth University.

She has published widely, including most recently, Sovereign Lives: Power

in Global Politics (edited with Véronique Pin-Fat and Michael J. Shapiro.

Routledge 2004), Trauma and the Memory of Politics (Cambridge University

Press 2003) and Whose Hunger? Concepts of Famine, Practices of Aid

(University of Minnesota Press 2000, 2008) and Poststructuralism and

International Politics: Bringing the Political Back In (Lynne Reinner,

1999). She is co-editor with Maja Zehfuss of a major new Routledge

Notes on Contributors ix

textbook Global Politics: A New Introduction (2008) and with Nick

Vaughan-Williams of a book series with Routledge called ‘Interventions’.

Kimberly Hutchings is Professor of International Relations at the LSE. She is

the author of Kant, Critique and Politics (Routledge, 1996); International

Political Theory: re-thinking ethics in a global era (Sage, 1999); Hegel and

Feminist Philosophy (Polity, 2003) and Time and World Politics: thinking

the present (Manchester University Press, 2008). Her research interests

include the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, feminist thought, interna￾tional political theory and ethics. She is currently working on an intro￾ductory book on global ethics and (with Elizabeth Frazer) on the relation

between politics and violence in canonic western political thought.

Vivienne Jabri is Professor of International Politics in the Department of

War Studies, King’s College London. Her research and writing focus on

critical and poststructural thought, with a particular interest in the

implications for politics and political subjectivity of war, conflict and

practices of security. Her most recent book is War and the Transformation

of Global Politics (Palgrave, 2007).

Peter Jackson is Reader in International Politics in the Department of

International Politics, Aberystwyth University and Editor of Intelligence

and National Security. His books include France and the Nazi Menace:

Intelligence and Policy-Making (Oxford, 2000) and (with Jennifer Siegel)

Intelligence and Statecraft: The Uses and Limits of Intelligence in Inter￾national Society (Praeger, 2005). He is now finishing a book entitled

Political Cultures of National Security in France, 1914–1932.

Catarina Kinnvall is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Sci￾ence, Lund University, Sweden. She is the author of a number of books

and articles. Her most recent publications include: On Behalf of Others:

The Ethics of Care in a Global World (ed. with S. Scuzzarello and K.

Monroe, Oxford University Press, 2008); Globalization and Religious

Nationalism in India: The Search for Ontological Security (Routledge

2006); Globalization and Democratization in Asia: The Construction of

Identity (ed. with K. Jönsson, Routledge 2002). She is currently finalizing

a book entitled: The Political Psychology of Globalization: Muslims in the

West, together with Paul Nesbitt-Larking. She is also former Vice￾President of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP).

Milja Kurki is Lecturer in International Relations Theory at Aberystwyth

University. Her research investigates matters at the intersection of inter￾national relations theory and philosophy of social science, especially the

issue of causation. She is the author of Causation in International Rela￾tions: Reclaiming Causal Analysis (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and

co-editor (with Tim Dunne and Steve Smith) of International Relations

Theories: Discipline and Diversity (Oxford University Press, 2007).

x Notes on Contributors

She has published articles in the Review of International Studies and

the Millennium.

Cristina Masters is Lecturer at the University of Manchester and the co￾editor of The Logics of Biopower and the War on Terror: Living, Dying,

Surviving (Palgrave 2007). She is the author of a chapter, ‘Bodies of

Technology and the Politics of the Flesh’, in Rethinking the Man Question:

Sex, Gender and Violence in International Relations (Zed Books. 2008),

edited by Jane L. Parpart and Marysia Zalewski, and a founding member

of the Research Network on Love at the University of Manchester.

Himadeep Muppidi is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science,

Vassar College. He is the author of The Politics of the Global (University

of Minnesota Press, 2004) and is currently completing his second book

titled The Colonial Signs of International Relations.

Andrew W. Neal is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of

Edinburgh. He is the author of Exceptionalism and the Politics of Counter￾Terrorism: Liberty, Security and the War on Terror (Routledge, 2009), co￾editor (with Michael Dillon) of Foucault on Politics, Security and War

(Palgrave, 2008), and he has published journals articles as sole and

joint author on Foucault, exceptionalism and critical approches to

security.

Louiza Odysseos is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Uni￾versity of Sussex. Her research interests are in international theory, ethics,

and post-structuralist philosophy. She is the author of The Subject of

Coexistence: Otherness in International Relations (University of Minne￾sota Press, 2007), a critical book-length treatment of the work of Martin

Heidegger in IR, as well as coeditor, with Fabio Petito, of The Interna￾tional Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal War and the

Crisis of Global Order (Routledge, 2007) and, with Hakan Seckinelgin, of

Gendering the International (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). She has also

guest-edited special issues on the themes of gender and international

relations in Millennium: Journal of International Studies (27 (4), 1998) and on

the international theory of Carl Schmitt for Leiden Journal of International

Law (19 (1), 2006).

Patricia Owens is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Queen Mary University of

London. She is the author of Between War and Politics: International

Relations and the Thought of Hannah Arendt (Oxford, 2007), War and

Security: an Introduction (Polity, forthcoming) and co-editor of The Glo￾balization of World Politics (4th edition) (Oxford, 2008). Articles have

been published in Review of International Studies, International Affairs,

Millennium, International Politics, and Alternatives. She has held

research positions at Princeton, Berkeley, University of Southern

California and Oxford.

Notes on Contributors xi

Columba Peoples is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the

Department of Politics, University of Bristol. He has primary research

interests in Critical Security Studies, Critical Theory, and critical approaches

to technology within the study of International Relations with a particular

focus on the issues of nuclear security, ballistic missile defence and space

security. He has published articles on these and other related topics in

Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Global Change, Peace and

Security, Cold War History and Social Semiotics.

Fabio Petito is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of

Sussex. His research interests lie in International Political Theory and the

International Politics of the Mediterranean. He is co-editor (with Louiza

Odysseos) of The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror,

Liberal War, and the Crisis of Global Order (Routledge, 2007) and (with

Pavlos Hatzopoulos) Religion in International Relations: The Return From

Exile (Palgrave, 2003).

Vanessa Pupavac is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of

Nottingham. Her research encompasses international human rights, chil￾dren’s rights, linguistic rights, humanitarian and development politics. She

has published in journals such as Development in Practice, International

Journal of Human Rights, Third World Quarterly, and International

Peacekeeping.

Diane S. Rubenstein is Professor of Government and American Studies at

Cornell University. Her research and teaching addresses the critical inter￾action between continental theory (primarily French, German, and Ita￾lian) and contemporary manifestations of ideology in Franco-American

political culture. She is author of What’s Left? The Ecole Normale

Supérieure and the Right (Wisconsin, 1990) and This is not a President:

Sense, Nonsense, and the American Political Imaginary (New York, 2008).

Her essays on Lacan, Baudrillard, and Foucault have appeared in Poli￾tical Theory, Theory and Event, Philosophy and Social Criticism, Modern

Fiction Studies, UMBR(a), Journal of Politics, Journal of European Studies,

New Centennial Review.

Mark Rupert is Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University’s Max￾well School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and teaches in the areas

of international relations, political economy, and the political theories of

Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci. His research focuses on the intersection

of the US political economy with global structures and processes. He is

the author of Producing Hegemony: the politics of mass production and

American global power (Cambridge, 1995); and Ideologies of Globaliza￾tion: Contending Visions of a New World Order (Routledge, 2000); and

co-author (with Scott Solomon) of Globalization and International Poli￾tical Economy (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006). His home page can be

found at: http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/merupert/merindex.htm.

xii Notes on Contributors

Rens van Munster is Lecturer in International Politics at the Department of

Political Science, University of Southern Denmark. His main research

interests concern the political consequences of security politics within the

contexts of immigration and terrorism. He is the co-editor of a special

volume of Security Dialogue on ‘Security, Technologies of Risk and the

Political’. His work has been published in edited volumes and international

journals, including Alternatives, European Journal of International Relations,

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law and International Relations.

Latha Varadarajan is Assistant Professor of Political Science at San Diego

State University. Her research interests include the issues surrounding the

contemporary manifestations of imperialism, globalization, transnation￾alism, and diasporas politics. Her articles on these themes have been

published in journals like Review of International Studies; Millennium:

Journal of International Studies; Diaspora: A journal of transnational studies;

and New Political Science.

Nick Vaughan-Williams is Lecturer in International Relations at the Uni￾versity of Exeter. His research analyses borders and bordering practices

and their implications for International Theory and Security and he has

recently received funding from The British Academy on this theme. He is

author of Border Politics: The Limits of Sovereign Power (Edinburgh

University Press, 2009) and co-editor, with Angharad Closs Stephens, of

Terrorism and the Politics of Response (Routledge, 2008). Recent articles

have been published or accepted for publication in Alternatives, Interna￾tional Political Sociology, Millennium, and the Review of International Stu￾dies. He is co-convenor of the BISA Poststructural Politics Working Group

and co-editor of the Routledge book series ‘Interventions’.

Ritu Vij joined the Department of Politics and International Relations,

University of Aberdeen, in 2006, after completing a two-year fellowship

at Keio Univerity (Tokyo) as the recipient of a Fellowship awarded jointly by

the Social Science Research Council (USA) and the Japan Society for the

Promotion of Science (JSPS). Her research interests include social theory

and comparative political economy, globalization and social policy, civil

society and subjectivity. She is author of Japanese Modernity and Welfare:

Self, State and Civil Society in Contemporary Japan (Palgrave, 2007) and

editor of Globalization and Welfare: A Critical Reader (Palgrave, 2006).

Maja Zehfuss is Professor of International Politics at The University of

Manchester. She is the author of Constructivism and International Relations:

The Politics of Reality (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and Wounds of

Memory: The Politics of War in Germany (Cambridge University Press,

2007) and the co-editor, with Jenny Edkins, of Global Politics: A New

Introduction (Routledge, 2008). She is currently writing a book on war and

the politics of ethics, in which she examines how the problematic of ethics

is produced, enacted and negotiated in war.

Notes on Contributors xiii