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Lecture 3 Seminar Notes: Inter Paradigm Debate 1: Realism vs Utopianism
Student Notes

Discipline is essentially a theoretical undertaking with practical application.
The subject matter in International Relations is dynamic
We are constantly faced by facts / international events but objective analysis based on the analysis of facts is not always possible - questions such as
Which facts should we adopt in our analysis
What we should do with those facts
Can we trust the facts
How many facts are "enough" to allow us to claim that we have solved the issue of reality.
purely factual analysis is insufficient.

Hence evolution of the discipline has been based upon a series of "Great Debates" which highlight great diversity of opinion in International Relations.
are we in search of the objective truth or are we merely for intellectual stimulation.
Should we rely on facts to bring us closer to the so-called objective truth.
Or should we rely on established theories which allow us to generalise on events

We must not ignore 20th Century history when thinking about International Relations. Has IR theory developed independently of international events or because of them?

The Inter-Paradigm Debate

Structuralism





Realism Liberalism


Neo-realism


Idealism

Belief in the fundamental good in human nature
Focus on progress as the key human concern
Bad things, such as war, happen because of imperfect structures

Balance of Power can be replaced by collective security
Secret Diplomacy can be replaced by Openness
National Interest can be redefined to reflect a collective harmony of interests

War is avoidable – you can arbitrate instead of fighting
Collective action can eliminate war
International Society should re-organise itself.

Steans and Pettiford: Liberal Assumptions

Rationality (self interest and reason)
Priority of Individual Liberty
Progressive View of Human Nature
Possibility of Change
Blurring of Domestic / International Divide

Dunne: “…power politics itself is the product of ideas, and crucially, ideas can change”.
Jackson and Sorenson: “… the conviction that, through a rational and intelligently designed international organisation, it should be possible to put an end to war and achieve more or less permanent peace”.
Kegley and Wittkopf: “The League of Nations was the embodiment of the collective security principle. It reflected simultaneously the emphasis that idealists placed on international institutions as a mechanism for coping with the problem of war … and the possibility of international co-operation as a mechanism of global problem-solving.
Marc Hoffman: “… rooted in international law, liberal internationalism and employing the ‘domestic analogy’, this interwar utopianism proffered the solution of ‘peace through law’.
Jackson and Sorenson on Wilsonian ideas: “traditional power politics – so-called realpolitik – is a jungle, so to speak, where dangerous beasts roam and the strong and cunning rule, whereas under the League of Nations the beasts [would be] put into cages reinforced by the restraints of international organisation”.

Liberal Internationalism and the Origins of the Discipline
Consequences of World War 1 à defined a new Discipline and outlined the first Great Debate à Idealism vs Realism. Conclusions of initial studies suggested that the anarchic nature of the International System went directly against the “Liberal Internationalist” nature of the English-speaking world (US and Britain). But there were differences in approach between the US and Britain. Fabians and radical liberals in Britain blamed the failure of diplomacy rather than any systemic failure. In the US Liberal Internationalist ideas were put forward by President Woodrow Wilson and his Fourteen Point Speech in January 1918 which showed a systemic problem. 2 points

Concluded that the wider public did not want war but were led into it by militarists and autocrats
Wilson criticised international institutional structures that existed prior to 1914. Hence he argued that an International Organisation was needed

League of Nations was to provide the security that nations attempted, unsuccessfully, to find under the old, balance of power system.
These reforms were based upon changes in both domestic and international structures - ie constitutional government and the rule of law were to be universally applied.
Also the claim by Liberal Internationalists that an understanding of the so-called REAL interests of the public - and that this would show that clashes of interest were the product of ignorance and the selfish interests of a limited number of people. Known as the general Harmony of Interests.

Liberal Internationalism (Idealism) became the first orthodoxy of International Relations and the League of Nations was established and this incorporated the Idealist principles of Collective Security.

The relevant Treaties are

The Peace Settlement of 1919
The Locarno Treaties of 1926
Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 highlighted the importance of liberalist principles with War as a tool of States being outlawed.
BUT
US Senate refused to allow the US to join and at first the original members refused to allow Germany or indeed Russia to become members. Wilson failed to sell his ideas.
1930s saw economic collapse,
rise of dictators in various countries
acts of aggression in Asia, Africa and Europe

League of Nations failed to develop a coherent policy in response - led to Realist dmoniance following World War 2.



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Approaches to IR: Lecture 4 Seminar Notes: Realism

1930s à appearances of a better system of international relations à League of Nations. But, US Senate refused to allow the United States to join, 1930s saw economic collapse, the rise of dictators in varies countries and aggression in Asia, Africa and Europe combined with an inability of the League of Nations to develop a coherent policy in response to the crises. Hitler's Germany and Italy's Mussolini? Regimes that came to power through the democratic process and were maintained through popular support. Also in direct contrast to the Liberal views on outlawing war these fascist regimes in Germany and Italy actually glorified war. The liberal internationalist slogan was à 'Law not War'. But during the 1930s it became increasingly clear that that the only way to maintain international law was though war.

New ideas began to emerge in International Relations:
1930s Reinold Niebuhr in Moral Man and Immoral Society - claimed that the Liberals had wildly exaggerated the capacity of humans to behave in ways that were truly moral.
E.H.Carr in The Twenty Year Crisis renamed Liberal Internationalism to Utopianism – and claimed that one of the central features of the international system was scarcity of resources and he claimed that it was utopian to suggest that poor nations would accept the status quo.
wishful thinking to think the League of Nations could have any real power
Realists worked with world as it really was and the utopianists as they wished it to be.
Conflict had to be managed not outlawed.
Utopians failed to consider how power was distributed in the international system. The interwar period benefited the victorious powers and it was not true to see all states as having a common interest in preserving peace.
Giving up the pursuit of power endangered state security.
national interest = strategic power and that the Balance of Power mechanism was crucial to prevent the rise of hegemonic powers.
Carr recognised Realism to be barren and so saw a role for the utopianists in countering realism through the establishment of international society.
He did not see the State as the final stage of human community – sovereignty – but saw power and not morality shaping the developing world order.
Based on common sense Realism seemed to offer coherence and accuracy and they argued that diplomats and politicians had always been realistic in their assessment and academics now had to join them. Remains dominant even today

But to criticise Carr - privileging power above other characteristics Carr fails to explain why States sometimes see humanitarianism above national interest.
Key realist à Hans J. Morgenthau who wrote Politics Among Nations. 2 major differences between Carr and Morgenthau. Carr: saw the main issue of realism to lie on Scarcity but Morgenthau saw it in sin - a product of human nature. The aggressive, power-seeking nature of states stemmed from the imperfect humans of which they were constructed.

International Relations = States pursuing Interests defined in terms of power.
This simple formula opened up a host of other issues namely: a) That states were the key actors in International Relations and b) stress on National Interests showed that states had interests which dominated state behaviour. Raises the question à can States have interests? Realists argue that States are like persons capable of possessing interests and that States behave in accordance with these interests.
States seek power in order to achieve their other goals
The need for power is the result of anarchical system.
States have to look after their own interests because there is no authoritative system of decision-making in the international system.
Morgenthau wrote P.A.N. as an attempt to apply natural science rules to international politics.
For Morgenthau there was a knowable reality that could to be revealed.
Morgenthau saw flaws in human nature which he held responsible for the world’s imperfections.
Morgenthau’s 6 Principles
Politics is governed by objective laws which have their root in human nature: as rules cannot change we MUST understand them.
International Politics is to be understood through the concept of interest defined as power
State power can change but the concept of interest remains constant
Universal moral principles do not guide state behaviour even though that behaviour may have moral and ethical consequences.
There is no universally agreed moral framework that could work
Autonomy of politics

Dougherty and Pfaltzgraff: “utopianism emphasises the possibility of transforming the nation state system through international organisation and law”. Realism on the other hand focuses on power as a mix of military, technology, resources, geography and so on and does not have much hope that the international system can change.
Power is accorded a central position within realist theory and indeed within International Relations as a whole.
Reliance on classical and modern political thought. Machiavelli: in “The Prince” recognised that the leader needed different morals from the society over which he governed. “… the question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared or feared than loved. The answer is that it would be desirable to be both but, since that is difficult, it is much safer to be feared than loved”.
Thucydides: on the Melian Dialogue stated: “The strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept”. Hobbes’ famous dictum on the state of nature as being “nasty, brutish and short” recommended a Leviathan with adequate power to rule over society: “Covenants without the sword are but words”.
Tim Dunne in Baylis and Smith: Realism taught American leaders to focus on interests rather than ideology and this explains why two different states like the Soviet Union and the United States could have similar foreign policies.
Henry Kissinger: “A nation’s survival is its first and ultimate responsibility and it cannot be compromised or put to risk”.

Are things different now or do realist principles hold across time and space? Barry Buzan in “The timeless wisdom of Realism” pointed out that the strength of realism lay in
its continuing relevance , Its flexibility in taking on ideas from other approaches, And its value as a starting point for enquiry.

Criticisms
Kenneth Waltz in Theory of International Politics à States have to defend themselves unlike citizens but preparation leads to the “security dilemma”.
is it inevitable that just because the international system is anarchic that this will lead to self help rather than co-operation or regional integration?
How to define “Security”
Hollis and Smith claim that Realism represents an inappropriate use of scientific methods
Fred Halliday claims that realism has an unrealistic view of the State
Spike Peterson makes a very interesting point when he states that sovereignty which legitimises violence needs to be rethought.
Balances of power do not prevent war – they encourage arms races. Eg Soviet Union and US during the Cold War and India and Pakistan now.


But we cannot dismiss realism for the simple reason that it is like the real world, it is positivist in nature claiming that it conducts rigorous analysis based upon scientific methodology, it deals with the big issues of the international system and is simple to grasp.

And finally: Carr: “Realism tends to emphasise the irresistible strength of existing forces and the inevitable character of existing tendencies, and to insist that the highest wisdom lies in accepting, and adapting oneself to these forces and tendencies”

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Lecture 5 Seminar Notes: Realism and Neo-Realism

Characterising the great debates in IR is complicated, but 20th Century has seen disciplinary movement.
First debate focused on the nature of man; Realists vs Idealists (Utopianists). Realism focused power politics with a long intellectual pedigree - Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes and Rousseau
Realist claim that the best description of world politics is a state of war - not a continuous war or constant war but the constant possibility of war among all states.
Also that all individuals must accept the national interest as an ideal,
Morgenthau highlighted the centrality of the state which imposed on the state a ‘unitary’ image.
State-centrality, its relegation of domestic processes, its central emphasis on human nature, and its inability to analyse the role of preconceptions lays open realist thought to criticism.
Major attack from pluralists – eg Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye who established alternatives to classical realism. Advocated transnationalism, multiple access channels and complex interdependence showed that interdependence involved states but also non-state actors à Complex Interdependence.
Complex Interdependence gave the impression that the state was far from being a unitary actor.

Complex Interdependence à multiple channels of access between societies, different branches of the state apparatus as well as non-state actors, as opposed to the unitary state image of realism. CI assumed that for most international relations military force was not appropriate. Finally, under CI there was no hierarchy of issues compared to realism which saw security as foremost.

Kenneth Waltz’s Neo-Realism – sought to
Develop a more rigorous theory of international politics than earlier realists had done. Theory had to be defined precisely and in terms drawn from the thinking of the scientific method.
Show how one can distinguish between unit level and structural elements and then make connections between them. Waltz restricted the kind of theory he was producing - but also restricted its scope. He argued that there were patterns in the international system which recur over time and these were products of the system itself, and not of its subsystems.

For Waltz, systems had three elements:
Its ordering principal (in IR this is anarchy)
The function of the constituent units (in IR they were all similar politically)
States and the distribution of power.

As Waltz stated: “In order to turn a systems approach into a theory, one has to move from the usual vague specification of systemic forces and effects to their more precise specification, to say what units the system comprises, to indicate the comparative weight of systemic and subsystemic cause, and to show how forces and effects change from one system to another”.

He used this approach to show a number of important factors: that interdependence theory overstated the reliance of great powers on other states, that military power was extremely useful in preserving stability, and that great hegemonic powers had a role in “managing” world affairs. For Waltz only two types of system are possible, Hierarchical and Anarchical. In a hierarchical system - different kinds of units are organised under a clear line of authority. In an anarchical system, units which are similar in nature, even though they may have different capabilities, conduct relations with one another.

Keohane – a Liberal Institutionalist was to highlight three reasons why scholars might want to study neo-realism: Because it is the best theory so far, because its value is limited to certain situations and so it needs concerted study; or in order to know the enemy. As Buzan stated: Buzan: “Neo-realism [was to abandon] the conservative assumptions about human nature that underpinned classical realism and reasserted the logic of power politics on the firmer foundation of anarchic structure. [Like Realism before it] it defended the centrality of the state, and especially of the great powers, exposing the partiality of some interdependence views of IR, and reaffirming the primacy of American power in the international system”.

Even pluralists like Keohane soon accepted that the international system was anarchic and repositioned himself to Neo-Liberal Institutionalism – the debate between the two came to be known as the neo-neo synthesis since there appeared to be a convergence between the two positions. However, for realists co-operation was not possible under anarchy, NLIs’ analysed the extent to which co-operation was possible under anarchic conditions.

All forms of realism therefore have a number of characteristics that are in common:
highlight the importance of the state: As Buzan states: “[Realism’s] emphasis on the state derives from the sense that the state is the dominant wielder of power in the international system”.
Continuity of the Human Condition – for realism this is embodied within Human Nature and for Neo-Realism this is centered around anarchy as the ordering principle.
They both focus on political groups (especially the military) and not the individual
For both anarchy is important and this leads to no constraints on states which ultimately means that conflict is the natural state of affairs.
The Balance of Power mechanism
Security Dilemma

Neo-realism contains analogies from economics - especially the theory of markets and the firm where the market is a structure and exists independent of the wishes of the buyers and sellers who nonetheless create it by their actions. This overall perspective, also known as rationalism or neo-utilitarianism - draws its central ethos from the discipline of economics and rational choice assumptions.
Despite their differences over the question of co-operation in the international system, both neo-realism and neo-liberalism are rationalist theories: both are constructed upon assumptions held in micro-economic theory - that the main units in the international system – ie states – are assumed to self-interested and rational.
They are also assumed to be pre-social – ie. their identities and interests are given and constant
Rationalist theories assume that society is a strategic realm.

We can see how Neo-realism and indeed Realism both fit conveniently within these characteristics.

Criticisms

lack of space it gives for states to alter the system themselves.
Waltz fails to account for the ability of economic interdependence
Liberal democracies are more pacifist and more states becoming liberal-democracies has the potential for changing the structure of the international system.
What about the establishment of International Society: Hedley Bull, Martin Wight in the early 1970s argued that the Realists had failed to account for co-operation. As Hedley Bull was to argued: à International Society exists when a group of states that are conscious of certain common interests and values, “form a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions”.
Can an international society like the European Union alter the structure?

Others have also criticised Waltz:
John Ruggie: who says that Waltz fails to explain changes over time. Neo-realism failed to predict the end of the Cold War for instance.
Robert Keohane, who stressed the need to integrate economics and international institutions to account for co-operation in the system which Waltz considers unlikely.
Robert Cox, labels Neo-realism as problem solving theory, and sees as problematic its apparent assumption that the status quo is permanent and universal.
Ashley, who sees Neorealism as statist and positivist and uncritical of scientific progress.
Jackson, who criticises Waltz for his lack of explicit ethical dimension

And finally to quote from Hoffman who says that Waltz created “a very interesting and rigorous notion of theory and the, by applying it to IR manages to leave most of the substance of the field outside the straitjacket”.


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Lecture 6 Seminar Notes: Approaches to IR: Marxism and Structuralism:

Marx à concerned with causes of conflict in society and believed that it was the result of struggle between different socio-economic classes.
saw capitalism as a bondage from which people strive to be liberated.
theory of history based on historical materialism, where the system of economic production determined structures of society. All history was the history of class struggle between a ruling group, from which [came] a new economic, political and social system.
Before capitalism, ownership of land formed the basis of political power - feudalism, followed by Capitalism which also contained the seeds of its own destruction.
Capitalism built on principles of private ownership and the pursuit of profit. Conflict between Bourgeois and Proletarian classes – between those who owed the means of production and those who worked in return for a wage. The difference between what proletariat produced and wages known as à surplus value / or profit – and capitalism driven by the accumulation of this surplus value or profit.
surplus value achieved through search for new markets, constantly driving down wages to extract more surplus value from their workers, or by replacing labour with new technologies - eg machines
Capitalism would collapse as workers became too poor to afford the goods that they themselves produced and as new markets were exhausted à leading to revolutionary change.
Capitalism à exploitative with in-built tensions and contradictions which would cause it to collapse.
Human societies made up of various institutions which changed over time with economics as the main driving force. Collapse of Capitalism would lead to a socialist order with extensive government control over production and distribution until the last elements of capitalism were removed from society. Finally the state would wither away with the establishment of a communist system.

Linklater: “Human history for Marx is a laborious struggle to satisfy basic material needs, to understand and tame natural forces, to gain control over alienating and exploitative social systems and to overcome estrangement from the members of other societies”.
Relevance of the work of Marx and Engels is to international level as well as to domestic level. As Jackson and Sorenson state: “Because classes cut across State borders conflict is not confined to States; instead it expands around the world in the wake of capitalism”.
Viotti and Kauppi see four key characteristics of what they call globalism:
the significance of the global environment
the historical perspective
the quest to understand the distribution of power and wealth
and the focus on economics – especially in terms of North-South relations

Structural theories’ aims were to give an account of the political and economic subordination of the South to the North – eg: à Dependency Theory: à Centre-Periphery/Core-Periphery analysis: à World Systems analysis and Sometimes referred to as à Scientific Marxism, Structural Marxism, neo-Marxism. All share notion that the North and South are in a Structural Relationship with one another ie both areas are part of a structure that determines the pattern of relationships that emerges. Structuralism is a general theory of IR but also a Southern theory in two senses: (a) it actually originated in the South, and (b) its subject area is explicitly geared towards the problems and interests of the South à calls for justice
Hazel Smith: “Neomarxist explanations of international politics provide a broad framework of analysis which considers class as a major factor in international relations [and] economic relationships as the key dynamics and international justice and equality as the most important normative concerns”.

Hobson and Lenin provided further insights: Hobson: “Imperialism assumes an international, hiearchical division of labour between rich and poor regions of the world, but the relation in not one of mutually benefical comparative advantage … [but] it is one of exploitation”. Hobson argued that Capitalist societies produced far more than they were able to consume and so investment opportunities in other developed countries remained limited. The solution was to invest in what became know as” the Third World and the result was imperialism. For Hobson, imperialism did not benefit the country as a whole but only a selected group of industrialists and financiers.
Lenin’s regarded Imperialism as the highest stage of Capitalism – was interested to explain “the necessity for capitalist exploitation of lesser developed countries and the causes of war among advanced capitalist states”. Also accepted that underconcumption and overproduction caused capitalists to look for markets in the less developed states and to engage in Imperialism. Lenin also believed that imperialist policies reflected the existence of monopoly and finance capital. “capitalism had developed such that oligopolies and monopolies controlled the key sectors of the economy”, pushing out the smaller and bleeding the domestic markets dry and so this led to the need to look elsewhere for investment opportunities.

Marx believed that the growth of proletarian consciousness would result in revolution within capitalist countries. But for Lenin, imperialism explained why Marx’s revolution had failed to come about. The tensions within capitalism still existed but Imperialism provided the capitalists with a breathing space.

Dependency Theory: Prominence in the 1960s – coincided with decolonisation process. Cold War competition meant that West was keen to ensure that former colonial states did not fall into the hands of communist regimes and encouraged these newly independent states to develop capitalist economies . Dependencia School emerged from the efforts of Latin American intellectuals to show that their societies could not catch up to the levels of development that the rich Western states of North America and Western Europe à even though they had followed the advice of the rich West.

World System Theory: Immanuel Wallerstein argued that the world system could not be understood in isolation and that an overall or holistic approach was necessary. The mini-systems (eg hunter, farmer, carer etc) have been swallowed up by larger systems of social, economic and political organisation à the latest of which according to Wallerstein is the World System which comes in 2 types World Empire and World - Economy. At first the gap between the core and periphery were small, but gradually this widened as more and more of the core countries concentrated on manufactured goods and the periphery increased its reliance on primary production. This has led to uneven development across the world, and the existence of a First and Third World was not the result of historical evolution of societies but rather the direct result of the capitalist world system.

Steans and Pettiford summarise Structuralism:
the nature of international relations is profoundly shaped by the structure of the capitalist world economy, or capitalist world system
International politics is shaped or even determined by economic factors
The main actors are states, multinational and transnational corporations and transnational social classes
The state reflects the interests of the dominant classes rather than there existing a genuine national interest
Capitalism is a fundamentally unjust social and economic order which generates conflict and disharmony
Capitalism is characterised by internal contradiction and is subject to periodic crises.

Marxist and neo-Marxist theories à mixed fortunes in IR. Structuralism resembles realism for the following reasons: a) both emphasise conflict as a central process in international relations, b) Both structuralism and neo-realism share the view that conflict is structural because of the framework in which inter-state relations take place, c) Structuralism also shares ground with Liberalism because they both place great emphasis on the interdependence between states and the importance of non-state actors.

However, differences also: a) realism à conflict is due to anarchic structure –and in structuralism conflcit is due to conflict in the global economy and the way in which relations are structure. b) This also explains structuralism’s differences from Liberalist emphasis on interdependence and co-operation. c) Greater emphasis on connections between economic and politics than in realism.

Other Themes in Structuralism: Whose interests does the STATE represent? Structuralists argue that analysis would be better focused on social classes and the nature of transnational alliances among elites rather than analysing the States themselves. In a superficial sense they resemble the realists in recognising the importance of the state in IR. However, rather than seeing the state as a sovereign power representing its own interests in international relations str. claim that the state in some ways represents the interests of the dominant social classes. There is, however, disagreement among str thinkers as to whether the state is dominated by social elites or whether it exercises a degree of autonomy. Even if we accept that the state has a degree of autonomy, the state is nevertheless, compelled to deal with the political and economic contradictions inherent in capitalism and so is never able to completely escape the constraints imposed by the global capitalist system.

There is also the question of the overarching global economy as a constraining or determining factor in State behaviour. Structuralists like Immanuel Wallerstein make a distinction between core and periphery states arguing that in the core, the state is relatively strong, but functions to advance the interests of the bourgeoisie by preventing other states erecting political barriers to the profitability of their activities. Core states, then, shape the world market in ways that advance the interests of some entrepreneurs. Core states co-operate with each other, therefore, to extend and deepen the world capitalist system. The most powerful ones, for example, work through certain international institutions to ensure the survival of an international capitalist economy which benefits elite classes across the globe.

So though states are important - the study of international relations must also extend to a range of other actors like the World Bank, the IMF and MNCs as well.

Criticisms of Marxist Theories

general assumption in International Relations that Marxist theories have had little to offer the analyst.
Realists criticise Marxism for being predominantly concerned with modes of production and class structure and conflict rather than national loyalties, state power and geopolitical competition. Linklater: “A failure to understand these phenomena meant that Marxists were wrong to think that capitalist globalisation would be the prelude to a more cosmopolitan world”.
Realists point to the way in which the Soviet system adopted the traditional realist methods of state-craft to promote national security and survival - namely diplomacy, power maximisation and so on.

However, having said this, more recently students of international relations have become increasingly concerned with the points raised by Marxists. World Systems theory, Dependency Theory have forced IR to analyse the questions of global inequality which result from the capitalist world economy and urged a new moral dimension in IR thought.

Furthermore we need to question what actually leads to dependency
Realists would argue that structuralists have an over-reliance on economics: and they would argue that it is the security system that determined the economic system and not vice versa.
Structuralists cannot account for successful countries like Brazil, Singapore or Japan.
Critics also question the value preferences of the structuralists and complain that they are too normative and ultimately offer little by way of solutions.
Furthermore, there is a concern amongst the critics of structuralism that much of their literature tends to increase 3rd world nationalism against the West rather than addressing the real issues of under-development.
Alien to US academia à largely due to the Cold War
Concentrating on class ignores other issues such as gender, race and nationalism.


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Lecture 7 Seminar Notes: Post-positivist Approaches: Critical Theory

The Evolving Debates
Shift in the 1980s from issues concerning a variety of positivist theories (inter-paradigm debate) to a debate on the nature of social enquiry itself. The defence of Positivism – had a tremendous impact
"understanding" international relations versus "explaining" it.

The Debates
1980s neo-realism and neo-liberalism applied the logic of rationalist economic theory to international relations, but reached radically different conclusions.
1980s à debate between reflectivist and rationalist theories. Reflectivists challenged epistemological, methodological, ontological and normative assumptions of neo-realism and neo-liberalism who in turn claimed that post-positivists had nothing to say about ‘real world’ international relations’.

Defining our Ontological and Epitemological Positions: Foundationalist or Anti-Foundationalist
Ontology Comes first: Nature / Theory of Being. Key question à Is there a real world out there which exists independent of our knowledge of it? If yes à Foundationalist / If no à Anti-Foundationalist
Epistemology comes next and depends upon our ontological position. If foundationalist we believe that a real world exists independent of our knowledge of it – then the questions that we need to ask here are:
what is it about the world that we can discover / know?
how do we go about discovering it?

This can be approached by comparing positivism with post-positivism
IR as a discipline has been dominated by Positivism which has involved a commitment to the adoption of the methodologies used in the natural sciences to explain the social world.
Looked at in this light inter-paradigm debate between Idealism, Realism and Structuralism begins to look narrow as all these paradigms work under positivist assumptions

Underlying assumptions:
That there is a belief in the unity of science à including the social sciences.
that there is a distinction between facts and value judgements.
that there is a powerful belief in the existence of regularities in the social as well as natural world.
belief that empirical validation or falsification is the basis of "real" enquiry.

Post-positivism - Critical Theory and Post-Modernism
Question positivist approaches to knowledge and challenge the scientific method.
Critical Theory initially concerned with undermining foundations of dominant discourses in IR.
Post-modernism shares epistemological, ontological and methodological assumptions with critical theory - both criticise objective, empirically verifiable truth statements and reject a single scientific method, and rationalist conceptions of human nature.
Post-modernists go further and reject all meta-narratives such as realism or Marxism criticising their all-encompassing explanations and world views.
Critical theory influential during the 1980s with roots in Marxism. Both Critical theory and Structuralism are influenced by Marxism - similarities but also important differences. Marxist orientation à to analyse social relations with the intention of changing them.

Based in Marxist thought. Marx à people had little control over their lives. In history dominant ideas or ideologies were used to justify state of affairs. Marx interested in why Liberalism failed to mitigate against the unequal effects of capitalism. How is Critical theory different from Marxism and Structuralism.
Structuralists look at structure of the world capitalist system - Critical theorists emphasise the importance of culture and ideology in perpetuating certain types of social relationships.
Orthodox Marxism claims that society can be understood scientifically à Positivist. In contrast Critical Theory claims that all knowledge is ideological.
CTs argue that theories and practices are connected. Unity between Theory and Practice (PRAXIS).
Contemporary Critical Theorists believe that social theory is concerned with understanding the thinking person and is then centrally concerned with human emancipation.
Critical theorists not rigid or deterministic of the relationship between the economics and social or political systems - So while capitalism may be exploitative it generates opportunities for social change.
Class is not the only form of domination or oppression.

Origins: à Early humanistic Marx rather than the later scientific Marx, à Frankfurt School Tradition, à To the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci and à German social theorist Jurgen Habermas

Economic and social forces generated by capitalism are now global in scope and States and institutions must be seen in the context of the extent to which they support global capitalism. Critical Theorists argue that there may be a real world but it is a product of critical thought and reflection and so all knowledge is ideological - it reflects on values, ideas and crucially, interests of particular groups. They see culture and ideology as forces supporting or challenging the existing economic and social order and international relations is therefore a struggle between a variety of social groups and movements - which some seek to maintain and others change. Marx primarily concerned with alienation in Capitalism and was concerned with overcoming such conditions and therefore achieving EMANCIPATION - This is a central concern for Critical Theorists.
In the 20th Century, the Frankfurt School continued to develop Marx’s analysis of capitalism as a social and economic system. This school combined Marx’s interest in capitalism with processes of rationalisation characteristic of the modern world.

The word “Modern” in this context refers to:
historical developments such as the secularisation of the political authority in the form of the state, the development of capitalism, and the division of labour and a high degree of social differentiation.
In Modern societies people were increasingly identified in terms of their occupation and people also saw themselves increasingly as individuals, rather than as members of a community or religious group.
Modernity, therefore, also changed the way in which people thought about themselves and their lives.
Enlightenment à claimed to be universalist, secular and anti-authoritarian and saw prejudice and intolerance as social evils. Concentrated on the possibilities of replacing traditions and customs with societies which were organised in a more rational way. Marxism is a very modern discourse à recognised by the Frankfurt School. But Frankfurt School also recognised the dark side of Modernity.
People à preoccupied with the task at hand and spent very little time reflecting on the ultimate purpose of life, or the path to human happiness and satisfaction.
Capitalism manufactured a desire for consumer goods encouraging materialism and humans sought fulfilment through the ownership of things.

The FS began analysis during the 1930s depression. But humans lent support during this time to right wing fascist rather than socialist modes of governance and even in the Soviet Union socialism proved to be a travesty of what Marx had envisaged. The FS explain why people had failed to revolt against capitalism.
education system and mass media consolidated support for capitalism
also blamed institutions like the police that forcibly put down strikes or other revolts against authority.

Hence Critical theorists began to conclude that while the economic organisation of society was important other social institutions played a vital role in supporting capitalism but have become disillusioned with the possibility of revolution based upon class consciousness. Hence have looked for other sources and agents of social change. Eg nationalist movements in the post-WW2 period and have become much more sensitive to multiple forms of oppression inherent in capitalism.

There are other central questions: What happens to notion of Human Emancipation if we move away from Class? Who are the new agents of radical change? Also what is "Emancipation"?

Jurgen Habermass à Accused Marx of failing to pay attention to language and communication in shaping consciousness - Humans construct knowledge of the world through this medium. Habermass advocated a process of open dialogue and democracy in the interests of furthering human emancipation thus showing the value of the modern system of being able to criticise, challenge and question authority and argued that emancipation was about extending the realm of moral understanding and justice in human life and not about labour emancipation.

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Lecture 7 Seminar Notes: Post-positivist Approaches: Critical Theory

The Evolving Debates
Shift in the 1980s from issues concerning a variety of positivist theories (inter-paradigm debate) to a debate on the nature of social enquiry itself. The defence of Positivism – had a tremendous impact
"understanding" international relations versus "explaining" it.

The Debates
1980s neo-realism and neo-liberalism applied the logic of rationalist economic theory to international relations, but reached radically different conclusions.
1980s à debate between reflectivist and rationalist theories. Reflectivists challenged epistemological, methodological, ontological and normative assumptions of neo-realism and neo-liberalism who in turn claimed that post-positivists had nothing to say about ‘real world’ international relations’.

Defining our Ontological and Epitemological Positions: Foundationalist or Anti-Foundationalist
Ontology Comes first: Nature / Theory of Being. Key question à Is there a real world out there which exists independent of our knowledge of it? If yes à Foundationalist / If no à Anti-Foundationalist
Epistemology comes next and depends upon our ontological position. If foundationalist we believe that a real world exists independent of our knowledge of it – then the questions that we need to ask here are:
what is it about the world that we can discover / know?
how do we go about discovering it?

This can be approached by comparing positivism with post-positivism
IR as a discipline has been dominated by Positivism which has involved a commitment to the adoption of the methodologies used in the natural sciences to explain the social world.
Looked at in this light inter-paradigm debate between Idealism, Realism and Structuralism begins to look narrow as all these paradigms work under positivist assumptions

Underlying assumptions:
That there is a belief in the unity of science à including the social sciences.
that there is a distinction between facts and value judgements.
that there is a powerful belief in the existence of regularities in the social as well as natural world.
belief that empirical validation or falsification is the basis of "real" enquiry.

Post-positivism - Critical Theory and Post-Modernism
Question positivist approaches to knowledge and challenge the scientific method.
Critical Theory initially concerned with undermining foundations of dominant discourses in IR.
Post-modernism shares epistemological, ontological and methodological assumptions with critical theory - both criticise objective, empirically verifiable truth statements and reject a single scientific method, and rationalist conceptions of human nature.
Post-modernists go further and reject all meta-narratives such as realism or Marxism criticising their all-encompassing explanations and world views.
Critical theory influential during the 1980s with roots in Marxism. Both Critical theory and Structuralism are influenced by Marxism - similarities but also important differences. Marxist orientation à to analyse social relations with the intention of changing them.

Based in Marxist thought. Marx à people had little control over their lives. In history dominant ideas or ideologies were used to justify state of affairs. Marx interested in why Liberalism failed to mitigate against the unequal effects of capitalism. How is Critical theory different from Marxism and Structuralism.
Structuralists look at structure of the world capitalist system - Critical theorists emphasise the importance of culture and ideology in perpetuating certain types of social relationships.
Orthodox Marxism claims that society can be understood scientifically à Positivist. In contrast Critical Theory claims that all knowledge is ideological.
CTs argue that theories and practices are connected. Unity between Theory and Practice (PRAXIS).
Contemporary Critical Theorists believe that social theory is concerned with understanding the thinking person and is then centrally concerned with human emancipation.
Critical theorists not rigid or deterministic of the relationship between the economics and social or political systems - So while capitalism may be exploitative it generates opportunities for social change.
Class is not the only form of domination or oppression.

Origins: à Early humanistic Marx rather than the later scientific Marx, à Frankfurt School Tradition, à To the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci and à German social theorist Jurgen Habermas

Economic and social forces generated by capitalism are now global in scope and States and institutions must be seen in the context of the extent to which they support global capitalism. Critical Theorists argue that there may be a real world but it is a product of critical thought and reflection and so all knowledge is ideological - it reflects on values, ideas and crucially, interests of particular groups. They see culture and ideology as forces supporting or challenging the existing economic and social order and international relations is therefore a struggle between a variety of social groups and movements - which some seek to maintain and others change. Marx primarily concerned with alienation in Capitalism and was concerned with overcoming such conditions and therefore achieving EMANCIPATION - This is a central concern for Critical Theorists.
In the 20th Century, the Frankfurt School continued to develop Marx’s analysis of capitalism as a social and economic system. This school combined Marx’s interest in capitalism with processes of rationalisation characteristic of the modern world.

The word “Modern” in this context refers to:
historical developments such as the secularisation of the political authority in the form of the state, the development of capitalism, and the division of labour and a high degree of social differentiation.
In Modern societies people were increasingly identified in terms of their occupation and people also saw themselves increasingly as individuals, rather than as members of a community or religious group.
Modernity, therefore, also changed the way in which people thought about themselves and their lives.
Enlightenment à claimed to be universalist, secular and anti-authoritarian and saw prejudice and intolerance as social evils. Concentrated on the possibilities of replacing traditions and customs with societies which were organised in a more rational way. Marxism is a very modern discourse à recognised by the Frankfurt School. But Frankfurt School also recognised the dark side of Modernity.
People à preoccupied with the task at hand and spent very little time reflecting on the ultimate purpose of life, or the path to human happiness and satisfaction.
Capitalism manufactured a desire for consumer goods encouraging materialism and humans sought fulfilment through the ownership of things.

The FS began analysis during the 1930s depression. But humans lent support during this time to right wing fascist rather than socialist modes of governance and even in the Soviet Union socialism proved to be a travesty of what Marx had envisaged. The FS explain why people had failed to revolt against capitalism.
education system and mass media consolidated support for capitalism
also blamed institutions like the police that forcibly put down strikes or other revolts against authority.

Hence Critical theorists began to conclude that while the economic organisation of society was important other social institutions played a vital role in supporting capitalism but have become disillusioned with the possibility of revolution based upon class consciousness. Hence have looked for other sources and agents of social change. Eg nationalist movements in the post-WW2 period and have become much more sensitive to multiple forms of oppression inherent in capitalism.

There are other central questions: What happens to notion of Human Emancipation if we move away from Class? Who are the new agents of radical change? Also what is "Emancipation"?

Jurgen Habermass à Accused Marx of failing to pay attention to language and communication in shaping consciousness - Humans construct knowledge of the world through this medium. Habermass advocated a process of open dialogue and democracy in the interests of furthering human emancipation thus showing the value of the modern system of being able to criticise, challenge and question authority and argued that emancipation was about extending the realm of moral understanding and justice in human life and not about labour emancipation.

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Lecture 8 Seminar Notes: Post-Positivism II: Post-Modernism

Aims of Lecture
· Attempt to define Post-Modernism
· Highlight common themes underpinning post-modern approaches
· Explain connection between power and knowledge
· Explain the connection between Textual Interplay and Textual Strategies of Deconstruction and Double Reading
· Ask whether International Relations is entering a Post-Modern Age

Defining and Common Themes

Bad press, confusing but influential. Other names, post-structuralists or deconstructivists
something more than merely another academic paradigm.
cultural movement, at its most radical post-modernism ‘goes to the very core of what constitutes social science’ and ‘dismisses it’.
opposition to modernism

The modern Westphalian period supposed to be progressive promising to liberate humankind from ignorance and irrationality but Post-modern opposition to modernism is based upon an analysis of the modern era’s record. For eg over questions of morality pomos questions whether the modern era has been a force for liberation or a source of subjugation and repression.
Most conventional international relations theories reside within the modern framework. Neo-realism à grounded in the structure of the modernist international system, thereby tying the theory to this particular period in history à incapable of evolution in historical terms.
Even more recent pluralist accounts of international relations eg Neoliberalism can be criticised for remaining within modernist Westphalian image despite being more open to alternatives such as the declining relevance of sovereignty, they remain state bound in that they have failed to find a replacement.
Post-modernism à difficult to define
does not seek to provide an alternative set of assumptions. Rather it stresses the impossibility of such a task.
post-modernist approaches reject modernist aims to be exact, precise and rigorous.
refocuses on what modernist assumptions have taken for granted or neglected.
does not seek to ‘improve’ the social sciences but rather to make explicit their underlying assumptions, while at the same time undermining their foundations.
Modernist social science à dominated by positivist, empiricist, rational and logical assumptions but Modernist theories failed to deliver the results instead being accused of covering up abuses in democratic societies and working to sustain totalitarian states. The post-modernist arrival is perhaps a response to the modernist upheaval.

Power and Knowledge - is knowledge from the influence of power? Being objective was the ultimate goal. But Kant warned that the possession of power corrupted us.
Michel Foucault sought to analyse this relationship and saw a mutual constitution.
post-modernists analyse how power fits into the wider political and social context.
genealogical analysis to search for the connection between power and knowledge.
Genealogy characterized by Nietzsche’s notion of origins. Pomos à concerned with the origins of modernist concepts. Genealogy is concerned with the history of a concept with the intention of uncovering what has been hidden.
Davetak à genealogy is concerned with writing counter histories

Hence pomos undermine modernist conceptions such as
Ashley à Sovereignty and Anarchy, Weber à Sovereignty
an analysis of the State where Richard Davetak is concerned.
In his genealogy of security, James Der Derian seeks to highlight the discursive power of the concept, to remember its forgotten meanings, to reinterpret - and possibly reconstruct a post-modern notion comfortable with a plurality of meanings.
Shapiro saw the identification of friends and foes during the Gulf War as blips on video devices à leading to the dehuminisation of war.

Two additional questions emerge at this point:
What strategies do post-modernists adopt to destabilise the dominant interpretations
Are we beginning to exist in a post-modern condition.

Strategic Deconstruction and Double Reading of problematiques' - Post-modernism is concerned with exposing the "textual interplay behind power politics".
Derrida's redefines the notion of "Text" without restricting its meaning to literature or ideas but rather that the "real" world can also be constituted like a text. Hence interpretation is fundamental to the constitution of the social world,

Derrida à "We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things".

Deconstruction: is a process that attempts to unsettle radically what we perceive to be stable concepts.
Double Reading: Pomos seek to expose the relationship between the stability of a concept and its destabilisation through two readings. The first reading shows how the concept, text or discourse achieves stability. The second reading is an attempt to unsettle the text or concept by applying pressure to points of instability within it.

As Davetak states in the Burchill book:

"The point is not to demonstrate the truthfulness or otherwise of a story, but to expose how any story depends on the repression of internal tensions in order to produce a stable effect of homogeneity and continuity".

International Relations in the Post-Modern Age: Modern era à gradual consolidation of dispersed authorities of the Medieval period into a single public realm, until we reached the point at which the modern state emerged.
The defining moment à Peace of Westphalia (1648), which ended the transnational religious authorities à brought the legal position up to speed with the physical reality of state power.
Conventional international relations theory resides within modernity, accepting its framework unquestionably.
Eg Neo-realism's acceptance of the structure of the contemporary Westphalian system. Even neoliberal approaches, which remain much more open to the possibility of systemic transformation, appear bound into the modernist framework à continue to treat the State as central because there is nothing as yet to replace it.

However, Ruggie à "visualising long-term challenges to the system only in terms of entities which are institutionally substitutable for the State" reveals "an extraordinarily impoverished mind-set at work". He suggests that the current highly territorialised system is unique in human history and argues that politics is about systems of rules and …

Systems of rule do not have to be territorial at all.
Systems of rule need not be territorially fixed:
Even where systems of rule are territorial, and territory fixed, territorial rule does not have to be mutually exclusive. Medieval Europe was a patchwork of overlapping jurisdictions, plural allegiances, anomalous enclaves and so on.

Consequently, a potential exists to move beyond the modernist image of political authority rooted within discrete and mutually exclusive territorial boundaries towards a post-Westphalian, post modern era characterised by a decentralisation of power, and ultimately a deterritorialisation of politics.

Hedley Bull stressed the possibility of a "neo-medieval order of overlapping sovereignties and jurisdictions…".
In recent years, Bull's vision seems to be in the process of being realised, as the subnational rejection of state-centrisism, the emergent transnational jurisdictions of the European Union, and the trend towards of the internationalisation of decision-making, all de-centre political authority.

The image of the EU cannot be interpreted through a state-centric framework. There is clearly something more than national politics and national foreign policy going on.
the usual response is to suggest that we are seeing a further centralisation of power. We are moving from national states to a supranational states. However the problem is that whatever is going on, it is clearly less than a federal state. The ECJ has superior powers over such areas as human rights, the EU has superiority over areas such as trade, but foreign policy and war making powers reside with national governments.

What are the consequences of this?

We cannot regard the EU either as a collection of nation-states conducting normal relations, nor as the emergence of a supra-national federal state. Rather it is something in between. We have for the first time in five hundred years a system of multiple overlapping systems of rule which defies description in the traditional vocabulary of sovereignty.

Andrew Linklater suggests increasingly, the processes which led to the centralisation of power in the territorially based sovereign states during the modernist period in Europe are being reversed, and political authority is becoming increasingly dispersed.
While the State will not disappear it will no longer represent the principal focus of politics.

What consequences for International Relations as a discipline?

If a post-modern condition is really emerging, and the state is becoming decreasingly relevant to the understanding of international politics, a radical rethink of international theory is vitally necessary. Trapped within the parameters of the Westphalian system, it is simply unable to deal with the conditions deriving from the emergence of such deterritorialised politics.

Notes


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Lecture 9 Seminar Notes: Feminism

Robert Keohane:
"feminist [theory] offers a critique of theories constructed by men who put themselves in the position of policy makers … Instead, feminists critically examine international relations from the standpoint of people who have been systematically excluded from power".

Jan Pettman:
"International Relations has long been taught and theorised as if women were invisible: as if either there were no women in world politics, which was only men's business; or as if women and men were active in and affected by world politics in the same ways, in which case there would be no need to 'gender' the analysis".

feminist theories of IR take as a starting point the fact that the focus of international relations, as it has been traditionally conceptualised, is very narrow, and therefore presents us with only a partial story.
Feminism is a Broad School
Fred Halliday: We need to question what are the implications of the gender dichotomy - ie why have women been ignored in IR?

Women are 50% of the global population
They do a third of the paid work and two thirds of the unpaid work
They grow 50% of the world's food (and in Africa they are actually responsible for 75% of all subsistence agriculture)
And yet
They make up less that 5% of the Heads of State and Cabinet Ministers
They receive only 10% of global income and
Own only 1% of global property
Account for 60% of all illiterates
And 80% of all refugees

Institutional Intertia within IR. As Halliday states: "as long as a virtually complete silence on the issue exists, those concerned with it are either discouraged from working on it or choose not to do so".
"selective insulation of international relations from developments in other social sciences.
domination of realism as the central theory of international relations. If we ask ourselves what constitutes the subject - matter in IR then inevitable one overwhelming answer would be issues of high politics, of state policy and state-craft. "Gender issues have apparently little place in this hierarchy".
domain of international practice - in foreign ministries, ministries of defence, emabassies around the world and so on are all male dominated.
And finally, there is also an assumption that there is a separation betweenm the fields of gender studies and international relations.

Halliday: "In conventional ideology, women are not suited for such responsibilities and cannot be relied on in matters of security and crisis".

Grant has stated: "… the whole theoretical approach to IR rests on the foundation of political concepts which it would be difficult to hold together coherently were it not for the trick of eliminating women from the prevailing definitions of man as the political actor".

Are the figures to do with the perception that men are naturally brighter, wiser, and better suited to high-paid jobs than women? OR do the differences have to do with gender inequality. Gender refers to socially learned behaviour and expectations that distinguish between masculinity and femininity.
we live in a gendered world in which values associated with masculinity (e.g. rationality, activity, strength) are assigned higher value than values asscociated with femininity (e.g. emotionality, passivity, weakness). This amounts to a gender hierarchy: a system of power in which men are privileged over women.
Feminists, therefore, concentrate on women because of the perception that women have been marginalised, subjugated and oppressed. Like structuralism feminism is also a bottom-up view of the world constructed largely from the point of view of the marginalised groups themselves.
feminist scholarship is now visible even though in some respects it remains marginal.
Is it possible to construct a specific feminist perspective or is feminism a broad school.

Question of power is central to feminism as it is for other theories of international relations such as realism, structuralism and neo-realism. Feminists ask, what might the world of international relations look like if we made women's concerns central rather than marginal? It was during the 1960s and 1970s - the so-called "second wave" of feminist activismin in the West that feminism began to develop an analysis of gender and power relations.

Categories can be listed as Liberal, Marxist, Radical, Standpoint, Critical, and Postmodern

Feminism à a modern phenomenon. The modern notion, based in ideas of rationality and the enlightenment provided the argument that human societies could be progressive through emphasis on science and technology rather than superstition and belief.
This allowed Liberal Feminists to argue that "participation in public life was the key to advancing the status of women". Liberal feminism refers to the "notion that the key units of society are individuals and that these individuals have rights so the same rights should be granted to women as have traditionally been granted to men.
If we go back to this question of where are the women in International Relations - the liberal position is quite clear - they demand equal participation in public life.
Cynthia Enloe: looked at the roles women actually occupied in world politics … [she concluded that] it was not that [women] were not there but that they in fact played a central role, either as cheap factory labour, as prostitutes around military bases, or as the wives of diplomats. So Enloe showed that women were central to world politics but IR theory regarded the roles played by women to be of less importance than the roles played by men. Fundamentally Liberal feminists want the same rights and opportunities that are available to men, extended to women.

Enloe's work on militarism is quite interesting - in that she indicated that it is dependent upon men being in control pof women, and in men and women accepting certain roles; in the army males must bond, but not sexually, their relations with foreign women must not pass beyond the use of prostitutes in order to protect racism as a military ideology, and misogyny cannot pass so far into domestic violence that it undermines the morale of army wives. If any one thinks that women fail to have any influence on the progress of conflict - then think of Russian mothers and wives helping to bring an end to the Afghanistan conflict in 1988 by withdrawing their support and therefore its claim to legitimacy.

The basis of marxist feminism is clearly capitalism – but the central argument here is that the emergence of capitalism led to the clear distinction between the private world of the home and family and the public realm of work. Marxist feminists then began to ask what constituted women’s work and this led to the perception that women’s work in the home was not as important and so under capitalism has become undervalued.

Steans and Pettiford: “Women’s labour was constructed as a labour of love” and so did not require any monetary reward.

However, Marxist feminists would argue that "this idealised view of the family disguised the reality of power relations and inequality that permeated both the public and the private realms [in the sense that] the construction of a public/private division effectively served to reduce women, and children, to the private property of men".

Similarly Socialist feminists combine the insights of Marxist feminism with an analysis of patriarchy - ie a male - centred and male - dominated household [where] the oppression of women is seen to follow from the dual systems of capitalism and patriarchy … [and] capitalism is the oppressive mode of production and patriarchy is the oppressive mode of reproduction. In this sense therefore, Marxist and Socialist feminists focus on the ways that capitalism and patriarchy place women in an under-privileged position.

Radical feminists are critical of liberal feminists and accuse them of searching for equality in masculine institutions, run by men, created by men and run on men's own terms. Radical's, therefore, seek to change the institutions themselves to make them more "woman friendly".
Radical feminists see the subordination of women as being universal, they see women as a "sex-class" systematically and everywhere subject to men's sex right. Violence against women is seen as key to keeping women resourceless, and 'in their place. Hence sexuality is seen as a political force.

Critical theorists have taken radical feminist ideas and developed their insights further by highlighting the patriarchal nature of social and political institutions. Critical feminists have highlighted the importance of ideas about gender in perpetuating and legitimising this form of inequality.

Radical feminists criticised liberal feminists for pampering to mens egos because they sought to emulate men and what were seen to be male values through seeking to join institutions. Radical feminists argued that feminine characteristics needed to be celebrated and that women's experiences of nurturing and caring should be recognised as central to the shaping of a particular feminine experience".

Such radical feminist work is clearly post-positivist - it is more concerned with borders and definitions. The notion of knowledge as power we have already dealt with and can be placed in this context when we ask the question "whose knowledge gets accepted" - History being written by the victors - those WITH power links to Critical Theory and ultimately to post-modernism.

Sylvester, from a postmodernist feminist perspective sees gender itself as a social construct which needs explaining. If we begin to view gender through the post-modern lens and talk of gender deconstruction we inevitably get to led to asking the question "is there such a thing as a woman"?. If we follow this through to its conclusion we see that postmodernism places much more importance and value on different expressions of identity and culture.

Post-modern feminist thinkers argue that there is no authentic women's experience … from which to construct an understanding of the social and political; world, because women's lives are embedded in specific social and cultural relations.

Also a person's understanding of what it means to be "masculine" or "feminine" is constructed through language, symbols and stories that are" included in "the fabric of every day life in different societies".

Post modern feminism stands in opposition to liberal pronouncements of emancipation which they accuse of being derived purely from a Western experience. They question whether we, in the West, have the right to "dictate" feminist positions to women in the so-called Third World. Postmodernists rejectthe Liberal approach of "add women and stir" as being too white and too middle class.

Postmodernists have a problem with universalist images - instead they are interested in gender relations as a manifestation of power relations. They reject notions of emancipation derived from a Western experience. They reject arguments that equate non-Western cultural experiences as being backward. We in the West are ignorant and arrogant if we assume that women in the so-called undeveloped world are uncivilised, oppressed or powerless. Post-modernists also question whether we should assume that women are always victims of oppressive practices.

Robert Keohane: post-modern feminism is hard to define and that it seems to apply to a range of views but it appears that its essence is to be a "resistance to the conception of one true story and to a falsely universalising perspective".

Feminism is therefore clearly a broad school which spans both positivist and post-positivist frameworks - together as an approach however, it has identified a major flaw in International Relations - the way in which conventional IR theory has ignored the role played by women.
Peterson and Runyan have stated: "Conventional IR lenses show us an iceberg as it emerges from the sea. Feminist lenses take us below the surface to see the deep inequalities that shape international hierarchies and erupt into international conflict on the surface".

Steans: "Perhaps the feminist project in IR should not be seen as an attempt to reconstruct the discipline, but rather as opening up spaces for critical engagement and dialogue. In this way, feminist scholarship in IR is central to the project of understanding a complexsocial and political world".