The best there is? Communication, objectivity and the future of Critical International Relations Theory

Abstract

Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action has provided the inspiration for a school of Critical International Relations Theory which looks to communication as a source of praxis, and therefore a means of emancipation. This article argues that Critical International Relations Theorists have been too ready to accept Habermas's claims about the emancipatory power of communication. In particular, it is not clear that a Habermasian Critical International Relations Theory can address the concerns of more sophisticated materialists -not least those of Habermas's predecessors in the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. One of the most original of these predecessors, Theodor Adorno, argued that the pursuit of communication between subjects would result in the betrayal of Critical Theory to the requirements of instrumental reason. The article suggests that similar concerns are apparent in International Relations: in Marxian criticisms of the turn to communication; in accusations of 'anthropocentrism' aimed at post-positivists by Critical Realists; and in Andrew Linklater's emphasis on the common human capacity to experience and recognize bodily suffering. Adorno's Critical Theory points to the need for a reorientation of Critical International Relations Theory towards an account of praxis which draws upon the experiences and needs of corporeal, vulnerable human beings who are part of a material world. In this way, critical International Relations theorists can carry forward the critique of global socio-political forces which the majority of the world's inhabitants experience as an arbitrary constraint.

The poverty of Critical Theory in International Relations: Habermas, Linklater and the failings of cosmopolitan critique

“…In practice, this means that the bifurcating strategy of critique that underlies the communicative-cosmopolitan paradigm must be replaced by a new totalising strategy that aims at reintegrating the anticipatory-utopian and explanatory-diagnostic dimensions of critical theorising by way of a concretisation of the former and a politicisation of the latter. As others have argued (Fluck, 2014; Koddenbrock, 2015), the conceptual resources by which CT can accomplish such a renewal while avoiding the pitfalls of deterministic thinking already exist within the Marxian tradition. Moreover, critical literatures, such as Marxist IR theory and historical sociology, as well as neo-Gramscian International Political Economy, have long been dealing with the issue of how to theorise in non-reductionist ways the relation between capitalism, ‘the international’, social agents and ideational structures, and it is in dialogue with those approaches that CT’s reconstruction as an analytically cutting-edge and politically vibrant project is most likely to succeed.…”

The concept of transparency in International Relations: Towards a critical approach

“…A second conception of transparency in IR defines it as the openness required for a dialogue. This concept is most readily identified with strands of critical IR theory drawing upon Habermas’s theory of communicative action (Fluck, 2014; Linklater, 1998; cf. Habermas, 1984, 1987), but it stands in a wider tradition that emphasizes the moral and political importance of mutual recognition by rationally autonomous actors.…”

“…This concept is most readily identified with strands of critical international relations theory drawing upon Habermas' theory of communicative action (Linklater, 1998;Fluck, 2014;cf. Habermas, 1984cf.…”

“…Its value as a starting point for understanding transparency also lies in the tensions it reflects. Indeed, ambiguities inherent in 'transparency-as-dialogue' and its relationship to politics and the political, point to a more ambiguous dialectic of Enlightenment than often portrayed by Habermas (Adorno and Horkheimer, 2002;Fluck, 2014;cf. Levine 2012: 96-97).…”

Overwriting the City: Graffiti, Communication, and Urban Contestation in Athens.

“…The purposeful inclusion of the suffering and vulnerable in society in these actions may provide a counter-argument to recent critique of Habermasian theory, on the point that its model of communication as a form of praxis fails to account for the 'experiences and needs of corporeal, vulnerable human beings who are part of the material world'. 97 Here we might again invoke Fraser's argument that the idea of the public sphere should be one that 'provides the conceptual condition of possibility for the revisionist critique of its imperfect realization'. 98 In other words, conversation in the public sphere must allow not only for consensus building but also for recognition of diverse perspectives, self-criticism, and the maturation of ideas.…”