Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations

Introduction
Poststructuralism/postmodernism is a mode of critical thinking and analysis that joined
Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International disciplinary conversations during the 1980s—an era commonly referred to as the period
Relations of the Third Debate. It is an approach that draws on a wide range of thinkers associated
Aslı Çalkıvik with poststructural/postmodern thought such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles
Subject: International Relations Theory Online Publication Date: Nov 2017 Deleuze, Jean Baudrillard, Jean-Luc Nancy, Paul Virilio, Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Ran­
DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.102 ciére, and Judith Butler among others. Less a new paradigm or theory, poststructural/
postmodern international relations (IR) is better described as “a critical
attitude” (Campbell, 2007) or “an ethos of critique” (Jabri, 2007) that probes the limits
Updates to sections “Disciplinary Context of the Poststructural/Postmodern Turn” and
imposed by politics in modernity and explores the possibilities that exist beyond it. As a
“Poststructural/Postmodern Approaches in IR”; new section “On Value and Develop­
critical discourse on disciplinary knowledge production, it problematizes taken-for-grant­
ment,” references, and links to digital materials.
ed assumptions and claims about world politics. It calls for forms of thought that begin
from “new and rather uncomfortable or counterintuitive assumptions about ‘life, the uni­
Updated on 31 March 2020. The previous version of this content can be found here.
verse, and everything’” (Edkins, 2007, p. 89).

In philosophy, social, and political theory, poststructural/postmodern thought has a long

genealogy whose path has been laid down by prominent critiques of modernity and mod­
Summary and Keywords ern political thought—figures such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Edmund Husserl, Martin Hei­
degger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Jacques Lacan (Dillon, 2000; Peters, 2001).
Poststructural/postmodern international relations (IR) is a mode of critical thinking and
Additionally, poststructuralism/postmodernism builds upon and challenges the insights of
analysis that joined disciplinary conversations during the 1980s and, despite the dismis­
structuralism as found in the works of social theorists such Ferdinand de Saussure and
sive reception it has initially faced, it is a vibrant and expanding area of research within
Claude Lévi-Strauss. In contrast, poststructural/postmodern approaches in IR are a rela­
the field today. Providing a radical critique of politics in modernity, it is less a new para­
tively new participant in the disciplinary conversations. Despite the dismissive and even
digm or theory. Instead, it is better described as “a critical attitude” that focuses on the
hostile reception it has initially faced, poststructural/postmodern IR is a vibrant and ex­
question of representation and explores the ways in which dominant framings of world
panding area of research within the field today.
politics produce and reproduce relations of power: how they legitimate certain forms of
action while marginalizing other ways of being, thinking, and acting. To elaborate the in­ Poststructuralism/postmodernism focuses on the question of representation and explores
sights of poststructuralism/postmodernism, the article starts off by situating the emer­ the ways in which dominant framings of world politics produce and reproduce relations of
gence of these critical perspectives within the disciplinary context and visits the debates power: how they legitimate certain forms of action while marginalizing other ways of be­
and controversies it has elicited. This discussion is followed by an elaboration of the ma­ ing. Scholars working from this perspective shift the focus away from pre-given subjects
jor themes and concepts of poststructural/postmodern thought such as subjectivity, lan­ of international politics—such as states, individuals, and classes—toward the political
guage, text, and power. The convergences and divergences between poststructuralism problem of the production of modern subjects as sovereign subjects of action and knowl­
and its precursor—structuralism—is an underlying theme that is noted in this article. The edge. More than the question of “what,” they share a general concern about the question
third and fourth sections make central the epistemological and ontological challenges of “how”: How are we, as political subjects, produced to accept certain forms of action
that poststructuralism/postmodernism poses to disciplinary knowledge production on and not others, to ask certain questions and not others? How do certain mechanisms of
world politics. While the former focuses on how central categories of IR such as state and power—political technologies of inclusion/exclusion—become normalized and legitimized?
sovereignty, violence, and war were problematized and reconceptualized, the latter at­ (Gregory, 1989; Newman, 2010). In the words of Donna Gregory (Gregory, 1989), “[p]ost-
tends to the poststructuralist/postmodern attempts to articulate a different political imag­ structural practices … investigate how the subject—in the dual senses of the subject-mat­
inary and develop an alternative conceptual language to think the international beyond ter and the subject-actor—of international relations is constituted in and through dis­
the confines of the paradigm of sovereignty and the modern subject. The article con­ courses of world politics.”
cludes with a brief look at the future directions for poststructural/postmodern investiga­
tions. Highlighting the inextricable link between thinking about the world and acting in it, be­
tween analysis and action, and theory and practice, poststructural/postmodern IR seeks
Keywords: poststructuralism, postmodernism, power relations, structuralism, world politics, critical perspectives to elucidate how the interrelation between these two terms is mediated through different

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Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations

forms of representational practices. Denying the possibility of making value-neutral, ob­ Mainstream IR was not alone in its distaste for poststructural/postmodern approaches. As
jective claims independent of subjectivity, they bring into focus the politics of writing and the initial lines of solidarity gave way to serious disagreements and schisms among criti­
the ethics of scholarship (Zehfuss, 2013). cal scholars, poststructural/postmodern perspectives were charged with advocating con­
servativism and irrationalism, promoting relativism and nihilism by constructivists and
proponents of Critical Theory (theories that situate themselves within the Marxist her­
Disciplinary Context of the Poststructural/Post­ itage, drawing from the works of Antonio Gramsci, the Frankfurt School) (Brown, 1994;

modern Turn Cochran, 1995; Wyn Jones, 2001). In the words of a critic, “the relentless critical
tendency” (Price, 2008, pp. 38–40) of these perspectives make it impossible to argue for
The entry of poststructural/postmodern approaches to the study of world politics is part progressive change and account for the role of ethics in world politics, consequently, ren­
of a wider critical turn in IR dating back to the late 1980s (Rengger & Thirkell-White, dering them complicit in the reproduction of the system they vehemently criticized. The
2007; Zehfuss, 2013). Like other critical approaches—from feminism to Frankfurt-school call for providing “clearer normative positions and commitments” is complemented by as­
inspired Critical Theory to Gramscian IR and postcolonialism—the development of post­ sertions by more sympathetic critics that these perspectives need to engage more closely
structural/postmodern IR was prompted by a general dissatisfaction with orthodox theo­ with methodology and causal analysis so as to demonstrate that they can explain events
ries both politically and analytically. Among the factors that flamed this dissatisfaction and help make policy (Burke, 2008; also Hansen, 2006).
were the collective failure of the discipline to foresee the ending of the Cold War; the
complexities and uncertainties arising in the aftermath of the dismantling of the Eastern According to postcolonial IR scholars, the problem with poststructural/postmodern ac­
Bloc; and the emergence of new issues and concerns in the wake of globalization, which counts stems less from their inadequacy to live up to the disciplinary protocols about ra­
exposed the limits of traditional militaristic solutions, traditional notions of sovereignty, tionality, science, or their divergence from Enlightenment accounts of progress and
and order (George, 1994). emancipation. Rather, it is their alleged silence about the colonial roots of modernity and
neocolonial forms of rule that render poststructuralism/postmodernism amenable to
At an analytical level, the critique of positivism within the social sciences was another “replicate the many hierarchies and silences” they criticize and become politically dis­
factor influencing the critical turn. The post-positivist agenda uniting newly emerging abling for the marginalized and the oppressed (Chowdhry & Nair, 2002; Krishna, 1993, p.
critical voices denounced the epistemological principles definitive of traditional IR and its 388; Sajed, 2012).
claims to value-neutrality and objectivity. In tandem with other forms of critical scholar­
ship that challenge orthodox problematics of knowledge production on global politics, The choice of terms and labels used to describe and categorize these critical perspectives
poststructural/postmodern approaches sought to expose the intimate links between hege­ are indicative of the “highly controversial” (Bleiker, 2008, p. 91) nature of debates sur­
monic forms of knowledge production and the reproduction of power relations. They at­ rounding poststructural/postmodern engagements. While some IR textbooks prefer the la­
tended to the silences, omissions, and erasures affected by orthodox ways of writing bel “postmodernism,” others use the term poststructuralism to describe the same set of
world politics. In this regard, they played a significant role in what is termed “the third approaches (Campbell, 2007; Edkins, 2007; Steans, Pettiford, Diez, & El-Anis, 2005). The
debate” within the disciplinary history (Hamati-Ataya, 2013; Lapid, 1989). different senses in which each of these terms are deployed by scholars who associate
themselves with this strand of critical thinking can be a further source of confusion. Opt­
Given the deep challenges they posed to the orthodox disciplinary agenda, poststructural/ ing for the term postmodernism, for instance, Bleiker (2008) differentiates between “the
postmodern approaches were met with resistance, derision, even hostility. Labeled as “a postmodern as both a changing attitude and a fundamentally novel historical
discourse that prizes epistemological and ontological logomachy above clarity,” they were condition” (p. 87). Resonating with this stance, Burke (2008, p. 359) distinguishes
accused for “taking the discipline down an ideologically destructive road” (Jarvis, 2000, “‘postmodernism’ (a set of theories) from ‘postmodernity’” (a historical period) and de­
pp. x–xii). Paradoxically upheld to the standards of science that they problematized, they fines “postmodernism” as “a theoretical orientation and set of concerns about global poli­
were regarded as being less valid forms of knowledge and called upon to prove them­ tics.” Making a clear distinction between postmodernism and poststructuralism, Steans et
selves as worthy of academic recognition by developing a research program and demon­ al. (2005, p. 130) argue that “postmodernism is centrally concerned with the nature and
strating themselves as capable of shedding light on important issues in world politics consequences of modernity and develops a thorough critique of the Enlightenment
(Keohane, 1988). Treated as a “seduction,” they were charged with producing “mostly project” and “poststructuralism is more concerned with the nature, role and function or
criticism and not much theory” (Walt, 1991, p. 223). “Dressed in Parisian post-structural­ dysfunction of language.” Whereas Campbell (2007, p. 212) formulates “postmodernity”
ist vocabulary,” it is argued that “postmodern theories of knowledge and of reality—their as “the cultural, economic, social, and political formation within modernity that results
epistemology and their ‘ontology’, a favorite word—are hidden in foggy from changes in time-space relations” and suggests that the term poststructuralism—de­
formulations” (Østerud, 1996, pp. 385, 387).

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Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations

fined as an “interpretative analytics” that is affected by transformations in modernity—is Subject and Subjectivity
more apt to depict this strand of critical investigation.
Poststructural/postmodern thought has close affinity with structuralism elaborated in the
Highlighting the politically charged nature of labeling these approaches as “postmodern” works of thinkers like Ferdinand de Saussure and Claude Lévi-Strauss. One of the com­
by its critics in the discipline, Campbell (2007) suggests that at the root of the politics of mon themes that link the former to the latter is the critique of the modern subject as the
naming lies a deep-rooted uneasiness stemming from the radical critique of modernity of­ sovereign subject of reason (autonomous, fully present, and transparent individual)
fered by these analyses. On this reading, poststructuralism is misunderstood as postmod­ (Sarup, 1993). At issue is what White (1997, p. 503) describes as, the “teflon subject …
ernism because of an underlying anxiety on the part of its critics that stem from a concep­ the assertive, disengaged self who generates distance from its background (tradition and
tion of the critique of modernity as an outright rejection of its principles (Campbell, 2007, embodiment) and foreground (external nature, other subjects) in the name of an acceler­
p. 211). ating mastery over them.”

Even scholars, who do not share the agenda of this line of critical thinking, also note the Problematization of this notion of an abstract, unitary subject/author as an originating
disciplinary politics of naming. For instance, Patomäki (1997) highlights the deployment consciousness and authority for meaning and truth was already underway in structuralist
of “postmodernism” as a “rhetorical strategy” to dismiss and delegitimize such strands of thought. According to Lévi-Strauss, for instance, the “ultimate goal of the human sciences
thinking and research as a move that has important effects of power. He registers the dif­ is not to constitute man but to dissolve him” (Sarup, 1993, p. 1). Asserting the illusionary
ference between the two terms and suggests that “many followers of Derrida and Fou­ nature of a unified self, poststructural/postmodern approaches radicalize this critique by
cault would prefer to refer to their research program as ‘“post-structuralism’ rather than dissolving the subject altogether and abandoning “any residual notion of
‘postmodernism’” (Patomäki, 1997, p. 326). subjectivity” (Edkins, 2007, p. 90). The humanist belief that there is a universal essence
of “man”—a timeless attribute of all human beings—is replaced with a view of the subject
as produced through acts of power, molded by the political techniques and knowledges
Major Themes and Concepts of Poststructural/ applied to it. A preconstituted, self-transparent subject (the subject of cogito, a conscious
Postmodern Thought self that possesses a positive essence, which exists prior to or apart from its context)
gives way to a de-centered or split subject (Žižek, 1999). Rather than taking the subject
While it would hardly do justice to subsume the multiplicity of positions within poststruc­ as the point of departure, poststructural/postmodern approaches transform the subject it­
tural/postmodern thought, it is nevertheless possible to point out some common assump­ self into a question and attend to the ways in which human beings are produced as partic­
tions and themes that characterize their agenda. Foremost among them are the radical ular political subjects through power relations.
questioning of ontological essentialism and epistemological foundationalism in social and
political thought and analysis (Torfing, 1999). Rejecting the notion that the nature of Language
things are defined by universal, atemporal qualities, poststructuralism/postmodernism as­
serts the impossibility of a pre-given, self-determining essence. It contests the possibility Dismantling the Cartesian subject as the authoritative voice of truth is bound up with the
of providing universal grounds and absolute justifications for the truth of claims made reconceptualization of language and the affirmation of its power as constitutive of subjec­
about knowledge and value. Abandoning the Enlightenment optimism about the possibili­ tivity. In this regard, Saussure’s disruption of the view of language as an ahistorical,
ty of achieving objective knowledge of phenomena through the use of reason, poststruc­ transparent medium for communicating meaning has great influence on poststructural/
tural/postmodern approaches claim that knowledge constructs its own object of study. postmodern thinkers (Sarup, 1993). Saussure conceived language as a system of differ­
They foreground language not only as a distinguishing feature of human beings, but also ences where each term—lacking any essence, positivity—gained its identity through its
as the constitutive dimension of human relationships. Emphasizing the contingent, unde­ differential relation to other terms. He argued that meaning is not generated through the
termined nature of reality, they exhibit a general aversion to metanarratives (total expla­ relation between a word/name and an object/concept as the referential theory of meaning
nations) of social reality. Contra modernist interpretations, they argue that history is not would suggest: that it is produced through the interrelation between the linguistic terms
a linear, progressive, uniform process of the unfolding of a single essence (human rea­ themselves. Put differently, according to Saussure, there is no necessary relation between
son). Instead, they emphasize the contingency, openness of time, and variety of historical a name and the concept that it names. Rather, their association comes about by conven­
trajectories. tion, common usage. It is through the process of naming that an object is constituted as
distinct from other objects, enabling speakers to see “it” (Edkins, 2007). By positing the
autonomous status of the linguistic structure, Saussure was dismantling “the myth of the

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Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations

given,” which posits that the reality is given to the subject, that consciousness has direct the superior term belongs to the logos and is a higher presence; the inferior term marks a
access to it (Callinicos, 1985, p. 89). fall” (Culler, 1985, p. 92). According to Jacques Derrida, logocentric thought not only pro­
duces binary oppositions, but also sets up a hierarchical relation between the two terms.
Poststructuralism/Postmodernism embraces structuralist perspective on language as a
It “assumes the priority of the first term and conceives the second in relation to it, as a
system of differences. Language is “not as an asset employed by a preexisting subject or
complication, a negation, a manifestation, a disruption of the first” (Culler, 1985, p. 92).
as a constraint imposed on the subject, but [as] the medium through which the social Logocentric thinking, with its endless search for an uncontaminated, self-identical state,
identity of the subject is made possible” (George & Campbell, 1990, p. 285). Yet, they re­ difference is something to be subsumed and negated.
ject structuralism’s scientific pretensions and its concomitant tendency to reduce hetero­
geneity and difference to the effects of an invariant structure (Storper, 2001). They repu­ Logocentricism is intimately linked with phonocentricism—privileging of speech over
diate structuralist “claims of totality and universality and the presumption of binary struc­ writing and presupposing the former as having unmediated, immediate access to “an or­
tural oppositions implicitly operate to quell the insistent ambiguity and openness of lin­ der of meaning—thought, truth, reason, logic, the Word” (Culler, 1985, p. 92). Such a de­
guistic and cultural signification” (Butler, 1990, p. 54). Instead, they suggest that social sire for and constant seeking after presence, a definitive answer to the question “what
structures cannot be external to, independent of the discursive realm and social context. is?” entails authorizing a sovereign voice as the source of “truth.” It puts in place “a sov­
Privileging ambiguity and openness, poststructuralism/postmodernism brings forth the ereign voice, a voice beyond politics and beyond doubt … from which truth and power are
moment of difference and probe into “the operative and limitless différance of thought to emanate as one” (Ashley & Walker, 1990A, 1990B, p. 368).
language” (Butler, 1990, p. 54).
According to Derrida, however, logocentricism deconstructs itself in that both the di­
Text, Representation chotomies and hierarchical structures they authorize are unfounded and therefore carry
an inbuilt tendency to dismantle (Edkins, 2007). Although privileged, the first term is par­
The notion of text is a central concept for poststructural/postmodern investigations into asitic on and is contaminated by the second term. Since “each term is structurally related
world politics. The text does not merely refer to the written world, literature, but purveys to, and already harbours the other, totalities, whether conceptual or social, are never ful­
the idea that the world is constituted like a text, in that access to “reality” is always medi­ ly present and properly established” (Devetak, 2005, p. 169). Deconstruction as a form of
ated—it can only be apprehended through interpretative practices. Textuality of world thinking seizes these binaries and seeks to expose their inherent instability, untenability.
politics registers the unbridgeable, inevitable gap between the represented and its repre­
sentation. Bleiker (2009) elaborates this point through the distinction between mimetic Power
versus aesthetic forms of representation in world politics. Subscribing to a view of repre­
sentation as mimesis, dominant understandings of theory in International Relations “seek Like Derrida, Michel Foucault’s work has immense influence on poststructural/postmod­
to represent politics as realistically and authentically as possible” (p. 14). Whereas an ern approaches in International Relations. His is also a thought of difference and grap­
ples with this task by writing counter-histories, which challenge the basic presuppositions
aesthetic approach “assumes that there is always a gap between a form of representation
of Enlightenment thought about temporal unfolding—the idea of a unified history with an
and what is represented therewith” (p. 19). Following on this, poststructural/postmodern
origin and an end. Referred to as “new historicisim,” Focauldian genealogy maps disconti­
approaches inquire into forms of mediation, historically produced styles of inscription
nuities and difference that are silenced, “buried, covered, or excluded from
that constitute the “pre-text” of international politics—“various reality-making scripts one
view” (Devetak, 2005, p. 163) through dominant interpretations of the past.
inherits or acquires from one’s surrounding cultural/linguistic condition” (Shapiro, 1989,
p. 11). Treating the world as a complex, multilayered, interconnected text, they examine
Discourse, or “discursive formation,” is a central concept to Foucault’s genealogical in­
practices of representation, of mediation in uncommon places such as museums, travel­
vestigations. Discourse is defined as “a group of statements which provide a language for
ogues, airports, poems, drama, and photography (Campbell, 2002; Debrix & Weber, 2003;
talking about—i.e. a way of representing—a particular kind of knowledge about a
Lisle, 2012; Sylvester, 2009). topic” (Hall, 1992, p. 291). These statements working together construct the topic in a
specific way and circumscribe the limits to how it can be thought. Taking Nietzsche’s ob­
Deconstruction servation that only which has no history can be defined, genealogy aims at “the continu­
Critique of logocentric nature of thought characterizing Western philosophy is a theme ous disruption of the structures of intelligibility that provide both individual and collec­
that weaves poststructural/postmodern attempts to conceptualize difference. Logocentri­ tive identities for persons and peoples” (Shapiro, 1992, p. 2). It seeks to recover the epis­
cism is a way of reasoning that operates through the production of dichotomies such as temic, historical discontinuities, reversals in central concepts of political life such as sov­
“meaning/form, soul/body, intuition/expression, literal/metaphorical, nature/culture, intel­ ereignty and war (Bartelson, 1996, 2018).
ligible/sensible, positive/negative, transcendental/empirical, serious/nonserious, [where]

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Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations

Foucault’s work has been especially influential in thinking about and analyzing power. His in the mechanisms of sovereign power. From being a “means of deduction,” a power that
appeal to “cut off the head of the king” in political thought and analysis is a reaction to impedes and destroys, it transforms into something that enables and generates through
the well-established paradigms of political power, which take legal or institutional models the administration of bodies, the management and promotion of life.
as their basis for analysis: either problematizing “power” along the axis of law and re­
pression or analyzing power relations vis-à-vis institutional structures of the state (Fou­
cault, 1997). In these accounts of the nature of power relations, power is regarded as a Poststructural/Postmodern Approaches in IR
possession that enhances the capacity of those exercising it and impinges on those over
Poststructural/postmodern investigations make practices of representation, discourse,
whom it is exercised. Furthermore, the implicit assumption underlying such analyses of
and interpretation central to the analyses of world politics. Foregrounding the relations
power is the view that the subjects who are caught in relations of power are autonomous,
between language, politics, and social structure, they are informed by a “shared acknowl­
moral agents (Hindess, 1996). Consequently, questions about the exercise of power be­
edgement of the ‘constitutive nature of language’ and an antipathy toward ‘closed system
come entangled with questions of legitimacy and consent.
of knowledge” (George & Campbell, 1990). They challenge disciplinary boundaries by tak­
Moving away from juridico-political models of power and questions about sovereignty and ing to task the discursive limits of the discipline constructed in the language of modern
legitimacy, Foucault (1997) distinguishes relations of power from other types of force re­ social sciences, which presumes a unity between natural and social sciences and the pos­
lations such as exploitation and domination. Foucault suggests that power is not some­ sibility to distinguish between facts and values (Smith, 1996, p. 16). They draw on the dis­
thing that is possessed by preexisting entities such as an individual, a state, or a social tinction between politics—that sphere of social life that comprises institutionalized
class, but designates a social relation, which is characterized less by a confrontation be­ processes, activities, subjects assumed to be the premises of political life (elections, polit­
tween two adversaries or their mutual engagement than an interplay of nonegalitarian ical parties, policymaking, international treaties, diplomacy, etc.) and the political—“the
and mobile relations. Power exists only when exercised within this relation. Furthermore, frame of reference within which actions, events and other phenomena acquire political
power is productive in the sense that it does not block, repress, say “no” like the law; it status in the first place” (Edkins, 1999, p. 2). With this move, they bring the political back
“operates on the field of possibilities” (Foucault, 1997, p. 341). Rather than obstructing, in as they challenge “[e]xclusive epistemological claims or unreflective ontological as­
power produces by structuring the possible fields of action. Such a conceptualization of sumptions about what constitutes a legitimate object of scholarly investigation” (Paipais,
power requires attending to the micro-physics of power (technologies designed to ob­ 2017, p. 105).
serve, monitor, shape, control the behavior of individuals) operating in a multiplicity of in­
Challenging the established protocols of academic knowledge production on world poli­
stitutional settings. In Foucault’s account, relations of power should not be conceived in
tics, poststructural/postmodern perspectives reject the view of a subject of knowledge (a
repressive terms, but something that is positive, productive of subjectivity and social ca­
universal voice of “truth”) unperturbed by the biases that stem from power relations and
pacities for action. This aspect of power relations provides the basis for differentiating
the influence of historical, political, cultural, social contexts it is situated in (Campbell,
them from other types of force relations, which are characterized by an asymmetrical re­
2007). They deny a strict separation between the subject who knows from the object that
lation within which the subordinated has little room for maneuver. In the case of such
is known and problematizes the assumption that there can be a universal scientific lan­
subordination, Foucault argues, what is stake is not power, but violence.
guage that allows the external world to be described in a detached manner (Campbell,
In his analysis, Foucault identifies different practices of power. Sovereign power is the 2007). Challenging the distinctions between the subjective and the objective, fact and val­
power over death. It concerns “a right of seizure: of things, time, bodies, and ultimately ue, they suggest that our conceptions of facticity are “culturally constructed” and not giv­
life itself” to suppress it (Foucault, 1990, p. 136). In modernity, sovereign power gets sup­ en in nature (Gregory, 1989, p. x).
planted with other relations of power—disciplinary power and biopower. These relations
One of the key contributions of poststructural/postmodern approaches to world politics is
of power operate by “generating forces, making them grow, and ordering them, rather
their insight on how “many of the problems and issues studied in International Relations
than one dedicated to impeding them, making them submit, or destroying
are not matters of epistemology and ontology, but of power and authority; they are strug­
them” (Foucault, 1990, p. 136). Disciplinary practices, which are found in the barracks,
gles to impose authoritative interpretations of international relations” (Devetak, 2005, p.
prisons, schools, center on the “body as a machine” and aim to optimize its capabilities,
167). According to Richard Ashley, the positivist epistemology dominant in the discipline
increase its usefulness, its productive forces (Foucault, 1995). Unlike disciplinary power,
is a particular interpretive method that is expressive of a desire for a “securely bound ter­
biopower is “directed not at ‘man-as-body’ but at ‘man-as-species’” and is concerned with
ritory of truth and transparent meaning beyond doubt” (Ashley, 1996, p. 252). For post­
the health, sanitation, birthrate, longevity, and race characteristic of a group of living hu­
structuralism/postmodernism, the inextricable link between knowledge and power ren­
man beings constituted as a population (Foucault, 2003, p. 243). While disciplines form
ders production of knowledge not simply “a cognitive … but a normative and political
the individualizing moment in the exercise of power, biopower is totalizing in that it takes
matter” (Devetak, 2005, p. 162). Instead of taking the social world as given and proceed­
as its object the mass of coexisting beings. The emergence of biopower constitutes a shift
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ing with analyses, they “investigate the interrelationship of power and representational these three phenomena fuse into each other for both historical and epistemological rea­
practices that elevate one truth over another, that legitimate and subject one identity sons in modernity. Modernity is understood as a regime of power in the Foucauldian
against another, that make, in short, one discourse matter more than the next” (Der Der­ sense as “a multifaceted regime of highly mobile knowledgeable practices—interpretive
ian, 2009, p. 194). attitudes and practical dispositions … there to discipline interpretation and conduct” (pp.
260–261). Paradigm of sovereignty refers to “a specific, historically fabricated, widely cir­
Emphasizing the intimate “relationship between social power and questions of what, and culated, and practically effective interpretation of man as sovereign being” (p. 269). Man
how, we study international relations” (Smith, 2004, p. 499), poststructural/postmodern as a sovereign entity, Ashley argues, has been conceivable on the premise of the meta­
perspectives reject the binary division between theory and practice. Instead, they see
physics of presence and logocentric discourse, which posits “an origin, an identical voice
“theory as practice” (George & Campbell, 1990, p. 287). Abandoning the view of the mod­
… as the sovereign source of truth and meaning” (p. 261). Conception of sovereignty of
ern subject of knowledge that transcends its historicity, contextuality, they start from the the reasoning man acts as the ground for the sovereign state’s claim to sovereignty. Situ­
assumption that “all observations and all theoretical systems … are part of the world they ated within the broader discursive and political agenda of modernity, sovereignty be­
seek to describe and account for, and have an effect in that world” (Edkins, 2007, p. 88). comes the nodal point where reasoning, autonomous Man, who is invested with the ca­

International Relations theory is regarded as a specific, privileged site that contributes to pacity and the will to emancipate humankind, fuses with the sovereign political communi­
the production and reproduction of dominant interpretations of the world, hence, as con­ ty (the modern state) as the locus of political life. This narrative proscribes a political life
stitutive of particular understandings of global life (in terms of the binary logic of sover­ amid an anarchical world of Otherness where the discourses of danger work toward do­
mesticating political life by policing the limits, the boundaries of identity, of political pos­
eignty and anarchy, inside and outside) at the expense of others. In his seminal work, for
sibility and ethical responsibility as it demarcates the self, secure inside, from the other,
instance, R. B. J. Walker (1995, p. 5) argues that theories of IR “are less interesting for
the substantive explanations they offer than as expressions of the limits of contemporary the dangerous outside (Ashley, 1987; Walker, 1995).

political imagination” and to that extent can be read “as expressions of an historically Following Foucault, poststructural/postmodern theorizing challenges the view of the state
specific understanding of the character and location of political life in general.” Accord­
standing in opposition to society—treating it as something that is externally imposed—
ing to Walker, the concept of sovereignty lies at the heart of this historically specific un­ and the understanding of state power as something negative, repressive. They deny the
derstanding of organizing political life and, to the extent that IR theories take it as a nat­
state functional unity or priority over other relations of power (Kalyvas, 2002). Refusing
ural given, they reproduce and reaffirm the limits of modern political imagination. to explain state and state power in terms of its inherent, pre-given properties, they see
the state as “the contingent outcome of specific practices and the outcome of strategic in­
State and Sovereignty terplays between diverse social forces within and beyond the state” (Jessop, 2001, p.
Ontological inquiries into the constitutive categories of political thought and practice in 156). Put differently, rather than treating the state as an a priori, ontological given, they
modernity constitute one of the key themes pursued by poststructural/postmodern theo­ investigate how the sovereign state is produced as a cohesive, purposive actor through
ries of international politics. Elaborating the importance of the “turn to ontology,” the ongoing dynamic processes of statecraft. Timothy Mitchell’s (2002) study of the pro­
Michael Dillon writes: “For one cannot say anything about anything that is, without al­ duction of the modern state in Egypt provides an excellent example for Foucauldian ap­
ways already having made assumptions about the is as such. Any mode of thought … al­ proaches to the state. Analyzing a myriad of social practices—from disease prevention to
ways already carries an ontology sequestered with it” (Dillon, 1999, p. 97). Consequently, methods of measurement, circulation, and exchange—Mitchell shows the way in which
poststructural/postmodern approaches demonstrate a “radical interest in thinking the ba­ the boundaries between state and society—rather than being externally given, objectively
sic categories of the international system instead of taking them as mechanical determined—are “internally” produced through “modern techniques of power that make
givens” (Wæver, 1996, pp. 169–170). In these inquiries into the “core ontological givens” the state appear to be a separate entity that somehow stands outside society” (Mitchell,
of IR, the modern state and sovereignty take center stage. 1991, p. 91). State becomes a “structural effect,” a discursive construct with “no coher­
ence, unity and autonomy of its own” (Mitchell, 1991, pp. 85, 94).
Sovereignty from a poststructural/postmodern perspective refers to three different, yet,
interrelated phenomena: as presence in the Derridean sense (standing in for notions such Poststructural/postmodern approaches focus on textual strategies of “writing” the state
as essence, origin, identity, foundation); as autonomy in the liberal political sense (encap­ and thereby “simulating sovereignty” (Weber, 1994) through modes of representation (the
sulated in the free individual will); and as state sovereignty, which is understood “in the use of words, signifiers, symbols, and images) which imbue the state with presence, a
context of both an essentialist philosophical perspective and a liberal political position concrete identity and agency. They explore the ways in which the enactment of various
that stresses individual autonomy” (Polat, 1998, pp. 453–454). In his deconstructive read­ domestic and foreign policies produce particular understandings of the state and consti­
ing of—what he terms as—the paradigm of sovereignty, Ashley (1989) elaborates on how tutes the identity of the self. In his Writing Security, for instance, David Campbell (1998)
draws on the Derridean account of language and Judith Butler’s notion of identity as per­
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Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations

formative to examine “the way in which the identity of “(the United States of) America” subject, the complicity of reason in the violence of the political subject cannot be elided.
has been written and rewritten through foreign policies operating in its name” (p. x). What this diagnosis implies is that modern political reason not only cannot provide ade­
Starting from the premise that the state has “no ontological status apart from the various quate tools to understand and address political violence, but that as a rationality of rule it
acts that constitute its reality,” he examines the way in which “constitution of identity is is not immune to it. This paradoxical character of modernity acts as the premise for post­
achieved through the inscription of boundaries that serve to demarcate” an “inside” from structural/postmodern engagements with two traditional problems in the discipline such
an “outside,” a “self” from an “other,” a “domestic” from a “foreign” (p. 9). Always a work as security and war.
in progress and never a finished product, the state is thus constituted through practices
An important strand of investigation has been developed by scholars, who draw on Fou­
that code and discipline boundaries and produce identity.
cault and rearticulate the problem of achieving peace and security not merely as a politi­
While the relation between identity and foreign policy constitutes an important area of in­ cal project to overcome insecurity, but as a political method to govern life (Burke, 2007;
vestigation, there is no uniform understanding of the representation of difference, of the Dillon, 1996; Dillon & Neal, 2008). Rather than being an objective condition to be ad­
other, the outside in the constitution of the self, the identity, the inside. For instance, for dressed and remedied through state action in order to safeguard its subjects, security is
scholars like Campbell, discourses of danger are central to securing state identity and le­ revealed as a form of political subjection, as a political technology of rule. In her analysis
gitimizing state power. On this reading, modern statecraft comprises political practices of food crisis and the problem of hunger, Jenny Edkins elaborates the ways in politics in
that seek to subdue resistance and eliminate all that is foreign/different/dangerous. In modernity devoted to securing life is tantamount to the technologization and hence de-
contrast, other scholars argue that representations of the other does not necessarily politicization of politics (Edkins, 2000). Her analysis reveals the ways in which the fram­
translate into construction of difference as danger and argue that difference between self ing of famine through discourses of modernity de-politicizes hunger and how it should be
and other can take different forms (Hansen, 2006; Wæver, 2002). Shifting the focus away combated by prioritizing technical solutions through abstract analysis and the formula­
from geopolitical forms of othering between the inside and the outside, yet others focus tion of general principles. Such an approach merely reinstates and reproduces the form
on the temporal forms of othering in the constitution of the self (Diez, 2004). of politics that has produced the famine in the first place. Mark Duffield’s (2007) study on
the intersection between contemporary politics of development and security resonates
Violence, War with Edkins’s conclusion as it suggests that the modern faith in development and
progress becomes part of the problem itself.
Poststructuralism/postmodernism problematize the relations between violence and poli­
tics, force and law that are found in hegemonic accounts of world politics. While Realist Poststructural/postmodern investigations also take up the problem of war and use of
accounts project violence to the anarchical realm outside and figure it as a strategical in­ force in IR, as they examine contemporary forms of warfare (Der Derian, 1990, 2009; Gle­
strument deployed to advance state interest in an arena constantly prone to violence, Lib­ zos, 2012). Drawing on Paul Virilio, for instance, James Der Derian (1990) places new
eral international theory commits itself to the possibility of eliminating violence from po­ technologies of simulation, surveillance, and speed at the center of his analysis and inves­
litical life through the development of liberal institutions and practices globally (Frazer & tigates the way in which these new forces and the discursive practices surrounding them
Hutchings, 2011). In contrast, poststructural/postmodern approaches suggest that being transform the nature of international relation and it central practice—war. According to
less an antidote to violence as it is generally supposed, modern political reason is itself Der Derian, new technological practices give way to novel forms of mediation between
implicated in the violence it is expected to cure (Campbell & Dillon, 1993). Making cen­ states through the discursive power of chronopolitics and technostrategy. Chronopolitics
tral the idea that violence is constitutive of modern subjectivity and modern political free­ is used to capture the displacement of geography/spatial determination by chronology
dom is a lethal affair (Dillon, 2013), they examine strategic and security discourses to ex­ (overtaking of space by pace) whereas technostrategy refers to the ways in which trans­
pose the ways in which the modern state constitutes political life as militarized life formations in technology configure the way wars are fought and the stakes entailed in
(Campbell, 1998; Chaloupka, 1992; Klein, 1994). war-making. The postmodern practices of war, Der Derian argues, transform from being
spatial to being temporal and perceptual phenomena.
Informing these analyses is the idea that politics in modernity derives from an ontology of
violence occasioned by a certain understanding of political subjectivity. Campbell and Dil­ Rather than focusing on the ways in which technological innovations transform warfare,
lon (1993) suggest that modernity’s political subject—sovereign man, sovereign state—is Julian Reid (2006) draws on Foucault to develop a biopolitical critique of the contempo­
a violent subject by constitution. On the one hand, taking violence as the ultimo ratio of rary War on Terror. According to Reid, the modern liberal project of solving the problem
politics, the basic subject of modern political thought is posited as the subject of violence. of war entails exercising power over life directly. Liberal regimes root out war internally
On the other hand, the subject of modern politics—the autonomous reasoning subject—is by pacifying their subjects through disciplinary practices and “making the life of their so­
a violent political subject whose features, according to modern political thought, bring cieties into … logistical life,” which he defines as “a life lived under the duress of the
him into conflict with other men. Given that the political subject of violence is a reasoning command to be efficient” (p. 13). Through biopower, they mobilize populations to wage

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Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations

war in the name of life defined as such, as in the case of The War on Terror. The liberal power” (Crush, 1995, p. xiii). They offer a “post-development” agenda that attends to
desire for peace, he argues, “is a polemological and ultimately terrorising project which imagining “a new domain which … leaves behind the imaginary of development, and tran­
can only proceed on the basis of most resentful violence against life” (p. 124). scends development’s dependence on Western modernity and historicity” (Escobar, 1992,
p. 21). More recently, scholars have explored the entanglement of the question of climate
On Value and Development change with the desire for capitalist development in Third World countries and global in­
equities (Chakrabarty, 2018).
In addition to central themes and concepts of IR such as state, sovereignty, and war, post­
structural/postmodern insights and discourse analysis are used in studies on international
political economy (IPE) as well. At the center of poststructural/postmodern criticism of Thinking at the Limits
mainstream IPE is the latter’s presupposition of “a prediscursive economic materiality”—
an economy conceived as a realm that is constituted outside of practices of representa­ Poststructuralist/postmodern approaches attempt to articulate a different political imagi­
tion, culture, ideas, and identities (De Goede, 2003, p. 80). Challenging such a separation nary and develop an alternative conceptual language to think the International beyond
between the “real” and the “ideal,” such criticism makes politics of representation, per­ the confines of the paradigm of sovereignty, the modern subject and a politics devoted to
formativity, and dissent central to analyses of socioeconomic relations in modern capital­ securing that subject—a politics that is premised on a desire for identity, order, unity.
ism. While these studies focus on traditional themes, problematics, objects, and subjects Through these alternative conceptions, they challenge both state-centric, communitarian
of IPE (such as production, finance, exchange, firms, states, socioeconomic classes), by visions, and cosmopolitan arguments (Lawler, 2008).
challenging rationalist IPE (Amin & Palan, 2001) they also extend the analytical field of
IPE as they bring into critical purview the intersections between politics of security and Community, Resistance, Democracy
economic practices (Amoore, 2013; Amoore & De Goede, 2008; Cooper, 2008; De Goede,
Suggesting that contemporary “spatiotemporal processes that are radically at odds with
2004). These studies have encouraged the development of cultural political economy as a
the resolution expressed by the principle of state sovereignty” (Walker, 1995, p. 155)
new field of study.
some scholars highlight the need to rethink the questions of democracy and political com­
Scholars working within the framework of poststructural/postmodern approaches to IPE munity beyond the paradigm of sovereignty. In the context of “centrifugal forces” of glob­
highlight three themes that weave this scholarship together (De Goede, 2006). One of alization, for Connolly (1991), the territorial state’s “tight grip over public definitions of
those themes is the politicization of what is otherwise represented as technical knowl­ democratic accountability, danger, and security” renders it “a potential carrier of virulent
edge. Undergirding this theme is a concern with the way in which “power operate[s] … nationalism” (p. 463). Drawing on Nietzsche and moving beyond foundational concep­
within specific contexts to stabilize—with a tendency to normalize and depoliticize—par­ tions of ethico-political life, he calls for the cultivation of a different political ethos. Ethos
ticular discourses and their effects?” (Peterson, 2006). A second theme is the problemati­ refers to the “relational dispositions of people,” to the customs, priorities, habits, and
zation of interest and agency by de-centering the sovereign, rational actor as the subject norms that animate political institutions, organizations, and practices (Connolly, 2005, p.
of IPE (De Goede, 2006). In their analysis of “libidinal political economy,” for instance, 135). Connolly argues for a different “democratic imaginary” that takes as its premise an
Gammon and Palan (2006) use Freudian insights to offer a fragmented subject driven by “ethos of pluralization” that exceeds the territorial boundaries of the state.
conflictual internal dynamics. Finally, politics of dissent and resistance constitute a third
Rearticulating the contemporary political impasse less as a problem stemming from terri­
theme in poststructural/postmodern approaches to political economy. They displace a to­
torial definitions of liberal democracy and more as a problem ensuing from the globaliza­
talizing understanding of capital with a conception that sees the latter as “a performative
tion of liberal regimes, other scholars raise the question of “how we might rethink and
practice in need of constant articulation and reiteration” (De Goede, 2006). Contesting
pursue a politics of life” (Reid, 2006, p. 63) beyond liberal biopolitics. Affirming that
the discursive coherence of capital and focusing on how it is produced and reproduced in
“there is more to life than … ongoing survival,” Evans and Reid (2014) note that changing
everyday life, they suggest that the constant need for its re-enunciation opens up possibil­
the given order of things means the death of what exists so as to make way to what is to
ities for resistance and subversion (Davies, 2006; Gibson-Graham, 2006).
come. As they explain, “we cannot even conceive of different worlds if we cannot come to
In a related field, poststructural/postmodern approaches have also challenged predomi­ terms with the death and extinction of this one” (p. 170). Reid (2014) elaborates such a
nant conceptions of the idea of development and the ontological, epistemological assump­ politics by contextualizing it in relation to two interrelated issues (climate change and mi­
tions informing theories of modernization and capitalist development (Crush, 1995). Influ­ gration) high on the global political agenda, perceived as major threats to political stabili­
enced by poststructural/postmodern understandings of the power/knowledge nexus, cri­ ty and security. The study exposes the way in which fears of climate-induced migration
tique of the Cartesian subject, and the problematization of metanarratives, they conceptu­ are encouraging and contributing to the implementation of methods of population con­
alize “development as a discourse … as a modernist regime of knowledge and disciplinary trol, including sterilization of the illiterate poor. Ultimately, what informs these regimes of

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Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations

security to govern migration is the “fear of rupture that portends in the new,” the fear copresence incorporates coexistence as “an after-thought,” as “extrinsic to the subject,”
that the migrant signals the end of the existing constitution of society (Reid, 2014, p. effacing the constitutive role of Otherness. Effacement of heteronomy—the role of the
204). Instead, Reid (p. 205) elaborates a different political imaginary that draws on “a cel­ Other in the formation of the self—puts in place a particular ethos of relating to the oth­
ebration of the beauty that emerges through the monstrous mixing of life across the cli­ er: an ethos of survival through which the other is encountered in narratives of a pre-so­
matic boundaries” and offers a way to imagine the emergence of new life forms, of new cially dangerous Hobbesian world. Within this schema, responsibility gets cast as some­
ways of being, of worlds that would otherwise be blocked by securitizing, de-politicizing, thing pertaining merely to the survival of the self.
catastrophic imaginaries.
Rather than taking boundaries that mark the limit of sovereign community and identity as
Politics of Ethics given, poststructuralist scholars focus on the limit—the “inter,” in-between, relationality—
and examine how it operates as marker of difference. The limit is rearticulated as a site
An important strand of inquiry pursued by poststructuralist/postmodern approaches con­ that exposes what is effaced by modern subjectivity: a sense of selfhood that is always al­
cerns the question ethics in world politics and how the ethical may be conceptualized be­ ready relational, a self that is constituted by Otherness. Erasing the conceptual distinc­
yond a moral singularity. Working with nonfoundationalist, immanent framework—with­ tion between self and Other brings into view the radical interdependence of being (Camp­
out “resort[ing] to external authorities or transcendental values” (Der Derian, 2009, p. bell & Dillon, 1993; Zehfuss, 2007). The premise for such a move is the conception of on­
193), they register the way in which the ethical is always already bound up with the polit­ tological difference as the defining feature of being human. It is a difference that renders
ical. In the words of Zehfuss (2009, p. 98), “[i]t is impossible to understand ethics—what human existence, not just a multiplicity of human subjects (subjects such as the nation,
we should do what is right—as separate from questions of politics, not least the question class, race, religion, etc.), but a plurality “[i]nstalled within the being of every human
of how we come to believe that particular responses to these questions are more valid being” (Dillon, 1999, p. 114). Such accounts displace the question of difference and the
than others.” The traditional understanding of ethics (the notion that ethics concerns gen­ limit from the realm of inter—that is, difference between sovereign subjects (individuals
erating abstract moral codes or universal rules of conduct to mediate relations among au­ or states)—to an account of difference that is intra—that is, pertaining to the self as such.
tonomous, preconstituted moral agents) is replaced with the investigation of political The Other, which inhabits the self, it is argued, can never be folded into the self and
ethos—forms of life, subjectivity, and identity—called forth by particular conceptions of thereby prevents the human from ever being at home with itself. In short, the question of
the political. “The ethics of post-structuralism,” Der Derian (2009, p. 194) notes, “is locat­ the limit is reconfigured from being a question merely about the limit, the boundary be­
ed in and through the construction of subjectivity.” They reconceptualize ethics, politics, tween self and other, and their interrelation into the very operation of the relationality it­
and the international by unsettling the notion of a secure self—the sovereign reasoning self. What is at stake, poststructural/postmodern interrogations suggest, is not merely the
subject—and formulate ethics in terms of an inescapable relation between self and the difference between identities and their indebtedness to each other in their constitution,
Other. Recovery of the ethical is intimately and inescapably bound up with the recovery of but an unassimilable Otherness—a difference that prevents any identity from ever becom­
the political. Politics does not concern applying predefined rules, a question of arithmetic, ing fully stabilized. Being “inevitably implicated and indeed exposed” (Zehfuss, 2009, p.
of techno-politics. The political, it is argued, is not a question of the “singular what” but a 104) renders the form of responding to the other as an inevitable consequence of being-
question of “a plural ‘how’” (Dillon, 1996, p. 65). Put differently, the political is conceptu­ with and therefore constitutes existence as responsibility. Building on these premises,
alized as a way of being in the world where the life/being human is cast as a verb—a way scholars seek to develop a poststructural/postmodern political ethics that is premised on
of being, as a “person as such” (Edkins, 2011) rather than a noun—an entity that can be the notion of de-territorialization of responsibility, asserting not only the obligation to re­
enumerated, categorized. spond to conflicts, to suffering to the other, but, more importantly, the urgent need to re­
flect upon what it means to respond (Campbell, 1994; Dauphinée, 2007; Jabri, 1998). They
At the center of poststructuralism/postmodernism’s critique of the dominant conception
develop a notion of the “ethic of the encounter” that “evokes radical hospitality and a wel­
of ethics is the modern subject (the individual in the domestic realm, the state in the in­
coming of the other despite the risks to the security of the self and the self’s
ternational realm), which the latter take as the ethical agent. The limit of the modern ra­
identity” (Lawler, 2008).
tional subject—sovereign entities of politics—mark the boundaries of identity from differ­
ence, inside from the outside, order from anarchy. When the subject of ethics is under­
Critical Aesthetics
stood as a complete, fully constituted self, coexistence is conceptualized and articulated
through “a logic of composition” (Odysseos, 2007). This logic reduces coexistence to the Rather than taking for granted the relationship between the represented and its repre­
copresence of previously self-sufficient, nonrelational, autonomous entities (sovereign sentation as in most IR scholarship, poststructural/postmodern approaches assert the un­
states, individuals, substate groups). “The decisive effect of the logic of composition is bridgeable gap between the two and locate the political in that very gap (Bleiker, 2008).
thus the restriction of relationality to mere co-presence of pre-constituted entities” (p. Shifting the focus away from mimetic to aesthetic forms of representation, they make im­
xxvii). Positing subjects as simultaneously being present and not coexisting, the logic of ages, narratives, sounds, literature, visual art, cinema, performative arts central to their
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Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations Poststructuralism and Postmodernism in International Relations

investigations (Bleiker, 2008; Edkins & Kear, 2013; Opondo & Shapiro, 2011; Shapiro, Opening new avenues of research for poststructural/postmodern IR, the new materialism
2009, 2010). Inquiries in this regard range from forms of visualization at work in contem­ debates within critical social theory and political philosophy has sparked new and fruitful
porary security practices” (Amoore, 2009) to the “musical modulations” of political conversations, which carry important implications for future directions. Rather than
thought (Whitehall, 2006). treating matter as passive, raw, inert, brute stuff, new materialism asserts the philosophi­
cal and political need to take seriously the “vitality of non-human bodies” (Bennett, 2010).
Poststructural/postmodern concern with representation in world politics is very much en­ De-centering the human, attending to the agency of non-human objects, focusing on hu­
tangled with questions of scholarly responsibility: How does one relate to those one man/non-human interactions has important implications about issues that are immediate
writes about and makes present? What kind of knowledge one produces about those one
policy concern—such as the global ecological crisis, uncertainties, and anxieties affected
represents? (Zehfuss, 2013). For instance, rather than treating war as a matter of alleged­
by the Anthropocene, globally circulating viruses, and health epidemics. The impact of
ly value-neutral analyses, poststructural/postmodern writings make the question of how these conversations reach beyond policy issues however, as they raise questions that car­
one narrates war central to their investigations. They grapple with the relation between ry the potential to recast an anthropocentric discipline such as IR. What would an IR be­
writing on war, responsibility, accountability (Jabri, 2007; Steele, 2013) and experiment yond the human look like? How would it a post-human perspective recast the structure–
with different forms of writing war—such as storytelling—and push the boundaries of
agency problem? How would it alter our conceptions of security or war? What would it
what a scholarly engagement with war and security—beyond a pretense to scientific ob­
mean to speak of cosmopolitanism, democracy, and resistance? These and other ques­
jectivity—might mean (Dauphinée, 2007; Hozic, 2015). tions are increasingly being taken up by poststructural/postmodern scholars (Connolly,
2013; Cudworth & Hobden, 2011, 2015; Mitchell, 2014) In addition to opening up new av­
The critical impulse in these investigations into aesthetics is succinctly captured by
enues of research by reframing central questions of world politics, new materialism de­
Michael Shapiro (2013) who elaborates on the meaning of critical thinking. Following
Jacques Ranciére’s conception of “critical artistic practices,” these interventions seek to bates also carry important implications for poststructural/postmodern IR to the extent
that it paves the way to develop more robust understanding of discourse and text by dis­
disrupt the established relations between the sayable and the visible. Through “juxtaposi­
tions that unbind what are ordinarily presumed to belong together” critical aesthetics mantling the language and matter binary altogether (Lundborg & Vaughan-Williams,
2015).
seeks not only “to challenge institutionalized ways of reproducing and understanding
phenomena,” but also “to create the conditions of possibility for imagining alternative
Link to Digital Materials
worlds” (p. xv).
The Disorder of Things.

Future Directions Gloknos: Center for Global Knowledge Studies.

Almost two and a half decades after “dissident voices” made their first collective interven­ Histories of Violence Project.
tion into disciplinary debates with the special issue of the International Studies Quarterly,
poststructural/postmodern investigations entertain a degree of reception today than what Theory Talks.
could have possibly been foreseen at the time. New and cutting edge research are being
References
published in prominent journals of the field such as International Political Sociology, Soci­
ety and Space, Security Dialogue, and Review of International Studies while the number Amin, A., & Palan, R. (2001). Towards a non-rationalist international political economy.
of panels at major conferences, the number of graduate students versed in the poststruc­ Review of International Political Economy, 8(4), 559–577.
tural/postmodern perspectives increase by the day. Proving the falsity of alleged irrele­
vance of poststructural/postmodern IR to empirical analyses and policy questions, there is Amoore, L. (2009). Lines of sight: On the visualization of unknown futures. Citizenship
a constantly growing literature that examine a wide range of topics and issues pertaining Studies, 13(1), 17–30.
to world politics both at conceptual and empirical levels: ranging from questions of time
Amoore, L. (2013). The politics of possibility: Risk and security beyond probability.
and temporality to the meaning and effects of bordering practices, from contemporary
Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
global security technologies to humanitarian interventions and international finance (De­
Goede, 2005; Lobo-Guerrero, 2011; Lundborg, 2012; Steele, 2013; Vaughan-Williams, Amoore, L., & De Goede, M. (Eds.). (2008). Risk and the war on terror. New York: Rout­
2009). ledge.

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date: 07 August 2020 date: 07 August 2020