THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO WORLD POLITICS (1)

1. INTRODUCTION
My purpose in this paper is to provide an account of international relations on the one hand and to locate myself within the field on the other. There is a wide range of theoretical approaches to world politics, with different epistemology, methodology, and ontology. In creating an account of the field, I shall mainly deal with (neo)realism, liberalism, Marxism, and transnational historical materialism.

2. EXPLAINING AND UNDERSTANDING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Martin Hollis and Steve Smith argue that explaining and understanding are alternative ways to analyse international relations. They ‘sought to establish a dimension of ‘understanding’ which permits a range of hermeneutic disputes between individualism and holism.’ (1991: v-vi). They distinguish two intellectual traditions on which the social sciences thrive. For the sake of the argument, they can be called an ‘outsider tradition’ (the ‘scientific tradition’) and an ‘insider tradition’ (the ‘interpretative tradition’). The former is founded on the triumphant rise of natural sciences since the sixteenth century. At the same time, the latter is rooted in the nineteenth-century ideas of history and the writing of history from the inside. While the ‘outsider tradition’ seeks to explain the workings of nature and treats the human realm as part of nature, the ‘insider tradition’ seeks to understand what events mean. ‘Explaining’ is the critical term in the ‘outsider tradition’ and ‘understanding’ in the ‘insider tradition.’

The broad idea in the ‘outsider tradition’ is that ‘events are governed by laws of nature which apply whenever similar events occur in similar conditions. Science progresses by learning which similarities are the key to which sequences.’ (Hollis and Smith 1991: 3). In the most robust version of this tradition, according to Hollis and Smith, ‘behaviour is generated by a system of forces or a structure, external not only to the minds of each actor but also external even to the minds of all actors.’ (Hollis and Smith, 1991). They argue that theories based on external structures and systematic forces are at the ‘holist’ end of a range of casual theories. Theories which take actors as the final authority are at the ‘individualist’ end of a range of theories in search of understanding.

Hollis and Smith base their approach to theories of international relations on a distinction between systems and units and make ‘the level-of-analysis problem’ central. The level-of-analysis problem, as originally posed by David Singer in 1961, was ‘the problem of whether to account for the behaviour of the international system in terms of the behaviour of the nation states comprising it or vice versa.’ (Hollis and Smith 1991: 7). Hollis and Smith propose to extend the problem in two dimensions: the identities of systems and units on the one hand and the contrast between explaining and understanding on the other.

There are three layers in both dimensions. The three layers concerning the identities of systems and units are international system vs. nation-state, nation-state vs. bureaucracy and bureaucracy vs. individual. At each stage, the ‘unit’ of the higher layer becomes the ‘system’ of the lower layer. On each layer, Hollis and Smith contrast an analysis that proceeds from ‘top-down’ (from system to unit) with one that proceeds from ‘bottom-up’ (from unit to system). In the dimension concerning the contrast between explaining and understanding, the highest layer requires thinking of the international system as a set of norms or purposes that shape history. The next layer asks whether social rules and institutions account for the performance of social roles or vice versa. The lowest layer is broached by asking whether individual actors construct institutional rules and roles or vice versa.

3. (NEO-)REALISM and (NEO-)LIBERALISM
Among the different approaches to studying international relations or world politics is realism, which is the oldest. According to Hollis and Smith, a shared concept of scientific explanation is a unifying theme among realists and neo-realists ‘who are otherwise divided, for instance, whether to pitch the explanation at the level of the system or its units.’ (1991: 45). Realists apply the scientific method or the methods of natural science to locate causes and laws of behaviour of the states. According to the realist approach to world politics, the state is the central unit of analysis. It focuses on the nation-state; it is a state-centric view of world politics.

According to Morgenthau, the decision-makers in foreign policy should be understood as actors who maximise utility. ‘The international system is often conceived along the lines of a market system whose moving force is maximisation.’ (Hollis and Smith 1991: 76). Regarding realism, the foreign policy behaviour of states is determined above all by the location of the state in the international system. The international system determines the behaviour of states so strongly that there is no need to consider what goes on within them. Realism relies on the concept of national interest. Morgenthau argues that ‘the requirements of national interest drive out ideological considerations in the formulation of foreign policy.’ (Hollis and Smith 1991: 85).

The concept of anarchy and the polar structure of the system are two critical characteristics of the realist tradition. The former refers to the fact that nobody is above the state. By the latter, it means the number of independent great powers and their interrelationships (Hollis and Smith 1991: 102). While the international system is anarchic, the domestic system is hierarchical, and world politics is the domain of power politics.

Realism has argued that the international system had to be arranged to allow for collective security. It was the centrality of power, argued Morgenthau, that allowed scientific precision to be used in explaining international relations. The realist ‘theory was a power-politics model, and the anarchical structure of the international system was central in explaining how power politics operated.’ (Hollis and Smith 1991: 97). The realist approach argues that strategic interaction determines the nature of world politics. The struggle for power and security is the overriding concern of each sovereign state. The logic of reproduction is the dominant logic in international relations. ‘...The attempt to understand the means by which states protect their national security and uphold order is the proper task of international theory.’ (Linklater 1990: 165).

Hollis and Smith point out that ‘realism has always inclined towards structural explanation, but has not always embraced it with the thoroughgoing fervour of neo-realists like Kenneth Waltz.’ (1991: 93). Neo-realists, such as Kenneth Waltz, ‘have refined the Realist notion of a system and extended it to include economic issues.’ In his Theory of International Politics (1979), Waltz adopted ‘a strict structural account of international relations, which commits him to seeing structures as real.’ In his recent work, he has shifted to a softer notion of structure, which gives more room for the internal make-up of the units to matter. ‘This ambivalence leads to a serious question as to what Waltz takes as real and primary, structures or units.’ (Hollis and Smith 1991: 105).

Ashley argues that in a period of world economic crisis, ‘the classical realist tradition and its key concepts suffered a crisis of legitimacy, especially in the United States. Sensing this crisis, a number of American scholars ... more or less independently undertook to respond in a distinctly American fashion; that is, scientifically.’ (1986: 262). By making the structuralist move, they saved the realist power politics (1986: 263).

Waltz divides theories of international relations into two groups: ‘reductionist’ and systemic’. Reductionist theories see causes operate at the level of individual states, they explain the whole by analysing the attributes and interactions of parts. Systemic theories see causes operating at the systemic level. Waltz claims that ‘none of the existing systems theories is, in fact, a systems theory; they have all been reductionist.’ (Hollis and Smith 1991: 105). According to Waltz, ‘A system is composed of a structure and of interacting units. The structure is the system-wide component that makes it possible to think of the system as a whole.’ (1986: 70). Waltz argues that its parts' arrangement defines a structure, and only arrangement changes are structural changes. Both the structure and the units are theoretical concepts, not real. They are related to, but not identical to, real agents and agencies. ‘Structure is not something we see.’ (1986: 72). ‘It is the arrangement of the parts within a system and the principle of the arrangement that defines a structure.’ Waltz argues that ‘we can explain international relations only if we are able to distinguish between these unit- and system-level factors.’ (Hollis and Smith 1991: 108).

According to Waltz, there are three defining characteristics of a system’s structure: the ordering principles by which the parts are arranged (hierarchy in domestic political systems, anarchy in international political systems), the characteristics of the units (super- and subordinate relations between units in domestic political systems, no different functions among the units, that is, states in the international political systems); the distribution of capabilities across the units. Waltz argues that international systems differ only in how capabilities are distributed among the units. ‘The structure of a system changes with changes in the distribution of capabilities across the system’s units.’ (1986: 92). According to Waltz, ‘the distribution of capabilities is not a unit attribute, but rather a system-wide concept’ (1986: 93). ‘... A change in the distribution of capabilities results in a changing polar configuration. Thus, Waltz sees the only variable which can shift within the international system as being that of its polar structure.’ (Hollis and Smith 1991: 109). Waltz has claimed that by defining the two essential elements of a systems theory of international politics, namely the structure of the system and its interacting units, he has broken away from common approaches (1986: 94). Waltz thinks that thinking of structure as he has defined it ‘solves the problem of separating changes at the level of units from changes at the level of the system.’ (1986: 96).

The theory of balance of power
Keohane and Nye note, ‘For political realists, international politics, like all other politics, is a struggle for power but, unlike domestic politics, a struggle dominated by organized violence.’ They also note that the following three assumptions are integral to the realist vision of world politics: states as coherent units are the dominant actors, force is a usable and effective instrument of policy; there is a hierarchy of issues in world politics, namely the “high politics” (military security) and the “low politics” (economic and social affairs). According to an ideal type of realist world politics, the world is characterised by active or potential conflict among states, with the use of force possible at any time (1977: 23, 24).

Discussing the occurrence of violence, Waltz argues that the distinction between international and national realms of politics is not found in the use or nonuse of force but in their different structures, in various modes of organisation for doing something about the use of force. A national system is not one of self-help, whereas the international system is (1986: 99-100). ‘To achieve their objectives and maintain their security, units in a condition of anarchy ... must rely on the means they can generate and the arrangements they can make for themselves. Self-help is necessarily the principle of action in an anarchic order’ (Waltz 1986: 108). Waltz points out that ‘if there is any distinctively political theory of international politics, the balance-of-power theory is it.’ However, there is no generally accepted statement of the theory. For balance-of-power politics to prevail, the order should be anarchic and populated by units wishing to survive. ‘States balance power rather than maximize it. States can seldom afford to make maximizing power their goal. International politics is too serious a business for that.’ (1986: 116, 120, 128). According to Gill and Law, in Waltz’s theory, ‘balance of power considerations are cast in the framework of market equilibrium analysis, taken from liberal neo-classical economics’ (1988: 43). Waltz argues that the theory of balance-of-power ‘depicts international politics as a competitive system, one predicts more specifically that states will display characteristics common to competitors: namely, that they will imitate each other and become socialized to their system.’ (1986: 129).

Waltz’s systemic theory of international relations has been criticised by the so-called transnational liberals who argue that there is a need to ‘open the box’. First, according to them, ‘Waltz needs a well-defined notion of power to account for motion and change in what would otherwise be a system in static equilibrium.’ Secondly, they question ‘whether there is an analogy between the international system and a natural system, one strong enough to keep the notion of agency at bay.’ According to critics of neorealism, Waltz’s notion of a system is imprecise. John Ruggie has argued that ‘Waltz has a ‘generative’ conception of structure, in that his three characteristics operate at different depths’ and ‘the deepest characteristic of structure, namely, ordering principles, is not observable.’ Thirdly, Waltz’s system is not capable of explaining much. Ruggie argues that, according to Waltz, only structural change can produce systemic change. He maintains that in any social system, structural change itself ultimately has no source other than unit-level processes. Thus, Waltz ignores unit-level causes (Hollis and Smith 1991: 110-15). Hollis and Smith argue that any system's explanation needs a mechanism through which feedback operates, and they suggest that the internal workings of the units of the system are the only candidates for the international system (1991: 116).

In his response to such criticism, Waltz pointed out that a systems approach cannot explain everything. The task of the systems approach is to provide the setting within which states have to operate. According to his revised position, ‘structures condition behaviors and outcomes, yet explanations of behaviors and outcomes are indeterminate because both unit-level and structural causes are in play ... structural constraints can sometimes be countered.’ In other words, we need both unit-level and structural causes to understand international relations, and it is possible that structural causes can be overcome (Hollis and Smith 1991: 116-17).

The theory of hegemonic stability
Robert Gilpin distinguishes three contemporary theories of the international political economy: the theory of the “dual” economy derived principally from economic liberalism, the theory of the Modern World System (MWS) strongly influenced by Marxism, and the theory of hegemonic stability (THS) closely associated with political realism. The THS argues that the hegemonic power is responsible for guaranteeing the provision of public goods, such as an open and liberal trading regime, a stable international currency, the provision of international security, etc. According to the original formulator of the theory, Charles Kindleberger, the crucial role of the hegemon ‘is that of crisis management and not simply the routine one of regime maintenance. If a liberal world economy is to survive, the hegemon must be able and willing to respond quickly to threats to the system.’ (Gilpin 1987: 74-9). Gill and Law have asserted that the THS is a fusion of liberal and realist ideas and, as Duncan Snidal has shown, ignores the impact of bargaining, negotiation, strategic rationality and cooperation through collective action.’ (1988: 45, 47).

Gilpin assesses the theory of hegemonic stability:

‘The theory of hegemonic stability (at least in its more crude forms) has tended to overemphasize the role of the state and of political factors in the existence and operation of the international market economy. It has underemphasized the importance of motivating ideologies and domestic factors, of social forces and technological developments, and of the market itself in determining outcomes ... I consider the theory to be a necessary corrective to the complete focus on economic factors of the dual economy and Modern World System theories. The hegemonic stability theory sets forth the political conditions for the existence of a liberal international economic order and the idea that the rise and decline of the hegemon is an important determinant of structural change. It thus contributes one element to an understanding of the dynamics of the international political economy.’ (1987: 91-2).

Game theory
Gill and Law point out that writers whose work is partly inspired by the realist tradition have attempted to extend the realist perspective using game theory. ‘One advantage of game theory for realist political economy is that it offers a common theoretical approach to the analysis of security and economic issues.’ According to this approach, rational actors who pursue self-interest and face a given pay-off structure (or environment) play international games that facilitate cooperation (1988: 32-33).

Game theory is seen as an alternative to systems theory. It ‘treats the units as rational actors and argues that the behaviour of the system is the (often unintended) sum of the choices made by the units. But its assumptions are designed to avoid having to ask how exactly the units are internally organized.’ (Hollis and Smith 1991: 93). According to Hollis and Smith, the game theory is ‘a major theoretical tool for developing theories of the behaviour of states.’ (1991: 133). This theory ‘relies on astringent assumptions about the rationality of actors, taken from microeconomic theories of individually rational choice’ (Hollis and Smith 1991: 143). The basic idea behind the Theory of Games, where an outcome is the sum of the ‘strategies’ chosen by each agent, is that ‘expected utilities are ... directed to outcomes and the utility of each action can depend on what someone else does.’ (Hollis and Smith 1991: 121-22). There are different types of games, such as a coordination game, an assurance game, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the Chicken Game.

‘The application of game theory to international relations continued a tradition of seeing wars and other conflicts as strategic games, which are to be won or lost, like chess. This tradition was part of the realist discourse on international relations, which constructs states as unitary actors that seek to accumulate power and unconstrained by law, moral sentiments, or affections ...’ (Hurwitz 1989: 116).

‘Game Theory’, Hollis and Smith note, ‘is a splendid tool of contractarian thinking-the rational individualism which has inspired most versions of the social contract.’ (1991: 128). ‘[Robert] Axelrod and [Steven] Brams prove’, according to Hollis and Smith, ‘the relevance of Game Theory to the study of international relations. Bilateral interactions without central authority are nicely mirrored by the structure of the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Chicken Game, especially when one considers deterrence and the arms race.’ (1991: 134). Hollis and Smith point out that although Game Theory is a powerful tool, it is also ambiguous (1991: 135).

Transnational liberalism
In a liberal political economy, the primary units of analysis are rational, self-interested actors (individuals, groups, firms) who operate within the constraints of market structure and competition. Each actor attempts to use power resources to increase its power, security, affluence and satisfaction, or utility (Gill 1990: 20). Since ‘transnational corporate interests are strongly represented within foreign policy establishments of all the major capitalist nations, and many companies have forged alliances or entered consortia with their foreign counterparts’ transnational liberalism can ‘be defined as the economic doctrine of and political ideology primarily associated with the most powerful elements of internationally-mobile capital.’ (Gill 1990: 22-23).

According to Gill, Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye’s ideal-typical concept of ‘complex interdependence’ exemplifies a transnational liberal approach to international politics. ‘The concept of complex interdependence’, argues Gill, ‘combines a neo-realist view of inter-state relations with a commitment to liberal international economic arrangements.’ (1990: 23). Keohane and Nye think that complex interdependence as an ideal type is the opposite of realism. The three main characteristics of complex interdependence are multiple channels of contact among advanced industrial countries, the absence of hierarchy among issues, and the military force not used by governments towards other governments (Keohane & Nye, 1977, pp. 24-25). Compared with the realist approach, a congruence between the overall structure of military and economic power and the pattern of outcomes on any issue area is less likely to occur. Under complex interdependence, the potential role of international organisations in political bargaining is significantly increased (Keohane and Nye 1977: 30, 35).

Neoliberal institutionalism
Keohane notes that institutional theory borrows elements from both liberalism and realism. He has synthesised ‘elements of realism and liberalism to create the basis for such a theory, whose core is concerned with how institutions affect incentives facing self-interested states.’ (1993: 293). According to institutionalist theory, states are the principal actors in world politics, and they behave based on their conceptions of their self-interests. International institutions play an essential role in changing conceptions of self-interest (Keohane, 1993, p. 271). International institutions exist mainly because they facilitate self-interested cooperation by reducing uncertainty, thus stabilising expectations (Keohane, 1993, p. 288). Keohane notes that institutional theory sees states as rational actors or rational egoists (1993: 273). Keohane emphasises that ‘the contention that international anarchy dictates concern for relative rather than absolute gains is not sustainable.’ (1993: 275). He argues that states will seek relative gains where effective means of power are at stake, and a few highly competitive states are involved (1993: 288).

Grieco suggests that, in contrast to earlier presentations of liberal institutionalism (functionalist integration theory, neo-functionalist regional integration theory, and interdependence theory), ‘the newest liberalism accepts realist arguments that states are the major actors in world affairs and are unitary-rational agents. It also claims to accept realism’s emphasis on anarchy to explain state motives and actions.’ (1993: 121). However, according to Grieco, ‘neoliberal constitutionalism misconstrues the realist analysis of international anarchy, and therefore it misunderstands the realist analysis of the impact of anarchy on the preferences and actions of states.’ Neoliberalism’s claims about international cooperation are based on its belief that states are atomistic actors. According to neoliberal institutionalism, states seek to maximise their absolute gains and are indifferent to the gains achieved by others. According to realism, states are positional, not atomistic, in character, and therefore, they focus on their absolute and relative gains from international cooperation (1993: 117-18).

International regimes
Stein points out that there are many different definitions of regimes. 'At one extreme', according to Stein, 'regimes are defined so broadly as to constitute either all international relations or all international interactions within a given issue-area ... At the other extreme, regimes are defined as international institutions.' (1993: 29-30). Kratochwil and Ruggie point out that 'regimes are broadly defined as governing arrangements constructed by states to coordinate their expectations and organize aspects of international behavior in various issue-areas. They thus comprise a normative element, state practice, and organizational roles.' (1986: 759). The concept of regimes is an analytical tool. According to Krasner's definition, international regimes have four analytical components: principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures (Kratochwil and Ruggie 1986: 769). International regimes are not concrete entities but conceptual creations with which the international governance process has come to be associated. They are social institutions around which expectations converge in international issue areas. '[T]he ontology of regimes rests upon a strong element of intersubjectivity ... the prevailing epistemological position in regime analysis is almost entirely positivistic in orientation.' (Kratochwil and Ruggie 1986: 764). According to Stein, regimes can be noninstitutionalized as well as institutionalized. He also notes that international organizations need not be regimes. However, they certainly can be (1993: 46). While regimes established to deal with the dilemma of common interests require collaboration, regimes created to solve the dilemma of common aversions require coordination (Stein, 1993, p. 41).

According to the realist perspective, 'international regimes exist when patterned state behavior results from joint rather than independent decision making.' (Stein 1993: 31). Keohane argues that 'international regimes are specific institutions involving states and/or transnational actors, which apply to particular issues in international relations. This is similar to the definition given by Krasner (1983) but makes it clearer that regimes are institutions ...' (1988: 384). While the functional theory of international regimes developed by institutionalists such as Keohane argued that 'hegemony was not essential to the maintenance of regimes based on mutual interest', realists 'emphasized that the strongest international regimes were constructed in a bipolar world in the shadow of U.S. hegemony, and most of them were led at least initially by the United States.' (Keohane 1993: 284).

International institutions
The debate between realists and liberals 'is more concerned today with the extent to which state action is influenced by “structure” (anarchy and the distribution of power) versus “process” (interaction and learning) and institutions.’ (Wendt 1992: 391). Wendt points out that the debate between “neorealists” and “neoliberals” has been based on a shared commitment to “rationalism” which ‘offers a fundamentally behavioral conception of both process and institutions: they change behavior but not identities and interests.’ (1992: 390-91).

Maas notes that the actual definitions of institutions in the recent literature on the ‘new institutionalism’ appear remarkably fluid. ‘Institutions may be anything from formal organizations to social forces (including capitalism) to culture.’(1992: 33, n.80). Keohane points out that ‘ “institution” may refer to a general pattern of categorization of activity or to a particular human-constructed arrangement, formally or informally organized.’ (1988: 383). He argues that ‘persistent and connected sets of rules (formal or informal) that prescribe behavioral roles, constrain activity, and shape expectations’ are the criteria for a broad definition of institutions (1988: 383). In his essay on international institutions, he focuses on ‘institutions that can be identified as related complexes of rules and norms, identifiable in space and time.’ (1988: 383).

Keohane distinguishes two approaches to studying international institutions: the rationalistic and the reflective approaches. The rationalistic study of international institutions rooted in exchange theory focuses almost entirely on specific institutions. ‘It emphasizes international regimes and formal international organizations.’ This approach views institutions as affecting patterns of costs (1988: 386). The reflective approach (2) emphasises that ‘institutions are often not created consciously by human beings but rather emerge slowly through a less deliberative process, and that they are frequently taken for granted by the people who are affected by them.’ (Keohane 1988: 389). This approach, also called the sociological approach, ‘stresses the role of impersonal social forces as well as the impact of cultural practices, norms, and values that are not derived from calculations of interests.’ (Keohane 1988: 381). Neither the rationalistic nor the reflective approach pays sufficient attention to domestic politics (Keohane 1988: 392).

According to Wendt,

'An institution is a relatively stable set or “structure” of identities and interests. Such structures are often codified in formal rules and norms, but these have motivational force only in virtue of actors’ socialization to and participation in collective knowledge. Institutions are fundamentally cognitive entities that do not exist apart from actors’ ideas about how world works. This does not mean that institutions are not real or objective, that they are “nothing but” beliefs...’ (1992: 399).

Institutionalisation is a process of internalising new identities and interests; socialisation is a cognitive process, not just a behavioural one. Institutions may be cooperative or conflictual (Wendt 1992: 399). In the realist view, according to Wendt, ‘anarchy justifies disinterest in the institutional transformation of identities and interests and building systemic theories in exclusively rationalist terms.’ Wendt agrees that self-help and power politics are institutions but are not essential to anarchy. ‘Anarchy is what states make of it.’ (1992: 394, 395). ‘International institutions exist largely because they facilitate self-interested cooperation by reducing uncertainty, thus stabilizing expectations.’ (Keohane 1993: 288). Keohane maintains that while he has synthesised elements of realism and liberalism to create the basis for a theory of international institutions, Grieco talks about the need for realism to develop a theory of international institutions. Keohane is critical of limiting a theory of institutions to the boundaries of realism (1993: 293).

Constructivism
Those social theories which seek to explain identities and interests, called ‘reflectivist’ by Keohane, are called by Wendt, in his own words, ‘following Nicholas Onuf’, ‘constructivist’. According to constructivism, agency constructs itself socially, and since reality is socially constructed, an interpretive approach is needed to reality. ‘A fundamental principle of constructivist social theory is that people act toward objects, including other actors, on the basis of the meanings that objects have for them ... it is collective meanings that constitute the structures which organize our actions.’ (Wendt 1992: 396-97). A second principle of constructivism is ‘that the meanings in terms of which action is organized arise out of interaction.’ (Wendt 1992: 403).

Radical constructivists argue that ‘subject and object are mutually constitutive; no description can exist independently of the social circumstances under which that description is made. Science, they argue, is no different from any other form of knowledge creation, and there is no basis for privileging ‘scientific’ knowledge.’(Haas 1992: 21, 23). In contrast with radical constructivists, the limited constructivists ‘with a more essentialist or materialist view argue that the world is a real and separate object of inquiry that exists independently of the analyst and that although the categories in which it is identified are socially constructed, consensus about the nature of the world is possible in the long run.’ (Haas 1992: 23)

4. MARXISM (3)
Classical Marxism (Historical Materialism)
As Halliday points out, historical materialism has never occupied a secure place in international relations. Its application has been explicitly or implicitly limited. According to Halliday, ‘this is achieved above all by blocking out the main theoretical questions of Marxism ... On the other hand, historical materialism has not itself developed the theoretical focus needed for a comprehensive and generally intelligible contribution to International Relations’ (1994: 49).

Marxism has always had an emancipatory project with the goal of universal emancipation of the human species, that is, world communism, as its historical goal. The Marxist project of universal emancipation ‘brings an emancipatory interest to the analysis of the factors which have been responsible for the expansion and contraction of human community.’ (Linklater 1990: 171). Marxism is a system-challenging theory with its global emancipatory project. According to Marxism, conflict between nation-states is not the fundamental conflict in the global system. Marxism is committed to abolishing the international state system (Linklater 1990: 21).

Linklater argues that ‘contemporary developments in social theory have noted that Marx and Engels seriously underestimated the extent to which the system of states was a barrier to the achievement of human unity.’ (1990: 54). In order to construct the emancipatory project, according to Linklater, the normative interest in defending the extension of the moral community deserves more discussion. Besides, ‘this project requires a more complex sociology of how production, state-building, international relations and developments in the realm of culture and ideology have shaped and reshaped the moral frontier at different points in human history.’ (1990: 171).

Marxist political economy in the nineteenth century assumed that human beings would be united by industrialisation. However, the process of national unification rapidly overtook the trend towards international integration, and state power increased in both domestic and international domains. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Marxists ‘were faced with the question of whether historical materialism had presented an oversimplified analysis of human development in which too much weight attached to the class struggle.’ (Linklater 1990: 55).

According to a perspective which regards nationalism as a product of the uneven development of the world economy, ‘Marxist theory has been slow to recognise that the preservation of national loyalties and antagonisms (not least in the socialist bloc) reveals the extent to which cultural differences can be valued for their intrinsic worth.’ (Linklater 1990: 56). Linklater shares the claim of Tom Nairn that nationalism has been Marxism’s ‘greatest historical failure’ but adds that ‘it would be a mistake to conclude that Marxism is powerless to contribute to a theory of nationalism.’ (1990: 56). For example, he draws attention to the study of nationalism by V. I. Lenin. According to Lenin, nationalism was the product of the internalisation of humanity's entire economic, political and spiritual existence. Nationalism was the product of the uneven development of the capitalist world economy, and the emergence of capitalism was crucial for the formation of modern nationalities. The uneven development of capitalism was a significant reason for politicising cultural differences (Linklater 1990: 61, 63). Marxists showed that there was a close relationship between capitalist development, nation-forming, and nationalism. Lenin argued that fighting against every trace of national distrust, estrangement, and enmity was imperative to promote the logic of human unification.

Linklater argues that Lenin overlooked the importance of state formation and conflict within the international states-system and ‘underestimated the extent to which a socialist response to the challenge of nationalism required strategies for ending uneven economic development, methods of reconciling the demand for recognition of cultural differences with the process of state-building and techniques for reducing strategic rivalries between nation-states.’ (1990: 65). Lenin’s account of nationalism, according to Linklater, failed to recognise that the aim of creating voluntary ties between nations might be frustrated by international military competition. It also ‘failed to take account of international anarchy in its consideration of the means of transcending the tension between the nation and the species in the socialist (and not only in the capitalist) world order.’ (1990: 67). Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn maintain that ‘Marxism has traditionally lacked a sophisticated account of nationalism and the international system of states.’ (Linklater 1990: 46).

Linklater argues that ‘when Marxists were forced back on the policy of building socialism in one country that the relationship between state security and nationalism was more widely recognised’, and they had to compromise not only with nationalism but with the traditional methods of conducting relations between states (1990: 65).

According to Linklater, since Marxism takes insufficient account of state formation, international rivalry and war, ‘ a general theory of nationalism will have to recognise the strengths of state-centric realism without assuming that nationalism could have been caused by international conflict alone. Although Marxism was the first to recognise the link between capitalism, uneven economic development and nationalism, it did not, according to Linklater, recognise that the state possessed the resources to harness national sentiments in support of its own geopolitical ends (1990: 75).

The Marxist theory of capitalist imperialism provided ‘a systematic attempt to understand the connections between domestic social change, state structures and foreign policy, and the uneven development of the world economy.’ (Linklater 1990: 76). Marxism challenged the conventional divisions of domestic and international politics and economics. The distinction between these two domains had been broken down by the dominant logic of monopolisation, ‘which provided the link between the structure of modern capitalism and the influence which militarism had come to exert over all social classes.’ (Linklater 1990: 76). According to Lenin and N. Bukharin, ‘this was the single thread which brought domestic capitalist systems, state structures and the realm of international relations within a single process of historical development.’ (Linklater 1990: 78).

According to Bukharin, the nation-state had become the central agency through which the contradictions of the process of internationalising production would be revealed. Both Lenin and Bukharin argued that the intensive and extensive growth of the world economy enhanced the state’s capacity to act as a national actor, and inter-state conflict had become the dominant feature of the monopoly stage of capitalism (Linklater, 1990, pp. 80-81).

Lenin’s analysis of international relations, according to Linklater, was an attempt ‘to understand the relationship between the process of capitalist development, the contraction of the sense of international community (as a result of the nationalisation of sections of the working classes) and the increased propensity for violence between nation-states. The nature of this relationship was the puzzle which the theory of the superabundance of capital endeavoured to solve.’ (1990: 83).

In Imperialism, Lenin suggested that an account of European colonialism might begin by analysing the interaction between ‘the domestic mode of production and internal system of class relations’, ‘the unevenly-developing world economy’ and ‘the international states-system where the process of uneven development generated the rivalries which were the immediate cause of overseas expansion.’ (Linklater 1990: 87). Linklater agrees with Waltz’s claim that ‘Lenin underestimated the degree to which the system of states was independent from either domestic or international capitalist structures.’ (1990: 88).

Linklater points out that although the explanation of the Marxist theory of imperialism of ‘the increased particularism of nation-states and its observations about how the trend towards the closure of political community might be reversed were far from convincing’, nevertheless, ‘it addressed a question which is immensely important for any critical project in the field of international relations, namely how the sense of obligation or community in international relations expands and contracts from one historical epoch to another.’ (1990: 89).

‘(...) By analysing the historical forces which transformed state structures and modified the dominant principles of international legitimacy in the late nineteenth century, the Marxist theory of imperialism embarked upon a project which was more intricate and profound than the attempt to explain the eternal occurrence of colonial expansion. What is most intriguing about it is its suggestion that the conflict between particularising and universalising processes can best be understood by analysing the state locations in the three arenas mentioned above (in the national economy, in the world economic system and in the international system of states).’ (Linklater 1990: 89-90).

Marxism has been charged with economic or class reductionism about the nature and functions of the state. It is contended that ‘Marxism has consistently failed to understand the nature of state autonomy.’ (Linklater 1990: 153). According to Linklater, the charge of class reductionism ‘persists because Marxism has rarely addressed the relationship between the citizen’s concern for territorial security and the state’s claim to represent the national interest in its conduct of foreign policy.’ (1990: 153).

Dependency theory
Those theories labelled by Linklater as neo-Marxist concerning development and underdevelopment emerged in response to the claims advanced by liberal modernisation theorists in the 1950s and 1960s (1990: 102). According to one of the representatives of the Latin American school of dependency theorists, Andre Gunder Frank, ‘the world-system was a pyramid of exchange relations stretching from the most deprived areas of periphery to the most highly developed metropolitan regions in the core.’ Frank contended that ‘a world-wide system of capitalist exchange relations had been established in the sixteenth century during the first wave of European overseas expansion.’ (Linklater 1990: 105). ‘In the words of Andre Gunder Frank, the integrated commercial networks of advanced and backward sectors necessarily lead to the “development of underdevelopment.” The periphery is the source of the wealth of the core; the latter exploits and siphons off the resources of the former.’ (Gilpin 1987: 69). Frank argued that the world economy comprises a system of exchange relations (Linklater 1990: 104, 108). Dependency theory broke with ‘the classical view that national societies constituted the primary level of analysis.’ This was Frank’s principal methodological innovation (Linklater, 1990, p. 104).

The world-systems theory
This perspective is one of the inheritors of dependency theory. According to the most renowned representative of this approach, Immanuel Wallerstein, the world system comprises a series of “commodity chains”. Wallerstein attaches particular importance to conflict between states. ‘The shape of the world economy is determined for the most part by territorial states which participate in a constant, zero-sum competition in order to capture “a greater or at least not a diminishing proportion of world surplus within (their) national boundaries”.’ The capitalist world economy was established in the sixteenth century. The emergent core states of Western Europe integrated ‘Eastern European societies and the non-European regions of the world within a new and exploitative international division of labour.’ According to the classification of Wallerstein, the capitalist world economy consists of three regions, namely core, periphery and semi-periphery (Linklater 1990: 108, 109). According to Gilpin, the central argument of the Modern World System Theory is that ‘the world economy contains a dominant core and a dependent periphery that interact and function as an integrated whole.’ (1987: 69). This perspective sets out to recover the state, international relations and war for modern social theory. It places the capitalist world economy at the centre of the analysis (Linklater 1990: 119).

5. TRANSNATIONAL HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
According to Gill, ‘the work of Antonio Gramsci, and that of Robert Cox, constitute a fundamentally important development of Marxist theory.’ Gramsci’s contribution to the development of Marxist theory is based on a critique of economism and determinism. ‘Gramsci sought to develop concepts and theories which related to class struggle, and to the questions of consciousness and political action, in concrete historical circumstances.’ (Gill 1991: 41-42). Gramsci added the ‘ethical-political’ dimension to the economic, political and ideological aspects of the Marxist conception of the mode of production through his concept of civil society.

Gill and Law call the approach inspired by ‘Gramscian Marxism’ as transnational historical materialism. Robert Cox pioneered the application of Gramsci’s ideas internationally, to a ‘transnational stage’ of capitalism, to world orders and transnational labour-capital relations (Gill and Law 1988: 63, 64).

‘Cox has noted that in an age of the growing internationalisation of production and exchange, there may be an emerging transnational historic bloc. In this bloc, the key institutions are the biggest transnational corporations, including banks, as well as internationalist elements in the major capitalist states and international organisations such as the IMF...’ (Gill & Law, 1988, p. 65).

According to the neo-Gramscian form of transnational historical materialism, because of ‘the rise of the transnational corporation and its implications for social relations at the domestic and international levels’, which leads to the growing interpenetration of economies, and the emergence of an internationalised policy process, ‘the possibilities of cooperation between capitalist states may become significantly greater than in the past.’ Another implication of transnational historical materialism is that class formations should be addressed worldwide (Gill & Law, 1988, p. 65).

In traditional international relations theory, Cox argues against the distinction between state and civil society. He thinks that ‘state and civil society are so interpenetrated that the concepts have become almost purely analytical (...) and are only very vaguely and imprecisely indicative of distinct spheres of activity.’ He thinks the state/society complex is the primary entity of international relations (1981: 86). The fundamental units in the neo-Gramscian form of historical materialism are interacting sets of social forces: material capabilities, ideas and institutions. ‘These forces operate at three interrelated (methodological) levels: world orders, state-civil society complexes, and the basic level of production.’ (Gill 1991: 46). ‘Historical materialism examines’, writes Cox, ‘the connection between power in production, power in the state, and power in international relations.’ (1981: 96).

In Transnational Classes and International Relations, Kees van der Pijl focuses mainly on the process of commodification which ‘means that the lives of ever more people are determined by tendentially world-embracing market relations’ (1998: 8), on socialisation which means ‘the planned or otherwise normatively unified interdependence of functionally divided social activity’ (1998: 15), on class formation under the discipline of capital, on transnational integration of the capitalist class in historical perspectives and on international relations between the English-speaking heartland of capital (where privileged terrain of social action is civil society) and successive contender states (where privileged terrain of social action is the state) on the perimeters of this heartland. Socialisation and the notion of capital as a discipline are central to his conception of historical materialism and his approach to world politics. Kees van der Pijl uses the notion of comprehensive concepts of control (4) to address the problem of how economics and politics become fused in transnational and historical processes of class formation. This notion seeks to capture a broader, mediated historical/transnational rather than immediate unity of the interests of fractions of capital and the need to impose capital discipline on society (1998: 4).

Kees van der Pijl agrees with Cox that the state/society complexes constitute the fundamental entities of international relations rather than states (1998: 64). Kees van der Pijl introduces the distinction between what he calls the expanding Lockean heartland of capitalism and the rise of Hobbesian contender states. By so doing, he reinterprets the dynamics of the state system. In the ‘Lockeian state’, ‘there is a vigorous and largely self-regulating civil society’, whereas in the ‘Hobbesian state’, a strong state ‘dominates civil society from above’ (Gill, 1993, p. 39).
‘The Lockean state’, according to Van der Pijl, ‘was part of the complex of forces that shaped the liberal internationalist concept of control, and henceforth would remain a cornerstone of capital’s collective arrangements.’ (1998: 70). The growth of a Lockean heartland involves

‘... a transnationalisation of civil society, the restructuring of state power along two axes: one of international socialisation of state functions, the other of a struggle for primacy between the states between which these functions are to be shared. Along either axis evolves an immanent ‘world state’ sustaining total capital on a global scale by upholding the Lockean state/society complex and the specific arrangements it defines - separation of politics from economics, a ‘level playing field’ in competition, individual freedom under the law ...’ (Van der Pijl, 1998, pp. 70-71).

Van der Pijl suggests that the structure of the international political economy may be reinterpreted ‘as a process of uneven expansion of the Lockean heartland, challenged by successive generations of Hobbesian contender states.’ (1998: 83).

Van der Pijl traces the initial formation of a transnational bourgeoisie back to Freemasonry by applying the concept of ‘imagined community’ to this ‘cosmopolitan brotherhood. He argues that ‘in the late nineteenth century, élite private planning groups branched off from these transnational networks.’ These planning groups were instrumental in ‘developing common strategies and adjusting the hegemonic concept of control in response to resistance and other challenges.’ Van der Pijl also argues that private planning groups have played an important role ‘in integrating the ascendant bourgeoisie from the contender states into the expanding heartland.’ According to him, ‘through these stages and social forms (and all along, through crises and wars), the comprehensive capital relation can be argued to have become global in the three-century era between 1688 and the present.’ (1998: 98).

Van der Pijl argues that ‘the process of bourgeois class formation in the period preceding 1789 was a truly transnational. Several enlightened, continental European monarchs had embraced the free-thinking deism of Freemasonry with a view to modernising their societies from above, however, seeking to pre-empt the revolution from below.’ (1998: 103). The cosmopolitanism of Freemasonry was grafted on the undeniable harmony between British interests and the interests of the world in the heyday of liberal internationalism centred on Britain. However, towards the end of the nineteenth century, new forms of class organisation and direction emerged, and ‘with the advent of a new mode of accumulation in powerful contender states such as Germany’, the abovementioned harmony evaporated. The rise of the socialist labour movement also ‘required a more activist posture on the part of the ruling class.’ (Van der Pijl 1998: 106).

‘... The combined effect of this changing configuration of forces was to shift the emphasis in bourgeois class formation from the cosmopolitan to the national level, shaping a state monopoly tendency in the bourgeoisie (tendency, because a full state monopoly would be incompatible with capitalist relations of production).’ (Van der Pijl 1998: 106-107).

This meant that a state monopoly tendency as a concept of control replaced liberal internationalism. Van der Pijl notes that ‘organised policy planning behind the scenes is a form of the socialisation of the conduct of class struggle on the part of the bourgeoisie.’ (1998: 108). Policy planning groups, such as The Rhodes-Milner group, tried to integrate a privileged segment of the workers ‘into alliance with the ruling class by rallying them behind a chauvinist imperialism.’ (Van der Pijl 1998: 110). Van der Pijl maintains that the central concern of organised policy planning projects ‘was to disrupt the crystallisation of a closed, rival bloc in a contender posture based on a Hobbesian state/society configuration (...) and to raise the level of integration of the heartland (...)’ (1998: 114).

In dealing with hegemonic integration of what he calls the ‘state classes’, Van der Pijl argues that ‘often building on the ‘off-shore’ integration into international circuits capital’ all ‘challengers to heartland pre-eminence were simultaneously being integrated into informal networks and private planning groups which from the interwar years onwards served as meeting grounds with heartland bourgeoisie. All along, through confrontation and even war, processes of transnational class formation cut across apparently fixed inter-national dividing lines.’ (1998: 117).

According to Van der Pijl, a state monopoly tendency in the early twentieth century ‘militated against transnational integration, but World War I investment bankers attempted to resurrect liberal internationalism in the changed conditions’ through international organisations of the capitalist class from the heartland as well as from the contender states, and through different other means such as formal and private co-operation agreements. ‘[T]he restructuring of American capital in the New Deal had created a new configuration of forces ... the initial state-monopolistic orientation of the New Deal was deflected towards a corporate liberal concept which rehabilitated internationalisation of capital as an escape route out of domestic class compromise.’ (1998: 118-19). Van der Pijl points out that the full implications of the corporate liberal concept as it crystallised in the course of the New Deal’s evolution ‘perhaps became apparent only with the New Deal’s extrapolation to Western Europe in the Marshall Plan and after because then the aspect internationalisation allowed the broadening of the class alliance to include the pre-war liberal internationalists. It also removed concern about the implications of the compromise with the organised working class in a sealed-off domestic concern.’ (1998: 119).

In the late 1960s, domestic and international events, particularly involving the United States, ‘... combined to unravel the corporate liberal concept of control which had become hegemonic on the promise of material fulfilment.’ In the late 1960s and 1970s, several initiatives, such as the Club of Rome, the World Economic Forum, and the Trilateral Commission (TC) ... were launched to accommodate and integrate the forces of change. Mainly, the TC was preoccupied with containing centrifugal forces threatening to disrupt ‘Western’ unity (Van der Pijl 1998: 123, 124, 125). The forces guiding the TC’s deliberations sought to develop a new concept of control. ‘The quest for a new concept of control with which to contain and confront challenges at home and abroad included, first, a formula for restoring the discipline of capital ... Second, the authoritarian turn should be made part of a global moral order... Trilateralism emphasised the reduced status of national sovereignty (...) while projecting, on a global scale, the Lockean constitution of the individual, bourgeois subject as the universal norm and limit on state jurisdiction.’ (Van der Pijl 1998: 126-27).

‘The core of the new concept of control, which expressed the restored discipline of capital, neo-liberalism, resides in raising micro-economic rationality to the validating criterion for all aspects of social life. Much more than corporate liberalism, which incorporated state-monopolistic and welfare-corporatist elements often copied from the contender states, neo-liberalism was a product of heartland history and Lockean political culture ...’ (Van der Pijl, 1998, p. 129).

According to Van der Pijl, cadres form a specific stratum of functionaries which ‘the need for control and direction of collective labour, and the task of maintaining social cohesion under conditions of advanced division of labour’ brings forth ‘as socialisation proceeds in conjunction with commodification or by other modes of alienation.’ (1998: 136). He asserts that ‘the cadres represent the social class equivalent of “the transcendence of capital within the limits of the capitalist mode of production itself” (MEW 25: 452), which Marx sees exemplified in, e.g. the joint stock company.’ (1998: 137). He also asserts that, in the twentieth century, the cadres which form ‘the class of socialisation’ have several times developed into a conscious class and ‘cannot fail to do so again in light of their objective role in sustaining social cohesion.’ (1998: 137, 138).

Van der Pijl argues that the cadre stratum has been profoundly affected by the neoliberal restructuring away from the corporate liberal class configuration. The owners' return to an entrepreneurial role entailed a reduction of management power and presence at all levels (1998: 159). ‘The cadre role in neo-liberal deregulation has been facilitated by historic defeats of the organised working class. On a terrain redefined by globalisation of the discipline of capital, one segment of the cadres again are acting as agents of capital against the workers and society at large.’ (Van der Pijl 1998: 160).

Van der Pijl argues that in the ‘process of synchronising socialisation and institutional behaviour under the discipline of capital, consultancies and their equivalents are in effect laying the groundwork for a system of global governance’ by which he understands ‘the world-wide integration of economic, social and political organisation into a mediated complex of state and quasi-state authority.’ (1998: 161-62). Van der Pijl argues that

‘... once the cadre stratum reorients its perspective towards social goals, prioritising (however superficially at first) survival over profitability, this enlarges the space for a deepening of democracy, a reappropriation of the public sphere by the population, and eventually, a more fundamental transformation away from class society.’ (1998: 164).

6. POST-COLONIALISM
As he discusses the relationship between colonialism and Orientalism, Said argues that Orientalism was not simply a rationalisation of colonial rule, but ‘colonial rule was justified in advance by Orientalism, rather than after the fact.’ He also argues that ‘since the middle of the eighteenth century, there had been two principal elements in the relation between East and West.’ One feature of Oriental-European relations ‘was a growing systematic knowledge in Europe about the Orient, knowledge reinforced by the colonial encounter as well as by the widespread interest in the alien and unusual, exploited by the developing sciences of ethnology, comparative anatomy, philology, and history; furthermore, to this systematic knowledge was added a sizable body of literature.’ The other feature ‘was that Europe was always in a position of strength, not to say domination.’ However, the essential relationship was seen in the West ‘to be one between a strong and a weak partner.’ ‘Knowledge of the Orient, because generated out of strength, in a sense creates the Orient, the Oriental, and his world.’ (Said 1978: 39, 40). Said conceives of Orientalism as ‘knowledge of the Orient that places things Oriental in class, court, prison, or manual for scrutiny, study, judgment, discipline, or governing.’ (1978: 41). He notes that ‘the essence of Orientalism is the ineradicable distinction between Western superiority and Oriental inferiority.’ (1978: 42).

Presenting the Third World women (5) ‘as an undifferentiated “other,” oppressed by both gender and Third World underdevelopment’ which is labelled as 'a colonial/neocolonial discourse’ by several feminists in the Third World ‘emanated largely from the writings of middle-class white women from Europe and North America, whose generalisations were grounded for the most part in their own experiences.’ (Marchand and Parpart 1995: 7). Writing on the gender inequalities in terms of status, pay, and working conditions in the ‘Third World’, Marchand and Runyan assert that ‘[s]uch inequalities were (re)produced through early colonisation practices and later post-World War II economic development strategies imposed on the South by the North.’ (1999: 16). Marchand and Parpart point out that ‘[t]he tendency to essentialise and distort the lives of Third World women does not just occur in the writings of women in the North. It is also pronounced in some of the work of Third World scholars trained in Northern institutions, particularly when writing for a Northern audience. As Rey Chow points out, Orientalists are not only white; they can also be non-Western students from privileged backgrounds (1995: 8).

Marchand and Parpart argue that the encounter between feminism and postmodernism has a lot to offer to those theorists and practitioners concerned with development:

‘... The critique of modernity and Western hegemony, the focus on difference and identity, the emphasis on the relationship between language and power, the attention to subjugated knowledge(s) and the deconstruction of colonial representations of the South as dependent “other” have much to say to those involved in the development business.’ (1995: 11).

The book Feminism/Postmodernism/Development, according to Marchand and Parpart, ‘moves beyond the critique of colonial/neo-colonial discourse and representation to raise new issues and debates within the context of the gender and development literature. It argues for the contextualisation of colonial/neocolonial discourse.’ (1995: 16). They argue that postmodern feminist thinking ‘brings the role of the development analyst/expert into question’ and ‘reminds us of the close connection between control over discourse/knowledge and assertions of power.’ (1995: 17).

Parpart maintains that the dualist construction of the (re)presentation of the Third World/the South as the impoverished, backward “other” in need of salvation from the developed First World/the North ‘has reinforced the authority of Northern development agencies and specialists, whether mainstream or alternative, and provided the rationale for development policies and practices which are designed (whether consciously or not) to incorporate the South into a Northern-dominated world.’ (1995: 222).

‘The early experiments in the Third World development which began in the 1920s and 1930s, and increased dramatically after World War II’, Parpart points out, ‘were deeply embedded in Enlightenment thinking, with its belief in trained, qualified scientific expertise.’ These early projects ‘were staffed by development experts whose training soon became institutionalised in universities.’ Since it is assumed that ‘developmental problems can be reduced to technical, i.e., “solvable,” problems which involve the transfer of Western technical expertise to the developing world’, these experts became, and continue to be, essential to the development enterprise (Parpart, 1995, p. 225).

During the 1950s and 1960s, development theory and practice paid little attention to Third World women, and development was regarded as a technical problem that required male expertise from the North and male cooperation in the Third World. ‘Drawing on a long history of colonial discourse which represented Third World women as particularly backward and primitive, development planners continued and even extended the representation of Third World women as the primitive “other,” mired in tradition and opposed to modernity.’ (Parpart 1995: 227).

Parpart emphasises that

‘... Emancipatory development will only occur when development theorists and practitioners adopt a more inclusive approach to knowledge/expertise, a readiness and ability to “hear” different voices/experiences, and the humility to recognise that established discourses and practices of development have often done more harm than good. Then, and only then, will development expertise take its rightful, more modest place in the search for a better, more equitable world.’ (Parpart 1995: 240).

Arturo Escobar applies Michel Foucault’s insights into the nature and dynamics of discourse, power and knowledge in Western societies to inquire about the situation in the Third World in the 1980s regarding ‘the extension to the Third of Western disciplinary and normalising mechanisms in a variety of fields; and the production of discourses by Western countries about the Third World as a means of effecting domination over it.’ (1984-85: 377).

Escobar points out that ‘[i]t is Foucault’s fundamental contention that in every society the production of discourse is controlled, organised and redistributed according to a certain number of procedures.’ Foucault argues that discourses ‘have systematic structures and they should be studied archaeologically, i.e. by identifying the different elements of which they are composed, and the system of relations by which these elements form wholes.’ ‘More importantly’, according to Foucault, discourses ‘should be studied genealogically.’ Foucault argues that only by writing ‘the history of the present’ can a historical awareness of our present circumstances be developed, and the historical conditions that motivate our conceptualisation can be known. Moreover, only through writing ‘the history of the present,’ through the struggles to which it should lead, is it possible to develop 'a new economy of power relations.’
‘We can work towards this new economy of power by taking the forms of resistance against different kinds of power as starting point.’ (Escobar 1984-85: 379-80).

Escobar notes that Foucault distinguishes between three major types of struggles: ‘against forms of exploitation’, ‘against forms of domination; and ‘against modern forms of subjection.’ These three forms of struggle coexist in various ways in any given society, although one of them usually prevails. ‘[P]ower relations are immanent in other types of relations (economic, sexual, familial, of knowledge ...); they are the result of the disequilibria of the latter - and at the same time, the basis of their transformation.’ (Escobar 1984-85: 380). Any resistance strategy has to consider the manifold structure of power. The multiplicity of forms of power must be responded to with a multiplicity of localised resistances and counteroffensives (Escobar 1984-85: 381).

As to the situation and struggles of the Third World, Escobar argues that, at a very general level, ‘new types of power and knowledge are being deployed in the Third World which try to insure the conformity of its peoples to a certain type of economic and cultural behavior (broadly speaking, that embodied in “the American way of life”).’ (1984-85: 382). Escobar maintains that ‘a strategy of resistance by Third World peoples should be based upon the recognition of three major factors.’ These are: ‘there still exist important areas of cultural meanings and practices which have not yet fallen under the sway of Western disciplinary and normalising processes’; ‘although class compromise takes place at some levels, class struggle and class conflict are by no means latent (as they tend to be in more industrialised societies)’; ‘there exist several grand strategies constructed by the developed countries which play a crucial role in maintaining domination over the Third World ... The first one is the discourse on the underdevelopment of the Third World constructed by the developed countries ... A second grand contemporary strategy for the penetration and control of the Third World is embodied in communication and information technologies, especially the mass media, television and commercial cinema.’ (Escobar 1985-85: 382-83).

According to Escobar, ‘Foucault’s insights into the control of discourse and the workings of power and knowledge’ make it possible ‘to conduct a radical reinterpretation of development theory and practice.’ In such a reinterpretative analysis, three major factors should be considered: ‘the historical conditions under which the discourse arose; the structure of the discourse itself; and the relations of power and knowledge made possible by the deployment of development.’ (1984-85: 384).

Escobar emphasises that ‘[i]t was in the name of modernisation and development that an entire productive apparatus took charge of the management of the life of the “new” nations, replacing the older and more visible forms of colonial oppression and bringing forth at the same time a different disposition of the factors of life.’ (1984-85: 394).
What should one object to regarding the relationship between the West and the Third World? Escobar makes his point of objection very clear: ‘... [I]t is not Western forms per se that one should object to, nor to the need to preserve the productive achievements of civilisations, but rather to the types of rationality linked to them, to the forms of power and knowledge that characterise them and, finally, to the ways in which they assume responsibility for the conditions of life in order to manage and contain them.’ (1984-85: 395).

7. FEMINISM
Smith argues that one of the primary groupings that constitutes the post-positivist challenge, together with critical theorists, historical sociologists, and postmodern international theorists to the realist dominance of international theory, comprises feminist international relations writers. One main concern for feminist international relations writers, among many diverse themes and assumptions, is the construction of gender. They challenge ‘the assumed genderless nature of international theory, and ... [show] how assumptions about gendered roles, and even gendered knowledge, run through international theory. International theory is not so much gender neutral as gender blind.’ (1995: 24, 25).

Halliday argues that ‘until the mid-1980s, IR appeared to be more indifferent to issues of gender than any other area of the social sciences, a situation compounded by widespread acceptance of the distinction between a conventionally ‘male' area of high politics, international security and statecraft, and a ‘female’ one of domesticity, interpersonal relations and locality (1994: 18-19). Thanks to the coming to prominence of gender issues in a range of international policy areas on the one hand and the involvement of women in the peace movement on the other, this mutual indifference has, however, given way (Halliday, 1994, p. 19). Two sub-fields, gender and development and peace research and discussions within the peace movement, have been informed or influenced by feminist IR theory. According to Halliday, issues about women and the international arena have received greater recognition through various processes. These are: ‘the encounter of feminism with International Relations theory’; ‘growing recognition of the gender-specific consequences of a range of transnational processes’; ‘the emergence of women as distinct actors on the international scene’; and ‘an increased awareness of the gender component of foreign policy issues.’ (1994: 160).

In his Models in Political Economy, when dealing with the feminist model, Brown has pointed out that the women’s liberation movement has drawn attention to ‘three aspects of women’s subordination under capitalism which are of particular importance in political economy’: ‘the inequality of payment for the same job’; ‘the inequality of employment opportunities for women’; and ‘the undervaluing, indeed the non-valuation, of women’s work in the home.’ He notes that the third aspect of women’s subordination ‘is the main claim that feminists are making for a revaluation of the place of women in the political economy.’ (1985: 94-95).

The feminist IR theory critically analyses globalisation or what the contributors to Gender and Global Restructuring call global restructuring. Marchand and Runyan point out that conventional representations and interpretations of globalisation ‘tend to be either too narrowly economistic or to focus primarily on changes in the nature of and relationships between the market and the state. In so doing, they pay little attention to attendant global/local restructurings of social, cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, national, and familial identities, roles, and relations.’ (1999: 1). They argue that ‘gender analysis (in its several variations) is particularly well-equipped for developing a better understanding of globalization’s multidimensionality.’ (1999: 1-2).

According to them, ‘feminist IPE/IR is in a very good position to bridge the divide between a predominantly materialist IPE analysis and a critical analysis of the ideational/cultural underpinnings of global restructuring.’ (1999: 8). They argue that ‘global restructuring tends to reinforce and exacerbate existing gender inequalities’ and ‘it is embedded in highly gendered discourse.’ (1999: 11). They also argue that countering those narratives ‘which project globalization as an “irresistible” (masculine) force’ ‘can be assisted by deconstructing dominant constructions of, in particular, emerging Anglo-American hegemonic masculinity under global restructuring and revealing how many men (e.g. as workers) are also being subordinated by these constructions.’ (1999: 12-13). According to feminist writers, ‘gendered metaphors and symbolism in globalization discourses act to privilege particular agents and sectors over others, such as finance capital over manufacturing, finance ministries over social welfare ministries, the market over the state, the global over the local, and consumers over citizens.’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 13).

As to the relationship between the market and the state, ‘the state is typically “feminized” concerning the more robust market by being represented as a drag on the global economy that must be subordinated and minimized’ in the neoliberal discourse on globalisation (Marchand & Runyan, 1999, p. 14).

Marchand and Runyan note that feminist critiques of the global capitalist market have primarily focused on gendered divisions of labour in which women are disadvantaged compared to men regarding status, pay, and working conditions. Gender inequalities have observed feminists ‘are being both exacerbated and complicated with the advent of post-industrial capitalism.’ Women have become preferred candidates for specific jobs in a global economy organised around services and just-in-time production processes. There has taken the ‘feminization of labour’ place which refers to the unprecedented increase in the numbers of women workers in the formal and informal labour force, as well as to the ‘flexibilization’ and ‘casualization’ of especially women’s labour (1999: 16-17).

Besides analysing the economic effects of global restructuring on women, feminist international relations theorists have also analysed ‘the consequences for women of the political effects of restructuring on the state and civil society. Economic privatization is producing political privatization which takes several forms.’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 17-18).

According to Marchand and Runyan, global restructuring is 'a process that constitutes and is constituted by a myriad of unsettlings and renegotiations of boundaries and identities’, and gender as a significant boundary maker as well as boundary marker and identity producer is a focal point both of and for this global restructuring process (1999: 18).
IR and IPE scholars, especially those working within the (neo)realist tradition, have paid scant attention to the question of resistance within the context of globalisation. One explanation for this lack of attention towards resistance is that ‘the dominant portrayal of globalization as inevitable and a “bigger-than-thou” phenomenon has led to feelings of disempowerment (and thus eroding the basis resistance).’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 19).

‘Developing a feminist analysis of and perspective on resistance involves, first of all, a recognition of the contextual nature of resistance. Resistance, in other words, is embedded in, structured by as well as structuring global restructuring ...
A second area for feminist theorizing (and activism) is the shift in the balance of power within states which tilts power in favor of ministries of finance and economic affairs ...
Finally, processes of global restructuring have also had their impact on civil society and brought about increased social activism beyond national borders ... the elements of civil society neoliberals wish to privilege over the state are precisely those which will broaden and deepen relations of domination in the absence of any recourse to democratic governance at local, national, or global levels.’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 19-20).

In order to counteract neoliberal and patriarchal global restructuring, argue Marchand and Runyan, it must be revealed how the processes of global restructuring, which ‘involve simultaneous transformations of the state, civil society, and the market, are gendered. ‘This can be done by employing relational thinking through “bringing people” (as highly diverse “women” and “men”) into the analysis of global restructuring and by focusing on its gendered representations.’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 21). Relational thinking ‘involves understanding the world “out there” (practices, institutions, structures of social re/production), how we think (meaning systems, ideologies, paradigms), and who we are (subjectivity, agency, self and collective identities) as interacting dimensions of social reality’ (Spike Peterson quoted by Marchand and Runyan 1999: 8-9).

Kimberly A. Chang and L.H.M. Ling distinguish two kinds of global restructuring: ‘dominant masculinist construction of globalization, depicted as a thorough-going process that is variously cosmopolitan, postmodern, or “freeing” in nature’ (global restructuring 1 or G1) and global restructuring 2 or G2, that is, ‘the low-wage and highly sexualized and racialized labor done largely by Third World women workers which serves the cosmopolitanites of G1 and is enforced by still quite potent modernist and traditional forces of the state, culture, religion, and family.’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 23).

Chang and Ling also label these two global restructuring processes as ‘techno-muscular capitalism’ (TMC) and the ‘labor intimacy’ (RLI) regime, respectively. The identifying features of TMC are the integration of technology, trade, production, and communications facilitated by globalized financial networks. The identifying features of RLI are the exportation of low-wage, low-to-medium skilled workers to service ‘intimate’ jobs in cosmopolitan homes. While the state is internationalised or ‘hollowed out’ in TMC, it is complicit, patriarchal and vigorous in RLI. The transnationalised ideology of TMC is liberal capitalism, whereas sexualised and racialised service is the transnationalised ideology of RLI. As to the nature of global society, culture and persons, TCM is characterised by global elites, cosmopolitans, postmodern individualism, or ‘shell-shocked’ withdrawal. RLI is characterised by cultural reification: God, family, and country, crossing sexual boundaries, and moral dilemmas (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 41, see Table 1.1).

Chang and Ling argue that despite their differences, both liberals who accept ‘globalisation’ ‘as a contemporary, market response to ‘internationalised’ consumer and producer demands and critics who conceive of ‘global restructuring as historically continuous, ideologically hegemonic, and materially impoverishing for the majority of the world’ ‘agree on the subject matter itself: “globalization’s” characteristics, impact, ideology, and culture.’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 28).

According to Chang and Ling, a growing body of feminist ‘literature explicitly recognizes gender as a fundamental dimension along which all social processes and practices are organized, experienced, and rendered meaningful. Thus, the subjects of these studies are not disembodied persons who transverse across time and space, but corporeal women and men whose choices and movements reflect their gendered, racialized, and class-based identities in the worlds they inhabit.’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 33).

The political economy approach to patriarchy by Gillian Youngs emphasises ‘the interactive nature of households and the economy at large: “[c]apitalism and patriarchy are viewed as two systems of social relations that interact in every domain of social life” (Gibson & Graham, 1996, p. 64).’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 45). Youngs argues that ‘[t]he patriarchal prism through which political economy has traditionally been interpreted is based on a prioritization of public sphere activities over the private realm on the basis of a power relationship between the two.’ The ‘elevation of the public over the private as determinant of international reality’, according to Peterson and Whitworth, quoted by Youngs, is ‘ a process which in theory and practice works to obscure various aspects of social reproduction in the private realm, that is the home and the family’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 45, 46).

Youngs argues that ‘the public over private abstractions which characterize dominant conceptualizations of social, political, and economic space’ entail conceptual blindness. Since ‘patriarchal forces are overlapping and interacting in transnationalized circumstances through global restructuring’, argues Youngs, ‘new and even more complex patriarchal structures are developing’ which ‘require us to adopt multi-locational perspectives on patriarchal forces in terms of state and market, to recognize that public/private social and spatial constructions are, in certain senses, mobilized and reconfigured in the globalizing world.’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 56).

Charlotte Hopper argues that gender relations are also being transformed as an integral part of large-scale economic restructuring accompanied by a complex set of political, institutional, and social changes. ‘In political economy terms, it has heralded a casualization and feminization of the workforce; the erosion of welfare provision; the collapse of the family wage system; an increase in female-headed households; expanded opportunities for women at the professional level; and a feminization of poverty.’ Quoting Linda McDowell and Anne Sisson Runyan, Hooper points out that global restructuring ‘has also undermined men’s authority in the family, brought blue-collar unemployment, and is reducing the value of so-called masculine attributes in the labor market.’ According to Hooper, ‘[g]lobal restructuring clearly presents a major challenge to the existing gender order, with varied effects with regard to the position of different groups of men and women.’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 60).

Hooper argues that ‘[t]here is a hierarchy of masculinities, in which gender intersects with other factors such as class, race, and sexuality.’ She also argues that ‘[w]hile there may be many masculinities and femininities in existence at the same time, hegemonic patterns of masculinity operate at the level of whole society, shoring up male power and advantage.’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 62). Hegemonic masculinity, which is constitutive of and embodied in numerous institutional practices, is always constructed in opposition to a range of subordinate masculinities as well as femininities (Marchand & Runyan, 1999, p. 62). According to the perspective outlined by Hooper, ‘as well as divisions between men and women, the relationships between different masculinities also play a part in the gender order.’ The hegemonic Anglo-American ‘masculinity is being reconfigured in the image of a less formal, less patriarchal but more technocratic masculine elite with the whole globe as its playground.’ (Marchand and Runyan 1999: 70).

8. POST-SRUCTURALISM
In In the Tracks of Historical Materialism, Perry Anderson notes that although the exact relationship between structuralism and post-structuralism remains to be established, two of the most central figures in the first, Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault, were no less prominent in the second (1983: 39). Jacques Derrida, 'a purer post-structuralist' (Anderson, 1983, p. 39), 'rejected the notion of language as a stable system of objectification, but radicalized its pretensions as a universal suzerain of the modern world, with the truly decree, "there is nothing outside of the text", "nothing before the text, no pretext that is not already a text". '(Anderson, 1983, p. 42). Derrida had seen 'that the supposition of any stable structure had always depended on the silent postulation of a centre that was not entirely "subject" to it: a subject distinct from it. His decisive move was to liquidate the last vestige of such autonomy ... the effect was a radically destructuring one... [structurality] 's play now knows no boundaries of any sort - it is "absolute chance", "genetic indetermination", "the seminal adventure of the trace". Structure therewith capsizes into its anti-thesis, and post-structuralism proper is born, or what can be defined as a subjectivism without a subject.' 'The lesson is that structure and subject have, in this sense, always been interdependent as categories.' (Anderson 1983: 54).

Roland Barthes coined the concept of textuality as one of the critical concepts in post-structuralism. According to Donna U. Gregory, 'The term textuality, which embraces all dimensions of a text, is a way to evade this long-established opposition [the opposition between logical and rhetorical], to organize anew our vision of "a text," and to constitute a multifaceted basis for meaning-making.' She points out that 'the "textuality" of an essay includes historical and rhetorical dimensions as legitimate parts of the essay's semic and epistemic potential.' (Der Derian and Shapiro 1989: xviii). Gregory points out,' To see the world as a text is to confront the issue of meaning in a radically new way.' According to Barthes' concept of textuality, which conceives the world as a text, just as photographs have meaning independent of what they meant to those who snapped them, 'written things too may have meanings independently of the author who penned them. Barthes' concept of textuality thus loosen the written text from the author and relocate authority within the culture.' (Der Derian and Shapiro 1989: xix.) According to Thomas Sebeok, quoted by Shapiro, intertextuality 'denotes ways in which works of art-especially of literature-are produced in response not to social reality but to previous works of art and the codes of other conventions governing them.' (1989: 11).

Der Derian argues that 'International relations requires an intertextual approach, in the sense of a critical inquiry into an area of thought where there is no final arbiter of truth, where meaning is derived from an interrelationship of texts, and power is implicated by the problem of language and other signifying practices. There is, then, a strategic aspect to intertextualism: it involves a survey of fields of battle commonly described as international theory.' (1989: 6). What is intertext? Roland Barthes describes it as 'a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.' (Der Derian 1989: 6).

Der Derian argues that although intertextual theorising is not a scientific verification process, it should not be construed as intrinsically antiscientific. 'Rather, it takes a self-conscious step away from the dominant formalistic and ahistorical trends in international relations theory that "naturally" select hermetic, rational models over hermeneutic, philosophical investigations.' (1989: 7).

Walker asserts that, as far as analysing 'change' in international relations is concerned, 'it is probably more helpful to examine the relationship between ... changing conceptions of particular and universal rather than to assume that change must involve a move from particular state to universal global community.' He also points out that 'the political-economy literature is certainly more sensitive to historical change in this sense than are either realist or idealist forms of international relations theory.' According to Walker, 'the intersection between aspirations to develop a critical theory of international relations and contemporary challenges to the high ground of modernity that currently occur under the banner of poststructuralism' can be understood in this context. He explains why this is so:

'...For the poststructuralist critique of the principle that difference (pluralism, becoming, time) is only to be grasped as a moment of identity (unity, being, space) undermines the logic through which a tradition of international relations (the realm par excellence of pluralism) is constituted as the negation of a tradition of political theory (the realm of universals).
It is in this context also that it ought to be possible to make a connection between the critical analysis of international relations and contemporary concerns about political practice.' (1989: 43).

Regarding poststructuralism and historicity, Ashley argues that 'poststructuralist social theory is drawn to the uncertain "frontiers," the "border lines," or the "margins" of modernity's most central and certain voices.' He accepts that such a marginal positioning is unsettling. However, he asserts that 'it also permits an expansion of the agenda of social research and theory. It permits poststructuralism to pose the question of historicity that modern theory and practice excludes.' (1989: 272).

Regarding the historicity/theory hierarchy, Ashley points out that 'Poststructuralism cannot claim to offer an alternative position or perspective, because there is no alternative ground upon which it might be established.' What poststructuralism can do, according to Ashley, is invert the hierarchy, make the respect for the historicity of all possible grounds its 'central presence', locate theory at the 'margins' of its discourse, and historicise theoretical discourse. He maintains that

'.. [P]oststructuralist discourse remains theoretical discourse ... [It] is not especially interested in the meticulous examination of particular cases or sites for purposes of understanding them in their own distinctive terms. It is not especially interested in-it in fact distrusts- "interpretation," if by interpretation one means the attempt to recover and fix a meaning intrinsic to a particular text or set of practices.
Rather, poststructuralist discourse is disposed to undertake systematic, expanding analyses that look to particulars in terms of the puzzles to which they speak, the general issues they can illuminate...' (1989: 278).

How does poststructuralism understand history? According to Ashley, it understands history in its intrinsic pluralness, as a boundless text of countless texts, as le texte général. History, as viewed as le texte général ... is intrinsically ambiguous and resists reading because it is ever in the process of being produced or written in a multiplicity of dispersed sites drawing upon disparate cultural resources, and its production requires the active contributions of women and men who participate in writing it in the very act of interpreting and ascribing a content to it.' (1989: 280).

An appropriate position, the appropriate 'place' of poststructuralism in the study of global politics, is, according to Ashley, neither domestic nor international. It 'is really a "nonplace," a boundary that it puts in question: the boundary between domestic and international politics.' (1989: 260). 'It is the "nonplace" defined in terms of the ever problematical difference between the two.' He also suggests that 'from this place on the border lines of global life, an important line of inquiry would find its focus in the paradoxical problem ... of the inscription of a paradigm of sovereign man as a widely circulated functional "principle thrift" -a constitutive principle of state and domestic society-in modern life.' (1989: 285).

Ashley argues that taking up a position at the margins of 'domestic politics' and 'international politics' involves 'a displacement of the state from the central place modern discourses of international politics have accorded it.' Since 'the state displaced by historicizing attitude of poststructuralism, the difference between domestic politics, as the identical domain of "man," and international politics, as the ambiguous and indeterminate battlefield of "war," can no longer be taken for granted as the starting point of inquiry into modern global politics.' Because of the displacement of the state-as-absolute-boundary, there is 'a need and opportunity to think in a wholly new way the relation between the undecidable indeterminacy signified by "war" and "international politics," on the one hand, and the decidable identities signified by "man" and "domestic politics," on the other.' (1989: 309).

9. POST-MODERNISM
There is no clear-cut definition of postmodernism. ‘No one exactly agrees’, points out Harvey, ‘as to what is meant by the term, except, perhaps, that “postmodernism” represents some kind of reaction to, or departure from, “modernism”.’ (1995: 7). Marchand and Parpart note that ‘[p]ostmodernism is not easily encapsulated in one phrase or idea as it is actually an amalgam of often purposely ambiguous and fluid ideas. It represents the convergence of three distinct cultural trends. These include an attack on the austerity and functionalism of modern art; philosophical attack on structuralism ... and the economic theories of postindustrial society.’ (Marchand and Parpart 1995: 2). Harvey asserts that what all descriptions of postmodernism ‘have in common is a rejection of “meta-narratives” (large-scale theoretical interpretations purportedly of universal application.’ (1995: 9). Postmodernist thinkers such as M. Foucault and Jean-François Lyotard argue that ‘[u]niversal and eternal truths, if they exist at all, cannot be specified. Condemning meta-narratives (...) as “totalizing,” they insist upon the plurality of “power-discourse” formations (Foucault), or of “language games” (Lyotard). Lyotard defines the postmodern simply as “incredulity towards metanarratives.” ‘ (Harvey, 1995, p. 45).

Harvey suggests that postmodernism emerged ‘as a full-blown though still incoherent movement out of the chrysalis of the anti-modern movement of the 1960s’ somewhere between 1968 and 1972 (1995: 38). It can be said that the emergence of postmodernism coincided with the crisis of the Fordist mode of capital accumulation. Harvey notes that ‘the period from 1965 to 1973 was one in which the inability of Fordism and Keynesianism to contain the inherent contradictions of capitalism became more and more apparent.’ (1995: 142). There took place a transition from Fordism to flexible accumulation in which ‘[t]he relatively stable aesthetic of Fordist modernism has given way to all ferment, instability, and fleeting qualities of a postmodernist aesthetic that celebrates difference, ephemerality, spectacle, fashion, and the commodification of cultural forms.’ (Harvey 1995: 156). Grusky and Sorensen point out that post-Fordist and postmodernist accounts are often conflated in the literature. According to them, ‘[f]or example, the “new times” post-Fordism of [Stuart] Hall (1988) and his colleagues (...) becomes virtually indistinguishable from conventional postmodernism, since it emphasizes that sociotechnical changes weaken aggregate solidarities and generate a new stratification order based on “lifestyle, taste, and culture rather than categories of social class” (Hall, 1988, p.24). This account rests on the characteristic postmodernist assumption that an “increasingly fragmented” productive realm (Hall, 1988, p.24) necessarily weakens all forms of solidarity within the division of labor.’ (Grusky and Sorensen 1998: 1214).

As to the international relations theory, ‘postmodern international theorists attack the very notions of reality, or truth, or structure or identity that are central to international theory as well as all other human sciences.’ (Smith 1995: 25). Halliday notes that the entry of postmodernism into the field of international relations as a discipline can be dated from the latter part of the 1980s (1994: 37). ‘Post-modernism’s emphasis upon the role of “discourse” in the widest sense - words, meanings, symbols, identities, forms of communication - in the constitution of society and of power has’, according to Halliday, ‘significant implications for international relations, not least in the very way in which states have sought to appropriate and project their legitimacy (1994: 38).

Halliday points out that a representative example of a postmodernist and post-structuralist approach (6) in international relations theory is the work of Robert Walker, who is ‘broadly influenced by post-modernist and post-structuralist thinking’ (1994: 41). ‘One of the strongest aspects of Walker’s critique is that’, according to Halliday, ‘he locates the main areas of disagreement not in the field of the international at all, but in political theory in general ... his re-evaluation of the tradition sets IR theory firmly back into its broader intellectual and academic context.’ (1994: 41).

According to Walker, ‘IR theory has three major weaknesses, all derived from political theory as such: ‘it treats as eternal and given categories and contrasts which are historically produced, and hence liable to change; it fails to register the degree to which the political world, national and international, is changing, with the transformation of the “post-modern world”; it, therefore, excludes and proscribes, by silence, the evolution of alternative theories and practices, that might enable an improvement in the human condition at national, international or local levels.’ (Halliday 1994: 41-42).

Halliday summarises many criticisms that those who advocated postmodernism in the late 1980s have given scant regard or reply:

‘... the underlying amoralism of post-modernism, with its denial of any generally applicable moral principles; its inability to provide a substantive explanation of historical events or periods; its overstatement of the role of “discursive” or ideological factors in society; and neglect of the relation of these to other more material processes of production, social relations and indeed everyday life.’ (1994: 38).

Halliday points out that two further criticisms evident in the writing of IR can be added to these general criticisms. One is related to the very term ‘post-modernity’, and the other is to postmodernism’s methodology. The first additional criticism is ‘the reliance of the whole approach on something termed “post-modernity”, a claim of questionable validity that in some sense the world has entered a new historical phase. Often of loose historical application, and based on some contingent observations about space, time, risk, perception, this invocation of a “post-modern” world serves as a fetish rather than as an explanation.’ The second additional criticism is that ‘if philosophical or epistemological claims of “post-modernism” are valid, about the failings of enlightenment thought, identity, the fact-value distinction, categories and so forth, then they were always true, as much in the fifteenth, or fifth, centuries, as in the modern epoch.’ (1994: 39).

10. FOR A WORLD FREE OF CLASSES, STATES AND BORDERS
I define domestic and global politics as the theory and practice of different class forces regarding maintaining or changing the existing economic, social, political, military and cultural power relations. The imperialist states of the advanced capitalist countries, internationally mobile big capital, especially transnational corporations (TNCs), international financial institutions, military-politico international organisations such as NATO, the economically less powerful but politically and militarily powerful and influential capitalist states, such as Russia and state-capitalist China, and some regional powers are the principal actors in the world politics. Some advanced capitalist countries have more than one principal actor on the global stage. The overwhelming majority of the less developed countries do not and cannot play a noteworthy role in world politics. As far as these countries are concerned, the nation-state is still the only major international actor they have. The nation-state is the poor man's TNC!

As far as the relationship between the international state system and the individual units of the system is concerned, the unit's location in the system plays a crucial role in the system's workings. Not every unit is and can be treated as equal. There are system-affecting or determining units and system-effected units. Some units, which consist of the nation-state, TNCs, financial institutions, et cetera, are powerful enough to affect the system as a whole. However, the overwhelming majority of units are not. There exist relatively symmetrical power relations among advanced capitalist countries ('interdependency') on the one hand and asymmetrical power relations between advanced capitalist countries and neo-colonial countries ('dependency') on the other.

The capitalist world system is characterised by, among other things, the division of the world population into individual nation-states, the systemic or permanent economic, political, military and cultural power inequalities and power struggles. Few TNCs of the advanced capitalist countries and the imperialist states dominate the world economy. Because of the international or global division of labour, which is determined by capitalism's unequal and combined development, the fundamental inequalities between the peoples of the advanced capitalist countries and the peoples of the less developed or dependent/neo-colonial capitalist countries are continuously reproduced. The relationship between the advanced capitalist and neo-colonial economies is one of the dominant and subordinate, that is, imperialist.

The contemporary world is also characterised by oppression, threats and use of violence, military interventions, local and regional wars, and civil wars. Conflict, violence and war are inherent in a class society and the international state system. The struggle among the big imperialist capitals and states in order to re-divide and dominate the world leads to tensions, conflicts, and all sorts of wars and misery. Through their economic and military powers, the imperialist states try to maintain the present world order and increase the existing power inequalities in the global configuration of power relations.

Local and national anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggles of the workers and oppressed peoples are not strong enough to change the existing power relations. There is a need to organise a counteroffensive against the global restructuring of big capital and big 'national' capital, as well as against the neoliberal collaborationist class alliance. Local, national, and regional resistances and counter-offensives must be co-ordinated against neoliberal global restructuring. Above all, the working classes of all countries must organise themselves as a global socialist force to organise a global system-challenging anti-capitalist class struggle. Neoliberal global offensive of big capital must be countered with a global system-challenging counter-offensive of all anti-capitalist social forces under the leadership of the working classes for a socialist world order.

I see the whole world as a 'battleground' for the universal emancipation of the human species. I regard class divisions, divisions into individual nations and individual states, and racial, sexual and national oppression as historical barriers that can and must be transcended in order to attain universal emancipation. A world without classes, states and borders - that is what I want. As a system-challenging universalistic theory, Marxism has such a universal emancipatory project that it is worth fighting for. I do not only want to understand the world, but I also want to contribute to the struggle in order to change it.

A. H. Yalaz
Spring of 2000

(1) ‘Theoretical Approaches to World Politics’ is written in the spring of 2000. I offer it to critical public consideration without making any changes in its content, except for some grammatical and punctuation corrections.

(2) This approach is called reflective since it emphasises ‘the importance of human reflection for the nature of institutions and ultimately for the character of world politics.’ (Keohane 1988: 382).

(3) Although I deal with the dependency theory and the worlds system theory in this section I do not consider them as Marxist theories, but as Marxist-influenced theories.

(4) Kees van der Pijl notes that ‘regimes’ in the neo-realist approach broadly denote what is called concepts of control (1998: 5).

(5) I do not use the term ‘Third World’. Here I use it for the sake of convenience.

(6) Der Derian and Shapiro point out that despite their differences, post-modernism and post-structuralism share several common themes. ‘Above all, they address the questions of how knowledge, truth, and meaning are constituted.’ (1989:xiii).

-----------------------

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adler, E. and P. M. Haas (1992). “Conclusion: Epistemic Communities, World Order, and the Creation of Reflective Research Programmes,” International Organization, 46:1, pp. 367-90.

Anderson, P. (1983). In the Tracks of Historical Materialism. London: Verso.

Ashley, R. (1986). “The Poverty of Neorealism,” in R. Keohane (ed.) Neorealism and its Critics, pp. 255–300. New York: Columbia University Press.

Ashley, R. K. (1989). “Living on Border Lines: Man, Poststructuralism, and War”, in J. Der Derian and M. J. Shapiro (eds.), International/Intertextual Relations: Post Modern Readings of World Politics, pp. 259–322. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.

Brown, M. B. (1985). Models in Political Economy: A Guide to the Arguments. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Publishers, Inc. (1984).

Cox, R. W. (1996). “Social forces, states, and world orders: Beyond international relations theory (1981)’ in R.W. Cox and T. J. Sinclair, Approaches to World Order, pp. 85–123. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Der Derian, J. (1989). “The Boundaries of Knowledge and Power in International Relations”, in J. Der Derian and M. J. Shapiro (eds.), International/Intertextual Relations: Post Modern Readings of World Politics, pp. 3-10. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.

Escobar, A. (Winter 1984-85), “Discourse and Power in Development: Michel Foucault and the Relevance of His Work to the Third World” in Alternatives X, pp. 377–400.

Gill, S. & D. Law (1988). The Global Political Economy: Perspectives, Problems and Policies. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Gill, S. (1991). American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1990).

Gill, S. (1993). Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gilpin, R. (1987). “The Dynamics of Political Economy,” in The Political Economy of International Relations, pp. 65–117. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Grieco, J. (1993). “Anarchy and the Limits of
Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism,” in D. Baldwin (ed.), Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate, pp. 116-35. New York: Columbia University Press.

Grusky, D. B. and J. B. Sorensen (1998). “Can Class Analysis Be Salvaged?” in American Journal of Sociology, pp. 1187-1234.

Haas, P. M. (1992). “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” International Organization 46:1, pp. 1–35.

Halliday, F. (1994). Rethinking International Relations. London: Macmillan.

Harvey, D. (1995). The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Cambridge MA & Oxford UK: Blackwell (1990).

Hollis, M and S. Smith (1991). Explaining and Understanding International Relations. Oxford: Clarendon Press (1990).

Hurwitz, R. (1989), “Strategic and Social Fictions in the Prisoner’s Dilemma” in J. Der Derian and M. J. Shapiro (eds.), International/Intertextual Relations: Post Modern Readings of World Politics, pp. 113-34. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.

Keohane, R. and J. Nye (1977). “Realism and Complex Interdependence,” in Power and Interdependence, pp. 23-37. Boston: Little, Brown.

Keohane, R. (1988). “International Institutions: Two Approaches,” (International Studies Quarterly 32, pp. 379–96).

Keohane, R. (1993). “Institutional Theory and the Realist Challenge after the Cold War,” in D. Baldwin (ed.), Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate, pp. 269–98. New York: Columbia University Press.

Kratochwil, F. and J. G. Ruggie (1986). “International Organization: The State of the Art of the Art of the State,” International Organization 40:4, pp.753-77.

Linklater, A. (1990). Beyond Realism and Marxism: Critical Theory and International Relations. London: Macmillan.

Marchand, H. M. and J. L. Parpart (eds.) (1995). “Exploding the Canon: An Introduction/Conclusion” in Feminism/Postmodernism/Development, pp. 1-22. London and New York: Routledge.

Marchand, M. and A. S. Runyan (1999). Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, sites and resistance. London and New York: Routledge.

Parpat, J.L. (1995). “Deconstructing the Development ‘Expert’ “: Gender, development and the ‘vulnerable groups’ “ in Feminism/Postmodernism/Development, pp. 221–43. London and New York: Routledge.

Said, E. W. (1978), Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Shapiro, J.M. (1989). “Textualizing Global Politics”, in J. Der Derian and M. J. Shapiro (eds.), International/Intertextual Relations: Post Modern Readings of World Politics, pp.11–22. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.

Smith, S. (1995). “The Self-Images of a Discipline: A Genealogy of International Relations Theory” in K. Booth and S. Smith (eds.), International Relations Theory Today, pp. 1–37. Oxford: Polity.

Stein, A. (1993). “Coordination and Collaboration: Regimes in an Anarchic World,” in D. Baldwin (ed.), Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate, pp.29–53. New York: Columbia University Press.

Van der Pijl, K. (1998). Transnational Classes and International Relations. London & New York: Routledge.

Walker, R.B.J. (1989). “The Prince and ‘The Pauper’: Tradition, Modernity, and Practice in the Theory of International Relations” in J. Der Derian and J. M.Shapiro (eds.), International/Intertextual Relations: Post Modern Readings of World Politics, pp. 25–48. Lexington MA: D.C. Heath.

Waltz, K. (1986). “Political structures,” “Anarchic Orders and Balances of Power,” in R. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics, pp.70–130. New York: Columbia University Press.

Wendt, A. (1992). “Anarchy Is what States Make of it,” International Organization 46:2, pp. 391–425.