18. Critical Approaches to Global Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 408-436
Author(s):  
Stephanie Lawson
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Friedrich Engels

This chapter examines seven critical approaches to global politics: Marxism, Critical Theory, constructivism, feminism, postmodernism, postcolonial theory, and green theory. In their book The Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels address the implications for global order of the rise of capitalism and the role of the bourgeoisie as controllers of capital. Their ideas have had a major influence on critical approaches to virtually all aspects of both domestic and global politics. The chapter considers some major strands of Marxist-influenced theory of direct relevance to global politics, including dependency theory, world-system theory, Gramscian theory, and Frankfurt School theory. It also discusses gender theory and compares postmodern/poststructural approaches to global politics with Critical Theory and constructivism in International Relations.

16. Critical Approaches to Global Politics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Global Order ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Friedrich Engels

This chapter examines seven critical approaches to global politics: Marxism, Critical Theory, constructivism, feminism, postmodernism, postcolonial theory, and green theory. In their book The Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels address the implications for global order of the rise of capitalism and the role of the bourgeoisie as controllers of capital. Their ideas have had a major influence on critical approaches to virtually all aspects of both domestic and global politics. The chapter considers some major strands of Marxist-influenced theory of direct relevance to global politics, including dependency theory, world-system theory, Gramscian theory, and Frankfurt School theory. It also discusses gender theory and compares postmodern/poststructural approaches to global politics with Critical Theory and constructivism in International Relations.

scholarly journals Critical Theory: Self-Reflexive Theorizing and Struggles for Emancipation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Freyenhagen
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Comprehensive Treatment ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Frankfurt Am Main ◽  
Political Struggles

Critical Theory is an umbrella term to denote those theorists who take up the task described by Karl Marx as the self-clarification of the age struggles and wishes of the age. As such, two elements are crucial: (a) a connection to social and political struggles of emancipation, and (b) self-reflexivity. Critical Theorists differ—sometimes quite fundamentally—about what these two elements require (and how they relate). For example, some such theorists (such as Max Horkheimer or Michel Foucault) take the normative orientations of struggles for emancipation as something that does not require grounding at the level of theorizing, while others (such as Jürgen Habermas) think such grounding is the main task of Critical Theory, securing moral validity for the struggles. These substantive differences also mean that there are no accepted methods on which all Critical Theorists would agree. To stay with the example, those Critical Theorists who reject discursive grounding of its normative standards tend to engage in genealogy and other disclosing forms of social critique; while those who seek discursive grounding employ reconstructive and/or constructivist methods. The existence of fundamental substantive and methodological differences among proponents of Critical Theory means that it is difficult, or perhaps even impossible, to give a uniform characterization of it. Sometimes, Critical Theory is defined institutionally. Then it is denoting a succession of theorists (often classed into different generations) who are connected to the Institute of Social Research and/or the Philosophy Department in Frankfurt am Main, Germany—the so-called “Frankfurt School.” However, this institutional definition has only limited use. The disagreements among thinkers within the Frankfurt School tradition can run deep—sometimes deeper than they run with theorists, like Foucault, who are not connected institutionally to it. And it is an open and contested question whether everyone institutionally connected to the Frankfurt School is engaged in Critical Theory. Thinking systematically about the task of self-reflexively connecting to struggles of emancipation requires a different approach. It is helpful to understand Critical Theory as a broad and varied tradition, with core cases (such as Horkheimer’s 1937 text “Traditional and Critical Theory”), but no sharp boundaries. Understood that way, there cannot be a fully comprehensive treatment of Critical Theory, but it is possible to think of this tradition as involving multiple morphing sequences, whereby approaches are amended in various ways over time and thereby change into something else. One important dividing line is how historical or transcendental one takes Marx’s task to be—some proponents of Critical Theory are, in effect, historical contextualists, while others seek to establish the conditions of possibility of human interaction as such.

A Dictionary of Critical Theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Gender Studies ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Cultural Materialism ◽  
Internet Studies

Over 750 entriesThe most authoritative and up-to-date dictionary of critical theory available, covering the Frankfurt school, cultural materialism, cultural studies, gender studies, film studies, literary theory, hermeneutics, historical materialism, Internet studies, and sociopolitical critical theory. It explains complex theoretical discourses, such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, structuralism, deconstruction, and postmodernism clearly and provides biographies of figures who have influenced the discipline, such as Deleuze and Foucault.This new edition has been updated to extend coverage of diaspora, race, and postcolonial theory, and of queer and sexuality studies, ensuring that it remains invaluable for students of literary and cultural studies and anyone studying a humanities subject requiring a knowledge of theory.

scholarly journals Social criticism as medical diagnosis? On the role of social pathology and crisis within critical theory

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 155 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-126
Author(s):  
Peter J. Verovšek
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Social Pathology ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
The Social ◽  
Talking Cure

The critical theory of the Frankfurt School starts with an explanatory-diagnostic analysis of the social pathologies of the present followed by anticipatory-utopian reflection on possible treatments for these disorders. This approach draws extensively on parallels to medicine. I argue that the ideas of social pathology and crisis that pervade the methodological writings of the Frankfurt School help to explain critical theory’s contention that the object of critique identifies itself when social institutions cease to function smoothly. However, in reflecting on the role that reason and self-awareness play in the second stage of social criticism, I contend that this model is actually better conceptualized through the lens of the psychoanalyst rather than the physician. Although the first generation’s explicit commitment to psychoanalysis has dissipated in recent critical theory, faith in a rationalized ‘talking cure’ leading to greater self-awareness of existing pathologies remains at the core of the Frankfurt School.

scholarly journals Dialectical Materialism

2021 ◽  
pp. 67-109
Author(s):  
Hub Zwart
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Friedrich Engels

AbstractAlthough Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels strictly speaking never used the term, “dialectical materialism” refers to the philosophy of science and nature developed in (and on the basis of) their writings, emphasising the pivotal role of real-world socio-economic conditions (e.g. labour, class struggle, technological developments). As indicated by their correspondence (Marx & Engels, 1983), their collaboration represented a unique intellectual partnership which began in Paris in 1844 and continued after Marx’s death, when Engels took care of Marx’s legacy, notably the sprawling mass of manuscripts which he managed to transform into Volume II and III of Capital. While their joint effort (resulting in no less than 44 volumes of collected writings known as the Marx Engels Werke, published by Dietz Verlag Berlin) began as co-authorship, they eventually decided on a division of labour (with Marx focussing on Capital), although reading, reviewing, commenting on and contributing to each other’s writings remained an important part of their research practice. As a result of this division of labour, while Marx focussed on political economy, Engels dedicated himself to elaborating a dialectical materialist philosophy of nature and the natural sciences, resulting in works such as the Anti-Dühring and his unfinished Dialectics of Nature (published posthumously), although Engels (a voracious intellectual) wrote and published on may other topics as well, so that his output can be regarded as a dialectical materialist encyclopaedia in fragments. Again, although I will start with an exposition of dialectical materialism, my aim is not to contribute to scholarly discussions on dialectical materialism. My focus is on the how and now, and my aim is to explore how to practice dialectical materialism of technoscience today (cf. Žižek, 2014/2015, p. 1; Hamza, 2016, p. 163).

scholarly journals Towards a constructive critical geopolitics – Inspirations from the Frankfurt School of critical theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veit Bachmann ◽  
Sami Moisio
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Critical Geopolitics ◽  
Peace Research ◽  
Societal Role

This paper seeks to enrich the scholarly potential and further develop the societal role of critical geopolitical scholarship. In particular, we elaborate on some of the challenges of what we call a ‘constructive critical geopolitics’. This is done through a selective inquiry into some of the key insights of the first generation of Frankfurt School critical theory, in particular as regards its reflections on political action and public engagement. We argue that incorporating some of the central tenets of critical theory into critical geopolitics has important implications for the subdiscipline – theoretically, empirically and as regards its applied/constructive role in society. Our argument seeks to contribute to the inclusion of constructive critical geopolitical analysis alongside the focus on thorough deconstruction of hegemonic knowledge productions, power relations and systems of exclusion. More concretely, drawing on critical theory as well as on geographic feminist and peace research, we call for more explicit normative positioning in critical geopolitical scholarship and suggest that we embrace the complexity of the geopolitical phenomena we study and, in so doing, to consider both their progressive and regressive aspects. We use our interest in processes of European (dis)integration, and the Brexit vote in particular, to highlight the need to further develop such multiperspectival analysis on highly complex and multifaceted geopolitical processes, such as European (dis)integration.

scholarly journals Political Imbroglios in Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire and Mohammad Hanif’s A Case of Exploding Mangoes

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 120
Author(s):  
Muhammad Arfan Lodhi ◽  
Sania Muqqadas ◽  
Sobia Sikander
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Friedrich Engels ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Do So

This research work aims at to scrutinize two novels of Pakistani writers, Mohammad Hanif’s A Case of Exploding Mangoes (2008) and Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire (2017) comparatively. Hanif’s novel is about the ruling era of General Zia-ul-Haq and Shamsie’s novel is about the difficulties of Muslim migrants in a foreign country. The purpose of this study is to accentuate the working of politics and political imbroglios at personal, social, civil/political, and military level; intermingling of religious values into political values; and conversion of politics into capitalism through Marxism theory which is originated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, taken from Lois Tyson’s book Critical theory today (2006). The researchers have substantiated through the comparative analysis of both novels that the use of politics in a positive way becomes the cause of peace and prosperity and the use of it negatively becomes the cause of creating disintegration and demolition in the society. This study spotlighted that whatever people do in their life, they do so to get personal benefits, political advantages and economic power. Conspicuous findings of the study reveal that both novels explicate intricate ideologies at personal, political, cultural and somewhat emotional levels. The novels display themes and stories, with slight manipulation of political and cultural facts and realities.

scholarly journals TEORI KRITIS DAN RELEVANSINYA UNTUK PENGKAJIAN TERHADAP REALITAS SOSIAL BANGSA INDONESIA

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 159
Author(s):  
Sermada Kelen Donatus
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Herbert Marcuse ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Max Horkheimer ◽  
Theodor Adorno ◽  
Systemic Corruption

This essay elaborates the Critical Theory proposed by a group of German intellectuals who revived the anti-capitalist social theory of Karl Marx. They belong to what is called the “Frankfurt-School” which emphasises the contextualisation of Marx’ theory. Critical Theory emerged as a response to anti-socialist dominance in contemporary society. This essay takes up some of the ideas of Frankfurt-School members Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas. Critical Theory can impact greatly on how we read present-day Indonesian society which is being destroyed by the global capitalist-system which in turn is producing social diseases like systemic corruption. Keywords: Teori Kritis, sekolah Frankfurt, Karl Marx, Horkhmeimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Habermas, relevansi teori kritis, realitas sosial Indonesia.

scholarly journals NEGATIVITAS TOTAL: KRITIK ADORNO TERHADAP RASIONALITAS DAN SENI MASYARAKAT MODERN

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 137
Author(s):  
Sunarto Sunarto
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Max Horkheimer ◽  
Art Object ◽  
The Arts

Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (1903-1969) adalah salah satu tokoh dari Mazhab Frankfurt, yang sangat akrab dengan Max Horkheimer. Keduanya membesarkan Mazhab Frankfurt. Adorno ahli dari berbagai bidang: filsafat, sosiologi, dan musikolgi. Pemikirannya saling bertautan. Kritiknya terhadap seni modern lebih kepada pertautan dengan sosiologi. Kondisi masyarakat modern post-aufklarung telah begitu memprihatinkan dengan mengorbankan hidup demi rasionalitas teknologi yang instrumental. Adorno menganggap telah terjadi pembalikkan total atas peran manusia sebagai subjek menjadi objek. Masyarakat modern telah terjebak rasionalitasnya sendiri. Bidang seni telah terjebak pada industrialisasi, yang memungkinkan manusia telah kehilangan daya estetis. Manusia menciptakan seni dan sebagai subjek seni akhirnya menjadi objek seni. Realitas inilah yang disebut sebagai “negativitas total”, manusia ingin menguasai alam akhirnya terkuasai oleh alam itu sendiri. Seni yang diciptakan manusia, akhirnya menjadi seni untuk kebutuhan “sesaat” dan konsumtif belaka.Kata Kunci: seni, negativitas total, teori kritis, rasionalitas Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (1903-1969) is one of the leaders of the Frankfurt School, who is very familiar with Max Horkheimer. Both raise the Frankfurt School. Adorno experts from various fields: philosophy, sociology, and musikolgi. Their thinking is interlocked. His criticism of modern art is more to engagement with sociology. Conditions Aufklarung post-modern society has been so alarming at the expense live for rasionality instrumental technology. Adorno considers there has been a total reversal of the role of man as a subject to an object. Modern society has stuck own rationality. The arts have been stuck on industrialization, which allows humans have lost their aesthetic. Humans create art and as a subject of art eventually became an art object. Reality is what is referred to as "total negativity", humans want to control nature eventually possessed by nature itself. Art created humans, eventually becoming an art for the needs of “instantaneous” and a mere consumer.Keywords: art, total negativity, critical theory, rationality 

Ideology in Marxist Traditions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary E. Triece
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Real World ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Louis Althusser ◽  
German Ideology ◽  
Friedrich Engels

The term ideology originated in 1796 and has been taken up in a variety of ways by scholars in disciplines including communication, sociology, anthropology, and economics. Generally understood as an organized set or system of belief, the term over the past 200 years has been variously situated vis à vis material relations and processes of production; has been assigned negative, positive, and neutral connotations; has been rejected as outmoded and replaced by the more sweeping term discourse; and has been revived as once again being relevant by contemporary scholars. Ideology is closely associated with the economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who first used the concept in The German Ideology, published in 1845–1846. Marx and Engels discussed ideology specifically in terms of the economic means and relations of production and framed it largely in negative terms, as the ideas of the ruling class intended to distort or mystify processes of capitalist exploitation. Early 20th-century Marxist followers like Vladimir Lenin, Georg Lukács, and Antonio Gramsci expanded the understanding of the word to include the belief systems of either dominant or resistant groups. Throughout the 20th century, the structuralist theories of Louis Althusser lent the word ideology a deterministic quality. Althusser and others explored how Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs), such as schools, churches, and media, constitute subject positions for individuals, leaving them little room for agency or struggle against oppressive thought systems. Structuralism’s emphasis on the primacy and force of ideology reached its apex in poststructuralist, postmodernist, and post-Marxist theories that discursified the material—that is, it made no distinction between belief systems and the real world of relations, processes, systems, etc. These theories invigorated discussions surrounding epistemology, ontology, and the role of communication in forming identities and shaping social struggles. Critics of poststructuralist, postmodernist, and post-Marxist theories have attempted to resituate ideology within its original theoretical context of Marxist dialectical materialism. These efforts attempt to show the importance, for theory and for democratic struggle, of distinguishing between ideas and real-world experience.

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