Theories of World Politics: A Critical Reintroduction

The motto and structuring principle of this course is taken from one of the key figures of the Frankfurt School, Theodor Adorno. ‘The value of thought is measured by its distance from the continuity of the familiar’. The course starts off with an in-depth-look at current orthodoxy in International Relations (IR) theorising before charting divergent lines of flight away from orthodoxy to heterodoxy. The scene setter of the course is thus a thorough engagement with the main proponents of the two dominant Western strands of thinking about politics beyond the state: liberalism and constructivism. This includes topical issues such as the R2P, democracy and foreign policy and ethico-political justifications as to why some states ought to be more equal in world politics than others. After the fall from grace of neo-structural Realism after the end of the Cold War, new innovative realist strands have emerged as serious contenders of IR orthodoxy in recent years. The course will focus on offensive realist theories of regional and global hegemony and neorealist efforts to bring the second image back into analysis of interstate relations. Another well established heterodox critique is offered by various poststructuralist approaches. Among other things, we shall look at biopolitical critiques of the foreign relations of neoliberal capitalism, notably its tendency to wage endless war. In the final part of the seminar, we shall treat Gramscian and other neomarxist approaches of the rise and fall of hegemonies, EU and American neoimperialism, the role of human rights in reproducing and legitimising core-periphery relations, and so forth.