CRITICAL THEORIES

Marina Llins Font

M del Mar Martnez

INTRODUCTION
With the end of the cold war and the free market
capitalism, the relevance of Marxism decreased
The future was liberal and capitalist
Two decades later a renaissance happens
Compared with realism and liberalism, it has an
unfamiliar view

THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF MARXIST

THEORIES OF WORLD POLITICS
Marxs legacy has been open to numerous
interpretations
The social world should be analysed as a totality
The materialist conception of history economic
development
Importance of institutions
Class plays a key role in Marxist analysis

MARX INTERNATIONALIZED

Trotsky development is affected by international

relations
Rosa Luxemburg capitalism as a way of production
Lenin development of monopoly capitalism
Raul Prebisch the declining terms of trade
Andr Gunder Frank and Henrique Fernando Cardoso
Immanuel Wallerstein world-systems theory
Cristopher Chase-Dunn inter-state system
Feminist Marxists focusing on the role of women

GRAMSCIANISM
Antonio Gramsci
Concept of hegemony
Capabilities of the states
Institutions of civil society
Implications for political practice
Robert Cox
Theory is always for some one, and for some purpose
Idea of free trade
Capitalism as an unstable system
Recent Gramscian writers

CRITICAL THEORY

International society, international ethics and security

Frankfurt School
Culture
Bureaucracy
Social basis and nature of authoritarianism
Structure of the family
Rationality
Meaning of emancipation
Andrew Linklater
Critical security studies states are part of the
security problem rather than a provider of security

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM

INTRODUCTION
Constructivisms origins 1980s neo-realism and
neo-liberal institucionalism dominated
international relations theory.
Scholars critical of neo-realism and neoliberalism drew from critical and sociological
theory to demostrate the effect of normative
structures on world politics.
Contributions in 1980s: John Ruggie, Richard
Ashley, Alexander Wendt, Friedrich Kratochwill.

THE RISE OF CONSTRUCTIVISM

The end of the cold war- new intellectual space for
scholars to challenge existing theories of international
politics.
Social Science could help international relations.
The attention to norms and states identities could
help uncover important issues neglected by neorealism and neo-liberalism.

CONSTRUCTIVISM
Constructivist are concerned with human
consciousness, treat ideas as structural factors,
consider the dynamic relationship between ideas
and material forces as a consequence of how actors
interpret their material reality, and are interested
in how agents produce structures and how
structures produce angents.
Social Construction of reality- actors are produced
and created by their cultural enviroment.
Distinction between constitutive and regulative
rules parallels the conceptual distinction between
the logic of consequences and the logic of
appropiateness.

RATIONAL CHOICE VS CONSTRUCTIVISM

RATIONAL CHOICE

CONSTRUCTIVISM

Treats actors as pre-social.

Treats actors as social.

Treats interests as fixed.

Treats interest as
constructed by the
environment and
interactions.

Hold that the only effect of the

environment is to constrain
and regulate the actions of
already constituted actors.
Uses the logical of
consequences to understand
behaviour.

Adds that it also can

construct the actors identities
and interests.
Adds the logic of
appropiateness.

CONSTRUCTIVISM AND GLOBAL

CHANGE
The

recognition that the world is socially constructed

means that constructivist can investigate global change
and transformation.
A central theme in any discussion of global change is
diffusion captured by the concern with institutional
isomorphism and the life cycle of norms.
Why now the world is organized around the nation-state
and most international organizations have a multilateral
form? And Why are the accepted in new places?
In the discussion of changing identities and interest,
Constructivism have also employed the concept of
socialization.
Discussions and diffusion and socialization also draw
attention to the internationalization of norms.