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PSIR · PALGRAVE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The Poverty of
Critical Theory in
International Relations

Davide Schmid
 Palgrave Studies in International Relations

Series Editors
Knud Erik Jørgensen, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
J. Marshall Beier, Political Science, McMaster University, Milton, ON,
Canada
Palgrave Studies in International Relations provides scholars with the best
theoretically-informed scholarship on the global issues of our time. The
series includes cutting-edge monographs and edited collections which
bridge schools of thought and cross the boundaries of conventional fields
of study.
Knud Erik Jørgensen is Professor of International Relations at Aarhus
University, Denmark, and at Yaşar University, Izmir, Turkey.
 Davide Schmid

The Poverty
of Critical Theory
in International
Relations
Davide Schmid
Manchester, UK

Palgrave Studies in International Relations

ISBN 978-3-031-22586-4 ISBN 978-3-031-22587-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22587-1

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To my nonno, Norbert
 Acknowledgements

This book represents the culmination of almost ten years of work, begin-
ning with my doctoral research at the University of Sheffield. During that
time, I have benefited from the friendship and support of a great many
people. As this chapter of my life comes to a close, I wish to thank all
those who have inspired, encouraged and accompanied me.
I owe a debt of gratitude to my supervisor at the University of
Sheffield, Jonathan Joseph, for his guidance and mentorship during my
PhD and after. It was a great privileged to be supervised by him and I
have benefited greatly from his council and insight. I would also like to
thank my second supervisor, John Hobson, for his help in the latter stages
of the project.
Milja Kurki and Helen Turton examined the original PhD thesis and
provided thoughtful feedback which informed the writing of this book.
I thank them both for their intellectual engagement and professional
support.
The Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield has been
a fantastic place to study and develop both intellectually and profes-
sionally. Among the brilliant academic staff, I would like to extend my
thanks to Cemal Burak Tansel, Anastasia Shesterinina, Owen Parker, Peter
Verovšek, Liam Stanley and Ross Bellaby.
I have also had the fortune of finding a vibrant and supportive PhD
community at Sheffield. Many of them have become lifelong friends.
Sam Jarvis, Laure Joanny, Xavier Mathieu, Irene Vanini, Dan Bailey and

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Barbara Yoxon all deserve a special mention in this regard. The neo-
Gramscian reading group provided a joyful and collaborative space for
countless arguments, debates and pints. A thank you to the people who
made these moments so memorable: Vanessa Bilancetti, James Cham-
berlain, Rasmus Hansen, Scott Lavery, Sam Morecroft, Robbie Pye and
Jonny Webb.
Since leaving Sheffield, I have also benefited from the support and
advice of countless colleagues at the universities of Groningen and
Manchester Metropolitan. At Groningen, I would like to thank Adhemar
Mercado Auf der Maur, Andreas Aagaard Nøhr, Xavier Guillaume,
Benjamin Herborth, Luis Lobo-Guerrero and Julia Costa López for
making my brief stay in The Netherlands a very special time. At Manch-
ester Met, I want to extend my thanks to Eleanor Bindman, Kathryn
Starnes, Olga Khrushcheva, Jonny Rodwell, Steve Hurst, Donna Lee,
Sean McDaniel and the co-convenors of the Critical Theory in Hard
Times network, Sadiya Akram, Rob Jackson and Paul Giladi.
The most important thank you goes to my wife Gemma Bird for her
unwavering love, encouragement and support. Words cannot express the
magnitude of my appreciation for her patience and companionship. My
gratitude also goes out to my parents, Anna and Thomas, my parents-in-
law, Lesley and Richard, my grandmother Lisbeth and my grandfather
Norbert, who passed away during the final stages of this project. I
dedicate the book to him.
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
2 The Crisis of Critique 15
3 Two Histories of the Frankfurt School 45
4 The Habermasian Paradigm 75
5 Habermas and Cosmopolitan Democracy 101
6 Linklater and Critical International Relations Theory 127
7 The Way Ahead 155
8 Conclusion 197

Index 203

ix
 About the Author

Davide Schmid is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Rela-

tions at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. His work sits at the
intersection of Critical Theory and International Political Economy,
focusing on Frankfurt School thought and the critique of contemporary
global capitalism. He has published in the European Journal of Interna-
tional Relations, Geopolitics as well as other prominent journals in the
field.

xi
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

If one had to choose a word to capture the spirit of the past two
decades of global politics, it would probably be ‘crisis’. The global finan-
cial crisis of 2008—itself the product of the accumulated contradictions
of the previous era of capitalist development—effected, accelerated and
combined with a set of social, political and geopolitical transformations
the precise nature and outcome of which it is still difficult to discern.
The unfolding catastrophe of environmental collapse and the global shock
produced by the COVID-19 pandemic add yet further elements of insta-
bility and disorder. The predominant sense of the age is that of a global
order caught in a series of interlocking contradictions and crisis tenden-
cies that combine to create the total picture of an uncertain, mutating
and conflicted time.
Writing during another time of change and confusion in world poli-
tics—that of the aftermath to the economic shocks of the 1970s—the
international theorist Robert Cox (1981, p. 130) wrote that ‘historical
periods [of] fluidity in power relationships’, ‘uncertainty’ and ‘many-
faceted crisis’ tend to favour the emergence of what he called critical
theory, ‘as people seek to understand the opportunities and risks of
change’. Indeed, in the years that followed Cox’s writing and particu-
larly after the end of the Cold War, the study of International Relations
(IR) saw the emergence of many new critical perspectives attempting to

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
D. Schmid, The Poverty of Critical Theory in International Relations,
Palgrave Studies in International Relations,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22587-1_1
2 D. SCHMID

make sense of the transformations that were taking place in global politics
and of the normative possibilities within them. Among these contribu-
tions, scholars drawing from the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory
(CT) first made a foray into the study of international politics, adapting
and updating the categories and tools of analysis of that tradition to
explain and clarify the character and potentials of the new age.1 Applying
Cox’s prediction to the current conjuncture, however, reveals a more
perplexing picture: the demand for critical perspectives capable of eluci-
dating the present state of global affairs is as strong as ever—and indeed
other strands of critical thinking, such as Postcolonial and Decolonial
studies—are flourishing. Yet Frankfurt School theory in international poli-
tics appears to be in a state of stagnation. There are two elements to this
that are immediately striking. The first is that the form of Critical Theory
which had been dominant in IR until recently—that of a cosmopolitan
project inspired by Habermasian Frankfurt School theory—increasingly
seems to reflect the concerns and worries of a time now past. How to
devise a universalist vision of Progress that counters both postmodern
relativism and the ‘end of history’ complacency of a liberalism without
challengers; resisting the imperial drift of the only remaining superpower
and steering global politics towards a cosmopolitan legal regime; meeting
the apparent demise of the nation-state with new forms of supranational
governance (Schecter, 2013, p. 3): these questions speak to the Zeitgeist
of the 1990s more than to current concerns with a multifaceted capitalist
crisis and a disintegrating world order. The second element is that CT
in IR appears to be struggling to renew itself and develop new modes
of analysis and new political imaginaries that take account of the current
historical conjuncture. It has been incapable of developing new instru-
ments and forms of critique with which to interrogate the dynamics of

1 A note on the terminology that will be adopted in this book: the term ‘critical theory’
is used in a general sense by a broad range of theoretical approaches ranging from Post-
structuralist to Feminist and Postcolonial and Decolonial Theory. It is, therefore, not
exclusively associated to the Frankfurt School. To reflect this, I will use ‘Critical Theory’
(CT) in capital letters to refer to the specific tradition of scholarship associated with the
Frankfurt School of critique, both outside and inside of the discipline of International
Relations (IR). ‘Critical Theory in International Relations’—or CT in IR—similarly indi-
cates those IR scholars that identify with and draw inspiration from the Frankfurt School in
their international political research. The term “critical theory” in lowercase letters will be
used, instead, to refer to the broader heterogeneous ensemble of approaches that defines
itself against the “mainstream” of value-free and positivist social scientific scholarship and
is committed to the critique of existing social and political conditions.
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

capitalist crisis and political disintegration which shape the contemporary

world. CT in IR has also struggled to respond to the call for greater crit-
ical engagement with the enduring global structures of colonial and racial
power, as well as to undertake a serious reckoning of its long-standing
amnesia in this area (Conway, 2021). This double predicament is a source
of great concern for a tradition such as CT in IR, calling into question
its continued relevance and its capacity to interpret and respond to social
and political change.
Interestingly, the predicament of Critical Theory in IR seems to extend
beyond the disciplinary boundaries of International Relations and to
affect the Frankfurt School project as a whole. A sense is emerging across
the fields of social theory and political philosophy that Critical Theory
in its received form—that which is modelled on Jürgen Habermas’s
communicative-democratic paradigm—is experiencing a generalised ‘crisis
of critique’ that affects its capacity to intervene in time-relevant and polit-
ically effective ways (see Azmanova, 2014; Fraser & Jaeggi, 2018; Kim,
2014; Kompridis, 2011; Vogelmann, 2021). In turn, this perception of
a broader impasse of Frankfurt School research hints at the presence
of deeper and broader origins to the predicament of CT in IR. That
is, it points to the existence of shortcomings and weaknesses that are
located at the level of the ontological, methodological and philosophical
foundations of Critical Theory in its prevailing form. In this context, a
growing body of scholarship is instead returning to the writings of the so-
called first generation Frankfurt School and their study of life under late
capitalism to look for critical resources with which to interrogate contem-
porary politics and society (see Allen, 2016; Azmanova, 2020; O’Kane,
2018, 2021). The critical and negativistic disposition of first generation
theory seems to many to better correspond to the mood of the present
time than does the confident optimism of 1990s era cosmopolitanism. Yet
there is very little in the early Frankfurt School that tackles questions of
international order and the uneven development of global capitalism—
let alone that addresses issues of colonialism and race (with the important
exception of antisemitism).
A paradox thus emerges regarding the Frankfurt School’s contribu-
tion to an analysis of the contemporary world. The paradigm which
most directly addresses question of international politics—the Haber-
masian, cosmopolitan approach—appears increasingly ill-suited to provide
diagnoses of the contemporary global conjuncture. Meanwhile, early
Frankfurt School thought—which appears more in tune with the spirit of
4 D. SCHMID

contemporary critique—offers little direct engagement with the interna-

tional domain. The paradox emerges even more starkly when considering
how Critical Theory can address the questions of Eurocentrism, colo-
nialism and race that are increasingly central to contemporary discussions
on emancipatory politics. As James Ingram (2018, pp. 503–504) notes,
the ‘first generation of Critical Theory, which… preceded the emergence
of Postcolonialism but evinced virtually no interest either in the anti-
colonial struggles that preceded it or in the non-Western world as whole,
nonetheless produced an approach to European modernity that has deep
affinities with its postcolonial critique’ (see also Allen, 2016; Zambrana,
2015). On the other hand, Ingram (2018, p. 504) continues, ‘[l]ater
Frankfurt School thinkers, beginning with Habermas, were much more
open to claims from outside the West [but did so] in part by developing a
framework that has seemed to many to resurrect the worst tropes of Euro-
centric progressivism, erecting the West as the standard of modernity and
Enlightenment’. The analytical and political space of the international,
therefore, emerges as a troubling and ambiguous terrain for Frankfurt
School thought, one that is central both to the task of clarifying its
contemporary impasse and to renewing it as a critical project.

Critical Theory and the International

The aim of this book is to interrogate the current state and promise of
Critical Theory of IR through a study of the encounter and mis-encounter
between Frankfurt School thought and the realm of the international.
This term, which is adjacent to but distinct from the global, denotes the
broad area of social life which is defined by the multiplicity of political
communities and the unevenness of political and economic development
(Rosenberg, 2017). While it is by no means autonomous from—or even
juxtaposed to—the domains of national politics and society, the inter-
national identifies a range of distinctive issues and question which are
central both to the understanding of the contemporary world and to a
theoretical reappraisal of Frankfurt School critique. Investigating Crit-
ical Theory’s engagements with the international, then, allows for a
novel view of the theoretical development of the tradition as well as the
contribution, failings and turns of its different phases. The focus on the
international reveals a set of aporias, paradoxes and tensions in Frank-
furt School thought and raises a set of fundamental theoretical problems
which constitute the key themes of this book.
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

First, a focus on the international foregrounds the question of the

relation between the economic and the political in contemporary capi-
talism. The problem of how to conceptualise the relation between the
market economy and state power has long occupied Critical Theory—
from Friedrich Pollock’s (1989) arguments in the 1940s regarding the
emerging ‘primacy of the political over the economic’ to Habermas’s
(2001, p. 54) more recent diagnosis that ‘nation-states are increasingly
overwhelmed by the global economy’. This question is key both to
the explanatory task of determining the present configuration of global
capitalism and to the political task of identifying the sites of struggle
and emancipatory possibilities that are open within it. Approaching the
problem from the standpoint of the international can help to ground the
analysis of the interaction between political and economic logics as well
as guard against the danger of reifying the distinction between them.
Second, the international raises the question of the unevenness and
heterogeneity of domination. As Rocio Zambrana (2015) has noted, the
Frankfurt School throughout its various generations has often analysed
power and domination in terms of singular and homogenising processes—
be it the logic of exchange and rational administration, for Adorno and
Horkheimer, or the functional requirements of the system, for Habermas.
Focusing on the international problematises this by bringing into relief
the elements of heterogeneity, discontinuity, overlap and conflict between
different historical and spatial articulations of power (Zambrana, 2015,
p. 114). This introduces a picture of capitalism as fundamentally uneven
in its global configurations. More than that, it brings into view the
multiple structures of power and domination which constitute global capi-
talism in its concrete determinations, relating not only to exchange and
rational control but also to racialisation, coloniality and gender.
Third, the international foregrounds the question of the Eurocen-
trism of Critical Theory. In other words, it pushes the Frankfurt School
to provincialise its own perspective, to reflect on the particularity of its
own standpoint and how it shapes its analysis and normative commit-
ments. This, in turn, requires a reckoning with what Edward Said (1993,
p. 278) noted as the tradition’s ‘[stunning silence] on racist theory, anti-
imperialist resistance, and oppositional practice in the empire’ as well as
with the Frankfurt School’s lack of engagement with voices and contri-
butions from the Global South (Bartholomew, 2018; Bhambra, 2021).
Furthermore, it calls for a questioning of Critical Theory’s—and partic-
ularly the second generation’s—claims to universality, especially as they
6 D. SCHMID

relate to the idea of progress, to unitary and Eurocentric conceptions

of historical development and to the assertion of universal normative
foundations (Allen, 2016).
Finally, the international raises anew the question of emancipatory
change. The problems of mapping struggles and antagonisms, of iden-
tifying political subjects and devising transformative projects are by no
means unique to international politics. But these questions present them-
selves in the realm of the international in a heightened form. This is
because the international represents at once an obstacle and an opportu-
nity for emancipatory politics. It is a distinctly impervious terrain for any
transformative project, far removed from and difficult to affect through
democratic action. It is also often experienced as a direct barrier to eman-
cipatory politics—a domain from which the competitive logics of global
capital and the imperial interests of great powers militate against any
project for change. At the same time, the international is also a domain
where new connections between struggles are struck, new forms of soli-
darity develop and knowledge, strategies and ideas are shared. For the
Frankfurt School, then, a focus on the international poses the questions of
how global emancipation can be given determinate content, how hetero-
geneous experiences of domination can be connected and what kind of
political subjectivities they give rise to.
In bringing these questions to the fore, a focus on the international
opens to way to a fundamental reconsideration of Critical Theory’s
normative and theoretical assumptions and its underlying framework of
critique.

Argument
The central argument of this book is that a crisis of critique afflicts
the prevailing, Habermasian mode of Frankfurt School scholarship inside
and outside of IR. This crisis manifests as the disjuncture between the
conceptual tools available to CT and the world-historical conjuncture
it is supposed to clarify. More precisely, I argue that the crisis can be
conceptualised as a debilitation both of CT’s ability to clarify and explain
the central contradictions and tendencies of the present order and of its
capacity to disclose the emancipatory possibilities within it and inform
social and political struggles. With regards to the former, I note that
contemporary CT lacks the analytical and conceptual resources to explain
socio-economic and political developments in the current world order,
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

ranging from the variegated crises of capitalism to the re-emergence

of geopolitical tensions and the unfolding of social struggles linked to
anti-racism, inequality and social reproduction. Lacking its own political
economic vocabulary, CT is increasingly reliant on the essentialist cate-
gories of traditional theory. The outcome is an a-critical reading of global
transformations that reduces complex dynamics to linear tendencies of
development and to a schematic understanding of politics and economics
as impersonal and coherent technical systems. As to the latter, I show
how the emancipatory and political task of CT is increasingly carried out
in the abstract terms of ideal theory and is thereby removed from the
substantive, determinate critique of concrete social structures of injustice
and domination. CT’s prevailing normative configuration is, therefore,
that of a socially disembedded, liberal form of politics that relies on spec-
ulative histories of moral development and the assertion of a Eurocentric
teleology of progress. This debilitation of Critical Theory’s political and
explanatory faculties, I argue, has deep historical and theoretical roots.
In historical terms, I suggest that the origins of the present crisis
can be traced back to the failure of the Habermasian paradigm to fully
comprehend and reckon with a previous impasse of critical theorising:
that of the first generation or early Frankfurt School in the immediate
post-war period. In particular, I argue that Habermas’s communicative
and democratic turn in CT failed to fully resolve—and, in fact, repli-
cated—a problematic tendency that underlay the first generation’s works
and largely determined its final crisis. That is, the conceptualisation of
state and market under late capitalism as totally rationalised and imper-
sonal ‘systems’ having resolved their contradictions and antagonisms and,
consequently, no longer requiring the tools of political economy to be
unravelled. In critiquing the prevailing interpretation of the intellectual
history of the Frankfurt School as a linear, incremental learning process, I,
therefore, seek to understand the contemporary predicament of CT as the
manifestation of the unresolved contradictions and aporias accumulated
throughout its development.
In light of that historical reconstruction, I argue that the key theoret-
ical node behind the current crisis of critique resides in Jürgen Habermas’s
attempt to ‘save’ Frankfurt School theory from the impasse of the first
generation by advocating its reconstruction on the basis of a method-
ological and ontological dualism. Habermas’s model of society as system
and lifeworld—which still constitutes the basic meta-theoretical architec-
ture for much of contemporary CT—I show to entail an ontological
8 D. SCHMID

bifurcation of social reality into intersubjective/normative and objec-

tive/technical social domains as well as a methodological separation and
compartmentalisation of the normative and explanatory tasks of critique.
This meta-theoretical model, I contend, reproduces some of the aporias of
the early Frankfurt School and ultimately generates an idealised account of
civil society and the public sphere; produces an essentialised and depoliti-
cised analysis of capitalism and the international system; and effects the
deterioration of critique and explanation that has become evident in the
present crisis.
That the current predicament of Critical Theory is a manifestation
of the unresolved historical legacy of the early Frankfurt School and
the basic meta-theoretical weakness of the Habermasian framework of
analysis I demonstrate with regard to two of the most comprehensive
and influential Frankfurt School theories of international politics: Jürgen
Habermas’s writings on globalisation, the postnational constellation and
European integration; and Andrew Linklater’s theory of cosmopolitanism
and the civilisation of international society. In distinct ways, I argue,
both of these bodies of works display the debilitating tendencies I iden-
tified as deriving from Habermas’s binary ontology and methodology:
they rely on a simplistic account of economic and political globalisation
as a neutral and univocal process of evolution, thus failing to develop
more incisive investigations into the uneven development of global capi-
talism. Furthermore, they promote a cosmopolitan politics that lacks a
determinate social content and is instead defined either by a norma-
tive philosophy of discourse or by the assertion of a theory of history
as universal moral progress. Ultimately, I claim that Habermas’s and
Linklater’s cosmopolitan theories of IR demonstrate the link that exists
between the communicative paradigm of critique as the meta-theoretical
architecture of contemporary CT and the crisis of critique that is currently
afflicting it in and outside of IR.
Finally, I draw out the implications that derive from this in arguing
that a revitalisation of Critical Theory in IR must involve a funda-
mental reckoning with the meta-theoretical and normative architecture
of the communicative paradigm of critique. In particular, I argue that
Habermas’s misdiagnosis of the first generation’s impasse and failure to
overcome its aporias hast to be remedied and the uncoupling of norma-
tive critique from social analysis must be undone. Drawing on a variety
of contributions from within and outside of IR, I suggest that this can
be achieved by Critical Theory adopting a new strategy of critique. This I
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

define ontologically as a breaking down of the separation between purely

intersubjective and purely objective domains in favour of a holistic theory
of society given by the heterogeneous interaction of structures, norms
and agents across all social domains; methodologically as a re-joining of
CT’s political-emancipatory and explanatory-diagnostic dimensions, to be
achieved by re-centring the critique of political economy; philosophically,
as the foregrounding of the negative dimension of emancipation as the
determinate critique of and opposition to specific instances and relations
of domination; and politically, as the definition of a new set of central
organising questions that can orient Frankfurt School research in the
study of contemporary international politics. Finally, I argue that Critical
Theory needs to look outwards and develop a new research programme
which learns from and enters into dialogue with other strands of crit-
ical inquiry—from Decolonial and Postcolonial theory to Feminism and
Marxist historical sociology—which are involved in the task of clarifying
the structures of power and domination in contemporary global politics.
In methodological terms, the book consists in an immanent critique
of contemporary Frankfurt School theorising on international politics.
This means that the standards by which Critical Theory is evaluated,
found wanting and in the name of which a proposal for renewal is
put forward are set by CT’s own aspiration to be a demystifying and
possibility-disclosing ‘theory of the historical course of the present epoch’
(Horkheimer, quoted in Outhwaite, 2013, p. vii). In the course of
this investigation, the book connects and bridges between two closely
related but curiously estranged literatures. First is the distinctive tradition
of Frankfurt School-inspired theorising that has developed in the disci-
pline of International Relations over the last four decades and ongoing
debates in IR over its fragmentation and de-politicisation (Kurki, 2011);
the limitations of its ontological and meta-theoretical setup (Anievas,
2010; Fluck, 2014); and the role and content of ‘critique’ itself (Conway,
2021; Jahn, 2021; Koddenbrock, 2015). Second, the book is informed
by the debates unfolding among critical scholars outside of IR—most
notably in the fields of social theory and political philosophy—over the
crisis, shortcomings and future of the Frankfurt School project (Fraser &
Jaeggi, 2018); the inadequacies of the Habermasian paradigm of critique
(Allen, 2014; Azmanova, 2014; Kompridis, 2006); and the challenges
of reckoning with the tradition’s Eurocentrism and colonial and racial
amnesia (Allen, 2016; Bartholomew, 2018; Bhambra, 2021; Ingram,
2018; Zambrana, 2015). Ultimately, the wager that this book is built on
10 D. SCHMID

is that the answer to the predicament of Critical Theory in IR lies beyond

the discipline of International Relations or even the Frankfurt School
tradition itself and has to do with Critical Theory’s capacity to under-
stand itself as being part of a broader critical theoretical movement that
is engaged in a collaborative effort to come to grips with and transform
the contemporary world (Jahn, 2021).

Book Structure
Chapter 2 outlines the central concern that inspires this book: that is, the
widespread sense that Frankfurt School research in the Habermasian tradi-
tion is facing both inside and outside of the discipline of IR an impasse
that concerns its ability to speak to the present global conjuncture. I
start with a general definition of the aims of Critical Theory to set a
benchmark by which to evaluate the condition of contemporary Frank-
furt School research within the discipline of IR and in the social sciences
more broadly. This definition is based on Seyla Benhabib’s (1986) iden-
tification of two core tasks of CT: the explanatory-diagnostic and the
anticipatory-utopian. I then discuss the peculiarity and origins of the
tradition of Frankfurt School theorising in the discipline of International
Relations, as well as review recent contributions on its current decline.
I then broaden the perspective to include current debates over the state
of Frankfurt School theory that are taking place outside of IR, in social
theory and political philosophy. Lastly, I link these two separate litera-
tures and argue that the predicament of Critical Theory in IR is part
of a wider crisis of critique of Frankfurt School theory in its present,
cosmopolitan and Habermasian form—a crisis defined by the debilitation
of both the explanatory-diagnostic and the anticipatory-utopian aspects
of critical scholarship.
Chapter 3 begins the diagnosis of the crisis of critique by undertaking a
historical reconstruction of how the prevailing framework of CT has come
into being. I start by outlining the conventional interpretation in IR of the
history of the Frankfurt School as an incremental learning process finding
its final and highest synthesis in the Habermasian paradigm of critique. I
then reflect on the flaws and problematic assumptions that underlie this
reading and on the need for a more nuanced re-interpretation of the intel-
lectual development of CT. Thereafter, I present an alternative reading of
the history of the Frankfurt School and the ‘communicative turn’ that
centres on the connections and continuities between first and second
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

generation theory and the permanence of a set of aporias and contradic-

tions—chief amongst which is the abandonment of the critique of political
economy—throughout CT’s development. Lastly, I explain how this alter-
native reading reveals a longer and evolving crisis of Frankfurt School
thought that links the present predicament with the previous impasse of
the first generation and the failure of Habermas’s communicative turn to
recognise and expound its root cause.
Chapter 4 discusses in more detail the communicative-democratic
paradigm of critique introduced by Jürgen Habermas. I start by outlining
the overall architecture of Habermas’s framework, focusing on the meta-
and social-theoretical aspects of his theory of communication. I contend
that his model of society as system and lifeworld and his argument for a
binary ontology and methodology constitute the bedrock of the contem-
porary paradigm of critique. In the second part of the chapter, I develop
a critique of the Habermasian paradigm by drawing from a number
of critiques levelled against it over the years by Feminist, Marxist and
Postcolonial scholars. I centre on the limitations of its theorisation of capi-
talism, civil society and power politics, as well as the overall implications
for CT. I contend that Habermas’s binary ontology and methodology
of system and lifeworld effects a problematic uncoupling of normative
critique from substantive social-theoretical analysis. This uncoupling, I
suggest, is at the roots of Critical Theory’s crisis of critique.
Chapters 5 and 6 turn again to international politics and link the diag-
nosis developed in Chapters 2 and 3 to the two main Critical Theories of
International Relations.
Chapter 5 discusses Jürgen Habermas’s own interventions on interna-
tional politics after the end of the Cold War, focusing on his theory of
globalisation, the case for a postnational legal regime and the defence of
European integration. I contend that Habermas’s interventions display
the failings anticipated in the previous chapter. In particular, I critique
Habermas’s analysis of globalisation as a technical and uniform process,
the lack of an adequate theorisation of the international and the reliance
of his cosmopolitan project on a Eurocentric theory of historical progress.
Chapter 6 investigates the influence of Habermas’s meta-theoretical
framework beyond his own work by discussing Andrew Linklater’s Crit-
ical Theory of IR. I argue that although it is in many ways distinctive
and does not solely rely on Frankfurt School theory, Linklater’s lifelong
work on international politics is nonetheless shaped by the encounter
with the Habermasian project and largely unfolds within the bounds of
12 D. SCHMID

its paradigm of critique. In assessing Linklater’s writings over more than

three decades, I find that his normative theory of cosmopolitanism as well
as his later sociology of the civilising process follow the general parameters
of Habermas’s Critical Theory and, as a result, display many of the same
failings. I conclude that Linklater’s case demonstrates that the impact of
the binary meta-theoretical architecture discussed in Chapter 3 extends
further than Habermas’s own work and is directly implicated in the crisis
of critique of CT in IR.
Chapter 7 draws out the implications of the preceding discussion and
outlines a proposal for how the crisis of critique can be overcome and CT
in international politics be revitalised. I contend that a comprehensive re-
evaluation of Critical Theory’s meta-theoretical architecture is necessary
and call for the adoption of a new strategy of critique which: renounces
all essentialisms in favour of a holistic critique of global capitalism; centres
the critique of political economy; grounds its emancipatory aspiration in
the determinate negation of real instances of domination; and takes as its
goal the interrogation of the struggles, contradictions and opportunities
offered by the present world-historical conjuncture. Lastly, I sketch the
outline of a possible future research agenda for Critical Theory in IR that
focuses on the analysis and political interpretation of the manifold crises
of global capitalism as well as of their ideological manifestations.
The conclusion sums up the argument and explores some of the
concrete possibilities opened by it as well as the avenues for future
research. In particular, it discusses the need for Critical Theory to break
out of its self-imposed isolation and enter into dialogue with and learn
from other critical literatures in international politics such as Postcolo-
nial and Decolonial Theory, Marxist historical sociology, Feminism and
neo-Gramscian International Political Economy.

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 CHAPTER 2

The Crisis of Critique

The intellectual tradition that this book interrogates is that of the

Frankfurt School. Taking its name from the Institut für Sozialforschung
(Institute for Social Research) in Frankfurt-am-Main, where its leading
proponents were active, this tradition of critical thought has its origin
in early twentieth-century Europe and continues, in various forms, to
this day. Over that long timespan, the Frankfurt School has witnessed
several turns, mutations and developments and encompassed a variety of
different thinkers and ideas. Because of this, it is often defined as ‘a cluster
of themes’ (Bronner, 1994, p. 3) and an extended family of concepts,
rather than a fully cohesive body of thought (Jay, 2020, pp. xiii–xvi).
The development of Critical Theory is also not one of linear progression,
in which the problems encountered in each epoch are simply solved or
superseded in the next. Instead, many of the questions and dilemmas that
concerned the early critical scholars are still a matter of contention today.
For this reason, it is important to start by providing a minimal definition
of Critical Theory that applies to the entire arc of its development and all
its different instantiations, before discussing the tradition’s contemporary
articulations as well as its present crisis.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 15

Switzerland AG 2023
D. Schmid, The Poverty of Critical Theory in International Relations,
Palgrave Studies in International Relations,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22587-1_2
16 D. SCHMID

Defining Frankfurt School Critical Theory

A helpful place to start from in defining Frankfurt School thought is a
piece of text that predates it—a letter written by Karl Marx in 1843.
Marx (1975, p. 209) sums up the task of critical theorising as ‘the self-
clarification of the struggles and wishes of the age’. This definition, as
Nancy Fraser (1985, p. 97) has suggested, neatly captures the distinctive-
ness and purpose of Critical Theory. Specifically, it contains three elements
which can serve as a starting point to define this tradition in its entirety:
the internal relation to the Marxist thought, the idea of analysis as critical
self-reflection on a particular historical and social context, and the aim of
emancipation.
With regard to the first element, Frankfurt School Critical Theory
represents a form of social inquiry that is internally related to the Marxist
tradition and seeks to reimagine its analysis and politics in light of the
changing historical circumstances of twentieth and twenty-first-century
Western capitalism (Dahms, 2011, p. 5). As I will discuss in the next
chapter, what the relation to Marxism has meant exactly has changed
substantially over the course of the Frankfurt School’s development and
is still today highly contested. In general terms, the Marxist kernel of CT
resides in the theoretical and normative interest in understanding how
societies secure the material and social conditions for their own repro-
duction and to reveal the relations of power, domination and exclusion
through which social formations are constituted and maintain themselves.
Traditionally, this interest translated into the study and critique of capi-
talism as a set of social relations grounded in the material reproduction
of society. For the first and second generation Frankfurt School the focus
shifted to the determination of culture, civil society and the individual by
bureaucratic and market logics. Critical Theory in IR, in turn, has mostly
centred on the critique of the exclusionary practices that are inherent in
the constitution of particularistic communities such as the nation-state.
In each of these cases, the inquiry has been oriented towards the theo-
rising of the conflicts, exclusions and power relations that constitute the
fundamental grammar of social life (Weber, 2014, p. 533).
The second defining element of the Frankfurt School is that of reflex-
ivity. This term has different, interrelated dimensions. To being with, as
Inanna Hamati-Ataya (2013, p. 675) has noted, reflexivity represents a
‘core epistemic stance of critical theory’ that consists in the ‘acknowledge-
ment of the historicity of knowledge and of the inscription of knowledge
 2 THE CRISIS OF CRITIQUE 17

in social interests’. In this first sense, then, reflexivity stands for the notion
that all knowledge-claims are mediated by historical and social circum-
stances and by the standpoint occupied by the theorist. Furthermore,
reflexivity for the Frankfurt School indicates an active theoretical intent:
that of generating what Max Horkheimer (quoted in Outhwaite, 2013,
p. vii) called a ‘theory of the historical course of the present epoch’
and Habermas termed a ‘diagnosis of the times (Zeitdiagnose)’ (Braaten,
1991, p. 588). That is, it consists in the task of producing a critical reflec-
tion on the contemporary conjuncture and a theory of the real societal
processes that define it. This ambition to clarify what Adorno (2020,
p. 125) called the ‘objective tendencies of the moment’—that is, to not
only acknowledge but also explain the social context that CT arises out
of—has been a defining feature of Frankfurt School theorising throughout
its history.
The third defining element of Frankfurt School theorising is its
interest in human emancipation from suffering, injustice and domina-
tion. Following directly from the element of reflexivity, the commitment
to emancipation constitutes the normative premise and the motivating
impulse of Critical Theory. All the various incarnations of Frankfurt
School thought share the belief that, in Richard Wyn Jones’s words
(1999, p. 157), ‘if all theory is for someone and for some purpose’,
then Critical Theory should be ‘for the voiceless, the unrepresented, the
powerless, and its purpose is their emancipation’. Beyond this general
statement of intent, however, it remains hard to specify what emanci-
pation means concretely and what its specific content may be (Brincat,
2018). That CT wishes to represent, in Max Horkheimer’s words (quoted
in Honneth, 2007, p. 64), ‘the intellectual side of the historical process
of emancipation’ is clear. What that emancipatory process looks like
concretely and what role CT can play in sustaining it, however, remains
open and contested.

A General Definition of Frankfurt School Critical Theory

Combining the elements introduced thus far, Frankfurt School Critical
Theory can be defined as a family of approaches originating within the
Western Marxist tradition that engage in the critical analysis of a partic-
ular time and space with the aim of disclosing the social relations of power
that structure it and the emancipatory possibilities that are immanent
18 D. SCHMID

to it. Based on this, it is possible to start delineating what the neces-

sary aspects and goals of an effective Critical Theory would be. These
criteria can then serve as a standard by which to evaluate the Frank-
furt School’s contemporary articulations. A useful element for this task
is provided by Seyla Benhabib. In her influential book Critique, Norm
and Utopia, Benhabib (1986) distinguished between two interrelated
dimensions of critical theorising: the ‘explanatory-diagnostic’ and the
‘anticipatory-utopian’. The former, which Benhabib (1986, p. 226) also
termed the ‘social-critical’ dimension of CT, is the ‘aspect through which
the findings and method of the social sciences are appropriated in such
a way as to develop an empirically fruitful analysis of the crisis potential
of the present’. The aim of CT in this first modality is to ‘analyse the
contradictions and dysfunctionalities of the present and to explicate the
protests and pathologies… which they give rise’. The latter dimension
of Critical Theory, meanwhile, ‘constitutes the more properly normative
aspect of critique’ through which the ‘crisis diagnosis’ of the present is
complemented by a political view of existing society that proceeds ‘from
the perspective of the radical transformation of its basic structure’. ‘In
its anticipatory-utopian capacity’, Benhabib (1986, p. 226) adds, ‘crit-
ical theory addresses the needs and demands expressed by social actors
in the present, and interprets their potential to lead toward a better and
more humane society’. In the light of Benhabib’s distinction, then, Frank-
furt School theory can be further defined as a critical theoretical tradition
that seeks both to accurately portray and analyse the central dynamics and
contradictions of a historical epoch and to articulate a vision of emancipa-
tion that points beyond that contemporary situation. By most accounts,
the history of the Frankfurt School has been marked by repeated fail-
ures to meet these stated aims. Nonetheless, every failure has been a
different one and contains useful lessons for critical thought moving
forward. Failure, in this sense, is not an endpoint but an ongoing process
of negotiating the contradictions that society holds up to critical attempts
to decipher and transform it. The study of the different ways in which
the Frankfurt School has critically interrogated its social and historical
circumstances—and the question of how it is to do so today—constitute
the core thematic of this book.
 2 THE CRISIS OF CRITIQUE 19

Frankfurt School Theory

in International Relations
Having introduced the basic concepts and aims of Critical Theory, it is
now possible to start addressing the specific body of work that this book
is directed to, namely the critical interventions in the discipline of Inter-
national Relations (IR) that have situated themselves in the tradition of
Frankfurt School thought and have applied its theoretical resources to the
study of international politics.
For most of its intellectual history, Critical Theory produced no signif-
icant intervention on international politics. Although they lived through
and were profoundly impacted by the ‘twenty years’ crisis’ in global
affairs, the authors of the early Frankfurt School rarely occupied them-
selves directly with the international dimension of politics (Brincat, 2012,
p. 234). When Adorno and Horkheimer discussed the horrors of the
Second World War or the dangers of nuclear destruction, it was as mani-
festations of the destructive potential of technological and productive
forces or as the devastating consequences of an unbound instrumental
rationality, rather than as dynamics ruled by their own distinctive logic
(see Adorno, 2003, p. 120). Certainly, there was in the writings of the first
generation nothing like a systematic and coherent theory of international
politics. The theorists of the first generation also showed little interest
in political and social struggles beyond the West, such as the liberation
movements which were unfolding across the colonised world (Ingram,
2018). Jürgen Habermas, the leading scholar of the Frankfurt School after
the first generation, did not initially show much interest in the interna-
tional domain either. His writings in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s centred
either on philosophical and meta-theoretical question—such as the elabo-
ration of his formal pragmatics of language and the debate with American
pragmatism—or on the domestic transformations facing Western Euro-
pean societies in the post-war period (Diez & Stefans, 2005, p. 127).
Things began to change at a specific historical juncture, namely the end
of the Cold War and the beginning of the so-called unipolar moment in
international politics. In the context of an apparent waning of national
borders and traditional power politics, of wide-ranging economic restruc-
turing and expanding worldwide communications, of a victorious liberal
democratic order and an emerging regime of human rights protection,
that same realm of international politics which had previously appeared
impervious to change and devoid of emancipatory possibilities suddenly
20 D. SCHMID

looked to be open to new normative possibilities (Beardsworth, 2011;

Calhoun, 2002, p. 887). For Critical Theory, then, the 1990s marked the
beginning of an age of sustained and optimistic theoretical engagement
with international politics. In particular, two different clusters of crit-
ical scholarship emerged in this period that sought to apply some of the
themes and concepts derived from the Frankfurt School tradition to the
study of International Relations: the project of Cosmopolitan Democracy
and Critical International Relations Theory.

Cosmopolitan Democracy
A first Frankfurt School-inspired literature in International Relations
developed in the 1990s around the theory of Cosmopolitan Democ-
racy (CD). Promoted by scholars such as Ulrich Beck, David Held,
Mary Kaldor, Daniele Archibugi and Jürgen Habermas, the project of
CD emerged as part of a wider current in post-Cold War political
and social thought centred on the theme of globalisation. The core
idea behind the globalisation literature was that a profound transforma-
tion was taking place in international politics that was defined by the
worldwide integration of trade, finance, production and communication
and the intensification of social ties across national boundaries. These
various processes, captured by the term globalisation, were thought to
be producing a radical reorganisation of economy and society as well as
generating new types of competitive pressures and global threats, such
as mass migration, terrorism and ecological devastation. The combined
effect of these dynamics—theorists of globalisation suggested—was to
fundamentally undermine the power and autonomy of the nation-state
(Beck, 2006, p. 74).
The project of Cosmopolitan Democracy represented a theoretical
and political response to the scenario raised by globalisation theory
(Archibugi, 2002, p. 26; Habermas, 2001, pp. 107–109). Its core argu-
ment was that globalisation was making it both possible and necessary to
devise cosmopolitan forms of democratic organisation beyond the model
of the modern nation-state. The CD literature warned that globalisa-
tion was dramatically curtailing the ‘efficacy of state-based democracy’
and bore the risk, if left unchecked, of exacerbating global inequali-
ties (Archibugi, 2004, p. 439; Beck, 2000b, p. 90). The only way to
prevent the ‘withering away’ of political self-determination and preserve
the achievements of social democracy in the West, it warned, was for
 2 THE CRISIS OF CRITIQUE 21

democracy itself to evolve and be reorganised on a global scale (Held,

2003, p. 524). At the same time, the CD scholars argued that the less-
ening of geopolitical and ideological conflict, the undisputed victory of
liberal democracy and the spread of forms of ‘cosmopolitan everyday
consciousness’ all around the world were making it possible for the first
time in human history to imagine the creation of a universal community
governed by democratic procedures (Beck, 2000a, p. 38). The overall
aim of CD was to reconcile these considerations in the form of concrete
proposals for new and expanded democratic institutions. Its ‘rallying cry’
was that the only way to ‘democratise’ and ‘regulate’ globalisation is to
‘globalise democracy’ (Archibugi, 2002, p. 36; 2004).
As a whole, the project of Cosmopolitan Democracy configured itself
as an attempt to re-interpret the project of Critical Theory in the light
of what appeared at the time as the onset of an entirely novel historical
epoch. At its heart lie the belief that, as stated by Ulrich Beck (2000b,
p. 81), a ‘new kind of capitalism, a new kind of economy, a new kind
of global order, a new kind of politics and law, a new kind of society
and personal life are in the making which… are clearly distinct from
earlier phases of social evolution’. In a manner analogous to the Third
Way programme of Anthony Giddens, CD interpreted its role as that
of articulating a new political and intellectual programme that would
account for that changed reality and explore the new range of possibil-
ities it presented (Guibernau, 2001, pp. 438–440). Concretely, this took
the shape of a demotion of the traditional concerns of Critical Theory
with social theory and political economy in favour of a greater engage-
ment with normative and political theory (Archibugi, 2012, p. 9). Having
accepted the permanence of capitalism as a way of organising economic
relations and recognising liberal democracy as the normative horizon of
progressive politics, CD focused its energies on devising principles and
institutional designs through which the forces of globalisation could be
shaped and steered towards the attainment of a universal democratic
order. In particular, Cosmopolitan Democracy channelled a new form of
politics based on the notion that a nascent ‘global civil society’ would
embody the normative drive for cosmopolitan universalism and serve, in
Mary Kaldor’s (2003, p. 21) words, ‘as a check both on the power and
arbitrariness of the contemporary state and on the power of unbridled
capitalism’.
In practice, research in the CD literature straddled the line between
political theory, philosophy and IR, pursuing two distinct lines of inquiry.
22 D. SCHMID

First, CD scholarship sought to address the pressing question of how the

abstract demand for a new cosmopolitan world order could be trans-
lated into political practice. As part of that effort, a variety of different
proposal and blueprints were formulated—some more ambitious, others
more modest—for how the international system and its institutions could
be reformed to allow for democratic cosmopolitan accountability. David
Held (2003, 2010), for instance, favoured the model of a ‘cosmopolitan
social democracy’ that would entail significant controls over the capi-
talist economy enshrined in a ‘Charter of Rights and Obligations’, as
well as some measure of global wealth redistribution and a set of multi-
level democratic governance structures at the local, national, regional and
global level. Habermas (2009, 2012), as I will discuss in more detail in
Chapter 5, put forward a more limited proposal for reforming the existing
organisms of the United Nations and instituting a ‘transnational nego-
tiation system’ based on regional blocs on the model of the European
Union. Moreover, a number of debates ensued over the correct posi-
tion to take vis-à-vis humanitarian interventions and the implementation
of punitive measures by the international community against authori-
tarian regimes (see Archibugi, 2004; Habermas, 1999). Second, works
on CD concentrated on the philosophical task of formulating universal
norms that would be able to sustain and legitimate a new global political
order. Since all available theories of democracy had been formulated in
the context of the modern nation-state and were deemed to be inap-
plicable to a postnational order, efforts focused on articulating a new
vision of democracy that could effectively be scaled up to the global level
while maintaining a sensibility for sociocultural difference (Archibugi,
2004, p. 439). In this context, the work of Jürgen Habermas on the
philosophy of language and the universalising and integrative quality of
communicative interaction established itself as a popular normative frame-
work through which to interpret the challenges inherent to building
a cosmopolitan regime of governance. As Scheuerman (2006, p. 87)
comments, the idea soon became dominant in the CD literature that
a deliberative democratic model based on an informal and horizontal
‘global public sphere’ was best suited to provide ‘persuasive resolutions
of the normative and institutional quagmires of globalisation’.
In the end, the ambition of the advocates of Cosmopolitan Democracy
was that of constituting the progressive intellectual side of the epochal
transformations brought about by globalisation. The literature developed
from the onset as a project with a relatively narrow but immediately
 2 THE CRISIS OF CRITIQUE 23

contemporary focus: that of interrogating in philosophical and political-

theoretic terms what appeared at the time as a new phase of global politics
and, in Archibugi’s (2012, p. 9) words, attempting ‘to apply [to it] some
of the principles, values and procedures of democracy’. For this reason,
the link with the Frankfurt School tradition remained often unspoken
and limited to the selective reading and incorporation of elements of
Habermas’s philosophy of language. Although prominent figures such
as David Held were well versed in and explicitly inspired by the Frank-
furt School (Gagnon, 2011, p. 7; Johnson, 2006, p. 163), the project of
CD itself was never meant to constitute a comprehensive Critical Theory
of international politics and focused instead on the more specific goal
of devising a politically plausible and philosophically sustainable proposal
for a cosmopolitan world order. A significant exception to this is repre-
sented by the writings that Jürgen Habermas himself started producing
in the 1990s on the emerging cosmopolitan condition of global politics.
This body of work—which I will discuss in greater detail in Chapter 5—
integrated the political-theoretical reflections being developed by Held
and Archibugi with Habermas’s own social theory of modern society—
thus giving rise to the most sophisticated expression of the Cosmopolitan
Democracy project to date.

Critical International Relations Theory

A second strand of Frankfurt School-inspired scholarship emerged in the
academic field of IR Theory. Starting from the 1980s and reaching a
crescendo in the 1990s, scholars of international politics drew from the
Frankfurt School tradition to critique the prevailing theoretical practices
in the discipline of IR (Brincat, 2018). During that period, a widespread
feeling of dissatisfaction was growing in the discipline with regard to the
narrow forms of scholarship that were countenanced by then-dominant
Neorealist and Neoliberal schools of IR. In that context, authors like
Richard Ashley, Mark Hoffman, Mark Neufeld, Steve Smith and Andrew
Linklater adopted and deployed ideas and reflections from the Frank-
furt School to mount a novel challenge to the mainstream way of doing
research on international politics. The Critical IR scholars directed their
attention to the philosophical, epistemological and ontological assump-
tions that formed the shared and unspoken meta-theoretical bedrock for
the mainstream schools of thought in IR. Specifically, Hoffman (1988),
Neufeld (1994), Linklater (1992) and others pointed out that a majority
24 D. SCHMID

of IR scholarship still relied on an empiricist-positivist understandings of

science that in other fields of social research had long been the object
of sustained critique. Alongside other authors who drew from Poststruc-
turalist thought, these first Critical IR theorists ignited a debate in the
discipline over the meta-theoretical bases of IR scholarship, the possibility
of value-neutral research and the possibility of developing different forms
of theorising from those permitted under the positivist canon (Hoffman,
1991; Neufeld, 1994).
In the wealth of interventions and debates that followed, the idea
of a distinctive Critical IR Theory (CIRT) inspired by the Frankfurt
School tradition asserted itself as a clear reference point within the nascent
field of post-positivist approaches which also included Poststructuralist,
Constructivist, Postcolonial and Feminist theories of IR (Hoffman, 1991,
p. 169). Unlike the Cosmopolitan Democracy literature discussed above,
CIRT was mostly ‘inward looking, concerned primarily with under-
mining the foundations of dominant discourses of IR’ (Price & Reus,
1998, p. 263). During the 1990s, the emphasis started to shift from
the critique of mainstream IR theory to the definition of an alternative
approach to the study of international politics based on the principles
of the Frankfurt School. In particular, the Critical IR scholars sought
to clearly differentiate their own approach from the traditional schools
of IR thought they were critiquing, such as Neorealism and Neoliber-
alism, as well as from other emerging post-positivist theories, particularly
Poststructuralism and Constructivism. In this context, Critical IR Theory
came increasingly to rely for the specification of its normative grounding
on Habermas’s philosophy of language and ethics of discourse. CIRT’s
purpose was expressed as the widening of the ‘realm of social interaction
which is governed by universalisable moral principles’ and by the proce-
dural rules of discourse ethics (Linklater, 1998, p. 109). Its goal was the
establishment of a political order approximating as much as possible a
‘universal dialogic community’ of free and unconstrained communication
(Linklater, 1998, p. 120). Analogous to the project of CD, CIRT empha-
sised the two elements of dialogism and cosmopolitanism as the core
normative principles of its emancipatory outlook. First, as proclaimed by
Dietz and Stefans (2005, p. 135), the ‘distinctiveness of Critical Theory’
was seen to lie in ‘its desire to foster an inter-subjective “conversation”
aimed at mutual understanding and communication free from ideolog-
ical domination’ (Dietz & Stefans, 2005, p. 135; Weber, 2014, pp. 526,
527); second, the raison d’être of Critical IR Theory and its original
 2 THE CRISIS OF CRITIQUE 25

contribution to the wider project of Critical Theory were identified in

the overcoming of the methodological nationalism of Frankfurt School
critique and the expansion of its ‘remit… into a cosmopolitan dimension’
(Brincat, 2012, p. 234; see also Booth, 2007, p. 271; Linklater, 2007,
pp. 98–104).
Concretely, research in the Critical IR Theory literature developed
alongside three separate but complementary lines of investigation and
following three different conceptions of critique. A first form of Critical
IR scholarship consisted in the dissecting and undermining of tradi-
tional conceptions of international politics and ‘the prevailing hegemonic
security discourse’ (Wyn Jones, 1999, p. 160). Best represented by the
so-called Welsh or Aberystwyth School and associated with authors such
as Ken Booth, Richard Wyn Jones and Richard Jackson, this first form
of Critical IR research became prominent in the 2000s, as it picked up
the epistemological critique that had been levied against Realism and
extended it to the rapidly growing fields of security and terrorism studies.
In a context increasingly shaped by the US War on Terror, the Aberyst-
wyth School challenged conventional discourses that perpetuated ‘statist,
militarised and masculinised definitions of what should have priority in
security terms’ and sought foreground instead the perspective of the
powerless and the pursuit of emancipatory rather than repressive ends
(Booth, 2005, p. 13; 2007, p. 111). Concretely, this translated in a
sustained effort to reclaim the discourse of security by re-signifying it as
‘the other side of the coin to’ and ‘a process of’ emancipation (Booth,
1991, p. 324; 2007, p. 114). The underlying rationale was that, by
substituting a narrow and militaristic understanding of security with one
associated with self-determination and freedom from oppression, Critical
Theory could disrupt the operations of repressive security discourses and
promote alternative meanings more conducive to emancipatory ends.
A second mode of Critical IR scholarship operated at the intersec-
tion of IR and political theory with the intent of developing alternative,
normative visions of postnational citizenship and cosmopolitan commu-
nity. The most notable example of this mode of critical theorising is
Andrew Linklater’s work in the 1980s and 1990s in international political
theory. Animating Linklater’s early writings was a concern with specifying
a set of normative parameters by which to judge the evolution of the
international state system and thus determine the grounds for further
moral development in inter-societal relations. In his own words, the aim
26 D. SCHMID

was to find out ‘what it is that each member of mankind might reason-
ably claim from other men, and how their respective rights and duties
are to be expressed in the structure of international society’ (Linklater,
1982, p. 9). Later, the emphasis shifted towards the task of formulating
a model of cosmopolitan community that would foster universal moral
understanding while at the same time remaining sensitive to difference
(Linklater, 1990, p. 140; 1998, p. 74). In light of concerns about the
potential for domination inherent in ‘strong’ universalist claims, he advo-
cated a model of ‘soft’ or ‘thin’ cosmopolitanism based on the procedural
rules of discourse ethics (Linklater, 1998, pp. 47–48, 92). Later, Linklater
occupied himself with the question of transnational harm and with the
formulation of a ‘global harm principle’ that could form the minimal
basis for a new cosmopolitan ethics (Linklater, 2002, 2007). Analogous
to the philosophical works in the Cosmopolitan Democracy literature, the
main concern of this mode of critical theorising was to formulate norma-
tive principles and visions of moral historical evolution which could then
serve as regulative ideals around which to mobilise politically and design
concrete proposals for a post-Westphalian order.
Lastly, a third type of Critical IR research consisted in the application
of immanent critique to the study of the institutions, norms and princi-
ples of international politics. Invoked by almost all authors of CIRT (see
for instance Booth, 2005, p. 11; 2007, p. 43; Brincat, 2012, p. 223;
Linklater, 1998, p. 164; 2005, p. 146), critical research as immanent
critique consisted in the study of the reality of international politics on
the basis of the potentials and opportunities it contained for normative
development. The intent of CIRT in this last mode, then, was to locate
directly within existing social arrangements the ‘promise of a better world’
in the form of cultural and political resources which could be capitalised
on to engender change (Wyn Jones, 1999, p. 56). Ken Booth (2005,
p. 11; 2007, p. 180) spoke in this instance of the ‘unfulfilled potential
already existing within society’ that finds expression in the daily work and
cosmopolitan sensibilities of NGOs and social movements and individ-
uals around the world. Linklater (1997, p. 336; 1998, p. 6; 2007, p. 81)
similarly pointed to the ‘moral capital’ that was deposited in the modern
ideas of freedom and equality and citizenship as a resource that could be
harnessed to ‘bridge “is” and “ought”’ and bring about new forms of
postnational political community. The best example of this third mode
of Critical IR scholarship is Linklater’s later historical and sociological
 2 THE CRISIS OF CRITIQUE 27

work to trace the ‘civilisation’ of inter-societal relations across various state

systems and thereby identify the normative processes that point towards a
further moralisation of the conduct of international politics (see Linklater,
2011a, 2016, 2021).

Standstill
Cosmopolitan Democracy and Critical IR Theory represent two different
ways of articulating a critical theoretical intervention in international poli-
tics that was inspired by Habermasian Frankfurt School theory. Today,
however, both strands of Frankfurt School-inspired research in IR are in
a phase of stagnation and crisis. Given their different origin, structure
and scope of intervention, the exact character of that crisis is somewhat
distinct for each of the two projects. For Cosmopolitan Democracy, the
main difficulty resides in the diminishing relevance of the literature’s core
argument to contemporary public and academic debates, in the context of
a changed global political context. For Critical IR Theory, the main issues
are the exhaustion of the anti-positivist critique of ‘mainstream’ scholar-
ship, the failure to develop a successful agenda of substantive research
and the difficulty in responding to the growing calls in the discipline
for greater engagements with the role of colonialism and race in global
politics.

The Rise and Fall of Cosmopolitan Democracy

The literature on Cosmopolitan Democracy reached its peak in vitality
and influence between the second half of the 1990s and the early 2000s,
when its most prominent contributions were published (see Archibugi &
Held, 1995; Habermas, 2001; Held, 2003). Given its topical character—
because, in other words, its purpose was to provide ‘progressive’ answers
to the new reality of post-Cold War global politics—the relevance of
CD was heavily dependent on the plausibility of its political assumptions
and on its ability to speak to some of the most pressing global debates
of the time. Concretely, the viability of the project of Cosmopolitan
Democracy was bound up with the permanence of the social, cultural
and political conditions on which its diagnosis of the necessity and possi-
bility of a postnational order was based. These conditions were the
decline of ideological conflict and the global acceptance of liberal democ-
racy, the weakening of national identities to the benefit of cosmopolitan
28 D. SCHMID

consciousness and birth of a ‘global civil society’, the expansion of global

governance regimes, and the relative stability of global capitalism. As long
as the dominant frame through which to understand global develop-
ments was that of globalisation and global political questions could be
presented as conflicts between the old nation-state logics and a bour-
geoning cosmopolitan order, debates on CD prospered. When those
conditions changed, however, the fortunes of CD turned.
As early as the beginning of the 2000s, sympathetic critics such as Craig
Calhoun (2002) started observing that the post-9/11 mood of world
politics and the growth of global resentment to neoliberal economic poli-
cies imposed a drastic rethink of the ‘overoptimistic’ and ‘free-floating’
message of the original, 1990s cosmopolitanism. In particular, Calhoun
(2002, p. 891) and others pointed to the laying bare of two problem-
atic elements of CD: the blindness towards economic and distributive
questions and consequent failure to separate itself from and critique the
‘cosmopolitanism of capital’; and the inability to fully examine its own
Eurocentric and elitist standpoint and acknowledge the existence of global
power dynamics. With regard to the former, critical theorists such as Seyla
Benhabib (2006, pp. 176–177) observed that by the mid-2000s it was
clear that ‘the transcendence of the nation-state [was] occurring hardly in
the direction of cosmopolitanism but more in the direction of the privati-
sation and corporatisation of sovereignty’. Since CD did not include an
analysis of political economy and relied solely on the objection to nation-
based politics, it was failing to provide any substantive critique or appraisal
of the global dynamics of neoliberal capitalism and their effects on local
communities (Patomäki, 2007, p. 315). As to the latter, CD came under
increased scrutiny from scholars like David Chandler (2004, 2007) for
its reliance on an overly idealistic notion of ‘global civil society’ and
sidestepping of questions of power and inter-state politics. Because of
these shortcomings, it was noted, CD advocates were finding it difficult to
move beyond the abstract enunciation of their normative aspiration and
specify the actual social forces, institutional actors and collective identities
which would support and realise their political programme (Roper, 2011,
p. 265). These intrinsic limitations in the Cosmopolitan Democracy liter-
ature became especially evident as the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and
the end of the United States’ uncontested ‘unipolar moment’ placed ques-
tions of international political economy, geopolitics and global inequality
back at the top of the global agenda. As commented by Darrow Schecter
(2013, pp. 3–4), ‘the ongoing economic crises that have intensified since
 2 THE CRISIS OF CRITIQUE 29

2008 suggest that a number of the phenomena first diagnosed by Marx…

and subsequently taken up by the [early] Frankfurt School… are far from
being resolved or outdated’. Ultimately, the characteristics of the project
of CD and its tendency to substitute ‘ethics for politics’ in the discussion
of international affairs (Calhoun, 2002, p. 891) translated, in an age of
increased political and economic turmoil, into a loss of relevance of its
political and theoretical contribution.
Meanwhile, the wider sociology of globalisation on which CD based
much of its analysis was itself coming under heavy scrutiny. Critics such
as Justin Rosenberg pointed out that the grand pronunciations of global-
isation theory—declaring the onset of a ‘second age of modernity’ and
a new conditio umana characterised by global interconnectedness and
a cosmopolitan consciousness (Beck, 2000b)—were losing the ‘enor-
mous suggestive power’ they once held as the ‘dominant intellectual
and cultural motif of the 1990s’ (Rosenberg, 2005, p. 3). It was grad-
ually becoming evident that the phenomena that the globalisation and
cosmopolitan theorists had hailed as the harbingers of a new age of post-
national politics could more accurately be understood as the products of a
highly specific world-historical conjuncture which was, by the mid-2000s,
rapidly dissolving (Lacher, 2006, pp. 2–3). Deprived of its coincidence
with the globalisation Zeitgeist of the 1990s and struggling to disso-
ciate itself from the real cosmopolitanism of neoliberal capitalism, the
project of CD was soon reduced to what Calhoun warned in 2002 it
could become: the mere liberal wish and Western ideology of the ‘fre-
quent traveller, easily entering and existing polities and social relations
around the world, armed with visa-friendly passports and credit cards’
(Calhoun, 2002, p. 872).

The Slow Decline of Critical IR Theory

For Critical IR Theory, it has been apparent since the early-2010s that
research engaging with international politics from a Frankfurt School
perspective is rapidly losing relevance and vitality. This turn is linked to a
broader set of developments which have been taking shape in IR, relating
both to the discipline’s changing trends and priorities and to the emer-
gence of new radical voices and interventions extending the critique of the
established literature to the previously under-explored areas of colonialism
and race.
30 D. SCHMID

To begin with, there has been in recent years a growing sense of

fatigue among IR scholars towards the kind of meta-theoretic and higher-
order debate which characterised CIRT’s main mode of intervention in
the 1980s and 1990s. This development is driven by the waning of the
‘intense theoretical debates’ that defined the discipline in previous decades
as well as by the exhaustion of the post-positivist challenge mounted
by critical scholars against traditional IR (Reus-Smit, 2012, p. 532).
The discipline of IR is now widely seen to have absorbed the insur-
gent challenges of Critical, Poststructuralist and Feminist theory into the
mainstream, through greater institutional recognition, access to top jour-
nals and increased hiring (Conway, 2021b, p. 217). This has coincided,
as Cynthia Weber (2015, p. 43) observed, with the progressive ‘gen-
trification’ of critical approaches in IR, whereby their ‘hard, troubling,
political edges… were substituted with the softer, more soothing critiques
of Disciplinary IR that left most critical politics behind’. As part of this
process, as Phillip Conway (2021a, p. 341) recently commented, the label
‘critical’ in IR scholarship has also become ‘increasingly capacious’, to the
point of becoming ‘almost meaningless’ (see also Michelsen, 2021).
For Critical IR Theory, this new climate in the discipline of IR presents
several dilemmas and challenges. On the one hand, the seeming ubiq-
uity of ‘criticality’ in IR today is a sign of the success that CIRT and
the wider post-positivist movement have had in challenging the previous
hegemony of positivist research. Many of the positions initially champi-
oned by CIRT—such as the notion of the socially constructed character
of reality—are now widely accepted if not dominant in the discipline, at
least as far as British and European IR is concerned (Jahn, 2021). What
is more, there is today a greater understanding of and engagement with
questions of epistemology and ontology than there was before the 1990s,
the discipline having generally gained in philosophical and theoretical
literacy and in the awareness of its own assumptions. In this sense, the
goals that pioneering Critical IR theorists such as Linklater and Hoffman
set for themselves in terms of broadening and deepening the meta-
theoretical conversation in the discipline have certainly been met. On the
other hand, Critical IR Theory has become a victim of its own success and
is increasingly deprived of its original purpose and reason to exist. In the
context of a now firmly established, as opposed to marginal and insurgent,
field of critical scholarship, CIRT is struggling to find a new purpose for
itself and has fossilised into a new ‘critical canon’ (Andrews, 2022). What
amplifies this challenge is the long-standing difficulty on CIRT’s part to
 2 THE CRISIS OF CRITIQUE 31

develop an active research agenda for critical scholarship on international

politics (Kurki, 2011, p. 130). Except for the work of Andrew Linklater,
there are few examples of CIRT having been successful in moving beyond
the stage of issuing programmatic statements and generate a body of
active research. In the case of Linklater, which I will assess in more detail
in Chapter 6, the move towards substantive research coincided with the
dilution of the influence of the Frankfurt School and the shift towards
‘non-critical’ historical and sociological studies of international politics
(see Linklater, 2011b, 2016, 2021). Otherwise, where research in the
Frankfurt School tradition is still ongoing in IR, it consists mainly in
methodological reflections over the tools and procedures of critical anal-
ysis (see Brincat, 2009, 2010, 2014, 2016; Devetak, 2018; Weber, 2014).
This points to a Critical IR Theory which, as observed by Milja Kurki
(2011, pp. 136–137), is ‘becoming increasingly fragmented’ and aimless,
the ‘original aims of critical theorising, which called for holistic forms of
theoretical inquiry that merged normative, explanatory and praxeological
inquiries… now increasingly dissipating’.
The other overarching development which has contributed to the
fading of CIRT is what Conway (2021a, p. 362) refers to as ‘perhaps
the outstanding phenomenon of the past 20 years, as regards crit-
ical IR’, namely ‘the belated professional establishment of postcolonial,
decolonial, and race-critical scholarship’. Associated with authors such
as Naeem Inayatullah (2004), Siba Grovogui (2006), Mustapha Kamal
Pasha (2017), Robbie Shilliam (2021) and Meera Sabaratnam (2020),
research on colonialism, coloniality and race has emerged in the past two
decades as the most vibrant and promising area of contemporary critical
scholarship in IR. Its aim has generally been twofold. First, Postcolo-
nial, Decolonial and Race Critical interventions have sought to reveal
the discipline’s historical implication with colonial administration and the
global institutions of white supremacy in the nineteenth and early twen-
tieth century (see Carvalho et al., 2011; Henderson, 2013; Vitalis, 2000)
as well as challenge what Krishna (2001, p. 401) called IR’s subsequent
‘politics of forgetting’ and ‘wilful amnesia, on the question of race’ and
colonialism. This critique, crucially, has not been directly solely at tradi-
tional approaches to IR, such as Neorealism and Neoliberalism, but has
also taken to task critical strands such as Poststructuralism and Frankfurt
School Critical Theory for their reproduction of a Eurocentric and white
perspective on international politics and for their prolonged failure to
engage with the enduring legacies of colonial power and racial supremacy
32 D. SCHMID

in the contemporary global order (see Fonseca, 2019; Hobson, 2022;

Hobson & Sajed, 2017; Sabaratnam, 2020). Second, new critical inter-
ventions in IR have generated a rich body of research into the historical
legacies of colonialism, into the racial and imperial logics of global capi-
talism, as well as into the politics of decolonisation of both academic
knowledge production and the material structures of the contempo-
rary world (see Acharya, 2022; Anievas & Nişancıoğlu, 2015; Capan,
2017).1 From the perspective of CIRT, the rise of Postcolonial, Decolo-
nial and Race Critical scholarship has exposed a series of blind spots and
hypocrisies in the Frankfurt School claim to theorising ‘for the voice-
less, the unrepresented, the powerless’ (Wyn Jones, 1999, p. 159) and
to practising a radical form of reflexivity over its own standpoint. Most
immediately, it raises the question—so far unanswered—of how CIRT
can move beyond the role of what Hobson and Sajed (2017) have termed
‘critical Eurocentrism’, overcome its blind spots and contribute produc-
tively to the discipline’s new conversations and priorities. Beyond that,
it poses the question of whether CIRT’s contribution to a critique of
IR might not be depleted and whether the tradition has the capacity
to reinvent and make itself relevant again to contemporary debates in
critical international thought. As Conway (2021b, p. 217) notes, the
evidence so far shows a Critical IR Theory that is increasingly defensive,
inward-looking and self-referential, ultimately suggesting ‘not a position
of disciplinary confidence but one of growing isolation’.

The Crisis of Critique of Frankfurt School Theory

Interestingly, concerns about the state of Frankfurt School theorising
such as the ones discussed above are not unique to the discipline of
IR. In fact, a growing number of contributions in political philosophy,
sociology and social theory have in recent years raised similar questions
about the continued ability of Frankfurt School theory to articulate an
effective critique of contemporary politics. There is a widespread sense
that CT is in some way ‘out of phase’ with the present world-historical
conjuncture of economic crisis and political disintegration—a feeling that

1 Like the idea of criticality before it, decolonisation is now also in the process of being
‘gentrified’—at once embraced into the mainstream, over-extended in its application and
sanitised in its scope and political aims (Conway, 2021b, pp. 219–220). For further
discussion on this, see Dar et al. (2018) and Fonseca (2019).
 2 THE CRISIS OF CRITIQUE 33

is well captured in Nancy Fraser’s (2014, p. 56) caution that ‘we are
living through a capitalist crisis of great severity without a critical theory
that could adequately clarify it’. In this section, I provide an overview of
recent interventions in the fields of philosophy and social theory on the
state of Frankfurt School theory and highlight the resonance with many
of the observations made about Cosmopolitan Democracy and Critical
IR Theory. In particular, I focus on five critical issues that have been
raised by scholars such as Nancy Fraser (2009, 2014), Albena Azmanova
(2014), Nicolas Kompridis (2006, 2011), Rocío Zambrana (2013) and
Amy Allen (2008, 2016) with regard to the prevailing form of Frankfurt
School critique. These issues are that: first, CT has become too focused
on ideal theory to the detriment of social theory; second, it has thereby
lost the capacity to develop a critique of capitalism; third, it has failed to
recognise its own racial and colonial amnesia and decolonise its perspec-
tive and politics; fourth, it has become too specialised and fragmented;
and finally, its vision of emancipation has consequent been reduced to
little more than an expression of a pacified liberal politics.
With regard to the first point, a number of critical scholars are
bemoaning what Michael Thompson (2014) has termed the ‘neo-idealist’
character of much of contemporary Frankfurt School research. Albena
Azmanova (2014, p. 357), for instance, speaks of an ‘overdose of Ideal
theory’ having been ‘infused… into social critique’. What these state-
ments refer to is a sense in which Critical Theory operates today in a
way that is more akin to political philosophy and ideal theory than to the
practical, social critique which supposedly constitutes its ultimate purpose
(Vogelmann, 2021). As Thompson comments, much of critical schol-
arship today expresses itself only in the abstract terms of ‘the structure
of language, forms of justification or… mutual recognition’ (Thompson,
2014, pp. 780–781). This rarefied mode of scholarship, which many
authors see as dominating contemporary CT, is often tied to the influence
of Jürgen Habermas on the Frankfurt School tradition. Rocío Zambrana
(2013), for instance, has traced the ‘neo-idealist’ character of contem-
porary critical scholarship back to the influence of Habermas’s work on
the philosophy of language and the ethics of discourse on the develop-
ment of the Frankfurt School from the 1970s onwards. For Zambrana
(2013, p. 95), CT today is overwhelmingly defined by the ‘the reduc-
tion of a critique of political economy and the accompanying cultural
critique distinctive of the first generation to normative critique, a reduc-
tion accomplished by Habermas’ theory of communicative action and
34 D. SCHMID

its accompanying discourse ethics’. As Amy Allen (2016, p. xv) has

commented, this predilection for normative over social critique is shared
not only by Habermasian critical scholars but also by the authors of
the so-called third generation Frankfurt School, such as Axel Honneth
and Rainer Forst. Both scholars have dedicated much of their work
to the question of Critical Theory’s normative grounding, finding the
answer either in a ‘foundationalist conception of practical reason’—for
the former—or in the reconstruction of a process of ‘historical progress
and sociocultural learning’—for the latter (Allen, 2016, p. xv).
This ideal-theoretical tendency of much of contemporary critical schol-
arship is often linked to a second issue, namely the deterioration of CT’s
capacity for and interest in the critique of political economy. Azmanova
(2014, p. 352) has commented in this regard that Critical Theory ‘stands
guilty of a failure to develop a body of valiant critique of the political
economy of neoliberal capitalism in the course of the latter’s ascent in the
1980s and 1990s’. Fleur Jaeggi has similarly commented that ‘sometime
in the mid-to late 1980s, [capitalism] pretty much dropped out of the
picture’ of Frankfurt School critique (Fraser & Jaeggi, 2018, p. 4). This
raises two problems analogous to the ones discussed for Cosmopolitan
Democracy. To begin with, the move away from the critique of political
economy means that Critical Theory has lost the capacity to articulate
informed interventions on a whole range of matters relating to economic
and social crises, exploitation and dispossession as well as redistribution
and inequality. It also means that CT remains unaware of the ways in
which its own political demands and normative perspective are imbricated
in and mediated by the world of capital. In the words of Zambrana (2013,
p. 116), ‘Critical theory remains critical today if it thematises the stric-
tures imposed by the reciprocal determination of critique and neoliberal
capitalism in light of the latter’s logic of normative ambivalence. Critical-
theoretic practices must think through the mediation of the normativity
of critique and its neoliberal double’. When it fails to do so, as Nancy
Fraser has shown with regard to previous emancipatory critiques (see
Fraser, 2009), Critical Theory risks having its normative principles and
agenda co-opted and re-signified into ideological ingredients that serve
to reproduce and reorganise existing orders of domination.
A third issue echoes the critiques of Critical IR Theory raised by Post-
colonial, Decolonial and Race Critical interventions in IR and refers to
what Edward Said (1993, p. 336) had already detected in the 1990s as
the Frankfurt School’s ‘[stunning silence] on racist theory, anti-imperialist
 2 THE CRISIS OF CRITIQUE 35

resistance, and oppositional practice in the empire’ and to what Enrique

Dussel (1993, p. 65) referred to as CT’s ‘Eurocentric fallacy’. As I discuss
in the next chapter, these failings characterise, in different ways, the entire
history of Frankfurt School thought (Bartholomew, 2018; Baum, 2015).
Much of the contemporary conversation, however, has focused on the
ways in which second and third generation Critical Theory has, in the
words of Ingram (2018, p. 503), come to ‘rest on a Eurocentric narra-
tive of superior Western insight’ and has tended ‘to present Western
development as internally generated, eliding West’s deep and profoundly
asymmetrical relations with the rest of the world’. As Amy Allen (2016,
pp. 49, 72) has commented, the problem is particularly acute for Haber-
masian Critical Theory, which ‘remains committed to a progressive view
of history’ according to which ‘European modernity can and should be
understood as the result of a process of progressive historical develop-
ment’. This not only confines Critical Theory to a partial view of the
world, centred solely on the European experience. It also leads it to disre-
gard what Bhambra (2021, pp. 75, 79–80) calls the ‘colonial constitution
of modernity’ and the direct implication of Western ideas of Progress in
the histories of ‘colonial extraction, settler colonialism and the European
trade in human beings’ as well as in the ‘modes of neocolonialism in
the present… in the form of land grabs, the appropriation of mineral
wealth, the denial of recourse to public funds on the part of refugees
and migrants, or new justifications for unfree labor in the management of
global inequality’.
A fourth observation being made on the contemporary state of
Frankfurt School research bears direct parallels to Milja Kurki’s (2011)
comments on the overspecialisation and fragmentation of critical scholar-
ship in IR. Nancy Fraser notes in this regard that:

At present… that ambitious totalising project [of classical Critical Theory]

has been abandoned by most of the [contemporary] critical theorists in
favour of a more modest disciplinary division of labour…. Most of our
colleagues are doing free-standing moral philosophy or political theory or
legal theory, as if it were possible to think about such matters in isola-
tion from contemporary capitalism and culture. As I see it, many so-called
Critical Theorists have unwittingly capitulated to the forms of professional
specialisation that organise bourgeois academia. (Fraser, 2008)
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 Zwölftes Kapitel.
Während meines zweitägigen Aufenthaltes in Aleppo wurde jeder
Moment meiner Muße benutzt, um Maultiertreiber auszuwechseln,
eine zwar störende, aber durchaus unerläßliche Beschäftigung. In
Antiochien hörte die Arabisch sprechende Bevölkerung auf. Habīb
und sein Vater konnten kein Wort Türkisch, Michaïl nur einige
Namen, wie Ei, Milch und Piaster, und mir, die ich kaum weiter
vorgeschritten war, widerstrebte es, mit einem Gefolge in Gegenden
einzudringen, wo wir höchstens nach den dringendsten Bedürfnissen
oder nach dem nächsten Wege fragen konnten. Man hatte mir viel
von den großen Fähigkeiten der nordsyrischen Maultiertreiber
erzählt; der Titel Maultiertreiber ist allen Ernstes eine Namensirrung,
denn das Lasttier ist in diesen Strichen nur ein armseliger Klepper
(kadīsch sagt man auf Arabisch); von Alexandretta bis Konia sahen
wir wohl überhaupt kein Maultier, ganz sicher aber keine Karawane.
Man hatte mir gesagt, daß ich bis zur Reorganisation meiner
Begleitung auf Behaglichkeit, Pünktlichkeit und Ordnung würde
verzichten müssen, nie ohne Verdruß und das Gefühl der
Verantwortlichkeit sein würde, und daß ich ja, wenn ich wünschte,
meine Karawane in Konia auflösen könnte. Für die Männer aus
Aleppo würde sich schon eine Ladung zum Heimweg finden. So
verabschiedete ich mich von meinen Beirutern — und vom Frieden.
Von nun an ging die Reise unter einem Erpressungssystem vor
sich. Der Erpresser war ein zahnloser alter Lump, Fāris mit Namen,
der mit seinem Bruder eine beträchtliche Zahl Lasttiere in Aleppo
besaß. Dank seiner Zahnlosigkeit war sein Arabisch und Türkisch in
gleicher Weise unverständlich. Er versah mich mit vier Lastpferden
und ritt selbst auf einem fünften zu seiner eignen Bequemlichkeit
und auf eigne Kosten, machte aber doch den vergeblichen Versuch,
mich dafür zahlen zu lassen, als wir Konia erreichten. So mietete er
auch um einen Hungerlohn zwei Burschen zur sämtlichen Arbeit im
Lager und auf dem Marsche, und ließ sie fast verhungern. Die
Ärmsten gingen barfuß (die vermögenden Leute aus dem Libanon
hatten sich mit Eseln versehen), denn obgleich Fāris sich verbindlich
gemacht hatte, ihnen Schuhe zu liefern, weigerte er sich, bis ich
endlich mit der Drohung einschritt, ihm das Geld für die Schuhe an
seinem Lohne abzuziehen und sie selbst zu kaufen. Ich mußte mich
sogar um den Proviant bekümmern und darauf achten, daß die
Burschen genug zu essen bekamen, um arbeitsfähig zu bleiben,
aber trotz aller Mühe liefen die gemieteten Leute auf jeder Station
davon, und mir lag die Sorge ob, andre ausfindig zu machen und,
was noch schlimmer war, das neue Paar in seine Pflichten
einzuweihen — wo die Zeltpflöcke zu befestigen waren, wie die
Lasten verteilt werden mußten, und noch hundert kleine, aber
immerhin wichtige Dinge mehr. Dann galt es, Fāris anzuspornen, der
sich mit stets wachsenden Entschuldigungen von seiner Arbeit zu
drücken suchte, und hätte ich nicht früh und spät das Füttern der
Pferde überwacht, sie wären sicher mit ebenso knapper Not dem
Hungertode entgangen, wie die gemieteten Burschen. Als wir
endlich in Konia angelangt waren, mußte ich erfahren, daß Fāris die
letzten seiner Sklaven auf die Straße gesetzt und sich ganz
entschieden geweigert hatte, sie bis in ihre Heimat Adana
mitzunehmen, weil er — so hatte er sich hinter meinem Rücken
geäußert — »billigere Leute bekommen könnte«. Da es mir
widerstrebte, zwei Leute, die bei aller Dummheit ihr Bestes getan
hatten, um mir zu dienen, im Stich zu lassen, mußte ich sie
unterstützen, damit sie ihr Heim wieder erreichten. Kurz und gut: ich
möchte behaupten, daß niemand, der die Maultiertreiber Aleppos
und ihr abscheuliches System empfiehlt, je eine wohlorganisierte
und gut geleitete Karawane besessen haben kann, wo die Arbeit mit
der Regelmäßigkeit des Big Ben getan wird, und die Männer heitere
Mienen und willige Hände zeigen. Sie können auch keine Erfahrung
in wirklich geschäftsmäßigem Reisen haben, denn das läßt sich nur
mit Dienern ermöglichen, die Mut in Gefahren und
Unternehmungslust offenbaren, und die sich zu helfen wissen. Ich
gebe zu, daß ich nur geringe Erfahrung besitze und — im Vertrauen
sei es gesagt — sie wird auch nicht zunehmen, denn eher würde ich
Maultiertreiber aus Bagdad mitbringen, als Fāris und seinesgleichen
ein zweites Mal mieten.
 Gerade als die Schwierigkeiten der Reise sich mehrten,
versagten Michaïls Tugenden. Die zwei Tage, wo er auf die
Gesundheit seiner davonziehenden Kameraden trank, mit denen er
— wie sich's den Gliedern einer guten Karawane geziemt — sich
vortrefflich gestanden, genügten, um den Segen seiner
zweimonatigen Nüchternheit wieder zu vernichten. Von den Tagen
an bauchte die Arrakflasche seine Satteltaschen aus, und wenn
auch auf Arrakflaschen in Satteltaschen gefahndet und sie am
Gestein zerschmettert werden können, so vermochte doch keinerlei
Wachsamkeit, Michaïl den Weinläden fernzuhalten, sobald wir in
eine Stadt kamen. Das Mißgeschick gibt uns manche Lehre, mit
gemischten Gefühlen blicke ich auf die vier ungemütlichen Wochen
zurück, die zwischen unsrer Abreise von Aleppo und der Zeit lagen,
wo die Vorsehung mir einen anderen und besseren Mann bescherte,
und ich mein Herz verhärtete und Michaïl entließ, aber ich bedaure
das Lehrgeld nicht, welches ich zahlen mußte.
Von Hadji Mahmūd, dessen Vertrag in Aleppo zu Ende war,
verabschiedete ich mich nur ungern. Der Vāli versah mich mit einem
Zaptieh, dem Kurden Hadji Nadjīb, der, obwohl von unvorteilhaftem
Äußeren, sich doch als ein gefälliger und auch nützlicher Mann
erwies, denn er war mit den Gegenden, die wir durchreisten, und
auch mit den Bewohnern wohlbekannt. Unser Aufbruch verzögerte
sich: Michaïl war voll Arrak, und die Maultiertreiber ungeschickt im
Aufladen. Der Tag (wir hatten den 30. März) war wolkenlos, und zum
erstenmal machte sich die Sonne unangenehm fühlbar. Schon als
wir um 10 Uhr auszogen, brannte sie glühendheiß, und den ganzen
Tag lang winkte auf dem ganzen öden Weg keine Spur von
Schatten. Nachdem wir etwa eine Meile auf der Straße von
Alexandretta geritten und an einem von etlichen Bäumen
umstandenen Kaffeehaus vorübergekommen waren, schlugen wir
zur Linken einen Pfad ein, der in kahles, felsiges Hügelland führte
und selbst bald ebenso felsig wurde. Wir hielten uns östlich mit einer
Neigung nach Norden zu. ½12 hielten wir inne, um zu frühstücken,
und warteten eine volle Stunde auf unser Gepäck, was mir Zeit gab,
Vergleiche zwischen der Marschschnelligkeit meiner alten und der
neuen Dienerschaft anzustellen und der Sonnenglut innezuwerden,
die während des Reitens weniger fühlbar gewesen. Als wir nach
einem weiteren halbstündigen Ritt auf eine Hütte, Jakit 'Ades,
stießen, schlug Nadjīb vor, da zu lagern, aber ich fand es noch zu
früh, und nachdem wir Fāris genaue Weisungen über den Pfad, den
er verfolgen, und den Ort, wo wir lagern würden, erteilt hatten,
machte ich mich mit dem Zaptieh auf den Weg, und gemächlich
weitertrabend, waren wir bald außer Sehweite der übrigen.
Auf der Sohle eines kahlen, gewundenen Tales dahinziehend,
kamen wir an mehreren Stellen vorbei, die zwar auf der Karte
eingezeichnet, in Wirklichkeit aber nichts als winzig kleine
Trümmerhaufen waren. Gegen 4 Uhr erstiegen wir den Nordabhang
des Tales und erreichten einen Weiler, der Kiepert unbekannt war,
und den mir Nadjīb als das Dorf Kbeschīn bezeichnete. Hier fanden
wir inmitten einiger alter Mauern und vieler moderner Schutthaufen
ein kurdisches Lager, eine jener Frühlingsniederlassungen, wie sie
nomadische Völkerschaften mit ihren Herden zur Zeit des jungen
Grases zu beziehen pflegen. Die Zeltwände, wenn der Name Zelt
überhaupt anwendbar ist, bestanden aus rohen Steinen, die flüchtig
zu einer Höhe von ca. fünf Fuß übereinandergesetzt waren, die
Dächer aber bestanden aus Ziegenhaarstoff und wurden in der Mitte
durch Zeltstangen gestützt. Bald drängten sich die kurdischen Hirten
um uns und unterhielten sich mit Nadjīb in ihrer eignen Sprache, die
mir vertraute Klänge aufwies, denn sie ähnelt der persischen. Sie
sprachen auch Arabisch, ein seltsames Kauderwelsch voll türkischer
Worte. Wir saßen eine Weile auf den Schutthaufen in Erwartung
unsrer Lasttiere, bis mir endlich, trotz Nadjībs beruhigender Worte,
klar wurde, daß die Sache einen Haken haben mußte, und wir
wahrscheinlich in alle Ewigkeit hier warten konnten. Da kam der
Kurdenscheich mit der Nachricht, daß es Essenszeit sei, und lud uns
ein, an dem Mahle teilzunehmen. Der Vorschlag fand freudiges
Entgegenkommen, denn es ist einer der Vorteile des Lebens im
Freien bei schmaler Kost, daß es keinen Augenblick des Tages gibt,
der uns nicht voll Eifer findet zu essen.
 Kal'at Sim'ān.

Der Kurde erfreut sich in den Reiseberichten keines guten

Namens. Er wird als mürrisch und streitsüchtig geschildert, ich für
mein Teil aber habe an ihm fast alle die Eigenschaften gefunden, die
angenehmen geselligen Verkehr ermöglichen. Wir wurden in das
größte der Gebäude geleitet; es war hell und kühl, luftig und sauber,
da seine Bauart ihm die Vorteile des Zeltes sowohl als auch des
Hauses verlieh. Die Mahlzeit bestand aus Brot, saurem Quark und
vorzüglichem Pillaf, in dem zerquetschter Weizen den Reis ersetzte.
Wir saßen auf Teppichstücken um eine Matte herum, auf welcher die
Gerichte aufgetragen waren. Die Frauen bedienten uns. Ehe wir
fertig wurden, war es 6 Uhr, aber keine Karawane ließ sich blicken.
Nadjīb war sehr betroffen, unsre Wirte zeigten große Anteilnahme
und erklärten sich von Herzen gern bereit, uns über Nacht zu
beherbergen. Unserm Zögern wurde durch einen kleinen Knaben ein
Ende gemacht, der mit der Kunde hereingestürmt kam, daß bei dem
Dorfe Fāfertīn, auf der entgegengesetzten Seite des Tales, eine
Karawane gesehen worden war, die auf Kal'at Sim'ān, das nächste
Ziel unsrer Reise, zusteuerte. Nun gab es keine Zeit zu verlieren; die
Sonne war bereits untergegangen, lebhaft erinnerte ich mich der
nächtlichen Wanderung bei El Bārah durch eine Gegend, die der
jetzt vor uns liegenden nicht unähnlich war. Vor unserm Aufbruch
aber nahm ich Nadjīb beiseite und fragte ihn, ob ich den Leuten wohl
Geld für die uns gebotene Mahlzeit geben dürfte. Er versicherte, daß
das keinesfalls angängig sei: die Kurden erwarteten keine
Bezahlung von ihren Gästen. Ich konnte weiter nichts tun, als die
Kinder um mich versammeln und eine Handvoll Metalliks unter sie
verteilen, eine sehr wohlfeile Großmut, die auch das empfindlichste
Gemüt nicht verletzen konnte. Dann machten wir uns auf den Weg.
Nadjīb ritt so schnell auf dem steinigen Pfade voran, daß ich die
größte Mühe hatte, Schritt mit ihm zu halten. Ich wußte, daß die
große Kirche des St. Simon Stylites auf einem Hügel stand und von
unserm Wege aus zu sehen sein mußte; freilich liegt die große
Säule des Heiligen, um welche die Kirche erbaut wurde, schon seit
Jahrhunderten in Trümmer gesunken. Nachdem wir eine Stunde
vorwärts gestolpert waren, zeigte Nadjīb nach dem dämmerigen
Gebirge, und ich konnte gerade noch eine undeutliche Masse
unterscheiden, die wie eine die Kammlinie unterbrechende Festung
aussah. Eine weitere halbe Stunde brachte uns an die Mauern. Es
war ½8 Uhr und vollständig dunkel. Als wir durch die ungeheure
Kirche ritten, merkten wir zu unsrer Erleichterung am Geläut der
Karawanenglocken, daß unsre Zelte angekommen waren — wir
hörten auch das Schreien und Fluchen Michaïls, der unter dem
Einfluß verschiedener Dosen Arraks wie ein wildes Tier tobte und
sich weigerte, den neuen Maultiertreibern Anweisungen bezüglich
des Aufstellens meines englischen Zeltes zu geben. Als die einzige
nüchterne Person, die da wußte, wie die Pfähle ineinandergepaßt,
die Zapfen eingetrieben und die Möbel aufgestellt wurden, mußte ich
beim Schimmer zweier Kerzen den größten Teil der Arbeit selbst
verrichten und dann die Vorratskörbe nach Brot und Butter für die
Maultiertreiber durchsuchen. Wurde doch mein Befehl, die übliche,
aus Reis bestehende Abendmahlzeit zu bereiten, von meinem
aufsässigen Koch mit höhnischem Geheul und mit Fluchen über
alles und jedes beantwortet. Mit einem Betrunkenen ist nicht zu
reden, ich hoffe aber, daß der Racheengel der Gefühle nicht
Erwähnung getan hat, mit denen ich mich zum Schweigen zwang.
 Kal'at Sim'ān.

Als endlich alles fertig war, ging ich hinaus in die milde
Frühlingsnacht, durchschritt die stattlichen, so friedlich daliegenden
Ruinen, unter deren Mauern wir unser Lager aufgeschlagen hatten,
und befand mich plötzlich in einem kreisrunden, oben offnen Hofe,
von dem aus sich die vier Flügel der Kirche nach den vier
Himmelsgegenden erstrecken. Der Hof ist von einem unvergleichlich
schönen Säulengang umgeben gewesen, von dem noch jetzt viele
Bogen erhalten sind, und in der Mitte erhob sich in vergangenen
Tagen die Säule, auf welcher St. Simon lebte und starb. Ich kletterte
über die Steinhaufen bis zu dem die Basis bildenden Felsblock; es
war ein mächtiger, schiefriger Stein mit einer Vertiefung in der Mitte,
in der sich, wie in einer kleinen Schüssel, klares Regenwasser
gesammelt hatte. Ich wusch mir Hände und Gesicht darin. Die Nacht
war mondlos; eine verfallne Pracht, standen die Pfeiler und Bogen
im tiefen Schatten da, still wie ein unbewegter See lag die Luft, alle
Müdigkeit und aller Ärger fielen von der Seele ab, sie stand dem
Himmel und dem Frühling offen. Ich saß und überdachte, welch
einen Streich das Schicksal in diesen Stunden dem grimmigen
Heiligen gespielt. Für diese eine Nacht hatte es seinen Thron der
Bitternis einem Menschenkinde überlassen, dessen rosige Träume
einer tiefen inneren Zufriedenheit entstammten, die er wohl als der
erste verdammt haben würde. Bei solchem Sinnen nickte mir ein
großer Stern zu, der über den in Trümmer stehenden Säulengang
heraufgeklettert war, und wir beide kamen überein, daß es besser
sei, über Himmel und Erde dahinzuwandern, als bis zum Ende der
Tage auf einer Säule zu sitzen.

Kal'at Sim'ān, westliches Tor.

Die Glieder der amerikanischen Vermessungsgesellschaft haben

die nördlichen Gebirge bis zur Kal'at Sim'ān aufs genaueste
erforscht und in ihren Karten aufgezeichnet, aber weder sie noch
andre Reisende haben einen Bericht des Hügellandes veröffentlicht,
das sich von dem Heiligtum in nordöstlicher Richtung erstreckt.[11]
Ich habe dasselbe bereist und beinahe alle verfallnen Dörfer
besucht. Von den Bewohnern wird es beinahe allgemein Djebel
Sim'ān genannt, und auch ich werde unter diesem Namen davon
sprechen. Das Simongebirge mit dem Djebel Bārischa nach
Südwesten und dem Djebel el 'Ala noch weiter nach Westen hin
gehören demselben architektonischen System an, wie der Djebel
Zawijjeh, durch den wir auf unserm Wege nach Aleppo gekommen
waren. Man könnte wohl Unterschiede in dem Stile der nördlichen
und dem der südlichen Gruppe herausfinden; dem amerikanischen
Architekten Mr. Butler ist es dank seiner gründlichen Kenntnis der
beiden Distrikte auch gelungen, für den flüchtigen Beobachter aber
scheinen diese Verschiedenheiten hauptsächlich auf natürlichen
Ursachen zu beruhen, sowie auf dem Umstand, daß der nördliche
Distrikt mehr unter dem Einflusse Antiochiens stand, und diese Stadt
war in den ersten Jahrhunderten der christlichen Zeitrechnung die
Hauptquelle aller künstlerischen Anregung, und zwar nicht für Syrien
allein. Die Ansiedlungen im Djebel Sim'ān waren kleiner und die
einzelnen Häuser weniger geräumig, wahrscheinlich weil das
nördliche Gebirge viel zerklüfteter ist und unmöglich eine so große
und reiche Bevölkerung ertragen konnte. Der Djebel Sim'ān scheint
früher bebaut worden zu sein und den Gipfel des Wohlstandes
etwas später erreicht zu haben, als der Süden des Landes, auch ist
er nicht jener Periode des Verfalls unterworfen gewesen, der den
Süden im letzten Jahrhundert vor der arabischen Besitzergreifung
heimgesucht hat.[12] Die schönen Kirchen des Nordens entstammen
dem 6. Jahrhundert und zeigen bezüglich des architektonischen
Schmuckes einen fast genialen Luxus, den keine der spätesten
südlichen Kirchen erreicht, die, mit Ausnahme der Bizzoskirche in
Ruweihā, alle bereits ein Jahrhundert früher erbaut sind. Es ist
interessant, daß die letztgenannte Kirche, die doch etwas jünger ist,
als Kal'at Sim'ān, gleichwohl viel herber in ihren Einzelheiten ist, und
daß im Norden selbst kleine Häuser nicht selten größere
Mannigfaltigkeit und Kostbarkeit im Schmuck aufweisen, als im
Süden üblich ist.[13] Da der Reisende beim Lesen der Inschriften an
Kirchen und Wohngebäuden das Datum immer mehr nach der
Antiochischen Zeitrechnung angegeben findet, wird er auf den sehr
verzeihlichen Gedanken verfallen, daß es die prachtliebende Hand
Antiochiens gewesen ist, die hier die Architrave und Kapitäle, die
Simse und Friese geschaffen hat. Die Kirche des St. Simon ist nicht
nur aus lokalen Beiträgen errichtet worden, sondern hier hat die
ganze Christenheit dem berühmten Heiligen ihren Tribut
dargebracht, und wahrscheinlich sind nicht heimische Arbeiter,
sondern die Architekten und Steinschneider von Antiochien ihre
Erbauer gewesen. Wenn es an dem ist, so muß man auch die
anmutige Kirche von Kalb Lōzeh denselben Schöpferhänden
zuschreiben, und ein Dutzend kleinere Bauten wie z. B. die
Ostkirche in Bākirha verraten deutlich gleichen Einfluß.
[11] Seither habe ich erfahren, daß nach meiner Anwesenheit Mr.
Butler und seine Reisegesellschaft ihre Forschungen auf das
Land nördlich von Kal'at Sim'ān erstreckt haben, und ich warte mit
Spannung auf eine ausführliche Beschreibung dieser Gegend in
ihren künftigen Veröffentlichungen.
[12] Vermutlich hat dieser Verfall seine Ursache zum Teil in der
ungeheuren Steuerlast, die Justinian während seiner
Bemühungen, den Westen seines Landes zurückzuerobern, den
Ostprovinzen auferlegte. Wer Diehls großes Werk über Justinian
gelesen hat, weiß, wie sehr die soziale und politische
Organisation seiner Provinzen unter dem Druck der Kriege in
Italien und Nordafrika in Unordnung geriet. Die Ostländer hatten,
als die reichsten, am meisten zu leiden.
[13] Es ist dies eine Beobachtung Mr. Butlers, »Architektur und
andre Kunst.«
 Kal'at Sim'ān, der kreisrunde Hof.

Ich verbrachte den Morgen damit, die Simonskirche und das am

Fuße des Berges gelegene Dorf zu durchforschen. Letzteres weist
einige sehr schöne Basiliken und die Ruinen einer großen
Pilgerherberge auf. Beim Frühstück erschien ein Kurde auf der
Bildfläche, der einen so klugen, vertrauenerweckenden Eindruck
machte, daß ich mir ihn sofort für die nächsten Tage zum Führer
erkor, denn die Gegend, die ich zu durchziehen beabsichtigte, war
steinig, pfadlos und auf der Karte nur ein leerer Fleck. Mūsa war der
Name meines neuen Freundes. Als wir am Nachmittag zusammen
dahinritten, vertraute er meinem verschwiegenen Ohr, daß er seines
Glaubens Jezīdi sei, eine Sekte, die die Mohammedaner
Teufelanbeter nennen. Ich halte sie jedoch für ein gutmütiges,
harmloses Volk. Sie sind im oberen Teile von Mesopotamien zu
Hause, und von dort war Mūsas Familie auch ausgewandert. Wir
sprachen von Glaubenslehren — freilich nur vorsichtig, denn unsre
Bekanntschaft war noch jung — und Mūsa gestand ein, daß die
Jezīdis die Sonne anbeten. »Ein sehr geeignetes Anbetungsobjekt,«
entgegnete ich, und in der Absicht, ihm etwas Angenehmes zu
sagen, fügte ich hinzu, daß die Ismailiten beides, Sonne und Mond,
anbeten, aber siehe da, bei dem bloßen Gedanken an einen
derartigen Götzendienst war Mūsa kaum imstande, seinen Abscheu
zu verbergen. Das führte mich zu der stillen Betrachtung, ob die Welt
wohl viel klüger geworden seit den Tagen, da St. Simon auf seiner
Säule saß. Der Schluß, zu dem ich endlich gelangte, war nicht
schmeichelhaft.

Kal'at Sim'ān, der kreisrunde Hof.

In den Dörfern am Fuße des Djebel Scheich Barakāt, des

höchsten Gipfels südlich von Kal'at Sim'ān, setzte der Regen unsern
Streifereien ein Ziel und trieb uns heim; gegen Abend aber klärte
sich der Himmel wieder auf. An dem wunderbar schönen Westtor
sitzend, beobachtete ich, wie die Berge allmählich kupferrot
erstrahlten, die grauen Mauern der Ruine wie in Gold getaucht
erschienen. Der sehr niedergeschlagene und reumütige Michaïl
beglückte mich mit einem vortrefflichen Diner, trotzdem würde ich ihn
davongejagt haben, wenn St. Simon mir nur zu einem andern Koch
hätte verhelfen können. Ja, ich war halb geneigt, mir einen aus
Aleppo kommen zu lassen, aber der Zweifel, ob ich durch eine
Stellenvermittlung einen guten Diener bekommen würde, und eine
gewisse Bequemlichkeit verhinderten mich an der Ausführung des
Planes. Vor mir rechtfertigte ich mich mit der Hoffnung, daß Michaïls
Reue von Dauer sein würde. Einen Monat lang lebten wir auf einem
Vulkan mit gelegentlichen Ausbrüchen, bis wir schließlich in die Luft
flogen. Aber genug dieser unerquicklichen Dinge.

Kal'at Sim'ān, Apsis.

Am nächsten Tage ging ich daran, den östlich und nordöstlich der
Kirche gelegenen Dörfern des Djebel Sim'ān einen Besuch
abzustatten. Ein einstündiger Ritt in rein östlicher Richtung brachte
uns nach Burdjkeh, das den unverfälschten Charakter dieser Dörfer
des äußersten Nordens trägt. So hat es den fast unvermeidlichen
großen, viereckigen Turm. Alles Mauerwerk war massiv; oft waren
die Steine nicht einmal zu richtigen Lagen geschichtet, und wenn
schon, so zeigten diese Lagen ganz verschiedene Tiefen. Die Kirche
hatte eine viereckige, über die Mauern des Schiffes hinausgebaute
Apsis. Jedes Fenster krönte ein fortlaufender Fries, der sich in der
Höhe der Brüstung von einem Fenster zum anderen hinüberzog und
beim letzten in einer Spirale endete. Er machte den Eindruck eines
Bandes, das um die Öffnungen geschlungen, und dessen Enden
aufgerollt worden waren.
 Kal'at Sim'ān, Westtor.

Dieser Fries ist den Bauten des 6. Jahrhunderts in Nordsyrien

eigen. Die Wohnhäuser von Burdjkeh waren einfache, viereckige
Hütten und aus vieleckigen Steinen erbaut. Mūsa kundschaftete ein
neugeöffnetes Grab in der Nähe der Kirche aus. Mit etwas Mühe
gelang es mir, hineinzukriechen; ich wurde aber belohnt, denn in
einer der Nischen fand ich das Datum 292 der Antiochischen
Zeitrechnung eingegraben. Es entspricht unserm Jahr 243 n. Chr.
Unter der Jahreszahl befanden sich drei Zeilen arg verwitterter
griechischer Schrift. Wir ritten weiter und gelangten eine halbe
Stunde später nach Surkanyā, einem verlassenen Dorfe, das ganz
reizend am Anfange eines flachen, felsigen Tales liegt, in dem sogar
einige Bäume zu finden sind. Die Häuser waren von
außergewöhnlich massiver Konstruktion; schwerfällige Steinbalkone
bildeten eine Art Vorraum über der Tür. Eins trug ein Datum, das
Jahr 406 n. Chr. Die Kirche war der zu Burdschkeh fast ganz gleich.
Dreiviertel englische Meilen weiter nördlich lag Fāfertīn; hier begann
es zu regnen. Wir suchten Zuflucht in einer Apsis, dem letzten
Überrest einer Kirche, die grob gebaut war, aber größer als eine der
bisher gesehenen.[14]
[14] Butler berichtet in seinen Aufzeichnungen, daß diese Kirche
die Jahreszahl 372 n. Chr. trägt und damit den Vorzug hat,
diejenige Kirche Syriens, wenn nicht der ganzen Welt zu sein, die
das älteste Datum aufweist.

Grabmal, Kāturā.

Das Dorf war von einigen Familien der Jezīdi-Kurden bewohnt. In

strömendem Regen ritten wir eine Stunde nordostwärts nach Chirāb
esch Schems, konnten hier aber infolge des Wetters nichts
vornehmen. Wir eilten deshalb weiter über Kalōteh nach Burdj el
Kās, wo ich meine Zelte auf einer feuchten Wiese errichtet fand.
Mūsa zeigte sich sehr betrübt über den heftigen Regen, denn, wie er
sagte, war das feuchte Frühjahr seinen Feldern verhängnisvoll, da
alle Erde von den hochgelegenen Stellen in die Täler
hinabgewaschen wurde. Noch ist das Bloßlegen des Gesteins, das
die Fruchtbarkeit Nordsyriens so herabgemindert hat, in vollem
Gange. In Burdj el Kās krönte ein viereckiger Turm den Gipfel des
Berges, einige alte Häuser waren wieder instandgesetzt und von den
Kurden bewohnt. Der Querbalken einer Tür trug die Zahl 406 n. Chr.,
ein anderer eine sehr schwer zu entziffernde Inschrift. Das Ende
dieses Steines wurde durch die Ecke eines wiederaufgebauten
Hauses verdeckt, ein Blick dahinter aber ließ mich gerade noch
erkennen, daß sich am äußersten Rande eine kleine Verzierung
befand. Der Besitzer des Hauses war der Meinung, daß dieselbe
eine Madonna darstelle. Das wäre nicht nur eine bemerkenswerte
Vermehrung der spärlichen Skulpturen Nordsyriens gewesen,
sondern auch ein neuer theologischer Ausblick; ich drückte deshalb
mein Bedauern aus, die Ecke nicht genauer sehen zu können. Sofort
holte mein Freund eine Spitzhacke und schlug damit ein Stück
seines Hauses ab: die Jungfrau Maria erwies sich als ein römischer
Adler.
 Chirāb esch Schems.

Chirāb esch Schems, Skulpturen im Innern eines Grabes.

 In Nadjībs und Mūsas Begleitung suchte ich die Dörfer wieder
auf, an denen ich des Regens wegen am Tage vorher
vorübergeritten war. In Kalōteh blieb Nadjīb mit den Pferden zurück,
während wir zu Fuß nach Chirāb esch Schems weitergingen. War
doch der Weg so steinig, daß ich ihn meinen Tieren gern ein zweites
Mal ersparen wollte. Chirāb esch Schems enthielt eine schöne
Kirche, die vom Westtor bis zum Beginn des Altarplatzes 21 Schritt
maß. Nach Norden und Süden hin waren die Umfassungsmauern
gestürzt, es standen nur noch die fünf Bogen auf jeder Seite des
Schiffes, sowie ein von zehn kleinen, rundbogigen Fenstern
durchbrochenes Cleristerium, letzteres den Eindruck einer
allerliebsten, freistehenden Loggia machend. Weiter bergaufwärts
befand sich eine massive Kapelle ohne Flügel, aber mit
herausgebauter Apsis. Mit ihrem halbdomförmigen Dach aus
viereckigen Steinplatten ähnelte sie dem im 5. Jahrhundert erbauten
Baptisterium zu Dār Kīta.[15] In der Bergwand fanden wir eine Anzahl
Felsengräber; zu meiner Befriedigung entdeckte ich in dem einen
mehrere merkwürdige Reliefs. Die Nische links der Tür zeigte vier
grobgehauene Figuren mit in Gebetsstellung erhobenen Armen, in
einer dunklen Ecke der Felswand aber befand sich eine einzelne
Gestalt mit Hemd und spitzer Kappe angetan, die in der rechten
einen sonderbaren korbähnlichen Gegenstand hielt. Nach Kalōteh
zurückgekehrt, besuchten wir eine westlich des Dorfes isoliert auf
einer Anhöhe stehende Kirche. In der Nähe des Südtores trug die
Mauer eine lange griechische Inschrift. Das Schiff war von den
Flügeln durch je vier Säulen getrennt, die, nach den Überresten zu
urteilen, teils kanneliert, teils glatt gewesen waren.
[15] Butler, Architektur und andre Kunst, Seite 139.
 Kapitäl, obere Kirche zu Kalōteh.

Der Säulengang endete an der Apsis mit eingebauten

kannelierten Säulen, die schöne korinthische Kapitäle trugen. Apsis,
Prothesis und Diaconicum waren alle mit in die Umfassungsmauern
eingeschlossen. Das Westtor zeigte einen erhabenen, überhöhten
Bogen über der zerbrochenen Oberschwelle, welch letztere mit einer
Zahnschnittleiste verziert war. Südlich der Kirche liegt ein isoliertes
Baptisterium, neun Fuß im Geviert groß, dessen Grundmauern noch
die erste Lage der Steinwölbung trugen. Die Kirche muß mit Ziegeln
bedeckt gewesen sein, denn ich sah noch zahlreiche Bruchstücke im
Schiff umherliegen. Eine massive Umfriedigungsmauer umschloß
beides, Kirche und Baptisterium. Im Dorfe unten standen noch zwei
weitere Kirchen, die westliche 38 zu 68 Fuß, die andre 48 zu 70 Fuß
groß. Aus den Friesen um die Tore beider Kirchen kann man
schließen, daß sie nicht vor dem 6. Jahrhundert erbaut sein können.
Das Dorf wies auch Häuser mit Steinveranden auf.

Barād, Turm im Westen der Stadt.

1½ Stunde westlich von Kalōteh liegt Barād, das größte und

interessanteste Dorf des Djebel Sim'ān. Es ist zum Teil wieder
bewohnt, und zwar von Kurden. Mein Lager befand sich auf freiem
Felde, einem wunderbar schönen Grabmal gegenüber; es stellte
einen Baldachin dar, der von vier auf hohem Podium ruhenden
Strebepfeilern getragen wurde. In der Nähe lag ein großer
Steinsarkophag und eine Anzahl anderer Gräber, die teils in die
Felsen gehauen waren. Zwei Kirchen im Innern der Stadt unterzog
ich näherer Prüfung. In der einen war das 68 Fuß lange Schiff von
den Seitenflügeln durch vier große Säulen abgetrennt, die sechs
Fuß im Durchmesser hatten und eine Säulenweite von 18 Fuß
zeigten. Diese große Säulenweite ist ein Beweis später Entwicklung,
sie weist etwa auf das 6. Jahrhundert hin. Die zweite Kirche zeigte
noch größere Dimensionen, 118 zu 73 Fuß, lag aber bis auf die