Routledge Critical Theory of International Politics: Complementarity, Justice, and Governance

Critical international theory encompasses several distinct, radical approaches that focus on identity, difference, hegemonic power, and order. As an applied theory, critical international theory draws on critical social theories to shed light on international processes and global transformations. While this approach has led to increasing interest in formulating an empirically relevant critical international theory, it has also revealed the difficulties of applying critical theory to international politics. What are these difficulties and problems? And how can we move beyond them? This book addresses these questions by investigating the intellectual currents and key debates of critical theory, from Kant and Hegel to Habermas and Derrida, and the recent work of critical international theory, including Robert Cox and Andrew Linklater. By drawing on these debates, the book formulates an original theory of complementarity that brings together critical theory and critical international theory. It argues that complementarity―a governing principle in international law and politics―offers a conceptual framework for working toward two goals: engaging the changing contexts and forms of resistance and redressing some of the difficulties of applying critical theory to international relations. In adopting three critical perspectives on complementarity to analyze the evolving social and political contexts of global justice, this book provides an essential resource for undergraduate and graduate students and scholars interested in the application of critical theory to international relations. Review Can critical theorizing in IR be constructive, normative and relevant to global governance? The concept of complementarity, skilfully developed and impressively deployed in this path-breaking book, might just be the key. Nicholas Onuf Steven Roach's study offers an original interpretation of the philosophical and practical ideas that make up this most nebulous group of scholars known as the critical tradition in International Relations scholarship. Knowledgeable, sympathetic and yet critical, this is an important contribution to International Relations theory. Ronen Palan, University of Birmingham, UK This comprehensive history of critical theory considers Kant, Hegel and Marx along with Nietzsche and Freud, Western Marxism, Habermas and the Frankfurt School, and more recent developments such as critical realism and ‘world risk society’. By analyzing recent developments in international criminal law, Roach shows how core philosophical dimensions of critical theory are linked with a practical engagement with the challenges of global governance. This is an important study of how international politics have been discussed from a variety of critical standpoints. Andrew Linklater, Woodrow Wilson Professor of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, UK A highly commendable effort to answer the challenges laid at the door of critical theory....recapping critical theory's development and subsequent fault lines, and attempting to then make it purposefully enmesh with policy-relevant world politics in a remarkably concise, highly detailed, and authoritative fashion. What Roach has produced will now serve at least two purposes. Firstly, it can be waived aloft by critical scholars and students alike as tangible evidence of what critical theory can do in and for IR, and it can also hopefully sustain debate for at least the next decade.Globalizations, P.A. Hayman, The Open University, UK This interesting book addresses whether today's global institutions can be understood according to principles of critical theory, with a particular focus on the International Criminal Court (ICC). These are areas on which the author has written extensively... A clear and precise introduction to some of the approaches to critical theory...helps us to understand the ICC...and challenges both reified structuralist accounts and voluntaristic not