Critical Theory and International Relations: A Reader

This reader provides students, scholars, and practitioners with a comprehensive compilation of essays, articles, and book selections which bring together the traditional and essential works of Critical Theory and Critical International Relations (IR) Theory. It features the writings of Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Weber, Pollock, Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Habermas, Honneth, Fraser, Cox, Linklater, Ashley and Walker, Sylvester, and Devetak. In addition to a general introduction, it also includes detailed descriptions of each chapter showing the major tensions of four periods of the extension of critical theory into critical IR theory. The principle aim of the reader, then, is to provide the scholar and student with a rich and integrative narrative that tells the story of how critical theory entered into international relations theory. In this way, it seeks to deepen the reader's historical and sociological understanding of critical IR theory and to show how the global realm offers a dynamic contextfor further extending critical theory's emancipatory project. The last section includes texts on postmodernism and feminism, in order to address the issue of whether the discipline is in crisis, or is working toward a cohesive and reflexive framework. Steven C. Roach is Assistant Professor of Government and International Affairs at the University of South Florida. He is the author of The International Criminal Court, Ethics, and Global Justice: The Politics of Criminalizing Violence (2006) and Cultural Autonomy, Minority Rights and Globalization (2005), and his articles have appeared in numerous peer-reviewed international relations and human rights journals.

Steven C. Roach is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of South Florida