Post-structuralism
emerged in International Relations during the 1980s in the context of the
so-called Fourth Great Debate. This approach is heavily influenced by the work
of thinkers like Foucault and Derrida. In International Relations, it became
one of the strongest contenders on the post-positivist side and one of the most
fruitful theoretical approaches of the discipline.
Like other post-positivist approaches, post-structuralism displays an inherently idealist ontology because it sees reality as constituted by ideas. However, it claims that such ideas are created by dominant narratives or discourses. Post-structuralism is best seen as a critical attitude or as an approach because it does not seem to make claims about how reality’s properties are or came to be; rather it seeks to question and denaturalize objective assumptions that ground the knowledge we have of the world (Campbell, 2013). This distinguishes it from other post-positivist approaches like constructivism, since it does not seek to unravel an objective reality; rather, it takes issue with the existence of such reality, questioning its foundations and effects.
Post-structuralism disagrees with the positivist assumption that there is an external world with an objective meaning independent of the observer that he/she/they can unravel dispassionately (Campbell, 2013). The world does not present itself in ready-made objective categories, so every concept, claim or theory is inevitably a representation or interpretation of the world made from a specific perspective (Campbell, 2013). All reality is structured and mediated by language that creates coherent systems of knowledge. Dominant understandings that we take for granted are arbitrary, because they are a representation made from a specific perspective, hence only a possibility among a range of possibilities (Campbell, 2013). There is no such thing as universal objective truths.
“The idea that transcendent values, principles and reference-points might somehow ground knowledge claims has been rendered null […]. There exists no overarching, transhistorical viewpoint from which judgements regarding epistemology or politics can be made” (Devetak, 1999, p. 65).
This is not to deny reality, but to assert that reality is arbitrary, partial and a product of power relations: a certain narrative or discourse manage to outcompete rival ones and establish truth claims about how the world works. For post-structuralists, power operates through discourse, since it establishes meanings, actors’ identities, social relations and possible political outcomes (Campbell, 2013). Hegemonic narratives establish what actors are, what they can do, and so on. Gender roles provide a good example. Established gender roles portray women as fragile, emotional and weak, while men are seen as rational, strong and protectors. Attaching more value to ‘masculine characteristics’, these taken-for-granted discourse of gender dualisms organizes social activity and social relations in a way that subjugates women – for instance, by relegating them to the private sphere as ‘caregivers’, while putting men in the public sphere as ‘breadwinners’ (Tickner & Sjoberg, 2013). Post-structuralism would point out the arbitrariness of gender roles and highlight how reproduce and legitimise gender violence.
This example points to another characteristic of discourses noted by Derrida: they are constructed through binaries of self/other that establish boundaries of social kinds, highlight their central features and establish how they should interact. This exercise is, again, arbitrary, but also discriminatory, since the ‘outsiders’ of the binary are often deprecated, excluded and oppressed. In the same fashion, post-structuralists see theory as practice, because it is a form of discourse that also produces intersubjectivity and constructs reality by claiming what counts as knowing (Campbell, 2013).
All knowledge,
framed as discourse, comes from power relations. Post-structuralism then seeks
to question taken for granted knowledge, expose its arbitrariness and
understand how it came to be and how it continues to operate. Ultimately, it is
about denaturalizing what we take as self-evident to reveal operating power
relations and articulate alternatives for emancipation (Campbell,
2013).
In International Relations, it has tried to deconstruct some theories to denounce the way they shape what can be said about international politics, namely by excluding certain actors or perspectives and bracketing forms of violence (Campbell, 2013). It is claimed that realism, for example, renders violence on the domestic level (e.g., gender violence, civil wars, environmental degradation, inter alia) invisible by fixating our attention in states and interstate relations.
It has also been concerned with the way dominant representations or narratives influence political outcomes. Der Derian (2003) argued that, in the US, the combination of framing war as a virtuous endeavour based on the binary self/other (US vs terrorists) with the spread of techno-aesthetic computer simulations of war not only legitimizes war, but also makes it more likely to occur. The prevailing representation of war as virtuous and ‘as a game’ with no consequences shapes the way US perceives war; if unchecked, it can result in the normalization and recurrence of warfare (Der Derian, 2003).
Diogo Machado
MA Student of International Relations: Global Governance and Social Theory
University of Bremen & Jacobs University
Leituras recomendadas
Campbell, D. (2013). Poststructuralism. In T. Dunne, M. Kurki, & S. Smith, International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity (pp. 223–246). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/hepl/9780198707561.003.0012
Der Derian, J. (2003). War as Game. The Brown Journal of World Affairs, 10(1), 37–48.
Devetak, R. (1999). Theories, practices and postmodernism in international relations. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, XII, 61–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/09557579908400243
Tickner, J. A., & Sjoberg, L. (2013). Feminism. In T. Dunne, M. Kurki, & S. Smith, International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity (pp. 204–222). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/hepl/9780198707561.003.0012