Poststructuralism

Jurnal Asia Pacific Studies

There are many different theories and approaches in international relations studies. They emerge as tools to understand world politics as well as to prevent the occurrence of wars and conflicts. Poststructuralism is one of them. This article addresses the practical relevance of poststructuralism in international politics. It looks at the role of poststructuralism, which provides a novel view on international issues in the globalized era. There are three major focuses of this paper. First, the discussion on the concept of sovereignty and state in a modern world. Second, the role of discourse in the poststructuralism theoretical framework. Third, the function of poststructuralism as a meta-theoretical critique in international relations. This article concludes that poststructuralism is practically useful in the study of international politics. Keywords: poststructuralism, theory, international politics, international relations. Abstrak Ada beragam teori dan pendekatan yang dig...

Poststructuralism' in International Relations has been associated for a while with a group of closely-nit scholars known sometimes as critical social theorists (CST). So far, the debate sparked by critical social theory in IR has been limited and largely focused on the issues surrounding the appropriateness of a post-structural reading of international affairs.

Alternatives Turkish Journal of International Relations, 2012

Postmodernism and poststructuralism move from the phrase that history is narrative and narratives are texts or meaning is encoded in language. If life is a narration, it must have a language. If it has a language, then it can be deconstructed. These are the alternative explanations of the history. Language, as a means of communication, is a tool that social relations emerge and human interactions are supplied. As it plays a role of 'bridge' between thought and action, it reflects the world of conception and perception of humanbeing. Poststructuralist theory applies on some methods to understand and explain international relations. Deconstruction is the literary theory of poststructuralism, and the method of double reading presents a two-dimensional reading possibility to those concerned with it. As it offers a commentary on the dominant interpretation in the first reading, it pressures on the instable points in a text in the second reading. Poststructuralism sets linkages and relationships with some other disciplines, and thanks to these linkages and relations, it develops new aspects and horizons on the understanding and explaining of international relations.

Review of International Studies, 1995

Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 1999

Nietzsche to focus more sharply on two central aspects of postmodern, or better, post-structuralist, theories: perspectivism and the critique of subjectivity. How these two aspects of post-structuralism have been utilised in the study of international relations is explained. In particular, the author highlights the epistemological and political implications of post-structuralism for the study of international relations. Finally the paper concludes by returning to the question of how post-structuralism re-evaluates the relationship between theory and practice. It suggests that trite invocations of 'the real world' or empty appeals to 'agency', à la Halliday, are simply obstructions to satisfactorily rethinking the relationship between theory and practice.

Review of International Studies, 2012

This article makes the case for rethinking the relation between poststructuralism and postcolonialism, by building on the claims advanced by Robert Young, Azzedine Haddour and Pal Ahluwalia that the history of deconstruction coincides with the collapse of the French colonial system in Algeria, and with the violent anti-colonial struggle that ensued. I choose to examine narratives of theorists such as Derrida, Lyotard, and Cixous because not only they provide the link between colonial violence, the poststructuralist project that ensued, and postcolonialism, but also because the problems I identify with their projects are replicated by much poststructuralist work in International Relations (IR). I signal that one of the most significant consequences of conducting poststructuralist research without attention to postcolonial horizons lies in the idealisation of the marginalised, the oppressed or the native without attending to the complexity of her position, voice or agency. Bringing these theories together aims to highlight the need for a dialogue, within IR, between poststructuralism's desire to disrupt the disciplinarity of the field, and postcolonialism's potential to transcend the self-referential frame of IR by introducing perspectives, (hi)stories, and voices from elsewhere.

Theories of International Relations II, 2019

For full text: *** https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332079314_Poststructuralism_in_IR*** The early development of the poststructuralist thought, based on tension between structuralism and phenomenology, was centred in France during the I960s and I970s. Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida have made significant contributions to the foundation of this idea. This chapter details when and why poststructuralism that has interdisciplinary content was engaged with International Relations. The main purpose of this chapter is to explain the basic assumptions of the poststructuralist approaches by focusing on their conceptualisation of the main themes in International Relations such as state, sovereignty and identity. It details what the meanings of the critical attitudes of poststructuralism are, for International Relations discipline. This chapter shall help learners to explain the ontological and epistemological bases of poststructuralism that are grounded on “discourse”. Focusing on the works of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, it shows the importance of constructive aspect of discourse and interrelations between power and knowledge in this approach. Another aim of this chapter is to define the analysis method of poststructuralism such as deconstruction, double reading, archaelogy and genealogy.

Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 1998

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Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 2011

This article in three parts offers the beginnings of a postcolonial critique of mainstream International Relations (IR). The first part argues that IR, where it has been interested in history at all, has misdescribed the origins and character of the contemporary international order, and that an accurate understanding of the 'expansion of the international system' requires attention to its colonial origins. The second part suggests that IR is deeply Eurocentric, not only in its historical account of the emergence of the modern international order, but also in its account(s) of the nature and functioning of this order. The human sciences are heirs to a tradition of knowledge which defines knowledge as a relation between a cognising, representing subject and an object, such that knowledge is always 'of' something out there, which exists independently of its apprehension. The third part of the article suggests that knowledges serve to constitute that which they purport to merely cognise or represent, and that IR theory serves to naturalise that which is historically produced.

Revista Debates, 2021

This paper is an attempt to pave the theoretical way to substitute the political for politics. After illustrating how mainstream IR theories reify the State as the dominant form of subjectivity, I explore the power ontology shared by the critics of this mode of representation. In my view, this conception of power explains why critical theorists have a broader and richer perspective that serves their aim of rethinking the political. This new ontology is presented through a reading of Foucault's analytics of power: the juridico-discursive representation of power, which is attributed to mainstream scholars, is opposed to the power-as-productive representation, which I believe critical theorists share. By reading Darby's The Fiction of Imperialism and Said's Orientalism through the foucauldian categories of strategy and tactics, I attempt to illustrate how the power-as-productive figuration can be deployed to destabilize the juridico-discursive one. This is one way of locating where cultural studies and postcolonialism meet global politics.