The poverty of Critical Theory in International Relations: Habermas, Linklater and the failings of cosmopolitan critique
| Author | Davide Schmid |
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1354066117692654 |
research-article2017
EJ R
I
Article
European Journal of
International Relations
The poverty of Critical Theory
2018, Vol. 24(1) 198 –220
© The Author(s) 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066117692654
DOI: 10.1177/1354066117692654
Habermas, Linklater and the
journals.sagepub.com/home/ejt
failings of cosmopolitan critique
Davide Schmid
University of Sheffield, UK
Abstract
Within and outside of the discipline of International Relations, Frankfurt School Critical
Theory faces a ‘crisis of critique’ that is affecting its ability to generate analyses and
political interventions that are relevant to the present world-historical conjuncture.
This article seeks to identify the theoretical origins of this predicament by investigating
the meta-theoretical architecture of the prevailing Habermasian framework of critique.
I contend that the binary ontology and methodology of society that lies at the heart
of the Habermasian paradigm has effected an uncoupling of normative critique from
substantive social and political analysis and resulted in a severe weakening of both
Critical Theory’s ‘explanatory-diagnostic’ and ‘anticipatory-utopian’ capabilities.
Thereafter, I discuss the determinate ways in which these issues have manifested in
critical theoretical interventions on international politics by exploring both Habermas’s
own writings on the post-national constellation and Andrew Linklater’s theory of
cosmopolitanism and the sociology of global morals. Both projects, it is argued, rely
on a reductive, functionalist analysis of global political dynamics and express a political
perspective that lacks a definite critical content. Ultimately, the article contends that
a revitalisation of Critical Theory in International Relations must necessarily involve a
clarification of its fundamental categories of analysis and a recovery of the orientation
towards totalising critique.
Keywords
Cosmopolitanism, Critical Theory, Frankfurt School, Habermas, Linklater, system and
lifeworld
Corresponding author:
Davide Schmid, University of Sheffield, Elmfield, Northumberland Road, Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK.
Email: d.schmid@sheffield.ac.uk
Schmid
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We are living through a capitalist crisis of great severity without a critical theory that could
adequately clarify it. (Fraser, 2014: 56)
Introduction
Wherever one looks, Frankfurt School Critical Theory (CT) is in crisis. Outside of the
discipline of International Relations (IR), in the fields of political philosophy and social
theory, concerns are growing about the ability of Frankfurt School theory to make itself
relevant to the present world-historical conjuncture (see, for instance, Azmanova, 2014;
Fraser, 2014; Kim, 2014; Zambrana, 2013). What is increasingly being noted is the dou-
ble failure of Habermasian and post-Habermasian CT to articulate a convincing analysis
of the current real-world dynamics of capitalist crisis and social disintegration and to
disclose possibilities for political transformation (Kompridis, 2006). Michael Thompson
(2014), for instance, has lamented the ‘neo-Idealist’ character of contemporary Frankfurt
School theory, capable of expressing an emancipatory perspective only in the rarefied
terms of ‘the structure of language, forms of justification or … mutual recognition’
(Thompson, 2014: 780–781). Albena Azmanova (2014: 357) has similarly spoken of an
‘overdose of Ideal theory’ having ‘depleted Critical Theory’s resources for a direct
engagement with the socio-structural dynamics of neoliberal capitalism’ and manifesting
as a veritable ‘crisis of critique’; while Amy Kim (2014: 373) has provocatively
announced the arrival of a ‘post-Critical’ phase of Frankfurt School theorising defined by
the abandonment of the critique of political economy and the transition into a form of
‘socially conscientious and cosmopolitan liberalism’.
Meanwhile, within the discipline of IR, there are signs that the intellectual space that
Frankfurt School-inspired theorists have traditionally occupied — that of higher-order
debates over the epistemological and normative assumptions of IR scholarship — is declin-
ing in prominence and losing vitality (see the contributions to the recent ‘end of IR theory’
issue of EJIR, such as Dunne et al., 2013). In this context, the kind of programmatic and
meta-theoretical intervention that constituted much of critical theoretical work in IR in the
1980s and 1990s (see Ashley, 1981; Hoffman, 1991) appears today decidedly out of fashion.
As Milja Kurki (2011: 130–137) has observed, what remains today of CT in IR is ‘increas-
ingly fragmented’, lacking in practical relevance and operating ‘within very specific orienta-
tions and with theoretical, rather than more generalist, political interests in focus’.
When viewed together, these diverse contributions point to a sense in which Frankfurt
School theory is experiencing a generalised debilitation of its ability to interpret and
clarify ‘the struggles and wishes of the age’ (Marx, 1975: 209), an affliction that goes
beyond discipline-contingent preoccupations and calls into question the very founda-
tions of the contemporary framework of critique. This, in turn, opens the positive possi-
bility — which this article seeks to explore — of developing an examination of the state
of critical theorising in IR that proceeds in dialogue with the wider Frankfurt School
literature, as well as other Marxian approaches interested in constructing a ‘theory of the
historical course of the present epoch’ (Horkheimer, quoted in Outhwaite, 2013: vii).
The specific aim of this article is to diagnose the current predicament of Frankfurt
School CT and identify the theoretical origins of its present crisis with regards to its
engagement with international politics. I argue, first, that the present ‘crisis of critique’
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European Journal of International Relations 24(1)
represents the point of culmination of a longer decline of Frankfurt School theorising,
defined by the progressive uncoupling of normative critique from substantive social and
political-economic analysis. Using Seyla Benhabib’s (1986) understanding of the
Frankfurt School project as defined by an ‘explanatory-diagnostic’ and an ‘anticipatory-
utopian’ aspect, I describe critical theorising in the Habermasian and post-Habermasian
era as characterised by the growing separation between the two tasks, resulting in an
a-critical, functionalist analysis of capitalism and political power, on the one hand, and in
a socially disembedded and abstract normativity, on the other. Second, I contend that a
crucial node in this development is represented by Jürgen Habermas’s critique of the early
Frankfurt School’s Marxism and his reconstruction of CT on the basis of an ontological
and methodological dualism. I argue that Habermas’s theory of system and lifeworld —
which sets the basic theoretical coordinates of the currently dominant, communicative-
cosmopolitan paradigm of critique — lies at the roots of CT’s current predicament. Third,
I claim that the weaknesses of the Habermasian framework manifest themselves with
particular clarity in CT’s engagements with and theorisations of the realm of ‘the interna-
tional’. Looking at the works of Jürgen Habermas and Andrew Linklater, I maintain that
CT’s dealings with international politics have failed to develop either an effective diag-
nostic framework that can explain contemporary global dynamics or a political perspec-
tive that can inspire emancipatory struggles. Instead, Frankfurt School theories of IR
have, on the one hand, relied on a simplistic account of economic and political globalisa-
tion as a neutral and univocal evolutionary process, and, on the other, produced a norma-
tive theory of cosmopolitanism that lacks a definite critical content. Lastly, I propose that
for the ‘crisis of critique’ to be overcome, CT needs to undo the severance of normative
critique from social and political-economic analysis, move beyond the Habermasian
framework, and regain an orientation towards a ‘totalising’ form of critique.
The article is organised in two sections. In the first, I present the general ontological
and methodological architecture of contemporary Frankfurt School theory as it emerged
from Habermas’s critique and reconstruction of ‘classical’ CT. I then explore the main
problems associated with this social-theoretical framework by discussing a number of
critiques levelled against it by feminist theory (Fraser, 1985; Landes, 1988), critical
political economy (Streeck, 2014, 2015, 2016) and Marxism (Anderson, 1998; Bidet,
2008; Postone, 1993). In particular, I reconstruct the cascading effect by which the model
of system and lifeworld produces a depoliticised conception of capitalism and a roman-
ticised account of civil society, and ultimately informs a weakened critical perspective on
contemporary society. In the second section, I turn to the cosmopolitan theories of IR
developed by Habermas and Linklater, and explore the concrete ways in which the limi-
tations of the prevailing framework are manifest in critical theorisation of international
politics. Lastly, I draw the implications of this diagnosis for the future of CT and advance
a proposal for its revitalisation.
Habermasian theory and the origins of the present crisis
The influence of Jürgen...
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