Marxists believe that war is a tool utilised by capitalists to ensure their power persists, whilst poststructuralists underline the ‘us’ and ‘them’ hypocrisy in warfare debates.
Whereas most coverage of the United Nations paints it as a well-intentioned organisation, critical theories such as postcolonialism and feminism offer a more nuanced take.
As poststructuralists seek to question universal truths and metanarratives, they actively choose not to take ideas as we know them for granted, nor to see certain paths of action as inevitable.
For postcolonial scholars, an important endeavour is to highlight the colonial legacies that created current global inequalities and the neocolonial power structures that reproduce them.
Feminism reflects on international relations’ historical dominance by men and the exclusion, until recently, of the experiences, perspectives and qualities of women. To address this, it works towards a deeper understanding of gender.
Marxists argue that, contrary to the image of global capitalism as a free world, the dominance of the nation-state in the post-Cold War system has led to ordinary people around the globe becoming divided and alienated.
The sheer volume of different IR theories should be a warning to you that International Relations still is a young discipline that is undergoing significant formative development.
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