Abstract
Critical theory/practice has long held an ambiguous relationship with justice and questions of practical morality.1 Marx characteristically eschewed morality as an instance of the liberal superstructure allowing for piecemeal administrative justice within society, while forgoing the question of changing that society. The equality in scientific socialism was an ideal to be realized, once the capitalist structures of power and domination were overthrown and a communist system erected. Similarly, Critical Theorists and writers from a postmodern perspective regard justice as an ideal to be located in the on-going overhaul of a diverse set of social structures. Their now relative establishment in International Relations (IR) has added to the discipline’s previous concern with material state power, a focus on power dynamics operating through class, culture, gender, language discourse, and the media.
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Notes
R. Cox, ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory’, in R. O. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 208.
See A. Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community (Cambridge: Polity, 1998).
See, for instance, A. Linklater, ‘The Question of the Next Stage in International Relations Theory: A Critical-Theoretical Point of View’, Millennium, 22 (1992), 77–98.
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See S. Smith, ‘The Forty Years Detour: The Resurgence of Normative Theory in International Relations’, Millennium, 21 (1992), 494.
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See M. Zehfuss, Constructivism in International Relations: The Politics of Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
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See J. Derrida, ‘Force of Law: The “Mystical Foundation of Authority”’, in D. G. Carlson, D. Cornell and M. Rosenfeld (eds), Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice (New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 3–67.
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See C. Brown, International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992),
C. Brown, ‘“Turtles All the Way Down”: Anti-Foundationalism, Critical Theory and International Relations’, Millennium, 23 (1994), 213–36.
See J. D. Caputo (ed.), Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida (New York: Fordham University Press, 1997), p. 10.
K. Mingst, Essentials of International Relations (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), p. 28.
E. Grosz, ‘The Time of Violence: Deconstruction and Value’, Cultural Values, 2 (1998), p. 193.
R. Beardsworth, Derrida & the Political (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 24.
J. Derrida, The Other Heading: Reflections on Today’s Europe (Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992), p. 45.
J. Derrida, ‘Interview with Richard Beardsworth: “Nietzsche and the Machine”’, Journal of Nietzsche Studies, 7 (1994), 7–66.
J. Derrida, ‘Politics and Friendship. A Discussion with Jacques Derrida’ (Centre for Modern French Thought, University of Sussex, 1 December 1997, online at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/frenchthought/derrida.htm.
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© 2005 James Brassett and Federico Merke
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Brassett, J., Merke, F. (2005). Just Deconstruction? Derrida and Global Ethics. In: Hayden, P., el-Ojeili, C. (eds) Confronting Globalization. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230598829_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230598829_4
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