Grand Narratives in Critical International Theory

Critical international theory has the task of providing orientation to human beings in better understanding their conditions of existence, how those conditions came to assume their contemporary characteristics, and what immanent potential they might hold for emancipatory transformation.

Autorentext

André Saramago is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra and Researcher at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra. His research focuses on the intersection of critical international theory, historical sociology, and environmental politics. He is the editor of Non-Human Nature in World Politics: Theory and Practice (with Joana Castro Pereira, 2020), and his research has been published in journals such as Historical Social Research, European Journal of International Relations, and International Relations.

Inhalt

Introduction

1. The problem of orientation in critical international theory

   Orientation, grand narratives, and critical international theory

   The Eurocentric critique of world politics

   The possibility of a historical-sociological approach to grand narratives

2. A philosophical-transcendental grand narrative

   A theory of moral and social evolution

   Universal communication community

   The cosmopolitan constitutionalization of world politics

   Orientation in history

3. The materialist-emergentist conception of history

   Humans in nature

   Objective ethics

   A general theory of human development

   Orientation and emancipation

4. Class struggles and utopian limitations

   The critique of capitalism

   The interweaving of multiple forms of class struggle

   Utopianism and social monopolies

5. Towards a reconstruction of historical-sociological grand narratives

   Process sociology and critical theory

   Symbol emancipation and the triad of controls

   On the concept of civilisation

   Civilising processes as grand narrative

6. Critical orientation in world politics

   From the triad to the tetrad of controls

   Class struggles in inter-societal relations

   Socialisation and planned interdependence

Concluding remarks

Bibliography