Review of International Studies (2005), 31, 127140 Copyright British International Studies Association

DOI: 10.1017/S0260210505006339

A useful dialogue? Habermas and

International Relations
THOMAS DIEZ AND JILL STEANS

Introduction

It is now more than twenty years since Jrgen Habermass work was first referred
to in International Relations (IR) theory.1 Along with many other continental
philosophers and social theorists, Habermas was initially mobilised in the critique of
positivism, and in particular neorealism, in IR theory. As such, the interest in
Habermas and IR must be located in the first instance within the context of the
fourth debate.2 This Forum section of the Review provides us with the opportunity
to take stock and ask whether the dialogue between Habermas and IR has, thus far,
been useful in providing new conceptual and methodological tools to analyse
international politics and in inspiring new research agendas in IR.3 We also ask
whether the role that dialogue plays within Habermass work has been useful in
formulating a critical theory of international relations.
To date, in his academic work, Habermas has written little explicitly on the
subject of international politics.4 However, as the focus of the fourth debate began

1
Richard K. Ashley, Political Realism and Human Interests, International Studies Quarterly, 25: 2
(1981), pp. 20436.
2
Sometimes referred to as the third debate, as in Yosef Lapid, The Third Debate: On the Prospects
of International Theory in a Post-positivist Era, International Studies Quarterly, 33: 2 (1989),
pp. 23554. We have adopted the term fourth debate to differentiate the critique of positivism and
the emergence of a more post-positivist orientation in IR, from the earlier inter-paradigm debate.
On the fourth debate, see Ole Wver, Figures of International Thought: Introducing Persons Instead
of Paradigms, Iver B. Neumann and Ole Wver (eds.), The Future of International Relations:
Masters in the Making (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 137.
3
We would like to thank all members of the International Relations Theory Research Group at the
Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham as well as
the Reviews anonymous reviewer for their invaluable contributions in putting this special section
together, and in writing this introduction. The Departments financial support for two workshops is
gratefully acknowledged.
4
See the references in the contribution by Jrgen Haacke in this Forum. Richard Devetak cites the
scant reference to international politics in Habermass The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political
Theory Parts III and IV (Cambridge: Polity, 2002). Richard Devetak, Critical Theory, in Scott
Burchill et al., Theories of International Relations (London: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 15580. Fred
Dallmayr (discussed at greater length below) cites Habermass views on global communication, as
espoused in Reason in the Diversity of its Voices as another piece that speaks to the concerns of
post-positivist IR. Fred Dallmayr, Conversation across boundaries: political theory and global
diversity, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 30: 2 (2001) pp. 33147.

127
128 Thomas Diez and Jill Steans

to shift from the critique of positivism to the substance of Critical Theory itself,5
some championed Habermas because he appeared to offer a new direction to IR in
its post-positivist phase. A key concern of Critical Theory has been how to enhance
the institutional setting of international/global politics so that arguing towards a
consensus prevailed over demonstrations of power. In so far as Habermass work in
this area held out the promise of finding ways to transcend the (what has often been
presented as endemic) problem of power in international politics, we might ask
whether IR scholars have subsequently produced new and compelling visions of an
alternative world politics? More specifically, have the model of dialogue and the
conception of discourse ethics derived from Habermas, proved useful in IR theory,
and indeed, in facilitating the development of a more ethical international/global
politics? Has the engagement with Habermas been fruitful in stimulating attempts to
develop a critical international relations theory; or in the task of constructing a
social theory of international politics? Are the concepts used in Critical Theory
utopian, especially in the context of international politics, or are they rooted in
concrete social and political practice and, therefore, potentially useful in the
development of a social theory and perhaps history of international relations?
Finally, are productive spaces opening up for an engagement between IR and a new
generation of Critical Theorists?
In this Introduction, we welcome the bridges that have been and are being built
between different strands of critical theory, without subsuming them under a single
coherent frame, and identify the further development of a critical social theory of
IR as a core challenge. In both respects, the work of Habermas has been and
continues to be crucial, although, as this Forum, and in particular the contributions
by Jrgen Haacke and Martin Weber, will make clear, a new generation of Frankfurt
School thinkers should also be drawn upon.

The fourth debate revisited

Jim George placed the initial interest in critical theory in IR in the context of the
widespread sense of crisis associated with the end of the Cold War and the ensuing
multi-pronged assault on neorealism, then the dominant approach in IR theory.6
Neorealism was attacked on the grounds that it lacked both predictive power and
insight into how world order changed over time. The failures of neorealism in this
regard were held to be rooted in its tendency to present historically contingent
phenomena as natural and immutable features of the international system. As such,

5
The Editorial Board of Millenium: Journal of International Studies also pushed for a more empirical
basis in critical IR theory (while remaining committed to showcasing post-structuralist and feminist
work as well). A good example is Jrgen Haacke, Theory and Praxis in International Relations:
Habermas, Self-reflection, Rational Argumentation, Millennium: Journal of International Studies,
25: 2 (1996), pp. 25589. We use critical theory in the broad sense of the term to include a range of
post-positivist positions. Elsewhere we distinguish between critical and/or constructivist approaches in
IR and those inspired by the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School and Habermas particularly.
6
Jim George, Discourses of Global Politics: A Critical (Re)Introduction to International Relations
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994).
 Habermas and IR 129

a further problem with neorealism was that it constituted an ideology that reified the
current international order and could potentially be put to the service of con-
servative political ends.7
In contesting the empirical claims that neorealists made about the world, critics
not only challenged the taken-for-granted structures of the social and political
world, but also questioned the underlying and embedded standards, criteria,
norms and principles in neorealism that made judgement possible and gave them
privileged status.8 In so far as the failings of neorealism could be ultimately
attributed to its epistemological, ontological and methodological underpinnings,
the critique of neorealism and the growing attraction of critical theories in IR,
should more properly be viewed as part of the critique of positivism within the
social sciences (including IR) that pre-dated the end of the Cold War. In fact,
Ashleys first articles referred to above were written nearly a decade before the
Cold War ended.
In this context, Habermas argued that the dominance of positivism in the social
sciences was problematic because it had given rise to a tendency to regard all human
problems as technical problems amenable to technical solutions, thus forgetting that
knowledge about the human world was sought to foster greater autonomy, not greater
control. Critical knowledge of the social realm was generated through self-reflection
that in turn facilitated the development of self-understanding and autonomy of
action and, so, emancipation. Certainly Lapid recognised and acknowledged that the
fourth debate in IR was linked, historically and intellectually, to the confluence of
diverse anti-positivististic, philosophical and sociological trends in the social sciences
more generally.9 The critique of the real worldism of neorealism only added to the
critique of the rigid separation of facts and values within positivist approaches in
IR, that worked to preclude, discourage or marginalise the consideration of philo-
sophical or epistemological questions.10
It was not only those inspired by Critical Theory, and Habermas specifically, that
contributed to the fourth debate. An emerging group of, in many ways, diverse
critical theorists began to ask first order questions concerning the nature of know-
ledge claims and how meaning and truth were constituted. As both a strand of
social theory and as an approach to IR, critical theorists took issue with positivism,
arguing knowledge did not arise from the subjects neutral engagement with an
objective reality out there, but rather reflected pre-existing social purposes and
interests. As Richard Ashley put it, knowledge is always constituted in the reflection
of interests.11Ashley, who drew on Habermass work, would later join the growing
ranks of post-structuralist scholars in IR who employed genealogical tools to

7
See, for example, George, Discourses; Robert Cox, States, Social Forces and World Order: Beyond
International Relations Theory, in Robert Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 20454; John McLean, Political Theory, International Theory
and Problems of Ideology, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 10: 2 (1981), pp. 10225.
8
Lapid, Third Debate, p. 243.
9
Ibid., p. 237.
10
George, Discourses; see also Roger Tooze and Craig Murphy (eds.), The New International Political
Economy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992).
11
Richard K. Ashley, Political Realism, pp. 20436.
130 Thomas Diez and Jill Steans

demonstrate how meaning and understanding was not intrinsic to the world but
continuously constructed, defended and challenged. 12
The emergence of feminist scholarship in IR is often presented as having its own
specific origins and trajectory.13 Feminist scholarship has been particularly concerned
with the invisibility of women and the marginalisation of gender as both a category
and approach in mainstream IR, but feminists also engaged in the critique of
positivism. Feminist IR scholars were (and remain) largely post-positivists of one
kind or another. Feminists rejected rationalism on the grounds that it was imbued
with gender bias. Ann Tickner and Spike Peterson, among others, joined the affray
on the neorealist orthodoxy, by pointing to the deeply masculinist assumptions
embedded in its concepts and in the images of an anarchic and dangerous world
propagated in neorealist discourse.14 The problematic construction of non-Western
women as Other in Western feminist discourse was much debated in the feminist
academic community in the 1980s and so it is unsurprising that sensitivity toward
difference was manifest in feminist approaches in IR. Moreover, asking the simple
question where are the women in IR? fostered deeper ruminations on the processes
of inclusion and exclusion at work in the construction of theories, world-views
and research agendas alike. 15
What emerged from the fourth debate was a generally more reflexive environment
in which debate, criticism and novelty could freely circulate.16 Critical theorists of
all persuasions acknowledged the socially mutable and historically contingent nature
of knowledge claims and defended, to some degree, methodological pluralism. The
fourth debate spawned an invitation to those, whose voices had been silenced or
exiled in/from the mainstream, to speak and write IR in novel and surprising
ways.17 It thus initiated a conversation that some saw as having transformative
potential, although from the outset there was disagreement as to whether it would
ultimately lead to the progression of knowledge in the field of IR. Moreover, while
Lapid pointed to the enhanced reflexivity in the IR community as a notable and
welcome development anticipating a liberating potential in the Babel of theoretical
voices18 he also forewarned that post-positivism offered as many theoretical dead-
ends as it opened promising paths for future research.19

12
Richard Ashley, Living on the Borderlines, in James DerDerian and Michael J. Shapiro (eds.),
International/Intertextual Relations (New York: Lexington Books, 1989), pp. 259321.
13
The 1988 Special Issue of Millennium: Journal of International Studies along with the publication of
Cynthia Enloes book Bananas, Beaches and Bases in 1989 (London: Pandora) are frequently cited as
the beginnings of a feminist discourse within IR.
14
J. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993); V. Spike
Peterson (ed.) Gendered States: Feminist (Re)Visions of International Theory (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 1992).
15
See, for example, Enloe, Bananas; V. Spike Peterson Transgressing Boundaries: Theories of
Knowledge, Gender and International Relations, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 21: 2
(1992), pp. 183206; Christine Sylvester, Empathetic Cooperation, Millennium: Journal of
International Studies, 23 (1994), pp. 31536.
16
Lapid, Third Debate, p. 250.
17
Richard K. Ashley and R.B.J. Walker, Speaking the Language of Exile, International Studies
Quarterly, 34: 3 (1990), p. 259; Christine Sylvester (ed.), Special Issue: Feminists Write International
Relations, Alternatives, 12: 4 (1993), pp.1118.
18
Lapid, Third Debate, p. 236.
19
Ibid., p. 235.
 Habermas and IR 131

Why Habermas?

The problem of power politics and the prevalence of strategic interest in IR

With hindsight, the conversations of this fourth debate might be seen as a turning
point for the discussion of Habermass work in IR theory, in so far as there emerged
more focused deliberations on the nature, role and future of critical theory in IR.20
These came to a head at the end of the 1980s, exemplified in the dialogue between
Mark Hoffmann, who endorsed the epistemological foundations of Critical Theory
in a Habermasian guise, as the next stage in development of IR theory, and Nick
Rengger, who pleaded for a broader conception of critical theory.21 While many
aspects of Habermass work might have provided a potentially rich source of
concepts and ideas to mine in the development of a critical IR theory, the
distinction that Habermas drew between instrumental, technical and critical
cognitive interests and his concepts of discursive ethics and communicative action
were thought to be particularly fruitful starting points.22 As we noted above, Ashley
was one of the first scholars to draw on Habermas in this project.23 Meanwhile,
Robert Coxs distinction between critical and problem-solving theory bore a clear
resemblance to Habermass distinction between different cognitive interests, even
though Cox did not make this connection explicit.24
The critical turn in IR could be seen in terms of the rejection of a central premise
of the realist/neorealist orthodoxy in IR. The orthodoxy held that actions dictated
by strategic interests in the control and manipulation of others, necessarily prevailed
in IR because power politics were an endemic feature of international relations.
While one should not overstate the commonalities between the various and diverse
critical voices in the fourth debate, to a greater or lesser degree, post-structuralists,

20
Andrew Linklater, The Question of the Next Stage in International Relations Theory: A Critical-
Theoretical Point of View, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 22: 2 (1992), pp. 7798. See
also, Lapid, Third Debate, pp. 23554.
21
Mark Hoffman, Critical Theory and the Inter-Paradigm Debate, Millennium: Journal of
International Studies, 16: 2 (1987), pp. 23149; Mark Hoffman, Conversations on Critical
International Relations Theory, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 17: 1 (1988), pp. 915;
N. J. Rengger, Going Critical? A Response to Hoffman, Millennium: Journal of International Studies,
17 (1988), pp. 819; see also N. J. Rengger, The Fearful Sphere of International Relations, Review of
International Studies, 16: 4 (1990), pp. 36168; N.J. Rengger and Mark Hoffman, Modernity,
Postmodernity and International Relations, in Joe Doherty, Elspeth Graham and Mo Malek (eds),
Post-modernism and the Social Sciences (London: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 12747; and Linklater, The
Next Stage, pp. 7798.
22
In English, see, for example, Jrgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests (Cambridge: Polity,
1986); Justification and Application: Remarks on Discourse Ethics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993);
The Theory of Communicative Action (Cambridge: Polity, 1986 [vol. 1]; 1989 [vol. 2]).
23
For instance in Ashley, Political Realism , where Ashley re-covers classical (or practical) and an
emancipatory (Herzian) realism through Habermass practical/technical/emancipatory cognitive
interest distinction (pp. 207210).
24
Indeed, in the postscript to Coxs article, reproduced in Keohane (below), he pointed to intellectual
influences other than the Frankfurt School, including Giambattista Vico (p. 242). Cox does, however,
refer to Habermas in the context of the legitimation crisis of the state. See Robert W. Cox, Social
Forces, States and World Order, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 10: 2 (1981),
pp. 12655, reprinted in an extended form as Cox, Social Forces, in Keohane (ed.), Neorealism. The
Habermas reference is on p. 206; the introduction of problem-solving v. critical theory on p. 208.
132 Thomas Diez and Jill Steans

feminists and Critical Theorists all envisage a world politics in which strategic
considerations of power and interests do not dominate international relations.
This concern with strategic interests of control resonated with Habermass
critique of positivism and his contention that technical knowledge could be put to
the service of social domination. Following Habermas, Ashley identified three interests
and three specific forms of knowledge: knowledge that arose from a technical
interest in understanding and extending control over nature and society; knowledge
that was put to the service of a practical interest in understanding how to create and
maintain orderly communities; and knowledge inspired by an emancipatory interest
in identifying and eradicating unnecessary social confinements and constraints.25 For
Ashley, emancipation was about securing freedom from unacknowledged constraints,
relations of domination and conditions of distorted communication.26 This at once
pointed to the role that knowledge played in creating and sustaining social arrange-
ments characterised by inequality and domination and in facilitating experiments in
different ways of living and relating to one another.
Such a concern not only raised the seemingly enduring problem of how to
eradicate power politics in IR, but also how to avoid imperialist practices that
imposed Western cultural practices and beliefs on other peoples. In this respect,
Habermass work was embraced because it provided a useful guide to how beliefs
and actions could be made accountable to others and how they could then be
subjected to scrutiny and accepted or contested by participants engaged in dialogue.
For those taking their lead from Habermas, the central political task was to facilitate
the development of institutional arrangements that concretised this dialogic ideal. In
the project of devising new and better institutional arrangements for settling
disputes in IR without recourse to force, Andrew Linklater looked to Habermas
because he seemingly offered insights into how institutional arrangements might be
set up to facilitate the conduct of international relations along consensual, non-
coercive lines.27
Habermas also offered procedural guidance for democratic decision-making
processes, while acknowledging that international norms and institutions must be
submitted to collective scrutiny and deliberation to maintain legitimacy. In some of
the contributions to this collection of articles, the authors have sought to identify
the sites and spaces where conversations take place, often finding that they remain
behind closed doors, thereby defying the first principle of open conversation. Nicole
Deitelhoff and Harald Mller, in their contribution to this Forum, report their
finding that in the context of the negotiations leading to the Non-Proliferation
Treaty, argumentative rather than strategic behaviour prevailed whenever delegations
were meeting in camera. In his article, Haacke, after mapping out in broad terms
the contribution that Habermas has made to our understanding of international
politics, turns to the notable shortcomings and failings of the Habermasian project
in this respect.

25
Ashley, Political Realism, p. 207.
26
Ibid., p. 227.
27
Linklater, The Next Stage, pp. 7798; Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community
(Oxford: Polity, 1998).
 Habermas and IR 133

Strategic and communicative action

While Habermas was originally harnessed to produce a critical IR theory, one

should note at this juncture that Habermas also inspired social constructivists in
their attempts to develop a social theory of international politics. There are both
affinities and disjunctures between these two projects, but here we might note how
social constructivists in particular have found the concept of communicative action,
that is, action driven by the search for the better argument rather than strategic power,
helpful for theorising change. For instance, Thomas Risse and his collaborators
argued that in the process of domestic change through the incorporation of human
rights, communicative action played a crucial part in convincing actors of the
validity of such rights, even though the initial steps both by the government
violating rights and by the actors promoting them were characterised as strategic
action.28 In a programmatic article in International Organization with the title Lets
Argue!, Risse drew on an extensive debate within the German IR community to
make the case for the relevance of communicative action in international politics,
and to set out a research programme to determine when and under which conditions
communicative action would prevail over strategic action in decision-making
processes.29
In their article below, Deitelhoff and Mller report on their attempt to sub-
stantiate the debate about a useful dialogue between Habermas and IR with an
empirical research project to observe the impact of strategic and what they call
argumentative behaviour in international negotiations. On one level, their assessment
is disappointing, since they were unable to empirically distinguish between both
types of actions, a consequence of the old problem, shared by cognitive approaches,
that motivations can be theorised ontologically but are difficult to demonstrate
empirically. However, as they admit, such an empirical, as opposed to analytical,
distinction between strategic and argumentative behaviour was not actually part of
Habermass argument. Instead of focusing on actor orientations, Deitelhoff and
Mller accept that arguing is always present in international negotiations, and turn
their attention to the effect of arguing, and the conditions under which it prevails
over bargaining that is determined by individual preferences and the impact of
material power.

Ethical encounters

Critical theorists of all hues have revealed a deep concern with the ethical dilemmas
and responsibilities that were not only inherent in everyday encounters, but

28
Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink (eds.), The Power of Human Rights:
International Norms and Domestic Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
29
Thomas Risse, Lets Argue!: Communicative action in world politics, International Organization
54: 1 (2000), pp. 139. The German debate was kicked off by Harald Mller, Internationale
Beziehungen als kommunikatives Handeln: Zur Kritik der utilitaristischen Handlungstheorie,
Zeitschrift fr Internationale Beziehungen 1: 1 (1994), pp. 1544. For further references see Risse,
Lets Argue. Interestingly, Habermas has yet not commented on this debate.
134 Thomas Diez and Jill Steans

embedded in the concrete practices of world politics and so central to the theoris-
ation of IR.30 In this collection of essays, the authors agree on the need to further
dialogue in world politics, and they recognise the contribution that Habermass
concept of a discursive ethics has made to this, although they also differ on the exact
nature and limits of this dialogue.
The distinctiveness of Critical Theory lies in its desire to foster an inter-subjective
conversation aimed at mutual understanding and communication free from
ideological domination. This conversation ensued in the interest of discovering the
universal conditions of communication and so avoided what was often held to be a
notorious pitfall of post-positivism, moral relativism, by providing a formal and
process-oriented rather than a substantive definition of political alternatives. Thus,
Linklater embraced discourse ethics because it seemingly affirms that the validity of
principles must be established through a mode of dialogue in which human beings
strive to reach an agreement.31 Taking as its central concern the contribution of
discourse ethics to the civilising process in international politics, in this collection
Linklater offers what is perhaps the most sympathetic account of the usefulness of
Habermas to IR theorists. For Habermas, the life-world (in contrast to the
system) is constituted through communicative action oriented towards mutual
understanding. Linklaters project is focused on the strengthening of the lifeworld
through discursive engagement. He sees an obvious connection with Habermass
defence of a discourse theory of morality in which all people have a right to be
involved in dialogue on decisions and issues that affect them, thus challenging all
boundaries and systems of exclusion. Discourse was understood as a process whereby
reflexive agents turn back upon their habits and assumptions and subject them to a
communicatively rational interrogation and evaluation. Ultimately, Linklater is
prepared to defend only a weak version of the discourse perspective on the grounds
that while not unproblematic, it is nevertheless a productive means of advancing the
civilising process in international relations that would involve promoting social
arrangements to satisfy basic human needs without causing harm (of various kinds)
to others.
As Linklater acknowledges (in his article below, and elsewhere), there are a number
of objections to Habermass version of dialogue and discourse ethics. For example,
the emphasis on proceduralism in Habermas might already privilege a concrete
vision of the good life, while also leading to a relative neglect of the need for
substantive moral conclusions. Moreover, Habermas seemingly invokes a universal
read liberal? subject that might be incomprehensible to members of other
cultural groups. However, Linklater contends that many of these problems can be
overcome if notions of dialogue are reconfigured and applied cautiously in relations

30
See, for example, Fiona Robinson, Globalising Care: Ethics, Feminist Theory and International
Relations (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1999); Kimberley Hutchins, Towards a Feminist International
Ethics, Review of International Studies, 26: Special Issue (2000), pp. 11130; David Campbell, Politics
without Principle: Sovereignty, Ethics, and the Narratives of the Gulf War (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 1993). For a criticism of post-positivist IR in this regard, see Mervyn Frost, A Turn not
Taken; Ethics in IR at the Millennium, Review of International Studies, 24: Special Issue (1998), pp.
11932.
31
Andrew Linklater, The achievements of critical theory, in Steve Smith, Ken Booth and Marysia
Zalewski (eds.), International Theory: Positivism and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
1996), pp. 27998.
 Habermas and IR 135

with those who occupy marginal social positions. Part of this project involves
developing a much greater capacity to engage sensitively with the standpoint of
Others and opening up to critical scrutiny the acceptability of ethical principles
from the perspective of Others. Linklater thus pleads for a historically self-
conscious universalism, which is difference sensitive.
In making concessions to Otherness, Linklater might be said to be engaging with
the central concerns of post-structuralism, or perhaps, as others have done, incorpor-
ating the insights of postmodernism within the ambit of critical IR theory.32
However, post-structuralists have resisted these kinds of engagements. In response to
the charge of relativism, they have counter-charged that Habermass Critical Theory
was characterised by a problematic commitment to rationalism and the modernist
aspiration to totality. Common to critiques of Habermas are deep concerns about
the exclusionary character of Western universal reasoning, which have led some
theorists to argue that the search for a form of morality acceptable by everyone
should be abandoned.
A central objection to Habermas, largely couched in terms of the problems inherent
in his commitment to universalist categories and principles, is raised by Kimberly
Hutchings in her contribution to this Forum. Speaking from the nexus of three
overlapping discourses feminism and Habermas, IR and Habermas, and feminism
and IR Hutchings addresses important questions about the extent to which the
division of a public and a private sphere in Habermas is a gendered construct. While
it is not an explicit theme of Hutchings contribution, she hints at the deeply
gendered nature of public space, as it is constituted in Habermass theory. A key
question for feminists remains whether women can take possession of a public
sphere that has been enduringly reconstructed along masculinist lines?33
Hutchings article prompts questions about the degree to which emotions can be
integrated into the conceptualisation of communicative action in international
politics.34 Hutchings concedes that there have been sympathetic engagements between
feminism and Habermas, for example in Seyla Benhabibs efforts to reformulate
discourse ethics as interactive universalism. This accords with concerns held in
some feminist circles that a feminist politics is not possible if one prioritises
difference over equality, and rejects the Enlightenment project of emancipation, or
indeed, the notion of truth.35
However, feminists have more often rejected the notion of ethics as the abstract
application of the rules and/or principles of justice, since this devalued the moral
skills present in an ethics of care that was oriented towards concrete, particular
others. This points to deep problems involving the role and recognition of diverse
identities in conversations across borders, although post-positivists of various

32
See also Devetak, Critical Theory.
33
Nancy Fraser, Whats Critical about Critical Theory? The Case of Habermas and Gender, New
German Critique, 35 (1985), pp. 97131. For a discussion of the usefulness (and limitations) of
Habermass model of dialogue in relation to struggles around womens human rights, see Brooke
Ackerly Womens Rights Activists as Cross-Cultural Theorists, International Feminist Journal of
Politics,3: 3 (2001), pp. 31146.
34
On these issues, see Nancy Fraser, Whats Critical.
35
One could point to an extensive number of sources here, but for a good overview of the debate
between post-structuralist feminism and critical feminism, see Linda J. Nicholson,
Feminism/Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 1990).
136 Thomas Diez and Jill Steans

persuasions advance different solutions to how we might negotiate such differences.

Hutchings raises the question of whether the aim of dialogue should be to establish
a single common ground, or whether it is possible to have meaningful conversations
across boundaries (of nation, class, culture, gender and so on) without such a common
ground. Relatedly, is there a common basis present in all human cultures on which
to build dialogue and further inter-subjectivity?
Hutchings overall conclusion is that we should be circumspect about the useful-
ness of Habermas to developing our understanding of areas such as international
ethics and international political theory. She argues that ultimately feminist and
other critical IR scholars will inevitably encounter problems in applying Habermass
ideas, not least of which is the conception of the human subject which continues to
embody the rationalist bias of a Western philosophical tradition. Hutchings is thus
inclined to eschew further dialogue between Habermas and (feminist) IR, in favour
of further developing an alternative model of dialogue that would empower
different voices in a morally pluralist feminist international ethics. IR feminist
scholars with post-structuralist sympathies for example, Christine Sylvester have
more often advocated forms of empathetic negotiation and dialogue across diverse
identities and boundaries, in the hope that this would facilitate a new kind of
feminist politics built upon womens multiple identities, experiences and locations;
an approach more in sympathy with an ethos of pluralism, perhaps.36

Negotiating the universalist/relativist dichotomy

As the above discussion indicates, Critical Theory has often been criticised on the
grounds that it is committed to modes of thought and action, which ultimately
subsume difference within one totalising identity, despite declarations to the
contrary. A recent exchange in Millennium illustrates this further. In this exchange,
Fred Dallmayr wished to promote conversation across boundaries on the basis of
Habermass concepts, based on communicative rationality,37 and unfolding in
contexts approximating the ideal speech situation, a situation without domination
(Herrschaft). Dallmayr recognised that conceptualisations of communicative ration-
ality were devoid of emotions, and so he suggested these needed to be supplemented
with the concept of friendship.38
However, his critics remained suspicious of what they saw as the very aim of
communicative rationality, namely that it should lead to a common understanding or
inter-subjectivity. Thus William Connolly, on similar grounds to Hutchings, objected
that Habermass model set a universal matrix in which diversity was acknowledged
and absorbed. Connolly suggested that this desire to seek consensus and absorb
difference arose from a tendency to link diversity to fragmentation. Fragmentation
describes a situation where there is a struggle to occupy the authorative centre of a

36
See Sylvester, Empathetic Cooperation; Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan (eds.), Scattered
Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Politics (Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press, 1994).
37
Dallmayr, Conversation.
38
Ibid., pp. 3427.
 Habermas and IR 137

territorial regime. In contrast, a positive ethos of pluralism exists within a state where
citizens reflected critically on the need to avoid excluding or marginalising emerging
constituencies to whom they could otherwise connect positively. Connolly advocated
an ethos of pluralisation, in which conversations took place without necessarily
aiming at a common understanding,39 suggesting that the pursuit of agonistic respect
across persisting lines of difference established a threshold against which to measure
the element of compassion and forbearance in each contribution. 40
Nick Rengger was similarly appreciative, but ultimately critical of Dallmayrs
project. Rengger expressed a number of reservations that included the interpretation
of Oakshotts concept of conversation in Dallmayrs work. Among other things,
Rengger also argued that ultimately neither communicative rationality nor friend-
ship could rid politics, and therefore international politics, of interest and power,
which were concealed by the notions of a common understanding and inter-
subjectivity.41 Moreover, these questions remained acutely relevant in a neo-imperial
age in which conversations across political and cultural boundaries were mostly
conducted on the basis of a particular type of Western rationality.
Yet to construct Critical Theory in a Habermasian sense and critical theory in a
broader sense, including post-structuralism, as standing in marked opposition to one
another, is problematic.42 Habermas and Foucault had established a dialogue, which
was prematurely cut off when Foucault died.43 In this spirit, Jim George invoked
Habermas in his attempt to develop an international ethics, while also stressing the
potential of exploring the overlap between the Foucauldian and Habermasian
approaches in this endeavour.44
Post-structuralist scholars have felt compelled to move beyond critique and
deconstruction to find ways in which post-structuralism can further our understand-
ing of a range of human problems and some have found spaces within modernists
discourses of emancipation that allow for critical engagement and negotiation.45
This does not mean that there are no differences left, as Hutchings contribution and
the Millennium exchange vividly demonstrate. Yet, recognising each others con-
tributions might help in future engagements to focus on the core issues of a critical
engagement with current affairs from multiple, but not necessarily wholly incompat-
ible perspectives.
While post-structuralists refute the notion of a single truth or ethics, contra neo-
realists, they also recognise that one cannot avoid ethical questions and responsibilities in
IR. Following Levinas, David Campbell has advocated an ethics of diversity, which is
based on the principle of respect for diversity, but also cognisant of the condition of
radical interdependence.46 Therefore, although theoretically dismissive of Critical

39
William E. Connolly, Cross-State Citizen Networks: A Response to Dallmayr, Millennium: Journal
of International Studies, 30: 2 (2001), pp. 34855. See also William E. Connolly, The Ethos of
Pluralization (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1995).
40
Connolly, Cross-State Citizen Networks.
41
N. J. Rengger, The Boundaries of Conversation: a Response to Dallmayr, Millennium: Journal of
International Studies, 30: 2 (2001), pp. 35764.
42
George, Discourses.
43
Mitchell Stephens, The Theologian of Talk, Los Angeles Times Magazine, 23 October 1994,
<http://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/Habermas%20page.htm> (11 December 2003).
44
George, Discourses, pp. 1656.
45
Ibid., pp. 1828.
46
Campbell, Politics without Principle, pp. 9599.
138 Thomas Diez and Jill Steans

Theory in his work, Campbell has moved beyond critique to engage with concrete
policy issues and to formulate alternatives policies. This has inevitably led Campbell to
address ethical concerns in concrete contexts, notably in the ethical choices involved in
boundary marking and processes of Othering. Linklater has similarly engaged with
Othering processes in ways that confront problems of exclusion and hierarchy (see,
for example, Linklaters discussion of the harm principle in this issue).
Indeed, the idea found in many post-structuralist works on international ethics,
that there are different forms of Othering, and that some are preferable over others
because they are less exclusionary and/or violent, although rarely spelt out, rests on
notions of acceptable interaction that are not far removed from Linklaters principle
of doing no harm. Both accept that we cannot escape selfother relations; and both
argue that these must be conducted in such a way as to minimise the infringement
on the identity of the Other. They therefore both reject totalitarianism, which
incidentally is also an answer to Critical Theorists charge that post-structuralism
leads to moral relativism perhaps so, but if one follows the argument presented by
Linklater here, the boundaries drawn in both Critical Theory and post-structuralism
around which articulations are acceptable seem to coincide much more than such
criticism implies.47

A pragmatic response

In that spirit, it is a good sign that the intellectual climate today is much more
amenable to breaching dichotomies and entrenched divisions than was the case
during the first wave of critical IR. In the articles published in this special section of
the Review, it is noticeable that the authors afford more possibility of establishing
common ground between different forms of critical theory than was the case in some
of the early contributions to the fourth debate. In this context it is worth noting that
a current trend in IR theory is the growing frustration with the construction of
theory from philosophical first principles. There is, it seems, an emerging constituency
of IR theorists, representing a range of perspectives from rationalism to political
pragmatism, who regard the philosophical turn in IR as unhelpful insofar as, while
highlighting fundamental and important questions about the basis of our knowledge,
it has tended to prioritise ontological, epistemological and methodological questions
and cultivated a theory-driven rather than a problem-driven approach to IR. Some
recent avenues of investigation within IR have proceeded in this spirit.
For example, in their contributions to a 2002 special issue of the journal
Millennium, devoted to the subject of pragmatism and IR, both David Owen and
Molly Cochran guard against the dangers of factionalism communities increasingly
closed off from one another in IR, not least because this mitigates against achiev-
ing greater understanding of concrete problems in IR.48 Instead they advocate a
pragmatist ethos and pragmatic approach to key ethical questions. In distinctive

47
On the theme of different forms of Othering, see also Thomas Diez, Europes Others and the Return
of Geopolitics, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 17: 2 (2004), pp. 31935.
48
Molly Cochran, Deweyan Pragmatism and Post-Positivist Social Science in IR, in Millennium:
Journal of International Studies, 31: 3 (2002), pp, 52548; David Owen Re-Orienting International
Relations: On Pragmatism, Pluralism and Practical Reasoning, in Millennium: Journal of
International Studies, 31: 3 (2002), pp. 65373.
 Habermas and IR 139

ways, both Cochran and Owen draw upon John Dewey in an effort to re-orientate
IR in ways that preserve its pluralism, but also avoid disabling and distorting
relations of mutual antagonisms.49 Owen argues that rather than conceiving of IR
as a theoretical war of all against all we might acknowledge that there is a role for
different kinds of theoretical practice.50 In this vision of the future development of
the field, IR might be considered as a form of practical philosophy oriented to the
topic of the government of common affairs of humanity.

A (critical) social theory of IR?

Above, we alluded briefly to the way in which Habermass work on communicative

action has been put to the service of developing a social theory of international
politics. It is probably accurate to say that the most substantive contribution to
social theory in an IR context thus far, has been Alexander Wendts Social Theory of
International Politics,51 in which he advocates constructivism as offering a new
paradigm or synthesis for IR. However, while Wendts work has been influential,
constructivists do not have a monopoly on social theory within the IR community.
In the final article in this Forum, Martin Weber restates the relevance of Critical
Theory to the social turn in IR as an emancipatory social theory. Weber points to
the relative neglect, thus far, of the social-theoretic aspect of Habermass work to
IR, the efforts to include the distinction between different types of behaviour discussed
above notwithstanding. Echoing many of the themes of earlier contributions, Weber
claims that IR has yet to explore the usefulness of Habermass central architectural
edifice in his (revised) critical social theory the dialectic of system and life-
world. Systemic engagement with Habermass work promises at least a new impetus
for investigating the social turn in IR, one in which both criteriology and the social-
theoretic potentials of the diagnostic of the colonisation of the life-world could
yield interesting analytical and practical possibilities.
In his contribution, Haacke is careful to point out that Habermas was deeply
reflexive about the degree of tension between his version of discourse ethics and
actual political development at the international level. For Haacke, this degree of
tension, in turn, indicates the need to consider more recent contributions to Critical
Theory notably Axel Honneths attempt to connect a theory of society with a
theory of emancipation through a focus on the struggle for recognition.52 Haacke
claims that Honneths work on the moral grammar of social conflict enriches our
understanding of developments in diverse societies across the world as well as in
international relations, and is easier to put to analytical use in concrete contexts of
international politics than Habermass work. Like Haacke, Weber embraces Honneths

49
Owen, Re-Orienting IR, p. 658.
50
On the issue of different theoretical practices and purposes, see also Thomas Diez and Antje Wiener,
Introducing the Mosaic of Integration Theory, and Wiener and Diez, Taking Stock of Integration
Theory, in Wiener and Diez (eds.), European Integration Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004), pp. 3, 2434.
51
Alexander Wendt, A Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999).
52
Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1996). For further references see Haackes contribution.
140 Thomas Diez and Jill Steans

reorientation of critical social theory towards questions of identity, arguing that this
has thickened the conception of the life-world provided by Habermas. One might add
that this concern with identity would also provide a further point of engagement with
Foucauldians in IR, who have long argued that Habermasian Critical Theory in IR
does not take identity seriously enough. The potential for more inclusive conceptions
of political agency also emerges from these enquiries, Weber argues, and thus affords
a better grasp of the relationship between the growth of systems-rational incursions
into life-worlds and a more developed conception of the politics of the life-world. So
far, these moves are tentative, but they point us along a path where Habermass
thinking would seem to limit his own critical social theory.

Conclusion

While there are differences in approach and emphasis, this collection of articles
constitutes a fruitful dialogue between the diverse groups of researchers who are
developing some common themes that characterise the influence that Habermass
work has had on IR. Each of the contributors has approached the question of
whether the engagement between Habermas and IR has been a useful dialogue
from the perspective of her or his own theoretical preoccupations and/or empirical
interests. Nevertheless, each of the contributions to this Forum addresses some (if
not all) of the key questions arising from the engagement between Habermas and
IR, which we have identified in this introduction.
In our view, there has been, and continues to be, a useful dialogue not only
between Habermas work and IR, but also involving many other figures of the
Frankfurt School and in other locales of critical social theories. Above all, we have
argued that there is more of a crossover between the different versions of critical
theory, as well as between the attempts to formulate a social theory and a critical
theory of international politics than is usually acknowledged. These different
projects should not be seen as separate, as has been the tendency, but rather as
intertwined. In so far as they have not always been taken much note of, or have been
at loggerheads with each other, we hope that this special Forum will facilitate
conversation between them.
Similarly, we hope that, in a modest way, this Forum and the articles by Weber
and Haacke in particular, might promote a wider debate about whether integrating a
new generation of Frankfurt School thinkers, especially the work of Axel Honneth,
is a potentially fruitful path to go down in seeking a remedy to some of the
problems encountered in the application of Habermas to IR. The themes raised in
the contributions to this Forum have lost nothing of their relevance since the debate
about a critical theory in IR first emerged. If anything, they have gained importance
under the conditions of globalisation and what many see as an increasing degree of
hegemony. It is appropriate, perhaps, that we should conclude that not only has the
dialogue between Habermas and IR thus far been fruitful, but also, following
Webers argument, that Habermas and those who have followed him continue to
provide a tremendous resource that IR is only now really beginning to explore.
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