ABSTRACT
Introduction It is difficult to overstate the significance of Jürgen Habermas’ work in contemporary intellectual thought. A scholar of unprecedented scope and profundity, he is often referred to as the German intellectual of the post-Second World War era. Given the scale and quality of Habermas’ scholarly repertoire, it is not surprising that his ideas have inspired a rich and growing body of literature in International Relations (IR).1 His thought has been particularly influential in the ‘post-positivist’ turn within the discipline of IR – a body of writing emphasizing the role of inter-subjective meanings, interpretation and linguistic communication in the construction of new and innovative approaches to world politics. Of course, such themes long pre-date Habermas’ own unique contribution to them, as the various other chapters in this volume illustrate. This chapter explores first of all the sources and debates around Habermas’ work and, second, some specific aspects of its significance in IR, including in particular the ways in which the work of Andrew Linklater develops, reflects and refracts his arguments. Unlike some of the other thinkers in this collection, however, Habermas’ work is quite well known within IR debates. Nevertheless, it may be argued that the application of his work in IR has been limited, largely impacting on various sub-branches of the discipline. Whilst Habermas’ intellectual debt to Marx and the early Frankfurt School have been acknowledged within IR (Linklater 1990, 1996, 1998; Haacke 1996: 257-258; Weber 2005: 196-198), much less attention has been paid to his explicit engagement with Marx and the historical materialist tradition in general. Critical international theorists have largely accepted Habermas’ interpretation of Marxism (Hoffman 1987: 234, 243-244; Linklater 1990: 24-27, 1996, 1998: 40-42, 90-92, 115-117; Haacke 1996: 257-258, 260). They have sought to elaborate a ‘Marxian-inspired critical theory’ that follows Habermas’ efforts to ‘reconstruct historical materialism’ in order to more adequately fulfil the goals it had set itself whilst overcoming its ‘inherent weaknesses’ (Linklater 1996: 279-280). However, is this ‘Habermasian’ critique of Marx and the Critical Marxist tradition a fundamentally correct one? What does Habermasian-influenced critical IR incorporate from Marxism, and what does it leave behind?
