ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys the implicit conceptualisation of peace inherent in orthodox structuralist explanations of IR, from its interrogations of imperialism, world order and world-systems, class, conflict and capitalism, to its proposals for the construction of an international order in which economic and social justice prevail. From here arose the broader critical contributions of the debates on emancipation, hegemony, social justice, language and identity. An inevitable part of the debate on peace implicit in orthodox structuralist approaches to IR theory revolves around the problems of agency and structure. This often implies that structures are exploited by the rich and powerful in order to deny the agency and freedom of the individual through hegemonic domination based upon an unequal distribution of material resources, or via race and class. From this underlying concern with the construction of structural hegemony, particularly through realism and liberalism, it offers arguments pertaining to the reform or removal of such structures by the realisation of the actual agency of individuals to create justice, as Marx argued.2 In extreme cases this revolves around revolutionary action against hegemony, though the more influential version of this debate aspires to empowerment of agency through reform, or simply through discursive responses to the identification of such structures of hegemony.
