ABSTRACT

We turn now to the task of situating ecological thought within the many critical waves that have swept over IR theory. In order to do so we make the relatively non-controversial assumption that realist and liberal thought, as described and evaluated in the previous two chapters, constitute the “mainstream” of IR theory. Although many branches of contemporary critical approaches have roots in Marxist literature which predates most of the IR theory to which students are routinely introduced, much of it emerged in the 1970s as a refutation of the centrality of realism and liberalism. Critical approaches target the assumptions on which the mainstream has been constructed, as well as the epistemological (positivist) foundations of the sub-discipline of IR theory as a whole. One might argue that the question of epistemology is the central concern here; critical theorists argue that positivism limits the ability of IR theory to move beyond descriptive analysis and into normative work with an active, “emancipatory” agenda.1