ABSTRACT
Critical Theory is by definition and vocation oppositional. Standing apart from prevailing orders, it seeks, in Robert Cox's now famous formulation, to question the origins and interests of theoretical visions, and to reveal their connections to structures of power and dynamics of domination. As the evolution of Critical Theory in International Relations (IR) demonstrates, opposition can be as intellectually fruitful as it is politically essential. Identifying defining oppositions is not only a key mechanism of critique and a means of challenging orthodoxy, but it may also – by design or through more circuitous developments – hold powerful potential for the formation of relatively self-conscious counter-movements that can provide both the intellectual and institutional support necessary if critique is to develop an agenda beyond isolated individual scholarship and engagement.
