Conclusion: The political limits to critical and emancipatory approaches to security and conflict

In the preceding chapters I have attempted to develop an argument about the political limits to critical and emancipatory approaches to contemporary international relations. The key claim of critical and emancipatory theorists is to pose a challenge to contemporary global power structures. In the preceding chapters I have argued that critical approaches cannot pose a challenge to contemporary power relations. However, this is neither because, as critical theorists such as Richard Devetak have argued, critical theorists need to ensure that they maintain a distance from interventionist policies (2007) nor because, as radical critics have argued, critical theorists are simply the theoretical wing of liberal interventionism (Douzinas, 2007).