ABSTRACT
Critical international theory is confronted with a fundamental problem of orientation, whose answer defines its capacity to critically analyse world politics. This problem derives from how the capacity for critique is inherently connected with the need to, at least partially, escape time- and space-bound points of view and attain a more cosmopolitan perspective that permits an assessment of the regressive/progressive tendencies of the human past, present, and possible futures. The search for this cosmopolitan standpoint of orientation has frequently led to a reliance on grand narratives of human development from the perspective of which critical orientation can be disclosed. However, grand narratives themselves have frequently relied on transcendental categories and stadial conceptions of history that reproduce forms of Eurocentrism that ultimately undermine their adequacy as means of orientation. A fundamental suspicion of grand narratives and need for reflexivity that discloses forms of exclusion embedded in theoretical perspectives have thus become common topics in the field. However, this growing concern with reflexivity is also associated with a tendency for greater philosophical abstraction and a growing gap between theory and practice. This chapter considers the role of grand narratives in critical international theory and argues for the development of a post-Eurocentric and historical-sociological approach to grand narratives that provides an alternative answer to the problem of orientation and recovers the link between theory and practice. The rest of this book is dedicated to establishing the theoretical foundations for the development of such a historical-sociological approach to grand narratives.
