Review of International Studies (2005), 31, 127140 Copyright British International Studies Association DOI: 10.

1017/S0260210505006339

A useful dialogue? Habermas and International Relations

THOMAS DIEZ AND JILL STEANS

Introduction It is now more than twenty years since Jrgen Habermass work was rst referred to in International Relations (IR) theory.1 Along with many other continental philosophers and social theorists, Habermas was initially mobilised in the critique of positivism, and in particular neorealism, in IR theory. As such, the interest in Habermas and IR must be located in the rst instance within the context of the fourth debate.2 This Forum section of the Review provides us with the opportunity to take stock and ask whether the dialogue between Habermas and IR has, thus far, been useful in providing new conceptual and methodological tools to analyse international politics and in inspiring new research agendas in IR.3 We also ask whether the role that dialogue plays within Habermass work has been useful in formulating a critical theory of international relations. To date, in his academic work, Habermas has written little explicitly on the subject of international politics.4 However, as the focus of the fourth debate began

Richard K. Ashley, Political Realism and Human Interests, International Studies Quarterly, 25: 2 (1981), pp. 20436. Sometimes referred to as the third debate, as in Yosef Lapid, The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a Post-positivist Era, International Studies Quarterly, 33: 2 (1989), pp. 23554. We have adopted the term fourth debate to differentiate the critique of positivism and the emergence of a more post-positivist orientation in IR, from the earlier inter-paradigm debate. On the fourth debate, see Ole Wver, Figures of International Thought: Introducing Persons Instead of Paradigms, Iver B. Neumann and Ole Wver (eds.), The Future of International Relations: Masters in the Making (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 137. We would like to thank all members of the International Relations Theory Research Group at the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham as well as the Reviews anonymous reviewer for their invaluable contributions in putting this special section together, and in writing this introduction. The Departments nancial support for two workshops is gratefully acknowledged. See the references in the contribution by Jrgen Haacke in this Forum. Richard Devetak cites the scant reference to international politics in Habermass The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory Parts III and IV (Cambridge: Polity, 2002). Richard Devetak, Critical Theory, in Scott Burchill et al., Theories of International Relations (London: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 15580. Fred Dallmayr (discussed at greater length below) cites Habermass views on global communication, as espoused in Reason in the Diversity of its Voices as another piece that speaks to the concerns of post-positivist IR. Fred Dallmayr, Conversation across boundaries: political theory and global diversity, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 30: 2 (2001) pp. 33147.

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to shift from the critique of positivism to the substance of Critical Theory itself,5 some championed Habermas because he appeared to offer a new direction to IR in its post-positivist phase. A key concern of Critical Theory has been how to enhance the institutional setting of international/global politics so that arguing towards a consensus prevailed over demonstrations of power. In so far as Habermass work in this area held out the promise of nding ways to transcend the (what has often been presented as endemic) problem of power in international politics, we might ask whether IR scholars have subsequently produced new and compelling visions of an alternative world politics? More specically, have the model of dialogue and the conception of discourse ethics derived from Habermas, proved useful in IR theory, and indeed, in facilitating the development of a more ethical international/global politics? Has the engagement with Habermas been fruitful in stimulating attempts to develop a critical international relations theory; or in the task of constructing a social theory of international politics? Are the concepts used in Critical Theory utopian, especially in the context of international politics, or are they rooted in concrete social and political practice and, therefore, potentially useful in the development of a social theory and perhaps history of international relations? Finally, are productive spaces opening up for an engagement between IR and a new generation of Critical Theorists? In this Introduction, we welcome the bridges that have been and are being built between different strands of critical theory, without subsuming them under a single coherent frame, and identify the further development of a critical social theory of IR as a core challenge. In both respects, the work of Habermas has been and continues to be crucial, although, as this Forum, and in particular the contributions by Jrgen Haacke and Martin Weber, will make clear, a new generation of Frankfurt School thinkers should also be drawn upon.

The fourth debate revisited Jim George placed the initial interest in critical theory in IR in the context of the widespread sense of crisis associated with the end of the Cold War and the ensuing multi-pronged assault on neorealism, then the dominant approach in IR theory.6 Neorealism was attacked on the grounds that it lacked both predictive power and insight into how world order changed over time. The failures of neorealism in this regard were held to be rooted in its tendency to present historically contingent phenomena as natural and immutable features of the international system. As such,

The Editorial Board of Millenium: Journal of International Studies also pushed for a more empirical basis in critical IR theory (while remaining committed to showcasing post-structuralist and feminist work as well). A good example is Jrgen Haacke, Theory and Praxis in International Relations: Habermas, Self-reection, Rational Argumentation, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 25: 2 (1996), pp. 25589. We use critical theory in the broad sense of the term to include a range of post-positivist positions. Elsewhere we distinguish between critical and/or constructivist approaches in IR and those inspired by the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School and Habermas particularly. Jim George, Discourses of Global Politics: A Critical (Re)Introduction to International Relations (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994).

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a further problem with neorealism was that it constituted an ideology that reied the current international order and could potentially be put to the service of conservative political ends.7 In contesting the empirical claims that neorealists made about the world, critics not only challenged the taken-for-granted structures of the social and political world, but also questioned the underlying and embedded standards, criteria, norms and principles in neorealism that made judgement possible and gave them privileged status.8 In so far as the failings of neorealism could be ultimately attributed to its epistemological, ontological and methodological underpinnings, the critique of neorealism and the growing attraction of critical theories in IR, should more properly be viewed as part of the critique of positivism within the social sciences (including IR) that pre-dated the end of the Cold War. In fact, Ashleys rst articles referred to above were written nearly a decade before the Cold War ended. In this context, Habermas argued that the dominance of positivism in the social sciences was problematic because it had given rise to a tendency to regard all human problems as technical problems amenable to technical solutions, thus forgetting that knowledge about the human world was sought to foster greater autonomy, not greater control. Critical knowledge of the social realm was generated through self-reection that in turn facilitated the development of self-understanding and autonomy of action and, so, emancipation. Certainly Lapid recognised and acknowledged that the fourth debate in IR was linked, historically and intellectually, to the conuence of diverse anti-positivististic, philosophical and sociological trends in the social sciences more generally.9 The critique of the real worldism of neorealism only added to the critique of the rigid separation of facts and values within positivist approaches in IR, that worked to preclude, discourage or marginalise the consideration of philosophical or epistemological questions.10 It was not only those inspired by Critical Theory, and Habermas specically, that contributed to the fourth debate. An emerging group of, in many ways, diverse critical theorists began to ask rst order questions concerning the nature of knowledge claims and how meaning and truth were constituted. As both a strand of social theory and as an approach to IR, critical theorists took issue with positivism, arguing knowledge did not arise from the subjects neutral engagement with an objective reality out there, but rather reected pre-existing social purposes and interests. As Richard Ashley put it, knowledge is always constituted in the reection of interests.11Ashley, who drew on Habermass work, would later join the growing ranks of post-structuralist scholars in IR who employed genealogical tools to

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See, for example, George, Discourses; Robert Cox, States, Social Forces and World Order: Beyond International Relations Theory, in Robert Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 20454; John McLean, Political Theory, International Theory and Problems of Ideology, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 10: 2 (1981), pp. 10225. Lapid, Third Debate, p. 243. Ibid., p. 237. George, Discourses; see also Roger Tooze and Craig Murphy (eds.), The New International Political Economy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992). Richard K. Ashley, Political Realism, pp. 20436.

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demonstrate how meaning and understanding was not intrinsic to the world but continuously constructed, defended and challenged. 12 The emergence of feminist scholarship in IR is often presented as having its own specic origins and trajectory.13 Feminist scholarship has been particularly concerned with the invisibility of women and the marginalisation of gender as both a category and approach in mainstream IR, but feminists also engaged in the critique of positivism. Feminist IR scholars were (and remain) largely post-positivists of one kind or another. Feminists rejected rationalism on the grounds that it was imbued with gender bias. Ann Tickner and Spike Peterson, among others, joined the affray on the neorealist orthodoxy, by pointing to the deeply masculinist assumptions embedded in its concepts and in the images of an anarchic and dangerous world propagated in neorealist discourse.14 The problematic construction of non-Western women as Other in Western feminist discourse was much debated in the feminist academic community in the 1980s and so it is unsurprising that sensitivity toward difference was manifest in feminist approaches in IR. Moreover, asking the simple question where are the women in IR? fostered deeper ruminations on the processes of inclusion and exclusion at work in the construction of theories, world-views and research agendas alike. 15 What emerged from the fourth debate was a generally more reexive environment in which debate, criticism and novelty could freely circulate.16 Critical theorists of all persuasions acknowledged the socially mutable and historically contingent nature of knowledge claims and defended, to some degree, methodological pluralism. The fourth debate spawned an invitation to those, whose voices had been silenced or exiled in/from the mainstream, to speak and write IR in novel and surprising ways.17 It thus initiated a conversation that some saw as having transformative potential, although from the outset there was disagreement as to whether it would ultimately lead to the progression of knowledge in the eld of IR. Moreover, while Lapid pointed to the enhanced reexivity in the IR community as a notable and welcome development anticipating a liberating potential in the Babel of theoretical voices18 he also forewarned that post-positivism offered as many theoretical deadends as it opened promising paths for future research.19

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Richard Ashley, Living on the Borderlines, in James DerDerian and Michael J. Shapiro (eds.), International/Intertextual Relations (New York: Lexington Books, 1989), pp. 259321. The 1988 Special Issue of Millennium: Journal of International Studies along with the publication of Cynthia Enloes book Bananas, Beaches and Bases in 1989 (London: Pandora) are frequently cited as the beginnings of a feminist discourse within IR. J. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993); V. Spike Peterson (ed.) Gendered States: Feminist (Re)Visions of International Theory (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992). See, for example, Enloe, Bananas; V. Spike Peterson Transgressing Boundaries: Theories of Knowledge, Gender and International Relations, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 21: 2 (1992), pp. 183206; Christine Sylvester, Empathetic Cooperation, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 23 (1994), pp. 31536. Lapid, Third Debate, p. 250. Richard K. Ashley and R.B.J. Walker, Speaking the Language of Exile, International Studies Quarterly, 34: 3 (1990), p. 259; Christine Sylvester (ed.), Special Issue: Feminists Write International Relations, Alternatives, 12: 4 (1993), pp.1118. Lapid, Third Debate, p. 236. Ibid., p. 235.

Habermas and IR Why Habermas? The problem of power politics and the prevalence of strategic interest in IR

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With hindsight, the conversations of this fourth debate might be seen as a turning point for the discussion of Habermass work in IR theory, in so far as there emerged more focused deliberations on the nature, role and future of critical theory in IR.20 These came to a head at the end of the 1980s, exemplied in the dialogue between Mark Hoffmann, who endorsed the epistemological foundations of Critical Theory in a Habermasian guise, as the next stage in development of IR theory, and Nick Rengger, who pleaded for a broader conception of critical theory.21 While many aspects of Habermass work might have provided a potentially rich source of concepts and ideas to mine in the development of a critical IR theory, the distinction that Habermas drew between instrumental, technical and critical cognitive interests and his concepts of discursive ethics and communicative action were thought to be particularly fruitful starting points.22 As we noted above, Ashley was one of the rst scholars to draw on Habermas in this project.23 Meanwhile, Robert Coxs distinction between critical and problem-solving theory bore a clear resemblance to Habermass distinction between different cognitive interests, even though Cox did not make this connection explicit.24 The critical turn in IR could be seen in terms of the rejection of a central premise of the realist/neorealist orthodoxy in IR. The orthodoxy held that actions dictated by strategic interests in the control and manipulation of others, necessarily prevailed in IR because power politics were an endemic feature of international relations. While one should not overstate the commonalities between the various and diverse critical voices in the fourth debate, to a greater or lesser degree, post-structuralists,

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Andrew Linklater, The Question of the Next Stage in International Relations Theory: A CriticalTheoretical Point of View, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 22: 2 (1992), pp. 7798. See also, Lapid, Third Debate, pp. 23554. Mark Hoffman, Critical Theory and the Inter-Paradigm Debate, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 16: 2 (1987), pp. 23149; Mark Hoffman, Conversations on Critical International Relations Theory, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 17: 1 (1988), pp. 915; N. J. Rengger, Going Critical? A Response to Hoffman, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 17 (1988), pp. 819; see also N. J. Rengger, The Fearful Sphere of International Relations, Review of International Studies, 16: 4 (1990), pp. 36168; N.J. Rengger and Mark Hoffman, Modernity, Postmodernity and International Relations, in Joe Doherty, Elspeth Graham and Mo Malek (eds), Post-modernism and the Social Sciences (London: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 12747; and Linklater, The Next Stage, pp. 7798. In English, see, for example, Jrgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests (Cambridge: Polity, 1986); Justication and Application: Remarks on Discourse Ethics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993); The Theory of Communicative Action (Cambridge: Polity, 1986 [vol. 1]; 1989 [vol. 2]). For instance in Ashley, Political Realism , where Ashley re-covers classical (or practical) and an emancipatory (Herzian) realism through Habermass practical/technical/emancipatory cognitive interest distinction (pp. 207210). Indeed, in the postscript to Coxs article, reproduced in Keohane (below), he pointed to intellectual inuences other than the Frankfurt School, including Giambattista Vico (p. 242). Cox does, however, refer to Habermas in the context of the legitimation crisis of the state. See Robert W. Cox, Social Forces, States and World Order, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 10: 2 (1981), pp. 12655, reprinted in an extended form as Cox, Social Forces, in Keohane (ed.), Neorealism. The Habermas reference is on p. 206; the introduction of problem-solving v. critical theory on p. 208.

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feminists and Critical Theorists all envisage a world politics in which strategic considerations of power and interests do not dominate international relations. This concern with strategic interests of control resonated with Habermass critique of positivism and his contention that technical knowledge could be put to the service of social domination. Following Habermas, Ashley identied three interests and three specic forms of knowledge: knowledge that arose from a technical interest in understanding and extending control over nature and society; knowledge that was put to the service of a practical interest in understanding how to create and maintain orderly communities; and knowledge inspired by an emancipatory interest in identifying and eradicating unnecessary social connements and constraints.25 For Ashley, emancipation was about securing freedom from unacknowledged constraints, relations of domination and conditions of distorted communication.26 This at once pointed to the role that knowledge played in creating and sustaining social arrangements characterised by inequality and domination and in facilitating experiments in different ways of living and relating to one another. Such a concern not only raised the seemingly enduring problem of how to eradicate power politics in IR, but also how to avoid imperialist practices that imposed Western cultural practices and beliefs on other peoples. In this respect, Habermass work was embraced because it provided a useful guide to how beliefs and actions could be made accountable to others and how they could then be subjected to scrutiny and accepted or contested by participants engaged in dialogue. For those taking their lead from Habermas, the central political task was to facilitate the development of institutional arrangements that concretised this dialogic ideal. In the project of devising new and better institutional arrangements for settling disputes in IR without recourse to force, Andrew Linklater looked to Habermas because he seemingly offered insights into how institutional arrangements might be set up to facilitate the conduct of international relations along consensual, noncoercive lines.27 Habermas also offered procedural guidance for democratic decision-making processes, while acknowledging that international norms and institutions must be submitted to collective scrutiny and deliberation to maintain legitimacy. In some of the contributions to this collection of articles, the authors have sought to identify the sites and spaces where conversations take place, often nding that they remain behind closed doors, thereby defying the rst principle of open conversation. Nicole Deitelhoff and Harald Mller, in their contribution to this Forum, report their nding that in the context of the negotiations leading to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, argumentative rather than strategic behaviour prevailed whenever delegations were meeting in camera. In his article, Haacke, after mapping out in broad terms the contribution that Habermas has made to our understanding of international politics, turns to the notable shortcomings and failings of the Habermasian project in this respect.

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Ashley, Political Realism, p. 207. Ibid., p. 227. Linklater, The Next Stage, pp. 7798; Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community (Oxford: Polity, 1998).

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While Habermas was originally harnessed to produce a critical IR theory, one should note at this juncture that Habermas also inspired social constructivists in their attempts to develop a social theory of international politics. There are both afnities and disjunctures between these two projects, but here we might note how social constructivists in particular have found the concept of communicative action, that is, action driven by the search for the better argument rather than strategic power, helpful for theorising change. For instance, Thomas Risse and his collaborators argued that in the process of domestic change through the incorporation of human rights, communicative action played a crucial part in convincing actors of the validity of such rights, even though the initial steps both by the government violating rights and by the actors promoting them were characterised as strategic action.28 In a programmatic article in International Organization with the title Lets Argue!, Risse drew on an extensive debate within the German IR community to make the case for the relevance of communicative action in international politics, and to set out a research programme to determine when and under which conditions communicative action would prevail over strategic action in decision-making processes.29 In their article below, Deitelhoff and Mller report on their attempt to substantiate the debate about a useful dialogue between Habermas and IR with an empirical research project to observe the impact of strategic and what they call argumentative behaviour in international negotiations. On one level, their assessment is disappointing, since they were unable to empirically distinguish between both types of actions, a consequence of the old problem, shared by cognitive approaches, that motivations can be theorised ontologically but are difcult to demonstrate empirically. However, as they admit, such an empirical, as opposed to analytical, distinction between strategic and argumentative behaviour was not actually part of Habermass argument. Instead of focusing on actor orientations, Deitelhoff and Mller accept that arguing is always present in international negotiations, and turn their attention to the effect of arguing, and the conditions under which it prevails over bargaining that is determined by individual preferences and the impact of material power.

Ethical encounters Critical theorists of all hues have revealed a deep concern with the ethical dilemmas and responsibilities that were not only inherent in everyday encounters, but

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Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink (eds.), The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Thomas Risse, Lets Argue!: Communicative action in world politics, International Organization 54: 1 (2000), pp. 139. The German debate was kicked off by Harald Mller, Internationale Beziehungen als kommunikatives Handeln: Zur Kritik der utilitaristischen Handlungstheorie, Zeitschrift fr Internationale Beziehungen 1: 1 (1994), pp. 1544. For further references see Risse, Lets Argue. Interestingly, Habermas has yet not commented on this debate.

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embedded in the concrete practices of world politics and so central to the theorisation of IR.30 In this collection of essays, the authors agree on the need to further dialogue in world politics, and they recognise the contribution that Habermass concept of a discursive ethics has made to this, although they also differ on the exact nature and limits of this dialogue. The distinctiveness of Critical Theory lies in its desire to foster an inter-subjective conversation aimed at mutual understanding and communication free from ideological domination. This conversation ensued in the interest of discovering the universal conditions of communication and so avoided what was often held to be a notorious pitfall of post-positivism, moral relativism, by providing a formal and process-oriented rather than a substantive denition of political alternatives. Thus, Linklater embraced discourse ethics because it seemingly afrms that the validity of principles must be established through a mode of dialogue in which human beings strive to reach an agreement.31 Taking as its central concern the contribution of discourse ethics to the civilising process in international politics, in this collection Linklater offers what is perhaps the most sympathetic account of the usefulness of Habermas to IR theorists. For Habermas, the life-world (in contrast to the system) is constituted through communicative action oriented towards mutual understanding. Linklaters project is focused on the strengthening of the lifeworld through discursive engagement. He sees an obvious connection with Habermass defence of a discourse theory of morality in which all people have a right to be involved in dialogue on decisions and issues that affect them, thus challenging all boundaries and systems of exclusion. Discourse was understood as a process whereby reexive agents turn back upon their habits and assumptions and subject them to a communicatively rational interrogation and evaluation. Ultimately, Linklater is prepared to defend only a weak version of the discourse perspective on the grounds that while not unproblematic, it is nevertheless a productive means of advancing the civilising process in international relations that would involve promoting social arrangements to satisfy basic human needs without causing harm (of various kinds) to others. As Linklater acknowledges (in his article below, and elsewhere), there are a number of objections to Habermass version of dialogue and discourse ethics. For example, the emphasis on proceduralism in Habermas might already privilege a concrete vision of the good life, while also leading to a relative neglect of the need for substantive moral conclusions. Moreover, Habermas seemingly invokes a universal read liberal? subject that might be incomprehensible to members of other cultural groups. However, Linklater contends that many of these problems can be overcome if notions of dialogue are recongured and applied cautiously in relations

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See, for example, Fiona Robinson, Globalising Care: Ethics, Feminist Theory and International Relations (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1999); Kimberley Hutchins, Towards a Feminist International Ethics, Review of International Studies, 26: Special Issue (2000), pp. 11130; David Campbell, Politics without Principle: Sovereignty, Ethics, and the Narratives of the Gulf War (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993). For a criticism of post-positivist IR in this regard, see Mervyn Frost, A Turn not Taken; Ethics in IR at the Millennium, Review of International Studies, 24: Special Issue (1998), pp. 11932. Andrew Linklater, The achievements of critical theory, in Steve Smith, Ken Booth and Marysia Zalewski (eds.), International Theory: Positivism and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996), pp. 27998.

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with those who occupy marginal social positions. Part of this project involves developing a much greater capacity to engage sensitively with the standpoint of Others and opening up to critical scrutiny the acceptability of ethical principles from the perspective of Others. Linklater thus pleads for a historically selfconscious universalism, which is difference sensitive. In making concessions to Otherness, Linklater might be said to be engaging with the central concerns of post-structuralism, or perhaps, as others have done, incorporating the insights of postmodernism within the ambit of critical IR theory.32 However, post-structuralists have resisted these kinds of engagements. In response to the charge of relativism, they have counter-charged that Habermass Critical Theory was characterised by a problematic commitment to rationalism and the modernist aspiration to totality. Common to critiques of Habermas are deep concerns about the exclusionary character of Western universal reasoning, which have led some theorists to argue that the search for a form of morality acceptable by everyone should be abandoned. A central objection to Habermas, largely couched in terms of the problems inherent in his commitment to universalist categories and principles, is raised by Kimberly Hutchings in her contribution to this Forum. Speaking from the nexus of three overlapping discourses feminism and Habermas, IR and Habermas, and feminism and IR Hutchings addresses important questions about the extent to which the division of a public and a private sphere in Habermas is a gendered construct. While it is not an explicit theme of Hutchings contribution, she hints at the deeply gendered nature of public space, as it is constituted in Habermass theory. A key question for feminists remains whether women can take possession of a public sphere that has been enduringly reconstructed along masculinist lines?33 Hutchings article prompts questions about the degree to which emotions can be integrated into the conceptualisation of communicative action in international politics.34 Hutchings concedes that there have been sympathetic engagements between feminism and Habermas, for example in Seyla Benhabibs efforts to reformulate discourse ethics as interactive universalism. This accords with concerns held in some feminist circles that a feminist politics is not possible if one prioritises difference over equality, and rejects the Enlightenment project of emancipation, or indeed, the notion of truth.35 However, feminists have more often rejected the notion of ethics as the abstract application of the rules and/or principles of justice, since this devalued the moral skills present in an ethics of care that was oriented towards concrete, particular others. This points to deep problems involving the role and recognition of diverse identities in conversations across borders, although post-positivists of various

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See also Devetak, Critical Theory. Nancy Fraser, Whats Critical about Critical Theory? The Case of Habermas and Gender, New German Critique, 35 (1985), pp. 97131. For a discussion of the usefulness (and limitations) of Habermass model of dialogue in relation to struggles around womens human rights, see Brooke Ackerly Womens Rights Activists as Cross-Cultural Theorists, International Feminist Journal of Politics,3: 3 (2001), pp. 31146. On these issues, see Nancy Fraser, Whats Critical. One could point to an extensive number of sources here, but for a good overview of the debate between post-structuralist feminism and critical feminism, see Linda J. Nicholson, Feminism/Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 1990).

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persuasions advance different solutions to how we might negotiate such differences. Hutchings raises the question of whether the aim of dialogue should be to establish a single common ground, or whether it is possible to have meaningful conversations across boundaries (of nation, class, culture, gender and so on) without such a common ground. Relatedly, is there a common basis present in all human cultures on which to build dialogue and further inter-subjectivity? Hutchings overall conclusion is that we should be circumspect about the usefulness of Habermas to developing our understanding of areas such as international ethics and international political theory. She argues that ultimately feminist and other critical IR scholars will inevitably encounter problems in applying Habermass ideas, not least of which is the conception of the human subject which continues to embody the rationalist bias of a Western philosophical tradition. Hutchings is thus inclined to eschew further dialogue between Habermas and (feminist) IR, in favour of further developing an alternative model of dialogue that would empower different voices in a morally pluralist feminist international ethics. IR feminist scholars with post-structuralist sympathies for example, Christine Sylvester have more often advocated forms of empathetic negotiation and dialogue across diverse identities and boundaries, in the hope that this would facilitate a new kind of feminist politics built upon womens multiple identities, experiences and locations; an approach more in sympathy with an ethos of pluralism, perhaps.36

Negotiating the universalist/relativist dichotomy As the above discussion indicates, Critical Theory has often been criticised on the grounds that it is committed to modes of thought and action, which ultimately subsume difference within one totalising identity, despite declarations to the contrary. A recent exchange in Millennium illustrates this further. In this exchange, Fred Dallmayr wished to promote conversation across boundaries on the basis of Habermass concepts, based on communicative rationality,37 and unfolding in contexts approximating the ideal speech situation, a situation without domination (Herrschaft). Dallmayr recognised that conceptualisations of communicative rationality were devoid of emotions, and so he suggested these needed to be supplemented with the concept of friendship.38 However, his critics remained suspicious of what they saw as the very aim of communicative rationality, namely that it should lead to a common understanding or inter-subjectivity. Thus William Connolly, on similar grounds to Hutchings, objected that Habermass model set a universal matrix in which diversity was acknowledged and absorbed. Connolly suggested that this desire to seek consensus and absorb difference arose from a tendency to link diversity to fragmentation. Fragmentation describes a situation where there is a struggle to occupy the authorative centre of a

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See Sylvester, Empathetic Cooperation; Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan (eds.), Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Politics (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1994). Dallmayr, Conversation. Ibid., pp. 3427.

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territorial regime. In contrast, a positive ethos of pluralism exists within a state where citizens reected critically on the need to avoid excluding or marginalising emerging constituencies to whom they could otherwise connect positively. Connolly advocated an ethos of pluralisation, in which conversations took place without necessarily aiming at a common understanding,39 suggesting that the pursuit of agonistic respect across persisting lines of difference established a threshold against which to measure the element of compassion and forbearance in each contribution. 40 Nick Rengger was similarly appreciative, but ultimately critical of Dallmayrs project. Rengger expressed a number of reservations that included the interpretation of Oakshotts concept of conversation in Dallmayrs work. Among other things, Rengger also argued that ultimately neither communicative rationality nor friendship could rid politics, and therefore international politics, of interest and power, which were concealed by the notions of a common understanding and intersubjectivity.41 Moreover, these questions remained acutely relevant in a neo-imperial age in which conversations across political and cultural boundaries were mostly conducted on the basis of a particular type of Western rationality. Yet to construct Critical Theory in a Habermasian sense and critical theory in a broader sense, including post-structuralism, as standing in marked opposition to one another, is problematic.42 Habermas and Foucault had established a dialogue, which was prematurely cut off when Foucault died.43 In this spirit, Jim George invoked Habermas in his attempt to develop an international ethics, while also stressing the potential of exploring the overlap between the Foucauldian and Habermasian approaches in this endeavour.44 Post-structuralist scholars have felt compelled to move beyond critique and deconstruction to nd ways in which post-structuralism can further our understanding of a range of human problems and some have found spaces within modernists discourses of emancipation that allow for critical engagement and negotiation.45 This does not mean that there are no differences left, as Hutchings contribution and the Millennium exchange vividly demonstrate. Yet, recognising each others contributions might help in future engagements to focus on the core issues of a critical engagement with current affairs from multiple, but not necessarily wholly incompatible perspectives. While post-structuralists refute the notion of a single truth or ethics, contra neorealists, they also recognise that one cannot avoid ethical questions and responsibilities in IR. Following Levinas, David Campbell has advocated an ethics of diversity, which is based on the principle of respect for diversity, but also cognisant of the condition of radical interdependence.46 Therefore, although theoretically dismissive of Critical
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William E. Connolly, Cross-State Citizen Networks: A Response to Dallmayr, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 30: 2 (2001), pp. 34855. See also William E. Connolly, The Ethos of Pluralization (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). Connolly, Cross-State Citizen Networks. N. J. Rengger, The Boundaries of Conversation: a Response to Dallmayr, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 30: 2 (2001), pp. 35764. George, Discourses. Mitchell Stephens, The Theologian of Talk, Los Angeles Times Magazine, 23 October 1994, <http://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/Habermas%20page.htm> (11 December 2003). George, Discourses, pp. 1656. Ibid., pp. 1828. Campbell, Politics without Principle, pp. 9599.

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Theory in his work, Campbell has moved beyond critique to engage with concrete policy issues and to formulate alternatives policies. This has inevitably led Campbell to address ethical concerns in concrete contexts, notably in the ethical choices involved in boundary marking and processes of Othering. Linklater has similarly engaged with Othering processes in ways that confront problems of exclusion and hierarchy (see, for example, Linklaters discussion of the harm principle in this issue). Indeed, the idea found in many post-structuralist works on international ethics, that there are different forms of Othering, and that some are preferable over others because they are less exclusionary and/or violent, although rarely spelt out, rests on notions of acceptable interaction that are not far removed from Linklaters principle of doing no harm. Both accept that we cannot escape selfother relations; and both argue that these must be conducted in such a way as to minimise the infringement on the identity of the Other. They therefore both reject totalitarianism, which incidentally is also an answer to Critical Theorists charge that post-structuralism leads to moral relativism perhaps so, but if one follows the argument presented by Linklater here, the boundaries drawn in both Critical Theory and post-structuralism around which articulations are acceptable seem to coincide much more than such criticism implies.47

A pragmatic response In that spirit, it is a good sign that the intellectual climate today is much more amenable to breaching dichotomies and entrenched divisions than was the case during the rst wave of critical IR. In the articles published in this special section of the Review, it is noticeable that the authors afford more possibility of establishing common ground between different forms of critical theory than was the case in some of the early contributions to the fourth debate. In this context it is worth noting that a current trend in IR theory is the growing frustration with the construction of theory from philosophical rst principles. There is, it seems, an emerging constituency of IR theorists, representing a range of perspectives from rationalism to political pragmatism, who regard the philosophical turn in IR as unhelpful insofar as, while highlighting fundamental and important questions about the basis of our knowledge, it has tended to prioritise ontological, epistemological and methodological questions and cultivated a theory-driven rather than a problem-driven approach to IR. Some recent avenues of investigation within IR have proceeded in this spirit. For example, in their contributions to a 2002 special issue of the journal Millennium, devoted to the subject of pragmatism and IR, both David Owen and Molly Cochran guard against the dangers of factionalism communities increasingly closed off from one another in IR, not least because this mitigates against achieving greater understanding of concrete problems in IR.48 Instead they advocate a pragmatist ethos and pragmatic approach to key ethical questions. In distinctive
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On the theme of different forms of Othering, see also Thomas Diez, Europes Others and the Return of Geopolitics, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 17: 2 (2004), pp. 31935. Molly Cochran, Deweyan Pragmatism and Post-Positivist Social Science in IR, in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 31: 3 (2002), pp, 52548; David Owen Re-Orienting International Relations: On Pragmatism, Pluralism and Practical Reasoning, in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 31: 3 (2002), pp. 65373.

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ways, both Cochran and Owen draw upon John Dewey in an effort to re-orientate IR in ways that preserve its pluralism, but also avoid disabling and distorting relations of mutual antagonisms.49 Owen argues that rather than conceiving of IR as a theoretical war of all against all we might acknowledge that there is a role for different kinds of theoretical practice.50 In this vision of the future development of the eld, IR might be considered as a form of practical philosophy oriented to the topic of the government of common affairs of humanity.

A (critical) social theory of IR? Above, we alluded briey to the way in which Habermass work on communicative action has been put to the service of developing a social theory of international politics. It is probably accurate to say that the most substantive contribution to social theory in an IR context thus far, has been Alexander Wendts Social Theory of International Politics,51 in which he advocates constructivism as offering a new paradigm or synthesis for IR. However, while Wendts work has been inuential, constructivists do not have a monopoly on social theory within the IR community. In the nal article in this Forum, Martin Weber restates the relevance of Critical Theory to the social turn in IR as an emancipatory social theory. Weber points to the relative neglect, thus far, of the social-theoretic aspect of Habermass work to IR, the efforts to include the distinction between different types of behaviour discussed above notwithstanding. Echoing many of the themes of earlier contributions, Weber claims that IR has yet to explore the usefulness of Habermass central architectural edice in his (revised) critical social theory the dialectic of system and lifeworld. Systemic engagement with Habermass work promises at least a new impetus for investigating the social turn in IR, one in which both criteriology and the socialtheoretic potentials of the diagnostic of the colonisation of the life-world could yield interesting analytical and practical possibilities. In his contribution, Haacke is careful to point out that Habermas was deeply reexive about the degree of tension between his version of discourse ethics and actual political development at the international level. For Haacke, this degree of tension, in turn, indicates the need to consider more recent contributions to Critical Theory notably Axel Honneths attempt to connect a theory of society with a theory of emancipation through a focus on the struggle for recognition.52 Haacke claims that Honneths work on the moral grammar of social conict enriches our understanding of developments in diverse societies across the world as well as in international relations, and is easier to put to analytical use in concrete contexts of international politics than Habermass work. Like Haacke, Weber embraces Honneths

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Owen, Re-Orienting IR, p. 658. On the issue of different theoretical practices and purposes, see also Thomas Diez and Antje Wiener, Introducing the Mosaic of Integration Theory, and Wiener and Diez, Taking Stock of Integration Theory, in Wiener and Diez (eds.), European Integration Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 3, 2434. Alexander Wendt, A Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conicts (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996). For further references see Haackes contribution.

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reorientation of critical social theory towards questions of identity, arguing that this has thickened the conception of the life-world provided by Habermas. One might add that this concern with identity would also provide a further point of engagement with Foucauldians in IR, who have long argued that Habermasian Critical Theory in IR does not take identity seriously enough. The potential for more inclusive conceptions of political agency also emerges from these enquiries, Weber argues, and thus affords a better grasp of the relationship between the growth of systems-rational incursions into life-worlds and a more developed conception of the politics of the life-world. So far, these moves are tentative, but they point us along a path where Habermass thinking would seem to limit his own critical social theory.

Conclusion While there are differences in approach and emphasis, this collection of articles constitutes a fruitful dialogue between the diverse groups of researchers who are developing some common themes that characterise the inuence that Habermass work has had on IR. Each of the contributors has approached the question of whether the engagement between Habermas and IR has been a useful dialogue from the perspective of her or his own theoretical preoccupations and/or empirical interests. Nevertheless, each of the contributions to this Forum addresses some (if not all) of the key questions arising from the engagement between Habermas and IR, which we have identied in this introduction. In our view, there has been, and continues to be, a useful dialogue not only between Habermas work and IR, but also involving many other gures of the Frankfurt School and in other locales of critical social theories. Above all, we have argued that there is more of a crossover between the different versions of critical theory, as well as between the attempts to formulate a social theory and a critical theory of international politics than is usually acknowledged. These different projects should not be seen as separate, as has been the tendency, but rather as intertwined. In so far as they have not always been taken much note of, or have been at loggerheads with each other, we hope that this special Forum will facilitate conversation between them. Similarly, we hope that, in a modest way, this Forum and the articles by Weber and Haacke in particular, might promote a wider debate about whether integrating a new generation of Frankfurt School thinkers, especially the work of Axel Honneth, is a potentially fruitful path to go down in seeking a remedy to some of the problems encountered in the application of Habermas to IR. The themes raised in the contributions to this Forum have lost nothing of their relevance since the debate about a critical theory in IR rst emerged. If anything, they have gained importance under the conditions of globalisation and what many see as an increasing degree of hegemony. It is appropriate, perhaps, that we should conclude that not only has the dialogue between Habermas and IR thus far been fruitful, but also, following Webers argument, that Habermas and those who have followed him continue to provide a tremendous resource that IR is only now really beginning to explore.

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