World Society, Social Differentiation and Time

Kessler, Oliver

doi:10.1111/j.1749-5687.2012.00151.x

Cited by 36 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…18 Apart from a lack of social struggles, the lack of sense for social and capitalist 'totality' is arguably the key reason why political economy and global connections and logics have escaped from academic attention in both IR and large parts of IPE. In IR and IPE, ideas of totality have been debated in different ways in Luhmannian 'world society' approaches (Kessler, 2012) and in Marxist and Critical Theory IR.…”

Section: A Totalizing Strategy Of Critique For Irmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies of critique in International Relations: From Foucault and Latour towards Marx

Koddenbrock

2014

European Journal of International Relations

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Critique is back on the scholarly agenda. Since the financial crisis, critique has been debated in philosophy and sociology with renewed rigour. International Relations is currently picking up on these developments. Yet, the critique of capitalism is largely absent in International Relations. This article argues that the theoretical resources deployed among 'radical' International Relations help explain this phenomenon. In order to rectify this, the article aims to resituate Marx at the centre of the debate about critique. Based on a discussion of the understandings of critique by Michel Foucault and Bruno Latour, the article shows that their conscious focus on the small and the contingent has prevented a more totalizing strategy of critique from taking hold. The article illustrates this unwillingness to situate social life in our capitalist social whole by zooming in on 'resistant' intervention scholarship. Speaking to the nature of International Relations more broadly, in a second step, the article shows that this lack of 'totalizing' analysis has been present in International Relations and International Political Economy since their inception. Taking into account Marxian and Critical Theoretical understandings of totality, the article outlines a totalizing strategy of critique. This strategy has two components: it takes capitalism as such seriously; and it offers a methodology to implement this substantial shift using Marx's dynamic method of 'concretization'.

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Section: A Totalizing Strategy Of Critique For Irmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies of critique in International Relations: From Foucault and Latour towards Marx

Koddenbrock

2014

European Journal of International Relations

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“…Systems theory, in contrast, describes modern world society as dominated by problems deriving from the “conflicting rationalities” of various function systems (Kessler, 2012b). It does not purport to observe those problems directly.…”

Section: Differentiation Theory and The Global Southmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differentiation Theory and the Global South as a Metageography of International Relations

Kleinschmidt

2018

Alternatives: Global, Local, Political

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In this article, I argue that while the Global South has replaced the Third World as the prevalent term for describing structural global inequalities in International Relations, little research is directed at its theoretical implications. I discuss the conceptual evolution of the term from the Third World narrative, interpreting the literature as an implicit rejection of myopic ontologies relying on economic, cultural, or political hierarchies. I then suggest connecting the terminology to the theory of functional differentiation. By avoiding forms inherited from classical social theory, the Global South can be conceptualized in a more productive way that is better attuned to contemporary theoretical discussions.

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“…Functional sectoral communications take place outside of actor's discursive interactions. The distinction between "saying" and (sectoral) "doing" is necessary because these social sectoral systems are distinguished from their environment, that is from actors' discursive interactions, through the environment's higher degree of complexity in the era of globalization and institutional standardization (Kessler, 2012).…”

Section: Knowing-howmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional integration in Central Asia: From knowing-that to knowing-how

Azizov

2017

Journal of Eurasian Studies

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The paper examines regional integration in Central Asia in the context of two types of knowledge, that is, knowing-that and knowing-how. While knowing-that prioritizes representational (i.e. "talking") practices of actors to explain region-building processes, knowing-how focuses on non-representational (i.e. "doing") practices. The article demonstrates that the orthodox scholars, who deal with the region of Central Asia, mostly employ knowing-that to explain region-building processes. The article criticizes knowing-that, assuming that this type of knowledge limits our understanding with regard to how regions get their boundaries and symbolism in the era of globalization and standardization of sectoral activities. Thus the article develops and introduces an alternative knowing-how framework to better understand the region-building processes in Central Asia and beyond it.

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World Society, Social Differentiation and Time

Cited by 36 publications

References 46 publications

Strategies of critique in International Relations: From Foucault and Latour towards Marx

Strategies of critique in International Relations: From Foucault and Latour towards Marx

Differentiation Theory and the Global South as a Metageography of International Relations

Regional integration in Central Asia: From knowing-that to knowing-how

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