The International Relations is the study which is often seen through the prism of its theories. Until the mid-twentieth century a universal stance of “absolute truth” of classical theories helped to understand the international system. The classical theories and their proponents gave a fundamental framework to develop the analytical prediction of the International politics which is deemed to many the valid explanation of the system still. As the discipline of IR evolved with the course of time it encompassed not only the main actors which according to classical theorists are states and power but also other various organizations such as UNO, WTO an IMF. There are basically three school of thoughts which constitutes the classical mainstream theories of International Relations: Realism, Liberalism and Marxism. Among them Realism dominated the disciplinary regime of the International Relations for most of the time, though these theories also evaluated and took the “Neo” form but failed to provide the other influential factors which have serious influence on International system and implicate the actions of the individuals. The notion of modernism which is started from the renaissance period and followed by the Industrial revolution up to the advent of twentieth century, now these influential factors and modernism was criticized by the postmodernism. The term “postmodernism” is characterized more by diversity than by a set of beliefs. Though the Postmodernism remains elusive and contested, but these influential factors mentioned above are underestimated by the classical theories and these factors are language, ideas, abstractions and norms. The theory of Postmodernism criticizes the objective truth notion of the classical theories and build the edifice of its argument on the bases of knowledge, culture and knowledge-power relationship. The modern period unfolded dynamics are linked to such features as industrializations, advances in science and technology and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Postmodernism perceive these changes different from the existing one and associates it with the globalization, such as the internet boom and other communicative features.
Postmodernism in IR. Similarity with Constructivism
Postmodernism in IR is in fact “beyond states”: emphasis on non-state actors and role of societies in shaping policy. Postmodernism is like constructivism in emphasizing how political action is affected by language, ideas, abstract concepts and norms. Constructivism discuss the same discourse regarding the identities that how the world works are influenced by deeper issues. It deals with the questions like how we identify ourselves, each other.(Cox and Lyndon 1997). Two counseling approaches of relatively recent origin, responsive therapy and motivational interviewing, are described and compared. Both operate through series of stages and form a collaborative and postmodernist ethic. They involve perspective use of standard micro-skills at the beginning stage and progress to focused and active, international intervention strategies. (Responsive Therapy and Motivational Interviewing: Postmodernist Paradigms - Gerber - 1999 - Journal of Counseling & Development - Wiley Online Library n.d.). The ‘constructionist’ advocate a more ‘anti realist’ and ‘anti traditionalist’ position, while the ‘constructivists’ endorse a more traditional, less extreme position which holds that ‘realism’ and ‘foundationalism’ are not inconsistent with emerging view of postmodernism.(Responsive Therapy and Motivational Interviewing: Postmodernist Paradigms - Gerber - 1999 - Journal of Counseling & Development - Wiley Online Library n.d.) . Thus, it is necessary to examine the deeper meaning of language discourse, such as the meaning of words and ideas and trace their effect on political action.
Postmodernism questions the rationale of IR
Postmodernism emerged as the critical theory of International relations. Devetak is one of numerous to solicit whether, 'in perspective on multiculturalism, ethnic decent variety and interpenetration, minority and indigenous rights, diasporic people groups, natural debasement, relocation and the general development of people groups, globalization, relationship, etc.', the sovereign state is – all things considered – really a 'viable type of political organization. For the collections of customary global idea, this inquiry would have been not just unanswerable (as it seemingly still is when Devetak asks it), however – maybe more essentially – would have been incomprehensible. For even though the sovereign country state may have solidified into a plainly obvious truth after some time, postmodernism can look at 'how state sway was manufactured into a character, and whether the breaks in this political idea are rendering it chronologically erroneous or dysfunctional. In this opportunity, Walker perceives the predominant quality of this postmodern way to deal with global hypothesis; that which renders it separate from the imbued scholarly stuff which has soiled existing speculations in a marsh of talk and contending metanarratives. Postmodernists can scrutinize those suspicions which have generally supported originations of the universal. He trusts that researchers of global relations with a postmodern inclining have the opportunity to the manners by which 'speculations of universal relations … have been comprised based on verifiably explicit and progressively quarrelsome cases about establishing, safeguard or transgress outskirts, regardless of whether regional or intellectual. In request to decide the idea of that which postmodern investigations have added to our comprehension of the worldwide, in any case, we are looked with two potential outcomes; either the world itself has changed, or postmodern hypothesis has essentially illuminated the universal situation, uncovering things that recently went concealed. The previous bears a similitude to Der Derain’s 'emergency of advancement', yet – then again – there appears to be little to recommend that the power/information nexus is fundamentally anything new. At last, any endeavor to achieve an end on this issue is most likely minimal more than a pointless activity. Both the possibility of postmodernity and that of a suffering force/learning nexus danger accepting the job of a totalizing metanarrative, which would undermine the entire hypothetical methodology. Most of postmodern ways to deal with worldwide relations question or reject the legitimacy of the 'gallant practice' which problematizes the turmoil of the global framework, while normalizing the state imposing business model on brutality as a component of the common talk on household sway. On a simply expository dimension, 'postmodernism is less worried about what … sway [is], than how it is spatially and briefly delivered and how it is flowed. How is a sure arrangement of room and power organized? What's more, with what consequences? ‘Ultimately, this talk of sway has another, less unmistakable job; 'as a major aspect of the 'ideas and information asserts that rule the control', such originations and talks are exceptionally huge, not least for the job they play in encouraging that totalizing procedure which 'ties together learning and power' inside the field of global relations.