Critical Theory and Postmodernism: Challenges

This article addresses the weak points of the dominant discourse in the field of international relations, namely realism and neorealism, and displays that issues related to security cannot be analyzed well in the modern age according to those assumptions. Pointing to the underdevelopment of the international relations discipline and proposing critical, postmodernist and feminist theories, the author tries to stress that these approaches give more space to those marginalized in the mainstream of international relations field in order to enter it. In this line, he believes that these theories, by questioning epistemological, ontological and methodological assumptions of realism, challenge the approach’s traditional outlook on security and have integrated new security relations and new analytical frameworks in the field, by including destitute people, women and the poor as actors in the domain of international relations. For critical theorists, security is often defined as the absence of threat, and it is closely linked with the concept of emancipation and world autonomy leading to freedom of action and true security. Postmodernism also creates satisfaction for those who see the world of politics from the viewpoint of peripheral actors. Within feminism, insecurity is also a gender issue that is combined with the other sources of insecurity. Furthermore, feminists seek to make international relations gender-sensitive.