Rethinking international relations: an interview with Benno Teschke

Abstract

In this interview, George Souvlis and Aurélie Andry talk with Benno Teschke, author of The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics and the Making of Modern International Relations, about the relationship between Marxism and international relations theory. As Teschke notes, Karl Marx never completed a book on international relations, and the lack of a coherent Marxist theory of international relations has allowed dangerous assumptions – such as instrumentalist ideas about the state, a stagist conception of history, or a universalizing capitalist world market – to take root within Marxism. Here, Teschke discusses his intellectual trajectory, the main arguments of his work, and ways of understanding capitalist internationalist relations, while also making some observations about Political Marxism, the appropriation of Carl Schmitt, and the future of the European Union.