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This article revisits some of the theoretical debates within the field of IR since Ashley and Cox challenged the mainstream. But in so doing it attempts also to show that the proposed alternatives have their own blind spots that are subjected in the second part to discursive criticism. Neither Ashley's celebration of the wisdom of old realists nor their 'silence' on economics, nor the notion of 'internationalisation of the state' and of the world order are adequate for understanding politics in the era of globalisation. Instead, a critical theory has to examine the political projects that were engendered by the Hobbesian conception of order and rationality. Highlighting the disconnect between our present political vocabularies and the actual political practices, I argue that a critical theory has not only to 'criticise' existing approaches but has to rethink and re-conceptualise praxis, which is ill served by the analytical tools which are imported to this field from 'theory'. Adapted from the source document.

Ziel des Beitrags ist es, durch die Untersuchung einiger der Mängel der neo-realistischen Synthese aktuelle Bemühungen zur Theoriebildung in den Internationalen Beziehungen zu hinterfragen. Dabei wird in Anlehnung an Kenneth Bouldings angenommen, dass das internationale System weder auf ein Bedrohungssystem reduziert werden kann, noch auf ein Austauschsystem, das die Domäne der Wirtschaft ist. Stattdessen fordert der Autor eine Analyse der Weltpolitik, die beide Faktoren mit den Aspekten der Identität und Legitimität verbindet. Schwerpunkt des Beitrags ist die Untersuchung der Nützlichkeit und Grenzen besonderer Theorien für die Analyse komplexer sozialer Erscheinungen und für die Kritik populärer Fehlkonzeptionen. Am Beispiel dreier Politikbereiche (Politik der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit, Drang nach Liberalisierung, Problem der Sicherheit) geht es um die Frage, welcher Typ von Wissen und Wissenschaft für das Verständnis von Politik und das Machen von Politik nützlich ist. (ICH)

This article provides a conceptual analysis of different uses of the term 'legitimacy'. Rather than attempting to provide a simple 'definition' I argue that the meaning of the concept cannot be understood in terms of a clear reference, but has to be analysed through its links with other concepts within a semantic field. In this way we are also able to 'explain' why at first contradictory uses of the term (designating its 'input' or the 'output' side) are part of its 'grammar'. To that extent attempts at stipulative definitions aiming at an unequivocal sense of the term fundamentally misunderstand the function of this concept within the political discourse.

This article raises the issue about the nature of knowledge in practical matters. Traditionally this question has been answered by pointing to 'theory-building' and to field independent epistemological criteria that are supposed to provide the knowledge warrants for the assertions made within a theoretical framework. In this context universality, i.e. generality and trans-historical reliability of the 'data', are particularly powerful criteria that establish the 'truth' of theoretical propositions through 'tests' and thus contribute to cumulative 'knowledge'. But this ideal of 'theoretical' knowledge significantly misunderstands both the type of knowledge we need when we make practical choices and that of 'history' in constituting us as agents. In using Bull's argument in the second debate as a foil, and in revisiting also the controversies concerning the democratic peace and the role of macro-historical studies I first elaborate on the nature of the 'historicity' and situatedness of all practical knowledge. In a second step, I attempt to clarify how the knowledge of the past relates to practical choices in that 'history' is not simply a storehouse of fixed data, but a product of memory, which in turn is deeply involved in our constructions of identity and of the political projects we pursue. In a third step I adumbrate the criteria for knowledge generation that are more appropriate when we face practical problems.

Starting from the puzzling effects of religion on conflict, both its escalation and deescalation, this article investigates the role of religion in maintaining boundaries (sacred/profane, clean/unclean, good/evil, etc.) that become constitutive of "self" and "society." The conceptual tools developed in this context are then applied to the issue of "fundamentalism" in contemporary politics.