After International Relations

After International Relations articulates a systematic critical realist response to a quest for more emancipatory methodologies in International Relations. Heikki Patomaki here establishes a way out of the international relations problematic which has puzzled so many great thinkers and scholars for the last two hundred years. After International Relations shows how and why theories based on the international problematic have failed; articulates an alternative, critical realist research programme; and illustrates how this research programme can be put to work to enable better research and ethico-political practices. Developing a critical realist methodology for international relations, peace research and global political economy this book resolves many of the theoretical aporias of international relations. It explains in detail the way research should be conducted in open systems and pluralistic contexts; it refines the logic of explanatory emancipation beyond the confines of nation states, and responds to the problem of violence. It goes further than any existing text in developing critical theoretical methodologies in international relations, and shows how they can be applied in research and acted upon in ethico-political practice. The book begins with a critical genealogy of the emergence of the international relations problematic - the irrealist foundations of which were laid down by David Hume and Immanuel Kant. After spelling out the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of the critical realist alternative, it explores the future role of critical realism in the construction of non-violent and democratic world politics, which overcomes the Kantian antimonies and dilemmas of the international problematic. It will be of great interest to all those involved in international relations, peace research and international political economy.