Alternative Perspectives in IR

This week provided a lecture from J. Ann Tickner which provided a justification for the feminist perspective within international politics.  When prompted with the question as to whether these perspectives have value within international relations theory, I would say they do.

While most IR theories establish reasons why the world exists as the way it does in the status quo or past, Tickner and the feminist perspective question the underlying methodologies and epistemological understandings of the world that general theories portray.  One of Tickner's main criticisms include the science upon which realism and various IR theories are based upon.  These theories utilize science and a rationale that derive from Western philosophers such as Kant.  Kant's theory included that men are bound together by the "necessary obligation to so arrange their social and political lives that they could gradually realize a condition of universal justice and perpetual peace" (Tickner, 1997).  While one may believe that Kant uses the term "man/men" in a gender neutral sense, he truly believed that women diminished the development of man and that women shouldn't be educated.  The typical counter argument is that these theories are all time-bound and do not exist in a more gender sensitive world.  Tickner argues that though we do live in a more gender sensitive time, the underlying assumptions of IR theories still consists of patriarchal values.

Another aspect of the feminist critique is the question as to whose interest security is serving within IR theory.  Tickner and another theories, Edward Kolodziej, claim that certain theories, specifically in the context of Walt's, contain a philosophically restricted notion of social sciences in which policymakers are led to determine what is real and relevant.  This is based upon definitions of science that exist within IR theory that tend to prevent any form of ethical and moral discussions from occurring. This mindset has created an epistemic hierarchy that allows conventional security studies such as realism, liberalism, and constructivism, to set themselves up as the "judge" of alternative claims to theirs.  This inevitably prevents alternative epistemologies from existing based upon the rationale of them not being "scientific".

Thus, I believe that an epitemology that examines identity and the methodologies upon which other theories are based upon has a role within IR theory.  This stimulates discussion that opens up new frameworks of thought that aren't purely constrained by masculine lenses.  Some feminist argue that this creates a form of institutionalized militarism within IR theory that stifles other potential viewpoints.  An open forum is an educational forum and the feminist perspective provides that.