An Introduction to International Relations

Introduction

This chapter offers an account of postmodernism. It begins by drawing a distinction between two broad approaches to the postmodern: one that outlines the contours of a new historical period (postmodernity) and another that places emphasis on finding new ways of understanding modern practices of knowledge and politics (postmodernism). The second part of the chapter examines how postmodern ideas entered IR scholarship, and how ensuing contributions continue to reveal important insights up to today.

Defining postmodernism is no easy task. Postmodern scholarship is characterised more by diversity than by a common set of beliefs. Add to this the fact that ‘postmodern’ has become a very contentious label, which is used less by its advocates and more by polemical critics who fear that embracing postmodern values would throw us into a dangerous nihilist void. But while the contours of the postmodern will always remain elusive and contested, the substantial issues that the respective debates have brought to the fore are important enough to warrant attention.

Postmodernity as a new historical period

The postmodern has become a stretched, widely used and highly controversial term. It first achieved prominence in literary criticism and architecture, but eventually spread into virtually all realms, including international relations. What the postmodern actually means is highly disputed. The increasing sense of confusion in the proliferation of the postmodern led Gianni Vattimo (1992: 1) to note that this term is so omnipresent and faddish that it has become almost obligatory to distance oneself from it. But Vattimo, and many others, nevertheless held on. He, alongside such diverse authors as Jean-François Lyotard (1979), Jean Baudrillard (1983), David Harvey (1989) and Fredric Jameson (1984), viewed the postmodern as both a changing attitude and a fundamentally novel historical condition. They focused on the cultural transformations that have taken place in the Western world and assumed, as Andreas Huyssen (1984: 8) summarises, that we are witnessing ‘a noticeable shift in sensibility, practices and discourse formations which distinguishes a postmodern set of assumptions, experiences and propositions from that of a preceding period’. Such shifts are recognised in various globalising tendencies, such as the rapid evolution and global reach of mass media and other information and communication tools.