Towards an Emancipatory Cosmopolitanism: Reconstructing the concept of emancipation in Critical International Relations Theory

This thesis reconstructs the concept of emancipation in Critical International Relations Theory towards a form of “emancipatory cosmopolitanism.” Following a loose chronology, the thesis examines those key figures associated with Critical Theory (CT) who have contributed a lasting influence on the concept of emancipation within Critical International Relations Theory (CIRT). It aims to both reconstruct the unique vision of emancipation that has developed in this school of thought and to assess its likely trajectory in the future. Part I contains three substantive chapters that interrogate the emancipatory ideas of Kant, Hegel and Marx and attempts to salvage those insights that have a continuing utility for the emancipatory project in contemporary CIRT. Part II then draws out those emancipatory themes that have developed across the three generations of the Frankfurt School (FS) and how they have been extended by those theorists working in CIRT. The thesis argues that the emancipatory project of CIRT can be enhanced through a greater engagement with recognition theory that offers an empirical means to justify an emancipatory cosmopolitanism committed to the flourishing of individual self-actualisation and the expansion of moral community through mutual recognition. It is argued that such a form of emancipatory cosmopolitanism can help reground CIRT’s project of emancipation in contemporary International Relations (IR) theory and in such a way that emancipation can be seen as an immanent possibility in the conditions of world politics