Introduction

This chapter examines one line of antifoundationalist thinking in IR literature which flows out of French poststructuralism, in particular, that of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Once far removed from French poststructuralism, IR has experienced the injection of this antifoundationalist project into the discipline by writers such as Richard Ashley, R. B. J. Walker and William Connolly. Among others, these three theorists challenge what they identify as the regulative functions of contemporary IR discourse. Following the lead of the poststructuralists, these writers critique the foundations of Enlightenment thought – progress, modernist notions of rational humankind, meaning constructed in dichotomous relationships and universalist assumptions in theory and method – to argue that modernity is knowledge seeking and that its practices of knowledge production actually shape social and political reality. In directing this critique to the constructions of contemporary international theory, these writers problematize the dominant understanding of IR as a world of sovereign states which demarcate inside from outside, order from anarchy, and identity from difference. More generally, they challenge the notion of sovereignty as an ahistorical, universal, transcendant concept, be it applied to the sovereign state, the sovereign individual or a sovereign truth. Sovereignty and the dichotomies regulated by its power are foundationalist mechanisms of domination and closure which limit the play of political practice. It is the aim of these writers to hammer away at these limitations to open space for plural and diverse practices in world politics.