Approaches to the study of Political Theory-4 | PSIR Optional for UPSC (Notes) PDF Download

Postmodernism in Political Theory

Political theory has evolved with various approaches and traditions that analyze and understand politics in diverse and often contradictory ways. Each approach has its core premises that define its identity, yet they are also influenced by one another. This paper provides a broad overview of postmodernist approaches in political theory.

Critique of Social Science

• In the 1960s and 70s, social science faced criticism. Some critics challenged positivism in social sciences, while others questioned the unifying and objectivist paradigm of science itself. Since the 1980s, postmodernism has significantly influenced social sciences, including political theory.
• Steven Seidman and David Wagner (1992) describe postmodernism in social sciences as a critique of the modernist project to ground and unify these disciplines. Postmodernists reconsider the relationship between scientific knowledge, power, and society, as well as the connection between science, critique, and narrative.

Key Features of Postmodernism

• Postmodernism destabilizes the unity of humanity, the individual as the center of history and society, the idea of universal Truth, and the belief in social progress intrinsic to Enlightenment.
• Postmodern knowledge challenges disciplinary boundaries, the separation of science, literature, and ideology, and the division between knowledge and power.

Three Usages of Postmodernism

• Sociological Designation: Referring to an epochal shift in collective life organization from centralized control to a network structure.
• Aesthetic Genre: Literature that experiments with non-linear narration and mixed styles, complicating the distinction between high and low culture.
• Philosophical Critiques: Critiques of teleological and rationalist conceptions of nature, history, power, freedom, and subjectivity.

Opposition to Metanarratives

At its core, postmodernism opposes metanarratives, totalities, and grand theories. Many postmodern thinkers reject the idea of theory itself, viewing theories as grand narratives. Key features of the postmodern approach include:

• Genealogical studies revealing how discursive practices and conceptual schemata are embedded with power relations.
• Exploration of the ‘indeterminate’ or ‘chaotic’ aspects attached to dominant realities.
• Recognition of difference as central to politics, not just as an acknowledgment but as a key to generating more positivities.
• Incredulity towards metanarratives, rejecting linear history of progress and definitive interpretations of history.
• Contingency, as opposed to necessity, becoming central to the postmodern approach.
• Dismantling the binary between ‘transcendental’ and ‘immanent’.
• Focus on the process of ‘becoming,’ emphasizing the non-fixity of subjectivity and the absence of a fixed self.
• Challenge to the distinction between human and non-human, displacing human beings from the center of the universe.
• Resistance to Objective Truth and the perception of society as an incompletely structured, open system.
• Opposition to empirical claims of science and the objectivity and universality of knowledge, viewing science as a social construct.
• Debunking of macropolitics in favor of micropolitics, focusing on micro political activities.
• Diffused and pervasive nature of power, with emphasis on everyday practices constituting and normalizing subjectivity.
• Open-ended nature of categories, challenging collective politics due to anti-foundationalism and anti-essentialism.

Conclusion

Postmodernism in political theory represents a significant shift in understanding power, knowledge, and subjectivity. By challenging grand narratives, embracing contingency, and focusing on micro-political activities, postmodernism offers a nuanced and critical perspective on political processes and structures.