Traditional ways of thinking about international relations are being increasingly challenged by alternative approaches, including Marxism, critical theory, post-modernism and feminism, resulting in a far-reaching debate on what international relations is, and ought to be, about. The author argues that critical theory possesses a vision powerful enough to revitalize the field. He argues that the common project of international relations should be to identify and answer the normative, sociological and prexeological questions raised by systems of inclusion and exclusion in world politics.