Over the past twenty years, the so-called third debate, or theconstructivist turn in international relations theory, has elic-ited a great deal of attention. Various critical theories andepistemologies-sociological approaches, postmodernism,constructivism, neo-Marxism, feminist approaches, and cul-tural theories-seem to dominate the leading internationalrelations journals. Postmodernism (also called critical theo-ry), perhaps the most radical wave of the third debate, usesliterary theory to challenge the notion of an "objective"reality in world politics, reject the notion of legitimate socialscience, and seek to overturn the so-called dominant dis-courses in the field in favor of a new politics that will givevoice to previously marginalized groups.