The chapter sets out to examine the contribution of critical perspectives to the study of European Union politics. The first perspective, historical materialisms, consists of critical approaches which draw explicitly on the intellectual heritage of Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci. The second perspective, Frankfurt Critical Theories, involves critical approaches which can be identified with the intellectual heritage of the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt, including the work of Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Jürgen Habermas. The third perspective, postmodern sciences, includes critical approaches which can be located within the critiques of modernity initiated by Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, amongst others. Finally, feminist perspectives comprise of critical approaches which seek to question gender and power, and to promote social change. The ordering of the perspectives reflects a journey from more positivist to more post-positivist political science, with feminist perspectives including liberal, radical, and post-structuralist approaches, rather than any judgement on the relative merits of the differing perspectives.