23) and recognized as a medium of exchange for goods and services. (2008b). Yet, constructivists are beginning to define their enterprise more independently of competing approaches. Central to constructivism are concepts such as norms, institutions, and culture. Norms are born anew every day as actors instantiate them through their beliefs and actions and, as Sandholtz (2008:101) notes, normative structures, in other words, cannot stand still.. ), The culture of national security: Norms and identity in world politics (pp. Abstract. One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. While neorealists argued that attacking Iraq was not in the national interests of the USA and that containment was more effective (Mearsheimer and Walt 2003), neoconservative hawks determined otherwise. talk, follow norms, create rules, etc.). Constructivism was and remains a very different approach to world politics than its erstwhile competitors. Further, constructivists became more cautious about basing their analyses on the logic of appropriateness. This chapter will take the reader through the key ideas of social constructivism also referred to as constructivism in this chapter showing how norms, culture, and ideas about identity shape actors, condition their relations with each other, and can impact the so-called given nature of international relations and transform understandings of power relations. Christine Agius . In other words, actors can never significantly remove themselves from their social structure to make independent judgments. The basics of constructivism Constructivism considers these interactions as a sociological process in which its agents and structures are centered in a reciprocal constitution; a part of society can not be understood without the other ones. Having made the case that norms matter and having developed a number of theoretical frameworks to show how norms emerge, spread, and influence behavior, normsoriented constructivists have begun to turn their attention to a new set of questions. This logic structured seminal empirical work that endeavored to show how ideational and normative factors could explain puzzles in world politics (e.g., Klotz 1995; Finnemore 1996). To conclude social constructivism believe that reality does not exist outside our consciousness, it only exists as 'intersubjective awareness' among people. While realists would argue that decision to go to war are based on rational state interests, constructivists would argue that the Geneva Convention represents the idea that war is a social and cultural practice and driven by moral considerations. In A. M. Sookermany (Ed. Moreover, for some, constructivism is problematic because it is seen as apolitical and its efforts to form a via media with rationalism bring the state back in (Weber 1999; Zehfuss 2002). For realists, the material structure of the world matters. The initial wave of empirical norms work provided a solid foundation for the newly emergent constructivist approach, but it tended to bracket the vibrant existence of norms themselves. In R. Abrahamsen & A. Leander (Eds. McCourt, D. (2016). (2016). Th e article argues that constructivism suff ers from the same . Glanville, L. (2016). Early empirical approaches did engage with normative dynamics and change (e.g., Finnemore and Sikkink 1998), but the understanding of dynamics and change was relatively circumscribed. Critiques of constructivism tend to come from three areas: rationalist criticisms, issues over how constructivists see identity, and finally, criticism that constructivism is apolitical. For liberals, the belief that liberal ideas such as democracy and the free market are ideas to be shared to make the world a better place suggests a transfer of ideas rather than an exchange of ideas. Social Constructivism is one of international relations approach. While early constructivist theorizing proved to be an exciting new avenue for thinking about international relations in the abstract, both constructivists and their critics were eager to see constructivist theory applied empirically. By Fizza Hameed Khan, Mahnoor Iqbal, Malaika Shahbaz, Sidra Noor, Raniya Ishtiaq. International Organization, 48(2), 185214. Norms were conceptualized as having specific behavioral strictures (a relatively bounded set of appropriate behaviors) that did not change. The causes of the Iraq war. International Organization, 46(2), 391425. Finally, the sociology of the discipline faced by early empirical constructivist studies virtually forced constructivists to adopt a focus on static norms. Studies of norm diffusion or spread moved constructivists into the area of socialization. ), The culture of national security. In P. M. Haas (Ed. On the contrary, early, empirically oriented constructivists worked to demonstrate that shared ideas about appropriate state behavior had a profound impact on the nature and functioning of world politics. Hagstrm, L., & Gustafsson, K. (2015). But we dont call it torture! Norm contestation during the US War on Terror. International Relations employs three theories that political scientists use to explain and predict how world politics plays out.To define the theories of Realism, Liberalism, and Constructivism we will explore how each theory views anarchy, power, state interests, and the cause of war. This realization was part of what prompted the serious focus on domestic political/normative contexts in much of this literature. Constructing IR: The third generation. PubMedGoogle Scholar. Yet, the analytic choices made had consequences for how norms were understood and these initial conditions significantly shaped both constructivist analysis and the kind of critiques of norms research that subsequently emerged. In P. J. Katzenstein (Ed. To be sure, the international relations literature still contains healthy debate and sparring between constructivism and realism/liberalism (e.g., Petrova 2003; Fehl 2004; Williams 2004; Goddard and Nexon 2005; Srenson 2008). Schmidt, B. Clearly this is a continuum because if agents were truly independent from or entirely dependent upon social structures, we would not be talking about constructivism. From this perspective, the logic of appropriateness, as it was developed through engagement with the logic of consequences foil, allowed the socially constructed ideational/normative world to play a role by providing cues as to what behaviors were appropriate. While constructivists do not deny the importance of material factors, they also argue that ideas also matter, and in some cases, matter more. The essay proceeds by first describing the initial establishment of constructivist norms research and critiques that flowed from the original choices made. The influence of Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant (17241805) on constructivist thought can be seen regarding ideas about knowledge and objectivity, in that knowledge of the world is filtered through frameworks of understanding. Kissinger's implicit embrace of constructivism might have been a thermonuclear detonation in the Great International Relations Theory Paradigm War of the 1980s and 1990s. Searle, J. R. (1995). Writing in the 1950s, Karl Deutsch differentiated between amalgamated and pluralistic security communities, with the former referring to a security community with a shared government, and the latter involving an integrated yet separated political structure. Constructivists also emphasize how domestic norms and values play a role in how states and their militaries approach conflict or understand the causes of conflict. Norms, identity, and national security in Germany and Japan. The goal was to show how a target behavior can be accounted by considering the ideational context, how ideas and norms constitute interests, or how social norms influence actors understandings of the material world. The underlying idea of the logic of appropriateness that actors draw upon ideas about what they should do in specific situations given who they are was consistent with social constructivisms commitment to the causal and constitutive (Wendt 1998) effects of norms. van Meegdenburg, H. (2019). Moreover, the Geneva Convention is an example of both a regulative and a constitutive norm, in that it not only proscribes state behavior but established a new international normative order, creating expectations for international behavior. Identity and culture can be problematic categories and distract from other factors that can explain international relations, such as capitalism or patriarchy (Kurki and Sinclair 2010). While this is obviously a false dichotomy and constructivist studies do not treat norms as exclusively internal or external to actors, the distinction matters for how scholars approach compliance and contestation. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. But a constructivist reading of the Melian Dialogue (Lebow 2001) shows how ideas rather than material factors played a role in the decision of the Melians, even if the outcome was grim (Agius 2006). As shared objects, they appear as external to any particular actor actors experience norms, at least in part, as external rules. Constructivists interested in norm change have recently begun reconceiving norm dynamics in a different way and have focused on contestation within communities of norm acceptors. In essence, these scholars and those who draw upon their work consider that much of behavior in world politics arises from ingrained, unconscious motivations either habits or practices that drive precognitive behavior. ), Do the Geneva Conventions matter? 3. Tannenwald, N. (2017). As states interact with other actors in the international system, their ideas and identity can change over time, which can produce a more dynamic understanding of international relations. 1999; Jacobsen 2003). Correspondence to This had some success. For military studies scholars, his three cultures of anarchy help capture how conventional constructivism relates to military affairs and international security). The second big claim of constructivism is that ideas matter with rationalist theorizing, material factors take precedence. International Organization, 53(3), 433468. Cooperation and Conflict, 40(1), 523. The growth of Private Military Companies (PMCs) or Private Military Security Contractors (PMSCs) in the 1990s and their increased use in conflicts has been a consequence of a range of different factors: increasing neo-liberalization, cuts to defense budgets and a desire for states to outsource security. Our assessments, publications and research spread knowledge, spark enquiry and aid understanding around the world. Special issue. Rasmussen, M. V. (2005). https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-saddam-idUSTRE56113O20090702. At the other end of the spectrum are constructivists who argue that agents reason through social structures. Rationalist critiques relate to constructivist methodology and epistemological claims. They consider that actors can stand outside a normative structure to consider options. Another topic that requires further consideration in future research is the relationship between intersubjective and subjective reality. (It should be noted here that social constructivism is often seen as part of a broader set of theoretical approaches that are concerned with identity and discourses, such as ontological security and securitization. Recent studies have taken the generic nature of norms more seriously and have subsequently focused on how actors must operationalize their normative context to take specific actions (Hoffmann 2005; Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007; Sandholtz 2008). International norms dynamics and political change. The translation requires interpretation a subjective understanding of the intersubjective context to decide on a behavior. How strong is the nuclear taboo today? Constructivism can produce richer understandings of the very basic questions that construct military studies: enemy perceptions, how identity drives threat/amity/cooperation in international relations, how states and actors respond to threat and the meanings that certain types of warfare involve, the stories told about war and what it means to be secure. Japan and identity change: Why it matters in international relations. Advance of Theory of Constructivism in IR The theory's rise is generally attributed after the end of cold war . Constructivism is a structural theory of the international system that makes the following core claims: (1) states are the principal units of analysis for international political theory; (2) the key structures in the states system are intersubjective rather than material; and. Critical constructivists prefer to examine state identity in terms of its wider story (Fierke and Jrgensen 2001). Arguments over the different actions feed back and alter the meaning of the original norms. Within this This also goes to the foundation of questions of the causes of war. Thucydides the constructivist. Sookermany, A. M. (2021). In addition, the use of norms to study international relations directly challenged the orthodox assumption that the international realm was one largely devoid of sociality, merely a system of power calculations and material forces (a challenge also issued by the English school; see Bull 1977). Introduction by Finley, John H. New York: Random House. This is particularly relevant to military studies in terms of understanding the strategic culture of specific states: culture can have an important influence on how states see security, how they interpret threat and train and organize their military forces. It then turns to a discussion of two directions currently being explored in social norms research and the open questions that remain. New York: Columbia University Press. The norms-oriented work that followed this initial burst of activity in the 2000s built upon the success that was achieved, but also changed the trajectory of research on social norms in world politics to include broader notions of norm dynamics. Wendts contention was that rather than see anarchy as a given condition of the international system, ordering relations and compelling states to behave in certain ways to secure themselves, anarchy, rather, depends on whether states buy into this view. They demonstrated that constructivism consisted of more than a metatheoretical critique of rational/material approaches and could indeed be used to structure rigorous empirical investigations across the spectrum of issues in international relations. Liberal international relations theory and the military. New York: M. E. Sharpe. Constructivism is the claim that significant aspects of international relations are historically and socially contingent (subject to change), rather than inevitable consequences of human nature or other essential characteristics of world politics. Constructivist thought makes it clear that social norms do not exist independently of communities of actors that believe in and enact them. Zehfuss, M. (2002). For March and Olsen, the logic of consequences where agents undertake actions on the basis of rationally calculating the optimal (usually materially) course of action remained an insufficient foundation for theorizing behavior in international relations. Some preexisting knowledge of speech act theory, constructivism, and securitization theory is useful before reading this chapter . For neorealists, the relative material capabilities of states determine hierarchy and power in international relations. Constructivism accounts for this issue by arguing that the social world is of our making (Onuf 1989). Psychology and Constructivism in International Relations: An Ideational Alliance. Yet the logic of appropriateness appears to cede the ground of purposeful, goal-oriented behavior to rationalist perspectives (whether it actually cedes this ground is an additional, and crucial question). What if anarchy was not a given condition that ordered world politics? Constructivism has developed over the years and it is now possible to speak of it in terms of generations. The first generation is identified in the 1980s, where constructivism focused on agents and structures. [1] [3] Treating norms as generic has been at the foundation of the recent shift towards the study of contestation. Constructivists hold that . Constructivism focuses on Norms, Ideas, and behaviors in order to understand how IR works and why people do what they do. Poststructuralism in international relations: An exploration of discourse and the military. By the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, constructivists were engaging with both the small number of big important things that Waltz (1986:329, cited in Finnemore 1996:1) famously claimed for structural realism and the large number of big important things that other approaches ignored (Finnemore 1996:1). In essence, they theorized norm diffusion as taking place from a community of Western states constituted by compliance with universal human rights norms to individual Southern states. It will then consider some key criticisms of this approach and conclude with a short summary. After making the case that norms matter and developing a number of theoretical frameworks to show how norms emerge, spread, and influence behavior, norms-oriented constructivists have shifted their attention to a new set of questions, and in particular compliance with the strictures of social norms and change in norms themselves. Fierke, K. M., & Wiener, A. It is especially relevant and pertinent as a tool of criticism of widely held empirical and normative theories. First, norms are relatively stable if they were not, it would be hard to justify or observe this analytic category. For example, when considering what national identity means for a state like the UK, critical constructivists would include forgotten experiences or identities that make up its multicultural society, rather than just define British identity as white. forthcoming). Where liberals would declare that the west won, proving capitalism and democracy were the only workable ways to organize societies, in a constructivist reading, the end of the Cold War was largely down to the changes that were taking place in the former Soviet Union under Gorbachev (Risse-Kappen 1994). Throughout the chapter, reference will be made to constructivisms epistemological (how we know it), ontological (what we know), teleological (what is the purpose), and methodological (the tools we use to study) standing, where it is located in IR theorizing, and what it can mean for understanding military phenomena (see Philosophy of Military Science by Sookermany in this volume). Instead of calculating what is best for improving its utility, an actor motivated by the logic of appropriateness will instead reason what actors like me should do. Less explicit attention was paid to the alternative perspectives on socialization: processes by which groups are maintained, the manner in which the targets of socialization affect both the socializers and targets of socialization (see Acharya 2004; Ba 2006), or the socialization of reluctant powerful actors (Cortell and Davis 2006; Johnston 2008). Cortell and Davis (2005) still invoke fit or congruence between the local context and global norms in explaining compliance with an international norm, but their twists on this theme are: (1) to examine socialization of a powerful actor Japan; and (2) to conceive of fit not as a given, but rather the result of conscious domestic political activity. This freezing of norms tended to make them independent from politics as variables in political behavior. 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