3. Special issue. First, unlike realist theory which sees actors as like units which respond to external phenomena in the same way, constructivists argue that who actors think they are matters. Only those with equal power could make such demands, and the Athenians make good on their threat to destroy the Melians, declaring that might is right and the weak suffer what they must (Thucydides 1951, pp. Early constructivist work in the 1980s and early 1990s sought to establish a countervailing approach to the material and rational theories that dominated the study of international relations. Yet, Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblances helps in understanding why an essence of constructivism need not be found. 1516). Constructivism considers the relations between states (and other actors) as a social realm; less about the distribution of resources and power and more about the distribution of ideas. The Sandholtz (2008:121) passage quoted above brings together the two types of normative dynamics discussed in this section. Rationalist critiques relate to constructivist methodology and epistemological claims. Norms are also expectations about behavior (these are called regulatory norms because they define acceptable behavior). The belief that reality is socially constructed leads constructivists to place a greater role on norm development, identity, and ideational power than the other major theoretical paradigms. These initial works laid the theoretical foundation for an approach to world politics that included the assumption that important aspects of politics are socially constructed, a commitment to mutual constitution as an answer to the agent-structure problem, a dedication to the importance of intersubjective reality in contrast to objective/subjective realities, and a focus on ideational and identity factors in analyses of world politics. This dynamism, it should also be noted, may not always be positive ideas about security can also regress or become less normative or progressive. Constructivist ideas are present when attention is turned to alliances and security communities. This has led the constructivist literature away from Keohanes (1988) original vision of a division of labor constructivists provide insight into what the interests are, rational approaches take the analysis from there (Legro 1996). Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. Lebow, R. (2001). In discursive terms, language can convey meaning and associations, and define what is considered within and outside the norms (see Poststructuralism in International Relations: Discourse and the Military by Baumann in this volume). What was it all about after all? Risses (2000) and Sendings (2002) critiques focus on the taken-for-granted mode of action implied the logic of appropriateness. In A. M. Sookermany (Ed. The Constructivist Approach to Explain National Identity . Moreover, social constructivism emphasizes social relations in global politics, and sees security and international politics as determined by ideas as well as material factors. How strong is the nuclear taboo today? Social norms were conceived as aspects of social structure that emerged from the actions and beliefs of actors in specific communities and in turn norms shaped those actions and beliefs by constituting actors identities and interests. They do not simply replace bad norms but become established through what Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) call a norm cycle where new ideas and shared understandings emerge, become instituted and normalized. The concept of power: A constructivist analysis. 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). It examines the socialization process as more one of contestation between different normative systems and has broadened the scope of analysis to include attempts at socializing both powerful and weaker actors. American Political Science Review, 95(3), 547560. Social Constructivist International Relations and the Military. While constructivism has made significant inroads into IR theorizing, it does not mean that it is unproblematic or immune from criticism. In military exercises with other nations, states share practices and ideas and in doing so, learn from each other. In A. M. Sookermany (Ed. 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. This pivot is an interesting development in norms research for two reasons. International Organization, 48(2), 185214. Social Constructivism or Constructivism is a theory in International Relations which holds that developments in international relations are being constructed through social processes in accordance with ideational factors such as identity, norms, rules, etc. For neoconservatives, Saddam Hussein represented a threat because he was seen as an irrational actor that has been hostile toward the USA (Tun 2005). The market for ontological security. Some scholars have sought a way through or out of the logic of appropriateness/logic of consequences debate by following March and Olsens (1998) suggestions about scrutinizing the relationship between the logics, especially possible temporal sequencing of the logics, theorizing that sometimes actors calculate optimal material courses and at others they reason about their normative/identity obligations (Shannon 2000; Nielson, Tierney, and Weaver 2006; see Muller 2004 for a caution on this synthesis strategy). This review examines the constructivist norms-oriented literature from early efforts geared at gaining acceptance in a field dominated by the neorealist/neoliberal debates, through the recent emergence of agendas focused on norm compliance and contestation. These initial waves of constructivist writing met the challenge issued by Keohane and played a significant role in vaulting constructivism into prominence during the 1990s and early 2000s (Checkel 1998, 2004). In the timeless wisdom of realist thought, the story of international relations is that the world is structured by anarchy. Ideas do not float freely: Transnational coalitions, domestic structures, and the end of the cold war. As Johnston (2001:494) clarifies, socialization is aimed at creating membership in a society where the intersubjective understandings of the society become taken for granted. These studies generally began from the perspective of a single, established norm and posited mechanisms (arguing, bargaining, persuading, and learning) for how the community of norm acceptors could be enlarged (Acharya 2004). This recent research speaks to and is driven by broader questions of conceptualizing the relationship between actors and norms whether actors reason through or about social norms. This also goes to the foundation of questions of the causes of war. Tannenwald, N. (2018). Steele, B., Gould, H., & Kessler, O. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. To construct something is an act which brings into being a subject or object that otherwise would not exist. 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. (2017). Critics found this dual understanding of the logic of appropriateness wanting and thus developed additional behavioral logics that modeled differing motivations and modes of behavior more explicitly. Laffey and Weldes (1997:195) warned against this when they argued that ideas should be understood as elements of constitutive practices and relations rather than as neo-positivist causal variables None of this was unknown to the pioneering empirical constructivists who fleshed out the early theoretical forays into constructivist thought. There is considerable confusion in the field on what precisely constitutes social constructivism and what distinguishes it from other approaches to international relations.1 As a result, it has become fairly common to introduce constructivism as yet another substantive theory of international rela- Third, rather than see international relations as an anarchic realm where the lack of a central authority above states guarantees security, constructivism makes the claim that agents and structures are mutually constituted or shaped by each other. I would like to thank Alice Ba, Robert Denemark, Phil Triadafilopoulos, and the anonymous reviewer for their helpful discussions and suggestions on this essay. 12). The second big claim of constructivism is that ideas matter with rationalist theorizing, material factors take precedence. In the other mode, actors actively consider their normative context in an attempt to reason about the best (appropriate) course of action actors reasoning about social norms. Yet this dominant view of international relations was significantly challenged by Alexander Wendt in the early 1990s with the simple premise: anarchy is what states make of it (Wendt 1992, pp. Table of Contents; Introduction to Social Constructivism: Rise of Social Constructivism in IR: Constructivism as social theory: Constructivist theories of International Relations: 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. London: Routledge. 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. International norms dynamics and political change. Constructivism and the nature of international relations Constructivism efforts to give a better understanding of international relations by its method which is based on social theory. Studies of norm diffusion or spread moved constructivists into the area of socialization. International relations require various perspectives to comprehend the complexity of the interactions that take place in the international sphere. Poststructuralism in international relations: An exploration of discourse and the military. This reimagining is not new. Even among security communities such as the Nordic states, different strategic cultures can be found because they are informed by a range of historical and cultural experiences, with different experiences of war and conflict, membership of alliances, and other factors (see special issues of Cooperation and Conflict (2005) and Global Affairs (2018) for further discussions). Along with recent work on strategic social construction the idea that norms can be deployed in the service of interests (regardless of whether those interests are pre-given or socially constructed themselves) or at least shape strategic behavior (e.g., Barnett and Coleman 2004; Muller 2004; Nielson, Tierney, and Weaver 2006; Seabrooke 2006) the recent writing on compliance has made progress on questions left open by the initial wave of empirical norms research. The Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink volume developed the spiral model that explained socialization of recalcitrant Southern states into universal human rights norms by referring to the linkages between and actions of transnational human rights activists, domestic human rights activists in the target state, and powerful Western state sponsors. Bibliographical References Adler, E. (1997). Initial constructivist norm studies thus tended to focus on how behavior in a community coalesces around a norm or is reconstituted when a norm emerges. Those who study compliance realize that actors are constituted by norms and cannot fully separate themselves from their normative context. Ideas about whether actors reason about norms or through norms can be linked to behavioral logics, which provide conceptions of how actors and norms are linked. It is especially relevant and pertinent as a tool of criticism of widely held empirical and normative theories. One of the big problems for rationalists, (When considering critiques of constructivism, it is important to note that those critiques are guided by the underlying epistemological and ontological positions of rationalist or other forms of theorizing.) Social norms were conceptualized as aspects of social structure that emerged from the actions and beliefs of actors in specific communities; norms shaped those actions and beliefs by constituting actors identities and interests. Constructivism The international relations theory that suggests that people create their own reality, . Realists have traditionally seen neutral states as weak and small, responding only to the external anarchic realm (Agius 2006). This realization was part of what prompted the serious focus on domestic political/normative contexts in much of this literature. 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). (1999). (Eds.). About us. In addition, taking constructivist thought to its logical conclusion, there is no such thing as nonnormative behavior or pure material self-interest independent of a normative context. 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. The rest of this section explores this distinction in greater detail, discussing the behavioral logics at the foundation of the about/through spectrum before examining the recent compliance and contestation literatures that are developing new ideas about norm dynamics. ), Handbook of military sciences (pp. The use of logic of appropriateness put constructivists in the curious position of having to show that norms, ideas, and identity mattered instead of material interests, which from a constructivist viewpoint is nonsensical. Rather the controversies mainly focus on how far one can push one logic of action to account for observable practices and which logic dominates a given situation. An example of this can be seen in the case of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which was created in 2002 to hear cases of war crimes. He argued: If behavior in the real social world can almost always be located in some of the intermediate spaces between the corners of the triangle, one single metatheoretical orientation will probably not capture it. In P. J. Katzenstein (Ed. Understanding how ideas about danger and threat are socially constructed, and how states form social relations in the international system is a key starting point in discussions about global security. Consider the shared norms that define military conduct and the institutions that have evolved around military practice; from the Geneva Conventions to the classic texts on warfare that are part of military training, a process of social interaction is taking place where norms are learned, and culture and identity are shaped. The current literature on compliance with social norms has taken a question that motivated the socialization studies of the 1990s Why do some transnational ideas and norms find greater acceptance in a particular locale than in others? (Acharya 2004:240) in new directions. (1999). London: Routledge. Although some debate exists over whether it is more of an approach rather than a theory (McCourt 2016, p. 476), its importance for international relations can be found in its emphasis on social relations between actors; how actors relate to each other shapes international politics. The International Affairs Forum (2020), states that constructivists use both material and non-material explanations of social constructs. Studies of compliance and contestation must grapple with this fundamental characteristic of social norms in a more explicit way moving forward. Another topic that requires further consideration in future research is the relationship between intersubjective and subjective reality. 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. Making sense, making worlds: Constructivism in social theory and international relations. forthcoming). Social constructivism emerged out of key debates in international relations theory in the 1980s concerned with agents and structures and has come to be seen as the fourth debate in international relations theorizing, which pitches constructivist against rationalist perspectives (Fierke and Jrgensen 2001, p. 3). forthcoming). Zehfuss, M. (2002). Acharya (2004) goes further in that he allows for the substance of international norms to be molded to fit local contexts localization. PS: Political Science and Politics, 50(1), 7174. Adler, E. (1997). Constructivists are often too fast and loose with the use of the term norm without a concomitant discussion of what the community of norm acceptors looks like and by what criteria we can identify a community of norm acceptors. Second, there is a division between what is generally called conventional and critical constructivism (Hopf 1998), largely over questions of state centricity and treatment of identity. The link was not copied. To conclude social constructivism believe that reality does not exist outside our consciousness, it only exists as 'intersubjective awareness' among people. In order to better understand compliance with and contestation over norms either in isolation or together, it is necessary to pay more attention to the prior understanding of who is in the community. The realist reading of Thucydides account of the Melian Dialogue (431BC) in the Peloponnesian War is seen as the classic illustration of power politics. A number of recent studies have examined just this tension and the range of empirical topics being considered from this perspective is now quite broad. John Dewey (1933/1998) is often cited as the philosophical founder of this approach. In A. M. Sookermany (Ed. For example, norms can challenge practices and beliefs that are seen to be no longer fit for purpose. There. Its value also depends on the market, so it can go up and down, or buy more or fewer things, dependent on inflation, and other variables. Constructivists are certainly aware that actual behavior in world politics fails to correlate exactly to what are in essence ideal typical models of behavior. Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, You can also search for this author in Baylis revision International Relations. 134). Constructivists provided empirical studies on a full range of topics important to the international relations discipline both in areas largely neglected by mainstream international relations like human rights (Klotz 1995; Risse, Ropp and Sikkink 1999), development (Finnemore 1996), and areas directly relevant to mainstream concerns like security (e.g., Legro 1996; contributors to Katzenstein 1996; Price 1997; Tannenwald 1999). (2008a). Whereas Morgenthaus classical realism described interests in terms of power as a truism of international relations, in empirical terms, power might not be a driver for states interests and actions. [1] [2] [3] The most important ideational factors are those that are collectively held; these collectively held beliefs construct the interests and identities of actors. Thucydides. Hidden in plain sight: Constructivist treatment of social context and its limitations. Instead, constructivism is held together by consensus on broader questions of social process its position on the agent-structure problem and the primacy of the ideational and the intersubjective aspects of social life (for overviews of constructivism see Onuf 1998; Ruggie 1998; Finnemore and Sikkink 2001; Ba and Hoffmann 2003). Constructivism sees power in terms of what it does and means (Guzzini 2005); ideas have power (e.g., that democracies are good). Your current browser may not support copying via this button. The identity of agents such as states matter because identity helps determine national interests. The empirical studies in this area were diverse. Contrastingly, neorealist prescriptions of power see it as hard, material, military power (such as large military forces or superior weapons) and are concerned with its distribution in the international system. To be specific, I navigated core tenets of constructivism in terms of its ontology, epistemology, and methodology, respectively. Hilde van Meegdenburg argues that in the case of Denmark, the use of PMSCs has been limited because it is not seen to align with Danish values. Pouliot and Adler draw on Bourdieu to develop a logic of practice and Hopf devised a logic of habit to reflect these concerns. Norm emergence studies were concerned with how ideas come to achieve normative status (e.g., Nadelmann 1990; Klotz 1995; Finnemore 1996; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998) and why some ideas become norms and others do not (e.g., Cortell and Davis 1996, 2000; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Legro 2000; Payne 2001). 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. 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). 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. Constructivism, which reached the shores of IR in the 1980s, describes the dynamic, contingent and culturally based condition of the social world. This aspect of the literature is more focused on how actors understand the norms that constitute them and alternatively consider how actors that reason through norms can contest and reconstruct the norms that bind communities together. 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