Theories of International Relations

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Theories of International Relations

• Week 5
• Constructivism

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Introduction

• Neorealism and Neoliberal Institutionalism
  dominated the 1980s and much of the 1990s too.
• Both understand states as having interests or a
  purpose, given by structure of anarchy.
• Neoliberals thought states can learn to cooperate
  for mutual gain. Neorealists doubtful about this.
  
• This week we consider Constructivism, a post cold
  war school of thought that breaks with the ideas
  of orthodoxy and argues that international
  relations is a product of human action.

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Outline of Lecture

• Basic idea and central themes
• Assumptions
• Structure and Agency
• Searles Social Facts
• Wendt and Anarchy
• Regulative and Constitutive Rules
• Implications for IR scholarship
• Criticism
• Main Points

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IR as a social construction

• To construct an act which brings into being a
  subject or object that otherwise would not exist.
• States, alliances or international institutions
  are examples of social phenomenon in IR.
• The may build on the basic material of human
  nature, but they take specific historical,
  cultural and political forms
• These forms are a product of human interaction in
  a social world
• Social phenomena do not exist independent of
  human meaning and action

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Central themes

• Change
• Idea of social construction suggests difference
  across context not a single objective reality
  (e.g. end of Cold War questioned regularities in
  world politics transition from conflict to
  cooperation)
• Social dimensions
• Emphasise norms, rules and language and how
  material and ideational factors combine in the
  construction of different possibilities and
  outcomes (e.g. spread of liberal democracy)
• Processes of interaction
• Actors make choices in the process of
  interacting with others bringing historically,
  culturally and politically distinct realities
  into being (e.g. intl politics, world of our
  making Onuf 1989)

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Assumptions

• Constructivism does not say anything itself about
  the concrete world of international relations.
  Not a substantive theory.
• Instead, Constructivism gives us a different way
  of understanding how the basic units of the
  system interact.
• Often said that Neoliberalism and Neorealism are
  materialist, in that they focus on the capacities
  of states, while Constructivists are idealists
  because they focus on norms and ideas.
• Better distinction might be between non-social
  and social views of international relations.

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Assumptions (cont.)

• As mentioned in last lecture, Reus-Smit suggests
  (2005), Neorealism and Neoliberalism share idea
  that the actors (eg. States) are given or
  pre-social in nature.
• Their interests exist prior to interaction with
  each other. Relations do not shape interests.
• The world is understood as a strategic space, not
  as society. So states are atomistic and rational,
  not socialized into norms or ways of behaviour.
• Any cooperation for mutual gain does not change
  the identity or interests of states.

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Assumptions (cont.)

• Constructivists interested in the origins of
  state interests or preferences, and the idea that
  these change over time. Variation in the identity
  of states is crucial to them.
• Hence, anarchy is not the automatic mechanism it
  is for the Neorealists and Neoliberals.
• For Constructivists, the sovereign state and
  anarchy are something humans have made.

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Structure and Agency

• For Neoliberals and Neorealists, states pursue
  their interests within the constraints of an
  anarchic system.
• Constructivists question this view of the
  relationship between structure (the system) and
  agency (states). Structures do not just constrain
  pre-given agents. They also help to give agents
  identities, to make them.
• Agents not just subject to structures. Agents can
  make and transform structures too.

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Searles Social Facts

• Constructivist account is a social one because
  the norms and identities that Constructivists
  think crucial are social facts.
• Social facts are ideas, norms, rules that we hold
  collectively to be true.
• Social facts are consequential because we act as
  if these were actually brute facts. We treat
  social facts as facts.
• States are social facts for Constructivists. They
  are not brute or individual facts. In the first
  instance, they are not material. They are ideas
  or mental structures. But we cannot ignore them.
• Material facts matter, but human design and
  intent shapes material objects and give specific
  meaning and use within a context.

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Searles Social Facts (cont.)

• Given this focus on the social basis of things,
  and rejection of the idea that the identity or
  preferences of actors are natural,
  Constructivists are fascinated by the parameters
  of social facts.
• Anarchy, which like the state is a brute fact for
  Neorealists and Neoliberals, is understood to be
  a social fact. Anarchy is, to paraphrase Wendt,
  what states make of it. Its parameters are key.

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Wendt and Anarchy

• Alexander Wendt is famous for popularising
  Constructivism in two highly cited journal
  articles in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
• Wendt did not question that anarchy was a vital
  matter in international relations. He questioned
  the mechanics of anarchy.
• Against Waltz, Wendt thinks anarchy does not
  automatically create self-help states.

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Wendt and Anarchy (cont.)

• Wendt suggests that self-help is ONE possible
  response to anarchy.
• Wendt argues that self-help does not
  automatically follow from anarchy.
• A key missing element to insert is identity.
• Identity (eg. friend or foe) conditions response
  to other states US view of British and North
  Korean nuclear weapons.

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Wendt and Anarchy (cont.)

• We attribute meaning to others, including other
  states and act accordingly.
• Capabilities of states (eg. tanks, submarines)
  affect the calculations of states, based on
  understandings (social facts) about others.
• Hence when the US and USSR decided they were no
  longer enemies the cold war was over.

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Regulative and Constitutive Rules

• Constructivists are concerned with norms, ideas
  and rules that make up the social facts of
  international relations.
• Regulative rules control existing things like
  trade. Constitutive rules make a game of chess
  possible.
• Many Constructivists take the view that social
  relations, and by extension international
  relations, are only possible because of the
  constitutive rule of sovereignty.
• Constructivists suggest that IR scholars need to
  investigate history to understand the emergence
  of rules like this. Rules are not automatic or
  natural.

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Implications for Scholarship

• When it first emerged Constructivism was
  dismissed by the mainstream as philosophical and
  obscure.
• However, since the end of the Cold War the
  approach has flowered in the United States.
• Constructivism moved from its marginal position
  to being a rival to the mainstream synthesis as
  it produced vigorous empirical research focused
  on security, IPE, human rights and global
  governance, amongst other themes.
• Importantly, the empirical work undertaken by
  Constructivists has critically re-examined the
  work of mainstream theorists, highlighting the
  places where a Constructivist view makes better
  sense (e.g. expansion of NATO following the end
  of the Cold War)

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Criticism

• Main tendency in Constructivism is a
  problem-solving one.
• In this approach, cognition, mental structures
  and collectively shared ideas have pride of place
  in terms of the things that count.
• Although Constructivism may now largely be a
  problem-solving school of thought, it is not
  opposed to improvement. Change and the future
  potential for change in structures (as well as in
  agents) is clearly one of the key features of the
  approach.
• Because anarchy is not fixed, Constructivists are
  optimistic about the possibilities for
  improvement.

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Criticism (cont.)

• Neorealists look at Constructivism and ask where
  power resides in this account.
• Barnett has suggested that Constructivism does
  refer to power, but that the main focus on power
  by Constructivists is not on how many tanks a
  country has, but rather on legitimacy surrounding
  your states policy.
• Bulk of Constructivist research does not use
  power.
• Constructivism is a very general approach that
  does not offer specific claims about how states
  or other international actors relate to each
  other in specific ways.

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Main Points

• Constructivism developed as critique of
  Neorealism (and Neoliberal Institutionalism)
  during 1990s.
• Constructivists see basis of international
  relations in social facts, such as states and
  anarchy.
• The social character of agents and structures
  means that these interact and change each other
  over time.
• The research agenda of Constructivists tends to
  focus on the cognitive realm.
• Although some Constructivists do incorporate
  power into their analyses, power is neglected.
• Next time we consider the English School.