Constructivism as a Theory of International Politics

- social reality is constructed by our understandings of it

Questions Explored

- asks constitutive questions as well as causal ones

o How-possible? What? v. How? Why?

- what are ‘great powers’ and ‘rogue states’?

- what are ‘sovereign territorial states’?

- how are identities formed?

- what are interests?

- how do identities shape interests?

- why do materially similar states behave differently?

- how is it possible for security dilemmas to become security communities emerge?

- what are norms, principles, and rules?

- why do state comply with some norms and not others?

Categorizing Constructivism

- statist constructivists (Wendt)

o state has a ‘personality’ and effective agency

o ideational structure

- transnational constructivists

o states are not agents

Key Assumptions

International order is anarchic, but anarchy is what states make of it

- relations are not determined by anarchic structure

International relations are ‘inter-subjective’

- states and other actors are subjects, not objects

- more than ‘strategic interdependence’

- shared understandings as inter-subjective knowledge

Agents and structures ‘mutually constitute’ one another

- no ‘ontological priority’ to agents or structures

- non-reductive approach

- not a causal or temporal issue

Structures are social and material

- distribution of material power is not the sole meaning of structure

- norms, rules, and principles can structure relations – distribution of ideas’

Leading Hypothesis (Causal Mode)

Relations of amity and enmity emerge out of experienced interactions

- contra realism, dist. of power does not create ‘power struggles’

- contra liberalism, interests are not separate from identities

Constitutive Mechanisms

Structuration (Giddens)

- changes in structure emerging out of interaction of agents

- changes in agents’ conduct emerging out of structure

Collective Intentionality (Searle)

- shared understandings as other than sum of individual understandings

o human rights beliefs

Normative Transposition (Sewell)

- apply norm in one context to another

Causal Mechanisms

Norm Internalization/Socialization

- logic of appropriateness v. logic of consequences

- norms regulate behavior

- norms as appropriate conduct for given identity

Cultural Affinity

- shared identity creates shared interests

- not consequentialist process

Persuasion

- communication of ideas, not reconciliation of interests