Chapter 9
Social constructivism
By
Michael Barnett
Introduction
The
rise of constructivism
Constructivism
Constructivism
and global change
Conclusion
Reader's Guide
This chapter provides an overview of
constructivist approaches to International Relations (IR) theory. Constructivism
explores how the world is made and re-made through action, how the structures
of world politics do not merely constrain but also constitute the identities,
interests, and practices of the actors of world politics, how these actors
unwittingly
or purposefully reproduce these
structures, and how human action is responsible for both stability and change
in world affairs. Constructivism generates many distinctive insights,
including alternative ways of thinking about power, the role of norms for
explaining the rise and decline of world orders, and the importance of
transnational movements and other non-state actors in the internationalization
of global politics.
What is Social
constructivism?
Social constructivism maintains that human development is socially situated
and knowledge is constructed through interaction with others. It is a
sociological theory of knowledge that applies the general philosophical constructivism into the social.
Introduction
Constructivism rose from rather humble beginnings to become one of
the leading schools in International Relations (IR). Twenty-five years ago
constructivism did not exist. Today it is widely recognized for its ability to
capture important features of global politics, and is viewed as an important
theory of international relations. This chapter explores constructivism’s
origins, its core commitments, and features of its research agenda as it
relates to global change. Mainstream International Relations assumes that
states have enduring interests such as power and wealth, and are constrained in
their ability to further those interests because of material forces such as
geography, technology, and the distribution of power. Critics counter that
social forces such as ideas, knowledge, norms, and
rules also influence states’ identities and interests, and
the very organization of world politics.
Constructivism is not the only theory of
international relations to recognize the importance of international norms and
to conceptualize international politics not as a system but as a society.
Various
theories that pre-dated constructivism,
some of which are included in this volume, made similar claims, including the
English School and feminist approaches to world affairs, as discussed in Chapters
2 and 17. But constructivists were more attentive to the issues that
mattered to neo-realists and neo-liberal institutionalists—how identity,
norms, and culture shape patterns of war and peace. Eventually, constructivism
developed different wings, with some placing emphasis on structure and others
on agency, some on stability and others on transformation.
The concern with the making and re-making
of world politics underscores constructivism’s strong interest in global
change. Although constructivism has investigated various features of global
change, this chapter will focus on two: the convergence by states around
similar ways for organizing domestic and international life; and how norms
become internationalized and institutionalized, influencing what states and
non-state actors do and their ideas of what is legitimate behaviour.
The rise
of constructivism
Once upon a time, neo-realism and
neo-liberal institutionalism dominated American international relations
theory. Neo-realism made several core claims. States are the central actors in
world politics, and they are fixated on their security and survival; these
interests suffocate any possibility that ideas, norms, or values might shape
state behaviour. They pursue these interests in the context of an international
system that is defined by: anarchy
(the absence of a supranational
authority); functional non-differentiation of the units (because anarchy
creates a self-help system, all states must be self-reliant and safeguard
their security); and the distribution of power. But because the world has
always been an anarchy and states have always been obsessed about their
survival, to understand enduring tendencies in world politics all that really
matters is the state’s position in the international hierarchy and the distribution
of power. States are suspicious, misanthropic, and aggressive, not necessarily
because they are born that way but because the environment punished anything
else (see Ch. 6).
Neo-liberalism lightened neo-realism’s
dark view of international politics by demonstrating that states cooperate all
the time on a range of issues in order to improve their lives. Because a
primary obstacle to cooperation is the absence of trust between states, states
construct international institutions that can perform various trust-enhancing
functions, including monitoring and publicizing cheating. These camps
disagreed on various issues, but they shared a commitment to individualism and materialism.
Individualism is the view that actors have
fixed interests and that the structure constrains their behaviour. Although neorealists
and neo-liberals differ because the former believe that the pursuit of security
is primary while the latter can envision other goals such as the pursuit of
wealth, for empirical and theoretical reasons they both assume that state
interests are hard-wired and unmalleable. Materialism is the view that the
structure that constrains behaviour is defined by distribution of power,
technology, and geography. While neo-realism holds that interests trump ideas
and norms, neo-liberal institutionalism recognizes that states might willingly
construct norms and institutions to regulate their behaviour if doing so will
enhance their long-term interests. Although both approaches allow for the possibility
that ideas and norms can constrain how states pursue their interests, neither
contemplates the possibility that ideas and norms might define their
interests.
This materialism and individualism came to
be challenged by scholars who eventually became associated with
constructivism, a term coined by Nicholas Onuf in his important book, World
of Our Making (1989). It enjoyed a meteoric rise in the 1990s because of
two principal factors. First, it demonstrated that the notion of a world
without norms and ideas was not only nonsensical, but also that their inclusion
was important for understanding the behaviour of states and non-state actors,
and why they saw the world and themselves as they did.
The second was the end of the cold war.
Although only a handful of scholars had ever imagined that the cold war might
end with a whimper and not a bang, neo-realists and neo-liberal
institutionalists were especially hard pressed to explain this outcome. Their
commitment to individualism and materialism meant that they could not grasp
what appeared to reside at the heart of this stunning development: the revolutionary
impact of ideas to transform the organization of world politics. Constructivism
was tailor-made for understanding what had been unthinkable to most scholars.
Nor did these approaches provide insight into what might come next. The USA was
enjoying a unipolar moment, but the distribution of power could not determine
whether it would aspire to become a global hegemon or work through multilateral
institutions. Moreover, the end of the cold war caused states to
debate what is the national interest and
how it relates to their national identity—who are ‘we’ and where do ‘we’
belong? Constructivism provided insight into the dissolution and creation of
new regional and international orders. The end of the cold war also clipped
the prominence of traditional security themes, neo-realism’s comparative
advantage, and raised the importance of transnationalism, human rights, and
other subjects that played to constructivism’s strengths. Constructivists were
speeding past critique to offer genuinely novel and compelling understandings
of the world. The Culture of National Security (Katzenstein 1996)
challenged standard neo-realist claims in a series of critical areas—including
alliance patterns, military intervention, arms racing, great power transformation—and
demonstrated how identity and norms shape state interests and must be
incorporated to generate superior explanations. The growing literature on
sovereignty investigated its origins, its spread from the West to the global
South, and the historical and regional variation in its meaning. Constructivism
was offering a fresh take on the world at a time when the world was in need of
new ways of thinking.
International relations theory in the
1980s was dominated by neo-realism and neo-liberal institutionalism; both
theories ascribed to materialism and individualism.
Various scholars critical of neo-realism
and neo-liberalism drew from critical and sociological theory to demonstrate
the effects of ideas and norms on world politics.
The end of the cold war created an
intellectual space for scholars to challenge existing theories of international
politics.
constructivism
h
|
Before proceeding to detail
constructivism’s tenets, a caveat is in order. Constructivism is a social
theory and not a substantive theory of international politics. Social theory is
broadly concerned with how to conceptualize the relationship between agents
and structures; for instance, how should we think about the relationship
between states and the structure of international politics? Substantive theory
offers specific claims and hypotheses about patterns in world politics; for
instance, how do we explain why democratic states tend not to
wage war on one another? In this way,
constructivism is best compared with rational choice. Rational choice is a social theory that offers a
framework for understanding how actors operate with fixed preferences that
they attempt to maximize under a set of constraints. It makes no claims about
the content of those preferences; they could be wealth or religious salvation.
Nor does it assume anything about the content of the constraints; they could be
guns or ideas. Rational choice offers no claims about the actual patterns of
world politics. For
instance, neo-realism and neo-liberalism
subscribe to rational choice, but they arrive at rival claims about patterns of
conflict and cooperation in world politics because they make different
assumptions about the effects of anarchy. Like rational choice, constructivism
is a social theory that is broadly concerned with the relationship between
agents and structures, but it is not a substantive theory. Constructivists, for
instance, have different arguments regarding the rise of sovereignty and the
impact of human rights norms on states. To generate substantive claims,
scholars must delineate who are the principal actors, what are their interests
and capacities, and what is the content of the normative structures.
Although there are many kinds of
constructivism, there is unity within diversity. ‘Constructivism is about human
consciousness and its role in international life’ (Ruggie 1998: 856). This
focus on human consciousness suggests a commitment to idealism and holism,
which, according to Wendt (1999), represent the core of constructivism. Idealism demands
that we take seriously the role of ideas in world politics. The world is
defined by material and ideational forces. But these ideas are not akin to
beliefs or psychological states that reside inside our heads. Instead, these
ideas are social. Our mental maps are shaped by collectively held ideas such as
knowledge, symbols, language, and rules. Idealism does not reject material
reality but instead observes that the meaning and construction of that material
reality is dependent on ideas and interpretation. The balance of power does not objectively exist out there, waiting to be
discovered; instead, states debate what is the balance of power, what is its
meaning, and how they should respond. Constructivism also accepts some form of holism or
structuralism. The world is irreduc- ibly social and cannot be decomposed into
the properties of already existing actors. The emphasis on holism can make it
seem like actors are automatons. But holism allows for agency, recognizing that
agents have some autonomy and their interactions help to construct, reproduce,
and transform those structures. Although the structure of the cold war
seemingly locked the USA and the Soviet Union into a fight to the death,
leaders on both sides creatively transformed their relations and, with it, the
very structure of global politics.
This commitment to idealism and holism has
important implications for how we think about and study world politics. But in
order to appreciate its insights, we must learn more about its conceptual
vocabulary, and to demonstrate the value of learning this ‘second
language’, I shall contrast
constructivism’s vocabulary with that of rational choice. The core observation
is the social construction of reality. This has a number of related elements. One is the
emphasis on the socially constructed nature of actors and their identities and
interests. Actors are not born outside of and prior to society, as
individualism claims. Instead, actors are produced and created by their
cultural environment: nurture, not nature. This points to the importance of
identity and the social construction of interests. The American identity shapes
national interests. Not all is fair in love, war, or any other social
endeavour. For decades, Arab nationalism shaped the identities and interests of
Arab states, contained norms that guided how Arab leaders could play the game
of Arab politics, and encouraged Arab leaders to draw from the symbols of Arab
politics to try to manoeuvre around their Arab rivals and further their own
interests. How Arab leaders played out their regional games was structured by
the norms of Arab politics. They had very intense rivalries, and as they vied
for prestige and status they frequently accused each other of being a traitor
to the Arab nation or of harming the cause of Arabism. But rarely did they use
military force. Until the late 1970s the idea of relations with Israel was a
virtual ‘taboo’, violated by Egyptian Anwar Sadat’s trip to Jerusalem in 1977
and separate peace treaty in 1979. Arab states did not respond through military
action but rather by evicting Egypt from the Arab League, and then Sadat paid
the ultimate price for his heresy when he was assassinated in 1981. The Arab
national identity has shaped Arab national interests and the behaviour deemed
legitimate and illegitimate.
Another element is how knowledge—that is,
symbols, rules, concepts, and categories—shapes how individuals construct and
interpret their world. Reality does not exist out there waiting to be
discovered; instead, historically produced and culturally bound knowledge
enables individuals to construct and give meaning to reality. In other words,
existing categories help us to understand, define, and make sense of the world.
There are lots of ways to understand collective violence, and one of the
unfortunate features of a bloody twentieth century is that we have more
categories to discriminate between forms of violence, from civil war to ethnic
cleansing, to crimes against humanity, to genocide.
This constructed reality
frequently appears to us an objective reality, which relates to the concept of social facts. There are those things whose existence is dependent on
human agreement, and those things whose existence is not. Brute facts such as
rocks, flowers, gravity, and oceans exist independently of human agreement,
and will continue to exist even if humans disappear or deny their existence.
Social facts are dependent on human agreement and are taken for granted. Money,
refugees, terrorism, human rights, and sovereignty are social facts. Their
existence depends on human agreement, they will only exist so long as that
agreement exists, and their existence shapes how we categorize the world and
what we do.
Constructivists also are concerned with
norms and rules. Norms come in two basic varieties. Regulative rules regulate already existing activities—rules for the
road determine how to drive; the World Trade Organization’s rules regulate
trade. Constitutive rules create the very possibility for these activities. The
rules of rugby not only prohibit blocking but also help to define the very game
(and distinguish it from American football); after all, if forwards began to
block for backs, not only would this be a penalty, but it would change the game
itself. The rules of sovereignty not only regulate state practices but also
make possible the very idea of a sovereign state. The norms also vary in terms
of their institutionalization, that is, how much they are taken for granted. In
their famous ‘life cycle’ perspective, Finnemore and Sikkink identify how
normative structures evolve over time. Not all is fair in love, war, or any
other social endeavour. But we also know that what counts as playing the game
of love or war can vary over time, which means that we should be concerned with
their origins and evolution and their corresponding effects. Furthermore, rules
are not static, but rather are revised through practice, reflection, and
arguments by actors regarding how they should be applied to new situations.
Indeed, actors can engage in strategic social construction (Finnemore and
Sikkink 1998). Actors attempt to change the norms that subsequently guide and
constitute state identities and interests. Human rights activists, for
instance, try to encourage compliance with human rights norms not only by
naming and shaming those who violate these norms, but also by encouraging
states to identify with these norms because it is the right thing to do.
The social construction of reality and the
attempt by actors to shape the normative environment points to the concept of
legitimacy. Do we choose only the most efficient action? Do the ends justify
the means? Or is certain action just unacceptable? The earlier distinction
between constitutive and regulative rules parallels the conceptual distinction
between the logic of
consequences and the logic
of appropriateness. The
logic of consequences attributes action to
the anticipated costs and benefits, mindful that other actors are doing just
the same. The logic of appropriateness, however, highlights how actors are
rule-following, worrying about whether their actions are legitimate. The two
logics are not necessarily distinct or competing. What is viewed as appropriate
and legitimate can affect the possible costs of different actions; the more
illegitimate a possible course of action appears to be, the higher the potential
cost for those who proceed on their own. The USA’s decision to go into Iraq
without the blessing of the UN Security Council meant that other states viewed
the USA’s actions as illegitimate, were less willing to support them, and this
raised the costs to the USA when it went ahead.
By emphasizing the social construction of
reality, we also are questioning what is frequently taken for granted. This
points to several issues. One is a concern with the origins of the social
constructs that now appear to us as natural and are now part of our social
vocabulary. Sovereignty did not always exist; it was a product of historical
forces and human interactions that generated new distinctions regarding where
political authority resided. The category of weapons of mass destruction is a
modern invention. Although individuals have been forced to flee their homes
ever since Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden, the political and legal
category of‘refugees’ is only a century old (see Case Study 1).
To understand the
origins of these concepts requires attention to the interplay between existing
ideas and institutions, the political calculations by leaders who had ulterior
motives, and morally minded actors who were attempting to improve humanity.
Also of concern are alternative pathways. Although history is path-dependent,
there are contingencies, historical accidents, the conjunction of material and
ideational forces, and human intervention that can force history to change
course. The events of 11
September 2001 and the response by the
Bush administration arguably transformed the direction of world politics. This
interest in possible and counterfactual worlds works against historical
determinism. Alexander Wendt’s (1992) claim that ‘anarchy is what states make
of it’ calls attention to how different beliefs and practices will generate
divergent patterns and organization of world politics (see Box 9.1). A world of Mahatma Gandhis will be very different from
a world of Osama bin Ladens.
Constructivists also examine how actors
make their activities meaningful. Following Max Weber’s (1949: 81) insight that
‘we are cultural beings with the capacity and the will to take a deliberate
attitude toward the world and to lend it significance’, constructivists
attempt to recover the meanings that actors give to their practices and the objects
that they construct. These derive not from private beliefs but rather from culture. In contrast to the
rationalist presumption that culture, at most, constrains action,
constructivists argue that culture informs the meanings that people give to
their action. Sometimes constructivists have presumed that such meanings derive
from a hardened culture. But because culture is fractured and because society
comprises different interpretations of what is meaningful activity, scholars
need to consider these cultural fault lines and treat the fixing of meanings as
an accomplishment that is the essence of politics. Some of the most important
debates in world politics are about how to define particular activities.
Development, human rights, security, humanitarian intervention, sovereignty are
all important orienting concepts that can have any number of meanings. States
and non-state actors have rival interpretations of the meanings of these
concepts and will fight to try to have their preferred meaning collectively
accepted.
The very fact that these meanings are
fixed through politics, and that once these meanings are fixed they have
consequences for the ability of people to determine their fates, suggests an
alternative way of thinking about power. Most international relations theorists treat power as
the ability of one state to compel another
state to do what it otherwise would not,
and tend to focus on the material technologies, such as military firepower and
economic statecraft, which have this persuasive effect. Constructivists have
offered two important additions to this view of power. The forces of power go
beyond the material; they also can be ideational (Barnett and Duvall 2005).
Consider the issue of legitimacy. States, including great powers, crave legitimacy, the
belief that they are acting according to and pursuing the values of the
broader international community. There is a direct relationship between their
legitimacy and the costs of a course of action: the greater the legitimacy,
the easier time they will have convincing others to cooperate with their
policies; the less the legitimacy, the more costly the action. This means,
then, that even great powers will frequently feel the need to alter their
policies in order to be viewed as legitimate—or bear the consequences. Further
evidence of the constraining power of legitimacy is offered by the tactic of
‘naming and shaming’ by human rights activists. If states did not care about
their reputation and the perception that they were acting in a manner
consistent with prevailing international standards, then this tactic would
have little visible impact; it is only because law-breaking governments want to
be perceived as acting in a manner consistent with international norms that
they can be taunted into changing their conduct.
Moreover, the effects of power go beyond
the ability to change behaviour. Power also includes how knowledge, the fixing
of meanings, and the construction of identities allocate differential rewards
and capacities. If development is defined as per capita income, then some
actors, namely states, and some activities, namely industrialization, are
privileged; however, if development is defined as basic needs met, then other
actors, namely peasants and women, gain voice, and other activities, namely
small-scale agricultural initiatives and cottage industries, are visible.
International humanitarian law tends to assume that ‘combatants’ are men and
‘civilians’ are women, children, and the elderly; consequently, as the
discussion of the Bosnian civil war illustrates, men and women might be
differentially protected by the laws of war (see Box 9.2).
Although there is tremendous debate among
constructivists over whether and how they are committed to social science,
there is some common ground. To begin with, they reject the unity of science
thesis—that the methods of the natural sciences are appropriate for
understanding the social world. Instead, they argue that the objects of the
natural world and the social world are different in one crucial respect: in the
social world the subject knows herself, through reflection on her actions, as a
subject not simply of experience but of intentional action as well. Humans
reflect on their experiences and use these experiences to inform their reasons
for their behaviour. Atoms do not. What necessitates a human science,
therefore, is the need to understand how individuals give significance and
meaning to their actions. Only then will we be able to explain human action.
Consequently, the human sciences require methods that can capture the
interpretations that actors bring to their activities. Max Weber, a founding
figure of this approach, advocated that scholars employ verstehen to
recreate how people understand and interpret the world. To do so, scholars need
to exhibit empathy, to locate the practice within the collectivity so that one
knows how this practice or activity counts, and to unify these individual
experiences into objectively, though time-bound, explanations (Ruggie 1998:
860).
Most constructivists remain committed to
causality and explanation, but insist on a definition of causality and
explanation that is frequently accepted by many IR scholars. A highly popular
view of causality is that independent and dependent variables are unrelated and
that a cause exists when the movement of one variable precedes and is
responsible for the movement of another. Constructivists, though, add that
structures can have a causal impact because they make possible certain kinds of
behaviour, and thus generate certain tendencies in the international system.
Sovereignty does not cause states with certain capacities; instead, it produces
them and invests them with capacities that
make possible certain kinds of behaviours.
Being a sovereign state, after all, means that states have certain rights and
privileges that other actors in world politics do not. States are permitted to
use violence (though within defined limits) while non-state actors that use
violence are, by definition, terrorists. Knowing something about the
structure, therefore, does important causal work. Constructivists also are
committed to explanatory theory, but reject the idea that explanation requires
the discovery of timeless laws. In fact, it is virtually impossible to find
such laws in international politics. The reason for their absence is not
because of some odd characteristic of international politics: this elusiveness
exists for all the human sciences. As Karl Popper observed, the search for timeless
laws in the human sciences will be forever elusive because of the ability of
humans to accumulate knowledge of their activities, to reflect on their
practices and acquire new knowledge, and to change their practices as a
consequence. Accordingly, constructivists reject the search for laws in favour
of contingent generalizations (Price and Reus-Smit 1998). Because of their
interest in uncovering meaning and discovering contingent generalizations,
constructivists have used a grab-bag of methods, including statistical models,
game theory, rich case studies, and ethnography.
Key Points
Constructivists are concerned with human
consciousness and knowledge, treat ideas as structural factors that influence
how actors interpret the world, consider the dynamic relationship between ideas
and material forces as a consequence of how actors interpret their material
reality, and are interested in how agents produce structures and how structures
produce agents.
Regulative and constitutive norms shape
what actors do, but only constitutive norms shape the identity and actors of
states and what counts as legitimate behaviour.
Although the meanings that actors bring to
their activities are shaped by the underlying culture, meanings are not always
fixed and the fixing of meaning is a central feature of politics.
Social construction denaturalizes what is
taken for granted, asks questions about the origins of what is now accepted as
a fact of life, and considers the alternative pathways that might have
produced, and can produce, alternative worlds.
Power is not only the ability of one actor
to get another actor to do what they would not do otherwise, but also the
production of identities, interests, and meanings that limit the ability of
actors to control their fate.
Constructivism
and global change
Constructivism’s focus on how the world
hangs together, how normative structures construct the identities and interests
of actors, and how actors are rule-following, might seem ideal for explaining
why things stay the same but useless for explaining why things change. This is
hardly true. Constructivism claims that what exists might not have existed, and
need not—inviting us to think of alternative worlds and the conditions that
make them more or less possible. Indeed, constructivism scolded neo-realism
and neo-liberal institutionalism for their failure to explain contemporary
global transformations. The Peace of
Westphalia helped to establish
sovereignty and the norm of non-interference, but in recent decades various
processes have worked against the principle of non-interference and suggested
how state sovereignty is conditional on how states treat their populations—best
known as a responsibility to protect. World orders are
created and sustained not only by great power preferences but also by changing
understandings of what constitutes a legitimate international order. Until the
Second World War, the idea of a world organized around empires was hardly illegitimate;
now it is. One of today’s most pressing and impressive issues concerning global
change is the ‘end of history’ and the apparent homogenization of world
politics—that is, the tendency of states to organize their domestic and
international lives in similar ways, and the growing acceptance of certain
international norms for defining the good life and how to get there. In the
rest of this section, I explore three concepts that figure centrally in such
discussions—diffusion, socialization, and the internationalization and institutionalization of
norms.
A central theme in any discussion of
global change is diffusion. Stories about diffusion concern
how particular models, practices, norms, strategies, or beliefs spread within
a population. Constructivists have highlighted two important issues. One is institutional isomorphism, which
observes that those organizations that share the same environment will, over
time, resemble each other. In other words, if once there was a diversity of
models within the population, over time that diversity yields to conformity and
convergence around a single model. There used to be various ways to organize
state structures, economic activity, free trade agreements, and on and on. But
now the world is organized around the nation-state, states
favour democratic forms of governance and market economies, and most
international organizations have a multilateral form. It is possible that the
reason for this convergence is that states now realize that some institutions
are just superior to others. An additional possibility is that states look
alike because they want acceptance, legitimacy, and status. For instance, one
explanation for the recent wave of democratization and elections is that states
now accept that democratic elections are a more efficient and superior way to
organize politics; it also could be, though, that lots of states have decided
to turn democratic and run elections not because they were persuaded that it
would be more efficient, but rather because they wanted to be viewed as part of
the ‘modern world’ and receive the benefits associated with being a legitimate
state.
How do things diffuse? Why are they
accepted in new places? One factor is coercion. Colonialism and great power
imposition figured centrally in the spread of capitalism. Another factor is
strategic competition. Heated rivals are likely to adopt similar weapons systems
to try to stay even on the military battlefield. States also will adopt similar
ideas and organizations for at least four other reasons. Formal and informal
pressures can cause states to adopt similar ideas because doing so will bring
them resources they need. States want resources, and to attract these resources
they will adopt and reform their institutions to signal to various communities
that they are part of the club and are utilizing ‘modern’ techniques. In other
words, they value these new institutions not because they truly believe that
they are superior, but rather because they are symbols that will attract
resources. Eastern European countries seeking entry into the European Union
adopted various reforms not only because they believed that they are superior
but also because they are the price of admission.
Also, during periods of uncertainty, when
states are unsure of how to address existing challenges, they are likely to
adopt those models that are perceived as successful or legitimate. Political
candidates in newly democratizing countries reorganize their party and campaign
organizations in order to increase their prospects of electoral victory. To
that end, they draw from models of success, largely from the American context,
not necessarily because they have evidence that the American campaign model is
truly better, but rather because it appears modern, sophisticated, and
superior. Furthermore, frequently states adopt particular models because of
their symbolic standing. Many Third World governments have acquired very
expensive weapons systems that have very little military value because they
convey to others that they are sophisticates and are a part of the ‘club’.
Iran’s nuclear ambitions might owe to its desire for regional dominance, but it
could also be that it wants to own this ultimate status symbol. Finally, professional
associations and expert communities also diffuse organizational models. Most
associations have established techniques, codes of conduct, and methodologies
for determining how to confront challenges in their area of expertise. They
learn these techniques through informal interactions and in formal settings
such as in universities. Once these standards are established, they become the
‘industry standard’ and the accepted way of addressing problems in an area.
Part of the job of professional associations and expert networks is to communicate
these standards to others; doing so makes them agents of diffusion. Economists,
lawyers, military officials, arms control experts, and others diffuse
practices, standards, and models through networks and associations. If the
American way of campaigning is becoming increasingly accepted around the world,
it is in part due to a new class of professional campaign consultants that have
converged around a set of accepted techniques and are ready to peddle their
wares to willing customers.
In their discussion of changing identities
and interests, constructivists have also employed the concept of
socialization. How can we explain how states change so that they come to
identify with the identities, interests, and manners of the existing members of
the club, and, accordingly, change their behaviour so that it is consistent
with those of the group? According to Alistair Iain Johnston (2008), the place
to look is the intimate relations between states within international institutions
and organizations. Specifically, he explores the possibility that China changed
its security policies over the last two decades because of socialization processes
contained in various multilateral forums. Furthermore, he argues that
socialization can be produced by several mechanisms: by mimicking, when state
officials face tremendous uncertainty and decide that the best way to proceed
is to adopt the practices that seem to have served others well; social
influence, when state officials aspire to status within the existing group and
are sensitive to signs of approval and disapproval; and persuasion, when state
officials are convinced by the superiority of new ways of thinking about the
world. Consistent with
the earlier comment that we should look
for ways in which constructivism and rational choice are both competing and
complementary explanations of state behaviour, Johnston argues that some paths
to socialization are closer to what rationalists have in mind, especially as
they emphasize the costs and benefits of action, and some are closer to what
constructivists have in mind, especially as they emphasize the desire to be
accepted by the broader community and to show the ability to learn.
Discussions of diffusion and socialization
also draw attention to the internationalization of norms. Norms are standards
of appropriate behaviour for actors with a given identity. Norms of
humanitarianism, citizenship, military intervention, human rights, trade, arms
control, and the environment not only regulate what states do, they can also be
connected to their identities and are thus expressive of how they define themselves
and their interests. Norms constrain behaviour because actors are worried about
costs and because of a sense of self. ‘Civilized’ states are expected to avoid
settling their differences through violence, not because war might not pay but
rather because it violates how ‘civilized’ states are expected to act. Human
rights activists aspire to reduce human rights violations not only by ‘naming
and shaming’ those who violate these rights but also by persuading potential
violators that the observation of human rights is tied to their identity as a
modern, responsible state. The domestic debates on the USA’s treatment of
‘enemy combatants’ concerned not only whether torture worked but also whether
it is a legitimate practice for civilized states.
These expectations of what constitutes
proper behaviour can diffuse across the population to the point that they are
taken for granted. Norms, therefore, do not simply erupt but rather evolve
through a political process. A central issue, therefore, is the
internationalization and institutionalization of norms, or what is now called
the life cycle of norms (see Box 9.3).
Although many international norms have a
taken- for-granted quality, they have to come from somewhere, and their path
to acceptance is nearly always rough and rocky. Although most states now recognize
that prisoners of war have certain rights and cannot be subjected to summary
executions on the battlefield, this was not always the case. These rights
originated with the emergence of international humanitarian law in the late
nineteenth century, and then slowly spread and became increasingly accepted
over the next several decades in response to considerable debate regarding how
to minimize the horrors of war. Now most states accept that prisoners of war
have rights, even if those rights are not fully observed. Several decades ago
many scholars and jurists objected to the very idea of humanitarian
intervention because it violated sovereignty’s principle of non-interference
and allowed great powers to try to become sheep in wolves’ clothing. Over the
last fifteen years, though, there has been a growing acceptance of
humanitarian intervention and a ‘responsibility to protect’—when states are
unable or unwilling to protect their citizens, then the international community
inherits that responsibility. This revolutionary concept emerged through fits
and starts, in response to tragedies such as Rwanda and propelled by various
states and humanitarian organizations.
Among the various consequences of
institutional isomorphism and the internationalization of norms, three are
noteworthy. There used to be a myriad of ways to organize human activities, but
that diversity has slowly but impressively yielded to conformity. Yet just
because states look alike does not mean that they act alike. After all, many
states gravitate towards particular models not because they really think that
the model is better but in order to improve their legitimacy. These states,
then, can be expected to act in ways that are inconsistent with the
expectations of the model. For instance, if governments adopt democratic forms
of governance and elections solely for symbolic reasons, then we should expect the presence of democratic institutions to exist
alongside authoritarian and illiberal practices. There is also a deepening
sense of an ‘international community’. The internationalization of norms
suggests that actors are increasingly accepting standards of behaviour because
they are connected to a sense of self that is tied to the international
community. These norms, in other words, are bound up with the values of that
community. To the extent that these values are shared, it becomes possible to
speak of an international community. A third consequence is the presence of
power even within an international community. Whose vision of international
community is being constructed? Diffusion rarely goes from the Third World to
the West; instead, it travels from the West to the Third World. The
international society of states began as a European society and then expanded
outward; the internationalization of this society and its norms shaped the
identities and foreign policy practices of new members. In other words, the
convergence on similar models, the internationalization of norms, and the
possible emergence of an international community should not be mistaken for a
world without power and hierarchy. In general, the constructivist concern with
international diffusion and the internationalization of norms touches centrally
on global change because of the interest in a world in motion and
transformation (see Box 9.4).
Key Points
The recognition that the world is socially
constructed means that constructivists can investigate global change and
transformation.
A key issue in any study of global change
is diffusion, captured by the concern with institutional isomorphism and the
life cycle of norms.
Although diffusion sometimes occurs
because of the view that the model is superior, frequently actors adopt a model
either because of external pressures or because of its symbolic legitimacy.
Institutional isomorphism and the
internationalization of norms raise issues of growing homogeneity in world
politics, a deepening international community, and socialization processes.
Conclusion
This chapter surveyed the
global-historical, intellectual, and disciplinary forces that made
constructivism a particularly attractive way of thinking about international
politics, whose continuities and transformations it invites students to
imagine. It explores why the world is organized the way it is, considers the
different factors that shape the durable forms of world politics, and seeks
alternative worlds. In doing so, it challenges received wisdoms and opens up
new lines of enquiry. Although many in the discipline treated as strange the
claim that ideas can shape how the world works, in fact what is strange is a
view of a world devoid of ideas. After all, is it even possible to imagine such
a world? What would it look like? Is it even possible to imagine a world driven
only by materialist forces? What would it look like?
Constructivism challenged the discipline’s
mainstream on its own terms and on issues that were at the heart of its
research agenda. Its success has sometimes led to the false impression that
constructivism is a substantive theory and not the social theory that it is.
As such, it is both much more and much less than meets the eye. It is much less
because it is not properly a theory that can be viewed as a rival to many of
the theories in this volume. It offers no predictions about enduring
regularities or tendencies in world
politics. Instead, it suggests how to investigate them. Consequently, it is
much more than meets the eye because it offers alternative ways of thinking
about a range of concepts and issues, including power, alliance formation, war
termination, military intervention, the liberal peace, and international
organizations.
What of the future of constructivism? It
depends on which version of constructivism we are discussing. Constructivists
generally accept certain commitments, including idealism, holism, and an
interest in the relationship between agents and structures. They also accept
certain basic claims, such as the social construction of reality, the
existence and importance of social facts, the constitution of actors’
identities, interests, and subjectivities, and the importance of recovering
the meaning that actors give to their activities. But they also exhibit
tremendous differences. Although sometimes these disagreements can appear to
derive from academic posturing, the search for status, and the narcissism of
minor differences, in fact there also can be much at stake. These differences
will exist as long as constructivism exists. This is healthy because it will
guard against complacency and enrich our understanding of the world.
Case Study 1
Social
construction of refugees
Who is a refugee, why does this category
matter, and how has it changed? There are many ways to categorize people who
leave their homes, including migrants, temporary workers, displaced people, and
refugees. Before the twentieth century, 'refugee' as a legal category did not
exist, and it was not until the First World War that states recognized people
as refugees and gave them rights. Who was a refugee? Although many were
displaced by the First World War, Western states limited their compassion to
Russians who were fleeing the Bolsheviks (it was easier to accuse a rival state
of persecuting its people); only they were entitled to assistance from states
and the new refugee agency, the High Commissioner for Refugees. However, the
High Commissioner took his mandate and the category and began to apply it to
others in Europe who also had fled their country and needed assistance.
Although states frequently permitted him to expand into other regions and
provide more assistance, states also pushed back and refused to give
international recognition or assistance to many in need-most notably when Jews
were fleeing Nazi Germany. After the Second World War, and as a consequence of
mass displacement, states re-examined who could be called a refugee
and what assistance they could receive. Because Western states were worried
about having obligations to millions of people around the world, they defined
a refugee as an individual 'outside the country of his origin owing to a
well-founded fear of persecution' as a consequence of events that occurred in
Europe before 1951. In other words, their definition excluded those outside
Europe who were displaced because of war or natural disasters or because of
events after 1951. Objecting to this arbitrary definition that excluded so
many, the new refugee agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees, working with aid agencies and permissive states, seized on events
outside Europe and argued that there was no principled reason to deny to them
what was given to Europeans.
Over time the political meaning of 'refugee'
came to include anyone who was forced to flee their home and cross an international
border, and eventually states changed the international legal meaning to
reflect the new political realities. Now, in the contemporary era, we are
likely to call someone a refugee if they are forced to flee their homes because
of man-made circumstances and do not worry if they have crossed an
international border. To capture these people, we now have a term 'internally
displaced people'. One reason why states wanted to differentiate 'statutory'
refugees from internally-displaced people is because they have little interest
in extending their international legal obligations to millions of people, and
do not want to become too involved in the domestic affairs of other states.
Still, the concept of refugees has expanded impressively over the last 100
years, and the result is that there are millions of people who are now entitled
to forms of assistance that are a matter of life and death.
Theory applied
Visit the Online Resource Centre to see real
world applications of theoretical perspectives.
Box 9.1
Alexander Wendt on the three cultures of anarchy
Box 9.1
Alexander Wendt on the three cultures of anarchy
'[T]he deep structure of anarchy [is]
cultural or ideational rather than material ... [O]nce understood this way, we
can see that the logic of anarchy can vary ... [Different cultures of anarchy
are based on different kinds of roles in terms of which states represent Self
and Other. [T]here are three roles, enemy, rival, and friend ... that are
constituted by, and constitute, three distinct macro-level cultures of
international politics, Hobbesian, Lockean, and Kantian, respectively. These
cultures have different rules of engagement, interaction logics, and systemic
tendencies ... The logic of the Hobbesian anarchy is well known: "the war
of all against all ...” This is the true self-help system ... where actors
cannot count on each other for help or even to observe basic-self-restraint...
Survival depends solely on military power ... Security is deeply competitive, a
zero-sum affair ... Even if what states really want is security rather than
power, their collective beliefs force them to act as if they are power-seeking
...
The Lockean culture has a different logic
... because it is based on a different role structure, rivalry rather than
enmity ... Like enemies, rivals are constituted by representations about Self
and Other with respect to violence, but these representations are less
threatening: unlike enemies, rivals expect each other to act as if they
recognize their sovereignty, their life and liberty, as a right, and therefore
not to try to conquer or dominate them ... Unlike friends, however, the
recognition among rivals does not extend to the right to be free from violence
in disputes. The Kantian culture is based on a role structure of friendship
... within which states expect each other to observe two simple rules: (1)
disputes will be settled without war or the threat of war (the rule of nonviolence);
and (2) they will fight as a team if the security of any one is threatened by a
third party.' (Wendt 1999:43,279,257,
298-9).
Box 9.2
Charli Carpenter on the effects of gender on the lives of individuals in
war-torn societies
'International agencies mandated with the
protection of war- affected civilians generally aim to provide protection in a
neutral manner, but when necessary they prioritize the protection of the
"especially vulnerable." According to professional standards
recently articulated by the International Committee for the Red Cross,
"special attention by organizations for specific groups should be
determined on the basis of an assessment of their needs and vulnerability as
well as the risks to which they are exposed." If adult men are most likely
to lose their lives directly as a result of the fall of a besieged town, one
would expect that, given these standards, such agencies would emphasize
protection of civilian men in areas under siege by armed forces. Nonetheless,
in places where civilians have been evacuated from besieged areas in an effort
to save lives, it is typically women, children, and the elderly who have
composed the evacuee population ... While
in principle all civilians are to be
protected on the basis of their actions and social roles, in practice only
certain categories of population (women, elderly, sick, and disabled) are
presumed to be civilians regardless of context ... Thus ... gender is encoded
within the parameters of the immunity norm: while in principle the
"innocent civilian" may include other groups, such as adult men, the
presumption that women and children are innocents, whereas adult men may not be
means that "women and children” signifies "civilian" in a way
that "unarmed adult male" does not... Similarly, gender beliefs are
embedded in ... the concept of "especially vulnerable populations"
... In this context it never would have occurred to protection agencies to
evacuate men and boys first, even if they had had the chance.'
(Carpenter 2003:662, 671, 673-4)
Box 9.3
Finnemore and
Sikkink on the three stages of the life cycle of norms
Norm emergence
'This stage is typified by persuasion by
norm entrepreneurs [who] attempt to convince a critical mass of states ... to
embrace new norms. Norm entrepreneurs call attention to issues or even
"create" issues by using language that names, interprets, and
dramatizes them.' Norm entrepreneurs attempt to establish 'frames ... that
resonate with broader public understandings and are adopted as new ways of
talking about and understanding issues’. Norm entrepreneurs need a launching
pad to promote their norms, and will frequently work from non-governmental
organizations and with international organizations and states. 'In most cases
for an emergent norm to reach a threshold and move toward the second stage, it
must become institutionalized in specific sets of international rules and
organizations ... After norm entrepreneurs have persuaded a critical mass of
states to become norm leaders and adopt new norms ... the norm reaches a critical
threshold or tipping point.'
Norm cascade
'The second stage is characterized more by
a dynamic of imitation as the norm leaders attempt to socialize other states
to become norm followers. The exact motivation for this second stage where the
norm "cascades” through the rest of the population (in this case, states)
may vary, but... a combination of pressure for conformity, desire to enhance
international legitimation, and the desire of state leaders to enhance their
self-esteem facilitate norm cascades.'These processes can be likened to
socialization. 'To the degree that states and state elites fashion a political
self or identity in relation to the international community, the concept of
socialization suggests that the cumulative effect of many countries in a region
adopting new norms' is akin to peer pressure.
Norm internalization
The third stage is'norm internalization
... Norms acquire a taken- for-granted quality and are no longer a matter of...
debate' and thus are automatically honoured. 'For example, few people today
discuss whether women should be allowed to vote, whether slavery is useful, or
whether medical personnel should be granted immunity during war.'
(Adapted from Finnemore and Sikkink
1998:894-905)
Box 9.4
Key concepts of
constructivism
Structure problem: the problem is how to think about the relationship between agents and
structures. One view is that agents are born with already formed identities and
interests and then treat other actors and the broad structure that their
interactions produce as a constraint on their interests. But this suggests
that actors are pre-social to the extent that there is little interest in their
identities or possibility that they might change their interests through their
interactions with others. Another view is to treat the structure not as a
constraint but rather as constituting the actors themselves. Yet this might
treat agents as cultural dupes because they are nothing more than artefacts of
that structure. The proposed solution to the agent-structure problem is to try
and find a way to understand how agents and structures constitute each other.
Constructivism: an approach to international politics that concerns itself with the
centrality of ideas and human consciousness; stresses a holistic and idealist
view of structures; and how the structure constructs the actors' identities and
interests, how their interaction is organized and constrained by that
structure, and how their very interaction serves to either reproduce or
transform that structure.
Holism: the view that structures cannot be decomposed into the individual units
and their interactions because structures are more than the sum of their parts
and are irreducibly social. The effects of structures, moreover, go beyond
merely constraining the actors but also construct them.
Idealism: although often associated with the claim that it is possible to create a
world of peace, idealism as a social theory argues that the most fundamental
feature of society is social consciousness. Ideas shape how we see ourselves
and our interests, the knowledge that we use to categorize and understand the
world, the beliefs we have of others, and the possible and impossible solutions
to challenges and threats. Idealism does not disregard material forces such as
technology, but instead claims that the meanings and consequences of these
material forces are not given by nature but rather driven by human
interpretations.
Identity: the understanding of the self in relationship to an 'other'. Identities
are social and thus are always formed in
relationship to others. Constructivists
generally hold that identities shape interests; we cannot know what we want
unless we know who we are. Because identities are social and are produced
through interactions, they can change.
Individualism: the view that structures can be reduced to the aggregation of
individuals and their interactions. International relations theories that
subscribe to individualism assume the nature of the units and their interests,
usually states and the pursuit of power or wealth, and then examine how the
broad structure, usually the distribution of power, constrains how states can
act and generates certain patterns in international politics. Individualism
stands in contrast to holism.
Materialism: the view that material forces, including technology, are the bedrock of
society. For International Relations scholars, this leads to forms of
technological determinism or the distribution of military power for
understanding the state's foreign policy and patterns of international
politics.
Normative Structure: international relations theory traditionally defines structure in
material terms, such as the distribution of power, and then treats structure
as a constraint on actors. In contrast to a materialist structure, a normative
structure includes the collectively held ideas such as knowledge, rules,
beliefs, and norms that not only constrain actors-they also construct
categories of meaning, constitute their identities and interests, and define
standards of appropriate conduct. Critical here is the concept of a norm, a standard
of appropriate behaviour for actors with a given identity. Actors adhere to
norms not only because of benefits and costs for doing so, but also because
they are related to a sense of self.
Rational choice: an approach that emphasizes how actors attempt to maximize their
interests, and how they attempt to select the most efficient means to achieve
those interests, and endeavours to explain collective outcomes by virtue of the
attempt by actors to maximize their preferences under a set of constraints.
Deriving largely from economic theorizing, the rational choice approach to
politics and international politics has been immensely influential and applied
to a range of issues.
Questions
What were the silences of neo-realism and
neo-liberal institutionalism?
What is the core of constructivism?
Do you find constructivism a useful
approach for thinking about world politics?
Do you agree that we should try to
understand how actors make meaningful their behaviour in world politics? Or is
it enough to examine behaviour?
How are meanings fixed in world politics?
What sort of relationship can exist
between rational choice and constructivism?
What do you think are the core issues for
the study of global change, and how does constructivism help you address those
issues? Alternatively, how does a constructivist framework help you identify
new issues that you had not previously considered?
Does it make sense to think about states
being socialized, as if they were individuals?
How does the concept of diffusion help you
understand why and how the world has changed?
Does the internationalization and
institutionalization of norms imply some notion of progress?
Further Reading
Adler, E. (2003), 'Constructivism', in W. Carlneas, B. Simmons, and T. Risse
(eds), Handbook of International Relations (Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage). Reviews the origins and fundamentals of constructivism and its
relationship to existing theories of international politics.
Barnett, M. (1998), Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order
(New York: Columbia University Press). Examines how Arab leaders played the
game of Arab politics and, in doing so, transformed the very nature of Arab
politics. An example of how constructivists might think about how strategic
action is shaped by a normative structure.
Fearon.J., and Wendt, A. (2003), 'Rationalism vs. Constructivism', in W. Carlneas, B. Simmons,
and T. Risse (eds), Handbook of International Relations (Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage). Surveys how rational choice and constructivism overlap.
Finnemore, M„ and Sikkink, K. (1999), 'International Norms and Political Change', in P.
Katzenstein et al. (eds), Explorations
and Controversies in World Politics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
—(2001), 'Taking Stock: The Constructivist
Research Program in International Relations and Comparative Politics' Annual Review of Political Science, 4(1): 391 -416. An insightful account of constructivism's insights.
Hollis, M., and Smith, S. (1990), Explaining and Understanding International Relations (New York: Oxford University Press). An
exceptionally clear exposition of the contrast between a conception of world
politics driven by self-interested action and a conception informed by rules
and interpretive methods.
Johnston, A. I. (2008), Social States: China in International Institutions, 1980-2000
(Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press). A
terrific introduction to the alternative ways to think about the socialization
of states.
Katzenstein, P. (ed.) (1996), The Culture of National Security (New York:
Columbia University Press). Explores how identities and norms shape state
interests in a range of security areas.
Price, R. (ed.) (2008), Moral Limit and Possibility in World Politics
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Constructivist scholars gather to
consider the relationship between ethics and various outcomes in world affairs.
Wendt, A. (1999), A Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press). The 'bible' of modem constructivism.
Online Resource Centre
Visit the Online Resource Centre that
accompanies this book to access more learning resources on this chapter topic
at www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/baylis6exe/
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