CONSTRUCTIVISM

THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Rise of Constructivism
• The 1980s was dominated by the Neos - neorealism and
neoliberalism. An intra-paradigm debate ensued between
the two schools of thought centering on the effects of
anarchy and the role of institutions in shaping the behaviour
of states.

• Critics of the two mainstream IR theories drew from

sociological and critical theories to argue for greater to
ideational forces such as ideas, knowledge, norms and
rules in order to deepen our interpretation of the origins of
states’ interests, and the organization of world politics,
these claims later became part of Constructivism’s
intellectual bases.

• Failure of the two dominant theories to explain the sudden

end of Cold War gave way to the rise of Constructivism in
the field of International Relations.
 What is Constructivism?
• Constructivism is the claim that
significant aspects of international
relations are historically and socially
constructed, rather than inevitable
consequences of human nature or
other essential characteristics of
world politics.

• ‘Constructivism is about human

consciousness and its role in
international life.’ (Ruggie 1998:56)
Basic Tenets of Constructivism
• The structures of human associations
are determined primarily by shared
ideas rather than material forces;

• Identities and interests of purposive

actors are constructed by their
shared ideas rather than given by
nature. (Wendt, 1999)
John Ruggie (born 1944)
• Ruggie directed his critique at
Waltz’s concept of structure,
specifically the second
element, non-differentiation of
functional units in the system.

• He argued that to understand

international change and
transformation required a
consideration of the growing
density of interactions among
actors located at the
interstate, transnational, and
domestic level.
Richard Ashley (born 19460
• Ashley argues that realists are
so fixated by the state and
cannot see a world with non-
state actors.

• He criticized the realist school

for not being able to realized
how global-historical forces
are responsible for creating
the interests, identities, and
capabilities of states.
Friedrich Kratochwil (born 1944)
• Drawing from legal, sociological and
linguistic theories, Kratochwil offered one
of the first treatments of rules and norms
in international relations.

• He introduced the distinction between

regulative and constitutive norms in IR.
Regulative norms are those rules that
regulate already existing activities.
Constitutive norms on the other hand
does not merely regulate but in fact
create the possibility of these activities.

• He also advised to adopt interpretive

methods to discover how actors bring
meaning to and understand these norms.
Kratochwil further argued that rules
should not be treated as naturally
existing because they created and
revised through practice.
Alexander Wendt (born 1958)
• Wendt introduced IR scholars
to the agent-structure problem
and its relationship to the field
of world politics.

• Criticizing Neorelism, he
argued that Waltz failed to see
how structure to more than
constrain agents; they also
construct or constitute the
identities and interests of
agents.
Which country is more threatening to the
United States?

" !

215 Nuclear Warheads > 10 Nuclear Warheads

 FOUR DISTINGUISHING
FEATURES OF CONSTRUCTIVISM
1. An Alternative to Materialism and
Individualism

2. The Construction of State Interests

3. Mutual Constitution of Structures and

Agents

4. Multiple Logics of Anarchy

AN ALTERNATIVE TO MATERIALISM
AND INDIVIDUALISM
• Mainstream IR theories disagreed on various
issues but they shared a commitment to
individualism and materialism.

• Individualism is the view that actors have

fixed interests and that structure constrains
their behavior; Materialism is the view that
the structure that constrains state behavior
is defined by distribution of power,
technology, geography and other ‘material’
interests.

• The original insight behind constructivism is

that meaning is socially constructed.
What? Socially constructed?
❓
• “Socially” means that constructivists give significant
weight to social or intersubjective forces (i.e. ideas),
❓
not just to objective or material forces.

❓ ❓
• Constructivist theorists does not discount the presence
of these material forces, but they also believe that it is our
subjective understanding of the objective conditions
matter equally, if not more.

• “Constructed” means that constructivists understand the

world as coming into being - in a word constructed -
through an interactive process between the subjectivity
of agents (individuals, states, non-state actors) and
objective elements of our physical reality.

• In social theory, constructivists emphasize the social

construction of reality. Human relations, including
international relations, consist of thought and ideas and
not essentially of material conditions or force.
The Constructivist view of Ideas
• According to the constructivists, the study of IR
must focus on the ideas and beliefs that inform the
actors on the international scene as well as the
shared understandings between them.

• These ideas that give shape to international politics

are more than just beliefs of the individuals. It should
include ideas that are intersubjective (that is,
shared among people) and institutionalized (that is,
expressed as practices and identities.

• The claim is not that ideas are more important than

power and interest, or that they are autonomous
from power and interest. The claim is rather that
power and interest have the effects they do in virtue
of the ideas that make them up. Power and interest
explanations presuppose ideas, and to that extent
are not rivals to ideational explanations at all
Four types of Ideas
1. Ideologies or shared belief systems - systematic sets
of doctrines or beliefs that reflect the social needs of a
group, class, culture or state.

2. Normative beliefs - are beliefs about right and wrong.

They consist of values and attitudes that specify criteria
for distinguishing right from wrong or just from unjust
and they imply associated standards of behavior.

3. Causal beliefs - are beliefs about cause-affect or

means-end relationships. They provide guidelines or
strategies for individuals on how to achieve their
objectives.

4. Policy prescriptions - are specific programmatic ideas

that facilitate policymaking by specifying how to solve
particular policy problems.
THE CONSTRUCTION OF STATE INTERESTS
• Prior to the rise of constructivism in IR, mainstream theories
such as realism and liberalism subscribe to the idea that
state interests are fixed and given. Constructivists on the
other hand is concerned with the construction of interests.

• Lately, liberals and realists seems to adopt the constructivist

view on how state interests are constructed. Liberal theorists
like Andrew Moravcsik (1999) for instance provide a liberal
theory of how state interests are constructed out of the STATE
economic interests of domestic industries. Stephen Krasner
(1999) argues from a realist perspective that individual rulers
present as the national interest the policies they believe will
endure their personal survival as rulers.
INTERESTS

• What distinguishes a specifically constructivist story on

interests is that the influences on interest formation are
social. The social constitution of interests encompasses all
the ways that actors’ interests and identities might be
influenced by their interactions with others and with their
social environment.
MUTUAL CONSTITUTION OF STRUCTURES
AND AGENTS
• Sociologist Anthony Giddens (1984) proposed the
concept of structuration as a way of analyzing the
relationship between structures and agents.

• Constructivists argue that the relationship between

structures and agents involves intersubjective
understanding and meaning. Structures do
constrain agents, but agents can also transform
structures by thinking about them and acting on
them in new ways.

• The notion of structuration therefore leads to a less

rigid and more dynamic view of the relationship
between structures and agents. IR constructivists
use this as a starting point for suggesting less rigid
view of anarchy.

• Using the words of Alexander Wendt (1992),

‘Anarchy is what states make of it.’
Constructivist Conception of
Social Structures
• Social structures have three elements:
shared knowledge, material resources, and
practices.

• Social structures are defined, in part, by

shared understandings, expectations, or
knowledge. These constitute the actors in a
situation and the nature of their relationships,
whether cooperative or conflictual.

SECURITY SECURITY
vs.
DILEMMA COMMUNITY
Norms in International Society
• State behaviour is defined by identity and interest. Identity
and interests are defined by international forces, that is, by
the norms of behaviour embedded in international society.
The norms of international society are transmitted to states
through international organizations. They shape national
policies by ‘teaching’ states what their interests should be.

ACTORS CONTEXT
(States) (System)
•Behavior •Ideas
•Interests •Meanings
•Identities •Rules
 The Power of International Organizations
• Constructivists argue that international
organizations are autonomous actors who
might exercise power in their own right; they
‘construct the social world in which
cooperation and choice takes place. They
help define the interests that states and
other actors come to hold.

• IOs are not purely innocent servants of

states; they are frequently powerful actors
because they are bureaucracies that
promise to deliver goals that others want.
But being powerful, the IOs are not always
necessarily a force for good; they may also
follow narrow interests of their own and ‘run
roughshod over the interests of states and
citizens that they are supposed to further.
MULTIPLE CULTURES OF ANARCHY
• The core of constructivist’s argument is the
rejection of neorealist position, according to which
must necessarily lead to self-help. Whether it
does or not cannot be decided a priori; it depends
on interaction between states.

• In this processes of interaction, the identities and

interests of states are created.

• For Wendt, it is the very interaction of others that

‘create and instantiate one structure of identities
and interests rather than another; structure has no
existence or causal powers apart from process.’
Wendt’s Cultures of Anarchy
• HOBBESIAN - states view each other as enemies;
the logic of this is ‘war of all against all.’

• LOCKEAN - states consider each other as rivals,

but there is also restraint; states do not seek to
eliminate each other, they recognize each other
states’ right to exist.

• KANTIAN - states view each other as friends,

settle disputes peacefully, and support each other
in case of threat by a third party.
Wendt’s Cultures of Anarchy and
Degrees of Internationalization
THAT’S ALL, FOLKS!