The collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 indicated the end of the

Cold War. The surprising end of the Cold War shifted not only the world order but also debates
in international relations theories. It was unexpected by current international relations theories.
Without any large conflict and war exploded furthermore without any transformation in the
world system(anarchical), for instance, neorealists predicted that the world’s bipolar order would
persist. Neorealists also claimed that international institutions did not have any effect to make
war away because International institutions is a matter of material power challenge between
states which are not only worried about the unlimited gain, but also relative gain in cooperation
and integration.
After the Cold War, international relations discourse provided more diverse approaches to
understand and analyze world politics. Constructivism theory is one of the models of the
progressing emergence of international relations theory. Rather than diminishing other major
theories, according to its holders and proponents, constructivism theory provides wider
illumination a larger explanation for determining the dynamic and the function of world politics.
While realism and liberalism concentrate on material factors like power or corporation,
constructivist theory tends to focus on the influence of ideas. Rather than considering the state
for granted and claiming that it totally aims to survive, constructivists consider the identity and
interests of states as an extremely flexible output of special historical processes. Moreover,  the
constructivists focus is on the predominant discourse in society. This is because discourse shows
and changes interests and beliefs, and sets accepted values, norms of behavior. Thus,
constructivism is mainly interested in the main sources and roots of alteration and this approach
has broadly substituted Marxism.
Constructivism, especially state identity theory explained by Alexander Wendt and Peter
Katzenstein, has become far from the almost particularly rationalist mainstream of international
relations theory. The constructivist theory, mainly seen as the most significant challenge to
rationalist dominance, argues that the theoretical framework focusing on the concept of state
identity, can provide an important alternative and option to rational choice theory. State identity
is mainly about the non-material factors such as values, culture, norms, ideas etc, studied by the
constructivist scholars. It provides very important causal links to support the basic arguments of
constructivist theoretical framework.
The term Constructivism was adopted by Nicholas Onuf in 1989 and introduced as "people and
societies construct or constitute each other". the main assumption of constructivists is that the
fundamental structures of international politics are social and these structures shape actors'
identities and interests. Therefore, the world is structured by both knowledge and material
factors, according to constructivists the main important relation is between agents and structures.
Moreover, constructivists adopt a common concern when understanding and explaining how
international structures are defined by ideas and how identities and interests of the states and
non-state players are influenced by the structures.
The post-Cold War era played a significant role in legitimating constructivist approach because
both liberalism and realism were unsuccessful in predicting this event and had difficulties
explaining it. On the contrary, constructivists had an explanation based on ideas and norms; for
example, the idea of “common security,” adopted by Gorbachev.Furthermore, constructivism
theory argues that we live in a period where ancient values and norms are being challenged,
limits and boundaries are fading and matters of identity and culture are becoming more
prominent and outstanding. Unexpectedly, researchers have been drawn to theories that put these
issues front and center.In the post Cold War era constructivism emerged into the stage of debates
in international relations theories. However, some researchers and scholars criticize that
constructivism “remains a method than anything else,  according to them constructivism does not
offer an essential theory of world politics.Moreover, it provides a research approach that can be
employed to understand and explain international political economy.Therefore, Constructivism
should operate with other theories from different disciplines and branches like comparative
politics, social psychology..etc.
On the other hand, constructivism has demonstrating itself as an effective theory in
understanding and explaining world politics, especially after Alexander Wendt published his
article, Anarchy is What States Make of It, which developed the basis of constructivism
approach. It focuses more on the nonmaterial world and considers that material world changes
are changed by the social world. Thus, the distribution of power and State’s military power do
not automatically construct an international social structure. Even without any central
governance which has authority over all states in the world, the international system does
certainly become a “competitive security system”.
 From a constructivist approach, the main problem in the post-Cold War world is how various
groups visualize their interests and identities. However, power is not unrelated.  Constructivism
focuses on how ideas, norms, values, and identities are created and constructed, how they
develop, and how they change the way states comprehend and react to their situation.Thus, it
matters whether the United States adopts or denies its identity as "global policeman and whether
Europeans realize themselves mostly in national or continental terms. Constructivist approaches
are highly varied and do not provide a unified group of expectations on any of these matters.
Constructivism varies itself from neoliberalism and neorealism by emphasizing and highlighting
the ontological reality of intersubjective knowledge. It does not mean that constructivism
neglected the material world because intersubjective knowledge and material world interact
affect and influence each other. Furthermore, both the material world and intersubjective
knowledge are not independent and not separated. They have relative autonomy.
According to Constructivism theory, the material world does not completely define how people,
or states, behave. It only limits the chance of interpretation and the intersubjective world that
people can build. Moreover, material body enforcing is restricted to social structure. Thus,
constructivists do not mean the unlimited possibilities of social structure. However, people have
the capability to interpret, as they cannot easily interpret the social world and their own material
world. There is restriction of interpretation of the social world, that.the  material world changes
and is changed by the social world.
Constructivism theory discusses the issue of anarchy in the international system, At a simple
conceptual level, Alexander Wendt claimed that the realist conception of anarchy does not
explain why conflict occurs between states enough. The main thing is how anarchy is
understood, and Wendt argues that  "Anarchy is what states make of it.” He also argues that
transnational communication and shared civic values are weakening traditional national
obeisance and make an extremely new genre of political alliances. Furthermore, Constructivist
theory focuses more on the role of norms, claiming that international law and other normative
principles have decreased mainly the notions of sovereignty and changed the legitimate purposes
for which state power may be used.
Constructivism theory recognizes the significance of nonmaterial power (culture, ideas,
language, knowledge, and ideology) as well as material power because the two powers connect
and interact to build the world order. For instance, nonmaterial power works through creating
and recreating intersubjective meaning. It clarifies how the material structure, states’ identity,
interactions and relations between states, and any other social facts should be realized and
comprehended.
The end of the Cold War came as a surprise to the classical dominant theories, who failed to
predict or explain the changes in global politics. However, it provided the opportunity for more
evolution of critical thoughts, which started since the mid-1980s. The Realist approach in
international relations was criticized largely for their materialistic approaches by constructivism,
which speedily boomed and was known as a theory that focuses on the social dimension of
international politics. This improvement towards the chance of change helped the theory to catch
significant elements of the world's relations: the many factors of mainstream presumptions and
norms in world politics, which were threatened and challenged by constructivism.
Constructivism defied the theory of power politics, especially dominant perception of the threat
and conflict in global politics and picked a fully different approach in studying the construction
of the threat through  their fundamental focus on the social dimensions of international politics,
therefore,  it recognizes them as socially constructed elements in the process of identity
formation under the influence of the norms and shared values of society.
The work of constructivists was established around their aim in explaining the changes in world
politics in the period towards the end, and after the Cold War especially when dominant
international relations approaches and theories failed to predict the sudden change in the global
politics. Moreover, this transformation raised the question about social construction and the
methodology of international relations theories and their involvement and effects in the
production of international power.
The main dominant international theories were unable to explain the collapse of Soviet Union,
especially the theories which focus on material power, and nuclear weapons. This is because,
despite being a nuclear power, the Soviet Union collapsed. Neorealists tried to provide a simple
explanation by telling the decline of Soviet power. But, the explanation focused more on
domestic politics and economy than on the material structure of world’s distribution of
power.Thus  it could not explain enough why the Soviet Union  and Gorbachev adopted
decisions which could endanger its national security and survival and stop it from increasing its
hegemony and power, However, neorealists were still certain about the significance of
neorealism.
Another explanation was given by Democratic liberalists who tried to stress the people’s aims for
freedom and objections to communism. Neoliberalism and the market economy favorably forced
their hegemonies to the world and increased the validity of tyranny and command economy.
However, while this evidence could explain the decline of communist ideology in the Soviet
Union, it could not explain why such transformation and change happens in the 1980s. However,
Neoliberals provided another explanation. Liberalism and communism interacted across political
borders, especially the new way of thinking among top political leaders decreased the hegemony
of communism and made the Soviet Union collapse. Therefore, the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the end of the Cold War presented a significant challenge for constructivists to understand.
Wendt said that “material structure can have special impacts.
The distribution of power, anarchy in international relations and military power do not fix states’
identities and relations. State military power can be understood as a threatening power as well as
protecting power for other states.
In addition, a nuclear weapon is a matter of perception. For instance, nuclear weapons in the
hands of United States has a different meaning for Taiwan than a nuclear weapon in the hands of
China. Therefore, considering states “like billiard balls of varying size” is not enough to explain
and understand reality. Military capabilities of any state and the distribution of power in the
international system are interfering elements but they are not able to understand relations
between states. For example, two enemy or allied states can be divided by defining the material
military structure. However, the states identification and social structure are important elements
which define relations between states. Constructivism theory argues that common identities and
a long history of alliance and cooperation between two states can be a strong ground of
cooperative security system. On the other hand,  other identities and a long history of conflict
and struggle can build a competitive security system based on conflict and wars.

The article concludes that Constructivism is not a theory, but rather an ontology. It is a group of
assumptions and hypotheses about three main spheres: humans, the world, and agency. It
succeeds in challenging and defying the rationalists’ theories and approaches like realism and
liberalism, moreover, Constructivism theory provides constructivist alternatives which can
explain and understand world politics through the material and nonmaterial factors. It also adopts
different levels of analysis including the international, regional, and internal level.

Amel Ouchenane is a member of the organization of Security and Strategic studies in Algeria.
She is also Research Assistant at the Idrak Research Center for Studies and Consultations. Ms.
Ouchenane was researcher at Algiers University from 2011 to 2018.(Department of International
relations and African studies).
Norms and Social Constructivism in International Relations

Introduction

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. Early empirical studies of
social norms tended to consider social norms as static and relatively specific social facts. This
analytic move facilitated conversation and competition with rational/material theoretical
competitors. More recent constructivist norms scholarship has revisited this perspective on social
norms, positing a different set of normative dynamics more focused on contestation over social
norms. The essay proceeds by first describing the initial establishment of constructivist norms
research and critiques that flowed from the original choices made. It then turns to a discussion of
two directions currently being explored in social norms research and the open questions that
remain.

Establishing Constructivist Social Norms Research

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
(e.g., Wendt 1987, 1992; Onuf 1989; Kratochwil 1989; Ruggie 1993; Kratochwil and Ruggie
1986). 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 was a vastly different kind of theorizing than was current in the mainstream of international
relations that was locked in the neorealist/neoliberal debate (e.g., Krasner 1983; Keohane 1984,
1986; Baldwin 1990; Grieco 1990). Constructivism was and remains a very different approach to
world politics than its erstwhile competitors. In contrast to these other approaches,
constructivism is a social theory (or family of social theories) or theory of process (Adler 1997,
2003; Checkel 1998; Wendt 1999; Hoffmann 2009), which means it necessarily lacks a priori
commitments on key elements of international relations theories – the identity, nature, interests,
and behavior of important actors and the structure of world politics. 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).

While early constructivist theorizing proved to be an exciting new avenue for thinking about
international relations in the abstract, both constructivists and their critics were eager to see
constructivist theory applied empirically. As one notable example, Keohane (1988:392) critiqued
this new perspective by arguing that “the greatest weakness of the reflective school lies not in
deficiencies in their critical arguments but in the lack of a clear reflective research program that
could be employed by students of world politics.” At the forefront of the initial empirical push in
constructivist research were the norms-oriented and identity approaches. Reviewing the
complementary identity-oriented approaches is beyond the scope of this essay, but its neglect
here in no way reflects the importance of this crucial aspect of constructivist theorizing (on
identity see, e.g., Hall 1999; Hopf 2002).

The category of “social norm” was not an invention of constructivism. On the contrary, this
analytic device has a deep history in the sociological and economic literatures. However, when
defined as ideas or expectations about “appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity”
(Finnemore and Sikkink 1998:891), it became an ideal conceptual tool for operationalizing
processes of social construction. 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. Social norms were
considered, in many ways, the medium of mutual constitution. In addition, the use of norms to
study international relations directly challenged the orthodox assumption that the international
realm was one largely devoid of sociality, merely a system of power calculations and material
forces (a challenge also issued by the English school; see Bull 1977). On the contrary, early,
empirically oriented constructivists worked to demonstrate that shared ideas about appropriate
state behavior had a profound impact on the nature and functioning of world politics.

Initial constructivist studies of social norms generally clustered into three areas. (1) Normative
behavior – how an extant norm influences behavior within a community. (2) Socialization – how
an extant norm or a nascent norm from one community diffuses and is internalized by actors
outside that community. (3) Normative emergence – how an idea reaches intersubjective status in
a community. Focusing on these elements of normative dynamics led to progress in how
constructivists understood conformance with normative strictures, the spread of existing norms,
and the emergence of new norms.

Conformance – how social norms as intersubjective objects stabilize expectations and even
bound what is considered to be possible (Yee 1996) – was a crucial area for constructivists
because without evidence of conformance with the strictures of social norms, constructivists
could not demonstrate that norms mattered. 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. These studies were inclined to treat social norms as independent variables and show
how some political behavior is made possible or constrained by such ideational factors (e.g.,
Barkin and Cronin 1994; Klotz 1995; Finnemore 1996, 2003; Katzenstein 1996; Legro 1996;
Price 1997; Tannenwald 1999). The goal was to show how a target behavior can be accounted by
considering the ideational context, how ideas and norms constitute interests, or how social norms
influence actors’ understandings of the material world.

From this mainly structural perspective, social norms were conceptualized as an alternative to
rationalist/materialist variables in explanations of world politics. The empirical studies in this
area were diverse. Klotz (1995), for instance, chronicled how the anti-apartheid norm shaped the
expectations and actions of the US towards South Africa in the 1980s. Legro (1996) provided
insight on a traditional security issue by delineating how normative ideas embedded in
organizational culture at the domestic level could explain puzzling (for traditional international
relations theories) variation in war fighting decisions in World War II.

Studies of norm diffusion or spread moved constructivists into the area of socialization.
Prominent in the initial empirical norms research in this vein were studies that examined how
given norms in a particular community diffused to actors outside the community (e.g., Risse-
Kappen 1994; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999; Checkel 2001; Johnston
2001). 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). The main empirical focus tended to be on either the
development of a European polity (e.g., Checkel 2001) or on attempts at socializing Southern
states into (relatively) universal international norms like human rights and sovereign statehood
(Finnemore 1996; Risse et al. 1999). Less explicit attention was paid to the alternative
perspectives on socialization: processes by which groups are maintained, the manner in which
the targets of socialization affect both the socializers and targets of socialization (see Acharya
2004; Ba 2006), or the socialization of reluctant powerful actors (Cortell and Davis 2006;
Johnston 2008).

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). Hegemony, entrepreneurial leadership, domestic
context, framing, moral argument, and epistemic community actions figured prominently in these
works as the impetus for emergence (Ikenberry and Kupchan 1990; Haas 1992; Finnemore and
Sikkink 1998; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse 2000). There is significant overlap with the
socialization literature here as the mechanisms by which an idea becomes a norm are not all that
different from the mechanisms by which an actor outside a normative community is brought
within. Prominent in this part of the literature was Finnemore and Sikkink’s (1998) development
of the “norm life cycle” whereby normative entrepreneurs (see also Nadelmann 1990) work to
persuade states of the appropriateness of a new norm and serve as a catalyst for a cascade of new
normative understandings.

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). They demonstrated that constructivism consisted of more than a
metatheoretical critique of rational/material approaches and could indeed be used to structure
rigorous empirical investigations across the spectrum of issues in international relations.
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). By the end of the 1990s and early 2000s,
constructivists were engaging with both the “small number of big important things” that Waltz
(1986:329, cited in Finnemore 1996:1) famously claimed for structural realism and the “large
number of ‘big important things’” that other approaches ignored (Finnemore 1996:1).

However, the success of this initial wave of constructivist norms studies was built on an analytic
move that would engender significant debate in the 2000s. The initial empirical norms research
tended to simplify normative dynamics to facilitate analysis and dialogue with competing
perspectives, treating the norms that they analyzed as relatively static entities with relatively
specific meanings and strictures. Early empirical approaches did engage with normative
dynamics and change (e.g., Finnemore and Sikkink 1998), but the understanding of dynamics
and change was relatively circumscribed. Norms were conceptualized as having specific
behavioral strictures (a relatively bounded set of appropriate behaviors) that did not change. The
first wave of empirical constructivist studies tended to “freeze” norms. Wiener (2004:191, 192)
notes that this “behavioralist” approach “operates with stable norms” and is best suited to
“inferring and predicting behavior by referring to a particular category of norms that entail
standards for behavior.” While these studies unveiled how the norms they examined contributed
to dynamic political processes, they tended to hold the norms themselves constant. Even studies
of norm emergence tended to treat the norms in question as relatively static – one relatively fully
formed norm is replaced by a new idea that becomes a norm. The norms’ (both established and
potential) meaning, constitutive properties, and behavioral strictures remain unchanged
throughout the analysis (Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007).
From the perspective of those who work on norms, there are very good reasons to focus on static
and specific norms when analyzing international relations. First, norms are relatively stable – if
they were not, it would be hard to justify or observe this analytic category. While constructivists
know that social norms are always being reconstituted in the dynamic interplay of agents and
social structures known as mutual constitution, social norms do elicit common behavioral
expectations such that they are recognizable as relatively stable shared ideas. Second, analytic
tractability is necessary and is no trivial accomplishment. Allowing the meaning of social norms
to vary in the course of analysis can quickly devolve into an expository morass. The goal of most
norms-oriented studies in the initial wave of empirical constructivist work was to explain
something about how world politics functions. Holding social norms relatively constant in order
to do this was deemed an acceptable trade-off. The focus was not on analyzing norms as much as
it was using norms as a device to analyze world politics. Finally, the sociology of the discipline
faced by early empirical constructivist studies virtually forced constructivists to adopt a focus on
static norms. To gain acceptance and make the case that constructivist ideas mattered
empirically, constructivists endeavored to demonstrate how their ideational perspective could
provide superior understanding and explanation of political phenomena. Put simply, social norms
were treated as independent variables – explanations for varied behaviors observed in world
politics.

The simplification of social norm dynamics at the foundation of the initial wave of constructivist
norms writing contributed to the meteoric rise of social constructivism within the international
relations literature. Yet, the analytic choices made had consequences for how norms were
understood and these initial conditions significantly shaped both constructivist analysis and the
kind of critiques of norms research that subsequently emerged. Critics too began to understand
social norms as static and specific and this facilitated an erroneous notion that evidence of norm-
breaking behavior somehow invalidated or falsified constructivist theorizing. Rebuttals to
constructivist arguments used evidence of behavior that was inconsistent with the specific and
unchanging strictures of norms in question to claim that nonconstructivist (usually material or
rational) factors must be the driving catalyst of political behavior and outcomes (Shannon 2000).

Similarly, treating social norms as static independent variables led to calls for constructivists to
define the conditions under which normative and nonnormative influences on behavior are likely
to be the most important in determining behavior (Legro and Kowert 1996; Risse et al. 1999;
Jacobsen 2003). Shannon (2000:294) makes a sophisticated argument along these lines, claiming
that “due to the fuzzy nature of norms and situations, and due to the imperfect interpretation of
such norms by human agency, oftentimes norms are what states (meaning state leaders) make of
them.” Such an interpretation of constructivist thought moves him to make a familiar argument
about the split between norm-based and interest-based behavioral impulses (Shannon 2000:298–
302; Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007).
Both of these critiques run afoul of constructivist logic yet are legitimate given how norms were
conceptualized in the initial wave of empirical constructivist work. Norm-breaking behavior may
be evident but is only problematic for constructivist arguments if norms are specific and static. If
the meaning of a norm can change or if different communities of actors adhere to different norms
(or different versions of a norm), then “norm-breaking” takes on a different meaning. 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. Certainly actors are
strategic, but constructivist logic dictates that the normative context defines and shapes that
strategic behavior (Muller 2004).

Beyond fueling critiques of constructivism, treating norms as static entities made it difficult for
constructivists to explain normative change (ironic for an approach that rose to prominence with
its critique of other theories’ inability to explain change). To be clear, constructivists have been
quite good at demonstrating the replacement of one norm with another. However, this focus did
little to advance understanding of how norms themselves change without necessarily being
replaced (Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007; Hoffmann 2005; Chwieroth 2008; Sandholtz
2008).

The initial wave of empirical norms work provided a solid foundation for the newly emergent
constructivist approach, but it tended to bracket the vibrant existence of norms themselves.
Constructivist thought makes it clear that social norms do not exist independently of
communities of actors that believe in and enact them. They are thus animated entities that
strengthen, weaken, and evolve. Treating social norms as fully formed, static constructs, even for
analytic convenience, underplayed this dynamism. This freezing of norms tended to make them
independent from politics – as variables in political behavior. 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. They were aware of and noted the simplifications
being made – caveating their work with notations about the fluid and inherently contested nature
of norms. Quintessentially, Finnemore and Sikkink (1998:914) noted “the highly contingent and
contested nature of normative change and normative influence” in their examination of the norm
life cycle. The norms-oriented work that followed this initial burst of activity in the 2000s built
upon the success that was achieved, but also changed the trajectory of research on social norms
in world politics to include broader notions of norm dynamics.

Current Directions in Norms Research

Having made the case that norms matter and having developed a number of theoretical
frameworks to show how norms emerge, spread, and influence behavior, normsoriented
constructivists have begun to turn their attention to a new set of questions. Two have become
particularly prominent – compliance with the strictures of social norms and change in norms
themselves. This pivot is an interesting development in norms research for two reasons.

First, the compliance and norm change research agenda (loosely defined) is more internally
focused than the previous wave of norms-oriented research. 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;
Sørenson 2008). Yet, constructivists are beginning to define their enterprise more independently
of competing approaches. In the last decade the development of constructivist thought and
empirical research has been occurring more on terms defined by constructivism itself (Checkel
2004). This has led the constructivist literature away from Keohane’s (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). Instead, attempts at synthesis of constructivism and
rationalism are now en vogue (e.g., Fearon and Wendt 2001; Schimmelfennig 2001, 2005;
Checkel and Zurn 2005; Kornprobst 2007; Culpepper 2008; Kelley 2008). In addition, norms-
oriented research and the constructivist literature writ large has begun to concern itself more with
research questions that fall out from constructivist thought independently without as much
reference to competing approaches (Checkel 2004).

Second, and more significantly, both the norm compliance and norm change research agendas
engage seriously with notions of normative contestation, directly problematizing aspects of norm
dynamics that tended to be held constant in earlier work. Following the initial success of
empirical norms studies that established the efficacy of studying norms and showed that they
mattered, current norms research explores when/where norms matter and how/when/why norms
themselves change to a greater extent. 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. Some constructivists stress reflection and consider that agents are
able to reason about the various pulls on their possible behavior (either solely
normative/ideational pulls or those in addition to material/strategic pulls). What agents want and
who they are may be constituted by social structures, but there is never a complete sublimation
of agents – they retain an ability to reason about constitutive social structures and make
relatively independent behavioral choices. At the other end of the spectrum are constructivists
who argue that agents reason through social structures. In other words, actors can never
significantly remove themselves from their social structure to make independent judgments.

One’s position on this spectrum of reasoning about norms or reasoning through norms has
consequences. Beginning with the assumption that actors reason about social norms means
considering norms to be (at least somewhat) external to actors, part of their social context, but at
least potentially manipulable by actors. Assuming that actors reason through social norms means
beginning analysis with the understanding that the very way that actors view and understand the
world is shaped by social norms. 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. It matters if one assumes that norms are
manipulable by political actors who can reason about them from an external standpoint or if
norms (and social structure more generally) more fundamentally constitute actors such that they
cannot stand outside the social norms that shape their interests and behaviors. 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.

Behavioral Logics
Ideas about whether actors reason about norms or through norms can be linked to underlying
behavioral logics that constructivists have devised and developed since the inception of the
approach. Behavioral logics are concrete expressions of how mutual constitution works and what
motivates actors to behave they way that they do. They serve as concrete foundations for the
different conceptions of norm dynamics that are emerging in the current literature because they
provide conceptions of how actors and norms are linked.

March and Olsen introduced the discipline to the notion of behavioral logics in delineating the
logic of consequences and the logic of appropriateness, framing their discussion in terms of a
rationalist-sociological debate (March and Olsen 1998). 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. They posited the LoA as a corrective. Constructivists used
this logic in early efforts to contrast their work with more established rationalist perspectives on
world politics (see especially Finnemore 1996) because the logic of appropriateness contends
that actors in world politics undertake actions that are appropriate for their particular identity.
Instead of calculating what is best for improving its utility, an actor motivated by the logic of
appropriateness will instead reason what actors like me should do. This logic fitted well with the
commitment to mutual constitution (the notion of what is appropriate for different identities is
socially constructed) and it also laid the groundwork for the norms-based challenge to strictly
material explanations of world politics.

The underlying idea of the logic of appropriateness – that actors draw upon ideas about what
they should do in specific situations given who they are – was consistent with social
constructivism’s commitment to the causal and constitutive (Wendt 1998) effects of norms. This
logic structured seminal empirical work that endeavored to show how ideational and normative
factors could explain puzzles in world politics (e.g., Klotz 1995; Finnemore 1996). It was a tool
for constructivists to show that ideas, norms, and morals mattered vis-à-vis rationalist variables
in explanations of world political phenomena.

Yet the logic of appropriateness appears to cede the ground of purposeful, goal-oriented behavior
to rationalist perspectives (whether it actually cedes this ground is an additional, and crucial
question). 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. Some scholars have sought a way through or out of the
logic of appropriateness/logic of consequences debate by following March and Olsen’s (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).

Further, constructivists became more cautious about basing their analyses on the logic of
appropriateness. Risse (2000:6) captured the essence of the internal critique when he noted that
the logic of appropriateness “actually encompasses two different modes of social action and
interaction.” In one mode, appropriate actions are internalized and become thoughtlessly enacted
at times as a precursor to or foundation of strategic behavior (Risse 2000:6) – actors reasoning
through social norms. 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. 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.

Risse’s (2000) and Sending’s (2002) critiques’ focus on the taken-for-granted mode of action
implied the logic of appropriateness. Sending goes so far as to claim that the logic of
appropriateness is incompatible with constructivist thought because it violates the tenets of
mutual constitution and does not allow for change – he contends (2002:458) that in the logic of
appropriateness, social structure has “objective authority” over actors, not allowing for the kind
of reflection necessary for mutual constitution and change. A similar concern motivated Risse
(2000) to draw on Habermas’s work with communicative action and propose a new behavioral
logic that would inject agency and more purposive reflection into the process of social
construction. His (2000:2) logic of arguing is designed to clarify “how actors develop a common
knowledge” and how norms and ideas can have a constitutive effect while retaining the
“reflection and choice” Sending (2002:458) deems necessary for mutual constitution and change.
When actors follow the logic of arguing, they seek common understandings through discourse
and dialogue. The logic of arguing has inspired the development of significant empirical research
(e.g., Muller 2004; Bjola 2005; Leiteritz 2005; Mitzen 2005) and it is the foundation for some
approaches to reasoning about social norms (the logic of consequences is also implicated in
approaches that consider that actors reason about norms).

Other scholars deemed the logic of appropriateness (as well as the logics of consequences and
arguing) to be too agentic to fit well with constructivist tenets. 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. However, some scholars found the mode of action where
actors consciously reason about what is appropriate to be a problematic foundation for
constructivist thought. Scholars such as Adler (2008), Pouliot (2008), and Hopf (2002) found this
reflective aspect of the logic of appropriateness to allow for too much independence between
agents and structures. In other words, they worry that mutual constitution implies that actors
have a difficult time stepping outside the bounds of their social/normative context to decide what
is right to do. Pouliot and Adler draw on Bourdieu to develop a logic of practice and Hopf
devised a logic of habit to reflect these concerns. 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. Pouliot
(2008:259) argues that “most of what people do in world politics, as in any other social field,
does not derive from conscious deliberation or thoughtful reflection. Instead, practices are the
result of inarticulate, practical knowledge that makes what is done appear ‘self-evident’ or
commensenical.”

Constructivists are certainly aware that actual behavior in world politics fails to correlate exactly
to what are in essence ideal typical models of behavior. Risse (2000) extended March and
Olsen’s (1998) discussion of the relationship between the logics of consequences and
appropriateness to a tripartite linking of three logics. 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. 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.

(Risse 2000:3)

Similarly, rather than dismissing the more agentic logics, Pouliot (2008:276) argues that the
logic of practice is ontologically prior and “it is thanks to their practical sense that agents feel
whether a given social context calls for instrumental rationality, norm compliance, or
communicative action.”

The development of and debate over logics of behavior is the foundation of the reasoning about
norms–reasoning through norms spectrum. Empirical norms studies have both drawn on these
debates and fueled them with empirical data supporting different claims. Clearly this is a
continuum because if agents were truly independent from or entirely dependent upon social
structures, we would not be talking about constructivism. Yet, the degree to which agents are
able to independently evaluate their social context (as well as their material reality as far as that
goes) and act upon it is what separates different behavioral logics and it is one way that different
constructivist approaches in the current “second wave” (Acharya 2004) of norms research can be
differentiated. Both compliance and contestation studies have broadened our understanding of
norm dynamics – allowing norms themselves to change and exploring the conditions under
which norms will elicit conformance – but they do so in different ways. Compliance studies tend
to fall on the side of reasoning about norms, considering how actors react to external norms and
attempts at socialization, while contestation studies tend to view actors as reasoning through
norms, examining how communities of norm acceptors can alter the meaning of constitutive
norms through their bounded interpretations of prevailing norms and actions in line with those
interpretations.

Compliance with External Norms

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. The
seminal volume edited by Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink (1999) was the fountainhead for much of
this research as it provided an explicit mechanism for how a particular set of human rights norms
diffused beyond the community that originally endorsed them. 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. In essence, they theorized norm diffusion as taking place from
a community of Western states constituted by compliance with universal human rights norms to
individual Southern states.

The literature that has followed this keystone research (e.g., Acharya 2004; Cortell and Davis
2005; Farrell 2005; Mastenbroek and Kaeding 2006; Kornprobst 2007; Capie 2008) moves
beyond the boundaries of earlier socialization research, especially the tendency to focus on
displacement of local/domestic ideas with international norms through transnational teaching
(Finnemore 1996; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse, Ropp, and
Sikkink 1999) or to attribute norm diffusion to “fit” between global and local norms (Cortell and
Davis 1996; Florini 1996). 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. In addition, rather than taking the external norm
as given, recent socialization studies examine compliance with international norms as a process
by which states (already normatively constituted) interact with, manipulate, and (sometimes)
incorporate external ideas in a dynamic fashion. The analytic focus is shifting to the targets of
socialization and the dynamic and agentic process whereby actors interact with their normative
context.

The work of Cortell and Davis (2005) and Acharya (2004) are relevant examples of this type of
compliance research. Cortell and Davis (2005) still invoke fit or congruence between the local
context and global norms in explaining compliance with an international norm, but their twists
on this theme are: (1) to examine socialization of a powerful actor – Japan; and (2) to conceive of
fit not as a given, but rather the result of conscious domestic political activity. They (2005:25)
note, “As domestic actors search about for new ideas to legitimate their self-interested
preferences, the norms and institutions of the international system often provide them.” While
Cortell and Davis do not problematize the substance of the financial liberalization norm under
examination, they do attend to a neglected aspect of norm dynamics – the actions of those actors
who are targeted for socialization. Acharya (2004) goes further in that he allows for the
substance of international norms to be molded to fit local contexts – localization. In his study of
how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and its constituent states interacted with global
norms, Acharya (2004:251) demonstrates that “localization does not extinguish the cognitive
prior of the norm-takers but leads to its mutual inflection with external norms.” International
norms are adapted to local circumstances by actors with the ability to observe and manipulate
ideas from the external normative context – in so doing they alter the substance of the
international norm to build congruence.

In both cases, compliance with an international norm – behaving in a way that matches the
behavioral strictures of the norm – is expressly theorized and variation in compliance is
explained not by pitting constructivist and rationalist/materialist variables, but by examining
processes by which domestic actors interpret and manipulate international and local norms.
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.

In the attempt to understand when and where norms are likely to be efficacious, these authors
stake out a position on the reasoning about–reasoning through norms spectrum. They consider
that actors can stand outside a normative structure to consider options. This is natural given that
this work is still in the area of socialization. The compliance literature is most often concerned
with the actions of actors (Japan in the Cortell and Davis piece or the Southeast Asian nations in
Acharya’s work) who have yet to accept or internalize international norms (financial
liberalization and cooperative security/humanitarian intervention). When interacting with
external norms, the targets of socialization reason about and in some cases manipulate the social
norms (international or domestic) that shape their behavior. Rather than passive receptacles,
norm takers have a very active role to play in socialization and can influence the meaning of the
norms that constitute the very community they are being asked to join (Ba 2006).

Contestation from Within a Normative Community

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. 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. Scholars working in this vein often begin by critiquing
the analytic move to freeze the content of norms. Wiener (2004:198) warns us that “studying
norms as ‘causes for behavior’ …leaves situations of conflicting or changing meanings of norms
analytically underestimated.” Certainly norms exhibit stability, as they are recognizable by the
common expectations that they structure but, paradoxically, norms are also in a constant state of
dynamism and flux. Norms are born anew every day as actors instantiate them through their
beliefs and actions and, as Sandholtz (2008:101) notes, “normative structures, in other words,
cannot stand still.”

Undoing the freezing of norms has been based on a reimagining of social norms as generic social
facts that are inherently dynamic. In eliciting conformance and stabilizing expectations norms do
not and cannot define all possible behavior, especially when a norm first emerges. Instead social
norms are generic rules that allow agents to behave and get along in a wide range of situations.
This reimagining is not new. Giddens (1984:22) argued that social rules do not “specify all the
situations which an actor might meet with, nor could [they] do so; rather, [they] provide for the
generalized capacity to respond to and influence an indeterminate range of social
circumstances.” Until recently this insight was often bracketed and it was assumed that norm
acceptors follow the norms that structure their community relatively unproblematically. Recent
studies have taken the generic nature of norms more seriously and have subsequently focused on
how actors must operationalize their normative context to take specific actions (Hoffmann 2005;
Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007; Sandholtz 2008). These works argue that norms do not
provide fully specified rules for every situation, and especially not for novel situations. Instead,
norms are general principles that must be translated into specific actions (Gregg 2003). Van
Kersbergen and Verbeek (2007:221) go so far as to posit that this vagueness is actually designed
into norms to facilitate maximum adherence.
Treating norms as generic has been at the foundation of the recent shift towards the study of
contestation. As Sandholtz (2008:101) puts it “disputes about acts are at the heart of a process
that continually modifies social rules. The inescapable tension between general rules and specific
actions ceaselessly casts up disputes which in turn generate arguments, which then reshape both
rules and conduct.” The logical chain from general norms to contestation is not long. General
norms must be operationalized or translated into specific actions for specific situations. The
translation requires interpretation – a subjective understanding of the intersubjective context – to
decide on a behavior. The ability to apprehend what is going on inside actors “heads” to
understand motivations and interpretations is currently a matter for debate (Cederman and Daase
2003; Jackson 2004; Wendt 2004; Krebs and Jackson 2007) but, that debate notwithstanding, the
notion that different actors within the same normative community – i.e., a group structured by
the same norm(s) – could have different and contested understandings of that norm is at the
foundation of the recent work on norm contestation.

Wiener (2004:203) argues that “the interpretation of the meaning of norms, in particular, the
meaning of generic sociocultural norms, cannot be assumed as stable and uncontested. On the
contrary, discursive interventions contribute to challenging the meaning of norms and
subsequently actors are likely to reverse previously supported political positions.” The current
norm contestation literature explores processes through which actors come to understand shared
norms differently, contest each other’s understandings, and how the contestation alters/reifies the
norms that constitute a community of norm acceptors together (Hoffmann 2005; Van Kersbergen
and Verbeek 2007; Chwieroth 2008; Sandholtz 2008). Sandholtz (2008:121) deems this to be a
“built-in dynamic of change” whereby “the ever present gap between general rules and specific
situations, as well as the inevitable tension between norms, creates openings for disputes.”

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. Studies of contestation and norm
change have begun to examine diverse issues like organizational change in international financial
institutions (Nielson, Tierney, and Weaver 2006; Chwieroth 2008); European integration (Meyer
2005; Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007; Dimitrakopoulos 2008); environment (Bailey 2008);
election monitoring (Kelley 2008); and security (Kornprobst 2007). Sandholtz (2008) himself
proposes a cyclical model to explain the evolution of norms prohibiting wartime plunder. He
considers that existing norms constrain the possibilities for action, but that different
understandings of those norms inevitably arise in the community of norm acceptors. Arguments
over the different actions feed back and alter the meaning of the original norms. Wiener (2007)
has advanced what she is calling a new logic of contestedness and has explored (2004) the
dynamics of interpretation and contestation in European responses to the 2003 Iraq War.
Hoffmann (2005) employs insights from the study of complex adaptation to understand how
states that all accepted the norm of universal participation in climate governance came to have
different subjective understandings of that norm. Contestation over variants of universal
participation then had significant impact on the evolution of the universal participation norm and
climate governance outcomes.

Open Questions for the Current Norms Research

The Sandholtz (2008:121) passage quoted above brings together the two types of normative
dynamics discussed in this section. There is an implicit equivalence made between contestation
that goes on within a normative community (generated by the “gap between general rules and
specific situations”) and contestation that occurs between different normative communities
(“inevitable tension between norms”). The first is endogenous contestation – actors that accept a
general norm and are constituted by it nevertheless have different understandings of it or
operationalize its strictures differently, leading to disputes and change in the meaning of the
norm from within. The second is compliance or diffusion – actors from different normative
communities seek to enlarge their communities or to hold on to extant norms in the face of
external normative challenges and disputes that arise can lead to normative change in both
communities. This is akin to what Krebs and Jackson (2007:43–4) describe as implication
contests where actors agree on the nature of an issue, but not the policy implications and framing
contests where there is fundamental disagreement about the situation at hand.

These dual visions of normative dynamics are likely related, but the norms literature has yet to
describe how. On the contrary, the two parts of the norms literature described above tend to find
themselves on different ends of the reasoning about norms–reasoning through norms spectrum.
Perhaps this is simply a matter of what questions are being asked. One set of norm dynamics
may be implied when one seeks to understand how an actor outside a normative community
interacts with norms when it is the target of socialization. An alternative set of norm dynamics
may be implicated when one seeks to understand change in norms themselves. However, the
separation between the two kinds of norms research discussed above may ultimately be artificial.
Those who study compliance realize that actors are constituted by norms and cannot fully
separate themselves from their normative context. This realization was part of what prompted the
serious focus on domestic political/normative contexts in much of this literature. Those who
study contestation do allow for reasoning about norms, appealing to notions of interpretation to
generate different understandings of a norm with a community of norm acceptors.

In addition to considering how the two types of norm dynamics are related, the current norms
literature brings traditional open questions in constructivism into sharp relief. First, both types of
studies may benefit from more attention to the notion of intersubjective communities and their
boundaries. Intersubjective facts like social norms only exist within a community of actors that
accept them. Studies of compliance and contestation must grapple with this fundamental
characteristic of social norms in a more explicit way moving forward. 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. Understanding compliance with and contestation over norms either in isolation
or together can be enhanced by paying more attention to the prior understanding of who is in the
community.

Second, at a broader level, the current norms literature is wrestling with the relationship between
intersubjective and subjective reality. A paradox of social norms is their dual quality. As shared
objects, they appear as external to any particular actor – actors experience norms, at least in part,
as external rules. But the existence of a norm is dependent on continual enactment by
communities of actors – actors thus also experience norms, at least in part, as internal rules
(Hoffmann 2005). Jacobsen (2003:60) recognizes the need to theorize this relationship observing
that, “constructivists of all stripes seem to agree that it is vital to theorize links between
subjective experience and social/institutional structures.” The two versions of norm dynamics
discussed above posit different conceptions of the intersubjective/subjective relationship, but
neither has developed the final answer to this open question.

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