THE SOCIAL

CONSTRUCTION OF STATE
POWER
Applying Realist Constructivism

Edited by
J. Samuel Barkin
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 Contents

Notes on Contributors

1 Realist Constructivism: An Introduction

J. Samuel Barkin
2 Causation in Realist Constructivism: Interactionality, Emergence and
the Need for Interpretation
Germán C. Prieto
3 Constructivist and Neoclassical Realisms
J. Samuel Barkin
4 Huadu: A Realist Constructivist Account of Taiwan’s Anomalous
Status
Martin Boyle
5 The India–US Nuclear Deal: Norms of Power and the Power of
Norms
Saira Bano
6 Coercive Engagement: Lessons from US Policy towards China
Chi-hung Wei
7 Taking Co-constitution Seriously: Explaining an Ambiguous US
Approach to Latin America
Justin O. Delacour
8 The Bridging Capacity of Realist Constructivism: The Normative
Evolution of Human Security and the Responsibility to Protect
Andreea Iancu
9 Permutations and Combinations in Theorizing Global Politics:
Whither Realist Constructivism?
Laura Sjoberg
10 Saving Realist Prudence
Stefano Guzzini
Index
 Notes on Contributors

Saira Bano is a lecturer at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada. She

completed her PhD in the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
at the University of Calgary. She is the recipient of a doctoral scholarship by
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, a graduate
research award by the Simons Foundation and the Kodikara Award by the
Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Sri Lanka. She was a visiting research
fellow at the Stimson Center, Washington, DC. Her research focuses on
Constructivist approaches in International Relations theories, the nuclear
non-proliferation regime and nuclear weapons issues in South Asia.

J. Samuel Barkin is Professor in the Conflict Resolution, Human Security,

and Global Governance Department at the University of Massachusetts
Boston. His research focuses on IR theory and epistemology, sovereignty and
international organization, and global environmental politics. He is the
author or editor of 10 books, including Realist Constructivism: Rethinking
International Relations Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and, most
recently, International Relations’ Last Synthesis (with Laura Sjoberg, Oxford
University Press, 2019).

Martin Boyle is a teaching fellow at University College London. He

received his PhD in International Relations from the University of Kent
with a thesis on Taiwan’s state identity. He is the recipient of an Erasmus
Mundus visiting fellowship at Peking University and a European Association
of Taiwan Studies research grant at Leiden University. His research explores
the interface between language and power to interrogate various realisms,
constructivisms and Marxisms. His current research interests range from
China–Taiwan relations to Brexit, British state identities, Brazilian political
speech and the discourses of social movements. He has authored a number of
books for Chinese international students and articles on pedagogy and
academic sojourner adjustment.

Justin O. Delacour is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Lewis

University in Romeoville, Illinois. He studies how the interests of the
American state and US cultural discourses interact in shaping US policy
towards Latin America. His other research interests are in comparative
political development, with a particular focus on why states differ in their
capacities to improve the health and longevity of their populations. He has
co-authored articles in Democratization and NACLA Report on the Americas.
He earned his doctorate in political science from the University of New
Mexico.

Stefano Guzzini is Professor at Uppsala University and PUC-Rio de

Janeiro, and Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International
Studies. His research focuses on international theory, social and political
theories of power, critical security studies, approaches to foreign policy
analysis and interpretivist methodology. He has published nine books,
including The Return of Geopolitics in Europe?: Social Mechanisms and Foreign
Policy Identity Crises (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and Power, Realism
and Constructivism (Routledge, 2013), winner of the 2014 ISA Theory
Section Best Book Award. From 2013–2019 he served as President of the
Central and East European International Studies Association. He is co-editor
of International Theory.

Andreea Iancu has a PhD in Political Science from Alexandru Ioan Cuza
University of Iaşi, Romania. She has also been a research fellow and
Fulbright Visiting Researcher in the Department of Conflict Resolution,
Human Security and Global Governance at the University of Massachusetts
Boston. She currently serves as a diplomat with the Romanian foreign
service. Her research interests include constructivist approaches to
international relations theory, the evolution of norms in the international
system, human security and the responsibility to protect, on which she has
published several papers.

Germán C. Prieto is Associate Professor in the Department of

International Relations at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota,
Colombia. He holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Manchester.
His current research interests revolve around philosophy of science and IR,
particularly constructivism, critical realism, interpretivism and the issue of
causation. He has also engaged in research on the topic of regionalism in
Latin America. His recent publications are Identidad Colectiva e Instituciones
Regionales en la Comunidad Andina: Un Análisis Constructivista (Editorial
Javeriana, 2016), and ‘Identity in Latin American Regionalism: The Andean
Community’ in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latin American Politics (Oxford
University Press, forthcoming).

Laura Sjoberg is Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida

with a courtesy affiliation in women’s and gender studies. Her research on
gender and war has been published in more than three dozen journals in
political science, gender studies, geography and law. She is author or editor
of more than a dozen books, including, most recently, International Relations’
Last Synthesis (with J. Samuel Barkin, Oxford University Press, 2019) and
Handbook on Gender and Security (with Caron E. Gentry and Laura J.
Shepherd, Routledge, 2018).

Chi-hung Wei is Assistant Professor in the Institute of European and

American Studies at Academia Sinica, Taiwan. His research interests include
the US–China–Taiwan triangle, international relations theory, economic
statecraft, the politics of resource wealth and ethnic conflict in Latin
America. His work has been published in numerous journals, including
Millennium: Journal of International Studies, International Political Science Review
and International Relations of the Asia-Pacific.
 1

Realist Constructivism: An Introduction

J. Samuel Barkin

The relationship between realism and constructivism in international

relations (IR) theory is a fraught one. The two paradigmatic framings of IR
are often understood, and taught, as being in opposition to each other. The
relationship is also an important one. Realism and constructivism are two of
the central concepts around which the academic discipline is organized.
They are often presented as incompatible or paradigmatically irreconcilable,
not only to most graduate students studying to be IR scholars, but also to
most students in undergraduate introductory IR classes as well. This leads
both scholars of IR and informed non-specialists more broadly to understand
power politics on the one hand, and constructivist research foci such as
norms, identity and discourse on the other, as incompatible and to engage in
sterile debates about whether material power or discourses matter more.
Assuming that realism and constructivism are mutually hostile understandings
of how international politics work impoverishes both understandings; it takes
away from realists the ability to study normative phenomena that matter to
the conduct of power politics, and it limits constructivists’ ability to study
power politics in the first place (Barkin 2010).
The mutual hostility of the two paradigms is easy to trace historically;
some of the best-known early works of constructivism cast themselves either
as critiques of particular realisms (eg Wendt 1999), or of a rationalist
understanding of politics under which neorealism is subsumed (eg Ruggie
1998). However, these critiques are not really aimed at political realism in
general, but rather at specific variants of neorealism. More recently a number
of scholars have either proposed readings of classical realism that are
compatible with constructivism or argued explicitly that the two are
compatible (eg Sterling-Folker 2002; Steele 2007a; Steele 2007b; Barkin
2010). However, these discussions have tended to be at a theoretical rather
than applied level; they have opened up spaces for discussions of the
relationship between the two understandings, but they have not necessarily
given clear guidance to scholars as to how to combine realism and
constructivism as parts of a specific research design. In part this is because
there are a variety of ways in which one could reasonably combine the two.
Realist constructivism is in this sense a space for a conversation between the
two paradigmatic understandings, rather than a specific combination of
them.
Creating the space for that conversation can usefully be supplemented by
some examples of what the conversation has produced. Is it generating
interesting research? How are the two understandings being combined in
practice? This volume is about how to apply the concept of realist
constructivism to specific research projects in IR. Rather than develop a
single methodology for doing so, it examines the range of creative ways in
which it is currently being done. It collects some of the most exciting work
done by scholars who self-describe as realist constructivists and uses this
work as the basis for an analysis of the range of the possible offered by the
concept, and for thoughts on where realist constructivism might be headed.
There are in fact a number of examples of published scholarship that
could reasonably be called realist constructivist and that may well be so
described by their authors. These include work on the strategic use of
discourse as a power resource (eg Krebs and Jackson 2007), and on the
construction of identity that necessarily underlies the idea of the state as an
actor (eg Risse 2001). These two bodies of work, however, only skim the
surface of the possibilities of combinations. This volume provides a set of
examples of applications of different realist constructivisms and an analysis of
where they fit in this conversation, and how they speak to each other.
Providing such a set of examples serves several functions. It helps to establish
the range of the possible in the conversation between realism and
constructivism as a set of research practices rather than deductive claims. In
doing so, it helps theorizing on the relationship between realism and
constructivism overcome a stagnation that suggests the limits of primarily
deductive theorizing. Finally, it provides examples to junior scholars of how
to build research programmes that combine constructivism and realism.
The first section of this volume, consisting of this introduction and the
following two chapters, lays some theoretical background for the discussion
of specific realist constructivisms. This is followed, in Chapters 4–8, by five
specific applications. The volume concludes with two chapters that
contextualize the contributions in a pair of broader analyses and critiques of
the conversation between realism and constructivism, in order to create a
more effective map of the terrain. The bulk of this introductory chapter
provides a brief overview of the relationship between constructivism and
realism, to set the stage for what follows.

Realism and constructivism

Key to the claim that there are many different realist constructivisms (which
is distinct from the claim that there are many applications of a single realist
constructivism) is the intellectually prior claim that there are both many
realisms and many constructivisms. The argument in support of this claim
has been made elsewhere with respect to both realism and constructivism
and need not be rehashed here (Barkin 2010). Nonetheless, a useful starting
point for this volume is to lay out a common understanding of what both
constructivism and realism are and are not. This section briefly discusses each
individually and the spaces of overlap between them. It looks at two of the
dichotomies often used to separate them: materialism versus idealism, and
the logic of consequences versus the logic of appropriateness. Finally, it looks
to the logic of the social and questions of agency for common grounds for a
realist constructivism. The next section looks at different strains of realism
and constructivism and asks how they might fit into the realist
constructivism conversation.
 A context for these discussions is a look at the role of both constructivism
and realism in IR; a prior question to asking whether a piece of scholarship
is realist constructivist is asking what we mean when we call a piece of
scholarship either realist or constructivist. One potential usage, which is
reflected in the introduction to this chapter, is as a paradigm, although this
begs the question of what we mean by a paradigm in the social sciences. In
practice, often we mean either a research programme or a research network
to which a set of scholars are committed (on the subject of paradigms as
research networks, see Barkin and Sjoberg 2019). A paradigm, in either case,
can easily become an exclusive group, both in the sense that some scholars
are in and others out, and in the sense that individual scholars come to be
seen, and see themselves, as partisans of one paradigm or another. In this
context it is easy to understand how constructivism and realism can be seen
in opposition to each other and as mutually exclusive. Understood as
paradigms, they are too easily seen as incompatible by assumption; by this
understanding, if one is paradigmatically a constructivist or a realist one
cannot by definition be the other.
Another potential usage of terms like realism and constructivism in IR
theory is as concepts, as understandings about how politics works. This usage
is described by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson as scientific ontology, by which he
means assumptions about what matters in the world (Jackson 2010). By this
usage there is no inherent incompatibility between a piece of scholarship
being both constructivist and realist at the same time unless the conceptual
underpinnings of the two assumptions are directly in opposition to each
other. But the conceptual underpinnings of paradigmatic terms in IR that
are sometimes taken to be in direct contradiction of each other are often not.
This is true even of realism and liberalism. Many if not most of the most
noted mid-century classical realists, such has E.H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau,
Innis Claude Jr and John Herz for example, were both realists and liberals,
the former describing their understanding of how politics works, and the
latter describing their understanding of what the goals of politics should be
(Morgenthau 1948; Claude 1962; Herz 1957; Carr 1964). And many
neorealisms are liberal in their assumptions about how to model international
politics, drawing as they do on microeconomic theory and market analogies
(Boucoyannis 2007).

Concepts and definitions

Similarly, understood as scientific ontologies, the assumptions of
constructivism and realism are orthogonal to each other. The core
assumption of realism is that power matters, and that as a result, however
robust the institutional structure of IR, those relations will remain political.
The core assumption of constructivism is that social, and therefore political,
institutions are socially constructed, meaning both that they are changeable
over time, and that they cannot be deduced from first principles (Barkin and
Sjoberg 2019). The first is an assumption about how politics works, the
second about what politics is made of. There is no necessary reason that
both cannot be true at the same time, and some reasons (discussed in the
next section of this chapter) why the two assumptions can work well
together.
To unpack these core assumptions, realism’s understanding of power is as
power politics, or realpolitik. This understanding is relational, meaning that
it is a measure of the effect one actor can have on another, as distinct from
critical understandings of power as structural constraint (Barnett and Duvall
2005). Power can come from a variety of sources, ranging from military
materiel to ideological cohesion to rhetorical skill, and may or may not be
fungible across both target actors and issues. It is also worth noting in a
discussion of the relationship between realism and constructivism that realists
see power as corporate, allowing them to focus on social institutions such as
the state, rather than (or instead of) individuals, as actors in international
politics.
While various IR theorists have defined political realism in various ways
over the years, power politics, and the susceptibility of political institutions,
however well designed, to power politics, provides both the common theme
across and the ultimate logic behind most definitions. This is clear both in
E.H. Carr’s critique of utopia and Hans Morgenthau’s critique of ‘scientific
man’, as well as in Kenneth Waltz’s claim that even when stripped down to
the simplest model, the anarchy of IR leads to self-help (Morgenthau 1946;
Carr 1964; Waltz 1979). It underlies the realist focus on the state, the
centrality of which to international politics is the result of its power
potential, not its cause. And it underlies realist claims on rationality,
inasmuch as an actor that is not rational in a world of power politics is
unlikely to thrive.
Meanwhile, to say that the core assumption of constructivism is the social
construction of political institutions and actors skirts close to tautology.
However, unpacking the two words of the phrase social construction points
to two key conceptual components. The first, drawing on the social, is the
idea of intersubjectivity. Central to constructivism is not how actors
individually understand, internalize and reproduce ideas, norms, discourses,
rules, practices, identities and so on, but how actors collectively do so.
Intersubjectivity suggests that constructivist analysis studies political
institutions neither as objective, existing outside of actors’ beliefs about and
practices within them, nor as purely subjective, existing within the heads of
individual actors. Rather, it studies institutions as being what actors
collectively take them to be.
The second component is co-constitution, the idea that political actors
and institutions are simultaneously constitutive of each other. Agents are not
only constrained, but also constructed by the structures within which they
developed; the identities agents hold, the norms they believe in, the
discourses and practices through which they act, all of which are constitutive
of them as agents, develop from existing social structures. But at the same
time those structures have no existence independent of the agents that
created them and continually recreate them through discourse and practice.
Constructivist research therefore looks at international politics as a set of
historically contingent institutions that exist because their constituent actors
hold them in common, and which both constitute, are created by, and can
be changed by those actors.

Oppositions
There can certainly be non-constructivist realism and non-realist
constructivism. For example, Kenneth Waltz simply assumes his agents into
existence, and builds his structures from them (Waltz 1979). There is no
intersubjectivity and no co-constitution in his model. Conversely, many
constructivisms assume that a secular normative progress in the construction
of international political institutions is possible (Price 2008). But how
compatible are the assumptions, the scientific ontologies, of constructivism
and realism? Before discussing ways in which they might be compatible, it is
worth debunking briefly arguments that they are incompatible. The first of
these arguments is that realism is necessarily materialist while constructivism
is idealist. The second is that realism focuses on a logic of consequences, and
constructivism on a logic of appropriateness.
An opposition between realist materialism and constructivist idealism
(understood here as being about ideas, not ideals) plays a major role in
arguments distinguishing the two, both in key early works of constructivist
theory (eg Wendt 1999) and in various recent realisms, both of the structural
and neoclassical varieties (eg Mearsheimer 2001 and Ripsman, Taliaferro and
Lobell 2016 respectively). The basic claim underlying this opposition is that
constructivism, grounded as it is in the concept of intersubjectivity, is
necessarily about ideas, specifically about those that political actors hold in
common at any given time. However, realism, so the argument goes, being
grounded in the concept of power, is focused on the capabilities that are the
basis of power, such as military might and economic potential. At the
margins, non-material sources of power, such as morale or diplomatic skill,
might matter a little, but even then primarily via the ability to marshal
material resources.
This argument gets both the relationship between materialism and
idealism and the relationship between materialism and realism wrong. It gets
the relationship between materialism and idealism wrong by positing that
they are categorically distinct and distinguishable. But the purely material is
rarely a source of social power unless embedded in a set of ideas about how
the material can and should be used, and ideas often involve material
referents. Money, for example, need have no particular material
embodiment. It is in a sense a pure exercise in intersubjectivity; it has value
because its users collectively ascribe value to it. And yet financial capabilities
are often taken as indicators of power measured as capability. Phrased
differently, the material bases of power in IR are not separable from the ideas
they embody. To fully understand relational power in IR, one must therefore
understand the relationships between ideas and the material, and the ideas
that make materiel in power capabilities.
It gets the relationship between materialism and realism wrong as well. In
the most direct sense, the reason for this follows from the argument that it
gets the relationship between materialism and idealism wrong. Not all
material capabilities translate equivalently into relational power, and not all
capabilities that support relational power, not least discourse, can be
meaningfully reduced to the material. This observation speaks to realist
arguments against constructivism; the relationship between ideas and power
cannot be dismissed so easily. From the perspective of constructivist
arguments as well, materialism is being blamed for epistemological damage
that it has not caused. Specifically, it is blamed for the propensity of
neorealists to create static models of the international system, which is
incompatible with the constructivist view of political institutions as
historically contingent. But this disagreement about historical contingency is
not in fact directly related to a materialism/idealism dichotomy, and in any
case identifies an incompatibility between constructivism and certain kinds
of neorealist modelling, rather than political realism more broadly.
The second of the two oppositions often used to distinguish between
realism and constructivism is between the logic of consequences and the
logic of appropriateness (Ruggie 1998). The logic of consequences is the
logic of rational choice theory, of homo economicus, in which actors are
assumed to make decisions that maximize their individual utility. The logic
of appropriateness, which comes to IR from organizational theory, assumes
that actors behave in ways that reflect what is expected of them in given
contexts, that they follow institutional norms (March and Olsen 1998). The
dichotomy as used in IR theory is more about distinguishing constructivism
from rationalism than from realism per se, but realism’s frequent invocation
of rationality makes it a target of the argument by association.
This opposition does not effectively distinguish between realism and
constructivism, however, because realist analysis does not require assumptions
that people behave rationally, and constructivism does not require
assumptions that they behave appropriately. Many, if not most, realists speak
of rationality, but they mean a variety of different things by it, and those
meanings are often different from the narrow technical use implied by the
logic of consequences, that individuals can be assumed to be instrumentally
rational. Classical realists, for example, used the term in its colloquial rather
than economic sense, to mean reasonableness. Furthermore, they used it as
exhortation rather than assumption – arguing that statespeople should be
rational to maximize the national interest, rather than that statespeople (let
alone states) can be assumed to be rational (eg Morgenthau 1948). Even in
neorealisms that draw on microeconomic models there is not a necessary
assumption of rationality. These arguments posit that actors (generally
defined in this case as states rather than people) that respond rationally to
systemic incentives are most likely to thrive in an anarchic system, but do not
assume that all actors will necessarily do so (eg Waltz 1979).
Some constructivist analyses, meanwhile, do concern themselves more
with appropriate than consequentialist behaviour. This is particularly the case
for norms-based constructivisms and is true perhaps to a lesser extent for
habit- and practice-based constructivisms. But this concern is particular to
those constructivisms, rather than conceptually inherent in constructivism. A
focus on a logic of consequences, on strategic behaviour, is in no way
incompatible with intersubjectivity and the study of the co-constitution of
agents and structures in international politics. Political actors can recognize
socially constructed norms and rules and employ those norms and rules for
strategic ends that are themselves constituted by social institutions. They can
rhetorically deploy discourses to frame and reframe political context for their
own purposes, purposes that again are themselves constituted by social
institutions. Constructivist analysis, in other words, is not necessarily biased
to the logic of either appropriateness or consequences; both are features of
the social construction of international politics.
The failure of these two oft-cited dichotomies to establish a clear
conceptual disjuncture between constructivism and realism suggests that they
do not live on opposite ends of any particular spectrum. The conceptual
underpinnings of constructivism and realism are orthogonal to each other;
they are neither necessarily incompatible nor necessarily compatible. This
suggests that conceptual combinations of realisms and constructivisms are
viable when both sets of conceptual underpinnings are relevant to a
particular research question. The next issue, then, is under what
circumstances this is likely to happen.

Institutions and interests

The most obvious area of overlap between the conceptual underpinnings of
realism and constructivism is the focus on social institutions. Constructivist
analysis assumes that social institutions, broadly defined, are what matter in
IR. Realist analysis focuses much more narrowly on one such institution, the
state. Many realists, more so in recent than classical realisms, simply assume
the state as a rational actor with externally given interests, the international
equivalent of the individual in rational choice theory. But realist theory at a
more fundamental level is premised on the idea that the state is more than
the simple cumulation of interests within it. States are corporate actors, with
corporate interests, and realist theory assumes that individual people,
whether statespeople making decisions or soldiers risking their lives, will act
to promote that corporate interest. States, in this sense, are constitutive of the
people within them, in a way that is integral to realism.
This does not necessarily mean that all realists will be sympathetic to
constructivist modes of analysis (although some that are not sympathetic
should be, as is discussed with reference to neoclassical realism in Chapter 3
of this volume). Some realisms may well start with epistemological
assumptions, or neopositivist methods, that make them incompatible with
constructivist analysis. Nor does it mean that all constructivists will, or
should, focus on states, either as agents or structures. But the state as a social
institution is fertile ground for a realist constructivism that takes the social
construction of the institution seriously.
Taking the social construction of the state as a corporate agent with
relational power seriously means taking the idea of its corporate interest
seriously, or what realists generally refer to as the national interest. Many
realists assume that survival is the core state interest and argue that this
assumption is sufficient as a starting point for analysis of international politics
(eg Waltz 1979; Ripsman, Taliaferro, and Lobell 2016). For most research
questions, however, this assumption is inadequate; it is both insufficient and
imprecise. Insufficient because most foreign policy is not about core threats
to state survival. Such threats, in fact, are quite rare, particularly in the day-
to-day conduct of foreign policy, and almost all foreign policy is informed by
goals beyond immediate survival. Imprecise because it is not entirely clear
what survival, in the context of a non-corporeal corporate agent, means. Is it
survival of the nation, the country, the institutional structure of the state, or
the regime? Did, for example, Sudan survive the creation of South Sudan as
an independent state, or did it not? Did the countries of the Soviet bloc
survive the end of the Cold War, or did their states understood as communist
regimes die? Any definite general answer to such questions is likely to be
arbitrary.
Beyond survival, what can we assume about state interests? Very little.
Some realists argue that there is an objective national interest in maximizing
the capabilities associated with power (Krasner 1978). But again, this is both
insufficient and imprecise. Insufficient, among other reasons, because it is not
borne out by empirical observation. Most states, for example, spend less on
their militaries than they could without undermining their economies, and
many can be prickly about issues of national pride, deploying policy on an
issue which is not necessarily related to survival. Imprecise because it
conflates capabilities with power, and thereby assumes that power is more
fungible than is the case. Finally, defining the national interest as maximizing
power begs the question of what the power is to be used for (beyond perhaps
survival, but see earlier discussion). Power is a means, not an end, and the
concept of a national interest is hollow without ends. Realisms that assume
that those ends are consistent across place and time are not compatible with
constructivism. Realisms that see them as socially constructed are.
There are different ways that various constructivisms interact with the
idea of corporate, and by extension state, interest. Some speak of interest as
closely related to and informed by identity (following Wendt 1999). Others
suggest that interests are both constituted and circumscribed by the
discourses of politics in a given context (Steele 2008; Goddard 2009). Still
others speak of social purpose, a concept broader than corporate interest but
which can usefully inform discussion of the national interest (Ruggie 1982).
All of these, each in its distinct way, is compatible with a realist focus on
states and relational power. Whether in the conceptual language of identity,
discourse, purpose or some other mode of social construction, some idea of
the national interest, how it differs across countries, how it expresses itself or
where it comes from, is likely to be a common feature of most if not all
realist constructivisms.

Agency and prudence

Two other likely common features are a space for agency and an ethic of
prudence. Agency is understood here to mean purposeful action by an
individual or corporate actor with respect (in this context) to some aspect of
international politics (Barkin 2010). Purposefulness here should be thought
of as distinct from reactive behaviour. When actors behave in a way
determined by structures, be they social or biological, they are being reactive
rather than truly agentive – in such situations structure is determinative,
leaving little or no scope for real agency. Not all realisms or constructivisms
leave much scope for agency. But a combination of the two is likely to do so
because the spaces where they overlap suggest mechanisms for agents to
effect institutional change.
By the definition given here, many ways of characterizing actor
behaviour in IR theory leave little scope for agency. For example, neither
arguments based on consequentialist nor on appropriate behaviour allow for
agency; both have actors responding in scripted patterns to institutional
stimuli, whether those patterns involve analyzing interests based on a fixed
mode of calculation, or following scripts given by organizational norms
(Barkin 2010). Neorealisms intentionally abstract away from agency to isolate
systemic effects (Waltz 1979). All of these illustrations have in common a
static structure, with actors reacting to it in programmed rather than
purposeful ways. None of these examples provides fertile ground for a realist
constructivism. A constructivism that looks at ways in which the norms of
the international system constrain state power is not particularly realist. A
realism that argues that states will react the same way to systemic constraints
is not particularly constructivist.
The constructivisms and realism that speak to each other, however, both
leave room for states and statespeople to act purposefully in ways that are
meaningful to international politics, and allow for the possibility for
meaningful change in the practices, discourses, rules, norms, identities and so
on of international politics and the international system as a social
institution. They bring from realism the idea that uses of power, and the
purposes driving those uses, are agentive choices that affect outcomes. They
bring from constructivism the idea that the institutional context for agentive
choice is historically contingent, intersubjective and changeable. These
overlap in the idea that state behaviour and uses of relational power in
international politics affect not only position within the system, but the
constitution of the system itself.
An analogy to this discussion of agency can be found in some recent
discussions of realist time. Andrew Hom and Brent Steele argue that the
predominant view of time in IR theory is either linear or cyclical (Hom and
Steele 2010). Much liberal theory is linear, in the teleological sense, in seeing
in institutions a trend of secular improvement in international politics
specifically and in the human condition more broadly. Many realisms, in
contrast, see time as cyclical, with the same patterns of behaviour and
outcome recurring (such as predictions that power will necessarily balance).
Hom and Steel argue for a different, open view of time. This view was to be
found in classical realism but was lost in many realisms that took the ‘science’
side of the second great debate (Lapid 1989). When scholars do not assume
ex ante that history necessarily either progresses or repeats itself, they allow a
much greater scope for agency (Hom and Steele 2010). This way of
categorizing views of time is also relevant to constructivism, inasmuch as
many liberal constructivisms tend towards the teleological. Realisms and
constructivisms that share a common view of time as open share as well this
greater scope for agency.
Hom and Steele connect their open view of time with, among other
things, an ethic of prudence in realism (Hom and Steele 2010). Calls for
prudence in the conduct of foreign policy are a long-standing part of the
realist, and particularly the classical realist, tradition, although there is less
space for such calls in the more formalized models of IR that are found in
many neorealisms and some neoclassical realisms. These calls are closely
related to calls for an ethical prudence, in the sense that we should be
prudent in universalizing our own ethics to others, who may view them
variously as colonial or hypocritical, to be found in the work of such classical
realists as Morgenthau and Carr (Morgenthau 1948; Carr 1964).
Prudence on the part of statespeople in turn implies the necessity of
prudence on the part of realist scholars of IR, who are presumably prone to
the same universalizing tendencies and uncertainties about the complexities
of international politics. This need for prudence on the part of the researcher
and theorist resonates with what has been called an ethic of prudence in
constructivism (Hoffmann 2009). This ethic is cognizant of the fact that the
structures of international politics may be more delicate than we realize, and
scholars should therefore be prudent in both re-and de-constructing them.
Realist constructivisms are to be found in the significant common ground of
these understandings of ethical prudence.

Realisms and constructivisms

Having looked at the broad terrain of the relationship between realism and
constructivism, what of the relationships among specific realisms and specific
constructivisms? Each of the empirical cases in Chapters 4 to 8 of this
volume specifies its own realism and constructivism, and the relationship
between the two. None breaks radically new ground in the specific
constructivism or realism that it uses; the contributions lie in the specifics of
the relationship between the two, and the ways in which methodologies for
studying social construction have been brought to bear in the study of power
politics in IR.
Having said this, some realisms are more conducive to constructivist
methodologies than others. Waltzian neorealism, for example, offers infertile
ground for the study of the social construction of politics. But most realisms
offer more scope than this, even some neorealisms. Gilpin’s (1983)
neorealism, for example, has some affinities with Onuf ’s (1989) work on
rules and rule. The empirical chapters in the middle of this volume draw on
three relatively recent trends in realist IR theory: neoclassical realism,
rhetorical realism and reflexive realism.
Neoclassical realism begins with neorealist systemic theory and asks why
states do not always behave as neorealist theory would predict, finding
answers in domestic politics. More specifically, it often finds answers in the
social constructs of domestic politics, from political institutions to culture.
The third chapter in this book discusses neoclassical realism and its
relationship with constructivism in some detail. The upshot of that
discussion is that, to paraphrase Kratochwil and Ruggie (1986), the ontology
of its domestic variables does not match the soft positivist epistemology it
generally prefers. It is, in other words, a realist theory in need of
constructivist methods. Chapters 4 and 5, either explicitly or implicitly,
provide constructivist methods for neoclassical realist questions.
Rhetorical realism looks at the power of rhetoric in international affairs.
It is a departure from many contemporary realisms that see power as vested
in material resources. It draws on discussions in the works of many classical
realists of the power of persuasion (eg Beer and Harriman 1996) but goes
beyond that to look at the power to frame discourse and with it perceptions
and understandings of the realm of the politically and ethically viable.
Rhetorical realism, adopted explicitly in Chapter 6, is a natural fit with
many discourse-oriented constructivisms.
 Finally, reflexive realism is in a way an opposite theoretical move to
neoclassical realism. It looks to classical realism not for its focus on foreign
policy, but for the philosophical content that was to a significant extent lost
in IR’s second debate. In this sense it is a paleoclassical rather than
neoclassical realism. Brent Steele defines it as ‘the attempt to restore classical
realist principles of agency, prudence and the recognition of limitations as
part of an attempt to provide a practical-ethical view of international politics’
(Steele 2007a, p. 273). In its focus on agency and the ethical it has a natural
affinity with many constructivisms, and it has not internalized the
unreflective positivism that is to be found with many contemporary realisms.
Chapters 7 and 8 fit broadly into this approach to realism, although neither
explicitly identifies itself as such.
The categorization of realisms in this volume should not be taken to
suggest that these are the only three strands within realism that are good fits
for constructivist ontology and methods, or as an endorsement of these over
other contemporary strands of realism. Rather, the diversity of these strands,
ranging from neoclassical realism’s attempts to fit in with the realist
mainstream to rhetorical realism’s critique of that mainstream’s materialism,
to reflexive realism’s rejection of the contemporary mainstream in favour of
the philosophical richness of classical realism, is suggestive of the broad scope
for overlap between realisms and constructivisms.
The constructivisms used by the authors of Chapters 4 to 8 cannot be
quite so neatly classified, although they all fit solidly within the traditional
constructivist mainstream. They are less focused on some of the more recent
developments in constructivist ontology and methodology, such as practice
theory or network analysis, than on tradition constructivist concerns, such as
norms, identity and discourse. The contribution to constructivist theory in
these chapters lies in developing ideas of how norms, identities and discourse
both affect and are affected by the social construction of power politics.

Plan of the book

Chapters 2 and 3 address different aspects of the epistemological advantages
of combining constructivist methodologies and politically realist ontologies,
with respect to two different realist literatures. In Chapter 2 Germán Prieto
argues that a combination of classical realism and reflexive constructivism can
provide a better account of causality than either can on its own. He brings
together classical realism’s insights on interactionality (the idea that outcomes
result from the interactions of actor uncertainties) and constructivism’s
insights on the role of social context in causal emergence to create a realist
constructivist account of causality that is both philosophically and
methodologically richer than can be provided by a focus on interactionality
or social context alone. Meanwhile, I argue in Chapter 3 that constructivism
provides the set of methodologies that neoclassical realism needs to meet its
ontological goals. Neoclassical realists often rely on case studies embedded in
a ‘soft positivism’ that neither makes sense in its own terms nor meets the
epistemological needs of neoclassical realist research. Embedding neoclassical
ontology in constructivist methodologies, I argue, can meet those needs
much more effectively.
The middle part of the volume consists of five chapters that are
applications of various interpretations of realist constructivism to specific
research questions. While each chapter addresses a specific empirical
question in IR, the chapters collectively are structured to use the research
questions to illuminate the variety of relationships between realism and
constructivism.
Each of these five chapters proceeds in four sections, following a chapter
introduction that lays out the research question. The first provides a set of
definitions of the specific variant or understanding of both realism and
constructivism that the author is using. The second is devoted to
methodology, and specifically to a discussion of the ways in which realist and
constructivist concepts are being combined, what methods are being
deployed, and what data gathered, to relate these concepts to the research
question. The third part presents the chapter’s empirics, in a way that
highlights both the application of the research design and the realist and
constructivist elements of the analysis. The final and concluding part of each
chapter is a discussion of what is gained by the deployment of a realist
constructivism to answer the chapter’s research question; what does this
combination of concepts show us in this case that we would not see
otherwise?
These chapters cover a range of geographical and topical foci, as well as
varying methodological tools and ways of looking at the relationship
between realism and constructivism. In Chapter 4 Martin Boyle studies the
discursive construction of, and the discursive gaps in, the strategic ambiguity
underlying Taiwan’s policy towards China. He argues that this ambiguity
results from the confrontation of the power-political constraints of Chinese
claims to the island and the construction of a distinct Taiwanese identity
domestically. In Chapter 5 Saira Bano dissects the relationship between
norms and power in the India–US nuclear deal, arguing that while states can
use power to change norms, they can only do so in the context of existing
normative structures. Chi-hung Wei writes in Chapter 6 about the genesis of
the US policy of engagement towards China, showing that the change to
this policy is better explained by changing ideas about the politics of
engagement than by changes in the strategic situation. Justin Delacour looks
at the framing of democracy as a tool of foreign policy in the US relationship
with Latin American in Chapter 7. He argues that the ambiguousness of the
role that democracy plays in US policy results from the co-constitution of
strategic calculation and cultural identities in the creation of foreign policy.
Finally, in Chapter 8 Andreea Iancu examines the normative evolution of the
responsibility to protect principle in response to both human security norms
and political realities in Libya and Syria.
The final two chapters of this volume critically review the arguments
made in the first eight. In Chapter 9 Laura Sjoberg makes the case that
thinking of binary combinations is too limiting, and therefore that we should
be thinking beyond the combination of realism and constructivism. She
argues that combining realism and constructivism with post-structuralism,
liberalism, feminism or decolonial theory can yield even richer analyses than
those provided in the empirical chapters. Finally, in Chapter 10 Stefano
Guzzini returns to the idea of prudence in classical realism and argues that
constructivism provides the tools necessary to reclaim the key insights of
classical realism from their own internal contradictions.

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 2

Causation in Realist Constructivism:

Interactionality, Emergence and the
Need for Interpretation
Germán C. Prieto

This chapter sets out an inquiry about the ways in which realist
constructivism (RC) may offer better causal explanations than classical
realism and constructivism on their own, framing the discussion within what
these approaches have to say for the analysis of international relations. The
main argument developed here is that RC has a strong potential for
providing more comprehensive causal explanations. It offers the possibility of
combining classical realism’s account of interactionality related to the type of
rationalism tied up to power politics, in which agency acquires a significant
causal role, and constructivism’s account of causal emergence, where social
context is analyzed in depth and the causal role of normative structures is
highlighted. Yet, it also argues that such RC potential for providing better
causal explanations faces the challenge of addressing the causal power of
agency, while simultaneously acknowledging the causal power of structure
(which in turn demands resorting to bracketing one or the other in order to
understand their process of co-constitution and causation). In addition, I
show that RC needs to incorporate interpretivism in order to give better
accounts of causation, which from a critical realist and constructivist
standpoint is crucial for understanding the causal powers of both agency and
structure.
 The chapter begins by providing a definition of what is to be understood
as causation and a ‘better’ causal explanation for the argument hereby
stressed, for which a critical realist approach to it will be set out.
Subsequently, the chapter addresses the accounts of causation of some
classical realisms and constructivisms, focusing respectively on interactionality
and agents’ rationality related to power politics, and causal emergence related
to social context and normative structures. In a fourth section, the chapter
analyzes some realist constructivist approaches to particular case studies
where causal relationships are suggested, assessing both RC’s potential for
providing more encompassing causal explanations and its limitations in
simultaneously analyzing the causal powers of both agency and structure.
Finally, the chapter argues for the importance of bringing into RC an
interpretive account of causation that would help generate a better
understanding of both interactionality and emergence, as it is more in line
with a critical realist account of causation – arguably, the approach to
causation that is more coherent with a realist constructivist understanding of
international relations.

A critical realist account of causation

Some authors have pointed to critical realism as a more clearly defined
postpostivist version of scientific realism (Kurki 2007), but in the case of
social sciences, and particularly in international relations, critical and
scientific realism are often used interchangeably (Kurki 2007; see also
Chernoff 2007). For critical realists, causal forces are part of nature and thus
exist independently of the ways we study them (Wight 2006, pp. 29–30;
Kurki 2007, pp. 364–5; Bhaskar 2008, pp. 20–2). For this approach,
causation is understood as the working of a force or a mechanism that
generates changes in the state of things. In nature, natural forces, like water
and wind, cause changes in certain elements, for instance erosion on rocks.
Water and wind are, among other factors, the causes of erosion but causation
is the working of the force(s) or mechanism(s) through which water and
wind generate erosion on rocks. A causal explanation would thus consist of
the description and explanation of the working of such mechanism, for
which critical realists acknowledge that there might be different explanations
(Wendt 1999, ch. 2; Wight 2006, ch. 1), some better than others (to be
discussed later). Critical realists believe that social structures also have causal
powers, even though these structures are mostly unobservable and the only
observable things are their effects, for instance, on agency. Wendt (1999, pp.
62–3) and Wight (2006, p. 50) pose the example of capitalism, a particular
setting of economic relations (or mode of production) that is not as
observable as a rock, but only observable through the instantiation of certain
relationships between, say, business owners and workers (where both are
consumers) in which the effects of capitalism (ie the need to earn money in
order to consume goods) as a social structure can in turn be observed.
From a critical realist standpoint, even though social structures cannot be
observed apart from the relationships they establish among agents and their
effects, it is possible to theorize the functioning of the mechanisms through
which such structures generate changes on agency or make agents act the
way they do; in other words, their causal powers. In one of the following
sections I will argue that constructivists may find in critical realism a useful
framework for analyzing the causal power of ideas. Yet, against positivism,
critical realists do not think there is only one single way to understand the
functioning of these mechanisms, or only a true way, but instead rely on the
Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) criterion for defining which
explanations are better – or more accurate – than others (and the same
applies to the natural sciences). According to Wendt (2015, p. 290, quoting
Mackonis 2013), there are five virtues to be evaluated in an explanation for it
to stand as better than others: coherence, depth, breadth, simplicity and
empirical adequacy. While these virtues may depend on subjective
assessments, there are two key issues that operate for them not to fall into an
‘anything goes’ stand. First, they must refer to something that somehow
matches them and their explanation (ie an explanation that entails humans
flying by themselves could not be valid because humans cannot fly by
themselves) (Wendt 1999, pp. 58–60; Wight 2006, p. 27). Second, science is
a social activity, by which the validity of scientific claims is stronger the
greater the number of scholars agreeing on it (Wight 2006, p. 33; Kuhn
2012). Hence, an explanation of a causal mechanism will be better than
others inasmuch as it describes its functioning in a more coherent and deeper
way, with greater breadth and simplicity, and with greater potential and ease
for being applied to the issue in question (utility), and inasmuch as it refers
(matches) better to the object of study and gathers greater consensus among
(social) scientists on its fulfilment of the required five virtues.
Furthermore, two characteristics are attached to causation according to
critical realists: singularity and emergence. Singularity means that a causal
mechanism can generate effect X only and exclusively in a certain particular
context, and the fact that the functioning of this mechanism can never be
observed again in any other context, no matter how similar it is to the
former one, does not invalidate the causal explanation (Wight 2006, p. 34).
As long as the IBE virtues are better met, that single causal explanation will
stand as valid and better than the others, without the need for it to be
applied to equal or similar mechanisms and contexts in order to find patterns
of regularity (as in positivism) (Bhaskar 2008, pp. 69–73). Emergence means
that the elements that make part of a casual complex (for instance, a social
institution like a habit) may not have causal powers on their own, or separate
existence from one another, but acquire their causal power as they make part
of the social structure as a whole (Wight 2006, pp. 36–7). Hence, and again,
it cannot be expected that the same elements have causal powers (or generate
the same causal effects) in another situation or structure where their
arrangement differs from that of the former causal complex, and this fact
would not invalidate their account as a case of causal emergence.
Having outlined the critical realist understanding of causation, I will
move to examine its relation to classical realism’s and constructivism’s
accounts of causation in order to assess the advantages that RC might have
vis-à-vis both approaches for the provision of causal explanations.

Causation in classical realism: rationality, interactionality and power

politics
Classical realism defines international politics as the struggle for power,
where power is understood as the capability one actor has of making things
happen the way he/she wants (Morgenthau 1985, pp. 11, 32; Barkin 2010,
p. 19). Power involves possessing material factors, such as weapons and
natural resources, but also intangible ones, such as the ability to lift the
troops’ morale, charisma, and a strong and convincing diplomacy (Little
2007, p. 139; see also Morgenthau 1985, p. 11 and Williams 2005, p. 110).
The struggle for power, in terms of states competing to maintain or increase
their power, is what classical realism calls ‘power politics’. Yet, as Little
(2007, pp. 141–2) notes, the dynamics of power politics does not always
consist of states giving free rein to their power drives, in terms of continually
attempting to increase their power. On the contrary, states may also regulate
and restrain their power drives, even aiming to distribute power among other
states in order to preserve the balance of power. In this sense, we should
expect that causal explanations provided by classical realism be related to
understanding why and how agents succeed and fail to make things happen
the way they want, or to make others do what they want, that is, success and
failure in the struggle for power, and ultimately, in the exercise of power
politics, which may include restraint and power distribution. In the account
of classical realism provided by Barkin (2010), I identify two main factors
that play a causal role in the struggle for power: rationality and
interactionality.
Rationality is the most defining feature of agency. According to Barkin
(2010, pp. 57, 101), agency must be understood as purposive activity,
oriented by a rational exercise where the agent considers her possibilities for
succeeding in the struggle for power. But rationality is not only the
calculation for maximizing resources and obtaining a marginal utility in the
struggle for power (what Barkin (2010, pp. 52–3) refers to as ‘instrumental
rationality’, typical of rational choice theory) but it is also the exercise of
justifying on moral bases the means for power seeking, particularly moral
bases that may be acquiesced to by others (Barkin 2010, pp. 19, 53–4). From
a classical realist standpoint, thus, to behave rationally is not only to act
according to the interest of obtaining or exerting power, but also according
to what the others might be keener to accept in relation to the power
exercise. For, as Barkin (2010, p. 19) points out, to rely on the use of force
every time an agent is seeking power gains is extremely costly and is,
moreover, a straightforward way to remain in permanent conflict. Instead,
rational agents leave the use of force as a last resort, often seeking to exercise
their power through persuasion and acceptance, even if possessing the means
for coercion backs their actions (Morgenthau 1948, pp. 13–14). Thinking in
moral terms, the latter, understood as considering others’ judgement of one’s
acts, is a key component of rationality (Barkin 2010, pp. 134–5).
Interactionality, on the other hand, refers to the results of the struggle for
power among two or more actors. Departing from a rational exercise, agents
enter the power struggle without having total certainty as to whether they
will achieve their aims to a greater or lesser extent. Rationality, in other
words, is no guarantee of success; it is just the most adequate way of playing
the game of power politics. But depending on what the others do, agents
will succeed or fail in their struggle for power (Barkin 2010, p. 137). In these
terms, behaving more or less rationally will have causal effects on an agent’s
power exercise; and the others’ reaction to one’s acts will have causal effect
on the results of the power struggle.
Some cases for examining classical realist causal explanations based on
rationality and interactionality can be found in the seminal works of E.H.
Carr and Hans J. Morgenthau. The following paragraphs analyze how both
authors address the causal power of both factors, and the extent to which
they can be associated with a critical realist account of causation. This
exercise will be done in order to subsequently find possible points of
coincidence between classical realism and constructivism, and thus provide
an assessment of the type of causal explanations that could be framed within
an RC approach.
From the very beginning of his Twenty Years’ Crisis, E.H. Carr reveals his
interest in causal analysis. In chapter 1 (Carr 2016, p. 5), he suggests that the
task of the investigator is to analyze the causes of trouble and illness of the
body politic, and at p. 6 he states that the analysis of cause and effect is a
main task of the political sciences. At p. 7, Carr’s commitment to causal
analysis is again stressed when he asserts that, in contrast with his own
approach, neither Confucius nor Plato sought ‘the underlying causes of the
[political] evils they deplored’. Furthermore, at p. 10 he asserts that realism
‘places its emphasis on the acceptance of facts and on the analysis of their
causes and consequences’. And at the beginning of chapter 2, he even posits
causal analysis as the antithesis to utopian thinking (Carr 2016, p. 12),
namely, his object of critique and the one he uses to analyze the causal
power of (bad) rationality.
In chapter 3, Carr suggests that Woodrow Wilson’s utopianism, expressed
in his blind trust in public opinion, was a main cause for the disastrous end
of the League of Nations. But this causal claim does not correspond to a
critical realist causal explanation, for no thick description of the working of
the causal mechanism – the one making the League of Nations fail because
of the trust in public opinion – is provided. The causal explanation rather
consists of contrasting utopianism against realism (which Carr does in this
and in previous chapters), and arguing that since utopia is wrong, and given
that trusting public opinion is part of utopianism, Wilson’s utopian approach
to peace making after the war caused the League of Nations to fail. This
causal explanation fits better into the ‘Analyticism’ methodology proposed
by Patrick T. Jackson (2011, p. 199), where causal explanations resort to
ideal types – in this case utopianism and realism – in order to explain why
things occur the way they do. In Carr’s account, rationality failed because by
leaning on utopianism, the US, Great Britain and partly France trusted
public opinion (chapter 3) and believed in the principle of harmony of
interests (chapter 4), which established that what was best for these dominant
powers was best for other countries. As a consequence, interactionality,
consisting of the interplay between the Allies’ (mainly the US and GB)
utopianism and Germany, Italy and Japan’s exercise of power politics, caused
the Second World War to break out.
Carr also rejects a positivist Humean account of causation, because he
holds a strong belief in the purpose that human action has and the causal
power of it: ‘If the sequence of cause and effect is sufficiently rigid to permit
of the “scientific prediction” of events, if our thought is irrevocably
conditioned by our status and our interests, then both action and thought
become devoid of purpose’ (Carr 2016, p. 86).
For Carr, purpose makes the causal difference: it can be utopian or realist,
and what caused the Twenty Years’ Crisis was Western powers’ utopian
rationality (particularly the US and GB) failing to recognize that, under
unequal conditions, the harmony of interests does not work. Knowing what
kind of purpose will guide actors’ actions cannot be achieved through
scientific predictive laws. Achieving this knowledge can only be the product
of thorough reflection in every moment and circumstance, and there is no
objective law that can predict when agents will adopt a more realist or a
more utopian purpose. In these terms, Carr’s account of causation is mainly
philosophical, in the sense of a priori judging what is right and what is
wrong. Utopianism is wrong because it focuses on desires and hopes, on
what the world should be. In contrast, realism is right because it concentrates
on what is really possible and on what the world really is. The use of
utopianism and realism as ideal types is more clearly observed in Carr’s
account when he recognizes that our daily thinking is a constant
combination of both types of reasoning (rationality), and thus precisely the
analyst must take the realist pathway in order to provide objective and useful
solutions to real problems (Carr 2016, p. 10 and ch. 6). Throughout his
book, Carr’s way of argument is counterfactual, again coinciding with the
analyticist approach to causation (Jackson 2011, p. 199): had the Western
powers adopted a more realist view on the world, the Twenty Years’ Crisis
and the Second World War could have been avoided.
For his part, Morgenthau is committed to the identification of objective
laws: objective not in the sense of scientific empiricism – which Morgenthau
opposes – but in the sense of not being subject to moral or emotional aspects
(see, for instance, Williams 2005, p. 97). These laws for him explain politics
understood as the struggle for power. His aim is to ‘detect and understand
the forces which determine political relations among nations, and to
comprehend the ways in which those forces act upon each other and upon
international political relations and institutions’ (Morgenthau 1948, p. 3).
Though no explicit mention of causal forces is made here, his interest in
causal analysis could be so understood. In the first principle of realism,
which asserts that politics is governed by objective laws (Morgenthau 1985,
p. 4), it is not clear whether these laws are causal, though they could be
expected to be so, as Morgenthau speaks of logical necessity (1985, p. 3) (a
Humean term for addressing causation). The second principle, the power
interest (1985, pp. 5–6), causes foreign policy to be what it is, motives and
ideology notwithstanding.
Morgenthau also tells us that the objective of his book is to present a
rational theory of international politics (1985, p. 10). Rationality, for
Morgenthau, is the agent’s capability of realistically judging the
circumstances, that is, to leave motives and ideology behind and be guided
solely by the rationale of power politics, (1985, p. 7), the latter understood as
defined earlier. Although Morgenthau plainly coincides with critical realism
(and constructivism) in his acknowledgement of multicausality (1985, pp.
47–9), his conception of causation is much closer to the Humean positivist
one, despite his rejection of a scientificist approach to politics. Morgenthau’s
master variable for explaining the functioning of politics is the concept of
‘balance of power’, which he addresses as a natural force (objective law) to
which all political systems are subject. Balance of power as a pursuit is caused
by agents’ rationality, and its resulting form or composition is caused by
agents’ interactionality.
For Morgenthau (1985, p. 187), what causes the balance of power is
states’ ‘natural’ interest in trying to either maintain or overthrow the status
quo, derived from their natural interest in power (rationality), and what
determines one option or the other is their rational examination of what is
best to exercise their power and their possibilities of success. This natural
interest in power and the subsequent action of maintaining and overthrowing
the status quo is clearly an objective law of the sort Morgenthau proposes to
find from the beginning of his book. This objective law provides a causal
explanation based on a regular pattern of behaviour, which, according to
Morgenthau, explains power politics in any time and at any moment in
history. The following passage lays this out clearly:
 It will be shown in the following pages that the international balance
of power is only a particular manifestation of a general social
principle to which all societies composed of a number of
autonomous units owe the autonomy of their component parts; that
the balance of power and the policies aiming at its preservation are
not only inevitable but are an essential stabilizing factor in a society
of sovereign nations; and that the instability of the international
balance of power is due not to the faultiness of the principle but to
the particular conditions under which the principle must operate in a
society of sovereign nations. (Morgenthau 1985, p. 187)

Although Morgenthau does not provide a thick description of the working

of the causal power of rationality (beyond stating that power interest is
inherent to human nature), he does provide broader detail on the natural
working of equilibrium and balance of power, and of interactionality as the
causal force that produces them, all of which could bring him
methodologically (not ontologically) closer to critical realism. Morgenthau
suggests that equilibrium, namely a synonym of ‘balance’ [of power], is a
natural force that operates both at the level of the human body and of the
body politic. Astonishingly, Morgenthau equates equilibrium to opposition,
speaking of different things that oppose or at least contrast each other, like
‘savings and investments, exports and imports, … East and West, North and
South, … agriculture and industry, … city and country, … the economic
and the political sphere, the middle classes and the upper and lower classes’
(1985, p. 188). Equilibrium, in this sense, has nothing to do with equity,
equality, justice or fairness. Instead, it is closer to Marxian and Hegelian
dialectics, David Campbell’s (1992) ‘otherness’ and Jacques Derrida’s
différance (Zehfuss 2009, p. 142). Equilibrium, for Morgenthau, is merely the
condition of existence of things in opposition to other things, and in his
naturalistic view of social life this is an intrinsic force of nature (Morgenthau
1985, pp. 187–8), a common tendency ‘to maintain the stability of the
system without destroying the multiplicity of the elements composing it’
(1985, p. 189). Equilibrium and balance, thus, are caused by nature – or the
conception of (social) nature as a system that has a natural capacity and
tendency to preserve itself – and agents’ natural interest in power, and this
makes an objective law based on a regular pattern that repeats itself
throughout history (1985, p. 188, n 2). Equilibrium, though, is different
from stability, as

[i]f the goal were stability alone it could be achieved by allowing one
element to destroy or overwhelm the others and take their place.
Since the goal is stability plus the preservation of all the elements of
the system, the equilibrium must aim at preventing any element from
gaining ascendancy over the others. The means employed to
maintain equilibrium consist in allowing the different elements to
pursue their opposing tendencies up to the point where the tendency
of one is not so strong as to overcome the tendency of the others,
but strong enough to prevent the others from overcoming its own.
(Morgenthau 1985, p. 189)

Starkly, Morgenthau goes as far as to contend that the American political

order and its system of checks and balances is just reproduced at the
international level in the form of the international balance of power (1985,
p. 192), omitting that the functioning of the former is the product of a
particular constitutional design, clearly absent in international politics. Yet,
for Morgenthau, the system of checks and balances of the American
government seems so natural as to project it into the international system,
simultaneously suggesting that this is the logical order of things, and as a
consequence, that any domestic political order lacking such a system of
checks and balances is incoherently contradicting nature (no matter how
many authoritarian regimes could be found out there!).
However, the balance of power does not lead to international stability,
and this is where the causal power of interactionality comes in. In
Morgenthau’s account, rationality (power interest) has the causal power of
making states pursue status quo or imperialist policies. But once they
undertake action to pursue their interests – adopting opposition or
competition behaviours (1985, pp. 192–3) – this interactionality has causal
effects over the balance of power. In the pattern of opposition, the stability
provided by the balance of power (resulting either from the weaker yielding
to the stronger, or from war deciding the issue)

is always in danger of being disturbed, and therefore, is always in

need of being restored … Since the weights that determine the
relative position of the scales have a tendency to change continuously
by growing either heavier or lighter, whatever stability the balance of
power may achieve must be precarious and subject to perpetual
adjustments in conformity with intervening changes. (Morgenthau
1985, pp. 193–4)

Causal effects of interactionality are also displayed over states’ behaviour,

since

the independence of the nations concerned is also essentially

precarious and in danger … given the conditions of the power
pattern the independence of the respective nations can rest on no
other foundation than the power of each individual nation to prevent
the power of the other nations from encroaching upon its freedom.
(Morgenthau 1985, p. 194)

For the case of the other power pattern, competition, Morgenthau (1985, p.
196) addresses the causal effects of rationalism in small states’ decision to
remain neutral or to buffer against greater powers, and the causal effects of
interactionality are assessed in their survival and preservation as neutral or
buffer states. In both cases (opposition and competition), the causal powers
of the balance of power – as a product (or a causal effect) of rationality and
interactionality – are posited by Morgenthau as objective laws of states’
natural political behaviour. In these terms, Morgenthau’s description of the
working of power patterns and their more or less stable results could be
methodologically in accord with critical realism inasmuch as the [thick]
description of the causal mechanism is provided. But, ontologically,
Morgenthau’s stand on causation is incompatible with critical realism, for his
approach to causation through the use of objective laws and relations of
logical necessity rule out critical realism’s principle of singularity. Yet, it is
worth noting that Morgenthau’s treatment of the balance of power is highly
adjacent to the concept of emergence, for one cannot know for certain what
is going to derive from either opposition or competition until states’ actions
have taken place. In this sense, the concept of emergence could help explain
why and how certain results derive either from opposition or competition.
This point will be further developed in a subsequent section.
Hence, it has been possible to observe the causal power of rationality and
interactionality in both Carr’s and Morgenthau’s accounts. In the case of
Carr, we have seen a stand on causation closer to the analyticist one, given
his use of ideal types and invitation to counterfactual thinking for
demonstrating causation. In the case of Morgenthau, his stand on causation
remains closer to the positivist Humean one, due to his belief in the
functioning of objective laws and logics of necessity related to nature’s
[natural] tendency to equilibrium, manifested in the natural tendency of
political systems to balances of power. As a conclusion, neither Carr nor
Morgenthau show signs of subscribing to a critical realist treatment of
causation. Yet, singularity in Carr’s work, and multicausality and emergence
(though not singularity) in Morgenthau’s, and deep description of the
working of certain causal mechanisms in the latter’s (although in the context
of explaining the functioning of an objective law) are positions on causation
that coincide with critical realism and, as we shall now see, with
constructivism.

Causation in constructivism: emergence and normative structures

Among other things, constructivism in international relations (IR) does not
have a unified agreement on how to treat causation (Klotz and Lynch 2007,
pp. 4, 15). For some constructivists causation might not even be part of the
question (as pointed out by Yee 1996, p. 100 and Ruggie 1998, p. 881). Yet,
for others causation is a main issue in explanations and, since constructivism
lacks a defined set of methods for analyzing the role of ideas, it is necessary
to resort to different methods and philosophies of science (or methodologies,
as Patrick T. Jackson (2011) proposes to call them), in order to provide causal
explanations. Precisely because radical constructivists tend not to be
interested in causal analysis, the two constructivist works addressed in this
section belong to the ‘moderate’ branch and explicitly manifest their aim of
providing causal explanations. The first of them is my doctoral work (Prieto
2013; 2016) on the causal role of collective identity and regional institutions
in the unfolding of the Andean Community regionalist project. The second
is Craig Parsons’ work (2003) on the idea of ‘community Europe’ causing
the EU to be what it is today.
In my work (Prieto 2013, 2016), I argue that constructivists may find in
critical realism a useful framework for analyzing the causal power of ideas,
namely the main ‘causal problem’ for those constructivists interested in
providing causal explanations. Hence, when ideas can be observed as
generating changes in agents’ actions, they can be assessed as playing a causal
role. Ideas can be observed in agents’ discourse, in the form of reasons for
action, norms and metaphors that imply change in the state of things. They
can also be observed in normative structures such as institutions, law bodies
and decisions made by institutional bodies that tell agents what they can or
cannot do according to their subscription to such bodies (ie an international
organization).
Using an interpretive methodology based on analyzing transitive verbs
and metaphors denoting change, I analyzed the causal role of ideas in the
unfolding of a regionalist project, particularly of collective identity and
regional institutions, considered as ideational structures. The project was the
Andean Community (AC), a regional scheme existing between Colombia,
Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia since 1969 (though my analysis addressed three
case studies dating from the 1990s and early 2000s). I could observe those
cases in agents’ discourse when ideas of collective identity, related to cultural
(Andean) issues, ideological views or an inter-group sense of a ‘we’ were
posed by interviewees (decision makers in charge of Andean integration at
the time of the processes observed in the three case studies, both at the
national governmental and regional levels) as reasons for action, or in the
form of metaphors that denoted change in the state or course of things. A
salient example of issues of collective identity as reasons for action was
interviewees’ reference to the ‘political cost’ of leaving the AC that the
Peruvian government did not want to pay, despite neglecting incorporation
into the Andean Free Trade Zone and the adoption of a Common External
Tariff – namely two trade schemes necessary for achieving Andean
integration goals such as the constitution of a common market. This
‘political cost’ is a metaphor related to issues of collective identity mentioned
by some interviewees, such as one of them asserting that ‘[t]here could not
be an idea that Peru was not Andean’, and that although the Peruvian
president wanted Peru to leave the AC in 1997, ‘[Peru] could not escape the
concept of fraternity’. This was related to the same interviewee’s view that
AC member countries are ‘naturally Andean [and] this makes it very difficult
to tell a country “get out of here” [the AC]’ because ‘[w]e are brothers’.
When related to other interviewees’ identification of the other AC member
countries’ ‘integrationist spirit’ and ‘Peru’s integrationist vocation/identity’,
the causal power of the ‘political cost’ metaphor, pointed out by other
interviewees, could be assessed (Prieto 2013; 2016, ch. 2).
Likewise, there were several cases where norms were discursively framed
as making agents do certain things or making state officials identify among
them or with regional norms because of the benefits these offered (see also
Prieto 2015). A good example of the latter was national and regional
decision makers’ pointing to the benefits that Andean norms provided them
in terms of pursuing negotiations with third parties, or strengthening their
national norms on areas like environment, trade and social policy. Moreover,
regional norms and institutions generated national and regional bureaucrats’
identification among them as a group, which created what I named the
‘inter-group dimension’ of Andean collective identity, and which was posed
by interviewees as explaining the well-functioning of Andean integration in
different stances (Prieto 2015).
Hence, in those cases where interviewees used transitive verbs or
metaphors to denote change related to issues of collective identity and
regional institutions, or posed these ideas as reasons for action, I argued that
those ideas played a causal role, in distinction from a constitutive role that
could be assessed when ideas were mentioned by agents as referents for
action, but in a different fashion from reasons, metaphors denoting change,
or ideas making agents act in certain ways and not others. By using this
interpretive methodology, I was able to show that ideas such as the political
cost of abandoning the AC, related to the cultural dimension of Andean
collective identity, and ideas such as the opposite ideologies about trade and
development that flooded Andean regionalism in the mid-2000s, could be
understood as causal factors that could explain Peru remaining an AC
member in the 1990s and the breaking-off of trade collective negotiations
with the EU in 2008, respectively. Normative structures, such as Andean
norms and institutional bodies, also made member states act in certain ways
towards Peru’s reluctance to adopt crucial regional trade and tariff
agreements, also to undertake trade negotiations with the EU collectively,
and to develop a social issue area of Andean regionalism in order to save or
relaunch the Andean integration process.
My engagement of critical realism allowed me to highlight the ‘real’
existence of ideas in agents’ discourse, showing that the causal role of
collective identity and regional institutions did not depend on one or several
agents believing in such causal power, but crucially that such ideas were
shared by several agents as constituting a real reference framework (structure)
for thinking and deciding on what to do towards regionalism. Such analysis
was carried out using interpretive methods, showing that a constructivist
ontology and a critical realist epistemology can be fruitfully bridged through
interpretive methods. By contrasting interviewees’ views on the role of ideas,
and relating them to the contexts where decisions were made in the different
case studies, I was able to assess how the causal power of ideas emerged as a
product of agents’ views on issues of collective identity and on regional
institutions, and of their interpretations of those contexts. In these terms,
causal emergence and the causal power of normative structures were part of
my critical realist and constructivist causal analysis.
 The work of Craig Parsons (2003) represents a cutting-edge milestone in
constructivist causal analysis. In footnote 29 on p. 9, Parsons declares his
subscription to ‘an epistemological position close to Wendt’s scientific
realism, which recognizes the interpretive challenge of social science in a
socially constructed world but holds that reasonably objective study of ideas
and norms as “social facts” alongside structural or institutional “facts” is
possible’. Parsons states that his conception of the ‘autonomous role of ideas
does not imply a monocausal approach’ (2003, p. 9), thus engaging
multicausality in concordance to critical realism. His engagement of critical
realism can also be observed in his adoption of falsifiability as a validity
criterion for his causal account (2003, p. 19), which aligns his work with the
IBE criterion outlined in the first section of this chapter; quoting Lakatos
(1970), ‘[t]here is no falsification before the emergence of a better theory’
(quoted in Parsons 2003, p. 28; see also p. 242). Parsons’ approach is causal
but non-deterministic, thus rejecting any aim of prediction (2003, p. 19),
and therefore in line with critical realism.
Parsons (2003, p. 11) is particularly concerned with the ‘how much’
problem in the causal power of ideas, that is, how much ideas make the
difference with respect to other causal factors (such as, for instance, structural
constraints). His answer to this problem is that the causal power of ideas can
be more clearly observed when, facing the same structural or material
conditions, two different actors respond in different fashion according to
their ideas about the same situation, which Parsons calls ‘crosscutting ideas’
(2003, p. 12). The other case where the causal power of ideas can be clearly
assessed is when a leader’s ideas make others (mainly his or her followers to a
greater or lesser extent) do things in one particular way and not another
(2003, p. 15). Causal emergence is present in both cases, for Parsons does not
imply that every time two actors choose different options facing the same
material constraints, or every time there is a leader, the causal power of ideas
is displayed. Quite the contrary, he underscores that it is in those cases where
the causal power of ideas can be observed with greater clarity, but it is always
context dependent and unique to a particular setting of structural constraints
and actors’ ideas about what to do.
 In his causal quest, Parsons is even more ambitious, to the point of
establishing why certain ideas win over others, mainly through
institutionalization (2003, pp. 19–22), thereby showing the causal power of
normative structures. His causal explanation is twofold: on the one hand,
certain ideas win because they promote change within prevailing institutions
– that is, they seek institutional reform inside such institutions instead of
replacing them with others. This explanation highlights the causal power of
norms (institutions), as norms tend to make agents more attached to them
and keener to accept internal reform of current norms than their
replacement by other norms. And on the other hand, some ideas fit better
with elements of the environment, that is, they gear with structural
constraints in a smoother way than other ideas, for instance, better
incorporating a greater number of issues or providing less shocking or less
costly solutions for certain problems (2003, pp. 20–1). Note that in both
causal explanations Parsons’ commitment to singularity and emergence
remains.
Emergence is also found in Parsons’ account when he states that the
causal power of ideas is more feasible to be assessed when, among a variety
of opposing options, actors prefer to do what their ideas indicate (2003, p.
236). That is different from assuming that in any context, and facing any (or
not too different) options, actors’ ideas are what always explain their actions.
Facing certain structural constraints (like normative structures, environmental
conditions, material needs and so forth), action might not be explained
much by actors’ ideas if there is no ‘crosscutting battle of ideas’ taking place
(2003, p. 19). But the opposition of a leader’s ideas with the previously
standing ideas of the institutional setting may have causal effects on the
actions of decision makers, all this happening in certain contexts or historical
moments, though never as an uninterrupted process (2003, p. 19).
Causal emergence and the causal power of normative structures are
characteristic of constructivist analyses engaging a critical realist approach to
causation. As Parsons points out, in the work of constructivists like
Alexander Wendt, Martha Finnemore, Peter Katzenstein and Audi Klotz,
‘the causal arrows flow primarily from [normative] structures to agents’
(2003, p. 237, paraphrasing Checkel 1998, brackets added by Parsons).
Emergence is also acknowledged in Barkin’s account of constructivism, as
the analysis of internal logics within social constructs is what allows
constructivists to address both continuity and change (Barkin 2010, p. 49).
The following section will argue that constructivism’s focus on causal
emergence and on the causal power of normative structures may be of great
benefit for causal explanations provided from a realist constructivist
approach, which in turn might benefit from rationality and interactionality
for understanding the causal effects of agency and power politics.

Co-constitution and causation between agency and structure

This section argues for the complementarity between rationality and
interactionality, on the part of classical realism, and causal emergence and the
causal power of normative structures, on the part of constructivism, for
providing better causal explanations from a realist constructivist approach,
than classical realist and constructivist explanations on their own. First, the
encountering of these causal conceptions will be analyzed in Barkin’s (2010)
version of RC, and second, the actual working of these conceptions will be
assessed in some realist constructivist works, showing that constructivists can
focus on the analysis of power, and provide causal explanations of its results
through the study of communicative strategies and rhetoric, and their
interplay with social structures such as normative structures that determine
the possibilities of success of communicative (rhetorical) power. In both
cases, the limitations of a realist constructivist causal account will also be
highlighted.
Classical realism’s compatibility with constructivism is underscored by
Barkin (2010, p. 36) when he asserts that ‘[a]gency requires ideas because
without thought as motivation, there is no agency, there is only inertia and
reaction’. This must not be misunderstood as contradicting Morgenthau’s
rejection of motives as part of realist analysis; while Morgenthau rejects
motives such as emotions for guiding political behaviour (rationality), he
acknowledges the importance of motives as moral reasons, in terms of
evaluating the extent to which one’s reasons might be accepted by the other’s
moral settings, which would in turn facilitate one’s exercise of power.
According to Barkin (2010, p. 72), ‘[p]ower politics is … the ability to
achieve your public interest in a world in which it is in conflict with other
public interests’. In this sense, classical realism could provide a causal
explanation of why agents reproduce or change structures, but the concrete
reason for either reproducing or changing them could better be provided by
constructivism (the study of ideas). As Barkin (2010, p. 4) suggests, classical
realism tells us what politics is about – the struggle for power – and
constructivism tells us how to study it.
The relation between agency and structure is precisely the middle ground
or place of encounter where realist constructivist causal explanations might
benefit from classical realist and constructivist accounts. As Barkin points
out, the realist constructivist synthesis

is one that brings from classical realism a focus on power politics and
on foreign policy, and from constructivism a focus on, and a
methodology for studying, the co-constitution of structures and
agents. It builds on a common foundation on a logic of the social,
and a demand for reflexivity and historical context found in both
constructivism and classical realism. (2010, p. 7)

Barkin places the causal focus of classical realism on agency, just as it has
been shown in the present chapter in the review of Carr’s and Morgenthau’s
works. In the case of Carr, utopianism, as a property of agency (agents’
rationality), is the causal explanation of international disaster. In the case of
Morgenthau, it is power interest, also as a property of agency, that is the
causal explanation of power politics. For both authors, interactionality is
mainly determined by agency, namely the interplay of actors’ actions guided
by their interests, and neither in Carr’s nor in Morgenthau’s accounts is the
role of external structural constraints underscored. However, they both
acknowledge the existence of structural constraints: for Carr, the harmony of
interests approach does not work where states face unequal material
conditions; for Morgenthau, material resources are crucial for engaging
different power patterns (ie opposition and competition), and systems’
tendency to equilibrium and balance is a natural, structural force (though
explained by actors’ natural interest in power, at least in the case of political
systems). But both Carr and Morgenthau’s analyses focus on agents’
rationality, interests and interactionality.
Instead, constructivism’s primary focus is on structure. Ideas, in the form
of identity, norms and culture (institutions) are part of structure, not of
agency (Wendt 1999, ch. 3). Causal emergence, for critical realism, and for
constructivism, is the product of the interplay of agents’ interests (agency)
with ideas and material constraints (structures) in a particular time and place.
Reality, moreover, is not what each agent chooses to acknowledge, but what
is socially shared by two or more agents: the more agents there are sharing
particular understandings of reality, the more ‘real’ such reality is to them. It
is in the understanding of mutual constitution between agency and structure
that constructivism may provide a great contribution to classical realism,
which may in turn benefit the former in providing explanations for
structural change, based on agents’ interests and rational behaviour
(understood as the use of rationality).
Barkin narrowly affirms that in both realism and constructivism the
motor for change is agency (2010, pp. 10–11), thus suggesting that agency is
where causal power should be mainly sought. But a critical realist and
constructivist account of causation points precisely to the causal role of ideas,
those being part of structure and not agency: in other words, ideas make
agents act in certain ways and not others, and hence have causal power on
agency. And here is where RC can benefit from constructivism for
understanding why agency, and therefore causation, takes place in the ways it
does. However, classical realism’s understanding of rationality can help in
understanding why sometimes agents’ ideas tell them to reproduce ideational
structures (such as normative structures and institutional settings), and why
sometimes ideas indicate to change them. Considering the other’s material
resources and moral beliefs, as part of agents’ rationality may help to
understand why agents choose to attempt to change or to preserve the status
quo (ie opposition or competition). As Barkin (2010, p. 58) points out,
constructivism opposes methodological individualism from rational choice
theory, not rationality as the use of reason.
While it is true that constructivism addresses structure and human agency
as a process of mutual constitution, it does not offer a particular method for
studying how this process takes place (besides, of course, the wide-open
method[s] of process tracing). Realism’s rationality may provide a means for
doing this, though, clearly, engaging such a method would imply a strong
ontological commitment (one that constructivists might not be able to
accept: see the conclusion later). But a point of coincidence between
constructivism and classical realism is their focus on people as agents,
particularly decision-making elites. Both Carr and Morgenthau, as well as
Parsons and myself, focus on decision makers to understand state agency,
their rationality (the process by which actors decide on what to do) and the
ideas that inform and cause their actions.
In these terms, RC could provide better causal explanations than classical
realist and constructivist accounts on their own, for it may be able to address
the relationship between agents and ideational and material structures in a
more comprehensive fashion. Following Barkin (2010, p. 57), the logic of
appropriateness in constructivism may be an excessively structural condition
that reduces agency to an exercise of norm following. As Barkin (2010, p.
57) points out, ‘[i]f people act according to existing social norms, and do not
interact with those norms strategically, then where do norms come from,
and how do they change?’ Classical realism can complement constructivism
in showing that agents’ rational behaviour can explain how agents
strategically deal with norms. In turn, the critical realist constructivist
assumption about the causal power of reasons may help a great deal in
understanding agents’ choices about structure, where reasons may be also
explained from a constructivist perspective, and conflate with classical
realism’s rationality at different levels of analysis. At the agent’s level, power
interests may explain to a large extent agents’ choosing of power patterns.
But at the interplay of agency and structure, agents’ reasons in relation to
ideational structures (like identity, institutions, knowledge and culture) may
explain a great deal of agents’ choices.
Furthermore, the concept of emergence may help to understand why
certain results derive from interactionality and not others. As pointed out
earlier, the way Morgenthau addresses the balance of power is consistent
with the concept of emergence because we remain uncertain about the
results from agents’ struggle for power until interactionality has taken place
(note here that Morgenthau’s search for objective laws refers to how agents
behave, not to the results of their interaction). In the two constructivist
works dealing with causation discussed earlier, emergence and singularity
were key concepts for assessing the causal power of ideas, as both Parsons and
myself observed causal effects of ideas in particular circumstances without
claiming that they would repeat uninterruptedly in similar contexts. Indeed,
classical realism and constructivism’s rejection of causation as regular patterns
of behaviour facilitates the provision of causal explanations from a realist
constructivist account (although remember Morgenthau rejects the finding
of mechanical laws, but not of objective laws that can yield a general theory
of politics).
In synthesis, RC’s combination of rationality and interactionality on the
one hand, and emergence and the causal power of normative structures on
the other, can enable it to provide more comprehensive causal explanations
than classical realist and constructivist accounts on their own. In what
follows, the presence of these elements is analyzed in some works identified
by Barkin as subscribing to a realist constructivist approach. It is shown that
constructivist analyses of power can be carried out through the study of
communication and rhetoric, but that pursuing such analysis might upset the
balance between constructivism and classical realism, as communicative and
rhetorical choices and their success are addressed as being more determined
by normative structures than by power asymmetries in terms of material
resources.
Barkin (2010, p. 166, n 6) suggests Bially Mattern (2005) as one example
of a realist constructivist analysis. Bially Mattern subscribes to a constructivist
ontology, and what brings her closer to realism is her concern about the
ways in which soft power can be effectively exercised. For Bially Mattern,
what causes attraction (and the success of exercising soft power) is
communicative strategy, that is, how the speaker articulates his or her
interpretation to listeners during communicative exchanges. Accordingly,
communicative strategy ‘emphasizes the particular manner in which a
speaker links the phrases of her narrative together to form a coherent
representation’ (Bially Mattern 2005, p. 598). Bially Mattern distinguishes
different kinds of communicative strategies (argumentation, bargaining,
manipulation, seduction and representational force, among them), but
ultimately they all have something key in common directly related to
interactionality: that they always take the other into account, that is, they are
all deployed considering the other’s degree of disposal to attend the strategy.
Furthermore, interactionality also has causal power because when actors
choose their communicative strategies they locate themselves in the
sociolinguistically constructed reality that indicates who they are (how others
see them) and what may be the best way to frame their messages in order for
others to accept them, or at least find them understandable and worth
listening to (2005, pp. 599–600). In these terms, both the others’ disposal or
scope to attend the message, and their views on the chooser of the strategy,
have causal effects on the choosing of the communicative strategy. All this is
closely related to Carr’s and Morgenthau’s acknowledgement of the
importance of the others’ moral frameworks, and it is of course completely
aligned with constructivism’s ontological view of reality as a social
construction.
However, what is missing in Bially Mattern’s account in order to fit better
into a realist constructivist approach is the analysis of the determinants of the
others’ disposal to attend messages. While sociolinguistic structures may
exert significant power over agents in determining such disposal, the power
interests of those agents and their relation to material constraints (like threats
or pressures from other agents) surely have a great deal of influence over
agents’ disposal to attend others’ communicative strategies. It is this more
materialist dimension of Bially Mattern’s constructivist account – of course
seen from an emergent perspective – that could make her analysis a more
robust realist constructivist one.
Another work identified by Barkin (2010, p. 166, n 6) as adopting a
realist constructivist perspective is Krebs and Jackson (2007). For Krebs and
Jackson (2007, p. 42), ‘language has a real causal impact on political
outcomes’. In principle, what makes Krebs and Jackson’s article realist
constructivist is their interest in ‘constructivism with coercive characteristics,
focused on the exercise of power’ (2007, p. 37). Moreover, Krebs and
Jackson’s interest in providing a causal realist constructivist account is explicit
in their article’s last paragraph (2007, p. 58):

We further suggest that it is possible to make causal claims without

trespassing into the murky waters of subjective motivation and
without relying on problematic mechanisms like persuasion. Many
IR constructivists would be comfortable with the first of these
claims, many realists and students of political culture with the second,
few from either camp with their combination. This article has sought
to demonstrate that their conjunction is both logically sustainable and
potentially productive.

They are interested in explaining the causal power of rhetorical coercion and
in establishing the conditions under which rhetorical coercion can be
(causally) effective (like rationality, interactionality, emergence and normative
structures):

In sum, one argument ‘wins’ not because its grounds are ‘valid’ in
the sense of satisfying the demands of universal reason or because it
accords with the audience’s prior normative commitments or
material interests, but because its grounds are socially sustainable –
because the audience deems certain rhetorical deployments
acceptable and others impermissible. (Krebs and Jackson 2007, p. 47)

From a realist constructivist perspective, it could be argued that what

determines how acceptable certain rhetorical deployments will be is
determined by agents’ rationality (moral expectancies) and normative
structures (for instance, establishing the social validity of arguments), and also
by interactionality – in terms of how agents communicate with each other
and how they see/interpret each other’s claims; all this approached from a
conception of emergence where context frames rhetorical options and
deployments, and closure of the possibilities for answer.
Yet, in any case, Krebs and Jackson’s account of rhetorical coercion
consists much more of a linguistic-communicative and even constructivist
approach than a realist one, even more so considering the absence of material
power analysis in their study. For them this begs the question to what extent
the closure of the possibilities for answer (rhetorical coercion) can work
when those pursuing such closure have much weaker material means to
broadcast their claims, mostly in terms of legitimacy.
Both Bially Mattern’s and Krebs and Jackson’s works show that it is
possible – and desirable – for constructivists to focus on power and to
analyze interactionality under normative structures in order to understand
the success of the exercise of power, all this approached from an emergent
perspective. However, their focus on communication and language poses the
greater weight on communicative interaction (interactionality) than on the
power constraints (not only from normative structures, but from power
asymmetries regarding material resources) that agents might suffer when
attending the other’s rhetoric. This might, on the one hand, grant priority to
constructivism over classical realism, further showing that the combination of
both approaches is not an easy one to make; but on the other, their focus on
communication should call RC’s attention to seriously engage the analysis of
language and interpretation, for these are crucial ways in which power is
exerted. The final section of this chapter will develop this point and show
that it also applies to critical realism, particularly to its methodological
dimension.

Theorizing the causal power of agency and structure and RC’s need
for interpretivism
The previous sections have argued for a possible – and desirable –
combination of classical realism and constructivism, for each approach
strengthens the other’s weakness in addressing the causal power of agency
and structure. While classical realism underscores the causal power of agency
by focusing on agents’ rationality and interactionality, constructivism
underscores the causal power of structure by emphasizing normative
structures and the structural constraints of power through the conception of
emergence. In this sense, an RC approach may well be able to provide better
causal explanations than classical realism and constructivism on their own, at
least engaging critical realism as a philosophy of science that may provide
solid epistemological grounds to address causation for each of them, and for
RC in a more comprehensive fashion.
However, the combination of classical realism and constructivism faces
some challenges and limitations both in methodological and ontological
terms. Regarding the former, understanding the causal power of agency over
structure and vice versa requires bracketing each of them (Finnemore 1996,
pp. 24–5; Checkel 2001, p. 579; see also Prieto 2013, p. 67), which may
imply limitations to the understanding of their mutual constitution (co-
constitution). Constructivism should provide to classical realism the
possibility of accounting for what Barkin (2010, p. 132, referring to the
work of Barnett and Duvall 2005) points to as constitutive power, namely
the effects that power has on the constitution of actors and the situations
they are involved in. This account should complement realism’s interactional
power, namely the strategies agents use to exercise power considering other
agents’ interests, morality and power resources, which in turn have effects on
the reproduction and transformation of that constitutive power (social
structures). Thus, on the one hand, constructivism tells us that agents’
interests (rationality) are constituted by normative structures and social
context. On the other, rationality tells us that agents’ choices may well
change or preserve social structures. While it is technically impossible to
simultaneously give account or grant greater weight to one or another in a
concrete case, bracketing each of them directly leads to ignoring (at least
momentarily) their constitutive effects on each other. Hence, when
accounting for the causal power of agents’ choices one needs to put aside the
constitutive effects of social context and normative structures on such
choices (rationality); and when accounting for the causal power of social
structure one needs to put aside agents’ purposive action over such
structures. In these terms, realist constructivist causal explanations
accounting for the causal power of both agency and structure might be
richer, but not particularly dynamic, and in any case hardly easier.
With regard to ontology, RC requires the assumption that agents are
(natural) power seekers, something that escapes/skips the process of social
construction. For constructivism, rationality – what is understood as such
and how to enact it – is socially constructed, and this process of social
construction all has to do precisely with the constitutive and causal effects of
structure over agency. Hence, it becomes a hard shot for constructivism to
accept that, in order to understand the causal power of agents’ choices over
structure, RC departs from the assumption that such choices are a priori
guided by power politics. If combined as realism as ontology and
constructivism as methodology (as Barkin himself suggests), RC offers the
possibility to better understand the mutual causal effects between agency and
structure. But if combined as two ontologies, it becomes difficult to match
power politics as realism’s main ontological category with constructivism’s
ideational structures like identity, knowledge, institutions, roles and culture.
Furthermore, I consider that RC needs to seriously engage interpretivism
in order to give an account of the causal power of interactionality,
particularly adopting an emergent perspective. In classical realism, exercising
power considering the other’s moral stands crucially depends on persuasion,
which in turn depends on language and communication. This is clearly
shown in Bially Mattern’s and Krebs and Jackson’s works reviewed in this
chapter. Indeed, Barkin himself acknowledges the causal power of
interpretation:

Even if all actors in the international system at a given point in time

accept the same basic set of normative structures, they will differ in
their interpretation of those structures, whether for rationally self-
 interested reasons or for psychological reasons, or because of the
complexity and room for interpretation within any moral system.
When interpretations differ, the power of the interpreter continues
to matter. (Barkin 2010, p. 135)

Moreover, my work (and partly Parsons’, because of his focus on the

‘battling of ideas’) shows that the use of interpretive methods helps a great
deal with constructivism’s aim of accounting for the causal power of ideas. In
this sense, the causal power of agents’ actions, even if assumed to be oriented
by the rationality of power politics, may be better explained by incorporating
interpretive methods (as Bially Mattern and Krebs and Jackson do), as may
be the causal effects of ideas (structure) over agents’ choices (as my work and
partly Parsons’ does). In synthesis, RC may well have the potential to offer
more encompassing causal explanations than classical realism and
constructivism on their own, but its proposed middle ground comes at
certain ontological costs and faces significant methodological challenges that
scholars engaging this approach must crucially be aware of.

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 3

Constructivist and Neoclassical Realisms

J. Samuel Barkin

Neoclassical realism is one of the major new developments in realist theory

in the past two decades, and provides a theoretical framework, whether
explicit (Boyle, Chapter 4) or implicit (Bano, Chapter 5) for two of the
chapters in this volume. It is an approach that aspires to bridge the gap
between classical realism’s focus on foreign policy and neorealism’s
systematism and parsimony. Rather than classical realism’s focus on policy
prescription, neoclassical realism looks to explain foreign policy, and to do so
by using neorealism’s conclusions about the nature of anarchy and the
international system as a starting point. But to the extent that it espouses a
neopositivist methodology, as most neoclassical realists do, it fails. This
methodology, which assumes that specific policy predictions can be derived
from neorealism and claims to be using specific cases to generate broader
inferences about foreign policy making, is inappropriate to its goal of
explaining foreign policy decisions.
In practice, the absence of fit between explanatory goal and espoused
methodology has meant that for the most part the methodological claims of
neoclassical realists are not matched by the methods they use. Jennifer
Sterling-Folker, for example, notes that ‘realist structural expectations are so
broad that most of the heavy explanatory lifting must be done by
constructivism instead, which is why neoclassical realist scholarship typically
produces historical narratives’ (Sterling-Folker 2009a, p. 111). This chapter
expands on and unpacks her observation. It argues that constructivism,
which assumes that international politics are socially constructed rather than
determined by a distribution of material capabilities, and which therefore
focuses on the norms, identities, discourses, and so on that inform foreign
policy decision making, provides the appropriate set of methodologies for
neoclassical realism.
Matching their generally implicit constructivist methods with explicitly
constructivist ontologies and methodologies would allow neoclassical realists
to broaden the scope of cases they can usefully discuss, to better address
questions of power in the making of foreign policy, and to deal effectively
with the belief structures that so often underlie foreign policy. It would also,
contra neopositivist claims to science by many neoclassical realists, improve
the explanatory robustness of the approach by moving the focus of debate
from discussions about neorealism and foreign policy that cannot be decided
empirically to discussions of specific foreign policy contexts that are based on
empirical analysis.
This chapter first presents a brief introduction to neoclassical realism. It
continues with three general critiques of the neopositivist and system-driven
versions of the approach: that system structure does not provide specific
enough guidance to serve as a basis for foreign policy analysis, that it does
not provide a useful basis for discussing the beliefs that underlie the national
interest, and that neopositivist methodological and epistemological claims
not only fail to match, but in fact undermine the methods actually used. It
then builds the argument that constructivist methodology provides a better
fit with the methods that neoclassical realists actually use. Finally, it pre-
empts a common critique of constructivism, that it cannot speak the realist
language of power.

Neoclassical realism
The term ‘neoclassical realism’ was first coined in 1998 by Gideon Rose to
describe a growing body of literature that attempts to incorporate both the
systemic thinking of neorealism and the foreign policy focus of classical
realism (Rose 1998). He was speaking of a body of work that had not
previously been seen as a coherent approach and therefore did not have a
clear and coherent set of assumptions and methodological tools in common
(including Wohlforth 1993; Brown, Lynn-Jones and Miller 1995;
Christensen 1996; Schweller 1998; Zakaria 1998). But he did identify
among them a common commitment to developing a systematized and
generalizable theory of foreign policy. He also identified a preferred
methodology, of theoretically informed narratives, process tracing, and
counterfactual analysis, which he identified as occupying a middle ground
between structural theory and constructivism (Rose 1998, pp. 153–4).
Neoclassical realism has been variously described as a general approach, a
research community (Sterling-Folker 2009b), and more recently as a research
programme (Ripsman et al 2016, p. 1). A recent attempt to codify the
approach has identified a set of assumptions held in common by most
(although not all) of the community. This project resulted first in an edited
and then an authored volume by Steven Lobell, Norrin Ripsman and Jeffrey
Taliaferro (Lobell et al 2009; Ripsman et al 2016). They identify three key
elements to the approach. The first is the assumption that neorealism is an
accurate theory of international politics and that it provides sufficiently clear
guidance to foreign policy decision makers that they should in at least some
circumstances be able to identify the proper policy to maximize security
and/or power (Taliaferro et al 2009, p. 19). The general point of reference
for neorealism is Kenneth Waltz’s version as elaborated in Theory of
International Politics (Waltz 1979) but they do not explicitly argue that it is
this, rather than other versions of neorealism, that must be the starting point
for determining systemically appropriate policy.
The second is what they identify as the neoclassical realist conception of
the state. They begin with the assumption of human sociality, that people act
in, and identify with, groups, and suggest that sovereign states are the
relevant groups for the purposes of studying foreign policy making. They
then look at two groups of actors within states. The first is those directly
tasked with making or advising foreign policy, a group they refer to as the
foreign policy elite, or FPE. This group is assumed to act, or at least try to
act, in the national interest, or at least in the national interest as they perceive
it. The second group, elements of domestic society that pressure or lobby the
FPE, are assumed to think in terms of their own private and parochial
interests, rather than the broader group or national interest. The FPE is thus
seen as the focal point of tension between the international system and
particular domestic interests, and as an honest proponent of the national
interest (Taliaferro et al 2009, pp. 23–8).
The third element is what they call soft positivism but which fits into
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson’s definition of neopositivism, a commitment to a
set of ideas about how social science should be conducted (Ripsman et al
2016, pp. 105–7). They claim that neoclassical realists ‘aspire to a greater
methodological sophistication than their classical realist predecessors’
(Taliaferro et al 2009, p. 19). It is not always clear what counts as
methodological sophistication, for which they seem to draw on sources
ranging from King, Keohane and Verba (1994) to Lakatos (1970). But it
seems to be consistent with the use of inferential logic to test deductive
theories. It draws on Rose’s observation about generalizable theory but is
not compatible with the methodology he identifies, as will be discussed later.

System structure
These three elements provide the starting points for the three critiques
presented here of the mainstream neoclassical realism that Lobell, Ripsman
and Taliaferro’s work represents (the order of their names is different across
publications, so in reference to the general body of their work I refer to
them in alphabetical order). The first of these critiques is that neorealist
arguments about system structure are a bad starting point for understanding
foreign policy and foreign policy making. As Jennifer Sterling-Folker notes,
neorealism is simply too underdetermining of policy – it is designed to
identify constraints on, rather than to predict specific, foreign policies
(Sterling-Folker 2009a, p. 111). As such, it does not provide the sort of
analytical anchor that most neoclassical realists call upon it to provide. The
standard starting point of neoclassical realist analysis is that the system will in
some cases, or at minimum in the ideal case, identify a clear, preferred policy
option, and that domestic politics as a category then needs to be used to
explain situations in which states fail to choose this policy option, or when
system imperatives are unclear. But systemic imperatives, for reasons
discussed later, never dictate a clear and objectively preferable foreign policy.
Therefore, to assume the existence of such a policy as an analytical starting
point and to try to explain divergences from it is to build an analysis on
ground that does not exist.
Lobell, Ripsman and Taliaferro accept that neorealism does not always
specify a clear policy outcome. They argue that systemic imperatives will be
clearer in some sorts of cases than in others, and it is when systemic policy
imperatives are less clear that we must look to domestic politics to predict
outcomes (eg Ripsman et al 2016, p. 5). But this is problematic in three
ways. The first is that most neoclassical realists study cases that involve
serious security threats, where systemic imperatives should apply most
clearly. This is odd in the context of an argument that it is precisely to these
cases that neoclassical realism should apply least well. The second is that it
introduces a potential tautology into the argument. If one assumes that states
will follow systemic imperatives when they are clear, the best way to tell how
clear systemic imperatives are is to see to what extent states are following
them. But then divergence from systemic imperatives becomes both an
explanatory factor and that to be explained. And the third way in which it is
problematic is that it undermines the role of neorealism at the core of the
argument. It assumes that neorealism works except when it does not work.
To the extent that neoclassical realists do study core security crises, the
implication is that systemic imperatives are unclear even with respect to these
crises. If this is the case, what useful role is neorealism really playing in the
analytical process, and therefore as a starting point for neoclassical realism? In
this sense, neoclassical realism is in fact a pointedly weak realism.
Furthermore, even should the system provide clear guidance for the
general direction of policy, it does not provide guidance for the actual
content of policy. Neorealist theories, and neoclassical realist theories in their
portrayal of systemic imperatives, speak of such things as balancing and
bandwagoning (eg Waltz 1979; Schweller 1994), and at their most specific of
alliances (eg Walt 1987). Colin Elman (1996) argues that if activities such as
balancing can be defined precisely enough, they can act as variables in a
neorealist theory of foreign policy. But ‘balancing’, whether external or
internal, is a goal, not a foreign policy. External balancing can happen
through a broad range of mechanisms, from tacit political understandings to
the institutional integration of military structures. Balances can happen
through formal alliances or informal coalitions. And it is not clear ex ante
which format will be more effective – formal alliances are often designed as
much to deal with internal political disputes as to promote external political
effectiveness, and ad hoc coalitions may turn out to be more effective
organizational tools for war fighting (Weitsman 2004, 2010). Systemic
imperatives are unlikely to give clear guidance as to which of this range of
institutional forms of external balancing is ideal for any specific
circumstance.
Nor can external and internal balancing be taken as distinct categories.
External balancing, after all, creates clear collective action problems, and to
be effective requires efforts at internal balancing on the part of major (and
minor) powers as well (eg Christensen and Snyder 1990). Even if we accept
defensive neorealism unproblematically, therefore, we cannot look to
systemic imperatives to predict specific trade-offs between military
expenditures and economic development, between internal and external
balancing, and between alliances and coalitions, let alone among specific
strategies of pre-emption or containment. For example, Mark Brawley
(2009) discusses the strategies of Britain, France and the Soviet Union in
response to a growing but temporally distant threat from a resurgent
Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. He clearly allows that the systemic logic of
balancing leaves space for a wide variety of specific choices. But he frames
his analysis as a question of why the three countries did not construct a
balancing alliance earlier. There is, however, no particular reason to believe
that a formal alliance, with the attendant risk of buckpassing, of debate
between France and the more distant Britain and Russia about defending
frontiers versus defence in depth, and of organizational ossification, would
have yielded more effective balancing than the ad hoc approach adopted.
The logic of the system may well have suggested balancing behaviour in
general, but it did not suggest a formal alliance per se, or any other specific
form of balancing.
Not only is policy under-specified by neorealism, but the most
fundamental of realist concepts, power, is under-specified as well (Guzzini
1993). Classical realists tell us that political science is the science of power,
but they also tell us that power is a psychological relationship, and that what
counts as power is contextually specific (eg Morgenthau 1985, pp. 34–6).
Some theorists of power in international relations, and in political science
more broadly, define power as the ability either to get what one wants or to
get others to do things they otherwise would not, a category of definitions
that speaks of power in terms of outcomes (Dahl 1961; Baldwin 1979). But
because of the focus on outcomes, this category understands power in a post
hoc way, useful in constructing explanatory narratives after the fact, but not
particularly useful in prescribing specific policies in specific contexts.
Neorealists avoid the contextualism of early realist understandings of power
and the pitfalls of the post hoc operationalizations of some later realists by
defining power in terms of capabilities (eg Waltz 1979, pp. 56–60). This has
the ostensible advantage of measurability. But unless a clear relationship can
be shown between a specific algorithm of capabilities and outcomes in
international relations, even this neorealist definition of power does not
point to specific foreign policies. Neorealist theory tends to look at
capabilities as a disaggregated mass, with an emphasis on material capabilities
but without any discussion of which such capabilities are likely to matter
most in which contexts, or the time scale across which they should be
maximized (Brawley 2009 makes this point). As such, it gives little guidance
for how power can most effectively be maximized with respect to specific
foreign policy decisions or needs. And without such guidance, neorealist
theory does not usefully identify ideal foreign policies in specific contexts.
None of these observations should be taken as critiques of neorealism per
se. To argue that the system does not determine specific foreign policies
would only be a critique if neorealists claimed that the system is
determinative of foreign policy. And for the most part they do not do so.
Neorealist theory tends to be about patterns of polarity and structure in the
system over the long term, not about specific foreign policies. Kenneth
Waltz, for example, specifically cautions us not to ‘mistake a theory of
international politics for a theory of foreign policy’ (Waltz 1979, p. 121).
More broadly, to read Waltz as a starting point for predicting foreign policy
making may be to fundamentally misconstrue his argument. In fact, he
warns us in this context not ‘to commit what one might call “the numerical
fallacy” – to draw a qualitative conclusion from a quantitative result’ (Waltz
2000, p. 38), a warning specifically against what Taliaferro, Lobell and
Ripsman (2009, p. 20) call ‘competitive hypothesis testing’. Stacie Goddard
and Daniel Nexon (2005), for example, argue that Waltz should be read as
an exercise in structural functionalism, and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson (2010)
argues that his argument is intended as an ideal type, not as an exercise in
prediction. Both of these arguments read Waltz as arguing that systemic
outcomes cannot be understood as an aggregation of foreign policies, but at
the same time foreign policies cannot be understood as reducible to the
system. The system, in this view, affects outcomes over time despite policy
choices, rather than by determining policy choices. In other words, Waltz
claims that we cannot understand the system from the actions of its parts, but
nor can we understand the actions of its parts from the system. Even Colin
Elman (1996, pp. 30–1), in making the argument that neorealism can be
used as a theory of foreign policy, suggests that because of its internal
inconsistencies, Waltz’s version of neorealism is among the least well placed
to do so. But Waltz is the most frequent starting point for neoclassical realists.
The claims of this sort of neorealist theory, then, are at the same time
sufficiently strong that they are not sensitive to particular foreign policy
decisions, and sufficiently weak that they cannot be applied meaningfully to
everyday politics. They are strong to the extent that outcomes in the long
term are not sensitive to national foreign policies. For Waltz (1979), bipolar
systems are more stable than multipolar systems, and systems tend naturally
towards balancing, regardless of the foreign policy competence of particular
states. For Robert Gilpin (1981), changes in the balance of power
undermine hegemony and drive change in the international system, again
regardless of the foreign policy competence of the hegemon or its
competitors.
It is true that if the system determines great power success in the long
term, then states in this category whose foreign policies systematically
diverge from systemic imperatives will be punished by the system. In Waltz’s
terms, they will either be socialized by the system to the appropriate foreign
policies, or they will be marginalized as powers by the system, or in the
extreme will cease to exist (Waltz 1979, pp. 127–8). From the perspective of
neoclassical realism, this argument cuts two ways. On the one hand, this
provides the argument by which neorealism is the logical starting point for
the analysis of foreign policy. States (or at least adequately socialized ones)
should figure out the appropriate foreign policies and act accordingly. Failure
to do so therefore needs to be explained, although from a neorealist (as
opposed to neoclassical realist) perspective there is no inherent reason that
systemic imperatives should mandate particular foreign policies rather than
sets of better or worse foreign policy choices. Reading neorealism as a source
of clear foreign policy imperatives is for the most part something more likely
to be ascribed to neorealists than to be claimed by them.
On the other hand, however, the argument presents a logical dilemma for
attempts to study systematic divergences of national foreign policies from
those demanded by systemic imperatives. To the extent that system structure
determines outcomes in international politics over the long term, states
whose foreign policies diverge systematically from those into which the
system should have socialized them should be punished by the system. If
they do not reform their policy making to eliminate the domestic
pathologies that are undermining their foreign policy effectiveness, they
should ultimately be eliminated by the system. The system here plays the
same disciplining role with respect to states as the market does with respect
to firms in economics (Boucoyannis 2007). This introduces an internal
contradiction into any attempt to look for patterned divergence from a
neorealist baseline, as many neoclassical realists claim to do (Oren 2009). The
sorts of systematic foreign policy-making pathologies that these scholars are
looking for should not, according to the logical starting point of their
approach, be able to persist over time.
The argument to this point has focused on Waltz’s theory, but there are of
course many other versions of neorealism. Among the best known of these is
offensive realism, a school of argument of which John Mearsheimer (eg
2001) is the best-known proponent. The existence of different neorealist
theories, with different specific claims about foreign policy, is itself
problematic for neoclassical realism. If one is to take the constraints of the
system as a starting point for analysis of foreign policy, and different
neorealist theories posit different constraints, how does one know which
constraints to begin with? A neoclassical realist who begins with neorealism
as a predictor of foreign policy must take a particular version of neorealism
on faith as a starting point because the neoclassical realist exercise itself is
premised on the assumption that the system has failed in a particular instance
to generate the policy suggested by systemic theory. And in applying the
theory to specific cases, scholars cannot be sure if divergences from
theoretical predictions are driven by flaws in the neoclassical realist theory of
foreign policy or in the neorealist theory of the international system on
which it is built.
Unlike Waltz, Mearsheimer does, within fairly broad parameters, predict
great power foreign policies. But his predictions are problematic as a starting
point for neoclassical realism, for two reasons: they are tautological and they
are wrong. They are tautological inasmuch as he defines great powers as
those whose foreign policies are generally in accord with his predictions for
the foreign policies of great powers (Mearsheimer 2001, pp. 5, 37). A
country the foreign policy of which systematically diverges from his
predictions, therefore, can be simply dismissed as not a great power. One
could then reasonably ask why that country did not choose to become (or to
try to become) a great power, but there is within Mearsheimer’s logic no
reason to believe that the answer to this question lies at the systemic level of
analysis.
The predictions are wrong to the extent that countries that would
colloquially be considered to be great powers often do not act as predicted
by the theory. With respect to the United States since the Second World
War, this is true by Mearsheimer’s own admission (eg Mearsheimer and Walt
2007). More broadly, few neoclassical realists begin with offensive realism as
an analytic starting point in part because states since the Second World War
have so often not acted as the theory predicts, despite its claims to predict
foreign policy. One exception to this generalization is Randall Schweller
(2009), who starts with Mearsheimer despite admitting that offensive realism
is successful only at predicting the foreign policies of fascist powers, and no
one else, in the 20th century. He then goes on to argue that it is the failure
of other countries to behave according to the dictates of the theory that
needs explaining, rather than the failure of the theory to predict as it
purports to do. He concludes that most states these days are insufficiently
fascist. By this rhetorical sleight of hand, a theoretical approach that claims to
be empirical rather than normative ends up making normative prescriptions
in the face of its own empirical failure.
The use of systemic theory as a starting point for a neoclassical realism
that makes specific predictions about foreign policy is therefore problematic
at two levels. The first is that most neorealisms provide an expected
constraint of foreign policy decision making, rather than a specific expected
foreign policy. To the extent that neoclassical realism is talking about
deviations from the foreign policy behaviour predicted by neorealism, the
absence of such predictions in the first place is a fatal flaw. The second is that
there exist a number of specific neorealist theories, and there is no a priori
mechanism for deciding among them. Furthermore, beginning with one of
these and building a neoclassical realist argument on it yields a conceptually
untestable result because we cannot know if any errors of prediction come
from the specific neoclassical realist argument about foreign policy, or from
its neorealist systemic anchor.

Social constructs
The second core critique of a neoclassical realism that takes systemic theory
as an analytical or predictive starting point is that it often ends up drawing on
arguments about various kinds of social constructs (eg Ripsman et al 2016,
ch. 3), from the formal (domestic political institutions) to the informal
(strategic culture and beliefs), but cannot address these constructs adequately
from its theoretical and methodological starting point. Some neoclassical
realist work, of course, deals with social constructs directly without
embedding the discussion in inferentialist language. This work is often
constructivist in its method, sometimes self-descriptively so (eg Sterling-
Folker 2009a). But much, and perhaps the majority, of work from the
neoclassical realist community has an awkward relationship with the social
constructs that are at the core of its explanatory logic. A useful example of
such a construct is the idea of the national interest.
Many works of neoclassical realism posit the concept of a national
interest, but the concept is often left un- or under-defined. There is often
the implication that there is a single, clear and objective national interest,
following neorealist arguments. But not all neorealists agree on what the
national interest is, and most posit a minimalist definition of its content.
Waltz, for example, argues that states have at minimum an interest in survival
(Waltz 1979, p. 126). But this only applies when state survival is directly
threatened, and even then can mean different things. For example, states can
face choices between territorial and institutional integrity, and neorealist
logic does not give a clear answer to which should be, or is likely to be,
prioritized. This minimalist definition is not a problem from Waltz’s
perspective – he is arguing that even with such a minimalist definition, the
system affects outcomes.
But it is a problem for neoclassical realism because it is an inadequate basis
on which to build a theory of foreign policy. This is the case for two reasons.
The first is that a concern for state survival does not, as a general
proposition, create sufficient content for the national interest to usefully
inform foreign policy making. States are rarely if ever confronted with a
clear policy choice between surviving and perishing. As such, even though
states may share survival as a common element of their national interests,
they will have other elements to their national interests that they do not have
in common, different things the preservation and promotion of which they
value differently. States may value a cultural or religious identity, a political
or economic structure. These symbols and foundations of nationhood
cannot be separated from the national interest because they are constitutive
of the nation that is to be preserved. Different populations are likely to have
different theories about the long-term efficacy of various policy types, and
different ideas of the most comfortable place to be in the international
system (Morgenthau 1985, pp. 31–2). All of these differences in interest are
ideational rather than material and are particular (or, in Waltz’s terminology,
reductionist) rather than systemic. In other words, to understand the national
interests of a particular states requires looking at the beliefs about foreign
policy and international politics within, and particular to, that state.
The second reason that a national interest in survival is an inadequate
basis on which to build a theory of foreign policy is that, to the extent that
the details of the national interest are ideational rather than objectively given,
there may not be a single commonly held national interest within a
particular state. In other words, to the extent that the national interest is in
part based on beliefs, and beliefs can reasonably differ across people, we can
expect that understandings of the national interest will also differ across
people and groups within a state. Even if all the relevant players in national
politics agree on a common interest in state survival, there can be
disagreement over what constitutes state survival and how it can best be
achieved. As such, there may well be no clear single national interest (but see
Krasner 1978). Disagreement over foreign policy priorities and strategies
may stem from legitimate conflict over what constitutes the national interest,
rather than attempts by particular interests to subvert the national interest to
their particular interests.
As an example, Colin Dueck (2009) looks at the implementation of
decisions by US presidents to go to war in Korea and Vietnam. He begins by
assuming that the respective presidents acted in their perception of the
national interest, after dispensing with the idea of an objective interest in the
first place (Dueck 2009, pp. 139, 146). In both cases implementation of war
plans was affected by domestic opposition. But much of this opposition was
itself cast in third-image and national interest terms – Waltz himself opposed
the war in Vietnam for neorealist reasons (Waltz 1967). Dueck’s historical
analysis of the effects of domestic opposition on the implementation of the
wars is sound. But his claim that these are cases of domestic, particularistic
interference with the pursuit of the national interest is not. Rather, these are
cases of clashes between two different interpretations of the national interest,
interpretations based on different beliefs both about what the national
interest should be, and about how to maximize American power in the
international system.
This tension between the assumption of a single objective national
interest that underlies much neoclassical realist logic and the reality of
national interests based on beliefs and subject to contention and redefinition
is mirrored in the tension between neoclassical realism’s assumptions about
politics and sociality, and its frequent use of two-level games to model
foreign policy making. Without the assumption of sociality, the assumption
that people form, think in terms of, and act as members of political groups,
the idea of a national interest rather than an aggregation of individual
interests that informs policy making, does not make sense (Sterling-Folker
2002). Lobell, Ripsman and Taliaferro note this explicitly (Taliaferro et al
2009, p. 24), and it is an idea well within the historical mainstream of realist
thinking. But at the same time, they posit a two-level game approach to
modelling foreign policy decision making, viewing the FPE as a fulcrum
between the demands of the international system on the one hand and of
domestic politics on the other (Putnam 1988). Not all neoclassical realist
work explicitly adopts this model but it appears to inform the thinking
behind much of it (eg Christensen 1996; Zakariah 1998).
It is a fundamentally liberal model, drawing as it does on rational choice
theory’s assumptions that individuals will act in their own, exogenously
given, interests. And in doing so, it presents an awkward mix of liberal and
realist assumptions about human nature and human behaviour. Realist
assumptions apply to the FPE, which is assumed to make decisions in the
national interest when allowed to do so by other politically potent people
within the country. But those other people, in effect everyone who is not a
member of the FPE, are all assumed to act in their particular parochial
interests, even when these conflict with or undermine the national interest.
There is no real justification for the assumption that members of the FPE
think primarily of the national interest, and everyone else does not.
Members of the elite may well be acting in parochial interests, whether these
be economic, political or ideological. And realist assumptions about sociality
should apply nationally, not just to the elite, otherwise free rider problems
would inevitably undermine the elite’s efforts to marshal resources for use in
the creation of the mechanisms of national power. Norrin Ripsman justifies
the distinction by pointing to a difference in access to information – the FPE
is better informed about the demands on foreign policy and therefore is able
to make better decisions (Ripsman 2009, p. 172). But a rational domestic
audience that accepts that decision makers are acting in the national interest
will realize this informational disparity and should as a result defer to the
FPE. And there is no a priori reason to expect that the FPE is rational (as it
must be to respond appropriately to systemic constraints) and the rest of the
population is not. The fact that neoclassical realist research shows that it
often is not suggests that either the logic or the assumptions of Rispman’s
justification is flawed.

Method and methodology

This third general critique of neoclassical realism is that the sort of
neopositivist language in which it is usually presented fails to match what
neoclassical realists actually do. Most neoclassical realists espouse a
neopositivist language of variables, of testing, and of inference and
prediction. Randall Schweller (2003), for example, talks of rigour, of
accepted social science, and of testing the propositions of realism. Lobell,
Ripsman and Taliaferro talk variously of ‘soft positivism’ and of ‘conscious
efforts to derive testable hypotheses, specify the predictions or observable
implications of those hypotheses, and finally to test the relative explanatory
power of neoclassical realist and alternative hypotheses against empirical
evidence’ (respectively Ripsman et al 2016, 105–7; and Taliaferro et al 2009,
p. 23).
Not all self-described neoclassical realists use this language. Jennifer
Sterling-Folker (2002, 2009a), for example, is a notable exception. A
growing group of neoclassical realists in the UK are less wedded to the
language of inference (eg Kitchen 2010. Buzan, Jones and Little 1993 can
also be read as a precursor to a constructivist neoclassical realism). But even
some internal critics of the mainstream of neoclassical realism argue in
neopositivist terms. Benjamin Fordham (2009), for example, argues against
using neorealist theory as an analytical starting point, and in favour of
examining the interactive effects of the international and domestic levels of
analyses. But he couches this model in neopositivist language that
undermines his ability to look at the constitutive effects of this interaction.
Colin Dueck (2006), meanwhile, explicitly invokes constructivism in his
discussion of American grand strategy, but nonetheless speaks in neopositivist
terms of theory testing.
Notwithstanding their discussions of method, what neoclassical realists
generally do, along with theorizing, is historical narrative. They are in effect
using theoretical models not as the bases to predict outcomes, but as ideal
types to help explain outcomes. Some neoclassical realists seem to accept this
proposition in practice even as they make broader claims about scientific
method and testability (eg Schweller 2003, p. 317; Ripsman et al 2016, pp.
105–7). Historical narratives trace processes and relationships, rather than
isolating specific variables for purposes of comparison. They are as such
methodologically better suited to the explication of particular cases than to
the drawing of inference from comparisons of cases. The role of theoretical
models in historical narrative is to use the necessarily simplified framework
of the model to illuminate key processes and relationships in the far more
complex history. As such, historical narratives are not particularly useful for
testing theories because the role of theory in the method is not to be
accurate per se but to be illuminating, to assist in our understanding of the
case (Jackson 2010; Barkin 2015). Therefore, the methodological language
that neoclassical realists tend to use does not match the method they
generally use in their empirical analyses.
Two reasons may explain why historical narrative is the predominant
empirical method used by neoclassical realists. The first is that they tend to
be interested not in the average case of foreign policy making, but in
particularly important cases; hence the focus on major wars and political
confrontations in their case studies. The focus on historical narratives about
key foreign policy contexts or decisions follows a political interest in key
events and debates rather than in the everyday decision making that would
dominate an inferential study. The goal here seems to be to understand key
historical events and to make more heuristically useful theory, rather than to
develop models that predict specific policy outcomes. In other words,
neoclassical realists’ empirical methods seems to match their analytical goals,
but their methodological language does not.
The second reason that neoclassical realists tend to rely on historical
narrative despite the frequent use of the language of neopositivism and
hypothesis testing is that their theories are, for the most part, far too under-
specified to use in strict comparisons across cases, whether these comparisons
be quantitative or qualitative. In particular, the dependent variable, foreign
policy, is unclear. What constitutes a foreign policy? Is it an overall strategy,
or a particular tactic or set of tactics? Is it internal discourse or external
activity? Creating testable hypotheses would require creating specific
measures of foreign policy and codifying policy outputs accordingly. Elman
argues that this is exactly what we should be doing in order to make
neorealism into a theory of foreign policy (Elman 1996, pp. 44–7). But
neoclassical realists tend not to do this, for two reasons. The first, as noted
earlier, is that they tend to be interested in important cases rather than
average cases. The second is that coding policy outputs for the sort of
variables that they talk about, such as balancing, requires both making
extensive subjective decisions in coding and coding rules (what exactly
counts as an alliance, and why?), and reducing complex and nuanced policy
environments and decisions into simple dichotomous or linear measures. To
do this in order to attempt to draw predictive inferences for the general case
means losing explanatory depth in specific cases. And it is this explanatory
depth that neoclassical realists tend to be looking for, and which
constructivist methodology is well placed to provide.
Even then, the tests would be of specific hypotheses. Lobell, Ripsman
and Taliafero’s stated aim to test neoclassical realism as an approach against
other general approaches to understanding foreign policy making is therefore
a methodological non-starter – approaches have in common not their
predictions, but their assumptions, and these cannot usefully be tested as a set
against those of other approaches. Furthermore, the goal of testing the
approach against others is unclear. Defending an approach to the study of
international relations makes sense when that approach is normative because
one is then defending one’s values. This is the case with classical realism and
its normative claims for prudence in foreign policy. But it makes less sense
with respect to empirical approaches. The point of empirical theory is
presumably explanation or prediction. To the extent that the goal is to
predict better, then we should presumably prefer whatever specific
hypotheses do so, regardless of what general approach generated them
(Schweller 2003).
The idea of defending the approach draws heavily on the epistemological
ideas of Imre Lakatos, who argued that research programmes remain
progressive as long as auxiliary hypotheses continue to increase their
explanatory power (Lakatos 1970). This argument may be of assistance in
determining the usefulness of neoclassical realism as an approach in its own
terms. But it does not provide a basis for testing it against other approaches
because Lakatosian logic does not suggest measures by which progressive
approaches can be compared with each other. Furthermore, Lakatos’ logic
was an explicit argument against simple Popperian falsifiability. As such, to
the extent that testing approaches against each other is an exercise in
determining which is the more falsifiable, it cannot provide a reasonable basis
for determining the progressiveness of a research programme in Lakatosian
terms. Discussion of the general value of neoclassical realism as an approach,
whether phrased in the language of a progressive research programme or the
language of testing against other approaches, serves only to distract from the
more empirically useful question of the value of the approach in illuminating
the politics of specific cases.
The combination of the underdetermination of policy by the
international system, the general awkwardness of the way in which it deals
with social constructs, and the tension between a descriptive method and
claims to an inferential methodology, has two key effects on most neoclassical
realist theorizing. The first, as already noted, is a strong tendency to favour
historical narrative as a form of empirical analysis because the contextual
nature of beliefs undermines comparability across cases. This should not be
taken as a critique of historical narratives, as will become clear later. The
problem arises from the fact that the neopositivist and inferential
methodological claims that many neoclassical realists make do not themselves
privilege the results of these methods. The narratives then end up in a
methodologically awkward position because they cannot live up to the
claims made of them, and at the same time they are not used as effectively as
they might be to support the sorts of claims to which they are
methodologically and epistemologically suited.
The second effect is a tendency in developing theory to end up either
with highly schematized and under-specified models, such as those that can
be displayed in 2×2 charts, or garbage-can models that list possible causal
variables but do little to distinguish effectively among them. An
underdetermined starting point and the contextually specific role of social
constructs leads to garbage-can models because neither gives the ability to
effectively identify which causal variables will have key effects in a general
sense – it will depend on the case, on how the system is perceived in a
particular setting. We can then list causal variables that are likely to have an
effect in the general case but have no basis for determining ex ante how they
might apply in particular cases (eg Lobell 2009; Ripsman 2009). This is not
meant as a critique of either schematic or garbage-can models, both of
which are useful approaches to theory building. But neither is suitable for
the development of testable hypotheses, and as such both are in tension with
the methodological claims often made on their behalf by neoclassical realist
scholars.
 In short, then, neoclassical realism as generally practised in the published
literature suffers from a mismatch between what it sets out to study and the
way in which it sets out to study it. The commitment to a narrow
understanding of ‘science’ saddles the approach with a flawed interpretation
of neorealism as an analytical starting point, and an inability to deal
effectively with social constructs that are often central to explaining foreign
policy making. Revising the approach to make it fit within its claimed
methodology would mean losing the focus on the interaction between
system and domestic politics in the making of foreign policy, or in other
words allowing method to drive the questions that social scientists ask. This
suggests that the best course of action to deal with the tension between
method and methodology is to embed neoclassical realism in an appropriate
methodological setting. And that setting, as hinted at by a number of
neoclassical realists (Rose 1998; Dueck 2006; Sterling-Folker 2009a; Kitchen
2010), is constructivism.

Constructivism
Constructivism provides a useful set of methodologies for the historical
narratives that neoclassical realists generally prefer. An example of such a
historical narrative argument that will be familiar to most readers is Max
Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. He uses an argument
about a social norm widely held in a particular society, what he calls the
Protestant ethic, to explain a particular but historically important case, the
emergence of Holland as a core player in the global political economy in the
16th and 17th centuries (Weber 1958). This study is of little inferential value
– Weber makes no attempt to create a generalizable argument about
Protestant ethics – but it is of significant explanatory value. This is not an
example from international relations per se, but it is relevant to a discussion
of neoclassical realism inasmuch as he is arguing among other things that it is
the Protestant ethic that allowed Holland to become a (sort of) great power
for a time. It is also, obviously, not a work of self-described constructivism,
having been written almost a century before the term came into use to
describe an approach to the study of international relations. But it
nonetheless fits neatly within constructivist assumptions. And it locates
constructivism within a long tradition central to the development of
contemporary social science.
Explicitly adopting a constructivist methodology would deal with all
three of the general critiques of neoclassical realism. It deals with the tension
between method (specific techniques for collecting and analyzing
information) and methodology (the logic by which these techniques fit
together) by providing a methodology that fits the core empirical method
that most neoclassical realists already use. Constructivist analysis aims to
explain particular cases through detailed empirical analysis, much the same as
historical narrative. It does not make inferential claims that historical
narrative is generally unable to support. It is also well placed to use
specifically those types of theoretical models, such as schematic and garbage-
can models, that neoclassical realists often generate. These models, while
they cannot serve effectively as a basis for specific predictions, are useful in
telling the analyst where to look in establishing causal relationships in specific
cases. They can also be used prospectively as well as retrospectively – they
can tell the analyst what the important causal relationships are likely to be in
current or future foreign policy situations. In other words, while they cannot
be used for inferential prediction in the narrow neopositivist sense, they can
be used effectively to support policy analysis, in concert with details of the
social construction of the international politics relevant to that case.
Historical narrative need not be constructivist, of course, inasmuch as it
need not focus on intersubjectively held ideas and norms. Biography as
historical narrative, for example, may focus primarily on purely subjectively
held ideas. And not all constructivism need be in the form of historical
narrative. It can use methods as varied as discursive analysis and quantitative
measurement (eg Barkin and Sjoberg 2017). The two do, however, overlap
strongly (eg Klotz and Prakash 2008). Adoption of a constructivist
methodology would require of neoclassical realists that they abandon
neopositivist claims of inferential prediction, testability and paradigmatic
superiority. But at the same time it would allow them to make
methodological claims that they can back up.
Constructivist logic allows the researcher to determine what the
principals in a case consider the national interest to be, rather than positing
an interest in state survival so minimalist that it provides little specific policy
guidance either for statespeople or scholars. In other words, it deals with the
national interest as an empirical matter, as that which the nation considers its
interest to be, rather than as a deductive principle, thereby providing a much
sounder basis for studying why policy makers make the policy that they do.
It also obviates the tension between liberal and realist assumptions about
human nature by allowing that different groups within a polity might have
legitimately different beliefs about what constitutes the national interest.
Finally, it allows for contestation of the national interest. It allows for the
possibility that political actors will promote their visions of the national
interest, and convince others, and thereby change the vision underlying
foreign policy making. Changes in policy can therefore come from changes
in belief or culture, rather than only from changes in the international
system. Constructivism would thereby give the neoclassical realist a greater
scope for explaining change in policy without calling on the deus ex machina
of the system.
On a related note, explicitly adopting a constructivist methodology deals
with the problem that system structure is underdetermining of policy, by
reading the system as a background condition rather than as a direct
determinant of policy. Neopositivist (or soft positivist) neoclassical realism
needs a fixed starting point against which to measure policy behaviour, in
order to make claims of scientific precision. Neorealism is called upon to
provide that starting point, even though it cannot for the most part
meaningfully do so. Constructivist methods do not require this sort of fixed
starting point and thereby take the pressure off neorealism, allowing system
structure to be the background constraining condition that most neorealists
intended it to be (and that many neoclassical realists in practice take it to be).
Note that this does not entail a rejection of neorealism, or even a demotion.
It could remain central to a constructivist neoclassical realism. But the role of
systemic constraint on specific foreign policies would be treated as part of
the question being asked, rather than being assumed from a badly under-
specified baseline.

Power
A potential criticism of constructivism as a methodology for neoclassical
realism is that it is unable to deal adequately with power because power is a
fundamentally material phenomenon (Ripsman et al 2016, p. 174). Realists
on the one hand and both critical theorists and some constructivists,
particularly of the postmodern variety, on the other, often talk past each
other when discussing power because they mean different things by the
term. The latter group often speaks of what might be called structural
power, the constraints on individual behaviour imposed by social institutions.
This is power as constraint, the power of an impersonal system rather than
power used by political actors. Realists, conversely, speak of power as
relational, as something used by one actor or social group on another
(Barnett and Duvall 2005). These are, in effect, two related but different
concepts that share the same word. Constructivist methodology can
encompass both kinds of power, and in doing so might serve as a useful
means of communication between realists and critical theorists (eg Guzzini
2005). More central for the purposes of the argument here, however, is that
constructivist methodology can address relational power in ways that act as a
useful bridge between classical and neoclassical realism, and that it offers a
richer view of power than a simple counting exercise.
Power for classical realists was not a simple matter of measuring material
capabilities. For theorists such as E.H. Carr and Hans Morgenthau, power
was a measure of control, a measure of the ability to get others to do (or to
not do) things. This ability might come from possession of military or
economic capabilities but it might also come from institutional position or
rhetorical skill. For Carr, power over public opinion was a key category of
analysis (Carr 1964, pp. 132–45). For Morgenthau, issues of national
character and morale were key components of national power (Morgenthau
1985, pp. 146–55). In other words, for classical realists, who focused on
foreign policy rather than system structure, beliefs were a central component
of power. Neorealists can (and generally do) gloss over the relative
importance of various components of national power because they are not
concerned with particular policy outcomes (eg Waltz 1979; Gilpin 1981).
For neoclassical realists to effectively reconnect system with foreign policy
outcomes, they may well need to draw on those insights about power and
foreign policy that neorealists could abstract away from. And key among
these insights are that non-material factors, such as culture, beliefs and
discourse, matter as power resources.
Constructivism is well placed to provide the methodology to make this
connection. It can address not only what beliefs are and how they come to
be formed in a particular case, but also how discourse can be deployed to
change beliefs, both domestically and internationally, in a way that serves a
particular interpretation of the national interest. It provides the tools, in
other words, to analyze words as power, in the realist, relational sense of the
term. This is particularly important in the analysis of foreign policy making
because discourse is a key mechanism by which particular understandings of
the national interest are disseminated. The FPE cannot effectively generate
the material power resources that neorealists speak of as capabilities without
convincing the population at large that the investment in national material
power is worthwhile. The politics of foreign policy making is thus as much
about conflict over definition of the national interest as it is about clashes
between the national interest and particular and private interests. And that
conflict is both ideational and discursive.
Finally, a neoclassical realism informed by constructivist methodology can
have a much broader empirical scope than one informed by a neopositivist
methodology, and can do more justice to the basic realist premise that power
matters in international relations. Ripsman, Taliaferro and Lobell argue that
their neoclassical realism works in those circumstances when neorealism does
not determine outcomes (Ripsman et al 2016, p. 5). In other words, they
argue that when power analysis fails we must look to domestic institutions to
explain outcomes. This argument, driven by an impetus to neopositivist
methodology rather than by commitments to realist theory per se, sells short
the potential not only for neoclassical realism, but for realism more broadly.
They argue that realism is simply not particularly useful when information
about potential threats is unclear (Lobell et al 2009, p. 286). This implies that
in such situations neither considerations of power nor the constraints of the
international system matter much. But both classical realists and neorealists
would disagree. Classical realists argue that power always matters, that the
study of politics is about power. When threats are not clear, foreign policy
makers nonetheless continue to think of foreign policy goals in terms of
power. In the absence of clear threats they may be motivated by
opportunities, or simply by prudent planning, but in either case power is the
means of effecting the national interest. And constructivist methodology is a
good way to get at the content of the national interest, even more so when
there is no generally accepted immediate threat.
Similarly, neorealists argue that the system always matters (or, at least, that
it always matters for great powers). In a bipolar system, internal balancing
needs no clear threat – a great power knowing only that the system is not
multipolar should face systemic incentives to balance internally. In a
multipolar system, balancing logic should always predominate, and in the
absence of a clear threat, balancing logic requires the maintenance of
strategic flexibility, in itself as clear a set of policy choices as balancing. Either
way, systemic imperatives are towards maximizing power capabilities,
regardless of the clarity or immediacy of the threat. The key insight of
neorealism, in fact, is that the system always matters, even when it is not
sending clear signals, even when the strategic setting does not indicate a clear
or immediate threat. A neoclassical realism informed by constructivist
methodology could address the question of the effect that system structure
has on foreign policy, even in the absence of a clear threat. In short,
constructivist methodology allows a neoclassical realist approach to make a
much broader set of claims, both with respect to when it is useful (in all cases
of foreign policy making) and with respect to what it can tell us (a generative
explanation of policy, rather than just a default explanation).
Conclusion
In occupying a space between the sparse systemic theorizing of neorealism
and the richer but more prescriptive theorizing of classical realism,
neoclassical realism has great potential to expand the scope of realist
explanation of world politics. But it is too often hobbled by the commitment
of many of its proponents to a methodology that simply does not fit either
their theoretical claims or their empirical focus. Were neoclassical realists to
focus on average foreign policy outcomes, forego meaningful discussion of
beliefs or culture as a causal element, systematize a precise definition of
foreign policy, and codify outcomes quantifiably on the basis of such
definition, then neopositivism would work better as a methodology. But
adopting these commitments would require eschewing precisely the sorts of
important cases and nuanced historical analysis that neoclassical realists
generally focus on.
The alternative is to maintain a focus on important cases and historical
nuance and apply to these a more appropriate methodology. And
constructivism, with its focus on the intersubjective, fits the bill. It would
allow for the study of the actual contents of beliefs. It would allow for a
richer and more nuanced analysis of such core realist concepts as power and
the national interest. And it would allow neoclassical realists to apply the
insights of systemic realism, without needing to pretend that the system ever
gives perfectly clear signals about specific policies. Applying constructivist
methodology to neoclassical realist research foci would enable neoclassical
realism to provide better answers to the questions it is really interested in,
and to better explore foreign policy beliefs, processes and outcomes as
complex rather than one-dimensional phenomena. Only then might
neoclassical realism begin to achieve its full potential as a research
programme.

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 4

Huadu: A Realist Constructivist Account

of Taiwan’s Anomalous Status
Martin Boyle

As I said, we have been an independent sovereign state ever since

1912. Next year we will celebrate our centennial. So there’s no
reason for this country to declare independence again. (Ma 2010)
In 1999 the DPP also adopted a resolution that recognized the status
quo that Taiwan is already independent with the national title the
Republic of China, and I’m sure the Chinese know that. (Wu 2016)

On the eve of Taiwan’s January 2016 presidential election, Chou Tzu-yu, a

16-year-old Taiwanese pop singer, was accused by angry Chinese netizens of
promoting Taiwan Independence – taiwan duli or taidu for short – for waving
Taiwan’s national flag on South Korean TV. Taiwanese voters hovered
between outrage and perplexity when Chou was forced by her Chinese
promoter to record a humiliating apology, not least because the flag of
Taiwan is that of the Republic of China (ROC). The next day, the ‘pan-
Green’ Taiwanese nationalist Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP)
candidate, Tsai Ing-wen, defeated Eric Chu, the candidate for the
incumbent ‘pan-Blue’ Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT), and pledged
to uphold the ROC constitution before a portrait of Sun Yat-sen, the father
of the ROC. Deep-Green taidu groups took a different stance. Accusing
Chou of mindlessly conniving in ROC Independence – zhonghua duli or
huadu for short – they also dismissed the DPP and other pan-Green parties as
maintaining ‘the ROC colonial government-in-exile’ (Tsay 2016). Thus in
2016 huadu became both a rebuke and a definition of Taiwan’s provisional
status, while taidu remains an aspiration until the ROC is replaced by a
Republic of Taiwan (ROT) (Yeh 2016). Deep-Greens perceive ROC
institutions and symbols as a threat. Yet the fact is that the ROC flag now
represents Taiwan. Nowadays, young Taiwanese paint it on their cheeks as a
mark of Taiwanese-ness, not Chinese-ness. For hard-core taidu supporters,
this is unthinking acquiescence to Chinese symbols. Yet, it shows that, for
most Taiwanese, taidu and huadu are indistinguishable and that as much as the
ROC made Taiwan, so Taiwan made the ROC.
Taiwan is the artefact of particular political and historical circumstances.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has claimed it since 1949, when
KMT forces under Chiang Kai-shek lost the Chinese Civil War to Mao
Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and withdrew there under US
protection, taking the ROC state apparatus with it and adhering to the myth
of return to the mainland as the legitimate ‘Free China’ during the Cold
War. Beijing’s stance is officially upheld by the UN, the US and most of the
international community, and Beijing threatens to invade Taiwan if it
declares taidu. Yet, the US guarantees Taiwan’s security, and the international
system recognizes its sovereign existence in China’s threat to kill it – and
China’s restraint. The ROC’s loss of legitimacy during the 1970s led its elites
to end authoritarian KMT rule and to democratize after 1987. Secret
political talks with Beijing culminated in November 1992 with a verbally
stated, unsigned agreement to disagree – the 1992 Consensus, a status quo
based on the principle of One China, Respective Interpretations (OCRI).
Between 1992 and 2008 Taiwan continued to diverge politically from China
under KMT and DPP administrations. However, the 1992 Consensus was
revived as the basis of renewed détente and entente after 2008 under an
ostensibly China-leaning KMT. This rapprochement foundered and, when
the DPP returned to power in 2016, China suspended talks, citing the DPP’s
refusal explicitly to recognize the 1992 Consensus. Yet Taiwan’s new
president, Tsai Ing-wen, blocked a referendum on taidu. Moreover, in
January 2019 Tsai stated that Beijing must ‘face the reality of the existence of
the Republic of China’, treat Taipei as an equal, and only engage in cross-
strait negotiations through government or government-authorized agencies
(Taiwan Today 2019). At the same time, PRC President Xi Jinping renewed
Beijing’s warnings against ‘Taiwan Independence separatists and their
activities’ and refused to rule out force to prevent ‘Taiwan Independence’
(China Daily 2019). While the international media kept repeating the
English term ‘Taiwan Independence’, the Chinese term that Xi had used was
taidu and Tsai’s discursive nod to huadu in her reference to the ROC
sidestepped both the threat and the dilemma by signalling to Beijing that
huadu was as far as Taipei wanted to go. Of course, Beijing already knew
this, but the exchange allowed both sides to assert their respective claims and
to save face.
Rationalist and materialist approaches alone cannot account for this
puzzle, and some constructivist and neoclassical realist (NCR) literature seeks
an answer in national identity (Sterling-Folker 2009; Li 2014; Lindemann
2014; Chen 2017). The evolution of Taiwan’s national identity has been
recent and modernist; any primordial sub-ethnic split soon gave way to a
civic identity and the national interest shifted relentlessly away from
unification. But Chinese threats produced an interest in political survival,
and there is a consistent and invariant attachment to the status quo of ‘no
independence, no unification, no war’ (Dittmer 2017, p. 3). This study,
however, argues that it is huadu state identity that provides the pretext and
context for Taiwanese national identity and which accounts for Taiwan’s
ability to maintain the status quo. Since taidu originally represented
independence for Taiwan from the ROC, not the PRC, and since the ROC
and Taiwan are now one and the same, the term is a misnomer and a
misconception. For Beijing, the cross-Strait status quo maintains the ROC,
allowing it officially to frame cross-Strait relations as domestic. For Taipei,
the status quo is code for huadu and huadu is code for taidu. Beijing implicitly
conceded this between 2008 and 2016 by engaging institutionally with
Taiwan while discursively interpreting the ROC flag as that of a separate
country. As de facto independence, huadu is a status and an identity – the
contingent outcome of the Taiwanization of the ROC.
Taiwan’s case invites a constructivist response to a realist puzzle; power
forms an anarchic structure that states must respect in order to survive. Yet,
in order to survive, Taiwan must neither declare independence nor unify
with China. Taiwan’s US-imposed undetermined status and protection
combined with the PRC’s irredentist claim forms the systemic context that
led Taiwan to engage in two overlapping conversations, one cross-Strait and
one domestic, that constructed a Chinese identity after 1945 and a
Taiwanese one after 1971. In telling Taiwan’s story, this study demonstrates a
realist constructivism that accounts for state identity and foreign policy
construction at the interface of interstate and domestic politics; that is, the
PRC–ROC and the ROC–Taiwan dimensions. The result is a two-level,
three-stage, three-dimensional framework of power politics and identity.
The introduction presents the context; the first section discusses how this
study’s realism and constructivism inform each other; the second lays out a
research design to show how they are combined and provides a method; the
third presents the study’s empirical data; and the fourth discusses what the
combination brings to the research question that other approaches do not.

A systemic-domestic realist constructivism

Morgenthau’s (1978) Six Principles of Political Realism provides the realist
underpinning of this study. First, politics is governed by objective laws with
roots in human nature; second, the power of interest gives rational order and
theory to politics; third, the meaning and practice of power are not fixed,
but contextual; fourth, there are moral consequences to political action, but
such principles are weighed and contingent on context and agency; fifth, a
state’s claim to moral rightness and universal morality are unconnected – the
power of interest saves states from unrestrained behaviour; sixth, ‘political
man’ is a necessary theoretical abstraction who in the real world makes
utilitarian trade-offs in order to live politically with others (Morgenthau
1978, pp. 4–15).
 It is beyond the scope of this study to attempt a novel parsing of
Morgenthau’s principles. However, recent scholarship interprets these as
producing the following broadly realist assumptions: first, the world is as it is,
not as it ought to be; second, power produces recurrent patterns of conflict;
third, security-seeking, agentive, territorially bounded entities (states) are
ontologically prior to the system, and may be status quo or revisionist as
opposed to unitary; fourth, state behaviour is rational and seeks survival as
the most important national interest; fifth, anarchy permits rather than causes
state behaviour; sixth, anarchy can hinder cooperation, pushing states
towards relative over absolute gains (James 2002; Kirshner 2010; Narizny
2017). For Morgenthau, anarchy may inhibit or permit state behaviour; ideas
and domestic factors all influence foreign policy (Morgenthau 1978, p. 272).
Although expressed differently, the ontological and epistemological claims
of International Relations (IR) constructivism align with those of classical
realism: there is a real world out there, but states exist in a world of their
own making in which social facts depend on human action (Onuf 2013, p.
90). Social reality is the product of social construction (Katzenstein 1996).
International relations are shaped by changing identities, practices and
norms. In this sense, actors are social beings whose identities and interests are
‘the products of inter-subjective social structures’ (Reus-Smit 2005, p. 193).
Wendt’s systemic constructivism takes intersubjective co-constitution and
claims: first, states are the principal units of analysis for international political
theory; second, the key structures in the states system are intersubjective
rather than material; third, state identities and interests are constructed by
these social structures, rather than exogenously given (Wendt 1994, p. 385).
These claims produce two core Wendtian axioms, namely ‘identities
determine interests’ (Wendt 1999, p. 1) and ‘anarchy is what states make of
it’ (Wendt 1992). A social identity entails a collective interest.
The claims, principles and assumptions just discussed suggest that certain
core concepts can be used to create a realist-constructivist framework. This
coreconceptual approach takes classical realism’s interest in power politics and
foreign policy and constructivism’s intersubjectivity as its starting point
(Barkin 2010, pp. 5–7). It then expands these into a framework. Classical
realism acknowledges morality, prudence and diplomacy in international
relations but draws on constructivism for epistemological and ontological
backing. The political is the social, so the anarchic structure leads states to
redefine their identities through socialization, co-constituting each other and
the structure. Material reality is the product of historical social practices and
can be transcended in socialization (Copeland 2000, pp. 190–1). Core
concepts interact in complex ways, providing a lens to analyze connections
among the material and the ideational, social construction and rationality,
and identities and interests. This realist constructivism argues the following:
first, the intersubjective co-constitution of agents and structure accounts for
power politics; second, the distinction between what is given and what is
contingent rather than the social construction, materialism and rationality
distinction is the real dichotomy; third, realism and constructivism share a
logic of the social, made explicit in the national interest; political ideas are
contextual and perceived differently by different actors; fourth, social
structures constrain and enable foreign policy, with human agency driving
and changing it. Classical realism indicates that constructivism is neither
necessarily idealist nor distinct from materialism or rationalism (Barkin
2010).
In attempting to create a systemic-domestic realist constructivism that
accounts for foreign policy, two existing contenders, Wendtian systemic
constructivism (WC) and NCR, certainly address constructivist and realist
core concepts. However, as a systemic theory, WC operates tangentially to
domestic social constructivisms, while Ripsman, Taliaferro, and Lobell’s
(2016) NCR, although it draws explicitly on WC, has an incoherent
relationship both with it and with structural realism. However, these
problems relate to epistemology rather than ontology. The core assumptions
and concepts outlined earlier permit a systemic-domestic realist
constructivism that draws on both approaches. Ripsman et al (2016) assume,
first, the international system is anarchic and states must resort to self-help;
second, survival is the most important national interest in anarchy; and third,
anarchy impedes cooperation, leading states to prefer relative gains. There is
nothing in this realism that precludes domestic analysis. Indeed, Lobell et al
(2009) and Ripsman et al (2016) address a number of constructivist domestic
factors such as identity, norms, culture, resource mobilization and institutions
as intervening variables. A true realist-constructivist understanding might
condense them all into measurement of capabilities, thus adhering to Rose’s
(1998) NCR core concepts. Appropriately explicated, these concepts can be
developed into a systemic-domestic realist constructivism. Walt’s (1985)
Balance of Threat then provides a structural realist link with classical realism’s
acknowledgement of domestic actors’ varying normative responses to policy
choices, discussed earlier. By accounting for threat perception, it brings in
constructed identities and interests. Wendt’s bracketing of the domestic
invites analysis of how domestic interest groups (DIGs) relate to the state.
Such a two-level realist-constructivist framework looks at how domestic
preferences are constructed by state nation-building projects in the first
place.
Barrington (1997, p. 713) defines the state as ‘the principal political unit
in the international political system’, as distinct from ‘a collective of people,
whose belief in the right to territorial self-determination is what unites
them’. National identity is the state’s internal set of discourses that locate it
ideationally in relation to other states; states produce and reproduce their
own and their nations’ identities (Doty 1999, p. 128). The nation identifies
with the state as the social institution determining external relations and
securing its sovereignty and both are co-constituted in domestic and
interstate political relations. To account for power’s co-constitution of the
national interest, domestic and international factors need to be considered.
Hopf (1997) sees the identity of a state implying its preferences and
consequent actions: ‘A state understands others according to the identity it
attributes to them, while simultaneously reproducing its own identity
through daily social practice. The producer of the identity is not in control
of what it ultimately means to others; the intersubjective structure is the final
arbiter of meaning’ (Hopf 1997, p. 175). Realist-constructivist principles
create space for this framework: the power of state identity is deployed in
response to the security dilemma. In this regard, the Taiwan problematique is
acutely realist constructivist.
Co-constitution
This research design does the following: first, it combines the core concepts
outlined earlier to create a two-level, three-stage, realist-constructivist
framework; second, it states the methods employed; third, it outlines the data
gathered to relate these concepts to the research question. The framework
shows how state identities construct the national interest and deploy it in
foreign policy; how these phenomena are co-constituted within and across
domestic and interstate socialization. There is nothing analytically
fundamental to realism or WC that says they must exclusively concern
themselves with interstate interaction.
This framework draws on Bozdağlıoğlu’s (2007) constructivist model of
domestic identity formation. In prioritizing constructivism, it acknowledges
intersubjectivity as the processual catalyst. First, a state defines its interests
based on corporate identity – a stage theoretically exposed by WC, but
observed in the realist practice of power in domestic politics where state,
national and DIG identities are co-constituted. Second, that corporate
identity is reconstituted as a social one through interstate socialization –
explained by WC, but also implicit in classical realism. Third, in observing
interstate socialization, DIGs perceive a threat and invoke state-constituted
national identity, a stage implied by classical realism, by Walt and in NCR.
The actors then return to stage two. State identity, the national interest and
foreign policy are constituted in this process.
The primacy of constructivist theories appears to contradict the principle
of abstracting from realism yet it is essential in accounting for Taiwan’s
historical experience and current policy. How else are we to understand how
OCRI constituted huadu? At first glance, OCRI seems to violate the
principles of sovereignty and legitimacy. Yet in fact it was a three-stage
realist-constructivist proposal. From the start, for obvious reasons, Taipei and
Beijing were reluctant to institutionalize formal relations. Thus, OCRI
included no provisions for international law, FTAs or explicit recognition of
sovereignty. These were only added as de facto international relations
developed, discursively presupposing and implying them.
 So, the power of Taiwan’s identity accounts for its national interest in
security and determines the anarchy that prevails around that. Identities
entail interests ‘because an actor cannot know what it wants until it knows
who it is’ (Wendt 1999, p. 231), and states do not have a portfolio of
decontextualized interests; rather, ‘they define their interests in the process of
defining situations’ (Wendt 1992, p. 396). But, how are those identities
acquired to start with?
It is Wendt’s distinction between corporate and social state identities and his
concept of the first encounter that provide the answer. Corporate identities are
formed prior to first encounter and generate interests in recognition and self-
security. Since such interests come from intersubjective processes of
knowledge creation, intersubjectivity must operate domestically too.
Granted, how a state fulfils its corporate interests depends on its view of self
and other, which is a function of systemically generated social identities, but
their genesis must be domestic (Bozdağlıoğlu 2007, pp. 136–7).
Constructivism’s claim that social facts are discursive permits Wendt’s
Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian systemic identities. Their representations of
enmity, rivalry and friend are determined through socialization, and the
macro- and micro-level discourses they represent take on ‘a life and logic of
their own’ (Wendt 1999, p. 264). Accordingly, as states engage and threat
perception changes, structure determines how they act (Wendt 1992, p.
397). However, Wendt’s first encounter suggests Ego and Alter bring unshared
and unrefined a priori national interests and identities (Wendt 1999, p. 328).
These are exogenous to first encounter because WC ‘treats identities and
interests as endogenous to interaction’ (Wendt 1999, p. 336). Yet, they
cannot be exogenous to their domestic formation.
For a workable domestic-systemic argument, therefore, Wendt’s
constructed corporate identities need domestic power: first, systemic identity
construction alone ignores how state–nation socialization changes state
identity and interests before and during interstate socialization. Social
identity, not corporate identity, is constructed through the other’s
recognition. Wendt identifies the two sources but fails fully to account for
their co-constitution because he has bracketed the domestic. One could
argue that by bracketing he is saying what is true of the system is true of the
domestic, but this would still make them discrete rather than interconnecting
categories. Second, Wendt treats states as unitary actors, stripped of
contingency; domestic realism brings power and agency to state identity
construction. Third, the content of a state’s corporate identity may predict
who it will identify with, despite Wendt’s assumption that only interstate
socialization determines in- or out-groupness (Bozdağlıoğlu 2007, p. 137).
Granted, a state may do this and subsequently be disabused of the idea in
socialization, causing cultures of anarchy to oscillate after first encounter.
Power acts to transform state corporate identity through strategic practice.
Social processes such as democratization, constitutional changes and elections
alter domestic actors’ roles in the state-making process (Barnett 1996, p.
441). Powerful groups institutionalize their own preferences to produce
identity cleavages, oscillation or consolidation as foreign policy is developed.
Over the long term, the executive cannot retain an identity separate from
that of the nation that its state constructed. A two-level, three-stage
systemic-domestic process can exacerbate domestic identity conflict that
rebounds in interstate socialization and foreign policy; the perceived threat of
systemic changes caused by interstate trade policies can affect domestic
cleavages, weakening or consolidating the state’s relationship to the nation
(Barnett 1996, p. 413). Such changes may stabilize or weaken identification
with others, shifting from selfish to collective or vice versa. It is not
necessarily Wendt’s one-way liberal argument.
Co-constitution aside, this framework adds a revised conceptualization of
power. The ability of A to get B to do what B would otherwise not do
remains the realist baseline (Dahl 1957, pp. 202–10). However, rather than
relative power, it is the relational capacity of actors to shape others’ and the
system’s norms and values or the ability to determine outcomes that reflects
constructed identities. This means actors do not simply have ‘power over’
others. Rather, they have the ‘power of ’ and ‘power to’ act and affect
outcomes (Barnett and Duvall 2004, p. 9). Carr acknowledges ‘power over
opinion … is a necessary part of all power’ (Carr 1946, p. 145). Morgenthau
calls power ‘the domination of man by man’, regardless of ends, safeguards or
justification (Morgenthau 1978). Power, like identity, is not just an
exogenous systemic variable. Waltz’s claim that ‘states are differently placed
by their power’ presupposes that this power must be generated endogenously
too (Waltz 1979, p. 97). It also suggests states accrue power through
behaviour. Thus, in the words of Barnett and Duvall (2004), p. 23),
‘[k]nowledgeable actors become aware of discursive tensions and fissures, and
use that knowledge in strategic ways … to increase their sovereignty, control
their own fate, and remake their very identities’.
Political rhetoric rarely accounts for policy responses to perceived threats;
more often than not, it provides ‘not an explanation but an expectation’
(Brooks and Wohlforth 2008, p. 71). Rather, it is the underlying discourse
that better evidences foreign policy. This study’s methodology holds that
there are facts that can be located, analyzed and interpreted logically, but
does not uncritically follow positivism. Rather, it draws on an abductive,
pluralist approach to the philosophy of science (Jackson 2010). It employs a
linguistics-informed discourse analysis that seeks to locate firm textual
warrant for empirical claims. In doing so, it distinguishes among rhetoric,
discourse and text. This approach creates space for linguistic analysis, process
tracing and triangulation to historical narrative – a historical-linguistic
approach that treats discourse as ‘the pragmatic process of meaning
negotiation and the acting of context on code’ and text as its product
(Widdowson 2004, p. 8). This methodology combines micro-interactional
and macro-structural IR discourse approaches (Holzscheiter 2013, pp. 1–21),
corpus linguistics (Baker 2012), and the Discourse Historical Approach
(DHA) (Wodak and Meyer 2009).
The data consists of a large historical corpus of Taiwanese political speech
with salient discourses triangulated to historical narrative. Corpus linguistics
provides an initial way into the text and exposes salient themes and recurring
textual patterns that evidence a discourse. This is the first step in locating
valent text and it gets around subjectivity, selective interpretation and
confirmation bias. The DHA then permits two forms of textual analysis that
facilitate this study’s claim that identities are grammatically rather than
rhetorically encoded in political speech. First, analysis of actors’
argumentation strategies exposes superficial rhetoric and, second, linguistic
analysis unearths an authentic underlying discourse of identity. This does two
things: first, it locates firm textual warrant for plausible interpretations of a
speaker’s meaning, thus actually doing discourse ‘analysis’; second, it provides
empirical linguistic evidence from which pragmatic meaning can be derived,
thus linking text and discourse. This step permits warranted interpretation.
The next section explores the effect of state identity change in Taiwan’s
cross-Strait policy making from 1945 to 2016 and how this constituted a
shift from a cross-Strait Hobbesian culture between 1949 and 1987 to an
oscillating Lockean one between 1987 and 2016. The conclusion relates state
identity and culture of anarchy to the embedding of a Lockean culture after
2008 and the impossibility of a Kantian one. It is the 1992 Consensus of
OCRI that gave power to Taiwan’s identity and constituted the Lockean
status quo of huadu.

Huadu
There is no shared national past for Taiwan before September 1945, when
the island was ‘gloriously returned’ (guangfu) to the ROC after 50 years of
Japanese colonial rule. That is not to say the island was not ‘Chinese’ before
then; no study of Taiwanese identity can ignore constructed Chinese
identities (Brown 2005; Andrade 2008). However, presenting the island as
‘an open-hearted, forward-looking society that has incorporated diverse
elements of civilization from around the world in a distinctive and
harmonious manner’, Taiwan’s government qualifies that Chinese-ness:

While Taiwan may be described as a predominantly Han Chinese

society, with more than 95 percent of the population claiming Han
ancestry, its heritage is actually much more complex. The successive
waves of Chinese immigrants that began arriving in the 17th century
belonged to a variety of subgroups with mutually unintelligible
languages and different customs. Today in Taiwan, however,
 distinctions between them have become blurred as a result of
extensive intermarriage and the universal use of Mandarin. (Ministry
of Foreign Affairs 2017)

The Dutch first brought Hoklo-speaking migrants from Fujian to Taiwan

during the 1620s. The Hoklo, along with Hakka from Guangdong,
continued to migrate under Qing rule. The so-called ‘native Taiwanese’, or
benshengren, come from this loose clan-based Han community that developed
and partially integrated with Austronesian indigenous tribes (Brown 2005).
The Qing never completely controlled Taiwan and ceded it to Japan in
1895. However, the Qing represented neither a Chinese state nor a Chinese
nation, but a Manchu empire ruling a loose sinic culture to which Taiwan
was peripheral. When Sun Yat-sen declared the ROC in 1912, Chinese
Nationalists did not consider Taiwan to be Chinese. The KMT did not
construct an irredentist claim to Taiwan until after the 1943 Cairo
Declaration and did not include it in the list of China’s provinces until 1947.
By 1945 Japanese rule had constructed an ethnic Taiwanese, or
benshengren, community but it took the Chinese Nationalists to turn it into a
Taiwanese nation. In September 1945 the KMT received a cautious
welcome from a sympathetic benshengren elite, but the welcome turned to
trauma in 1947 during the 228 Incident – a KMT massacre – and with the
martial law and the White Terror that followed. Combined, these events
became the founding national myth that made Taiwanese-ness imaginable
(Edmonson 2002, pp. 25–46). In 1949 the KMT lost the Chinese Civil War
and moved the ROC government to Taiwan. The 1952 Treaty of Taipei
ended China’s Anti-Japanese War and left Taiwan’s status undetermined, but
under de facto ROC administration. The Soviet boycott of the UN and the
outbreak of the Korean War ensured the ROC maintained China’s UN seat.
The KMT regime in Taiwan was dominated by Mainlander, or
waishengren, elites who held to a myth of return to the Mainland. The ROC
was the legitimate state of the whole Chinese nation, the PRC was a
Communist insurgency and Taiwan was a Chinese province that had to be
re-sinified. Both Communism and taidu were sedition and capital crimes. US
Cold War support meant ‘Free China’ remained recognized in the UN until
1971, when postcolonial support for the PRC and Nixon’s move to balance
the Soviet Union through rapprochement with Beijing prompted UN
Resolution 2758:

to restore all [China’s] rights to the People’s Republic of China and

to recognise the representatives of its government as the only
legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations, and to
expel forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek from the
place which they unlawfully occupy at the United Nations and in all
the organisations related to it. (UN, 1971)

The resolution mentions neither the ROC nor Taiwan. In 1972 the US
‘acknowledged’ and did ‘not challenge’ Beijing’s claim that ‘all Chinese on
either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that
Taiwan is a part of China’ (Taiwan Documents Project 1972). The ROC
haemorrhaged diplomatic allies and, in 1979, following the PRC’s 1978
Open Door Policy, the US normalized relations with Beijing and ended
official relations with Taipei. Beijing offered Taipei One Country Two
Systems (OCTS), which Taipei rejected, officially maintaining its Chinese
state identity under the Three Nos of ‘no contact, no compromise and no
negotiation’ (Wu 2005). However, the US did not abandon Taipei; instead,
it passed the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which guaranteed Taiwan’s military
security. The stand-off continued throughout the 1980s until the end of the
Cold War changed the international system again.
In the domestic realm, Taiwan under the authoritarian KMT was a
Leninist, corporatist, anti-Communist state. Paternalistic sinification,
patronage and the developmental state model facilitated economic growth
and created a modern, industrial nationalist Chinese state with Mandarin as
the official language and a Hoklo-speaking Taiwanese bourgeoisie. Land
reform in 1950 had created a benshengren small-farmer client class, beholden
to the KMT and removed from its rural Taiwanese elite, which transferred to
industry. Yet, this development model also constructed an international
Taiwanese identity for the ROC through ‘Made in Taiwan’. In 1964
dissident benshengren elites published a Declaration of Formosan Self Salvation,
condemning the ROC as illegitimate and arguing for Taiwanese statehood
on the grounds of modernist conceptions of the nation (Peng et al 1964).
They were imprisoned and exiled. KMT sinification campaigns in the 1960s
embedded Mandarin as the national language and forced the islanders to
identify nationally with China and Chinese nationalism. However,
demographic change, reformist political pressure and the co-opting of young
benshengren technocrats into the KMT elite meant that the Taiwanese became
a political force.
The death of Chiang Kai-shek in 1975 led to limited liberalization under
his son, Chiang Ching-kuo. A social process known as bentuhua –
localization, or Taiwanization – had been spreading from the arts to politics
since the 1960s, driven by the dangwai (outside the Party) movement.
Bentuhua was ‘a type of nationalism that champions the legitimacy of a
distinct Taiwanese identity, the character and content of which should be
determined by the Taiwanese people’ (Makeham and Hsiau 2005, p. 1). As
Chiang Ching-kuo drew on bentuhua to Taiwanize the KMT and the
provincial government, he liberalized Taiwan’s political culture, spawning
Taiwan-identifying DIGs.
The definitive domestic shift in power from Chinese to Taiwanese
occurred with the Zhongli Incident in 1977 (Gold 1986). The dangwai had
already won 34 per cent of the votes in Taiwan’s provincial assembly when a
benshengren KMT politician, Hsu Hsin-liang, stood as an independent
dangwai candidate in a by-election and openly espoused taidu. In response to
KMT ballot rigging, a Taiwanese crowd rioted and burned down the
Zhongli police station. The KMT mobilized local conscripts, and the crowd
responded with chants of ‘don’t beat your fellow Taiwanese’. The dangwai
galvanized around Formosa magazine (meilidao) and in December 1979 the
KMT put the dangwai leaders before a military court in a purge known as
the Kaohsiung Incident. Espousing taidu and parliamentary democracy, the
Kaohsiung defendants lambasted the ROC as nationally and internationally
illegitimate, since bentuhua and international derecognition meant the ROC
could credibly represent neither China nor Taiwan. The family of one of the
defendants, Lin I-hsiung, was brutally murdered on 28 February 1980, while
he was in detention being tortured. The devastating symbolism of the date
cannot be underestimated and it sparked annual pilgrimages to the Lin
family graves on the anniversary of the original 228 massacre. International
observation prevented death sentences, but the Kaohsiung defendants were
given life sentences for sedition (Hughes 1997).
During the 1980s the KMT continued rhetorically to assert legitimacy as
China, while instituting limited democratic reforms. At the 13th National
Congress in 1981 it announced defiantly that ‘the Chinese Communist
regime is at death’s door’ and reasserted its mission as an ‘anti-Communist
revolutionary party’ that sought to ‘unify China under the Three Principles
of the People’ by completing ‘the economic development of the Taiwan
bastion’ for ‘the people’s well-being’ (Taiwan Review 1981). Yet, the
context indicates that ‘the country’ and ‘the people’ referred to were shifting
from China to Taiwan.
With no ties to the Mainland, benshengren KMT technocrats and dangwai
activists aimed at common political ground between Mainlanders and
Taiwanese (Hughes 1997) In 1987 the KMT ended martial law. The dangwai
had already formed the opposition DPP, presaging a broadly Taiwanese
nationalist (pan-Green)–Chinese Nationalist (pan-Blue) liberal-democratic
political spectrum based loosely on the benshengren–waishengren distinction.
Given the KMT’s corporatist identity, however, it could still count on broad
benshengren electoral support. The benshengren KMT leader, Lee Teng-hui,
became president in 1988, began democratic reforms and initiated secret
unofficial talks with Beijing. Given that both sides claimed to be China,
from 1991 talks were conducted through ‘white-glove’ semi-governmental
organizations, the ROC’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and the PRC’s
Association for Relations across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS). Talks
culminated in Hong Kong in December 1992 with OCRI, a verbally
delivered statement that had been composed by the ROC Office of the
President and thus ‘represented Taiwan’s internal consensus toward the One
China question at the time’:

The two sides of the Taiwan Strait uphold the One China Principle,
but the interpretations of the two sides are different … Our side
believes that One China should mean the Republic of China
established in 1912 and existing today, and its sovereignty extends
throughout China, but its current governing authority is only over
Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matzu. Admittedly, Taiwan is a part
of China, but the mainland is also part of China. (Su 2009, p. 13)

The terms OCRI and ‘consensus’ spread among ministers on both sides but
were not articulated as the 1992 Consensus until KMT minister Su Chi
coined the term in 2000 on the grounds that ‘it enjoyed the beauty of
ambiguity’ (Su 2009, p. 91). The term began to accrue discursive power after
2005 when KMT–CCP talks proposed it as a basis for rapprochement.
By 1992 loss of legitimacy and the end of the Cold War had led the
ROC to reassess its identity. Democratization and de facto interstate relations
through cross-Strait diplomacy were constructing a Taiwanese nation and a
Taiwanized ROC, even though Taipei maintained that it was the legitimate
government of China. In doing so, Taipei acquired a new identity, moving
away from China while staying close to it. Chinese-ness was no longer
perceived as a core element of Taiwanese political identity although Taiwan
and the Mainland shared a cultural background (Makeham and Hsiau 2005,
p. 33).
In 1991 the KMT under Lee Teng-hui introduced constitutional reforms
that effectively limited the ROC’s sovereignty to the Taiwan Area and the
electorate of Taiwan while implicitly recognizing the PRC and officially
envisaging unification as a long-term aim. In the same year, the DPP
inserted a Taiwan Independence Clause in its Party charter. As the ROC
continued to Taiwanize, however, taidu became a straw man. In 1999 the
DPP Resolution on the Future of Taiwan stated:
 Independent and autonomous sovereignty is the prerequisite for
national security, social development and the people’s welfare. Taiwan
is a sovereign independent country, not subject to the jurisdiction of
the People’s Republic of China. This is both a historical fact and a
reflection of the status quo. It is not only a condition indispensable to
Taiwan’s existence, but also a crucial element to the development of
democratic political practices … although named the Republic of
China under the current constitution … any change in the
independent status quo must be decided by all residents of Taiwan by
means of a plebiscite. (DPP 1999)

This Grand Compromise acknowledged that the shell of the ROC with its
Chinese Nationalist symbols was to be retained. It was struck because only a
minority of Taiwan’s population supported a declaration of taidu. Systemic
factors aside, an independent Taiwan would require a new national identity
and a new state.
In 1994, in response to DPP and pro-Taiwan DIG concerns, Lee
imposed restrictions on burgeoning informal cross-Strait trade, to the
chagrin of economically liberal business interests (Lin 2016). This created
space for the ROC to diverge further from China politically. By retiring
waishengren legislators and co-opting others while working with the DPP on
a top-down Taiwanese nation-building project, Lee acted as a political
entrepreneur. He made provocative statements on Taiwan’s political status.
Lee’s words and deeds led to a split between the Taiwanized mainstream, or
zhulipai, KMT faction and the Chinese Nationalist anti-mainstream, or
feizhulipai. Yet, Lee maintained unification as the long-term goal and
rejected the DPP’s taidu stance. However, on a private visit to Cornell
University in 1995, Lee stated: ‘What actually is the goal of Taiwan’s
democratisation? Speaking simply, it is the “Taiwanization of Taiwan”
(taiwande bentuhua)’ (quoted in Jacobs 2005, p. 7). Beijing was angered and
responded with verbal threats and missile tests before Taiwan’s first full
democratic elections in 1996. The US sent a carrier battle group and
Taiwanese voters elected Lee. Lee’s KMT faction, with DPP support,
continued with their Taiwanese nation-building project. In 1998, in
supporting the waishengren KMT candidate Ma Ying-jeou as Taipei mayor,
Lee articulated a New Taiwanese, or xin taiwanren, identity:

Today, all of us who have grown up and lived together on this island
are Taiwanese. No matter whether you are aboriginal or came here
hundreds of years ago or in the last few decades, we are all masters of
Taiwan … [H]ow to transform our love of Taiwan and our feelings
towards our compatriots into specific action … is the mission of
every New Taiwanese. (Quoted in Harrison 2016, p. 197)

In response, Ma stated: ‘I am a New Taiwanese who has grown up drinking

Taiwan water and eating Taiwan rice’ (quoted in Corcuff 2002, p. 128).
New Taiwanese was a KMT trope that aimed electorally to counter DPP
claims to Taiwanese-ness but also drew on broader bentuhua discourses. In
1971 the Presbyterian Church, which had supported the dangwai and to
which Lee belonged, had issued a Statement on our National Fate that used the
same term (Presbyterian Church 1971). By combining waishengren and
benshengren ethnic identities into a common civic national one, Lee averted
ethnic strife and in the process constituted the ROC’s political identity as
democratic. In 1999 Lee articulated his Two State Theory in the context of a
Chinese threat to Taiwan’s security:

the Beijing authorities ignore the very fact that the two sides are two
different jurisdictions and that the Chinese mainland continues to
pose a military threat against us. The historical fact is that since the
establishment of the Chinese communist regime in 1949, it has never
ruled Taiwan – the territories under our jurisdiction … the
legitimacy of the rule of the country comes from the mandate of the
Taiwan people and has nothing to do with the people on the
mainland … the 1991 constitutional amendments have designated
cross-strait relations as a state-to-state relationship or at least a special
state-to-state relationship, rather than an internal relationship
 between a legitimate government and a renegade group, or between
a central government and a local government. Thus, the Beijing
authorities’ characterization of Taiwan as a ‘renegade province’ is
historically and legally untrue. (New Taiwan 1999)

By 1998 SEF–ARATS talks had broken down and would remain suspended
until 2008. In 2000 the DPP’s Chen Shui-bian assumed the ROC presidency
and called for cross-Strait talks without preconditions, but the PRC insisted
he recognize the One China principle. Despite leading an ostensibly pro-
taidu party, Chen Shui-bian stressed shared Chinese culture and history and
promised not to declare independence (Chen 2000). Chen liberalized cross-
Strait trade, ending the 50-year ban on direct trade and investment and
displeasing pan-Green DIGs. Yet, Chinese non-cooperation and threats
continued. In 2002 Chen stated: ‘with Taiwan and China on each side of the
Taiwan Strait, each side is a country’ (Chen 2002). In 2004 he proposed and
shelved an Independence Referendum. Beijing responded in 2005 with
military drills and an Anti-Secession Law that explicitly threatened Taiwan
with invasion if it declared taidu. These were perceived as direct threats by
pan-Blue as well as pan-Green DIGs and Chen Shui-bian responded by
restricting cross-Strait trade and further Taiwanizing the ROC through a
Name Rectification Campaign. Beijing’s animus towards the DPP
administration, diplomatic isolation of Taiwan and Taiwan’s own economic
downturn prompted back-door CPP–KMT talks and the return of the KMT
to power in 2008.
The KMT’s 2008–2016 cross-Strait policy was characterized by
rapprochement with Beijing, cosmetic re-sinification and an attempt to drive
through a comprehensive free trade agreement (ECFA) and several follow-on
agreements – notably a trade-in-services pact (CSSTA). These policies were
framed in terms of OCRI, the 1992 Consensus and cross-Strait peace and
prosperity. They were responded to by two broadly oppositional DIGs; the
pan-Blue taishang – Taiwanese businesspeople in China – and the pan-Green
Sunflowers – a student-led protest movement. Despite the rhetorical turn to
China, the 2008–2016 KMT administration was characterized by a
crystallization of Taiwanese national identity and a huadu discourse. This is
apparent in SEF support missions to taishang, which frame rapprochement in
liberal terms as crucial to Taiwan’s economic security while framing the
Taiwanized ROC state as defender of taishang interests in a threatening
Chinese environment. Taishang were perceived as unpatriotic by pro-Taiwan
DIGs and certainly, they tended to vote KMT and express an interest in
economic convergence. However, the data shows their national identity as
Taiwanese, and taishang business groups donated more to the DPP than to
the KMT in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, suggesting that the
DPP had become the party of the Taiwanese bourgeoisie.
Despite post-2008 Chinese conciliation and rapprochement under an
ostensibly Chinese-identifying KMT, Taiwan’s interest in unification
continued to wane. The island’s national identity shifted from predominantly
Chinese at the start of democratization to a prevailing Taiwanese identity
during Ma’s second term. In 1992 over 25 per cent perceived themselves as
exclusively Chinese. This fell to under 11 per cent in 2001 at the start of
Chen Shui-bian’s DPP administration and was just 3 per cent in 2016.
Conversely, exclusive Taiwanese identity rose dramatically from under 18 per
cent in 1992 to over 41 per cent in 2001 and almost 60 per cent in 2016.
Joint Taiwanese-Chinese identification also declined steadily from just over
46 per cent to 34 per cent percent in the same period (Election Study
Center 2017). In other words, nearly two thirds of Taiwan’s population
identify as exclusively Taiwanese, and this crystallized under Ma Ying-jeou.
Even KMT elites suggest that Taiwanese national self-identification stands at
85 per cent and Chinese at less than 5 per cent (Jiang 2017, p. 27).
Intense DIG opposition to the KMT’s cross-Strait policies came to a head
in 2014 when the Sunflower students and civic groups occupied Taiwan’s
legislature and effectively blocked the CSSTA, alleging lack of due diligence
and democratic process. Pan-Green DIGs claimed it threatened national
security, acquiesced in Beijing’s efforts to achieve unification by stealth and
was a KMT attempt to sell out Taiwan. This study found no evidence in
ROC government text to support the last claim. If anything, the KMT’s
discourse was scrupulously huadu throughout cross-Strait negotiations. At the
SEF–ARATS talks in 2012, for instance, the ROC stated:

Defending the Sovereignty of the Republic of China, putting Taiwan

First for the Benefit of the People, ROC is an independent sovereign
state. The highest guiding principle of the government in promoting
Mainland policy and carrying out cross-strait negotiations is to ‘put
Taiwan first for the benefit of the people.’ Putting Taiwan first means
defending Taiwan’s identity; for the benefit of the people means that
the fruits of cross-strait negotiations must be shared by all the people
and not just benefit specific business groups. Under the SEF-ARATS
framework, the two sides have held official-to-official negotiations
and signed agreements, fully manifesting the fact that the Republic of
China’s sovereignty does exist. (Mainland Affairs Council 2012)

However, pro-Taiwan DIG perceptions were coloured by their view of Ma

as a waishengren, his rhetoric of pan-Chinese-ness and the KMT’s
authoritarian Chinese Nationalist past. The Sunflowers prevented the signing
of cross-Strait agreements and constrained cross-Strait policy, yet they did so
by appealing not to taidu but to the ROC constitution. Ma became a lame-
duck president, yet he still met Xi Jinping in 2015 in Singapore. Despite
pan-Green accusations of a sell-out entailed in his diplomatic rhetoric of
Chinese-ness, Ma in fact deployed a huadu discourse that presupposed and
implied Taiwanese identity and interests. His overarching policy statement
was: ‘today I wish to put forth five points for maintaining the status quo of
peace and prosperity in the Taiwan Strait’ (Mainland Affairs Council 2015).
In extrapolating on the points, Ma deployed a surface pan-Chinese rhetoric
while discursively presupposing and implying huadu. Ma told Xi that the
ROC constitution did not permit taidu. Of course, given that he had already
asserted huadu pragmatically, Ma was asserting taidu. Beijing knew this.
So, over a period of 70 years, the ROC has gone from a legitimate
Chinese state to a government in exile to the Taiwanese state. Sinification
and bentuhua operated reciprocally; Taiwan was sinified and in turn it
Taiwanized the ROC through liberalization and democratization. The result
was that taidu became a straw man. State and national identity change were
mutually constitutive in domestic and cross-Strait dimensions. What had
been a domestic ROC–Taiwan dimension, in which Taiwan sought
independence, became an international dimension in which Taiwan as the
ROC sought sovereignty and interstate relations with China. If Taiwan could
not free itself from the ROC, it had to make the ROC Taiwanese. Huadu is
the status quo and the mechanism by which Taiwan maintains the
undetermined status it was accorded in 1952, thereby averting a Chinese
invasion. Pro-Taiwan DIGs have perceived the content of the KMT’s and the
DPP’s cross-Strait policy as a threat to Taiwan’s security at different times.
However, Taipei’s policy vis-à-vis the status quo has remained constant.

Conclusion
A two-level, three-dimensional realist-constructivist framework may lack
parsimony, but it does account for the Taiwan problematique. It sees Taipei
accommodating rising Chinese power while using the power of its identity
to shape its strategic choices in the political context. First, huadu represents a
Lockean culture of anarchy that is sustained through the power of Taiwan’s
identity. Second, power operationalizes identities and interests at the
interstate and domestic levels; the power of state identity change changes the
national interest and foreign policy. Third, intersubjective co-constitution
operates all the way down. Fourth, in Taiwan’s case, state identity change
occurred in the space created by the systemic balance of power and has
resulted in cross-Strait peace.
Taiwan’s cross-Strait policy was seen to have changed dramatically after
2008. Ma Ying-jeou’s election symbolized a break with the perceived anti-
Chinese Taiwanization of previous administrations. NCR readings in
particular allege KMT underbalancing, a reversal to a Chinese Nationalist
state identity and DIGs perceiving a Chinese threat, pulling the KMT back
to the status quo (Lindemann 2014; Lin 2016; Chen 2017). However, such a
bottom-up liberal view ignores the power of huadu. An alternative realist-
constructivist view, informed by the longer historical picture from 1945
through democratization to rapprochement, foregrounds the continuities in
Taiwan’s state identity and security interests. It also makes salient the ROC’s
top-down Taiwanese nation–state-building project and the co-constitutive
state–nation relationship that developed. Underlying the KMT’s post-2008
strategic diplomatic rhetoric of sinification was a genuine huadu discourse
which drew on a longer-term macro-structural bentuhua discourse. This
strengthened Taiwan’s autonomy in three interrelated ways. First, it forced
China to socialize with Taiwan as a state and to recognize the KMT not as
Schmittian Civil War enemies, but as Lockean rivals. Second, by signalling a
diplomatic turn in Taipei’s approach, sinification rhetoric softened China’s
image of Taiwan’s leadership. Third, it drew policy lines by linguistically
securing Taiwan’s sovereignty and legitimacy. Such rhetoric had been used
by Lee and Chen. However, read in the context of Ma’s perceived identity
and rapprochement, such rhetoric alarmed pro-Taiwan DIGs, who took
them as policy signals, and this tension prompted a DIG reading that
contributed to the KMT’s loss of power. At the same time, however, it
signalled to China Taiwan’s adherence to the status quo.
Of course, this view does not deny suboptimal policy proposals; on the
contrary, by exploring their rhetorical underpinnings, it places them in
context. People are political actors who organize into conflictual groups.
Domestic and ideational variables affect foreign policy decisions and it is
foreign policy choices, not structure, that explain political outcomes.
However, it argues that, while elite and DIG preferences are important,
huadu has prevailed. The state is the primary politically defined group and
only it can provide security (Gilpin 1981). As a state, the ROC provides
Taiwan with security on the basis of a collective Taiwanese national interest,
distinct from DIG and elite interests (Krasner 1978). It does this knowing
that Beijing may ultimately kill it. So, Taipei’s cross-Strait policy is motivated
primarily by fear of danger and a desire for security before other interests.
So, this realist constructivism is state-centered. However, the state is
contingent and constructed. Taiwan’s autonomy is intersubjectively co-
constituted within and across cross-Strait and domestic politics. This
framework looks at two levels and three dimensions. But it shows that the
relationship between realism and constructivism is not linear, but orthogonal
and multidimensional. This realist constructivism treats power as social and
historically contingent. In focusing on identities, interests and discourses, it is
prescriptive and problem focused (Barkin 2010, pp. 125, 166). This realist
constructivism shows how power can be used relationally in the conduct of
policy and also that it acts as a constraint. Thus, relational power politics can
determine the foreign policy that constitutes the structure that then
constrains the operation of those relational power politics. Rather than
boxing them into a corner, identities may create unintended leeway for
states.
Taiwan’s state identity change represents a move from ethnic Chinese
nationalism to a pluralistic Taiwanese nationalism that exhibits aspects of
Chinese cultural and Taiwanese political identity. Loss of legitimacy made
Chinese nationalism flexible enough to metamorphose. Taipei could not
create a Republic of Taiwan in the early 1990s owing to systemic and
domestic constraints. Instead, Taipei followed a different path from that taken
in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s: the state waited for national
identity to catch up and the balance of power gave it that space.
Huadu represents a form of legitimacy and political power, guaranteed
structurally through US power – a creative solution to Taiwan’s challenge to
Chinese identity. Huadu allowed the international system to incorporate this
challenge by providing somewhere international for the ROC to go, thus
relieving the PRC of a challenge to its own legitimacy. Huadu is implicitly
recognized by powerful Taiwanese DIGs who act on it and transfer it into
the national interest. More surprisingly perhaps, despite its formal stance,
Beijing also tacitly acknowledges huadu in its de facto diplomacy with Taipei.
As such, huadu impedes any attempt to use national identity to change the
status quo.
Constructivism provides a dialectic epistemology that aligns to classical
realism. Power is not just material and relative; it is ideational and relational
and contingent; shifts over time matter more than distribution. Hence,
changes in relative power generate perceptions and influence socialization.
The system, as well as China, constrains Taiwan’s choices and Taiwan cannot
sacrifice as much as China in the face of these constraints. Taiwan is rational,
purposeful and motivated but its cross-Strait policy is shaped by other non-
structural factors, including domestic politics, history, identity, culture,
ideology, norms and perceptions of legitimacy. These are co-constitutive of
structure and Taiwan must balance structure against them in its cross-Strait
policy decisions and it makes choices informed by vulnerability in the
context of uncertainty. Cross-Strait interdependence may help maintain
peace but does not prevent war; identity-driven policy responses to it shape
future economic relations and reinforce political foundations (Abdelal and
Kirschner 1999). By moving away from NCR, this framework shows how
the national interest is normatively, ideationally and domestically constructed
by political actors and that the cross-Strait discourse of ‘peace and prosperity’
aligns to Morgenthau’s claim that the national interest is the maintenance of
peace and that power has social purpose. Morality shapes Taiwan’s behaviour
in so far as it deploys norms instrumentally; neither Taiwan’s nor China’s
actions are good or bad (Carr 1946, pp. 65, 69). Prudence is ‘the supreme
virtue in politics’ (Morgenthau 1978, pp. 10–11). The ‘recognition of power
realities’ is ‘the gentle civilizer of national self-interest’ (Kennan 1951, pp.
47, 50).

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 5

The India–US Nuclear Deal: Norms of

Power and the Power of Norms
Saira Bano

A major dilemma for the nuclear non-proliferation regime is to engage the

nuclear-armed states that are not in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),
India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, more effectively in the broader
nuclear non-proliferation regime without weakening or discrediting the
NPT. The Indo–US Civilian Nuclear Agreement claims to bring India, as a
‘responsible’ nuclear state, closer to the nuclear non-proliferation regime
(Tellis 2006; Burns 2007). It was criticized by the non-proliferation
community, concerned that global non-proliferation norms would be
undermined by treating India ‘exceptionally’ (Einhorn 2005; Gallucci 2006;
Kimball 2006). The United States sought an India-specific exemption from
the non-proliferation rules and discouraged others from seeking such
exemptions to limit the damage to the regime. This chapter employs a realist
constructivist approach to understand how the US–India nuclear agreement
has affected the key norms of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime by
deviating from the established expectations of the regime.
The NPT is a nearly universal (except for four countries) treaty and the
cornerstone of the global non-proliferation regime. The NPT is a bargain
between NWSs (Nuclear Weapons States) and NNWSs (non-Nuclear
Weapons States) in which NWSs agreed to share nuclear technology for
peaceful purposes and gradually disarm, through negotiations in good faith,
their nuclear arsenals while NNWSs agreed not to develop nuclear weapons
and to accept International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards on
their peaceful nuclear activities. The non-NPT states cannot be coerced to
join the NPT as NNWSs nor is it possible to admit them as NWSs due to
the complexity involved in amending the treaty. The indefinite extension of
the NPT in 1995 solidified this gap. After the India–US nuclear deal, India is
getting the benefits of nuclear energy cooperation along with its nuclear
weapons programme, creating a tension within the regime.
On 18 July 2005, US President George W. Bush and Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh in a joint statement announced a framework for
nuclear cooperation between the two countries, which brought an end to
more than three decades of sanctions against India following its 1974 nuclear
test. The United States had to change its domestic law to facilitate this
nuclear cooperation. The US President has the authority to waive these
sanctions against India, with the approval of the US Congress. The Hyde
Act, approved by the US Congress and signed by President Bush into law on
18 December 2006, provides the required waiver authority to the president,
but contains seven conditions that must be met before it can be exercised.
Among these requirements are a credible civil-military separation plan by
India, an India–IAEA Safeguards Agreement and a consensus decision by the
Nuclear Suppliers Group to exempt India from its export guidelines –
specifically the full-scope safeguards (FSS) requirement.
The United States did not act arbitrarily but tried to modify the regime
in such a way as to pursue its strategic objective regarding India because
nuclear non-proliferation is also an important policy objective. It altered the
rules of the regime by the passing of the Hyde Act (changing US domestic
laws for India), obtaining the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver on
nuclear trade for India (achieving consensus in the NSG after intense
diplomacy), and by India signing India-specific the IAEA Safeguards
Agreement. This regime objective explains why the United States, rather
than establishing a set of rules that would apply to all states that have not
signed the NPT, sought an India-specific exemption and is discouraging
others from seeking a similar agreement. The question is how far the United
States will be able to limit the effects of this ‘exception’. How did the
United States attempt to accommodate India within the nuclear non-
proliferation regime? How has this deal affected the interpretation of the
central norm, the FSS norm, of the non-proliferation regime? How did
power manifest itself in the contestation over this norm and its
interpretation?
Realist constructivism can account for changes and stability in normative
structure by looking at power structures, normative factors, domestic culture
and elite perception. Realist constructivism provides a frame to help identify
and organize some factors and processes that can help us understand and
explain normative contestation and its outcomes, though the results of these
processes may be highly contingent rather than easily predictable. Change is
both conduct- and context-shaping and it is the interpretation of the
powerful state, through normative structures, that rules most of the time.

Definitions
Realist constructivism as used here aims to understand how norms emerge
out of a particular power relationship and how new norms change existing
power structures. It emphasizes the role of agency in explaining normative
change (Barkin 2010). It allows analysis not only of the impact of the nuclear
deal on the regime, but also of how other factors have influenced the
changes by tracing the process of meaning construction of this norm. Realist
constructivism’s assumption that powerful agents can generate a change but
at the same are constrained by normative structure broadens our
understanding and explains why the United States modified the non-
proliferation regime to conclude the India–US nuclear agreement and
presented these changes as India-specific to discourage other states from
following this precedent. Since the announcement of the deal in 2005, the
United States has tried to keep these changes India-specific. Realist
constructivism helps to explain the subsequent developments in the nuclear
non-proliferation regime and the extent to which the United States is able to
present these changes as India-specific.
 Realist constructivism emphasizes that power and norms are best
understood as mutually constitutive. Samuel Barkin argues:

Even if all actors in the international system at a given point in time

accept the same basic set of normative structures, they will differ in
their interpretations of those structures, whether for rationally self-
interested reasons or for psychological reasons … When
interpretations differ, the power of the interpreter continues to
matter. The role of a realist constructivism, then, is to examine,
skeptically from a moral perspective, the interrelationships between
power and international norms. (Barkin 2003, p. 337)

Agents resist or advocate norms and by doing so they not only give norms
varied meanings, but also try to link or separate various norms in a broader
normative structure. This shows that power is essential in the processes of
social construction, highlighting why powerful agents are in a privileged
position. Power, however, does not determine that everything is possible;
rather powerful agents have to take into account the existing power relations
and normative structure. These constraints force powerful agents to interpret
norms, to justify violations or exemptions, in a way that is socially
acceptable.
Power disparities do matter and influence the meaning construction of a
norm. Powerful states usually dominate the discursive structure and are more
influential in this process of social construction and meaning interpretation
of a norm. Ignoring the role of power leads to oversight of argumentation
processes in which powerful states are in a dominant position to make their
case. Powerful states interpret norms and frame issues in such a way that
empowers their arguments at the expense of others. Discourses are
developed to serve one’s interest and not others, endorsing a certain meaning
and discrediting others. Therefore, it is important to analyze dominating
discourses and how their meanings are structured for later practices to make
them legitimate. However, even dominating discourses do not work on their
own; they have to be articulated and rearticulated to keep them relevant and
legitimate (Milliken 1999, p. 229).
It is important to take into account how power disparities affect norm
contestation. Powerful states interpret and reinterpret norms to justify their
self-interested behaviour and have vast material resources for strategic
construction of social acceptance. They are in a privileged position to
propagate their interpretation and forum shopping in search of an institution
in support of their position. The realist constructivism approach explores the
interaction of norms and power in the sense that they affect change in one
another. In norm contestation the power of an interpreter matters and
significantly affects the pattern of normative change.
Power is the ability to frame strategic actions in a legitimate manner.
International regimes not only provide effective forums to achieve states’
strategic interests in an acceptable way, but also serve to constrain naked use
of force or the taking of arbitrary actions. The realist constructivism
approach emphasizes the role of legitimacy in strategic actions. The process
of legitimation in norms’ construction involves power relations, the
normative context and the need for broad consensus (Clark 2005, p. 4).
When states violate norms, they try to justify their breach by linking that
behaviour in compliance with some other accepted standards of conduct
rather than publically accepting their contravention (Wheeler 2000, pp. 9,
24). In so doing, they seek to reconstruct and reinterpret the norms in ways
that will serve their self-interests, but they need to build a broad consensus
(Hurd 2007, p. 196). When states reinterpret norms, in response other states
evaluate the fit of these claims to the established normative structure
according to their own interests and assess how legitimate these claims are.
The audience either will approve the reinterpretation of rule adherence or
penalize violation. Powerful states persuade a majority of states to accept
their position to make the reinterpretation of a norm tolerable within the
institutional environment (Hurd 2007, p. 197). Legitimation of a normative
order hence requires a broad consensus and this acts as a restraint on
powerful states. The process of legitimacy is not something that operates by
itself, rather it is a soft power and requires constant work of taking into
account existing power relations, normative context and institutional
structure. These constraints prevent powerful states from taking arrogant and
unilateral actions (Hurd 2002, p. 47).
International legitimation processes demonstrate state practice and its
impact on international norms because agents and structure influence each
other. Consequently, although powerful states are in a position to influence
norms disproportionately as compared to weaker states, they must do this
within the normative structure. In each legitimation process, a broad
consensus has to be developed among all stakeholders on how norms are to
be interpreted and applied (Clark 2005, p. 201). Due to this constraint
powerful states cannot change norms repeatedly. There is a limit to using the
existing normative structure to interpret and reinterpret norms. Moreover,
once a state has interpreted a norm and developed a broad consensus then it
may constrain that state’s future deviation from that shared norm (Wheeler
2000, pp. 25, 26). In this way, norms are both constraining and enabling of
state power.
Power is also an ability of powerful states to use discourses for their self-
interest. They convince other states of the rightness of their interpretation of
norms and shape international opinion in their favour. But powerful states
must link their subjective interpretation to existing intersubjective normative
structures. Powerful states cannot change the norms unilaterally but they
must construct an intersubjective consensus among relevant states to gain
legitimacy for their practice. Therefore, the powerful states participate in
language games to develop the required intersubjectivity. Norms do not exist
in a vacuum but are contested in a given institutional context. The most
effective way to promote one’s preferred interpretation is to demonstrate
coherence between a new interpretation and existing collective standards of
appropriate behaviour. Hence, states must convince others that their
interpretation is reasonable. The presence of a gap between subjectivity and
intersubjectivity of norms opens up opportunities for different
interpretations. It is on the basis of the resulting intersubjective
understanding that norms are produced and reproduced.
 This social construction of norms gives powerful states a privileged
position to shape normative structure. They have power to intervene at
critical moments to shape a new norm or reinterpret an established norm.
They also shape understanding of how a norm is to be implemented and
whose practice is to count within a normative structure. Thus, it is
important to understand the choice of arguments as part of a strategic social
construction: in the case of the India–US nuclear deal the aim is to gain a
degree of legitimacy, but to avoid precedents that would damage the non-
proliferation regime.

Methodology
Applying a realist constructivist approach to the non-proliferation and
disarmament norms requires that power disparities, normative structure, elite
perceptions, and intersubjective dominant discourses be taken into account.
These factors provide a comprehensive framework to analyze norm changes
and evolution within a regime through contestation. The fundamental
norms in the nuclear non-proliferation regime are influenced and shaped by
power structure, normative factors, domestic culture and elite perceptions.
The proliferation and disarmament norms are influenced by power
disparities in which powerful states exert decisive influence in the meaning
construction and interpretation of these norms. The United States has always
remained the most influential actor in the regime. The United States and the
group of guardians it leads mostly initiate only those norms that are
consistent with its strategic interests, and ensure its sway. The non-
proliferation norms first evolved from the principles espoused by the Atoms-
for-Peace plan and subsequently were debated during the NPT negotiations.
Though the NPT was not a consensual affair many states subsequently
joined despite reservations about its bargain in the belief that it was the most
reasonable way to avoid a nuclear conflagration. Therefore, the regime is an
unfair bargain shaped by the interests of the powerful states.
The United States spent decades requiring the NPT NNWSs to place
their entire nuclear programmes under permanent FSS through material
incentives and normative arguments. Most countries have allowed intrusive
inspections into their nuclear programmes because they stand to gain in two
respects. First, by opening up these programmes, countries obtain access to
external suppliers of nuclear fuel, reactors and other essential technologies.
The NSG has agreed to condition sales of nuclear fuel and technologies on
NNWSs’ acceptance of FSS on their nuclear programmes. Second, as part of
this bargain, countries under safeguards help assure their neighbours that
they are not making nuclear weapons.
After the beginning of the nuclear age, marked by the power
demonstration of nuclear weapons’ destruction capacity during the Second
World War, the international community realized that a spread of nuclear
weapons would pose a major threat to international security. The normative
structure is based on the belief that proliferation increases the likelihood of
war and a peaceful use of nuclear technologies is compatible with the aim of
non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. The NPT has provided the normative
basis underpinning the regime: this is an explicit recognition by the
international community that it is undesirable that additional states should
acquire these weapons and an implicit acknowledgement that it is
undesirable that any state should possess them. This normative basis is also a
source of considerable contestation among NPT parties and of criticism by
states which still refuse to adhere to it. This is because the treaty distinguishes
between NWSs and NNWSs. While the former are only required to
negotiate ‘in good faith’ on measures of nuclear disarmament, the latter are
forbidden to possess nuclear weapons. States still criticize the perceived
discrimination inherent in this distinction.
The non-NPT states never signed the NPT and remained under
sanctions due to their refusal to accept the FSS. US policy towards India
focused nearly entirely on nuclear weapons concerns, with Washington and
New Delhi on opposite sides of the issue. The Bush Administration viewed
India as a strategic partner and offered it a nuclear deal to counter a rising
China. The United States also had economic interests in capturing the
potentially huge Indian nuclear market. Both the Indian government and the
Bush Administration had to build consensus at domestic level in order to
negotiate and sign this deal. The Indian government had to assuage the
concerns that the deal would in any way restrain the nuclear weapons
programme. The Bush Administration, on the other hand, had to convince
Congress that the deal would not weaken the nuclear non-proliferation
regime and would not help India in boosting its nuclear weapons
programme. Domestic politics substantially impeded – and may have entirely
prevented – US nuclear accommodation with India; when domestic
obstacles were overcome, US–India negotiations advanced; and even after
negotiations advanced, domestic factors placed conditions on and affected
the scope of the deal. In the end, US–India negotiations only advanced
when the conditions of nuclear cooperation satisfied key domestic
constituents in both countries in order to conclude a historic and politically
contentious nuclear deal.
Building a dominant intersubjective discourse at the international level
was an uphill task for the United States because the deal was against the
existing shared understanding of acceptable forms of behaviour. The United
States had to build a normative fit in order to get consensus at the NSG. The
deal was presented as an energy agreement and an essential step in order to
help India to meet its energy requirements. It was argued that the deal would
decrease New Delhi’s reliance on fossil fuel and would minimize
environmental damage. India’s non-proliferation credentials were highlighted
and the consensus was built by arguing that the deal would not damage the
NPT. The deal was presented as India-specific and it was argued that the
NPT does not prohibit civilian nuclear cooperation with non-NPT states.
The United States convinced the NSG member states that the deal would
not contribute to the Indian nuclear weapons programme and the non-
proliferation commitments would increase New Delhi’s stakes in the regime.
At the end, the United States had to threaten a few member states that
blocking the consensus would have implications for its relations with those
states. Therefore, the India-specific NSG waiver was obtained through
normative arguments and material threats.
Now the United States is trying to limit the damage to the regime by
keeping the deal and its attendant developments as India-specific. Looking at
power structure, normative factors, domestic politics of other non-NPT
states and reservations of the NNWSs at domestic and international level
would help to determine the implications of the deal for the fundamental
non-proliferation and disarmament norms.
It is important to take into account material, normative and cultural
factors in analyzing the process by which norms are affected and changed.
An analysis of the narrative of the contestation in building a dominant
discourse helps to determine the implication of the norm contestation for
the regime. The India–US nuclear deal met with considerable resistance at
the normative level. The United States promoted the deal and was able to
override resistance through normative arguments by presenting it as an
energy deal and through material factors by making it a top priority and
investing considerable diplomatic efforts. The United States is keeping the
deal India-specific by arguing that India was a special case and the other
three non-NPT states do not qualify for this special treatment. Norm
contestation theory in combination with realist constructivism provides a
framework to analyze the extent to which the United States has been
successful in keeping the deal India-specific.
This chapter analyzes the creation and content of the Indo–US Nuclear
Deal (India, Ministry of External Affairs 2007), the Hyde Act (US
Government 2006), the NSG waiver for India (Nuclear Suppliers Groups
2008), the IAEA-India Safeguards Agreement (IAEA 2008), the NPT review
conferences (2010, 2015), NSG meetings, and the Indo–US Reprocessing
Agreement (India 2010), among other documents (eg official statements,
testimony and press releases). I also conducted 31 interviews with US
policymakers who were involved in the India–US deal negotiations, and
with the non-proliferation community during my three-month research
fellowship at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC in the summer of
2015. Apart from these primary sources, this study will also rely on
secondary sources in which nuclear non-proliferation experts and academics
argue either in favour or against the deal.

The India–US nuclear deal

After an initial flurry of anger and sanctions following the Indian and
Pakistani nuclear tests in May 1998, it became clear that neither state was
going to give up its nuclear weapons and the world had to accept this reality.
However, the Clinton Administration’s approach towards the Indian nuclear
programme remained to ‘cap, roll back, and eventually’ eliminate it. Indian
Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and Strobe Talbott, US Deputy Secretary of
State from 1994 to 2001 and the chief US negotiator with India, held eight
rounds of discussions to explore opportunities for a better relationship
between the two countries during 1998–2000. The seven rounds of talks
between Singh and Talbott in 2001 and 2002 can be viewed as a way to
cautiously institutionalize India into the dominant order of global
governance (Muppidi 2004, p. 289). India’s growing economy played an
important role in improving the relations. In 2000 the economic growth rate
was 6 per cent as compared to 3.5 per cent in 1980. President Clinton
visited India in March 2000 to improve economic relations and started a new
beginning of ‘dynamic and lasting partnership’ but the nuclear issue still
remained a stumbling block (Chellaney 2000).
A few months after the 1998 tests there were already suggestions that
India should be enticed with civilian technology to adhere to non-
proliferation norms (Warren et al 1999). India’s economic growth was
creating a ‘voracious appetite for electricity’ (Victor 2006). The resulting
growing energy appetite of the rapidly industrializing country was to be met
primarily by fossil fuels, largely coal and hydroelectricity. India’s electricity
generation capacity had grown over 150-fold since independence and it was
projected that the sector must grow by a further factor of five to six times,
fuelled largely by fossil fuels, to sustain the desired GDP growth (Mathai
2013, p. 142). Such developments were poised to exacerbate the
environmental crisis. Nuclear power as a clean and sustainable source of
energy became the focus of attention. India’s growing nuclear energy needs
were being recognized at the international level.
India’s rising economy provided an opportunity for the nuclear suppliers
to revise the nuclear non-proliferation norms. Strobe Talbott wrote in 2004
that the French government was eager to have a nuclear agreement with
India in late 1998:

In September 1998, during a visit by Vajpayee to Paris, President

Chirac had announced that France would conduct its own ‘strategic
dialogue’ with New Delhi. The French dangled the possibility that
India might, with French help, become eligible for nuclear assistance
of the kind forbidden to non-NPT states. If that happened, India
would have broken free of the restrictions that resulted from its long
standing refusal to join the NPT. (Talbot 2004, p. 143)

Italy along with France was also supporting the idea of lifting sanctions on
India. ‘Seeing France and Italy breaking ranks, the United Kingdom and
Germany showed signs of being tempted to step up the pace of restoring to
normal their own relations with India’ (Talbot 2004, p. 143).
Russia and India have enjoyed strong strategic, military and economic
relations since the Cold War, and Russia has always been in favour of lifting
sanctions against India. In May 2000 Mikhail Ryzhov, a Russian Atomic
Energy Ministry official, argued in favour of the recognition of the nuclear
status of India and Pakistan and reasoned that both countries have nuclear
weapons and could no longer be expected to sign the NPT as NNWSs. He
called this situation ‘unnatural’ and needing to be addressed in such a way
that ‘it does not promote and encourage further proliferation of nuclear
weapons in the world’ (The Hindu 2000). Russia, France, Germany, the
United Kingdom and Italy knew that, without US help, it would not be
possible to lift these sanctions against India and had been proposing this idea
but this proposition was dismissed outright by the Clinton Administration,
which refused to compromise its non-proliferation agenda.
The Bush Administration discarded the Clinton Administration’s
approach and adopted a flexible strategy to bring India closer to the non-
proliferation regime without its being a signatory to the NPT. Secretary of
State Rice concluded that progress towards an across-the-board strategic
partnership would require decisively resolving the issue of India’s relationship
to the non-proliferation regime (Zelikow 2015). During her visit to New
Delhi in March 2005, she indirectly noted to Indian officials the possibility
of civilian nuclear cooperation to mitigate New Delhi’s reaction to the US
decision to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan (Mistry 2006, p. 682). The thaw
in Indo–US relations led to the unprecedented nuclear deal when Indian
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush signed
a joint statement on 18 July 2005. This joint statement was the framework of
the Indo–US nuclear deal, under which India agreed to undertake several
obligations to strengthen its commitment to the nuclear non-proliferation
regime and, in exchange, the United States agreed to civil nuclear
cooperation (Mohan 2005).
India agreed to separate its military and civilian nuclear facilities, placing
the latter under IAEA safeguards; this required an India-specific safeguards
agreement with the IAEA. This provision is against the FSS norm but is
consistent with the item-specific safeguards norm which was applicable
before the NSG and the NPT adopted comprehensive safeguards in the early
1990s. This is also consistent with the NWSs’ practice of separating military
and civilian nuclear facilities and accepting voluntary safeguards on the latter.
India also agreed to sign the IAEA Additional Protocol, which is consistent
with the United States’ effort to make this measure universal.
India committed to refraining from transferring enrichment and
reprocessing (ENR) technology to states that do not have it. This
commitment is consistent with the ENR technology ban norm, but there is
a difference of opinion as to whether India should be getting this technology.
India’s interpretation of the ‘full civil nuclear cooperation’ includes the
transfer of such technology while the US interpretation does not allow New
Delhi to access this technology.
For its part, the United States had to change its domestic law to
accommodate a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with India. This
touched on the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), which governs US nuclear
cooperation with other countries, and its section 123, which requires FSS.
On 18 December 2006 President Bush signed the Hyde Act into law to
provide a waiver for India from the relevant provisions of the AEA (White
House 2005).
The zeal with which the deal has been driven forward in India and the
United States has been met with a matched response of opposition, criticism
and suspicion. The deal generated a controversy with diverse opinions not
only within India and the United States. The non-proliferation community
in general also argued against the deal. The supporters called the deal a net
gain for the non-proliferation regime by pointing to India’s commitments to
the regime as a result of it, while the opponents pointed to the flaws in the
deal, which they argue would undermine the regime. The problems
highlighted by the opponents of the deal explain why the United States
presented the deal as India-specific and discouraged other states from
following this precedent.
Ashley Tellis contends that ‘[o]ne of the issue that we have to deal with in
2005 was whether we provide this exceptionalism to all three parties that is
India Pakistan and Israel or only to India alone and the decision for various
reasons was made only offer to India alone’ (Tellis 2015). Similarly,
Ambassador Richard Boucher argues that ‘[t]here was a concern [in the
Bush Administration] that [the deal] might open doors for other states to
develop nuclear weapons and get them accepted later or set a precedent …
this is the reason we made it very clear that this deal is only for India’
(Boucher 2015).
On 6 September 2008, the NSG agreed on an India-specific exemption
to its nuclear export guidelines after complex negotiations. The exception
initiated by the Bush Administration and strongly backed by France, Russia
and the United Kingdom, was a remarkable development in the non-
proliferation regime, reversing the NSG policy requiring FSS as a condition
of export, which was adopted in 1992. India is now the only country with
nuclear weapons which is allowed to engage in nuclear trade with the rest of
the world, enjoying the benefits of nuclear trade reserved for NPT states
without being required to sign the treaty. Many countries, such as New
Zealand, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Norway, criticized the
exemption as lacking any conditions and proposed amendments to its various
drafts in view of their non-proliferation concerns. Their proposed
amendments included clauses concerning a ban on the transfer of ENR
technologies to India, termination of the waiver if India detonated a nuclear
weapon, and a ‘review’ mechanism to assess India’s compliance with non-
proliferation commitments. India’s insistence on a ‘clean and unconditional’
waiver, due to domestic opposition, made negotiations complicated, and the
United States had to redraft the proposal draft three times in order to meet
the some of the objections and reservations.
The NSG exempted India from its nuclear export guidelines, which
require FSS, after complicated negotiations. The NSG waiver was essential
for the completion of the Indo–US Nuclear Agreement, announced in July
2005. The requirement of consensus for the NSG decision made it difficult
for the United States and India to bring all the members on board −
especially the ‘like-minded’ states, which have strong non-proliferation
commitments.
Anish Goel, the former US State Department official, recalls the strategy
of the US negotiations:

There was a lot of opposition in the beginning. One of our chief

negotiators Richard Stratford was brilliant. He was working on the
nonproliferation issues since the NPT was signed. He has been
negotiating bilateral agreements for 25 years. He was able to point
out that the waiver is not inconsistent with the NPT as states have
been selling nuclear material to India before the NPT and NSG
adopted full-scope safeguards. This argument helped in getting a lot
of these countries to turn around. Out of 44 countries when we
started we had may be five on our side. He got at least 25 more to
our side, just from regular briefings. In the end, there were about ten
countries that were still very abstinent: we call them nonproliferation
ayatollahs. We swayed them on the strength of our bilateral
relationship with each country. The very high level of US
government got involved and made clear to these other countries
that if you do not support this agreement it will have ramifications
 for our bilateral relationship. Some call it bullying or arms twisting.
Whatever you call it, it took place at a very high level that finally get
the rest of the countries on board. They wanted to stand up for the
nonproliferation ideals but they weren’t willing to risk their relations
with the United States. (Goel 2015)

In norm interpretation the institutional context matters; specifically, the

degree to which the normative status quo is entrenched or institutionalized
matters profoundly because the defenders enjoy special strategic and tactical
advantages when defending entrenched norms. The consensus rule of the
NSG provided many opportunities to the member states to block a decision.
Powerful states were in a position to offer positive and negative incentives to
achieve consensus but that required huge political and diplomatic
investment.
The interpretation of meaning of norm is determined by context rather
than by universal principles. India’s rise provided a context in which the
Bush Administration was motivated to lift nuclear sanctions against India.
Consequently, Washington invested huge political and diplomatic efforts to
build consensus in Congress and at international level.
The Indo–US Nuclear Deal is a paradigm shift in US foreign policy and
marked a new era between the two countries. Strategic and economic
interests led the United States to adopt a flexible policy to boost India’s
military and economic power against China and to open the Indian nuclear
energy market to American companies, creating jobs and profit. Nicholas
Burns called this deal a ‘strategic deal’ (Burns 2015). Vikram Singh argues
that ‘[t]he Bush Administration knew that the deal will damage the regime,
but at the end it was worth a shot’ for strategic reasons (Singh 2015).
For India, this deal ended New Delhi’s isolation by lifting three-decades-
old sanctions and now it can import much needed technology and fuel for
its energy programme. India saw good relations with the United States as
insurance, should China turn aggressive, while cultivating good relations
with China as long as Beijing behaves peacefully.
 Rather than simply ignoring its non-proliferation obligations, the Bush
Administration went to great lengths to justify its conduct within existing
norms, attempting to make its conduct appear to comply with the existing
normative structure. When a norm is heavily institutionalized then changing
policy is harder than maintaining the status quo – and the greater the
proposed change the greater inertia’s sway. The Bush Administration had to
build consensus both at domestic and international level. It made a case in
Congress that the nuclear deal offered major strategic, energy and
environmental benefits; its non-proliferation drawbacks (of undermining the
FSS rule) were offset by non-proliferation benefits (of India’s separating its
civilian and military facilities and placing the civilian facilities under
safeguards); and that the strategic benefits would be lost and India–US
relations would suffer if Congress rejected the agreement. Philip Zelikow
argues that ‘[t]he Bush Administration decided to strike a deal with India
first and then fight a political battle in Congress’ (Zelikow 2015). India’s
democratic system and rising economy created a soft image. The US
Congress did not oppose the deal and was convinced of the Bush
Administration’s justification but wanted to include more stringent non-
proliferation conditions due to its concerns for the regime.
The United Sates and other major supportive countries were able to fix
the meaning of this norm by presenting this deal as India-specific and as
unlikely to set a precedent. The deal is unlikely to have a negative impact for
the IAEA FSS norm for a variety of reasons: the United States presented the
deal as India-specific; the level of resistance to the deal, despite arguably
India’s strong non-proliferation credentials, stable democracy and rising
economy, rules out a similar deal for other non-NPT states; and there was a
minimal opposition from NNWSs at the NPT review conferences due to
their good relations with India and the United States.
Power and norms are mutually constitutive: at any particular moment in
time, norms shape the system of power that exists in a particular context. In
other words, the power relations, the distribution of power, the ability of
states to draw from different types of power, and the ability to exercise power
in a given situation, are constituted by norms and are, at a particular
moment, fixed. Over time, however, norms evolve as this system of power
privileges certain states, enabling them to construct and interpret norms.
Thus, the power dynamics in a particular context determine, at least partially,
how and why certain actors are able to influence the processes of norm
evolution. In other words, norms shape relations of power while relations of
power shape who influences norms over time and in what ways. Norms
constitute power relations by holding in place meanings associated with
concepts, which distribute power and privileges among states. Norms
change over time and states influence their evolution according to their
national interest, but to do so they have to draw on existing normative
structure. The way states construct and interpret norms is shaped by the
nature of existing prevailing broader normative structure.

Conclusion
The realist constructivism approach can explain the importance of particular
agents in generating change in patterns of international politics. It can also
look at structural constraints on agency and mechanisms through which
agency might generate change. It has the following four benefits for norm
studies: first, it can explain normative change by focusing on the interplay of
structure and agency. Second, this approach gives more space to agency and
can analyze how agents handle opportunities and constraints created by
structures to produce change or maintain the status quo. In this way this
approach can explain the importance of specific agents in generating change
in patterns of international regimes. Third, this approach takes power as
relative and relational. Fourth, by taking domestic factors into account, this
approach highlights the neglected relationship between culture and agent.
Interrelated beliefs and ideas have an influence over actors and in order to
understand agency it is important to understand the context of these beliefs
and ideas and the placement of actors within the social structure and the
material resources they can bring to bear on each other.
It is in a better position than other forms of constructivism to account for
changes and stability in international regimes by looking at power structure,
normative factors, domestic culture and elite perception. Constructivists can
hardly use the logic of appropriateness independently from power
considerations to explain why in a certain situation, a state or any other
international actor occupies a particular role or acts according to a particular
norm and not others that may have competing or even contradictory
imperatives. According to the logic of appropriateness the United States
should not have offered this deal to India and realism cannot explain why the
United States went to such pains to legitimize this deal through international
institutions rather than simply ignoring this normative structure.
The contestation over the non-proliferation and disarmament norms
demonstrates that state interests and norms affect each other. More powerful
states are able to interpret norms according to their own state interests but
their actions are not unilateral: rather they have to construct a mutual
understanding with others through the normative structure. Powerful states
have more leverage to develop that understanding and can provide more
positive and negative incentives to other states to obtain their preferred
interpretation. In this process, however, they have to accommodate the
interests of other states and this in turn brings changes in the norms they are
attempting to advance. Power affects the evolution of norms and norms
affect the power structure.
A realist constructivist approach provides a power-sensitive approach in
taking into account material factors, normative structure, domestic factors
and elite perceptions of national interests. State interests are social
constructions that are open to redefinition. State elites define national
interests through constructing mutual understanding at domestic level.
Domestic structure and culture influence the bargaining process and the way
these perceived national interests can be achieved.
The Bush Administration perceived India as a strategic partner and
decided to lift nuclear sanctions against New Delhi to build that partnership
on a solid basis. This was against the ‘shared understanding’ of US domestic
law and the non-proliferation regime. The Bush Administration had to make
a normative fit and presented this deal as being in compliance with the other
accepted norms of the regime. That is why Washington highlighted the
energy and environmental aspect of the deal and downplayed the strategic
aspect.
The realist constructivism approach suggests that norms provide
legitimacy and it is important to seek legitimacy and moral justification in
power politics. An ideological mask for strategic interests can serve the
purpose of legitimacy and acceptability at the international level. In order to
seek this legitimacy the Bush Administration had to modify its domestic law
by convincing the US Congress to approve the deal at domestic level, and at
international level it had to invest huge political and diplomatic efforts to get
a consensus decision at the NSG.
Power influences the norm contestation process via the key role played by
states to develop, maintain or change norms. State practice is crucial to
implement norms and that helps to uphold a fixed meaning of a norm or
construct a new interpretation. Powerful states disproportionately influence
norm interpretation but the existing normative structure and peer approval
impose restraints upon the unhindered exercise of power. When states
violate a norm or deviate from the accepted standard of behaviour they try
to justify that deviation by drawing upon legal, moral or political arguments.
The discourses are used carefully to defend the deviation and to win the
support of relevant states. Now it depends on the reaction of other states
whether they accept the presented arguments with explicit support or reject
them through outright condemnation.
Powerful states have resources at their disposal to popularize their norm
interpretation on the level of discourses. They possess discursive power.
Through discourses they try to shape the values, perceptions, preferences and
consequently the behaviour of other actors. This is how power is diffused
and embodied in discourses and produces ‘regimes of truth’ (Foucault 1991).
This contributes to the stabilization of existing structures of inequality.
Powerful states have plenty of resources to appeal to the incentive structure
of weaker states. By providing incentives they can acquire the required
consent from weaker states. Sometimes they also rely on threats to deter
opposition from the relevant states. Consequently, powerful states
significantly shape the incentives and disincentives for other states to
acquiesce in their norm interpretation, and their resources provide them
with a variety of options which can be used to induce consent and deter
opposition.
Norms are not opposites to power but rather a vehicle through which
states can achieve their self-interest through legitimate means. While
powerful states possess discursive power, this power is by no means
unlimited. They must construct a tolerable consensus among their peers to
achieve acceptance for their preferred interpretation. The efforts to create
this broad consensus put certain constraints on their unlimited use of power.
The United States was in a position to engage in extensive diplomacy to
build consensus for the deal. The Bush Administration had extensive
consultations with major countries to get support for the deal. At the NSG
the United States was also in a position to shape the context in which like-
minded states assessed that blocking the consensus at the cost of their
relations with Washington is not in their interest.
Powerful states promote norms collectively that serve their interests. They
not only coordinate the efforts of this promotion among themselves, but also
pressurize their subordinate states within their areas of influence and alliance
system by exploiting their unequal power with them. When major powers
have a collective interest in promoting a norm then it is possible to change a
heavily institutionalized norm. Defenders of the heavily institutionalized
norm have certain strategic and tactical advantages in defending the
entrenched normative structure. Institutional designs and voting systems also
empower states in different ways. For example, a two thirds majority voting
system empowers major states and it is convenient for them to attain their
objectives. On the other hand, consensus voting favours smaller states by
giving them veto power. It was easier for the United States to get approval
for the India–IAEA safeguards agreement by means of the two thirds
majority rule than getting a consensus decision at the NSG. Due to this
consensus rule the United States had to accommodate the concerns of the
like-minded states, though these accommodations had little impact on the
final draft. In the end, Washington threatened these states that their decision
to blockade the consensus would negatively impact their relations with the
United States. The level of resistance, despite India’s arguably good non-
proliferation record, rules out the possibility for similar deals for other non-
NPT states and this deal is likely to remain India-specific for the foreseeable
future.
International regimes provide a useful forum where states seek legitimacy
and in this way regimes are effective tools to achieve national interests.
Powerful states effectively use international regimes for their interests but
regimes also constrain the great powers’ capacity for excessive use of force.
In order to develop and maintain legitimacy, regimes need to be seen to
possess a certain degree of independence. Powerful states strive to keep a
balance in providing regimes with sufficient independence on the one hand,
and retaining a control of regimes for their self-interests on the other hand.
The exercise of power is about shaping a context in which actors redefine
their preferences and interests. International regimes provide a context in
which powerful actors frame issues in a normative structure and through
persuasion and coercion seek to develop consensus in the legitimation
process. Realist constructivism provides a power-sensitive approach to norm
contestation theory in which powerful states are in a better position to shape
and reshape international norms through intersubjective standards of
appropriate behaviour. This approach is beneficial in norm contestation
theory to assess normative change and stability by taking into account
domestic factors, the interplay of structure and agency, and power as relative
and relational, and giving more space to agency and how agents can handle
opportunities and constraints.
The United States framed the deal through an acceptable normative
structure and reshaped the norms to bring India closer to the regime.
Despite the collective interest of all major powers in lifting nuclear sanctions
against India, it was not easy for the United States to build that consensus
and it had to invest considerable political and diplomatic effort. Washington
presented the changes as India-specific and similar waivers for other non-
NPT states are unlikely.

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 6

Coercive Engagement: Lessons from US

Policy towards China
Chi-hung Wei

Introduction
In the mid 1990s, the United States crafted a policy of engagement that
sought to enmesh a rising China in webs of international organizations or
regimes built upon liberal norms or rules.
Debate has since centred upon whether US efforts at engagement can
steer China onto a peaceful path. If not, why? (Bernstein and Munro 1997;
Friedberg 2000; Mearsheimer 2001, p. 402). If so, can engagement work
absent material rewards offered for Chinese cooperation or economic
sanctions levelled against Chinese obstructionism? If so, how? In other
words, through what mechanisms might engagement exert normative
influence on Beijing?
In the study of US policy towards China, a group of ‘optimistic
constructivists’, as Friedberg terms them, believes that US engagement
initiatives can manage Beijing by socializing it into accepting liberal
expectations about appropriate behaviour (Friedberg 2005). Unlike
neoliberal institutionalists and interdependence theorists, both of whom see
engagement in terms of its potential to alter the material benefits and costs of
Chinese compliance or non-compliance (eg Nye 1995; Ikenberry 2008a;
Ikenberry 2008b; Deudney and Ikenberry 2009), optimistic constructivists
maintain that engagement operates as a communicative device that softens
‘Chinese strategic culture’ (on Chinese strategic culture see Johnston 1995).
‘Communicative engagement’, as Lynch terms it, refers to ‘a dialogical
process of exchanging reasons … which does not rest upon coercion or
manipulation’ (Lynch 2002, p. 204, emphasis added). In the eyes of optimistic
constructivists, Washington persuades Beijing of the legitimacy of
internationally held norms, and Beijing in response enters into open-minded
deliberation by distinguishing good arguments from poor ones in order to
find truth claims. Eventually, Washington will likely shape Chinese interests
in line with the liberal world order. As Economy and Oksenberg (1999, p.
18) put it, ‘when intensive, high-level, strategic dialogue with China’s leaders
was conducted … progress was made in shaping Chinese thinking’. Over
time, engagement will likely transform China into a ‘social state’, as Johnston
(2008) suggests.
This chapter speaks to such a liberal-constructivist analysis of
engagement. I argue that the normative mechanism through which
engagement influences Beijing is not socialization, communication or
persuasion (which I use interchangeably). Building on recent scholarship that
presents methodological critiques of liberal-constructivist approaches, I argue
that engagement works through a realist constructivist mechanism that
several scholars call ‘rhetorical coercion’ or ‘rhetorical entrapment’ (eg
Schimmelfennig 2003; Krebs and Jackson 2007; Krebs and Lobasz 2007;
Goddard 2008–9). In the presence of antisocial behaviour on Beijing’s part,
the United States and other members of international institutions do not just
condemn Beijing’s violation of international consensus; they also set
‘rhetorical traps’ by framing Chinese non-compliance as inconsistent with
Beijing’s self-identification as a ‘responsible major power’. By appealing to
the commitments to which Beijing has agreed in public, America and its
allies lock Chinese leaders into their own words, leaving them unable to
continue with policies contrary to the ‘peaceful rise’ or ‘peaceful
development’ discourses they have proposed before international audiences.
The US–Chinese case illustrates a realist constructivism by showing what
may be called ‘coercive engagement’. While I agree with optimistic
constructivists (also referred to as liberal constructivists) that bringing China
into ‘international society’ is a better policy than isolating it, I refrain from
viewing engagement as communicative or socializing. While Crawford and
Klotz (1999; see also Klotz 1995) see sanctions as an instrument of
socialization rather than coercion, I argue that engagement exercises coercive
power (in the form of rhetoric) vis-à-vis the ‘engagee’. By integrating
Beijing into multilateral institutions, the United States increases the audience
costs of Chinese hypocrisy when the international public exposes the
inconsistency between what Beijing has promised and what it is currently
doing. Once engagement connects China with the outside world, the
United States and like-minded states will have a better chance of talking
Beijing into a corner and undermining its antisocial urges. If ‘soft power isn’t
so soft’ (Bially Mattern 2005), the same holds true for engagement.
Although engagement differs from sanctions, it is not without coercive
elements. Engagement and entrapment, I suggest, are two sides of the same
coin.
In this chapter I first define realism and constructivism, as they are used
here, in terms of power politics and the social construction of international
politics, respectively. I then discuss my methodology and provide empirical
evidence. While the American policy of engaging China covers several
issues, including human rights, security, trade, arms control, and so on, I
focus on the engagement/entrapment process that pushed Beijing to sign the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996. In response to
Beijing’s nuclear tests conducted between 1994 and 1996, America and other
states manoeuvred Beijing’s pre-existing commitments to nuclear
disarmament, thereby rhetorically compelling it into signature. To place this
case in comparative perspective, I briefly examine the post-signature period
in which US opposition to CTBT ratification has diminished the utility of
engagement, as evidenced by Beijing’s reciprocal refusal to ratify the treaty.
Norms embodied in engagement are thus not as progressive or transhistorical
as argued by optimistic constructivists. I conclude that a realist
constructivism, compared with liberal constructivisms, helps scholars
uncover (1) the coercive language lurking behind the process in which
engagement extracts Beijing’s pro-social behaviour and (2) the contextually
contingent nature of Chinese conformism.
Definitions
In this chapter, realism and constructivism are used and defined in ways that
fit both international relations (IR) theory and the study of engagement. To
begin with, the core concept underlying realism is power politics. While this
concept is embraced by nearly all realist theories, the variant of realism used
here is classical rather than structural. The structural variant is left out of
consideration for two reasons. At the theoretical level, it pays no attention to
sociality and is thus incompatible with constructivism (eg Barkin 2010, p.
167). At the explanatory level, most structural realists cannot account for
why the United States decided to adopt an engagement policy through
which Beijing would establish itself as a powerhouse (Waltz 2000;
Mearsheimer 2001). Nor can they explain why and how engagement elicits
a specific concession from Beijing, given that they usually explain
concessions as a result of the use of coercive material capabilities (eg
sanctions and containment).
Classical realism, by contrast, is better positioned to explain US
engagement with China. As a theory of foreign policy, it holds that the
impact of China’s rise on the international system is largely unwritten and
that how China acts depends on US foreign policy. Without ruling out the
possibility of conflict, classical realists suggest that engagement becomes an
option if China is willing to improve its prestige and position within the
existing world order. As Kirshner argued in 2010, ‘[w]hile classical realism
must be wary and pessimistic regarding the consequences of China’s rise, its
perspective nevertheless leads to the conclusion that engaging rather than
confronting China is the wisest strategy’ to influence Chinese behaviour in a
desired direction (Kirshner 2010, p. 65).
It follows that influence is what the classical realist definition of power
politics is mainly about. While structural realists conceptualize power in
terms of material resources and see international political outcomes as
dependent upon the distribution of material capabilities among sovereign
states, classical realists define power in terms of influence and argue that
every state has innate interests in influencing others to its advantage by
means of statecraft, be it sanctions or engagement (Baldwin 1985). For
classical realists, power as influence, as opposed to power as resources, is the
ability to get others to do something they otherwise would not do (Dahl
1957). This relational aspect of power politics underlies what Barnett and
Duvall call ‘interactive power’ (Barnett and Duvall 2005).
Power as influence is also a fundamental concept in the engagement
literature. Engagement, according to Schweller, refers to ‘the use of non-
coercive means to ameliorate the non-status quo elements of a rising major
power’s behavior … It encompasses any attempt to socialize the dissatisfied
power into acceptance of the established order’ (Schweller 1999, p. 14,
emphasis added). As the engager seeks to get the engagee to accept
something it otherwise would not accept, engagement is a form of power
politics. As Baldwin points out, ‘positive sanctions’ (namely, engagement) are
a subset of influence attempts and therefore should be analyzed via the
conventional power concepts used for the analysis of ‘negative sanctions’
(Baldwin 1971). American power is successfully exercised if engagement
influences Beijing to accept the established world order.
The sources of power, according to classical realists, are both material and
non-material. Carr, for example, distinguishes among three types of power:
military power, economic power, and power over opinion (Carr 1961). In
particular, power over opinion – the art of propaganda – lays the ground for
a conversation between classical realism and constructivism. For classical
realists, state abilities to influence others are derived as much from social
judgements about appropriate ways that power is exercised as they are from
material capabilities. While classical realists deny the existence of universal
morality or legality, they argue that moral/legal factors in a particular
condition of time or space define what constitutes legitimate power
acceptable to others. Only when the use of power is socially judged
legitimate can the power holder influence others in an effective way (Voeten
2005). Viewed in this way, power is social. The notion of sociality serves to
connect classical realism and constructivism.
Non-material, social sources of power are also integral to the politics of
engagement. As Schweller’s definition makes clear, engagement differs from
coercive material measures; although it takes the material form of economic
inducements or institutional incentives, it also spreads to the engagee the
values that the engager holds dear or the norms shared by members of
international institutions. In other words, to influence others to become like
‘us’ is the ‘social purpose’ of engagement (on social purposes see Ruggie
1982). The power that the engager pursues is social. The United States can
preserve its hegemonic power at a lower cost if China ‘becomes like
America’.
According to Schweller, engagement enforces norms through the
mechanism of socialization, and such a normative process is largely non-
coercive. This chapter, by contrast, argues that coercion or power (exercised
through the medium of language) is a salient feature of normative
engagement. The classical realist conception of power politics rejects the
argument that ideas or discourses designed to shape social opinion are
deployed in a persuasive, appropriate way. For classical realists, if a state
attempts to delegitimize others, it must invoke the language of legitimacy or
illegitimacy through coercive means. If Beijing reneges on the commitments
it has made, the United States and other states use its rhetoric to ‘teach’, in a
coercive manner, Chinese leaders that deeds should be consistent with words
(on teaching in IR see Finnemore 1993). If engagement succeeds in
influencing the engagee, that is not because the promoted values are
persuasive but rather because they are introduced in a coercive way. To the
extent that power politics is about norm-induced change in target behaviour,
coercion rather than socialization is the normative mechanism at work.
With respect to constructivism, its core concept is the social construction
of international politics. For constructivists, the material, structural factor of
anarchy has no direct effects on interstate relations, precisely because state
behaviour is driven partly by such non-material factors as ideas, discourses
and norms. If states find themselves in an anarchical world, that is because
they bring realist-type worldviews into interstate interactions. ‘Anarchy is
what states make of it’, as Wendt (1992) puts it. Of course, the culture of
anarchy may evolve from a Hobbesian one to a Kantian one if international
politics is characterized by liberal principles. (I am not suggesting a
progressive trajectory of the development of that culture, as Wendt (1999) is
prone to do.) Such an evolution suggests that a social construction is not
fixed once and for all; instead, it changes over time, depending on what
worldviews states bring into play.
The social construction of international politics is also a defining feature
of engagement. First, the utility of engagement depends in part on how
Washington treats Beijing. According to Ross, ‘if the United States treats
China as a partner, then it will not become an enemy’ (Ross 1999, p. 188).
Conversely, ‘[e]nmity would become a self-fulfilling prophecy’ should
Washington treat Beijing as an adversary, as Assistant Secretary of Defense
Joseph Nye put it in 1995 (Nye 1995). To analyze engagement thus requires
a process-based ontology. Second, engagement becomes socially constructed
when Beijing accepts liberal rules or norms, whatever the means deployed by
Washington (argumentative persuasion or rhetorical coercion). To the extent
that engagement is indicative of a Kantian culture of anarchy, its rules or
norms should be intersubjectively held between Washington and Beijing.
Engagement is thus an intersubjective politics.
To analyze social construction processes and their change over time, I use
a constructivism that sees states as both social and strategic. To put norms
and rationality in opposition to each other, as optimistic constructivists tend
to do, is not helpful in explaining change (in this case, in the degree of
Chinese compliance: signing the CTBT but then refusing to ratify it in
retaliation for US non-ratification). In fact, few constructivists hold that the
logic of appropriateness is definitional to constructivism. Such a definition
leaves little room for agent initiatives taken to construct and reconstruct
international politics. Only when states have consequentialist logics will
social constructions change. Indeed, Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) integrate
norms and rationality into an analytical framework in order to describe a
process they call ‘strategic social construction’.
Note that I am not defining constructivism in terms of the
(re)constitution of state identity or interests. Doing so would fit into a
liberal-constructivist approach that suggests a role for norms in socializing
states. In this chapter, the social construction of international politics occurs
when the target accepts the norms promoted by ‘norm entrepreneurs’ but it
does not require that the former has become socialized or internalized the
promoted norms. The target may accept a norm for instrumental reasons,
even if over the long term it never becomes convinced of the legitimacy of
that norm (eg Krebs and Jackson 2007; Goddard 2008–9).
The constructivism defined and used here has two advantages. First,
while liberal constructivisms dismiss power as secondary to the logic of
appropriateness, a constructivism that excludes the notion of socialization
helps to reveal the role of power in social construction processes. Second,
although classical realism pays some attention to power over opinion, it says
little about the social construction processes through which ‘agent action
becomes social structure, ideas become norms, and the subjective becomes
the intersubjective’ (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, p. 914). The notion of
social construction thus distinguishes constructivism from classical realism.
While the two approaches have some compatibilities (eg their shared
emphases on non-material factors and sociality), they focus on different
aspects of international relations: power politics and social construction
processes, respectively.

Methodology
For classical realists, engagement is a form of power politics; for
constructivists, engagement is socially constructed. This chapter, by contrast,
argues that realist and constructivist variables should be combined in order to
explain how engagement works. On the one hand, because classical realism
and constructivism hold distinct core concepts, a realist constructivism will
not become a redundant framework of analysis. On the other hand, because
neither classical realism nor constructivism tells a complete story of
international relations, one needs the other in order to study those complex
phenomena inexplicable in either realist or constructivist terms. Such
synergy constitutes an important step toward what Sil and Katzenstein (2010)
call ‘analytic eclecticism’.
 A way to combine classical realism and constructivism is to stress the
coercive use of norms or rhetoric by state actors who endeavour to structure
and restructure international politics. To uncover the role of power in
engagement, I avoid two methodological weaknesses associated with liberal-
constructivist approaches. First, I refrain from seeing states’ pro-social claims
or acts as evidence of socialization or internalization. To study socialization
or internalization, according to Krebs and Jackson, rests on ‘a strong
specification of the subjective motivations of individuals and [is] thus
methodologically intractable’ (Krebs and Jackson 2007, p. 36). A Chinese
claim that ceasing nuclear testing is appropriate is never an indicator that
engagement has socialized Beijing. Of course, China may be a ‘social state’
once it is trapped in its own commitments to international cooperation.
However, one cannot equate a social state with a socialized state, as Johnston
(2008) tends to do. A social state can be judged as such in terms of
observable behaviour, but to search for a socialized state involves
methodologically unanswerable questions about its intentions. When a pro-
social claim or act is mistakenly identified as a sign of socialization (namely,
when intentions are inferred from discourses or behaviour), one loses sight
of the intervention of power in pro-socialness.
Second, liberal constructivists see persuasion as the main normative
mechanism, but their empirical narratives show that what is at work is
actually some form of coercion (eg Payne 2001). Crawford and Klotz’s study
of anti-apartheid movements (1999), for example, clearly shows that
economic coercion, rather than genuine communication, was conducive to
South Africa’s compliance. Similarly, optimistic constructivists associate
engagement with socialization but they often portray Beijing as feeling under
‘social pressure’ to comply, social processes as ‘constraining’ Chinese
behaviour, and Beijing as sensitive to reputational losses caused by ‘social
opprobrium’ (eg Foot 2000; Kent 2007; Johnston 2008). These arguments
reflect coercion, rather than persuasion, at work. In other words, optimistic
constructivists identify what is actually a coercive process as socialization.
Such a misidentification occurs, I argue, because optimistic constructivists
ignore the fact that Beijing often deploys counterarguments in response to
international condemnation. In international politics, rhetorical contestations
are as common as material ones, such as arms races, diplomatic disputes and
economic competition. Social censure produces a pro-social response only
when the target is denied any socially legitimate counterarguments. It is in
such a situation that power is embedded in rhetoric. Without examining
Chinese counterclaims, optimistic constructivists too quickly assume that
Beijing becomes pro-social once it is confronted with social pressure. When
they mistakenly equate social pressure with socialization, they obscure the
role of power.
This chapter thus examines Chinese counterclaims and the dynamics of
rhetorical contestation. A key question, then, is how to uncover or
operationalize the power of rhetoric? According to Baldwin (1985, p. 38),
‘coercion refers to a high degree of constraint on the alternative courses of
action’. In the same logic, rhetoric displays coercive power when it leaves the
interlocutor ‘without access to the rhetorical materials needed to craft a
socially sustainable rebuttal’ (Krebs and Jackson 2007, p. 36).
To trace rhetorical power, I use discourse analysis and interpretive
methods. I examine what the United States and other members of
international institutions said in response to Chinese nuclear testing. I
particularly focus on their framing of Chinese testing as contrary to pre-
existing Chinese promises of nuclear disarmament. I also analyze what
counterarguments Beijing deployed and how socially legitimate or
illegitimate they were. These analyses allow us to examine the rhetorical
contestation between ‘international society’ and Beijing. I show that
rhetorical traps proved to be coercive when they deprived Beijing of any
claims with which to legitimize its testing before international audiences.
With respect to data collection, I search the United Nations Document
System for international condemnatory statements issued against Chinese
testing. Beijing’s decision making on the CTBT, by contrast, is not clear to
outsiders, due to the authoritarian nature of Chinese politics. To overcome
this difficulty, I delve into official documents, Chinese-language magazines,
and writings of China’s arms control officials.
 Of course, rhetoric exerts coercive influence under certain conditions. To
investigate its scope conditions, I use comparative methods. In addition to
China’s CTBT signature, I examine the subsequent Chinese refusal to ratify
the treaty. Examining both the success and failure of engagement provides
better insights into the conditions under which rhetorical traps work.
Moreover, because the failure case came immediately after the success one,
many factors remained largely constant over such a short span of time, and
factors that varied can be identified as the conditions for rhetorical coercion.
I find that, other things being equal, rhetorical traps foreclose legitimate
counterclaims from Beijing when ‘international society’ is relatively existent.
Conversely, rhetoric becomes less coercive when other states, particularly the
United States, become antisocial.
Optimistic constructivists may counter-argue that my comparative
analyses exactly suggest that Chinese compliance is dependent upon how
strong ‘international society’ is. If social influence is what really matters, then
why bother with attention paid to rhetoric? An important case suffices here
to suggest that social influence alone is not likely to extract Chinese
compliance. The United States and other states have repeatedly urged
Beijing to peacefully settle its disputes with Taiwan. However, such social
pressure has not been effective, as evidenced by the frequent threats made by
Beijing to use force against Taiwan. There are two reasons for the Chinese
resistance to social pressure, both of which involve the role of rhetoric. First,
although Beijing has adopted a ‘peaceful unification’ approach towards
Taiwan since the 1980s, it has never relinquished its right to use force to
achieve ‘unification’. Any rhetoric of peace will thus never trap Beijing.
Second, Beijing invokes the language of sovereignty, counter-arguing that
Taiwan is China’s internal affair and that international interference is
illegitimate. In sum, one should pay more attention to rhetorical dynamics
than to social pressure alone.

Rhetoric and the CTBT

Throughout the 1990s the United States was concerned about China’s arms
proliferation activities, in addition to human rights abuses and unfair trade
practices. Applying sanctions only twice in 1991 and 1993 (Rennack 1997,
p. 203), Washington dealt with the proliferation issue primarily by
entangling China in multilateral arms control regimes. By 2000 the
American policy had yielded some desirable results: Beijing agreed to
observe the guidelines of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)
in 1991, signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
(NPT) in 1992, joined the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1993,
became one of the first states to sign the CTBT in September 1996, and
joined the Zangger Committee – a multilateral organization that monitored
nuclear exports – in 1997 (Medeiros 2007, p. 2).
Of these engagement cases, the conclusion of the CTBT is particularly
puzzling. In terms of technological development, China was well behind
declared nuclear-weapon states. When CTBT negotiations began in 1994,
the United States had conducted 1,032 nuclear tests; Russia (including the
former Soviet Union), 715; France, 191; the United Kingdom, 45; and
China, only 39 (Zou 1998, p. 4). At a time when the first four states
possessed more advanced nuclear weapons than did Beijing, the CTBT put
China in a disadvantageous position as it prohibited Beijing from further
nuclear testing, thereby ensuring US nuclear superiority over Beijing. The
CTBT case thus presents a puzzle for realists who stress Beijing’s pursuit of
material capabilities.
The CTBT case is also puzzling in terms of economic incentives and
disincentives. During CTBT talks, the United States never transferred dual-
use or civilian nuclear technology to China in exchange for Chinese
signature. Although some US technological assistance occurred after Beijing
agreed not to export missile systems to Iran or Pakistan, the CTBT case itself
involved no US technology transfers to China (Johnston 2008, pp. 111−12).
Nor did Washington threaten to use sanctions should Beijing not join CTBT
negotiations or sign the treaty. As mentioned earlier, only on two occasions
did Washington level sanctions against Beijing for its proliferation activities.
Engagement, not sanctions or containment, was the cornerstone of US
China policy in the 1990s.
The puzzle is thus why US engagement initiatives – without invoking
coercive material measures and offering side payments – succeeded in
prodding Beijing to do something that caused damage to its relative power
position. To explain US–China engagement in the CTBT, I adopt a realist-
constructivist approach. Unlike optimistic constructivists, I focus on the role
of rhetoric and its coercive functions.

Background
In the 1980s, when China sought to modernize its economy, it believed that
one way to attract international investment and foreign technology was to
promote its international image and reputation (or face, as the Chinese use
the term). With image concerns in mind, Beijing claimed that it would act
as a ‘responsible major power’ in international affairs. (While the Chinese
term emphasized responsibilities, it also revealed Beijing’s desire to be
recognized as a great power.) After the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown,
however, Beijing was met with international sanctions. To worsen its own
image, China conducted other ‘misdeeds’ in the course of its rising,
including military exercises in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. To
break its post-Tiananmen isolation and avoid US containment, Beijing
sought to reassure other states that it was a responsible major power
dedicated to ‘peaceful rise’ or ‘peaceful development’ (Zheng 2005).
A crucial dimension of these discursive campaigns was a Chinese
commitment to non-proliferation. As Beijing sought to project its image as a
responsible, peace-loving state, arms control was a key test. At a domestic
meeting held in the early 1980s, a number of Chinese officials from various
government agencies, including the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), argued
that China’s nonproliferation policies should be more cooperative than those
adopted during the Maoist era in order to boost China’s image among
international audiences (Huang and Song 1987, p. 6). For this reason,
Beijing joined the UN Conference of Disarmament (CD) and the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1980 and 1984, respectively.
In 1986, it also pledged to abide by the Limited Test Ban Treaty prohibiting
atmospheric nuclear tests. Even after Tiananmen, it acceded to the NPT in
1992 out of fear of becoming the lone holdout after France had agreed to
sign the treaty in 1991 (Medeiros 2007, p. 74).
In May 1995 NPT parties held a conference on the review and extension
of the treaty. They reached three important conclusions, to which Beijing
assented, though reluctantly. First, the NPT, rather than being extended for
an additional 25-year period (as preferred by Beijing), would remain in force
indefinitely. Second, in the spirit of Article VI of the NPT, which stipulated
that signatories should ‘pursue negotiations in good faith on effective
measures relating to … nuclear disarmament’, NPT parties agreed to
complete negotiations on a CTBT ‘no later than 1996’. Third, pending the
entry into force of a CTBT, all the nuclear powers should ‘exercise utmost
restraint’ with respect to nuclear testing (UN Doc. CD/PV.708, 15 June
1995, 15).
In November 1995 Beijing released its first White Paper on arms control
and disarmament. It claimed that its attitude towards the issue was ‘proactive,
sincere, and responsible’ (emphasis added). It also reaffirmed its commitments
to the NPT, the treaty’s indefinite extension, and the conclusion of a CTBT,
stressing these commitments as the ‘responsibilities’ it would bear (State
Council 2005).

Rhetorical dynamics
By 1996, however, US engagement initiatives could not curb Chinese
testing. During CTBT talks (between January 1994 and August 1996),
Beijing carried out seven nuclear tests. Particularly provocative to
international audiences was the one conducted on 15 May 1995, less than
two days after the end of the NPT Review and Extension Conference, and
before delegates departed. Three months later, Beijing carried out another
test.
 Chinese tests came under attack during CD sessions. Other member
states argued that any tests flew in the face of the commitments Beijing had
made to nuclear disarmament. This charge was particularly widespread after
the two tests conducted in 1995. The United States, for example, ‘deeply
regrets this [Chinese] action, coming only days after the successful
conclusion of the NPT Extension Conference in New York where China
agreed to exercise “utmost restraint” in nuclear testing’. In 1993 the United
States had voluntarily extended a moratorium on nuclear testing. Without
conducting its own tests in retaliation for Chinese ones, the United States
now urged Chinese leaders to act on their own publicly declared pledges
(See UN Doc. CD/1315, 2 June 1995).
Similarly, New Zealand argued that nuclear testing ‘runs counter to
China’s responsibility as a major Power … There can be no justification for
any testing, especially now that China and the other nuclear weapons States
have agreed to a deadline’ for a CTBT (See UN Doc. CD/1318, 8 June
1995). Switzerland also felt ‘disappointed’ at China’s violation of its own
disarmament promises. ‘[T]here is at least a moral incompatibility between
the resumption of nuclear tests and the commitments entered into in New
York’ (UN Doc. CD/PV.709, 22 June 1995, 13). Furthermore, some states
criticized Beijing as insincere. Austria, for example, argued that ‘[o]ne of the
unfortunate consequences of China’s decision to continue testing is that
nations … will question the sincerity’ of Chinese leaders (UN Doc.
CD/PV.714, 17 August 1995, 17). Such a charge was also raised by Norway,
Ireland, Belgium, German, Canada, Chile, Argentina and the Philippines
(See UN Docs. CD/PV.683, 23 June 1994, 3; CD/PV.708, 15 June 1995,
18; CD/1319, 15 June 1995, 2; CD/PV.714, 17 August 1995, 13;
CD/PV.708, 15 June 1995, 15; CD/1342, 24 August 1995, 2; CD/1314, 31
May 1995; CD/1344, 28 August 1995).
Of course, other charges were also raised during CD sessions, but framing
Chinese tests as contradictory to what Beijing had promised was the most
significant. Of all the accusations levelled against China, 5 per cent centred
on the possibility of creating a new arms race; 20 per cent on China’s
violation of international preferences; 33 per cent on the possibility of
obstructing the CTBT negotiation process; and, most importantly, 42 per
cent on Chinese inconsistency between words and deeds (Johnston 2008, p.
14). As Johnston observed of international condemnation, Beijing was
primarily ‘accused of moral hypocrisy and of behavior inconsistent with its
(nascent) identity as a responsible major power’ (Johnston 2008, p. 14).
Confronted with the charges of hypocrisy, Beijing countered that it had
conducted the smallest number of tests among the five nuclear powers.
Utmost restraint, Beijing argued, by no means meant zero tests, and the
comparison in number among the big five indicated that China had acted
with greatest restraint (UN Doc. CD/PV.683, 23 June 1994, 24). For
Beijing, the small number of Chinese tests was not inconsistent with its
promise of utmost restraint. Beijing also sought to point out American
hypocrisy, saying that the United States had conducted the largest number of
tests and offered its allies a nuclear umbrella. For Beijing, any US criticism of
Chinese tests amounted to a double standard. As Chinese Ambassador to the
CD Sha Zukang declaimed, ‘the United States is not qualified to point its
finger at China’s extremely limited number of nuclear tests’ (UN Doc.
CD/PV.724, 8 February 1996, 26).
These two counterclaims were true in terms of the numbers of American
and Chinese tests but they lost much of their persuasiveness when Beijing
repeatedly conducted its own tests in the course of CTBT negotiations.
Every time a Chinese test was reported, non-nuclear-weapon states laid their
blame on Beijing rather than Washington. Their blame was particularly
compelling when Washington had refrained from retaliating via further
testing.
Alternatively, Beijing could admit openly its insincerity. Although most
Chinese leaders were reform minded after China opened its door in the
1980s, nationalism and realpolitik ideologies were not missing in their minds.
For them, nuclear weapons were necessary for enhancing national prestige
and bargaining leverage. Moreover, Beijing became increasingly suspicious
that Washington was enforcing a containment strategy against China. Beijing
thus concluded that keeping strong nuclear arsenals was essential to ensuring
China’s territorial integrity and defence against foreign invasions (Garrett
and Glaser 1995/6, pp. 44−9). In an interview, for example, Sha echoed
Mao Zedong’s hard-line doctrine that ‘China cannot renounce nuclear
weapons if we wish to resist foreign bullyism’ (Zhong 2000, p. 36).
Admitting insincerity, however, was not feasible because Beijing was also
concerned about its reputation. While Beijing sought to delegitimize US
criticism and insisted on its sovereign rights to develop nuclear arsenals,
international opinion that called on Beijing to make good on its promises
resonated with leaders who sought to restore China’s international
reputation. From a Chinese perspective, an act inconsistent with existing
commitments would create serious repercussions among international
audiences. Indeed, Beijing never articulated any anti-social counterclaim
when faced with international reproaches.
To the contrary, Beijing proposed a face-saving claim, arguing that it
‘fully respects and understands’ international concerns about its nuclear
testing (UN Doc. CD/PV.683, 23 June 1994, 25). It also sought to reassure
other states that ‘there is no ground to feel such concern about China’s
nuclear tests’ (UN Doc. CD/PV.733, 28 March 1996, 25). These pro-social
claims, however, fell far short of explaining away international censure.
Beijing needed more than rhetoric to convince other states of its ‘peaceful
rise’ discourses.
Left without any claims in justification of nuclear testing, Beijing was
caught in a bind created by hypocrisy charges. Consequently, it conceded
the legitimacy of international opprobrium. In explaining Beijing’s signature
to the CTBT, one member of the Chinese delegation who later held a
visiting position at Stanford University repeatedly stressed that Beijing put
much weight on the match between words and deeds. ‘Signing the CTBT
was in line with China’s consistent stand’ (emphasis added) on nuclear
disarmament. In reference to the Chinese promise of ‘utmost restraint,’ the
Chinese official admitted that ‘[t]he May 15, 1995, test inflicted the most
political damage on China’. For Beijing, appearing inconsistent (namely,
making that promise while at the same time carrying out nuclear tests) had
undermined its self-proclaimed image as a responsible major power.
Ultimately, ‘[t]he necessity of maintaining its international image was a
reason for China’s decision to adjust its position on the CTBT negotiations’
(Zou 1998).

Post-signature developments
As pointed out earlier, there was an international consensus, particularly
among non-nuclear-armed states, on a CTBT during the period of
negotiation. Another driving force was that the United States, as one of the
architects and champions of nuclear disarmament, never adopted a tit-for-tat
approach towards Chinese tests. Although France carried out nuclear tests in
1995, it soon agreed to negotiate a CTBT. Therefore, it was in the presence
of an anti-nuclear community of nations that rhetorical traps denied Beijing
any socially legitimate rebuttals.
After the CTBT signature, however, the normative environment changed
in a way that upset US efforts to engage (or entrap) Beijing. In no small part,
the change was of US making. In 1999, the Republican-controlled Congress
rejected the Clinton Administration’s call for ratifying the CTBT. Worse yet,
the treaty was met with opposition from the subsequent Bush
Administration. The Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests, conducted in 1998,
had little to do with US action, but the United States, while opposing
Pakistan, only raised mild criticism of India. In 2006 Washington even
agreed to transfer dual-use nuclear technology to India (Hayes 2009). To the
extent that ‘international society’ had existed before the CTBT signature, it
began to decline afterwards.
These US-led (or -related) events have presented a major obstacle to
Beijing’s ratification of the CTBT (Beijing has yet to ratify it as of 2019).
While cohesive social pressure foreclosed Chinese counterclaims to the
CTBT signature, US opposition to ratification has allowed Beijing to justify
its own refusal to ratify it, even though Beijing has refrained from
recommencing nuclear testing. In 2014, for example, Sha argued that ‘were
the U.S. to ratify the treaty, China would definitely follow’. He also
criticized American inconsistency: ‘The U.S. should undertake its
responsibility earnestly … In recent years, the Obama Administration has
made some positive commitments on ratification, but it is actions that count’
(Sha 2014).
Of course, Beijing has suffered some image costs of non-ratification. The
Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, for example, accused Beijing of using
the American opposition as a pretext for not ratifying the treaty (Kent 2007,
p. 97). However, the fact that Beijing has blamed the American side indicates
that Beijing is more inclined to justify its non-conformism and less
constrained by its own commitments.
Other arms control-related cases indicate that American reciprocity, or
lack thereof, largely determines the degree of Chinese compliance. In the
1990s, for example, US leaders painstakingly urged Beijing to curb its missile
sales to Iran, Pakistan, Syria, and so on. In 1991 Beijing agreed to MTCR
guidelines, as mentioned earlier. However, Washington repeatedly detected
evidence that Beijing had violated its MTCR promises. Arguably, the
Chinese violation was of US making: the United States had been the largest
supplier of weapons to the Middle East. Of particular concern to Beijing was
US arms sales to Taiwan. In 1992 President George H. W. Bush sold 150 F-
16 fighter jets to Taiwan. Therefore, any US demand that Beijing end its
missile sales to America’s adversaries was viewed cynically by Beijing.
Indeed, Beijing counter-argued that US arms sales to Taiwan were a form of
proliferation no different from Chinese ones to America’s adversaries. Just as
US arms sales to Taiwan helped the island balance against China, so too
Chinese ones to Pakistan created a military balance vis-à-vis India (Medeiros
2007, p. 136). Because America and China held opposing understandings of
arms control, US engagement initiatives proved to be a dialogue of the deaf.
(Beijing has yet to join the MTCR as of 2019.)
These cases suggest one important implication for US China policy. If
Washington seeks to engage or entrap Beijing, it needs to act first as a role
model for China, as it did during CTBT talks. Although it is social cohesion
that renders a rhetorical trap effective, how Washington acts will have a
significant effect on how cohesive the international system is. If Washington
free-rides on the efforts of other states (as it did after the conclusion of the
CTBT), it will undermine the formation of an international ‘united front’.
In such a situation, American hypocrisy will become a target of Chinese
criticism, and any international condemnation of Chinese hypocrisy will
become less coercive.

Conclusion
In comparison with liberal constructivisms, a realist-constructivist approach
to analyzing US engagement with China has two advantages. First, it shows
that engagement exerts coercive rather than communicative or socializing
forces. In the eyes of optimistic constructivists, a policy of isolation will leave
Washington few viable means of influencing Beijing, and the United States
has ‘a far greater chance of having a positive influence on China’s actions if
we welcome China into the world community’, as President Bill Clinton
(2000) stressed. However, I argue that engagement is ironically rooted in the
exercise of power (in a rhetorical rather than material form). If Washington
continues down the path of engagement, it will likely extract Chinese
commitments step by step and eventually make Beijing a prisoner of its own
rhetoric, especially when the United States itself remains pro-social. US
power, from a realist-constructivist perspective, inheres in a seemingly
communicative process of engagement.
Viewed in this way, a US discourse on China that appears persuasive is
actually ‘trapful’. In 2005, for example, Deputy Secretary of State Robert B.
Zoellick delivered a speech on China. He urged China to act as a
‘responsible stakeholder’ in the international system. While he used the word
stakeholder instead of major power as used by Beijing, he nonetheless appealed
to pre-existing Chinese commitments to responsibilities. He also argued that
the ‘idea of a “peaceful rise” will spur vibrant debate. The world will look to
the evidence of actions’ (Zoellick 2005). While liberal constructivists would
regard what Zoellick said as communicative, realist constructivists would
argue that it conveyed a warning to Beijing that talk would carry costs if
Beijing reneged on its promises of responsibilities and a peaceful rise. To the
extent that China is too big to free-ride on the global commons, other states
will expect Beijing to take more responsibilities. Then, social expectations
about appropriate Chinese behaviour are not soft but rather put some degree
of pressure on Beijing.
In the course of engagement, power may also be exercised by Beijing. In
addition to ignoring the power-laden process contributing to the success of
engagement, optimistic constructivists assume that engagement is a one-way
process in which the United States remains a teacher vis-à-vis Beijing.
Although they notice that US engagement initiatives spread norms to China,
they imply that Washington is immune from any teaching from Beijing. A
realist constructivism, by contrast, holds that engagement is a two-way or
reciprocal process. While engagement exerts coercive influence on China,
Beijing may also apply a feedback effect on Washington. As Goddard
pointed out in 2008/9, US leaders might find it difficult to oppose China’s
economic activities in US spheres of influence if Beijing justified its
economic expansionism by appealing to free trade norms. How could
Washington legitimately oppose China’s economic involvement in the rest of
the world when it had championed free trade principles? (Goddard 2008/9,
p. 141). Whether or to what extent Washington will fall into Chinese traps is
outside the scope of this study, but a realist constructivism certainly refuses to
view the United States as exogenous to China’s attempts at rhetorical
coercion.
A second analytical advantage is that a realist constructivism challenges
the liberal-constructivist view that the norms carried by engagement are
transhistorical or progressive. Due to their emphasis on socialization or
internalization, optimistic constructivists assume that there is little chance
engagement will change directions once it hooks Beijing up to the liberal
world order. In their view, the development of engagement is linear, and
norms will endure for an extended period of time. A realist constructivism,
by contrast, suggests that neither engagement nor norms will likely be
institutionalized. As this chapter has shown, although the United States took
the lead in the conclusion of the CTBT, domestic politics has prevented it
from ratifying the treaty. Beijing then has retaliated in kind, although no
further Chinese tests have occurred. Consequently, US–China engagement
in the CTBT has not been completed, nor has Beijing internalized CTBT
norms. Instead, how Beijing responds to CTBT norms depends on what
Washington does. As Kent argues, ‘its [China’s] current compliance will not
guarantee its cooperation in the future under changed international
circumstances’ (Kent 2007, p. 97). In other words, Chinese compliance is
contextually contingent.
A realist constructivism is not without limitations, however. This chapter
focuses on the 1990s, when China was in the early stage of rising. Since
then, by contrast, China has become more and more powerful, especially
under the leadership of Xi Jinping. Therefore, whether the United States
and its allies can still trap Beijing in its own commitments seems to be an
open question. The South China Sea is a case in point. In 2002 Beijing
signed a declaration with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)
states on a code of conduct but it has recently adopted a series of revisionist
policies. With an interest in the freedom of navigation in the South China
Sea, the United States has criticized Beijing for violating its promise but
Beijing seems not to be deterred by any hypocrisy charges. Therefore, the
utility of rhetorical coercion seems to be contextually contingent, as is
Chinese compliance. It seems to decrease with the increase in China’s
material power. Future research, I would like to suggest, should examine the
relationships between rhetorical coercion and material power. This mission
will offer a more complete understanding of when and under what
conditions rhetoric works.

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 7

Taking Co-constitution Seriously:

Explaining an Ambiguous US Approach
to Latin America
Justin O. Delacour

In the study of international relations (IR), there tends to be little discussion

of the fact that different theoretical camps have deeply contrasting
assumptions about the relationships between Western cultures and states.
One commonly unstated assumption of neorealism is that states are able to
manage their nations’ discourses about foreign affairs in such a way as to
assure that officials enjoy considerable autonomy from their societies in
making foreign policy decisions (eg Waltz 2000). Conversely, liberals and
mainstream constructivists assume that the cultural identities and discourses
of a Western society are largely independent of the state and therefore exert
great pressure on the state to abide by its professedly liberal norms, even
where strict adherence to a liberal foreign policy course could impede the
state’s ability to achieve its immediate strategic objectives (Doyle 1983;
Owen 1994; Kahl 1998; Russett and Oneal 2001; Hayes 2012).
However, this study posits that the external behaviours of the pre-
eminent Western power are much more ambiguous than mainstream IR
theories predict because none of the mainstream camps have an accurate
conception of the relations between Western cultures and states. On the one
hand, neorealists fail to explain how the culture of a Western power will
tend to discourage the state from behaving in ways that are openly dissonant
with the core symbols of its professed liberalism. On the other hand,
contrary to Doyle’s liberal postulate that the cultures of liberal republics help
‘ensure that the officials of republics act according to the principles they
profess to be just’, it is fairly commonplace for Western media to facilitate
their states’ casual deviations from a liberal foreign policy course by
obfuscating the existence of such deviations (Doyle 2005, p. 464). For the
purposes of this study, casual deviations from a Western power’s professed
liberalism will be defined as actions that are at least partially illiberal but do
not readily appear to be incongruent with the minimal trappings of
democracy promotion.
The inability of most contemporary IR theories to explain the
ambiguousness of a Western power’s foreign policies is primarily rooted in
the binary logic of the debate about culture, according to which theorists
either conceive of the state as autonomous from the cultural environment or
treat culture as autonomous from the state (and therefore a force that
consistently brings pressure on the state to adhere to its professed principles).
To solve the puzzle of a Western power’s ambiguous foreign policies, we
must abandon such binary logic and explore the practical implications of co-
constitution, according to which state interests and cultural identities
mutually shape each other and can never be fully autonomous from each
other. However, instead of drawing exclusively upon constructivist research,
this study looks to the works of classical realists for guidance on how we can
more adequately theorize the tensions between the two sides of co-
constitution and their practical effects on US foreign relations.

Towards a realist-constructivist approach

The classical realist theologian Reinhold Niebuhr effectively presaged a
realist-constructivist conception of co-constitution when he posited that
‘politics will, to the end of history, be an area where conscience and power
meet, where the ethical and coercive factors of human life will
interpenetrate and work out their tentative and uneasy compromises’
(Niebuhr 1932, p. 4). In essence, this study’s realist-constructivist approach is
one that unifies the constructivist postulate of the co-constitution of interests
and identities with the classical realists’ emphasis upon the profound tensions
between the two sides of co-constitution (Barkin 2003; Barkin 2010). One
side of co-constitution – the interest-centred side – involves the ways that
states shape cultural discourses, identities and norms so as to facilitate their
pursuit of power (Carr 1940; Morgenthau 1950; Oren 1995; Barkin 2003;
Oren 2003; Barkin 2010). The other side of co-constitution – the identity-
centred side – involves the ways that cultural identities and norms
simultaneously shape public discourses in such a way as to constrain the
behaviours of states (Doyle 1983; Owen 1994; Russett and Oneal 2001;
Barkin 2003; Barkin 2010; Hayes 2012). In the words of Barkin, a realist-
constructivist approach calls upon us to ‘look at the way in which power
structures affect patterns of normative change in international relations and,
conversely, the way in which a particular set of norms affect power
structures’ (Barkin 2003, p. 337).
This chapter’s realist-constructivist approach is predicated upon six basic
assumptions. The first assumption is that states pursue power in the world,
not just as a means of ensuring their security but also of expanding
commercial opportunities for national firms, promoting their value systems,
and enhancing their prestige. The second assumption is that, to effectively
pursue power in the world, a state must depict itself as doing so in the name
of a broadly shared set of ideals. As the classical realists E. H. Carr and Hans
Morgenthau posited, a state must portray its quest for power as a pursuit of
ethics because doing so is necessary to uphold national morale and to limit
resistance to its exercise of power abroad by convincing domestic and foreign
publics that it does not exercise power arbitrarily and capriciously (Carr
1940; Morgenthau 1950). The third assumption is that there is constant
tension between a state’s perceived need to portray all its foreign policies as
consistent with its professed principles and the fact that some of the state’s
immediate objectives are not fully reconcilable with such principles. The
fourth assumption is that, for a state to effectively pursue objectives that
partially conflict with its professed ethics, it must distort the ethical
dimension of the issues at hand in such a way as to portray its objectives as
fully in keeping with its purported principles. The fifth assumption is that a
state’s narratives will influence the national culture’s discourses in such a way
that the culture will commonly facilitate the state’s casual deviations from its
professed principles by obfuscating the existence of such deviations. Lastly,
the sixth assumption derives from Carr’s observations about the limits of a
state’s ‘power over opinion’ (see Carr 1940, pp. 184–5). While a state can
influence cultural discourse in such a way as to obfuscate subtle deviations
from its professed principles, there is a tipping point at which the level of
deviation begins to exceed what could be effectively concealed and starts
eliciting some measure of cultural backlash. In sum, the six assumptions of
the realist-constructivist approach lead us to the expectation of an ambiguous
pattern, whereby the dominant culture of a Western power will discourage
blatant transgressions of the state’s professed principles but encourage casual
deviations that the state is already tempted to embark upon in its pursuit of
its strategic and commercial interests.
Hence, a realist-constructivist approach suggests that the policy
implications of co-constitution are also ambiguous. On the one hand, a
Western power is likely to abide by its professed principles where deviations
would be too obvious to conceal or where compliance with its professed
principles is not at cross-purposes with the pursuit of key strategic and
commercial objectives. On the other hand, the Western power will deviate
from its professed principles where a strictly principled approach would
impede its ability to achieve key immediate goals and the deviation is subtle
enough to allow state officials to largely conceal it by means of their
influence over cultural identities and discourses.
In other words, this study suggests that, by incorporating the insights of
classical realists into a theory of co-constitution, we can overcome the
problem whereby the contemporary IR sub-field has largely failed to explain
the ambiguousness of a Western power’s foreign policy commitments.
Conventional IR approaches take into consideration only one side of co-
constitution and thereby overlook the tensions between the different sides.
Liberals and mainstream constructivists privilege the roles of political
institutions and cultural identities in constraining the behaviours of Western
states, ignoring how such states’ quests for power also shape cultural
discourses and identities in ways that often facilitate casual deviations from
the states’ professed principles. Thus, while liberals and mainstream
constructivists can partially explain why a Western state will sometimes abide
by its professed principles, such theorists cannot adequately explain why the
state will also sometimes deviate from its professed ethics. Conversely, most
structural realists’ only assumption about culture is that states shape cultural
discourses in such a way as to facilitate their pursuit of power and security
(eg Kreisler 2002). Thus, while neorealists can partially explain why states
sometimes deviate from their professed principles, they cannot explain how a
Western culture will tend to discourage blatant transgressions of the state’s
professed ethics. In contrast, a focus upon both sides of co-constitution leads
us to the insight that Western cultures are fundamentally Janus faced and that
their impact upon foreign policy tends to be mixed. On the one hand,
Western cultures do constrain the behaviours of their states insofar as certain
cultural identities and norms render it difficult for Western states to conceal
blatant transgressions of their professed principles. On the other hand, the
ability of Western states to shape cultural discourses in such a way as to
obfuscate subtle deviations from their professed ethics reinforces the impulses
of such states to casually stray from their professed principles when and
where they perceive that doing so will serve their interests.
However, this study’s approach does not postulate that the tensions
between a Western power’s interests and identities will manifest themselves in
precisely the same ways across time and space. Rather, I contend that a
realist-constructivist explanation of a state’s external behaviours must pay
special attention to the degree to which the regional and geostrategic
context either obscures or highlights the state’s deviations from its professed
ethics. Whether a Western power’s deviations from liberal norms will be
obvious or inconspicuous depends to a significant degree upon the regional
and geostrategic context in which it operates. Accordingly, the degree to
which a Western power is likely to deviate from (or abide by) its professed
principles also depends in part upon the regional and geostrategic context.
In a Western power’s approach to a region where there is little tradition of
democracy, the regional context will tend to encourage more extensive
departures from liberal norms by augmenting the plausibility of the claim
that the state can do little to promote democratization in a region with little
tradition of it. Similarly, during the intense superpower competition of the
early Cold War, the geostrategic context often obscured radical US
departures from a liberal foreign policy course by making it seem plausible
that such transgressions were in defence of the free world against an
existential threat to Western institutions. In contrast, in a regional and
geostrategic context in which there is a significant democratic tradition and
no rival superpower to point to as an existential threat, it becomes more
difficult for a Western power to obfuscate extensive departures from a liberal
foreign policy course.
Nevertheless, this study will seek to illustrate that, even in a
contemporary regional and geostrategic context that has narrowed the
bounds within which a Western power can safely deviate from liberal norms,
the tensions between its interests and identities will continue to produce
discursive environments that commonly facilitate casual deviations from the
Western power’s professed liberalism. In seeking to evaluate the study’s
explanation of US–Latin American relations, I (1) review scholarly research
about the American state’s approaches towards Venezuela in the early years of
Hugo Chávez’s presidency and (2) compare official and media discourses
about Venezuela to such discourses about other Latin American countries.
Upon comparatively analyzing both the American state’s approaches to
Venezuela and US cultural discourses about it, we will begin to see how the
state’s interests and the culture’s identities mutually shaped each other in the
process of moulding the state’s fundamentally ambiguous approach to
Venezuela in the period surrounding the failed coup of 2002.

The centrality of casual deviations

In the external relations of a Western power, casual deviations from the
state’s professed principles are much more common than blatant
transgressions of them because casual deviations do not constitute attacks
upon the core symbols of the state’s professed liberalism. In other words, a
Western power is more likely to embark upon casual (rather than blatant)
deviations from its professed liberalism because casual deviations pose
relatively little risk of being detected and eliciting cultural backlashes.
This chapter focuses upon the core symbols of one central component of
the American state’s professed liberalism: its stated commitment to
democracy promotion. The core symbols of such a commitment are:

• the state’s support of competitive elections of a nation’s political

representatives;
• the state’s promotion of the basic tenet that countries should have an
executive, legislative and judicial branch of government; and
• the state’s support of the principle that states should respect basic freedoms
of speech and assembly.

In the context of contemporary US–Latin American relations, US journalists

would come under some pressure to scrutinize US actions that are blatantly
inconsistent with the core symbols of democracy promotion, for the
obviousness of the discrepancy would place cultural elites in a position in
which failure to acknowledge it could call their credibility into question. For
example, if the American state were to unconditionally support a Latin
American leader who had plainly jettisoned the core symbols of democracy,
such an action would place some pressure on cultural elites to take note of
such an obvious breach of the state’s professed principles. Hence, a Western
power will likely be reluctant to blatantly deviate from a liberal foreign
policy course out of fear that obvious transgressions will elicit increased
cultural resistance to the state.
Conversely, the leaders of a Western power will tend to have little reason
to be concerned that their casual deviations from a liberal foreign policy
course will draw significant cultural scrutiny because casual transgressions
will not appear to be dissonant with the core symbols of the state’s professed
ethics. In contemporary US–Latin American relations, casual deviations will
tend to fit within two basic categories. The first such category includes the
Western power’s common indifference to the actions of strategic allies that
are at least partially illiberal but do not constitute attacks upon the core
symbols of democracy. Such indifference diminishes pressure on allies to
consistently adhere to liberal norms. The second main category of casual
deviations entails the ambiguous signals that the Western power’s officials
sometimes convey to potential coup plotters in Latin America, whereby the
state’s postures cue actors that it might not actively oppose some extra-
constitutional overthrows of elected rivals (Thyne 2010). Such ambiguous
signals constitute deviations from a liberal foreign policy course insofar as
they increase the probability of coups and thereby jeopardize the
institutionalization and consolidation of liberal-democratic norms in the
region.
There are two main reasons why casual transgressions do not tend to elicit
significant cultural resistance. First, a Western state’s positions and narratives
will commonly influence cultural discourses in such a way that the state’s
casual deviations do not appear as deviations. The primary ways that the
American state can conceal casual deviations from its professed liberalism is
to use its cultural authority to cue the society’s major news organizations to
downplay the illiberal behaviours of allies and to exaggerate the
undemocratic characteristics of rivals (Herman and Chomsky 1988; Pedelty
1995). When the state’s executive branch successfully cues mass media to
depict partially illiberal allies as committed democrats, the state’s legislative
branch and attentive publics will have less capacity to recognize that a
definitively liberal approach to such allies would require that the state be
more scrutinizing of their political practices. Similarly, when the state’s
executive branch cues media to exaggerate the degree to which elected rivals
have violated liberal norms, the state’s legislative branch and attentive publics
will have less capacity to detect that the Western state’s failures to discourage
coup plots against such rivals will usually be in breach of the state’s professed
liberalism. Secondly, the American state’s deviations from its professed
liberalism often involve alliances with actors whose breaches of liberal-
democratic norms have not risen to the level of attacks upon the core
symbols of democracy. The illiberal behaviours of allies are usually less
attention-grabbing breaches of democratic norms, such as (1) an allied
government’s unwillingness to stop its supporters from intimidating and/or
repressing its domestic critics or (2) an allied opposition leader’s clandestine
preparations for a coup against a rival government. As long as American
officials can point to the fact that an ally has not yet done away with
competitive elections, presided over a coup, shuttered one of the three
branches of government, or abandoned all pretence of respect for the
freedoms of speech and assembly, major media will typically defer to the
state’s narrative that the ally is committed to liberal norms.

A realist-constructivist approach to the study of press–state relations

The relationship between a Western power’s culture and the state is perhaps
best summed up by Bennett and Livingston’s notion that news organizations
are only ‘semi-independent’ of the state. The concept of semi-independence
uniquely captures the tensions between the two sides of co-constitution
(Bennett and Livingston 2003, p. 359). In the process of shaping public
discourse about the political life of foreign peoples, leading journalists tend
to play an intermediary role between the ideal of objective journalism and
the positions and discourses of leading officials. On the one hand, cultural
elites and attentive publics tend to identify with the ideal of objectivity,
according to which news organizations are to select the information they
present on the basis of conventional standards of moral and practical
relevance and to refrain from altering those standards from one case to
another (Ryan 2001). On the other hand, journalists and attentive publics
will also tend to identify officials of their own state – and intellectuals with
ties to the state – as important authorities on the question of how to evaluate
the political life of foreign peoples (Hallin 1986; Alexseev and Bennett
1995). Because official (and semi-official) sources have ties to the state, they
tend not to offer purely objective analysis but rather to cast the political life
of foreign peoples in a manner consistent with the interests of the state.
Hence, journalists’ tendency to defer to official and semi-official sources will
often come into conflict with their commitment to objective norms and
thereby help facilitate casual deviations from the state’s professed liberalism.
However, because of the cultural ideal of objectivity, the dominant culture’s
level of deference to official sources will usually not extend so far as to
facilitate blatant deviations from the state’s professed liberalism. Rather, the
state will tend to be reluctant to deviate from its professed liberalism in
particularly obvious ways out of fear that such deviations will elicit greater
scrutiny from cultural elites.
In sum, the tension between journalists’ frequent deference to official
sources and the cultural ideal of objective journalism is a mirror image of the
tension between the different sides of co-constitution. On the interest-
centred side, cultural elites’ frequent deference to official sources enables the
state’s interests to shape cultural discourses in such a way as to facilitate its
pursuit of power abroad and to largely obfuscate how it deviates from its
professed principles (Carr 1940; Hallin 1986; Bennett 1990; Oren 2003).
However, on the identity-centred side, the cultural ideal of objective
journalism – combined with certain elite and public expectations of a
principled approach to foreign policy – places limits on how far a Western
power could stray from its professed principles without eliciting some
negative publicity (Doyle 1983; Owen 1994; Peceny 1999; Russett and
Oneal 2001; Hayes 2012).
The chapter’s explanation of why leading journalists will often defer to
official narratives is predicated upon scholarly analyses of:

• the cultural authority of leading officials;

• the national identities of Western societies; and
• the ways that Western journalists are commonly socialized into their
profession (Hallin 1986; Bennett 1990; Oren 2003; Inthorn 2007).

Western officials play important roles in constructing culturally authoritative

narratives about their nations’ roles in the world, the nature of their foreign
allies, and the nature of their rivals (Hallin 1986; Oren 2003; Inthorn 2007).
Because Western powers have deeply institutionalized forms of democracy,
long-standing alliances among one another, and a modern history of conflict
with some powerful authoritarian states, the notion that Western powers
promote democracy and resist autocracy has been central to the discourses of
Western political and cultural elites throughout the 20th and early 21st
centuries (Peceny 1999; Oren 2003; Inthorn 2007). Thus, when some of the
interests of a Western power cause its officials to exaggerate the democratic
credentials of allied governments and to overstate the undemocratic
behaviours of rival governments, such narratives are likely to resonate among
elites and other segments of the society because they cohere with prevailing
national identities. As cognitive belief structures, national identities will often
cause elites and citizens to embrace perspectives that are consistent with their
pre-existing belief structures and to be sceptical of information that does not
fully cohere with such structures (Jervis 1976; Rosati 2000). Thus, the mere
existence of evidence that partially contradicts official narratives would not
necessarily give journalists confidence that their presentation of the
discordant information would always appear accurate to Western elites and
publics whose belief structures and national identities are partially bound up
with official positions and narratives. In sum, the primary reason that
Western journalists will often defer to official narratives in such a way as to
distort the political life of some foreign peoples is that more accurate
reporting about rival and allied actors would appear less objective to many
cultural and political elites and attentive publics. In other words, news
organizations are likely to downplay allies’ breaches of democratic norms and
to exaggerate rivals’ violations not simply for the sake of deferring to official
narratives but because reporting that largely coincides with official discourses
will tend to more closely fit Western preconceptions of allied and rival
actors.

Towards a realist-constructivist explanation of contemporary US–

Latin American relations
Before exploring the chapter’s proposition that cultural elites will facilitate
casual deviations from a Western power’s professed ethics and discourage
blatant transgressions, I must clarify:
• how I define a rival and an ally;
• how the Western power’s interests and identities simultaneously shape its
alliances and rivalries in the context of its contemporary relations with
Latin America; and
• how the conditions that give rise to alliances and rivalries become central
to our understanding of the ambiguousness of the Western power’s
commitments.

This chapter defines a strategic ally as a foreign actor that the state supports
because officials deem that the political success of the actor would be critical
to strengthening the authority and prestige of the state and helping it to
achieve its commercial objectives. Conversely, a rival is a foreign actor that
the state seeks to contain and roll back because the political success of the
actor would appear to jeopardize the authority and prestige of the state and
impede its achievement of its commercial objectives. In contemporary US–
Latin America relations, liberal norms and identities play an important role
in US alliance building and rivalry formation because the American state
must at least create the appearance that it operates in accordance with its
professed principles to limit resistance to the pursuit of its goals.
Nonetheless, the state’s strategic and commercial objectives also shape its
alliances and rivalries in ways that will often casually conflict with its
professed liberalism.
One way of conceiving of how a Western power’s interests and identities
‘interpenetrate and work out their tentative and uneasy compromises’ is to
elucidate (1) the necessary and/or sufficient conditions for its alliances and
rivalries to develop and (2) the ways that alliances and rivalries alter the
opportunity structures of actors. Based on the patterns we have observed
since the end of the Cold War, it is evident that one necessary condition for
a Western power’s alliance with a Latin American actor is that the
prospective ally exhibit either the minimal trappings of democratic
governance or a rhetorical commitment to such trappings on the part of
political actors who do not hold executive power. The contemporary
unwillingness of the American state to ally with Latin American leaders who
have dispensed with the minimal trappings of democracy is attributable to
the identity-centred side of co-constitution, which shapes cultural discourses
in such a way as to increase scrutiny of governments that have plainly
abandoned democratic practices. The second necessary condition for a
strategic alliance is that a prospective ally act in accordance with the strategic
and commercial objectives of the Western power.
In combination, the two necessary conditions for an alliance operate in
tension with each other and thereby contribute to the fundamental
ambiguousness of the Western power’s commitments in the hemisphere. On
the one hand, the first condition (that an ally exhibit the minimal trappings
of democratic governance) creates a strong incentive for an aspiring ally to
commit to the minimum standards of democracy. On the other hand, once
the prospective ally also meets the second condition (that it support the
strategic and commercial objectives of the American state), the ensuing
alliance will reduce the dominant culture’s scrutiny of the ally’s subtler
breaches of liberal norms. The reduced scrutiny of allies derives from the
interest-centred side of co-constitution, whereby the strategic interests of the
state cause it to cue cultural elites to downplay allies’ less democratic
characteristics. Thus, alliances will diminish the Western power’s pressure on
allies to consistently adhere to liberal norms.
With respect to a Western power’s rivalries in Latin America,
contemporary US–Latin American relations suggest that there are two
conditions that generate such rivalries and that each condition alone is
sufficient to bring about a rivalry. One sufficient condition is that a Latin
American actor persistently impede the strategic and commercial objectives
of the Western power. The other sufficient condition for a rivalry is that an
actor abandon the minimal trappings of democracy for an indefinite period.
The contemporary propensity of the American state to help isolate
definitively authoritarian actors in the Western hemisphere derives largely
from the identity-centred side of co-constitution, which generates
heightened cultural scrutiny of governments that have plainly abandoned
democratic practices. Such scrutiny creates incentives for the American state
to align against flagrantly authoritarian actors as a means of projecting an
image of itself as a liberal hegemon and thereby limiting resistance to its
exercise of power abroad. However, while a regional actor’s blatantly
authoritarian practices are a sufficient condition for a rivalry with the
hegemon, they are not a necessary condition for a rivalry. Since democratic
(or semi-democratic) leaders can also impede the strategic and commercial
objectives of the American state, some at least partially democratic leaders
will become rivals of the hegemon as well.
Together, the two sufficient conditions for a rivalry also operate in
profound tension with each other and thus further contribute to the
ambiguousness of US foreign policies. On the one hand, the fact that a Latin
American government’s flagrantly illiberal turn would be a sufficient
condition for an eventual rivalry with the hegemon creates powerful
incentives for Latin American governments to refrain from abandoning the
minimal trappings of democracy. On the other hand, when a democratic or
semi-democratic government persistently impedes the strategic and
commercial objectives of the American state, the resulting rivalry will give
rise to a discursive environment that can increase the likelihood of an extra-
constitutional alteration of power. The hegemon’s rivalry with an elected
challenger will first cue cultural elites to exaggerate the challenger’s breaches
of democratic norms. In addition, because the challenger’s domestic
opposition shares the hegemon’s objective of rolling it back, opposition
leaders will take on the status of allies and therefore come under relatively
little scrutiny from the hegemon’s dominant culture while they perform their
oppositional role. In turn, a discursive environment that significantly
exaggerates a rival government’s breaches of democratic norms and
minimizes the allied opposition’s violations will signal to the opposition that
the hegemon may not actively oppose an extra-constitutional alteration of
power. While the hegemon’s signalling is not a sufficient condition for a
coup to occur (as there are other domestic variables at play), such signalling
will lessen the perceived risks of launching a coup and thereby increase its
likelihood (see Thyne 2010, p. 449).

Methods
Given that space does not permit us to closely examine more than one case,
the case we analyse should be one that provides us insight into how the
tensions between the hegemon’s interests and identities will manifest
themselves in the dominant culture’s discourses and the state’s foreign
policies. One dyad type that is likely to provide us important insights into
the relative merits of different IR approaches is the relations between the
United States and a Latin American country in which a coup takes place
against a rival government that is at least partially democratic. The value of
studying such a case is that it presents us with a situation in which there are
clear tensions between the liberal identities of the Western power and its
state’s temptations to tacitly welcome an extra-constitutional overthrow of an
elected government that has impeded its pursuit of its interests.
A study of the dyad type allows us to analyze two distinct contexts: (1) a
pre-coup phase in which strategic and commercial interests are likely to play
an important role in shaping the Western power’s cultural discourses about
the foreign country and its state’s policies toward the country and (2) a post-
coup phase in which the coup’s blatant departure from liberal-democratic
norms may spark a new set of discourses that come into some conflict with
the pre-coup narratives and identities. In essence, the expectation of the
study is that the American state’s interests will shape cultural discourses about
the foreign country in such a way as to increase the likelihood of a coup in
the pre-coup phase but that the coup itself will spark an identity-centred
shift in the discursive environment that increases pressure on the state to
disassociate itself from the coup in the post-coup phase.
Thus, the two phases of the dyad type are likely to illuminate different
problems with different mainstream approaches to the study of IR. The pre-
coup phase is likely to illustrate problems with liberal and mainstream
constructivist approaches insofar as the American state’s interests shape
cultural discourses in such a way as to facilitate the coup, thus revealing that
the culture partially lacks independence from the state and cannot be
assumed to consistently pressure the state to abide by its professed principles.
Conversely, the post-coup phase is likely to pose fewer problems for liberal
and mainstream constructivist theorists and more problems for neorealist
theorists. Since neorealism’s only assumption about culture is that the state
manages cultural identities and discourses to serve its strategic objectives,
neorealism could not explain how cultural identities and discourses might
also constrain the state by drawing some attention to the illiberal nature of
the coup once it has taken place.

Why Venezuela’s coup of 2002?

To determine whether our case selection is conducive to a cross-examination
of the study’s propositions, we must first ask ourselves whether our case fits
the dyad type. Within the dyad type, the discrepancy between the hegemon’s
professed principles and its state’s temptation to welcome a coup against a
rival government lies in the fact that the rival government is at least partially
democratic and that its forcible overthrow would therefore constitute a
setback to democratic norms and institutions. Thus, to establish that a case
fits the dyad type, we must establish that the rival government was at least
partially democratic up to the point that a coup took place against it. Using
two conventional measures of democracy, it would appear that US–
Venezuelan relations in the lead-up to the failed coup against Chávez in
2002 fits the dyad type. Although polity scores indicate some diminution of
democracy in Chávez’s early years, Venezuela continued to meet the
minimum threshold of democracy until 2006, when it dipped into the
category of an anocracy (which is a regime that mixes democratic with
autocratic features). Likewise, the Democracy-Dictatorship (DD) index of
Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland indicates that Venezuela met the minimum
standard of democracy in the period leading up to the coup of 2002 (eg
Cheibub et al 2010).

Analysing the pre-coup phase

To cross-examine the study’s explanation of the pre-coup phase, the study
employs both qualitative and quantitative methods. Since the study’s realist-
constructivist approach rests on the assumption that the state’s strategic and
commercial interests must first shape its own positions and narratives to be
able to indirectly shape the discourses of the broader culture, I must firstly
employ a method of evaluating the assumption. To cross-examine the
assumption, I employ a basic method of difference approach and compare
official US statements about the initial election of Chávez with official
statements about the elections of four other Latin American presidents who
had comparable political histories to Chávez but posed no comparable
impediment to the hegemon’s pursuit of its interests.
Next, in interpreting whether the state’s positions and narratives cued
media to exaggerate the Chávez government’s level of deviation from liberal
norms, I begin by measuring the frequency with which the New York Times
and Washington Post questioned the democratic status of Venezuela during
Chávez’s first three years in office. News content at the Times and Post is
likely to be a useful gauge of the quality of information available to political
elites and attentive publics because the two elite newspapers serve as key
sources of information for such elites and publics (see Page 1996; Sparrow
1999). Moreover, the Times and Post influence the news agendas of other
major media (see Page 1996; Golan 2006). Golan (2006) found significant
correlations between the Times’ international news agenda and three
television news programmes’ selection of international news stories.
To measure the frequency with which the Times and Post questioned the
democratic status of Venezuela during Chávez’s first three years in office, I
analyze all Times and Post reports about Venezuela that were datelined from
Latin America or the Caribbean and written by in-house correspondents or
reporters on special assignment to the region. Each report is coded according
to whether it carries any charge that falls within the following four
categories:

(1) assertions that the topic country’s government, ruling party or

state apparatus acts undemocratically;
(2) assertions that the topic country’s president, ruling party or state
apparatus wields extraordinary powers;
(3) assertions that the topic country’s government, ruling party or
state apparatus is akin to the government, ruling party or state
 apparatus of a country with a polity score of zero or below;
and/or
(4) assertions that the topic country is still only in the process of
becoming a democracy (which implies that the country is not yet
fully democratic).

If the report carries any claim that fits into at least one of the four categories,
the comprehensive dependent variable is coded 1. If the report carries no
such charge, the variable is coded 0.
I then use regression analysis of coded Times and Post reports about
Venezuela and nine other Latin American countries from 1989 to 2009 to
generate an ‘objective’ model that predicts how frequently reports would call
into question a country’s democratic status if the reports’ depictions were
solely driven by conventional measures of the country’s levels of deviation
from democratic norms. The dataset contains 1,000 randomly sampled Times
reports and 1,000 randomly sampled Post reports about Latin America’s ten
most populous member states of the Organization of American States
(OAS). The objective model thus uses the topic country’s level of deviation
from the highest polity score during the year of the report as its primary
independent variable. Given that some countries have at times elected
constitutional assemblies to rewrite their constitutions and that the
configuration of power in such assemblies could alter the level of presidential
power, the objective model also controls for how the configuration of power
in a constitutional assembly will affect the probability that a report will call a
country’s democratic status into question. The model employs Corrales’
(2009) measure of how favourable or unfavourable the distributions of
assembly seats were to the presidents of six Latin American countries during
nine processes to amend or rewrite national constitutions. After generating
the prediction of the objective model, I then compare its prediction to how
frequently the press called into question Venezuela’s democratic status.
Then, to cross-examine a counter-hypothesis that the press’s level of
scrutiny of Chávez was driven more by his controversial history than by the
American state’s interests, I compare the press’s depictions of the early
Chávez years to the press’s portrayals of the state of democracy under another
leader with a comparably controversial history: Colombian President Álvaro
Uribe. Then, to assess whether the press minimized pressure on the
American state and the allied opposition to adhere to liberal norms in the
lead-up to Venezuela’s failed coup, I employ a method of thick description
of how reports characterized the allied opposition and official US positions
toward Venezuela in the year preceding the coup.

Analysing the post-coup phase

To cross-examine the study’s explanation of the post-coup phase, I begin by
employing a qualitative method of describing how the Times and Post
juxtaposed the hegemon’s professed principles with the Bush
Administration’s initial endorsement of the coup. I then compare US policy
toward Venezuela and US cultural discourses about it before and after the
coup in attempting to determine whether the coup altered the discursive
environment in such a way as to place increasing pressure on the state’s
executive branch to disassociate itself from the coup.

Results
Following the end of the Cold War, Hugo Chávez was one among a series
of Latin American political figures who won presidential elections despite
having histories that would have called into question their commitments to
democratic norms. Prior to winning Venezuela’s presidential election in
1998, Lieutenant Colonel Chávez had launched a failed coup attempt against
an elected government in 1992. Similarly, before winning presidential
elections in their respective countries, Ecuador’s Lucio Gutiérrez and Peru’s
Ollanta Humala had gained their notoriety by using their positions as
military officers to intervene in their countries’ political affairs. Before
winning Bolivia’s presidential election in 1997, Hugo Banzer had been a
military dictator of his country in the 1970s. And while Colombian
President Álvaro Uribe had no military background, his previous and
controversial policies as governor of the department of Antioquia had
facilitated an increase in paramilitary vigilantism and human rights abuses in
the department (see Porch and Rasmussen 2008). In all the aforementioned
cases, US correspondents in Latin America were aware of the controversial
histories of the figures in question, as evidenced by the fact that the Times
and Post had at various times reported on their histories prior to their
presidencies.
Yet in only one of the five aforementioned cases does one find that US
officials issued statements immediately after a leader’s election that
questioned his commitment to democracy. Four days after Chávez was
elected, the Washington Post reported that ‘several administration officials’ had
told the Post that ‘they feared Chávez would attempt to use his broad support
for fighting corruption to assume near dictatorial powers …’ (Washington Post
1998). Conversely, an examination of reports in the Times, Post and Federal
News Service indicates that US officials did not express any such concerns to
the press about either Banzer, Gutiérrez, Humala or Uribe in the week
following each’s election.
In other words, a basic method of difference approach indicates that a
Latin American president-elect’s prior history of contravening democratic
norms was not a sufficient condition for the American state to decide to cast
the leader as an autocratic rival. Rather, to adequately explain why Chávez
was the only such president-elect to immediately elicit US expressions of
alarm, we must look to what distinguished him from the other four leaders:
that he had explicitly challenged the hegemon’s political and economic
leadership of the region (Washington Post 1998). US officials appeared to
selectively invoke Chávez’s controversial history to cast him as a threat to
democracy and thereby isolate his government and contain the challenge it
posed to US leadership. In contrast, after the other four leaders signalled that
they did not challenge US leadership, US officials set their controversial
histories aside in the pursuit of cooperation on matters of common strategic
and/or commercial interest. Thus, consistent with the assumptions of the
study’s approach, the evidence suggests that the American state’s strategic and
commercial interests did play an important role in shaping its own positions
and narratives about where democracy was (or was not) under threat in the
region.

The pre-coup phase

The prima facie evidence with respect to the press’ depictions of Chávez’s
early years also seems consistent with the study’s proposition that open
official signalling of a budding rivalry will cue journalists to focus
disproportionately upon charges of authoritarianism against the rival in
question. To be sure, it was understandable that US journalists and analysts
would initially exhibit concern about Chávez’s backing of a constitutional
assembly to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution in 1999. Because the vast
majority of delegates elected to the constitutional assembly supported
Chávez, the process of rewriting the constitution portended an expansion of
presidential power. The objective model thus predicts a high degree of media
questioning of Venezuela’s democratic status in 1999. Nevertheless, the
aggressiveness with which the press called into question Chávez’s
commitment to democracy significantly exceeded what the country’s actual
levels of deviation could explain. While the objective model anticipates that
as many as 28.15 per cent of reports would question Venezuela’s democratic
status during Chávez’s first three years in office, content analysis reveals that a
significantly larger share of such reports – 43.51 per cent – actually called
Venezuela’s state of democracy into question (see Figure 7.1). Despite the
fact that Venezuela emerged from Chávez’s first year as a country that
continued to have competitive elections and some (albeit fewer) institutional
checks on the president’s power, a two-tailed t-test indicates that the
difference between the prediction of the objective model and the actual
frequency with which reports questioned Venezuela’s democratic status was
statistically significant (p < .001).
Nonetheless, a mere comparison of the objective model’s prediction with
the actual frequency with which reports questioned Venezuela’s democratic
status cannot establish a relationship of causality between official US
positions and the press’s depictions. Before we can infer that official cues are
likely to have caused the press to exaggerate the undemocratic characteristics
of Chávez’s early presidency, we must consider an alternative hypothesis: that
the press’s depictions of a country’s state of democracy are instead contingent
upon whether or not its leader has a prior history of contravening
democratic norms. According to the logic of the alternative hypothesis, a
leader’s prior history of violating democratic norms will increase media
questioning of his or her country’s democratic status independently of official
US positions towards the leader and standard measures of his or her country’s
level of deviation from democratic norms.
In cross-examining the alternative hypothesis, I compare the press’s
depictions of the state of democracy in Colombia under Álvaro Uribe to the
objective model’s prediction of how frequently reports would question
Colombia’s democratic status if the rate of questioning were solely driven by
conventional measures of Colombia’s levels of deviation from democratic
norms. Contrary to the alternative hypothesis, there does not appear to be
any evidence that Uribe’s prior history of contravening democratic norms
had an effect upon how the press depicted Colombia’s state of democracy.
Rather, in marked contrast to the Times’ and Post’s exaggerations of Chávez’s
violations of democratic norms, the press downplayed Uribe’s less
democratic characteristics (see Figure 7.1). Whereas the objective model
predicts that a report in the Times or Post would question Colombia’s
democratic status approximately once every 90 days, the average frequency
with which such a report appeared was about once every 157 days. A two-
tailed t-test indicates that the difference between the prediction of the
objective model and the actual frequency with which reports questioned
Colombia’s democratic status was statistically significant (p < .05).
Thus, a comparison of reporting about Chávez to that about Uribe not
only casts doubt upon the alternative hypothesis, but also appears to support
the study’s proposition that the American state’s strategic interests will
strongly influence the press’s depictions of the state of democracy abroad.
What appeared decisive in distorting the press’s depictions of the state of
democracy under a foreign leader was not whether the leader had a
controversial history but, rather, what sorts of signals US officials had
conveyed about the leader in question. After US officials cued the press that
Chávez was a budding rival, the press significantly exaggerated the degree to
which Venezuela was in breach of democratic norms. Conversely, after US
officials signalled that Uribe was an ally, the press understated Colombia’s less
democratic characteristics, despite the fact that Uribe also had a controversial
history.

Figure 7.1: Comparing predictions of ‘objective’ model with percentage of reports

questioning Venezuela’s and Colombia’s democratic status in the first three years
of Chávez’s and Uribe’s presidencies
 Of course, what most interests us here is how the dominant culture’s
overstatements of a rival’s breaches of democratic norms and its
understatements of allies’ violations are likely to influence US policy in the
lead-up to a coup. In the six-month period preceding Venezuela’s coup of
2002, the press displayed a remarkable level of passivity in the face of the
prospect of a coup. By any objective standard, a coup attempt by opposition
leaders would have posed a threat to the evolving regional norm that the
consolidation of democracy required the defence of elected governments
against coups. However, the three-year pattern of exaggerating Chávez’s
breaches of democratic norms had lessened any critical disposition towards
the prospect of a coup by calling into question whether there was any
democracy left to be lost in Venezuela. Even when prominent opposition
figures openly called for a military overthrow of Venezuela’s elected
president, the press displayed little concern that such acts constituted threats
to democracy. When the Post reported in late 2001 that one of Venezuela’s
former state governors – Oswaldo Álvarez Paz – viewed ‘military
intervention’ against Chávez as the only solution to the country’s problems,
the newspaper treated Álvarez Paz’s statement matter-of-factly, as if to convey
nothing more than the level of political polarization within Venezuelan
society (see Washington Post 2001). At no point did the report entertain the
question of what a prominent civilian figure’s call for military intervention
portended for the cause of democracy.
Thus, the American state’s success in cueing the press to exaggerate
Chávez’s violations and to downplay the breaches of opposition leaders
appeared to reduce pressure on the state and the allied opposition to adhere
to liberal norms in the lead-up to Venezuela’s failed coup. The fact that the
press did not seriously scrutinize official US signals to Venezuelan coup
plotters could be gleaned from a Post report less than two months prior to
the coup. The report quotes an unnamed State Department official as saying
that ‘[i]f Chávez doesn’t fix things soon, he’s not going to finish his term’
(Washington Post 2002a). However, instead of pointing out that the official
had effectively signalled that the State Department would accept a coup, the
Post allowed official sources to frame the story as one about how the State
Department merely sought to avoid any ‘backsliding from democracy’ in the
event that Chávez were to fall (Washington Post 2002a). At no point did the
report explicitly consider that Venezuelan coup plotters would interpret such
an official statement as a signal that the US would support a coup. Neither
did the report discuss how the fall of an elected president might itself
constitute backsliding from democracy if it were the product of a coup. In
essence, the press’s deference to official sources in the pre-coup phase had
enabled the state to shape cultural discourses about Venezuela in such a way
as to obfuscate how US signalling to the coup plotters was itself in violation
of liberal norms.

The post-coup phase

Once the coup materialized, however, it immediately became clear that the
press could not plausibly sustain some semblance of objective norms and
liberal identity without beginning to critically reappraise Venezuela’s
opposition leadership, the Bush Administration’s signalling to the coup’s
plotters, and the Administration’s initial support of the coup. In the lead-up
to the short-lived ouster of the Chávez government, the Venezuelan
businessman and opposition leader Pedro Carmona did not hold any elected
or appointed office that would have put him in line to constitutionally
succeed a Venezuelan president. Thus, when Venezuela’s military high
command apprehended Chávez and handed power to Carmona, the
transition met no standard of legality.
In view of the coup’s obvious violations of constitutional norms, some
hint of the press’s critical reappraisal of the coup leaders appeared
immediately. The day after Carmona was sworn in, the Post published a
front-page report that quoted a former adviser to the Clinton Administration
as saying that, because Venezuela’s National Assembly had not been
‘consulted’ about the alteration of power and that ‘there was no succession to
the vice president’, there was ‘no constitutional continuity’ (Washington Post
2002b). One Times report similarly noted that recognition of the Carmona
government would set a ‘potentially dangerous precedent’ because it would
violate the OAS’s commitment ‘not to recognize any government that takes
power through a coup’ (New York Times 2002a). To be sure, some of the
press’s reporting and editorializing continued to replicate elements of the
pre-coup narrative by positing that Chávez’s own authoritarianism had
provoked the coup and that Carmona was more of a conciliator (see New
York Times 2002b and 2002c). Nevertheless, the flagrant nature of the coup’s
departure from liberal norms had opened a crack in the pre-coup narrative
by impressing upon journalists and editors that their own credibility now
depended upon their willingness to identify the coup’s obvious breaches of
democratic norms. Then, after mid-level military officers rebelled against the
coup and handed power back to Chávez just 48 hours after he had been
deposed, increasing numbers of voices in the press began criticizing the Bush
Administration for having initially endorsed the coup (see Parish et al 2007).
The high point of journalistic independence came immediately following
the coup’s failure, when the press revealed not only that the coup leaders had
anticipated that the US would support them, but also that the State
Department’s own signals had contributed to the coup leaders’ perceptions
(see New York Times 2002d; Washington Post 2002c).
Thus, just as the press had played an important role in facilitating the
coup in the pre-coup phase, so too did it play a key role in pressuring the
state to disassociate itself from the coup and to signal that it would not
support another coup in the post-coup phase. Faced with increased
journalistic scrutiny immediately after the coup’s failure, US Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage felt compelled to acknowledge in a
congressional hearing that the US response to the coup had not been ‘good
enough for a principled nation’ (Kolbe 2002). Although Armitage also
argued that his Administration’s position had not been ‘as bad as it was
reported’, the simple fact that he took note of media discourse about the
coup suggested that US officials were sensitive to changes in the discursive
environment (Kolbe 2002). In essence, the post-coup spike in journalistic
scrutiny had altered the state’s interests by signalling to its officials that they
would not have been able to tacitly encourage another coup without risking
exposure and increased resistance to their policy. Thus, it should come as
little surprise that, when some figures in the Venezuelan opposition again
clamoured for a coup in late 2002, the US Embassy in Caracas issued a
public statement clarifying that it opposed any extra-constitutional efforts to
oust Chávez (see Parish et al 2007).

Conclusion
In sum, the American state’s approach to Venezuela in the period
surrounding the failed coup of 2002 conformed to an ambiguous pattern
that only a realist-constructivist theory of co-constitution could coherently
explain. In the pre-coup phase, the state’s interests shaped US cultural
discourses in such a way as to help facilitate the coup. However, the coup
itself was so obviously irreconcilable with the liberal identities of the United
States that it sparked a momentary shift towards greater cultural scrutiny of
both the American state and the allied opposition. In turn, such scrutiny
pressured the state to disassociate itself from the coup and to signal that it
would not support another one.
Of course, the study’s realist-constructivist approach suggests that the
tensions between the two sides of co-constitution will shape many facets of a
Western power’s foreign relations, not just its relations with countries where
coups take place against rival governments. The interests of Western powers
are also likely to cause their dominant cultures to downplay the less
democratic characteristics of allied governments and to thereby diminish
pressure on allied governments to consistently adhere to liberal norms (such
as was the case in US relations with the Colombian government of Álvaro
Uribe). On the other hand, if an allied government plainly jettisons some of
the core symbols of democracy, the identities and norms of a Western society
will likely cause cultural elites to take note of such an obvious setback to
democracy and thereby bring pressure on the state to distance itself from the
government in question (such as appears to have been the case in US
relations with the Peruvian government of Alberto Fujimori).
Thus, there are many different types of relations between Western powers
and the developing world that we could study in attempting to further cross-
examine the propositions of the study’s realist-constructivist approach. In
general, this study suggests that the tensions between state interests and
cultural identities will cause Western powers to be much less consistent in
their commitment to democracy promotion than liberals and mainstream
constructivists have predicted. At the same time, the study’s realist-
constructivist approach suggests that the semi-independence of Western
cultural elites will also render blatantly illiberal foreign policies considerably
less common than neorealists would anticipate.

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 8

The Bridging Capacity of Realist

Constructivism: The Normative
Evolution of Human Security and the
Responsibility to Protect
Andreea Iancu

Introduction
In this chapter I inquire into the evolution and implementation of the
controversial norm of responsibility to protect (R2P) in the international
community, with respect to the effects it produces in international customary
law. While I consider that the state’s security is a constant of international
relations and the state remains the main provider of human security
(Newman 2001, p. 240; Hynek 2012, p. 96), I look into the changes in the
security discourse induced by the norms that emphasize human rights,
which impact the core practices of the international system, as reasons for
(military) intervention, international security and state sovereignty. I try to
determine whether the R2P principle, as derived from human security
doctrine, is becoming an international norm that produces effects on the
practice of international security and on the meaning of sovereignty, which
would be indicative of an increasing role given to the individual in the
equation of international security. I observe both the normative evolution of
human-centred principles, by identifying their commonalities, their
institutional markers and their presence in the discourse of international
actors, and the compliance of states with the concept of sovereignty as
responsibility. A key objective of this research is to scrutinize the
international community’s internalization of the normative frameworks of
human-centred doctrines, human security and R2P, by testing them on two
hard cases: the conflicts in Libya and Syria. The premise is that if states are
invoking the conditionality of sovereignty to ensure the security of their
citizens and are disposed to act when actors fail to ensure it, then it can be
observed that a normative turn has happened in the international system,
driven by the R2P principle.
Taking into consideration the current evolution in the international
system, which seems to demonstrate a permanence of power politics and the
prevalence of the realist interest in traditional security dynamics (hybrid
warfare, asymmetric threats, the evolution of post-intervention in Libya and
the Catch 22 situation in Syria), there is a tension between the realist and
constructivist theories of international relations. This research is possible
using a realist constructivist theory (Barkin 2010), which manages to fit the
explanations of both the evolution of human-centred norms on the
international agenda and the persistence of the realist national interest and
the dilemmas of military intervention. This chapter shows that a realist
constructivist theoretical framework explains the impact of human security
doctrine and of the R2P principle on international law, by analyzing their
normative evolution and their practical operationalizing. The
institutionalization of the human-centred concepts, the presence of their
rhetoric at the level of the international discourse, but at the same time the
incapacity of the international community to implement the R2P principle
and to exercise sovereignty as responsibility, as exemplified in the case of the
Syrian conflict, indicates the coexistence of the constructivist evolution of
the norm in the international system with realist-driven policies.
This research suggests that the presence of human security and of R2P
values in the international discourses around the conflicts of Libya and Syria
demonstrates the process of socialization and the internalization of these
norms, which enter the opinio juris of the state, consequently underscoring
the customary law formation around the sovereignty as responsibility
principle. Observing the international dynamics and the rhetoric at the
United Nations Security Council level, this research suggests that the R2P
principle was invoked in the Libyan and the Syrian conflicts as a marker of
the transformed notion of sovereignty as responsibility. At the same time, this
chapter offers an image of the evolution of customary international law as
states start to comply with the principle of sovereignty as responsibility.
Hence, these findings, interpreted through a realist constructivist lens,
indicate the presence of a normative evolution with respect to a more central
role offered to the individual in international security, despite the persistence
of the realist behaviour (geopolitical interest, power politics) in international
dynamics. Apart from this inquiry into the normative evolution of the
human-centred concept, this research aims to reconfirm the practical utility
of a realist constructivist theoretical approach in the reconciliation of the
explanations with the apparent opposite and simultaneously impossible
trends, which are in reality concomitant phenomena.

Theoretical approaches and definitions

The main theoretical framework underlying this research is realist
constructivism (Barkin 2003), which maintains that realist and constructivist
arguments can coexist in explaining international phenomena. This approach
allows the connecting of constructivist arguments, which are at the basis of
norm evolution models and of the process of co-constitution, with the realist
explanation or evidence of the persistence of power and self-driven interests
in international politics, which can explain the behaviour of actors regarding
the implementation of norms. Hence, for implementing this analytical
framework, a clear delineation within these theories is needed.

Constructivism
Constructivism’s utility is determined by the fact that it offers two types of
explanation: one of identity constructivism, which defines how identities are
shaped, and consequently how the national interest is shaped (Wendt 1992);
and a norms and discourse constructivism, which gives an explanatory
perspective on ‘social construction of accepted meanings and on the social
construction of reality’ (Guzzini 2013, p. 191). Both of these dimensions are
used in testing the argument in this chapter, in observing the transformation
of security, norm entrepreneurs, and the possible inclusion of norms in
customary law, as part of the actors’ identities.
I use a mainstream (conventional) constructivism, advocated by Wendt
(1992), which has as the central reasoning the idea, contra neorealism, that
the distribution of power is influenced by social contexts, determined by
intersubjective understandings, expectations, common norms, and identities.
The constructivist paramount premise of the current research is the social
(intersubjective) character of international reality (Onuf 1989), as opposed to
the realist view of the understanding of international politics as the result of
an objective and material reality. Wendt’s (1992, p. 397) argument about the
anarchic character of the international system and the importance of self-
reflection of the actors and towards ‘the other’, in a relation of ‘distribution of
knowledge’, which demonstrates that the structure of the international
system is not a constant but an independent variable constructed on social
practices, is also a starting point of the analysis in this chapter. I rely on the
constructivist argument that the interest of the state is not a given, nor
permanent, but is a social construct, which means that it is a variable
depending on the identity of the actors (Wendt 1992, pp. 417–24; Kolodziej
2005, p. 261). At the same time, I consider Adler’s (1997, p. 322) argument
on the reciprocal transformation between the material world and human
actions, interaction which ‘depends on dynamic normative and epistemic
interpretations of the material world’, Jeffrey Checkel’s (1998, p. 325)
arguments on the social character of the international environment and on
the impact it has on leading states ‘to the understanding of their own
interests’ and Newman’s (2001, p. 248) ideas on the fact that the
international system is socially constructed and can be transformed through
ideas, discourse and identities. This constructivist logic allows research into
the fact that international rules, regulations and norms (grosso modo in
international law) are influenced by and evolve based on ideas and shared
values. Hence, I adopt Barkin’s view (2010, p. 26) on the methodological
and ontological utility of constructivism in the processes of intersubjectivity
and co-constitution. Norms and knowledge, practices or customs that are
created based on common interests or values come to have a life of their
own, regardless of the particular actors, starting instead to shape the
behaviour of the actors, which begin complying with the new rule.
Therefore, ontologically, constructivism underscores the relational form of
power (Klotz and Lynch 2007, p. 10), as the processes and interactions are
essential for emphasizing the process of co-constitution, and not the material
form, as realism explains. The utility of using the co-constitution argument
in this research consists, on the one hand, in highlighting the social
construction of international politics, and, on the other, in noticing the
changes and transformation of international institutions.
At the same time, as I engage in identifying the discursive markers of the
human-centred concepts, I also consider the discursive dimension of
constructivism, which emphasizes the role of rules as speech acts, in
influencing human behaviour (Kratochwil 1989, pp. 10–11). By the same
token, I rally to Onuf ’s (2002, p. 36) argument which maintains the role of
discourse in shaping reality, and that ‘society and people are in a permanent
reciprocal construction’. He argues that the norms which influence the
human social relations are the depositary of language and discourse.
Therefore, the discursive research conducted in this chapter is synthesized in
the idea that ‘through speech, we make the world what it is’ (Onuf 2002, p.
126).

Realism
On the other hand, realist arguments underscore the permanence of the
politics of power and seem to contradict the evolution of human-centred
doctrines such as human security and R2P, which originate in the processes
of transformation induced by shared values and ideas, co-constitution,
empowerment and agency, with an important contribution from non-state
actors (Newman 2001, p. 247).
Realism is understood in this research as focusing on power (Morgenthau
1948; Carr 1964) in international relations, as process, as means, and as a
goal (Buzan 2007, p. 14). Realism considers survival paramount (eg Waltz
1979) or at least relevant (eg Morgenthau 1948), in different circumstances.
Classical realism, in Barkin’s (2003) reading, admits that the interest of
survival of the state is not an immutable or permanent preoccupation. By the
same token, classical realism does not exclude the possibility that the power
behaviour be determined from within the state (the impact of the population
and political parties). While, at points, survival, framed in national interest, is
prevalent for the actions of the states on the international arena, as in
situations of conflict or threats, it is not the exclusive reason for the actions
and behaviour of states (Wendt 1999, p. 13; Barkin 2003, p. 328).
International actors can also act in the social international environment
driven by affinities of mutually shared values and of morality (as Carr (1964,
p. 235) explains, realism does not exclude the presence of morality in the
world order), which can pursue the security of their citizens and/or of the
individuals worldwide, as envisioned in the human rights regimes and the
subsequent normative offspring.
According to realism, the mechanism that stabilizes the international
system is the balance of power. The permanent competition for power and
military conflict are constants of international relations. Therefore, realism
does not recognize either the possibility of international law evolving or the
independent existence of this category because laws are created and
implemented by the sovereign actors (Reinold 2013, p. 12). In the
(neo)realist understanding of the anarchic international system (Waltz 1979),
it would be impossible for norms to transform the behaviour of the states.
Thus, this theory fails in explaining the success of the emancipative norms
that focus on the security of the individual in the international system, a fact
which leads to the need to consider an alternative explanation.
For realists, the state is the main actor in international relations and uses
military means to ensure, in a self-help logic, its national interest (power and
security) in the context of international anarchy. However, Carr (1964, pp.
224–35) demonstrated that even if the states were the ‘locus of power in
global politics’ (Barkin 2003, p. 328), it does not imply that they are
necessarily the central actor, a fact which permits broadening the analysis of
international dynamics. This research does not consider the state as the
immutable actor of international relations, although it remains or manifests
in different stances of the international dynamics as the locus of power and,
consequently, the provider of security. This fact brings into discussion the
power–security relation, which is one of the key aspects in analyzing the
change in the referent of international security and the place of the
individual in this equation. While the evolution of the human-centred
normative framework demonstrates an increasing preoccupation for the
security of the individual, it does not exclude the state as the provider of
security or the locus of power, as advocated in the realist theory. However,
while these realities would appear contradictory to those who claim a mutual
exclusion of realist and constructivist theories, these two realities are
coexistent and, furthermore, embedded in the same explanatory pattern.
As previously noted, both the social construction of international norms
and the distribution and influence of power are constants that have a strong
impact on the conceptualization and implementation of international
security. Therefore the analysis of human-centred normative evolution of
international relations cannot exclude the realist type of explanation which,
at the end of the day, describes the rationality behind states’ behaviour and
interaction. In this explanatory void lies the window of opportunity for
dissolving these apparent contradictory descriptions with a realist-
constructivist framework. The theoretical approach of realist constructivism
was proposed by Barkin (2003, 2010), who developed this dual
understanding of international system processes and advocates that
constructivism and realism are not antagonist theories, mentioning that the
usefulness of this approach stays on the fact that it reconciles, ‘on the one
hand, the study of power and the study of ideals in international relations
and, on the other, the study of the social construction of international
politics’ (Barkin 2003, p. 326). Hence, this theoretical framework allows the
use of both realist and constructivist explanations for international
phenomena, which helps understanding of both the states’ positions in the
international system and the evolution of norms and the impact that shared
values and discourse have on the international structure.
Methodology
This research examines whether there is a change in the referent of security,
from state towards the individual. Hence, it analyzes the evolution of the
human-centred security concept from the emergence of the human security
doctrine (UNDP 1994) and the evolution of the operational principle of
R2P, to the impact it has on the current international dynamics and on the
concept of state sovereignty, by testing its implementation in the cases of
Libya and Syria. As this research is part of a bigger project, I am not
conducting an exhaustive analysis on the topic in this chapter.
This research analyzes the constitutive (the manner in which actors
internalize the norms so that their identities and interests are redefined,
further impacting the structure) and regulatory (the behaviour of the actors
that act according to the norm due to instrumental reasons) effects of the
human-centred norms (the R2P principle). In order to analyze the evolution
of the R2P principle and its influence in international politics, this research
uses the ‘norm life cycle’ model proposed by Finnemore and Sikkink (1998).
The norm life cycle model identifies three stages in norm evolution. The
first stage is ‘norm emergence’, the second consists in ‘norm cascade’, while
the third stage is represented by the process of ‘internalization’. While this
norm evolution model is based on constructivist explanations and dynamics,
it also takes into account realist arguments, as the persistence of the
international actors’ rational behaviour and their inherent (neo)realist
calculus. Apart from the constructivist identity and discursive arguments, the
actors (especially the reluctant ones) conduct a permanent strategic calculus
on the costs and benefits of adopting the norm. This fact explains why even
the actors who refuse to conform to the generally accepted norms might be
prone to endorse them, due to the rational calculus that they could be
restricted from access to certain positions or advantages in the future. Hence,
Glanville (2015, p. 4) maintains that these tactical concessions driven by self-
interested reasons express the implicit fact that norms have social validity.
The inclusion in the norm life cycle model of this hybrid explanation makes
the research consistent with the realist constructivist general interpretative
framework.
In order to observe if the behaviour prescribed by the human security
paradigm is internalized in the discourse of the international actors in a new
transformed sovereign institution (sovereignty as responsibility), in relation
with the R2P principle evolution and implementation, an analysis of the
exercise of sovereignty is needed. In this research I consider a flexible,
transformable concept of sovereignty, whose ‘legitimate basis changes over
time’ (Barkin 1998, p. 230) and I adopt the idea that the institution of
customary international law can be (is) determined in some cases through
‘compliance with non-binding norms’ (Bădescu 2011, p. 131). Therefore,
this research applies the congruence procedure, which helps in diagnosing
the stage of the norm life cycle a principle has reached by establishing an
area of values and ideas that are derived from a norm and applying it to the
actors’ behaviour to observe if there is compliance with the former (Van
Evera 1997, p. 58). In this sense, I try to observe whether states comply with
the R2P principle and if they adopt sovereignty as responsibility through the
case studies on the conflicts of Libya and Syria. The rationale for selecting
the conflicts of Libya and Syria for testing the research hypotheses was driven
by their prevalence and common denominator – large human security
(humanitarian) crises, the violation of the R2P thresholds, and the acute
need to ensure the protection of civilians.
The methodological utility of social constructivism is determined by the
fact that it is a contingent and flexible theory, allowing the user to dismiss
the rigid-unilateral explanatory framework of the states’ behaviour based
solely on the logic of consequence and the idea that the evolution of norms
in the international system is a result of a coercion or a utilitarian process
(Reinold 2013, p. 14). Nonetheless, Krasner’s (1999, p. 6) view on the
prevalence of the logic of consequence over the logics of appropriateness is
kept as a valid possibility for the objectivity of the research. Ontologically,
constructivism is useful for this study because it problematizes the agent–
structure relationship and it broadens the lens to observe the capacity of the
system to reproduce norms and the possibility of new norms to emerge in
the established international customs.
The methods used for tracing these phenomena are the observation of the
institutional changes and customary law formation determined by the
human security idea, R2P norms, and the indicators of the sovereignty as
responsibility institution. In addition, I use foreign policy analysis, the
justifications states use for their behaviour and their response to other actors’
actions (discursive analysis), following the behaviour and speeches derived
from the values of the human security doctrine and R2P principle.
Security is concomitantly perceived as a relational concept, conditioned
more by culture than by the distribution of military capacities (Klotz and
Lynch 2007, p. 17), and it is also viewed as a ‘determinant of the structures
of power’ in the international system. In these circumstances, the
constructivist analytical framework permits me to conduct an analytical
exercise on the evolution of security norms based on a methodology situated
on the border between positivism (by analyzing the institutional markers and
positions of the international actors) and post-positivism (discursive analysis).
Hence, the current research is framed by two pillars, regarding the realist-
constructivist and constructivist epistemologies: causality and interpretation.
Methodologically, on the one hand, I am using a causal epistemology with a
process tracing method, while on the other, I use a discursive epistemology,
as a marker of the interpretative dimension. The epistemology of this
research alternates between positivism, for the analysis of institutional
changes, the evolution and operationalizing and implementation of the R2P
principle, and the course of events in the conflicts of Libya and Syria, and a
post-positivist approach, helpful in observing the normative changes,
discursive practices and emergence of the sovereignty as responsibility
concept. While the positivist approach analyzes chronological and
institutional events, the post-positivism lens is centred on the contestation of
the significations and the established meanings. The post-positivist analysis
includes the analysis of language, of discourse, and the manner in which
these theorize and reify power and the securitized reality. I contingently
analyze the discourses and content analysis regarding the reactions to the
situations that need the implementation of the norm and the justification of
(non-)action with respect to the cases of Libya and Syria. This effort is useful
in observing if the norms are internalized in the opinio juris of the
international actors.
The current study compiles and analyzes the treaties, conventions,
resolutions and reports correlated with the analyzed subjects and I conduct a
non-exhaustive foreign policy analysis based on official documents and
declarations. In addition, I use complementary documentation such as
international media, and secondary sources based mainly on the specialized
literature, which offers the possibility for validation and triangulation of data.
Nonetheless, this study, with a strong theoretical dimension, builds on
previous studies regarding the evolution of norms and the translation of the
security focus from state towards the individual (human security and R2P),
as well as on the research focusing on changing the practices of sovereignty,
for operating the necessary theoretical clarifications in the field of analysis.

Realist constructivism
The meta-theoretical IR framework of this research is realist constructivism,
the utility of which opens a twofold window of opportunity. On the one
side, it offers explanatory support for the theoretical norm evolution
arguments (human security, R2P and sovereignty) and for explaining the
willingness of the actors to adopt human-centred doctrines, based on the
processes of intersubjectivity in creating and advancing the norms on
common values, and on processes of co-constitution, determining the identity
of the actors in the international community. On the other side, it
harmonizes the tools to explain the power politics manifested in the
reactions to the conflicts of Libya and Syria, as results of the policy of power,
without denying the evolution of the analyzed principle.
The emergence of the R2P principle, which originates in just war
theory, and hence, related to classical realist explanations (Tadjbakhsh and
Chenoy 2007, p. 81), was influenced by the evolution of human-centred
doctrines in the aftermath of the post-Cold War period. The realist
constructivist framework offers a conciliatory perspective for explaining the
intersection of R2P with human-centred doctrines. In addition, the realist
constructivist approach is useful to avoid a utopian, morally prescriptive
analysis, by distancing it from a conception of morality understood in
teleological terms, which would be both counterproductive and without
utility.

Empirical analysis
The Libyan and Syrian conflicts are considered to be the R2P ‘hard cases’
(Thakur 2011, p. 19). The conflict in Libya revealed simultaneously the
capacity of R2P to mobilize force and revealed the limitations induced by
debates on sovereignty – based on legitimacy, capacity to protect citizens,
and post-conflict state building. The use of the R2P rhetoric and
justification in the case of Libya was not a novelty for the United Nations
Security Council (UNSC). Since its birth, the R2P principle has been
recalled in 64 resolutions (as of September 2017). However, Resolution 1973
of the UNSC (2011a) for Libya represented the first of this type calling for
‘all necessary measures’ for ‘protecting civilians and civilian populated areas
under threat of attack’ by their government. This event was cherished by
many supporters of R2P as being the ‘tipping point’, ‘the momentum’, ‘a
game changer’ (Thakur 2011) or ‘the perfect storm’ (Garwood-Gowers
2013, p. 595) that delineated the success and validity of R2P as being the
outpost of a new era in the international community’s engagement for
humanitarianism and protection of civilians (Ban 2011). However, the
reactions to the post-Libyan intervention, especially driven by reluctant states
(Brazil, China, Russia) which contested R2P because the initial aim of the
UNSC mandate was changed, were translated in a backlash against the norm
(Garwood-Gowers 2013, p. 595). Furthermore, the failure to rebuild after
the intervention in Libya revealed the limits of the principle (Hehir and
Murray 2013; Chandler 2015) and arguably determined the lack of
international response to the Syrian conflict, failing to provide protection of
civilians. Regarding the case of the Syrian conflict, with respect to
protecting civilians, the R2P case becomes a classic ‘tragedy of the
commons’, where ‘no one becomes responsible’ (Chandler 2011, p. 32).

The R2P principle and the conflict in Libya

At the beginning of the conflict in Libya, the UNSC, guarding against a
quick escalation of violence and seeing the trespassing on what was perceived
in the opinio juris as being the normal behaviour of the state towards its
citizens, reacted according to Pillar II of the R2P principle, through
Resolution 1970 (2011). However, the adoption of Resolution 1970 was not
without difficulties and the reaction of the international community to assist
the state to protect its citizens did not come naturally, from a perfect
internalization of the norm, but with debates, facts which questioned the
attachment to the norm and its prescriptive power. Taking into consideration
that many states were reluctant parties to the resolution, both among the
Permanent Five (P5) members of the UNSC (the Russian Federation and
China specifically) and within the non-permanent UNSC member states
(India, Brazil, South Africa), the type of discourse used for reaching
consensus over what Adler-Nissen and Pouliot (2014, p. 11) name as ‘a kind
of ‘mélange of concepts: protection of civilians and the responsibility to
protect’ raises doubts on the attachment to the R2P principle, even before it
arguably proved its shortcomings.
Following the failure of the Libyan authorities to comply with the
regulations of Resolution 1970, the UN Security Council condemned again,
with a greater sense of urgency in the language, the ‘violence, heavy civilian
casualties … gross and systematic violation of human rights’ (UNSC,
Resolution 1973 2011a), reiterating, by invoking Chapter VII of the UN
Charter and the first pillar of the R2P principle, ‘the responsibility of the
Libyan authorities to protect the Libyan population and reaffirming that
parties to armed conflicts bear the primary responsibility to take all feasible
steps to ensure the protection of civilians’. Therefore, it authorized all the
member states who offered to do so, ‘to take all necessary measures,
notwithstanding paragraph 9 of Resolution 1970 (2011a), to protect civilians
and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya’ (emphasis added).The resolution, adopted with 10 votes and five
abstentions, underscored the same scepticism towards R2P, driven by the
reluctance to adopt a militarized principle and the possible unintended
consequences of armed intervention (UNSC 2011b). The rhetoric of the
reluctant states questioned the attachment of the powerful states to a concept
of ‘responsibility’ which bypassed their realist rational calculus, especially
when funding, troops, or affected geopolitical interests were involved.
The Libyan case opened the door to criticism of the R2P principle,
regarding the possibility to be misused and the situations that require the use
of force (Ban 2015, p. 5). Indeed, this pilot implementation of R2P
(although not the first time the principle was used as justification, but the
first military intervention) revealed the ‘structural limitations inherent to the
doctrine’ (Paris, quoted in Chandler 2015, p. 2). The reactions to the
intervention in Libya had multiple facets, varying from the initial enthusiasm
of victory over a repressive regime to the image of disaster of a failed state,
armed militias and civilians trapped in conflict, which describe the landscape
of chronic human insecurity. While some saw the overthrowing of Gaddafi’s
regime as clear proof of the instrumental realist use of the R2P human-
centred principle, this situation was an example of the legality and legitimacy
dilemma of intervention, with respect to protecting civilians under imminent
threat.
Despite this fact, the R2P normative evolution continued, by endorsing
the feedback from the intervention in Libya, through a new dimension – the
Brazil-proposed principle of ‘responsibility while protecting’. All these
dimensions impacted the future use of the R2P norm and the action for the
protection of civilians. However, many maintain that the intervention in
Libya determined ‘a backlash against R2P’, which impacted decisively the
incapacity of the international community to provide protection of the
civilians in Syria (Garwood-Gowers 2013, p. 595).

The conflict in Syria

The conflict in Syria, which started in 2011, involved grave violations of the
Geneva Conventions, of international humanitarian law, and of human
rights, with episodes of chemical attacks which clearly qualified for the R2P
responsibility to react criteria. This conflict represents, for many, the
demonstration of the failure of the international community to implement
human-centred security doctrines. Despite repeated debates and attempts to
operationalize R2P, to date no action under R2P has been authorized by the
UNSC in Syria. Syria is a diplomatic battleground between those who want
to activate a response under the R2P regulations and those who prefer a
realpolitik resolution of the conflict.
The situation in Syria quickly became ‘the elephant in the room’ at the
UNSC level, as the attempts to recall the international responsibility towards
the threatened population of Syria faced numerous vetoes framed by realist,
geopolitically driven interests (by the Russian Federation and accompanied,
with strategic complicity, by China). An ideological crisis between those
who adopted the normative aspects of human-centred doctrines (human
security, R2P) and the countries which were reluctant to consider any
changes in the international dynamics resulted in a paralyzed Security
Council. The conflict in Syria became the object of numerous non-formal
debates and vetoes, because the international community at the UN level
was divided by those who tried to invoke the international responsibility to
protect civilians, to implement international humanitarian law and to prevent
the conflict from spilling over, usually the P3 (USA, France, UK) and a
subset of the non-permanent member states, and those opposed to a military
intervention after the Libyan case, China and Russia. At least eight draft
resolutions which encompassed a clear reference to a reaction of the
international community to the conflict were vetoed in the UNSC.
The first veto, of a project aimed to condemn the abuses by the Syrian
government of its people (Shaikh and Roberts 2016, p. 720) initiated in June
2011 by a group of like-minded states, revealed a harsh division within the
UNSC. The language of the human-centred doctrines and of the need to
ensure protection of civilians in the conflict clashed with that of the states
that opposed the intervention, for example France critiqued the opposing
states, declaring that ‘[t]his is not a matter of language, it is a political choice’
(S/PV.6627 4 2011, p. 3), and reaffirmed its desire to continue the efforts of
saving civilians trapped in this conflict, while Russia justified its decision as
the desire to avoid ‘the philosophy of confrontation’.
A second draft resolution, S/2012/77, promoted by Morocco, which
included the Arab League proposal for a peaceful transition conducted by the
Syrian authorities, voted on in February 2012, ‘calling for an immediate end
to all violence’, keeping intact the sovereignty and independence of Syria
and underscoring specifically that ‘nothing in this resolution authorizes
measures under Article 42 of the Charter,’ was again vetoed by Russia and
China (S/2012/77). The draft resolution condemned the human rights
abuses and the human insecurity in all its forms and asked for accountability
for all those guilty of human right violations, and demanded that the
government of Syria comply with measures for stopping these actions. The
states which endorsed the resolution expressed their disappointment and
outrage at the opposition of the reluctant states (eg France proclaimed a ‘sad
day for all the friends of democracy’, while the United States declared its
commitment to continue supporting the civilians in the conflict, to ‘stand
fully and irrevocably with the long-suffering people of Syria’, condemning
the previous veto by counting the numbers of civilian victims (S/PV.6711
2012). Continuing the same type of argumentation, the Russian Federation
affirmed that the main aim of the resolution was to conduct a regime change
(S/PV.6711 2012), referring to the Libyan case and to the so-called
imperialistic ambitions under the R2P rhetoric (‘false humanitarianism’).
Subsequently, a draft resolution of July 2012 (S/2012/538) was brought
to a vote in the UNSC, which included sanctions against the government of
Syria in the case of non-compliance with the ‘Six-point plan’ under Chapter
VII of the UN Charter. The resolution, built upon the need to react to ‘the
deteriorating humanitarian situation and the failure to ensure timely
provision of humanitarian assistance to all areas affected by the fighting’
(S/2012/538), was the third veto by Russia and China, using the same
argumentation line as in the first two vetoes. The transcript of the meeting,
expressing the reactions to another failed attempt to put an end to the
atrocities in Syria, has a high intensity of tension, expressed in the language
between the sides, which framed their arguments on the language of
responsibility towards the people of Syria on the one hand, and on the
accusations of the imperialist aspirations of some of the proposing states on
the other hand.
As shown by the current analysis of the three vetoes, the P5 states framed
their discourses around two coordinates, being in favour of and against the
human-centred doctrines, taking into consideration the gravity of the
situation on the ground. The terms responsibility of the state towards its
citizens and respect for human lives in conflict, and the need for the UNSC
to provide international peace and security, were at their peak in the draft
resolutions and in the discourses arguing the position in the process of
voting, even if the international community’s responsibility to protect was
not mentioned per se. Apart from these three vetoes, exemplified for
tracking the type of rhetoric and argumentation used by the UNSC
members and their compliance with the human-centred doctrines, at least
five other vetoes regarding possible action to halt the Syrian conflict were
registered.
Despite this view, the language of R2P and human security, which
intersects, as noted earlier, in the protection of civilians, was very prominent
in the debates over the intervention in Syria. The texts of the draft
resolutions were wrapped around the necessity to protect civilians to force
the government of Syria to respect its responsibilities to its citizens. Noting
that this position is constant during the analyzed case of Libya and within the
timeline of the Syrian conflict analyzed here, I contend that the states that
supported this position internalized the R2P norm.
The R2P principle was more contested after the intervention in Libya
(apart from the disastrous consequences of the lack of a reconstruction
process) because the international community was expecting a similar
reaction to stop the mass atrocity crimes in Syria. Therefore, one of the main
accusations brought to the principle was the use of double standards.
Even if the implementation of R2P in Libya was considered a failure,
especially with respect to the post-intervention evolution, from a theoretical
point of view, it is considered a threshold because it created expectations for
the reactions to the similar conflict of Syria. This fact, despite the failure to
operationalize the R2P, proves an evolving process of adopting patterns of
behaviour and the normalization of the R2P principle. However, the
situation in the Syrian case was definitely more complex than in Libya, both
in its strategic and in its geopolitical dimensions (Garwood-Gowers 2013, p.
613), a fact which did not allow a consensus to be reached in the UNSC,
even if the threshold criteria under R2P were evidently present (Kuwali
2012, p. 2). At the same time, in the case of Syria, the R2P doctrine seemed
to be trapped in a type of tragedy of the commons. The lack of political will
to act and the failure to ensure the minimum protection of individuals in
over eight years of conflict might have shown that the transition towards
liberal institutionalism in the R2P rhetoric is paradoxically a translation to a
situation where ‘no one becomes responsible’ (Chandler 2011, p. 32).
Despite the failure of the implementation of the R2P principle in Syria,
by missing the momentum of intervention (Ignatieff 2016), I believe, in
agreement with Weiss (2014), that it is misleading to declare the ‘death of
R2P’ (Rieff 2011). The normative development after the end of the Cold
War (human rights regimes, human security paradigm) suggests that this case
represents not the internal weakness of the principle, but an incapacity of the
international community to reach consensus for implementing its assumed
responsibility. This failure of the implementation of the R2P principle
underscores the persistence of the power politics on the international
agenda, not the failure of the constructivist processes of norm formation.
The UNSC continued to use the R2P terms and rhetoric even after the
failure to manage the post-conflict situation in Libya and the lack of
consensus in the Syrian case. The presence of R2P and of the human
security rhetoric in the debates surrounding these conflicts exemplifies their
internalization by state actors and the mutations of the principle of
sovereignty in sovereignty as responsibility. In this case, realist constructivist
arguments are best suited to demonstrate the coexistence of the national and
geopolitical interests with the norms built on shared values.
 This debate stressed the fact that R2P is an emerging international norm,
with the possibility to be built on a permanent learning process at the UN
headquarters and in the international community. Undoubtedly, the
intervention in Libya has raised the question of whether it has strengthened
or weakened R2P. Following the history of R2P in practice it can be
observed that its application is characterized by a ‘case-by-case’ approach.

Conclusion
This investigation reveals the usefulness of the realist constructivist approach,
by underscoring the fact that the normative dimensions of human security
and R2P penetrated the international agenda. It also suggests that these
dimensions were institutionalized (normalized) in other initiatives that aim to
protect the security of the individuals from the multidimensional risks they
are exposed to. The concept of state sovereignty changed its function due to
the transformative impetus of the R2P principle and of the new security
approaches which focused on the security of the individual. This emphasized
the fact that the human-centred doctrines entered both international
discourse and practice and impacted the conduct of sovereignty, by
transforming states’ behaviour and expectations. However, state sovereignty
is not diminished but has witnessed a reaffirmation in the context of the new
international discourse.
The development of the principle was challenged by states that
maintained a resistance to the change and by a reluctance driven by the
misconception that R2P was a necessarily militarized doctrine. The Reports
of the UN Secretary General on R2P reveal the institutional support for the
principle, and the fluctuations in the political decisions responsible for R2P,
depending on international circumstances. The acceptance of the R2P norm
and its inclusion in the opinio juris of international law is driven by the first
pillar of the R2P principle, the responsibility to prevent, which is embedded
in the core obligations of sovereignty and in the human rights international
law architecture (both as responsibility of the state and obligation of the
international community to assist).
 The R2P principle, through the third pillar approach, the double-
sovereignty as responsibility concept, and through the clear criteria
established for military intervention (precautionary principles; jus ad bellum
and jus in bello), passes over the gap between legality and legitimacy and
establishes a new relation between human rights and sovereignty (Marks and
Cooper 2010, p. 89). The concept of state sovereignty (international legal
and Westphalian sovereignty) changed its function due to the transformative
impetus of the R2P principle and due to the new security approaches, and
the securitization of the individual, human security correlated in the world-
time variable. However, the principle of sovereignty is not diminished, but is
reaffirmed, a fact supported by the international discourse (Murthy and
Kurtz 2016, p. 40).
The pace of R2P’s normative progress has been one of the most
impressive and spectacular normative evolutions given the limited time it has
been operational (Weiss 2014). However, the practice of R2P, which I test in
this study, is problematic (Bădescu 2011, p. 136). Nonetheless, regarding the
evolution of the norm and contrasting it to the case of the dreadful Syrian
conflict, the mere fact that international actors explain the lack of
compliance with the R2P principle suggests that R2P is becoming an
accepted international norm, and it slightly starts to be present in the opinio
juris of the state. The international discourse on R2P has changed from the
accusations vis-à-vis the Western states of having an interventionist attitude,
towards the recognized incapacity of some states to ensure the protection of
their citizens from mass atrocity crimes. In addition, the role of the Western
states in humanitarian crises changed, from a central perspective to an
indirect one, a fact which aims to support the respect for the re-imagined
notion of sovereignty (Chandler 2011, p. 26). The efforts to institutionalize
R2P could generate a norm cascade. However, R2P implementation still
depends on the efforts of norm entrepreneurs (civil society at the national,
regional and international levels) that would need to emphasize its
normative-preventive dimension (Serrano and Weiss 2014, p. 17).
Weiss (2014, p. 14), a champion of the R2P principle, although calling it
a ‘norm’, mentions that in fact it is not an explanatory factor for the
different reactions to the conflicts of Libya and Syria, the international action
being driven by ‘geopolitics and collective spinelessness combined with a
difficult military situation on the ground’ (Weiss 2014). This chapter argues
for a realist constructivist explanation, in affirming that R2P reached the
status of norm, constructed on mutual shared values, but is exposed to the
realist dynamics of the international community, which acts based on rational
decisions and geopolitical interests. This fact means that the lack of reaction
to the Syrian conflict, although abominable when considering the
dimensions of the humanitarian disaster, does not mean that R2P is not a
norm, but is still contested, coming into conflict with the old practice of
defending national interests, despite the human loss.
In addition, the core presence of the rhetoric of human-centred doctrines
in the UNSC presents the prospects of reaching consensus to protect
civilians, once this responsibility of the international community is
acknowledged at the international level, as a mutual shared value of the
individual actors of the international community (states, international
organizations and NGOs).
The role of R2P in the ‘formation of habits of protection’ (Bellamy 2013,
p. 352) represents a strong argument for the fact that the R2P norm
evolution process is advanced, starting to enter the opinio juris of states. Using
realist constructivist argumentation, observing the norm evolution process
and states’ behaviour and discourse in relation to the conflicts of Libya and
Syria, I agree with Bellamy’s (2013, p. 352) conclusions that even if the R2P
principle does not have the capacity ‘by itself ’ to override state interests in
relation to specific crises, it influences the redefinition of state’s ‘identities
and interests’. Building upon the narrative developed after the end of the
Cold War on the importance of human life and the provision of security to
the individual, as institutionalized in the human security paradigm, the R2P
principle entered international discourse as a marker of the process of
internalization of this mentality by international actors. Therefore, the
process of co-constitution was activated because once the identities of the
actors started to change due to normative developments based on common
shared values (human security, R2P), states became determined to change
the structure of international mechanisms of reaction to mass atrocity crimes,
genocide, and imminent threats, becoming more prone to the protection of
civilians facing these threats. Despite its failure in the Syrian case, I consider
that the R2P norm in evolution has a prevalent function, being ‘a political
or rhetorical tool to alter state behavior’ (Garwood-Gowers 2013, p. 601).
The realist constructivist framework allows a comprehensive delving into
the birth and life of normative frameworks which impact the international
agenda, and hence states’ behaviour and their resilience to change, within
the context of a realist logic, in which geopolitical calculus and national
interest are still a constant. This research has validated the utility of the realist
constructivism analytical framework, which accommodated in the same
research model a theoretical inquiry on the evolution of human-centred
concepts and norms, and foreign policy analysis based on states’ positions
and discourses.

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 9

Permutations and Combinations in

Theorizing Global Politics: Whither
Realist Constructivism?
Laura Sjoberg

The chapters across this volume have made the argument that a combination
of realism and constructivism has significant theoretical promise and can
result in important payoffs in terms of understanding empirical phenomena
in global politics. They have suggested that it is important for those
interested in the social to pay attention to power, and important for those
interested in power to pay attention to its social dynamics. Each chapter, and
each theorist of realist constructivism, has put forth a slightly different
permutation of the theoretical paradigms and used it for a slightly different
end. Each is importantly fruitful. I agree with its subscribers that
combinations of realisms and constructivisms are more theoretically useful
and empirically explanatory than the deployment of theories within each
paradigm on their own would be. At the same time, overall, I find both the
theoretical commitment to realist constructivism and its deployment to
analyze events in global politics problematic. In this chapter I suggest that the
enterprise of realist constructivism itself, and the manifestations of its utility
included in this volume, are not necessarily incorrect, but instead rest on a
partial and misguided premise.
The partial and misguided premise is that the combination of realism and
constructivism has more, or different, utility than any other combination of
theories, and that the combining should stop with these two theoretical
approaches. The old adage that two heads are better than one certainly
applies to realism and constructivism, but the justificatory logic applies to
expanding further: a second approach covers more ground and exposes more
nuance than only one; adding a third, or fourth, approach would do the
same. Rather than limiting the possible combinations to realisms and
constructivisms, I argue that the idea of ‘the more the merrier’ applies to
international relations (IR) theorizing as much as it does to social gatherings,
if not more so. In this chapter, then, I suggest that, theoretically, realist
constructivism is itself too limiting a concept for thinking about global
politics. After outlining that theoretical argument, I revisit the substance of
four empirical chapters in the volume, each time adding a third theoretical
approach to suggest an increase in the theoretical and empirical leverage that
the chapter might provide. The chapter concludes by arguing for trading in
realist constructivism for ‘ism’ promiscuity.

Why stop at two?

The authors in this volume, here and elsewhere, make a fairly compelling
case that some elements of constructivisms have a theoretical value-added for
realisms, and that some elements of realisms have a theoretical value-added
for constructivisms.
Many of these explications build on J. Samuel Barkin’s (2003, 2010)
original explication of the potential value of pairing realisms and
constructivisms, which I will (briefly) recount here. Barkin (2010, p. 2) bases
his pairing of realisms and constructivisms (plural here, singular in Barkin) on
the ‘core argument’ that a ‘paradigmatic way of thinking about different
approaches to the study of international relations is problematic’ because ‘it
obscures both the compatibilities among different approaches and the
complex ways in which they interact’. It is as an example of this argument
that Barkin (2010, pp. 2, 3) combines realisms and constructivisms, given
that ‘[c]onstructivism and realism appear to have taken their places in the
literature in direct opposition to each other’ when ‘a realist/constructivist
synthesis would in particular serve a number of useful functions’. Those
functions include clearing up miscommunications in the discipline,
providing a language to talk about power politics and/of ideals, clarifying
relationships between mainstream and critical approaches, and clarifying the
core concepts of both realisms and constructivisms (Barkin 2010, pp. 3–4).
Barkin’s (2010, p. 7) result is a synthesis ‘that brings from classical realism a
focus on power politics and on foreign policy, and from constructivism a
focus on, and a methodology for studying, the co-constitution of structures
and agents’. Barkin (2010, p. 169) explains:

Constructivism and realism, then, are distinct but compatible

approaches. There is a scope both for a realist constructivism and for
a constructivist realism, but neither entirely displaces the unmodified
approach. A realist constructivism is a constructivism in which a
concern for power politics, understood as relational rather than
structural, is central … A constructivist realism is a realism that takes
intersubjectivity and co-constitution seriously, that focuses on social
structure as the locus of change in international politics.

The value-added, Barkin (2010, p. 11) argues, is ‘how realist insights about
power and constructivist method might combine to provide a more robust
tool for studying foreign policy than either is capable of alone’. Similar logic
appears elsewhere in advocacy for realist constructivism or constructivist
realism. Bing (2008) discusses the core commonalities of realism and
constructivisms as exploring different forms of power and their respective
effects on the social construction of international politics. Mattern (2005)
speaks of the power politics of identity, leveraging realist analysis to
understand identity and order in global politics. Wood (2013, p. 395) argues
that realism and constructivism are more alike than different when applied to
the analysis of prestige in global politics, which seems to him to be a
conceptual overlap of the two approaches. Germán Prieto (Chapter 2, this
volume) contends that realist constructivism ‘may offer better causal
explanations than classical realism or constructivism on their own’, where
the causal explanations of the synthesis are ‘more encompassing’ especially as
applied to the simultaneous analysis of agency and structure. Each of these
claims features the unique contribution each approach has to a synthesis
between the two, and the value-added of the application of both approaches
simultaneously.
The empirical chapters in this volume also make a case that combining
realisms and constructivisms provide a payoff that becomes more than a sum
of the combined parts. Saira Bano (Chapter 5, this volume) makes the
argument that the India–US Nuclear Deal needs to be explained by the
combination of the power of norms and the power of power – where ‘realist
constructivism can account for changes and stability in normative structure
by looking at power structure, normative factors, domestic culture, and elite
perception’. In Bano’s view, realist constructivism’s value-added is in the
ability to combine analysis of norms and power, and of stability and change.
Martin Boyle (Chapter 4, this volume) suggests that constructivist ‘social
identity’ necessarily entails ‘a collective interest’, which is a core concept
implicating realist theorizing. Analysing the anomalous status of Taiwan in
global politics, Boyle contends that ‘Taiwan’s case invites a constructivist
response to a realist puzzle; power forms the anarchic structure that states
must respect in order to survive’. In Boyle’s view, the precarity of Taiwan
cannot exist without the combination of the structural (power politics) and
the social (diplomatic norms). The value-added of realist constructivism is
the ability to analyze the two simultaneously. Justin Delacour (Chapter 7,
this volume) argues that the addition of classical realism helps to ‘more
adequately theorize the tensions between the two sides of co-constitution’ as
compared to constructivist approaches to the problematique of United
States–Latin American relations. According to Delacour, the power analysis
of classical realism is necessary to understand how the co-constitution works
fundamentally – where power politics is an intervening variable in the shape
of the constitution. Andreea Iancu (Chapter 8, this volume) uses realist
constructivism to analyze the implementation of human security doctrines
and the responsibility to protect (R2P) principle. In so doing, Iancu
contends that realist constructivism ‘manages to fit the explanations of both
the evolution of human-centred norms on the international agenda and the
persistence of the realist national interest’ and is therefore of value-added
compared to either realism or constructivism on their own.
None of this work, however, suggests that the fruitfulness of the
theoretical pairing of realism and constructivism is limited to the pairing of
two approaches, much less these two approaches. In fact, in Barkin’s original
engagement, the pairing of realisms and constructivisms was put forward as
an example of the fruitfulness of breaking down the boundaries between
paradigms, rather than a new analytical approach as such. Barkin (2010, p.
12) himself notes that ‘a realist/constructivist synthesis is but one of many
potentially useful combinations of approaches that become available when
those approaches are seen as concepts rather than as paradigms’. The initial
framing of realist constructivism as ‘one of potentially many useful
combinations’ is, in my view, an invitation to imagination – to think about
the other possible combinations that might be visible when the chains of
paradigmatic thinking are broken. Barkin’s analysis seems to agree as he
argues that ‘seeing these approaches as interrelating parts of a matrix, rather
than as independent castles, allows international relations scholars to use
them effectively to address the questions at hand’ (Barkin 2010, p. 12).
This brings me to wonder if realist constructivism in this volume is really
serving the cause of deconstructing paradigmatic thinking for which Barkin
originally aimed. As Barkin (2010, p. 4) explained: ‘to think in terms of
paradigms, then, is to jumble together assumptions about epistemology,
methodology, politics, and a variety of other things’. Yet the realist
constructivism that pairs two paradigms into one analytical framework, to
the exclusion of other paradigms and retaining paradigmatic labels, seems to
(intentionally or not) fall into the thinking that Barkin (2010) calls
paradigmatism. The problem with that, as Barkin (2010, p. 4) explains, is
that ‘focusing on particular paradigms, therefore, does not give us a
sufficiently broad set of assumptions, of background conditions, for actual
research into international relations’.
Certainly, realist constructivism is better at achieving these goals than
realisms or constructivisms are on their own – the crossing of paradigmatic
boundaries and the addition of significant and useful tools for analysis makes
the theoretical work of realist-constructivist research stronger. At the same
time, the limitations of the realist-constructivist approach, both generally and
as presented in the chapters of this book, differ in severity but not in kind
from the limitations that realist constructivisms’ progenitors find in
paradigmatism itself, and/or in realism or constructivism individually. A
scholar gets more coverage from including both realism and constructivism
but there are still blind spots, considerations omitted, issues left unaddressed
or unexplained, and possibilities for more theoretical insight with further
combinations.
In short – why just two? If eschewing paradigms to include cross-
paradigmatic thought is beneficial, why stop at combining two theoretical
approaches? If realism and constructivism are more than a sum of their parts,
why not include other theoretical approaches to fill the still-existing gaps to
increase the explanatory or representational power of the theoretical
framework being deployed? If we learn more from realism and
constructivism combined, what about adding post-structuralism, or
liberalism, or feminism, or decolonial theory? The remainder of this chapter
suggests that adding a third theoretical approach to a number of this volume’s
chapters would enrich the capacity of those chapters to account for the
subject matter therein empirically, and then argues that paradigmatic
promiscuity both provides more explanatory power and works to promote
the original goals of the realist/constructivist synthesis.

The India–US nuclear deal: realisms, constructivisms and

decolonial approaches
Saira Bano (Chapter 5, this volume) highlights the uniqueness of the global
non-proliferation network generally and India’s place in non-proliferation
politics specifically. She notes that the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
stands as a deal between states that possess nuclear weapons and those that do
not possess such weapons to stop the weapons’ spread, and that only four
states in the world remain outside of the deal. India is one of those states – it
is not a member state of the NPT. Bano sees the relationship between India
and the NPT, especially as it relates to US–India relations around nuclear
proliferation, as a story of norm contestation and outcomes in a world of
power politics. She is interested in deploying a realist-constructivist
framework to not only account for, but to pay attention to change in this
policy arena. As Bano suggests, realist constructivism ‘allows analysis not only
of the impact of the nuclear deal on the regime, but also of how other
factors have influenced changes by tracing the process of meaning
construction of this norm’. She argues that such an approach will allow
accounting for power disparities in norm construction while also taking
social context seriously, especially inasmuch as ‘powerful states participate in
language games to develop the required intersubjectivity … The most
effective way to promote one’s preferred interpretation is to demonstrate
coherence between a new interpretation and existing collective standards of
appropriate behaviour. Hence, states must convince others that their
interpretation is reasonable.’ Using realist constructivism as an analytical
approach, Bano learns that the NPT has become a dominant intersubjective
discourse on the international level through shared understandings of
acceptable forms of behaviour, these norms became entrenched, and any
negotiations to accept India’s apparently anti-normative choices needed to be
framed and sold in terms of existing norms. In this sense, ‘power and norms
are mutually constitutive … norms shape the system of power … [and]
power privileges certain states, enabling them to construct and interpret
norms’.
What, for me, is missing from Bano’s analysis is an understanding of the
discourses on the Indian side of the US–India and NPT–India relationships.
Realist constructivism does an excellent (and quite possibly unique) job in
Bano’s chapter of accounting not only for the function of norms in a world
of power politics, but also for the ways that the powerful can shape norms
but are constrained in their actions by existing normative discourses. In other
words, realist constructivism appears to account quite well for the United
States’ behaviour towards India as it relates to issues of nuclear proliferation.
But looking more closely at India’s behaviour and India’s discourses suggests
that there are important parts of the puzzle of India’s relationships with the
NPT generally and the US specifically that are not captured by the
combination of realisms and constructivisms alone.
Some of India’s choices might be accounted for by realisms or
constructivisms or both. Leonard Weiss (2010, p. 255) suggests that ‘India’s
nuclear development has been accompanied by a dual-track strategy of
developing and building weapons while criticizing the non-proliferation
regime as discriminatory and simultaneously making public statements and
proposals in favor of nuclear disarmament’. Though neither this observation
nor the analysis that followed it were inspired by realist constructivism, it is
easy to read this description of India’s behaviour through a realist-
constructivist lens. India’s developing and building of weapons can be taken
as a classic case of realist state behaviour – insecurity in an anarchic world
leads to the search for both relative and absolute power. As Scott Sagan
(1997, p. 59) explains: ‘after China developed the bomb in 1964, India,
which had just fought a war with China in 1962, was bound to follow suit’.
India’s critique of the non-proliferation regime as discriminatory might be
seen in constructivist terms as either a principled stand or a defence of its
violation of the terms of the internationally agreed-upon regime. India’s
public statements and proposals in favour of nuclear disarmament might be
seen in realist terms as the strategic move of a power that knows that it will
not catch up with its rivals in terms of size and sophistication of its nuclear
arsenal so is looking to decrease the size and strength of rivals’ arsenals. A
realist-constructivist approach might see India simultaneously serving its
strategic and power-related interests with bombs and words, while navigating
a complex international norm system regarding the proliferation of nuclear
weapons.
But many accounts of India’s refusal to join the NPT suggest that there
are other dimensions of Indian nuclear policy. As Sarkar and Ganguly (2018)
note, ‘as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) turns 50 this summer,
so will India’s refusal to accede to the treaty on the grounds that it is a biased
legal instrument that divided the world into “nuclear haves” and “nuclear
have-nots”’. As Kumar (2010) explains: ‘India maintains that the NPT is
discriminatory because of an imparlance between the obligations of the five
recognized nuclear weapon states under the treaty … and the countries the
treaty classifies as non-nuclear weapons states – i.e., everybody else’. Almost
every time Indian policymakers officially mention the NPT, it is paired with
language about discrimination and even neocolonialism. I suggest that
decolonial theorizing provides at least three useful interventions in a realist-
constructivist approach to US–India relations as regards nuclear weapons.
The first intervention is fairly straightforward: Bano’s realist-constructivist
approach focuses significantly more on international norms and the United
States’ behaviours and incentives than on India’s. Postcolonial critiques of
security studies scholarship more generally suggest that this sort of
orientation is both common and problematic (eg Barkawi and Laffey 2006).
As Barkawi and Laffey (2006, p. 330) argue, ‘a major reason for this
inadequacy is that security studies derives its core categories and assumptions
about world politics from a particular understanding of European
experience’. This Eurocentrism ‘leads to a distorted analysis’ (Barkawi and
Laffey 2006, p. 330). Instead, ‘understanding security relations, past and
present, requires acknowledging the mutual constitution of Europe and the
non-European world and their joint role in making history’ (Barkawi and
Laffey 2006, p. 330). Barkawi and Laffey (2006, p. 347) argue that a
decolonial reorientation ‘forces us to recover … processes of mutual
constitution and their significance for how we make sense of security
relations and world politics more generally’. In other words, India’s policy
choices, India’s political motivations, India’s norms, and India’s perceptions
of norms are as important as (and more neglected than) the United States’
and the United Nations’ positions. When security studies scholars pay
attention to the global ‘core’ at the expense of the global ‘periphery’, there is
a significant empirical and ethical cost (Barkawi and Laffey 2006). Bilgin
(2010) suggests that orientations towards the ‘West’ and away from the ‘Rest’
are not incidental or unintentional but a constitutive practice that is reified
every time the security subject is identified as the Global North. She argues
that ‘treating heretofore-understudied insecurities as a “blind spot” of the
discipline may prevent us from fully recognizing the ways in which the
historical absence of non-Western insecurities has been constitutive both of the
discipline and of subjects and objects of security’ (Bilgin 2010, p. 616).
Decolonial theorizing suggests that a realist-constructivist approach without
a decolonial consciousness might continue that constitutive silence by paying
more attention to Western handling of security problematiques than to
India’s agency.
A second intervention of decolonial theorizing might be to analyze
India’s argument about the colonial and discriminatory nature of the NPT
and the accompanying non-proliferation regime. Chacko and Davis (2018, p.
14) suggest that NPT and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
discourses about why some states are recognized as responsible nuclear
powers and other states are not replicates ‘[o]rientalist discourses about
“Enlightenment” and “civilization”’ which ‘serve to legitimize global
hierarchies’. They argue that ‘the global nuclear order’ is ‘anchored in an
unequal treaty that gives some states privileges that others must renounce’
(Chacko and Davis 2018, p. 14). As Shampa Biswas (2001, p. 485) argues,
‘India’s decision to nuclearize in May 1998 propelled it into the international
limelight, along with the reprimands, resolutions, and statements that were
rapidly issued by international bodies … all kinds of issues began to be raised
with respect to India’s motivations’. Biswas (2001, p. 486) contended then,
and it remains true now, that all of the buzz around India’s nuclearization
neglected ‘the use by the Indian government of a significant racial signifier –
“nuclear apartheid” – to justify and defend its actions’. She contends that the
language of nuclear apartheid intentionally and effectively ‘carries with it a
certain contemporary political resonance, given the very recent shameful
history of the complicity of many First World states with the racist regime in
South Africa’ in order to ‘point to the continuing exclusions and
marginalizations faced by people of color in Third World countries in a
global order dominated and controlled by privileged whites’ (Biswas 2001, p.
495). Thinking about Indian nuclear policy through a decolonial lens, then,
can ‘point to the hypocrisy inherent in the disarmament position taken by
powerful countries’ and to ‘orientalist assumptions that underlie both such
positions and the responses generated by the proliferation of nuclear weapons
to Third World countries’ (Biswas 2001, p. 497). In this understanding, then,
Indian nuclear policy and US–India nuclear relations may be about relative
power and international non-proliferation norms, but they are also about
postcolonial interstate relations, inherent inequality in the international
arena, and racialized discrimination in global politics. Chacko and Davis
(2018, p. 2) suggest that the colonial dynamics do not stop at the Indian
critique of the NPT as a regime; instead, much of Indian nuclear diplomacy
has been about resignifying the notion of ‘responsibility’ in proliferation
discourse ‘such that it is no longer framed within a Eurocentric “standard of
civilization” but instead linked to a discourse on India’s “civilizational
exceptionalism”’. This suggests that there are both perspectival and analytical
dimensions that decolonial analysis can add to a realist-constructivist
perspective on India, the United States, and proliferation policy.
A third intervention in Banu’s realist-constructivist approach to the US–
India nuclear deal can be found in decolonial analysis of that deal itself.
Runa Das (2017, p. 741) frames India–US nuclear security relations as ‘a
clash of US orientalism and India’s nuclear sovereignty’, which is ‘a key
marker of India’s postcolonial essence’. Das (2017, p. 742) argues that the
US–India Civil Nuclear Agreement shows ‘a continuity of America’s
Orientalist discourses towards India and its nuclear program – making India
susceptible to certain kinds of “management” by the US’ while at the same
time renewing India’s ‘nuclear nationalism … in a world riddled by
discriminatory non-proliferation practices’. If ‘the signing of the 123
Agreement between India and the US is historically unthinkable’, Das
(2017, p. 749) contends that it did not represent a reversal of US orientalist
positions towards India. Instead, Das (2017, p. 748) argues that any US
reframing of nuclear norms was self-interested: ‘9/11 strategically required a
US national security strategy of cooperating with other nations to “act
against such emerging threats” …and, to this end, building on “common
interests”’. While, on its face, the deal signals cooperation, Das (2017, p.
752) does a textual analysis which shows that the agreement maintains
colonial power relations ‘“structuring” US nuclear expectations from India;
… “policing” the latter’s nuclear activities’. Rather than changing readings of
international norms to adapt to India’s special circumstances, Das (2017, p.
752) sees the US–India Civil Nuclear Agreement as a US policy which has
‘sought to “survey” India as a non-signatory of the NPT; bring India into
the international non-proliferation mainstream; and, strengthen the US
global non-proliferation agenda’. Das (2017, p. 755) argues that analysis that
misses the colonial dimensions of this deal represents ‘“Orientalist amnesia”
suffered by the neo-liberal analysts of security affairs’ in the face of
‘American Orientalism’ which continues ‘to represent India and structure
India-US relations in a xenophobic manner’.
Certainly, as Banu argues, realism, constructivism, and realist
constructivism provide analytical purchase analyzing India–US nuclear
diplomacy generally and the US–India Civil Nuclear Agreement specifically.
Decolonial analysis, however, has several insights to offer above and beyond
the contributions of realist constructivism. It frames the NPT as a site of
postcolonial confrontation and thereby contextualizes both the power
politics of US–India nuclear relations and the normative signification of the
negotiations in/as Orientalist discourses and decolonial contestations. It
suggests that international norms may not themselves be normatively neutral
but may instead carry both power politics and racialized norms about
civilization. Perhaps a realist-constructivist-decolonial approach to the US–
India Civil Nuclear Agreement would add nuance and explanatory power to
a realist-constructivist approach – both in terms of accounting for factors
which were previously excluded and serving as a corrective to normative
analysis. It is possible that other approaches would add to these three as well;
simply put, here, the more approaches that can be leveraged to address this
complex problem, the better.

The anomaly of Taiwan: realisms, constructivisms and critical

theories
Martin Boyle (Chapter 4, this volume) presents the puzzle of the anomalous
status of Taiwan in international diplomacy and global politics as a puzzle
which existing theoretical approaches might have trouble explaining. Paying
attention as few IR theorists do to the tension between those who are
interested in independence of Taiwan from the Republic of China (ROC)
and those who are interested in the independence of Taiwan as the ROC
from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Boyle explores ‘two overlapping
conversations, one cross-Strait and one domestic, that constructed a Chinese
identity after 1945 and a Taiwanese one after 1971’ (Chapter 4, p. 75).
Looking at these complexities, Boyle argues that ‘a realist constructivism that
accounts for state identity and foreign policy construction at the interface of
interstate and domestic politics: that is, the PRC–ROC and ROC–Taiwan
dimensions’ can provide a ‘two-level, three-stage, three-dimensional
framework of power politics and identity’ (Chapter 4, p. 92). Boyle then
accounts for ‘the Taiwan problematique’ with this account:

huadu [ROC independence advocacy] represents a Lockean culture of

anarchy sustained through the power of Taiwan’s identity … power
operationalizes identities and interests at the interstate and domestic
levels … intersubjective co-constitutive operates all the way down …
in Taiwan’s case, state identity change occurred in the space created
by systemic balance of power. (Chapter 4, p. 92)

He argues, then, that realist-constructivist analysis provides a corrective to

liberal and neoclassical realist readings that oversimplify Taiwanese domestic
politics and focus on power underbalancing.
Boyle makes a convincing case that realist constructivism provides
leverage on the question of Taiwan’s position in global politics in a way that
neither neoclassical realism (which neglects identity) nor constructivism
(which needs the tools to think about power politics) can alone. Especially
inasmuch as Boyle’s realist constructivism is able to distinguish the policy
challenges to the PRC coming from the ROC and Taiwan, and the policy
challenges to the ROC coming from the PRC and Taiwan, this contribution
is significant. Still, as I contend is always the case, other theoretical
perspectives might add to and/or intervene in a realist-constructivist
approach to the question of the status of Taiwan in global politics. As an
example here, I suggest interventions from critical theory might flesh out
understandings of how national identities are contested in and around
Taiwan. I suggest particularly that two of Ken Booth’s (2005) enumerated
themes of Critical Security Studies might provide added leverage to a realist-
constructivist understanding of Taiwan’s status in global politics.
The first theme of Booth’s (2005, p. 262) that seems relevant is the idea
that ‘all knowledge is social process’. Echoing Robert Cox’s (1981)
formulation that knowledge is always ‘for someone or for some purpose’,
Booth (2005) makes the argument that the interest that a knower has in
knowledge is not independent from or outside of that knowledge but instead
a part of the very thing known. As Booth (2005, p. 269) explains, ‘the
reliability of … traditional knowledge is under question because of the
political and epistemological assumptions of those who have the status as fact
makers’. Booth’s argument is that all knowledge is interested, and that the
interest is a part of that knowledge rather than outside of it, influencing it, or
engaged in dialogue with it. This insight has two implications for thinking
about a realist-constructivist view of Taiwan’s anomalous status. First, all of
the ‘sides’ of this conflict – whether they be Taiwanese nationalist, ROC
nationalists, PRC sympathizers, or PRC-based One China advocates – see
the ‘facts’ of the interactions differently, based on perspective and passion.
Boyle talks about questions of perception interspersed with descriptions of
events; Booth and other critical theorists suggest that descriptions of events
are themselves perceptions. If Boyle describes Taiwanese cross-strait relations
as ‘shaped by …domestic politics, history, identity, culture, ideology, norms,
and perceptions of legitimacy’, Booth’s contribution is to suggest that those
contingencies are themselves also contingent. Seeing those issues as
perspectival suggests that not only is ‘national interest’ ‘normatively,
ideationally, and domestically constructed by political actors’, but those
actors in the construction are consumed in and inseparable from the knowledge
that they create and are created by. Second, any realist-constructivist
theoretical approach to the anomalous situation of Taiwan is itself implicated
in the notion that knowledge generally and theorizing specifically is always
for some purpose or for someone. Whether the politics of any given realist-
constructivist analysis are explicit (eg Boyle’s advocacy for prudence) or
implicit (eg Boyle’s implied preference for peace over war), politics in
theoretical analysis is of two types: acknowledged and unacknowledged. To
the extent that there are unacknowledged politics within this or other realist-
constructivist work, the addition of a critical approach to a realist-
constructivist base suggests considering not only the political and contingent
knowledge of the research subjects, but also the political and contingent
knowledge of the researcher. This addition would add an extra layer of
reflexivity to the analysis of Taiwan’s status in global politics (what is the
researcher’s investment in the question and how does it shape the researcher’s
knowledge?) or any other research question to which realist constructivism
might be applied.
The second theme of Booth’s (2005, p. 266) that might aid in analysis of
the special situation of Taiwan is the understanding that ‘the state and other
institutions must be denaturalized’. Booth (2005, pp. 266, 267) explains that
‘human institutions like the state are historical phenomena, not biological
necessities’ and therefore ‘all institutional identifiers that divide humanity’
should be problematized. Rather than being a given, institutions like the
state are fleeting, and ‘the temporality of all institutions should lead us to
focus on the individual as the ultimate referent for security’ (Booth 2005, p.
267). Booth argues that attention to individual human beings and sub-state
social groups is important because they are the ‘ultimate units’ of global
politics, where identities are seen as ‘sites of contention and outcomes of
power struggles’ not only at the elite level, but instead, across populations and
into the political margins. As Booth (2005, p. 269) contends, this matters
both for the contemporary constitution of identity and for reading back
through history, given that, ‘history, after all, is not what happens but how it
has been interpreted … consequently, what has been done, and might be
done, looks very different depending on how one tells the story of the past’.
Boyle’s chapter (appropriately) struggles with some fairly complex
configurations of political institutions – a Taiwan which is the ‘state’ of the
ROC while it is exiled from its nation, a Taiwanese nation without a state,
and a Chinese nation that may be one state or maybe two. Still, across
conversations about Taiwan’s anomalous status, Boyle uses both state and
nation labels in a way which naturalizes them – suggesting that those states
and nations ‘are’ and then analysing their histories, their decisions, their
evolution, and their possible futures. Attributing ‘are’ status to states and
nations suggests a number of assumptions: that the form of state, nation or
nation-state is itself natural; that the states, nations or nation-states discussed
have some pre-existing status and/or right to status; that the states, nations or
nation-states discussed are singular or singularizable entities; and that they are
conceptually distinguishable from each other. These assumptions appear to
be inherent in Boyle’s realist-constructivist approach despite a pretty serious
mismatch with the facts: a significant part of the anomaly of Taiwan is the
conceptual and empirical unnaturalness and indistinguishability of the various
states, nations and/or nation-states involved in the conflict. While it is true
that claims to statehood, be they Taiwans’s, the ROC’s, the PRC’s, or even
the United States’, significantly influence the contours of cross-strait
relations, it is also the case that the muddled, complex and multifaceted
nature both of those statehood claims and of those states themselves matter as
well.
This is not to say that a realist-constructivist approach to the anomalous
situation of Taiwan lacks utility. Quite the opposite. Boyle’s explication of
the complicated social and political dynamics between the United States, the
ROC, the PRC and Taiwanese people is an impressive contribution, not
least because it takes careful account of both power-based forces and
normative influences, both domestic and international politics. Still, there are
complexities that a critical approach might supplement, improve on and
intervene in – complexities that overall increase the theoretical leverage that
an analysis of the situation might have. Particularly, denaturalizing the
state/nation is a key contribution of critical theorizing that, together with
the recognition that knowledge is contingent, might help to complicate and
contextualize the realist-constructivist view that Boyle provides. In other
words, perhaps a realist-constructivist-critical approach is more
comprehensive, and more useful, than a realist-constructivist approach alone.
Perhaps, though not explored here, other theoretical perspectives might also
have additive contributions.
US–Latin American relations: Realisms, constructivisms and queer
approaches
The problematique that Justin Delacour (Chapter 7, this volume) takes up is
the ambiguous US foreign policy approach to Latin America. Delacour poses
a number of puzzles that neither realisms nor liberalisms themselves address,
arguing that there exists an ‘inability of most contemporary IR theories to
explain the ambiguousness’ of the United States’ foreign policy towards Latin
America, which he suggests is ‘rooted in the binary logic of the debate about
culture’. From constructivism, Delacour emphasizes co-constitution, which
he sees as being based on identities and interests. From realisms, Delacour
focuses on classical realism’s views on states’ pursuit of power and states’
framing of their power interests in ethical terms. This allows Delacour to
devise a realist-constructivist approach both to press–state relations and to the
content of discourses in states’ foreign relations. Given this combination of
analytical factors, Delacour explains that ‘a realist-constructivist approach
suggests that the policy implications of co-constitution [of identity and
interest] are also ambiguous’. This ambiguity, he argues, can be seen in US–
Latin American relations, where the United States’ likelihood ‘to deviate
from (or abide by) its professed principles also depends in part upon the
regional and geostrategic context’. Examining the US discourse towards
Venezuela in the early years of Hugo Chávez’s presidency and comparing
that to US discourses about other Latin American countries, Delacour
contends that interest and identity mutually shaped the United States’
ambiguous approach to Venezuela. The ambiguity comes from the
importance that liberal norms have in US–Latin American relations
juxtaposed with the importance/dominance of strategic concerns, which
Delacour suggests ‘only a realist-constructivist theory of co-constitution
could coherently explain’.
Certainly, realist constructivism does contribute to accounting for US–
Venezuelan relations in the time period studied, and US–Latin American
relations more generally. A realist focus on interests and a constructivist focus
on identities pair with constructivist methodological thinking about co-
constitution to suggest that identities and interests together make policy, and
the clash of these two factors produces ambivalence. This serves as a key
critique of liberal theoretical approaches as well as non-constructivist realist
approaches to understanding US foreign policy generally and US foreign
policy towards Latin American states specifically. Delacour’s particular brand
of realist constructivism also captures important state–media relationship
dynamics, where media serves the interests of states as states cater to media
portrayals. These contributions are both important and valuable. At the same
time, other theoretical perspectives point to more layers of these policies
than Delacour discusses, both specifically and generally. In the next few
paragraphs, I will focus on the contribution to understanding US–Latin
American relations that comes from queer approaches to the study of global
politics. Queer work identifies gender and sexuality as a source of
ambivalence in US–Latin America relations.
Cynthia Weber (1999) makes the argument that US foreign policy is built
around the United States’ striving for dominance in the international arena,
and at the same time reacting to symbolic representations of the successes
and failures of that search for dominance. A successful, dominant United
States can be read as a straight, male, masculine hegemonic body politic that
possesses phallic power. Weber (1999, p. 1) suggests that US–Caribbean
relations betray a ‘(“post”)hegemonic “America”’ which ‘emerges from a
story of conquest, loss, and recovery long played out in US foreign policy’
and ‘reached a critical anticlimax’ in a series of events between 1959 and
1994. Discussing US–Cuba relations specifically, Weber (1999, p. 2) argues
that when Cuba presented as something other than the United States’ trophy
mistress, the United States attempted to conquer and rebrand Cuba – but it
found a mistress that had become a mister. As Weber (1999, p. 1) explains,
‘Cuba was the certain feminine complement that the United States relied on
to forestall any pending midlife/hegemonic/masculine identity crisis’ and its
‘loss’ triggered such a crisis. Weber (1999, pp. 2, 3) argues that the United
States’ failed power projection on Cuba constituted in US state identity a
castration complex (‘either a symbolic castration – a lack of phallic power
coded as an inability to produce meaning that resulted from a lack of a
feminine object … or a queering/non-normalizing of its subjectivity’),
leaving the US constantly ‘faking it’ – trying to extend its (metaphorical if
not actual) dildo to bring Cuba back in line. This has meant that US foreign
policy towards the Caribbean has been dominated by ‘misreadings and
projections of itself ’ producing an ambivalence born not of the conflict of
interest and identity, but instead from the inherent ambivalence of its
sexualized identity crisis.
So how does Weber’s queer analysis of US–Caribbean relations generally,
and Cuba specifically, matter to Delacour’s expansive comments on US–
Latin American relations generally, and US–Venezuela relations in the first
decade of the 21st century specifically? Weber’s (1999, p. 5) theory of the
‘trauma of US hegemonic loss – and various guises used to overcome it’ is as
relevant to contemporary Venezuela as it was to Cuba during the Cold War
and immediately thereafter. Weber (1999, p. 7) describes a castrated and re-
phallicized United States which fails to recognize the queerness of its
member – constituting an inherently ambivalent US foreign policy which
‘attempts to calm the Caribbean region – to stabilize it by feminizing it so it
can act as a tranquil reflective surface … – the Caribbean resists these
stabilizing attempts … [and] always reveals more than the United States
wishes to notice’. Perhaps this story can be told of the United States’ early
relationship with Hugo Chávez as well. Chávez, who, Delacour explains, as a
democratically elected official with a history of anti-democratic behaviour, is
the sort of leader that Weber’s analysis points to as cause for (gender and
sexual) confusion in US identity and foreign policy. Where the United States
expects a feminized other to reflect back to it its own proclaimed democratic
values and pax Americana, it finds a figure in Chávez which is unexpectedly
masculinized – resisting where resistance is unexpected, unplanned,
unscripted and unacceptable. The masculinized Chávez then queers the
United States’ desires for a Venezuela that does not exist and frustrates the
United States’ urges for a heterosexual relationship that is impossible. What
mirrors back to the United States, then, is a queer self-identity that is
incomprehensible – a castration complex, a search for re-phallusization, and
a failure to acknowledge the necessary queerness of its own power
projection.
In other words, a brief exploration of a queer theoretical approach to
thinking about US foreign policy provides an additional explanation for the
ambivalence that Delacour finds in US approaches to Latin America.
Depending on the interpretation, this account might complement Delacour’s
realist-constructivist approach or contravene it. Thinking about it as
complementary, it provides additional dimensions to both Delacour’s
concept of identity and his concept of interests by adding gender and
sexuality. A realist-constructivist-queer approach, then, might provide more
purchase on the question of US–Latin American relations than a realist-
constructivist approach alone.

Human security and R2P: Realisms, constructivisms feminisms

Andreea Iancu (Chapter 8, this volume) makes the argument that realist
constructivism provides significant explanatory power in accounting for the
implementation of human security policies and the responsibility to protect
(R2P). Iancu sees an international system that currently demonstrates ‘a
permanence of power politics and the prevalence of the realist interest in
traditional security dynamics’ alongside the evolution of an ‘international
norm’ of the R2P principle which ‘produces effects on the practice of
security and the meaning of sovereignty’. To Iancu, then, the synthesis of
realist constructivism makes sense, because it ‘allows the connecting of
constructivist arguments’ about ‘norm evolution … and co-constitution’
with ‘the realist explanation … of the persistence of power and self-driven
interests’. Iancu looks at the evolution of the R2P principle generally, and
the cases of Libya and Syria specifically. She learns from a realist-
constructivist approach that ‘the normative dimensions of human security
and R2P penetrated the international agenda’ … ‘within the context of a
realist logic, in which geopolitical calculus and national interests are still a
constant’. The cases of Libya and Syria show the continued, fast-paced
evolution of R2P as a norm despite setbacks both conceptually and
practically, yet juxtapose that evolution next to the continued influence of
power politics.
What, for me, remains missing from Iancu’s analysis is the contour of the
evolving R2P norm, and the logics by which it has come to hold the sway
that it has in international politics. Iancu (and realist constructivism)
correctly identify R2P as an evolving social norm, but neither the author
nor the paradigm has the language to explore the content of the norm and
the context of its evolution. Iancu describes R2P as a part of the human
rights regimes and the human security paradigm, but stops there in terms of
her account. In some ways, this makes sense – when juxtaposing R2P with
traditional realism, the fact that it has normative content is the only thing
that is really necessary to suggest that realist accounts need to be
supplemented. But a more holistic inquiry into the question of the ways in
which the R2P norm has evolved in a (power politics-laden) international
arena might suggest that it would be fruitful to think about the logics by
which the R2P norm has been popularized and the logics on which the
R2P norm is based.
Some of those moral logics might be fruitfully discovered by thinking
about the tenets of realism and the tenets of constructivism. For example,
though not from a realist-constructivist perspective, Mark Salter (2002)
makes the argument that powerful states respect the boundaries, identities
and sovereignties of other powerful states that they consider ‘civilised’ while
disrespecting the boundaries, identities, sovereignties and even basic
humanness of those states that they consider barbaric. The
civilization/barbarism dichotomy is a social distinction that can be mapped
into and out of power politics – co-constitution and power politics, realism
and constructivism. But the civilization/barbarism dichotomy that Salter puts
forth does not account for R2P completely, not least because it is
inconsistently applied in terms of whose protection rises to the level of
requiring responsibility.
Feminist scholarship, I suggest, has three important interventions in a
realist-constructivist approach to the rise of the norm of R2P in global
politics. The first intervention suggests that R2P can be better understood
with reference to feminist work on civilian immunity both in just war
theorizing and in international law (eg Elshtain 1987; Sjoberg 2006) that asks
why protection of (presumed-female) civilians is not only justified but
indeed obligatory. When Just Warriors’ valour (and indeed even their
citizenship) is tied to the protection of innocent, feminine Beautiful Souls,
then Just Warriors (be they individuals or states) not only should but must
provide protection to those feminized Others who cannot protect themselves
(eg Sjoberg and Peet 2011). The Just Warrior and Beautiful Soul tropes
(Elshtain 1987) are based on traditional, inherited notions of gender roles
generally, and gender roles in the state specifically – where feminized
Beautiful Souls are positioned as the biological and cultural reproducers of
the state (Yuval-Davis 1997) and masculinized Just Warriors are positioned as
those who must protect that reproduction (Stiehm 1982). Both the domestic
(Yuval-Davis 1997) and international (Sjoberg and Peet 2011) impacts of this
analysis had been explored previous to the meteoric rise of the R2P
principle, and scholars have begun to realize that it has implications for the
R2P norm as well. For example, Kolmasova and Krulisova (2019, pp. 1–2)
suggest that the use of R2P discourse in Libya is an example of ‘the
simplified narrative of civilized protectors versus savage aggressors’, arguing
that the gendered and sexualized nature of R2P discourse ‘must be
challenged as it exploits the problem of sexual(ized) violence in order to
legitimize politically motivated actions’. In other words, it is not incidental
that R2P logic is useful/used to legitimate politically motivated action, but
instead inherent in the gendered logics of R2P. This logic of the R2P norm
impacts both realist analysis and constructivist analysis of the norm. For realist
analysis, R2P does not only exist in a world of power politics, it is itself
(gendered) power politics. For constructivist analysis, the rise of the norm of
R2P is at least in part on the back of the reinscription of traditional notions
of gender roles, and the overlaying of those notions on racialized maps of
global politics.
The second intervention in a realist-constructivist approach to R2P that
feminist thought might bring is the substance of feminist critiques of the
human security tradition that Iancu sees R2P as arising from. Iancu’s
characterization of the human security tradition is brief but suggests that it
might be held in opposition to statist power politics in normative substance
even if the state is in the end the distributor (or withholder) of human
security. While human security approaches often take a broader view of
what counts as a security concern than traditional realist approaches do,
feminist work has suggested that human security frameworks are not, even
conceptually, free of hierarchies. Feminist work has highlighted ‘the need to
link a normative approach to human security with an interpretive approach
that recognizes the complexity of the operation of power within and across
gender, ethnicity, and generation’ (Truong et al 2006; Hoogensen and
Rottem 2004). This is because security for all humans often translates to
security for certain humans, choices that are made either implicitly or
explicitly on the basis of gender and/or race. If human security thinking has
been criticized as atheoretical and top-down, feminist work has argued that
its attention to marginality (eg Tickner 1992), its intersectional approaches
(eg Truong et al 2006), and its gender analysis of people’s security (eg Cohn
2013) add complexity and nuance to thinking about what people’s security
might mean. Why does this matter? If the logic of human security norms is
inherently gendered, and R2P is built on human security norms, there are
implications not only for the theory of R2P but also for its evolution as a
norm and its implementation as a practice.
This leads us to the third intervention feminist theorizing might have in a
realist-constructivist approach to R2P. If a realist-constructivist approach
accounts for some of the unevenness in enforcement and incompleteness in
success, gender analysis provides an even more nuanced account. Hilary
Charlesworth (2010, p. 240) notes that ‘women have been largely absent
from the development of the responsibility to protect principle’. While ‘the
sex of the architects of a principle does not necessarily determine the reach
or significance of a concept’, it is ‘clear that the realities of women’s lives do
not contribute in any significant way’ to the shaping of the R2P principle
(Charlesworth 2010, p. 241). This, Charlesworth (2010, p. 244) argues, has
impacts on the priorities of R2P, including gendered priorities when
selecting participants in post-conflict negotiation and rebuilding. Blindness
to women’s lives results in blindness to the gendered impacts of intervention
(Charlesworth 2010, p. 246), and the gendered images that frame calls to
action under R2P often dictate which causes are acted on and which are not
(Charlesworth 2010, p. 247). As a result, gendered blindness and gendered
imagery are often factors in selecting which cases are pushed as urgent
responsibilities and which cases are omitted from R2P rhetoric at the outset;
they are also then factors in how intervention is practised and how post-
conflict orders are rebuilt. Realist analysis might suggest attention to power
politics, and constructivist analysis might suggest attention to norms –
feminist analysis shows that R2P norms are in part a power politics of gender
subordination.
This is, as in the other cases, not an attempt to argue that realism and
constructivism do not have something to offer to the exploration of the rise
of the R2P norm in a power-laden international system. It is, instead, to say
that realism and constructivism contribute a lot, as Iancu’s analysis shows.
But realist constructivism as a two-paradigm approach to the problem, while
broader than either paradigm individually, continues to fall into the traps of
narrowness and blindness that single-paradigm approaches do. Here, I have
argued that a realist-constructivist-feminist approach to the evolution of the
R2P norm provides more traction than simply a realist-constructivist
approach. Perhaps adding other theoretical approaches to the triumvirate
here would provide even more leverage. My point here is simply that other
theoretical paradigms, in addition to realism and constructivism, provide more
for analyzing R2P than those two paradigms alone.

A case for ‘ism’ promiscuity

In each of these cases, there is at least an argument to be made that adding a
third (or fourth or fifth) theoretical approach to the combination of realism
and constructivism adds more theoretical leverage than realism and
constructivism together can muster. Others, elsewhere, have argued that a
theoretical realist constructivism not only can be supplemented by other
approaches, but must be. Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Daniel Nexon
(2004) make the argument that ‘“realist-constructivism” necessarily involves
post-structural and critical understandings of power’ and maintain that
understanding power with co-constitution requires a rereading of realist
understandings of power, such that realism and constructivism cannot be
paired without the addition of critical theoretical perspectives. Even if it is
possible for realist constructivism to be promulgated without the inclusion of
other theoretical approaches, it may well be desirable to add other
approaches.
This is not inconsistent with Barkin’s (2003, 2010) original interest in
realist constructivism – rejecting paradigmatism. Barkin argued that focusing
on particular paradigms leads to partial accounts, and that cross-paradigm
theoretical frameworks have significant advantages. If cross-paradigm
theoretical frameworks like realist constructivism have theoretical payoffs,
then crossing more paradigms seems all the more advantageous. So why stop
at two – just realist constructivism? There is a case to be made for ‘ism’
promiscuity rather than simply realist constructivism – for adding multiple
theoretical perspectives to tackling any analytical problem in global politics.

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https://thediplomat.com/2018/06/india-and-the-npt-after-50-years/
Sjoberg, Laura (2006) Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq. New York:
Lexington Books.
Sjoberg, Laura and Jessica Peet (2011) ‘A(nother) Dark Side of the
Protection Racket: Targeting Women in Wars’. International Feminist
Journal of Politics 13(2): 163–82.
Stiehm, Judith Hicks (1982) ‘The Protected, the Protector, the Defender’.
Women’s Studies International Forum 5(3–4): 367–76.
Tickner, J. Ann (1992) Gender in International Relations. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Truong, Thahn-Dam, Saski Wieringa and Amrita Chhachhi, eds. (2006)
Engendering Human Security. London: Zed Books.
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International Politics 50(3): 387–411.
Yuval-Davis, Nira (1997) Gender and Nation. London: Sage.
 10

Saving Realist Prudence

Stefano Guzzini

Impatience with the straitjacket that paradigmatic thinking seems to impose

on intellectual endeavour and academic debate is by now legendary in
international relations (IR). It is admittedly also a very IR phenomenon.
Most of our colleagues in neighbouring disciplines, such as political science
for instance, are puzzled why our introductory courses are filled with -isms
and why we spend so much time exposing the difference that analytical
lenses make to our way of seeing and analyzing the world: ‘Get it over with
and do the real thing.’
But for IR, this is part of the real thing. The discipline of International
Relations has a peculiar lineage. Most of the social sciences developed in
reaction to and observation of the functional differentiation Western societies
went through, in particular in the 19th century: the autonomization of the
economy from the state, of civil society from the state, indeed of the political
system/government from the state. These disciplines responded to the need
to understand the newly developing and autonomous logics of the market,
the society and government.
Not so for IR. Not being a new domain, it did not have to reflect on a
newly established autonomy. On the contrary, the management of external
affairs was a well-established field of practice and knowledge, perhaps the
only one in which the state almost survived in a still undifferentiated
manner. Hence, the discipline originates not in the need to establish new
knowledge, but the other way around – from the changed circumstances that
led established knowledge to justify its tenets through a discipline (Guzzini
2013a).
As a result, in this discipline knowledge was first and foremost practical
knowledge usually held by insiders, not external scientific observation.
Moreover, such practical knowledge would import common sense and
established debates from primarily European diplomatic practice into this
primarily Western discipline. This has two crucial implications for
understanding IR’s paradigm-savviness. First, it explains the special place of
the realism–idealism debate, a debate that informs the background
knowledge in diplomatic practice as it has evolved over time. In other words,
that debate was important ‘at its inception’ not because it exhausts all the
ways of observing world affairs from some external standpoint, but because it
represents the ideational lifeworld of the accomplished international
practitioners themselves. Our disciplinary knowledge becomes a
hermeneutic bridge to the common sense of international practice. Second,
international practice experiences more than one (national) view of things.
Pluralism and irreducibly different and historically evolved ways of
understanding and acting in world politics are fundamental to the diplomatic
culture as it has developed in the era of the sovereign state. Practical
knowledge in IR is based upon the self-awareness of this pluralism. It is the
condition for the possibility of modern diplomacy. That not everything can
be reduced to one view from one place is no surprise here. Multiple
paradigms or worldviews are ‘normal’.
There have been recent attempts simply to get rid of what, to some, must
appear as a stifling multiplicity of evil ‘isms’ (Lake 2011). Although Barkin’s
(2010) impatience with paradigmatism may sound similar, it is of a
completely different kind. For him, paradigms are not evil as such – indeed,
much of the proposed realist constructivism is paradigmatically informed, so
much so that Sjoberg (Chapter 9, this volume) thinks it does not shed
enough of its past and ends up being an overly narrow enterprise. Barkin’s
impatience is driven by the idea that even if the attempt to bundle
assumptions and concepts up into schools is inevitable, it should be informed
by curiosity to think outside the box and prudence in giving foreign policy
advice. It is much closer to the spirit of Albert Hirschman’s (1970, p. 335)
earlier admonition not to fall for the clean and pure theoretical model and
what he called, quoting Flaubert, ‘la rage de vouloir conclure’, that is, the
desperate desire to make a final point that forces closure upon an open and
plural social world.
Yet the combinatorial logic of paradigms can be fraught with difficulties.
As other observers have already noted, it may not combine anything
whatsoever but simply qualify an already existing paradigm (Jackson and
Nexon 2004, p. 339). Adding norms and ideas to power hardly challenges
realism, whether structural or classic. Indeed, all rationalist approaches
include beliefs in the analysis of a rational choice, and hence the possibility
to influence others by changing their beliefs (propaganda), or by
manipulating perceptions to appear strong enough to pre-empt resistance, as
in Morgenthau’s politics of ‘prestige’ (Morgenthau 1948, pp. 50ff), or by
avoiding ‘reputational costs’ that undermine one’s legitimacy or power
(Mercer 1996). No need for constructivism, then. Inversely, constructivism
has no problem with power politics. Wendt reserves a whole culture of
anarchy for it. His synthesis has always been one in which realism is
‘preserved’ (as in Hegel’s Aufheben) by being integrated into his social
approach and by showing that the best way to a better world order is a
version of realist prudence in what is his master variable of ‘self-restraint’
(Wendt 1999, pp. 357ff).1
The reason for this difficult combination and the tendency to subsume
one under the other can be found in the underlying ontological assumptions
of the different approaches (Sterling-Folker 2004). Pace all attempts at
eclecticism, they are often not compatible. When paradigms are bridged
within an explicitly explanatory realm, the result often betrays a certain
unwillingness to consider the missing meta-theoretical ground on which the
encounter is supposed to take place. Realist constructivism would be hardly
worth the candle if it simply added yet another round to the realist–idealist
debate, with both sides updated (and reduced) to a more social version of
classical realism and a power-driven constructivism.
 In the following, I will try to show that there is another way to read
‘realist constructivism’. Rather than seeing it as a combination of two
explanatory theories, Barkin’s book allows it to be a combination of different
types of theorizing. It combines a political theory informed by realism (based
on power politics) that, in turn, informs a realist foreign policy strategy and
morality based on a prudential check on power, with an explanatory theory
(what he repeatedly calls a ‘method’) largely informed by constructivism. In
this way, his book can be seen as one attempt to think the different layers of
IR theorizing in parallel while also exploring new combinations not within
but across types of theorizing. It would join Hedley Bull in his earlier critique
of paradigmatism he found in Martin Wight’s threefold classification, namely
that it was ‘too ambitious in attributing to the Machiavellians, the Grotians
and the Kantians distinctive views not only about war, peace, diplomacy,
intervention and other matters of International Relations but about human
psychology, about irony and tragedy, about methodology and epistemology’
(Bull 1976, p. 111).

Saving realist foreign policy from realist explanatory theory …

The peculiar pedigree of the discipline of IR explains the quite remarkable
position realism occupied for a long time within it and which Barkin’s realist
constructivism tries to save, albeit in a revised form. Realism was the theory
that helped to turn practical knowledge into scientific hypotheses (Guzzini
1998). For this purpose, it mobilized a series of assumptions about the nature
of politics that were to provide the link from a practice of prudential power
politics to a utilitarian theory of power politics (and not the other way
around). In so doing, realist theorizing came to stand for three things in
parallel: a political theory or ontology of politics, an explanatory theory of
power politics, and a foreign policy strategy of prudential power politics.
Rationality was the glue in that the assumption of rational action provided a
measuring rod for understanding policies and a guide to action in which the
observer simply looks over the shoulder of the practitioner, as Morgenthau
put it (1960, p. 5). Through an assumption of rationality that bridges the
levels of the actor and the observer, both can see the same things and each
can inform the other, in both directions.
Looking at much of IR, and also within the realist tradition, it is easy to
see how these three levels are not always, indeed only rarely, distinguished.
Yet just assuming that power politics means the same in an ontology, an
explanatory theory and a foreign policy strategy is a stretch. Much confusion
could be avoided if one unpacked the levels and investigated more closely
their relationships and the different translations needed to provide a coherent
whole. Classical realists assumed this to be necessary: no leg of this tripod
was to be removed or forgotten. But their solution to the problem of
keeping them together has not worked so far. When realists attempted to
update their explanatory theory, they invariably undermined their political
theory and/or practical maxims of foreign policies. Moreover, their
insistence on their wider political theory was not answered by any specific
explanatory theory that came under the name of realism or rigid
methodologies that ran afoul of realism’s ontological assumptions.
Barkin’s realist constructivism can be understood as precisely such an
attempt to preserve the different levels while providing a better fit between
them so as to save a foreign policy strategy characterized by prudence. For
this, he argues, he combines the political theory of realism with the social
theory of constructivism. At first sight this may merely appear to be two
different takes on explanatory theory. Some of the discussion of the book on
how to make the respective assumptions compatible lends credit to such a
reading. But then, there are other passages which sound quite different, as
when he writes:

Realist political theory tells us little about methodology. To think in

terms of a realist paradigm, then, is to underspecify method in the
study of international politics. Analogically, constructivist
epistemology tells us little about politics per se, and thus to think in
terms of a constructivist paradigm is to underspecify political theory.
(Barkin 2010, p. 4)
He is well aware that this package will not go down well with many realists,
who will immediately see themselves reduced to mere philosophical
handmaidens of a constructivist scholarship that takes the limelight of science
in this deal – and not only because, in the wake of our teaching IR, some of
them may no longer have much inkling about the underlying realist
philosophy in the first place. For them, despite all nice citations from classical
realists like Carr and Morgenthau, Barkin sells them out. Yet, Barkin would
be right to say that his take is a most faithful solution to the realist
conundrums in that it combines scientific theory and practical knowledge.
Instead of time and again fine-tuning a realist explanatory theory, only to see
it impoverishing realist political theory and practical maxims, why not turn
the strategy around and keep the original realist insights, yet give them a
different scientific basis, albeit a constructivist one?
To this end, Barkin does embark on a redefinition of these different
traditions so as to make them meet not within the same explanatory level,
but across different levels of theorizing. Having decided in favour of a
constructivist explanatory approach, the meta-theoretical underpinnings of
realism need to be rephrased. That means first and foremost a move towards
those classical realists who were never keen on US scientific theories
themselves (although Morgenthau is a pretty duplicitous candidate here; see
also Prieto, Chapter 2, this volume, n 6), and mobilizing the social and
critical Carr (which made him seem hardly a realist at all to others), as well
as realism’s ideational components and contingent theory of action and
history. Clearly, once the constructivist theory is taken as a reference point,
realist explanatory theories have to go, the more determinist or structural,
the worse.2
And what about constructivism? Does it need to be modified to fit into a
realist political theory? Well, luckily, in Barkin’s assessment, constructivism
lacks a political theory. In his words: ‘Constructivism as a social theory does
not imply any particular theory of politics’ (Barkin 2010, p. 164). Being an
empty shell, there is nothing in constructivism that would impede us in
assuming a definition of politics that is centred around power, according to
Barkin.
 Using this combination, Barkin achieves something which he does not
theorize explicitly, but which shines through as his ultimate goal: prudential
realism as a foreign policy theory (ie strategy or doctrine) can be saved.
‘Realism’s primary purpose is ultimately policy prescription’ (Barkin 2010, p.
167). And from here come the rich pages on what he calls a foreign policy
theory, which is prescriptive and not predictive, that is, it is a toolbox for
action, not for observing it. Yes, he includes reflexivity in the equation, not
the reflexivity of the outside observer, but the reflexivity of the accomplished
statesperson who thus avoids pitfalls. He mentions three such pitfalls:

The first is that foreign publics and elites are likely to see events in
international politics, and our responses to these events, through the
lens of their political morality. The second is that political moralities
change. And the third is that our foreign policies can have a recursive
effect on that change. Reflexivity helps the realist [foreign policy
maker] to deal with all three of these corollaries more effectively.
(Barkin 2010, p. 92)

Indeed, his entire approach culminates in the different issues that are to be
taken into account in achieving such a prudent foreign policy. His realist
constructivism is his way of providing a better basis for such prudence (for
choices need to be justified). He sees prudence as better derived from
constructivism’s social and reflexive approach to understanding a reality that
is, however, fundamentally constituted by a realist power ontology. ‘It
suggests that realists should not be in the business of either denying a role for
agency in international politics by arguing that structures, of whatever sort,
are determinative, or of theorizing agency. For classical realism, a prudent
foreign policy is one that recognizes, and allows for, the unpredictability of
agency’ (Barkin 2010, p. 116). Having some unilateral bullying as a target, he
writes that

classical realism prescribed prudence, prescribed a foreign policy in

which we do not become over-confident about our knowledge of
 the world, of how other actors will respond to our foreign policy,
and of what we can successfully accomplish in the world. ‘Realism,
then, considers prudence – the weighing of the consequences of
alternative political actions – to be the supreme virtue of
international politics.’ (Barkin 2010, p. 126, citing Morgenthau)

And in this weighing, political morality and the public interest play a major
role that also explains why they feature so prominently in the book.
Some realists would come back and say that, after all is said and done, a
prudential foreign policy is ultimately a utilitarian choice. As Morgenthau
(1952, p. 986) put it: ‘There can be no political morality without prudence,
that is, without consideration of the political consequences of seemingly
moral action’. Consequently, it is not quite clear why we need anything
more than some rationalist theory of action which factors the historically
evolved ideas and institutions of international society into the equation. If all
that was needed was to get rid of overly determinist and systemic theorizing,
then we can do that. This would correspond more to the European wing of
neoclassical realism, which starts from domestic politics and not from a given
international anarchy, that is, from the ‘classical’, not the ‘neo’ (Wivel 2005;
Mouritzen and Wivel 2005; Mouritzen 2009, 2017). This would hardly look
like a US-style realist theory of action (but see Wohlforth 1993), yet it would
be one. It would suffer the same fate as the English School’s reception by US
realists (Copeland 2003). But then, so be it. It could still be proposed as a
realist theory of foreign policy and not just as a prescriptive foreign policy
strategy. Hence, is Barkin’s move enough to defend constructivism in its
privileged place for providing method and rigour to the explanation?

… downplaying interpretivism …
This is where Germán Prieto’s two moves come in (Chapter 2, this volume).
According to him, the existing realist constructivism would need to move
more decisively towards interpretivism in its explanatory setup. With this also
comes a shift in the understanding of ‘explanation’ itself by redefining the
underlying understanding of causation. Second – a topic he mentions briefly
in the conclusion – it would need to face the incompatible ontologies
between constructivism and realism. This section touches briefly on his first
point.
In a famous article, often cited for its consequential content yet little
received, Friedrich Kratochwil and John Ruggie (1986) argued that regime
theory was on the right track, but did not go far enough. It allowed for the
intersubjective ontology of regimes, constituted by shared ideas and
practices, but then it used a positivist epistemology. As a result, ideas
becomes something external to the agent, which, like a billiard ball, hits
actors and moves them (or not) to a certain behaviour, just like matter (for a
similar critique, see the similarly often overlooked ending to Yee 1996). It
epistemologically objectified and exogenized the intersubjective ontology.
Instead, it would be more coherent to go the extra mile and turn to an
interpretivist understanding, one in which ideas are shared and yet are not
external to an agent in causing his or her behaviour; rather, they are internal
and provide reasons for action. In doing so, they are part of a causal complex,
as critical realists would call it, yet cannot be determinist. Taking the
ontology of ideas seriously means leaving positivism behind.
Prieto continues from there to develop a common ground on which the
concerns of the realists can be combined with others, yet in the terms laid
down by scientific realists and, I would add, some constructivists. The trick
is to say that ideas may well be causal, but only once we have
reconceptualized causation. This re-theorization happens to take place in a
way that goes well beyond IR realist explanations, as well as more shallow
attempts to combine realist and liberal ideas. Prieto shows them to be
mechanisms that are both singular and emerging (for a good discussion of
causal mechanisms that would be sensitive to history, see Mayntz 2004). And
he rightly points to a ground on which scientific realists and constructivists
can meet, as shown in the positive reception by Friedrich Kratochwil (2008,
pp. 96–97) of Heikki Patomäki’s (1996) critical realist analysis of causation.3
It is not impossible to re-describe some classical realists as interpretivists
or constructivists avant la lettre (for a reframing of the English School in this
sense, see Dunne 1995). But Prieto sees Carr’s and in particular
Morgenthau’s methodological reflections as too weak and unsystematic in
today’s terms to really be able to accomplish that. In other words, it is not
their missing vocabulary that is responsible for this lack, something a
consistent reconstruction could remedy (although some good efforts could
be made with Carr, odd realist out as he is). In short, any realist
constructivism that is consistent in its aims will have to go that extra mile
towards an interpretivist methodology. This point is consistent with Barkin,
yet not always clearly brought out, as Prieto insists.

… and missing constructivism’s political ontology

In his conclusion, Prieto also points to the ontological differences between
realist understandings of power politics and constructivism. Obviously, a
combination in which constructivism would also have a word to say about
political ontology would be a stronger argument in favour of this hybrid
combination. Yet this combination is not as easy as Barkin lets it appear
(Sterling-Folker 2004). He makes the rather strong statement that
constructivism has no specific theory of politics. This overlooks a series of
contributions, old and new. And if they are not compatible with realism,
then Barkin’s combinatorial solution may not work, or only by making
realism adapt once more.
The starting point for constructivism (and here there is no difference
from post-structuralism) is a relational and process ontology, which,
incidentally, also grounds an open and processual (emergent) understanding
of causal mechanisms. The major identities, be they race, gender, nation, and
so on, are repeatedly reconstituted. So are social institutions, their apparent
continuity being not the result of stasis but of an ongoing transformation that
reproduces them. Change in them does not point to a sudden dynamics, but
simply to a different take on the existing dynamics. We are what we are
becoming. And so are states and international institutions. Constantly. We
write IR theory with innumerable gerund endings: identification,
securitization, de-naturalization, and so on.4
 If everything is in flux and processes are such important constitutive
moments, they become central for the understanding of politics. What goes
into these constituting processes? How do they draw the lines of racial,
gender, class or other identities? How do these lines affect social hierarchies?
There is a power politics of process (Guzzini 2017a).
Sjoberg’s friendly suggestions to combine with more than just realism and
constructivism and to take into account, for instance, critical theory and
decolonial, queer and feminist approaches, surely reflects some of her
interests. But it is probably not fortuitous that they all posit as central the
questions of these constitutive processes that inform both agency and
structure, nor that all four politicize the lines drawn in those processes in a
way the proposed combination of realism and constructivism does not, as it
lacks a constructivist political ontology. Moreover, her complementary
theories are not easily combined, say, with the recourse to socio-biology
which is increasingly en vogue in defending a realist understanding of politics
as a struggle for power, although arguably such biological explanations use a
probabilistic version of causality not used in the sciences themselves
(Sokolowska and Guzzini 2014).
Consequently, the phrase ‘power politics’ is not so self-evident anymore
when used within a constructivist political ontology, as Prieto also hints. I
am all for foregrounding power analysis in constructivism (eg Bially Mattern
2001, 2005), not only in its political ontology, but also in the performative
analysis where the ways we see and perceive the world or our speeches are
not passive representations of, but active interventions in, that world (as
legends of feminists, postcolonial thinkers and Foucaultians have done. For
my own take, see the articles collected in Guzzini 2013b). The use of
‘power’ in our political discourse calls up ideas of agency and responsibility.
Ultimately ‘power’ politicizes issues since whoever had power was able to
intervene in changing the course of events according to our individualist
political discourses. Furthermore, we have become aware of this effect and
use it reflexively. Power is part of processes of ‘politicization’, the denial of
power part of its opposite, where ‘nothing can be done’.
 However, I do not think that, provided they stayed coherent,
constructivists would fall into the realist fallacy which says that, since power
is always related to politics, politics is always related to power. There is more
to politics than that. This is not a plea to whitewash our social relations and
make them appear ‘power-free’, as if they were not intersected by different
social hierarchies (and, by the way, Habermas never meant that; hence I can
avoid the stale, wrong and oblique reference to his work here). But it is
perhaps worthwhile keeping in mind this Republican tradition and its
relation to constructivism, as Nick Onuf (1998) has done, or developing the
Arendtian tradition, where politics, indeed power, is about the capacity to do
things together, where the reference point is the common good and the
endeavour is public virtue. And it would also be worth following up
Friedrich Kratochwil’s comprehensive attempt to construct a consistent
constructivist research programme where it is not power politics, but human
practice that makes the links (Guzzini 2010) between a political ontology, an
explanatory theory (with consistent meta-theory) and a foreign policy praxis,
from his first article on The concept of politics (Kratochwil 1971) via the
Puzzles of Politics (Kratochwil 2011) to his last opus magnum on Praxis
(Kratochwil 2018). If practical knowledge is the starting point, why not
theorize practice as a privileged way to find coherence and find the basis for
a ‘pragmatic’ understanding of foreign policy strategy? Throughout his
career, Kratochwil repeatedly mobilizes classical realism for this purpose
(Kratochwil 1978, 1993).
All this surely does not happen in a power-free environment, but not all
politics can be shoehorned into a theory of domination. It is not reducible
to it. Otherwise, at least for a constructivist interested in the power politics
of process, with the realist (fallacious) reversal of power politics, our
ontological assumptions and concepts of politics do not just innocently
represent social reality, they intervene in it: we turn the Schmittian definition
of politics in terms of the friend–foe relationship into a self-fulfilling
prophecy. And this is precisely the non-reflexive and non-prudential
outcome that Barkin warns us about. Hence, why not shed this realist
ontology? Perhaps the only truly coherent way to save a realist policy of
prudence is to decouple it from the realist ontology of power politics.

Conclusion: Realist prudence as constructivist foreign policy

strategy?
Although not very well known, a constructivist foreign policy strategy of
prudence does exist, whose similarities to classical realist maxims are not
hard to see. A prime example is the Copenhagen School of Security Studies,
also called ‘securitisation theory’ (Buzan et al 1998). Despite its name, its
origins lie in a particular foreign policy strategy that it theorized as ‘de-
securitisation’: German Ostpolitik (Wæver 1995). Ostpolitik basically worked
through a bargain.5 It offered the Eastern Bloc acceptance of its territorial
expansion, enshrining the post-1945 borders, and also a kind of sphere of
influence. But by accepting those borders and giving them certainty, it
plausibly negotiated a different meaning for them, one that was less
dangerous and more porous. By enshrining the status quo, it made change
possible. By ‘de-securitising’ territorial and hence classical security relations,
it made ‘normal politics’ possible and so moved beyond a perennial state of
emergency that justifies militarism and authoritarianism at home and a
narrow security definition of the national interest abroad. It was predicated
on the idea of a process in which roles and images, indeed identities and
interests, could be revised: the Helsinki process. Hence, the border treaties
were not an end in themselves, but a means to launch that process.
This strategy is not outside classical realist concerns of power – indeed, it
can be seen as being driven by those already shared by classical realists, to
avoid power politics being turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, it
does not just apply a static vision where one should avoid containment
policies when relations are on the ‘pole of indifference’, lest it makes actors
unnecessarily antagonistic, nor avoid appeasement strategies when relations
are characterized by the ‘pole of power’, lest it encourage an already existing
antagonism (Wolfers 1962) – a dualism later developed in Jervis’s (1976)
spiral and deterrence model. Ostpolitik thinks about politics in flux. It is in its
patient practice of potentially redrawing the lines and identities – Wandel
durch Annäherung (change through rapprochement), Politik der kleinen Schritte
(politics in small steps), Entspannungspolitik mit langem Atem (détente politics
having the breath for a long haul) – that a prudential conflict resolution can
reside.6 From early on, classical (or simply idiosyncratic) realists like Philip
Windsor (1971, 2002) and Pierre Hassner (1972) suggested the advantages of
such a foreign policy strategy, endorsing Ostpolitik’s idea of ‘evolutionary
change within existing institutions leading to a qualitative change involving a
new system’ (Hassner 1968, p. 17). And Hassner later integrated the findings
of the Copenhagen School into his own analysis. It may well be
‘constructivism all the way down’ if a realist foreign policy of prudence is to
be saved.

Notes
1 Needless to say, all these approaches from Waltz to Wendt view world politics from the
position of a great power that needs to practise self-restraint, a privilege many other
actors can hardly envisage.
2 I think this paints a too neat picture counterposing classical and neo-realists. It is almost
as if the move to a systemic theory is the main reason for being so theoretically misled.
And so neo-realism is reduced to being structural realism, never mind Robert Gilpin
(1981)’s highly ‘transhistorical’ (Barkin 2010: 46), scientific, and yet purely individualist
utilitarian theory of war and change. My sense is that Barkin particularly targets Waltz’s
structural realism because it clearly positions itself at the level of observation and leaves
foreign policy out, less as a theory (since it is implied), but as a foreign policy strategy.
3 There has been a wider concern recently with reconceptualizing causation in IR that
includes critical realists and others. See the special issue of the Journal of International
Relations and Development, in particular the articles by Stefano Guzzini (2017b),
Adam Humphreys (2017), Patrick Jackson (2017), Milja Kurki (2017), Heikki Patomäki
(2017) and Hidemi Suganami (2017).
4 There is no way to cover the research here, but unsystematic pointers in IR include
Jorge Luis Andrade Fernandes (2008), Claudia Aradau (2004), Roxanne Lynn Doty
(1996), Maria Mälksoo (2012) and Jutta Weldes (1999).
 5 For analyses, see, for instance, Helga Haftendorn (1986: pp. 269–381). For a perspective
on Willy Brandt’s ‘Weltinnenpolitik’ (world domestic politics), see Anna Caffarena
(2002) and Dieter Senghaas (1992).
6 There are clear similarities here with Yaqing Qin’s (2018) relational and process
understanding of politics.

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 Index

123 Agreement 202

13th National Congress in 1981 85–6
228 Incident 83

A
Adler, Emanuel 174
Adler-Nissen, Rebecca 181
agency 3, 76, 195, 225–6
and causation 19–20, 34–7, 41–2
and change 21, 77, 103, 115–16, 175
and identity 80
and prudence 10–13
and rationality 23
role of 222
agent-structure interplay 5–6, 119, 178
al-Gaddafi, Muammar 182
analytic eclecticism 129
analyticism 24–5, 29
anarchy 5, 8, 47, 75–8, 127–8, 173–6, 196, 199, 223
cultures of 80, 82, 92, 128, 203, 219
Andean Community (AC) 30–2
Andean Free Trade Zone 31
Anti-Japanese War 83
Anti-Secession Law 89
Arab League 183–4
Arendtian tradition 226
Argentina 135
Armitage, Richard 166
Association for Relations across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) 86, 89–91
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) 140
Atomic Energy Act (AEA) 111–12
Atoms-for-Peace 106
Austria 112, 135

B
balance of power 22, 92–3, 175, 203
and change 53
as a concept 26–9, 37
Balance of Threat 78
balancing 51–3, 61, 67 see also neorealism
Baldwin, David A. 126, 130–1 see also positive sanctions
Banzer, Hugo 160–1
Barkawi, Tarak 200
Barkin, Samuel 23, 34–9, 41–2, 103, 147, 174–6, 194–7, 213, 218–28
Barnett, Michael 81
Barrington, Lowell 78
Beautiful Souls-Just Warriors trope 210–11
Beijing see China
Belgium 135
Bellamy, Alex 188
Bennett, W. Lance 152–3
benshengren 83–8
bentuhua 85, 88, 91, 92
Bilgin, Pinar 200 see also decolonial theory
Biswas, Shampa 201
Bolivia 30, 160
Booth, Ken 204–5
Boucher, Richard 112
Bozdağlıoğlu, Yücel 79
Brawley, Mark 51–2
Brazil 180, 181, 182
Bull Hedley, 219
Burns, Nicholas 114
Bush, George H. W. 138
Bush, George W. 102, 111
administration 107, 111–14, 116–18, 137, 160, 165–6

C
Cairo Declaration of 1943 83
Campbell, David 27
Canada 135
Caracas see Venezuela
Caribbean 159, 207–8
Carmona, Pedro 165–6
Carr, E. H. 4–5, 12, 23–5, 29, 35–7, 39, 65–6, 81, 126–7, 147, 175–6, 221, 224
critique of utopia 5
Twenty Years’ Crisis 24–5
casual emergence 14, 19–22, 30–8, 40–1
defined 22, 32
Chacko, Priya 200–1
Charlesworth, Hilary 212
Chávez, Hugo 149, 163f, 207–8
Checkel, Jeffrey 174
Cheibub, José Antonio 158
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) 132
Chen Shui-bian 89–90
Chiang Ching-kuo 85
Chiang Kai-shek 74, 84, 85
Chile 135
China, Peoples Republic of (PRC) 74–5, 79, 84, 86–93, 114, 123–41, 203–4, 206
and engagement 123–41
China, Republic of (ROC) see Taiwan
Chinese Civil War 74, 83
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 74, 86
Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) 73–4, 83–91, 92–3
Chinese strategic culture 123
Chirac, Jacques René 110
Chou Tzu-yu 73–4
Classical Realism 2, 9, 13–14, 16, 175, 226
and causation 20, 22–4
and co-constitution 79, 94, 196, 206
and core concept approach 76–8, 194–5, 219
and engagement 129–30
and interactionality 19, 34–5
and limitations 41–3
and policy prescription 47–9, 61, 67–86, 222–3
and rationality 36–7
and sociality 126–7
and time 11–12
Claude, Innis, Jr. 4
Clinton, William J. 139
administration 109–11, 137, 165–6
co-constitution 8, 15, 77–82, 92, 175, 194–5, 209–10
and causation 19, 34–5, 41
and critiques 207
defined 5–6
and identity/interest tensions 146–9, 152–6, 167–8, 196, 206–7
identity centred 79–81, 92, 155–6, 173–4, 180
and national interest 78
and power 80–2, 213
and semi-independence 152
coercive engagement 124–5
Cold War 74, 84, 110, 149, 208
and post-Cold War period 9, 84, 86–7, 155, 160, 180, 185, 188
collective identity 30–2
Colombia 30, 160–4, 163f, 167
Common External Tariff 31
communicative engagement 123–4
communicative interaction see interactionality
communicative strategy 38–9
competitive hypothesis testing 53
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) 125, 128, 131–8, 140
background 133–4
and rhetoric 132–3, 134–7
conditionality 172 see also sovereignty
Confucius 24
congruence procedure 178 see also norm life cycle
constitutive power 41–2
and effects 59, 177
constructivism
and causal emergence 19, 30–8
and co-constitution 5–6, 76–7, 173–5, 194–5, 207
core concepts 4–5, 127–8, 194–5
and historical contingency 7
and identity formation 79–80
habit- and practice-based 8
and intersubjectivity 6–8, 77, 79, 174–5
and liberalism 124, 129
and logic of appropriateness 3, 6–7, 37, 116, 128–9
and logic of consequences 3, 6–8
and logic of the social 35, 77
model of domestic identity 79
norms-based 8
and paradigmatism 1–3
and political ontology 224–7
optimism 123–5, 128, 130–1, 133, 139–40
reflexive 14, 30–4, 222
social construction as core concept of 4–5
containment 51, 227
 and China 126, 133, 136
Copenhagen School of Security Studies 227–8
corporate identity 79–80
corporate interest 9–10, 80
Corrales, Javier 159–60
Cox, Robert 204
Crawford, Neta C. 124, 130
critical realism
and causal emergence 36
and causation 19–21, 26–7, 29–33, 41
and the principle of singularity 21, 29
Critical Security Studies 204
critical theory 65, 204, 225
Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA) 89
Cuba 208
cultures of anarchy 82, 92, 128, 203, 219

D
dangwai 85–6, 88
Das, Runa 201–2
Davis, Alexander E. 200–1
Declaration of Formosan Self Salvation 84–5
decolonial theory 16, 197, 199–202
Democracy-Dictatorship (DD) index 158
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) 73–4, 86–91
Derrida, Jacques 27
discourse analysis 64, 81–2, 131, 178–9 see also rhetorical power
Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) 82
domestic interest groups (DIGs) 78–9, 85, 89–94
Doyle, Michael W. 145–6
Dueck, Colin 57–8, 59
Duvall Raymond 81, 126
E
Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) 89
Economy, Elizabeth 124
Ecuador 30, 160
Elman, Colin 51, 53, 60
engagement 15, 123–35, 139–41
and entrapment 125
as intersubjective politics 128
normative mechanisms 124, 127
power as influence 126, 139–41
English School 223, 224
enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology ban 111–12
epistemology 32, 77–8, 179, 219, 223–4
and constructivism 94, 221
and paradigms 197
and soft positivism 13
equilibrium 27, 29, 36 see also balance of power
ethic of prudence 10, 12 see also classical realism
Eurocentrism 200
European Union 30, 32

F
F-16 fighter jets 111, 138
false humanitarianism 184
Federal News Service 161
feizhulipai 87
feminism 16, 197, 209–13, 225
Finnemore, Martha 34, 128, 177
Flaubert, Gustave 218
Fordham, Benjamin 59
foreign policy elite (FPE) 49, 58–9, 66
Formosa magazine 85
France 24, 51–2, 110, 112, 132, 134, 137, 183–4
Friedberg, Aaron L. 123
Fujian 83
Fujimori, Alberto 167
full-scope safeguards (FSS) requirement 102, 106–7, 111–15 see also IAEA

G
Gandhi, Jennifer 158
Ganguly, Sumit 199
garbage-can models 62, 64
gendered blindness 212
Geneva Conventions 182
Germany 24, 51, 110
Gilpin, Robert 13, 53, 228
Glanville, Luke 177
Goddard, Stacie E. 53, 140
Goel, Anish 113
Grand Compromise (DPP) 87
Great Britain 24, 51–2
Grotius, Hugo 219
Guangdong 83
Gutiérrez, Lucio 160

H
Habermas, Jürgen 226
Hakka 83
harmony of interests principle 24–5, 36
Hassner Pierre 228
Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 219
and dialectics 27
Helsinki process 227
Herz, John 4
Hirschman, Albert 218
Hobbes, Thomas
 culture of anarchy 80, 82, 128
Hoklo 83, 84
Holland 63
Hom, Andrew 11–12
homo economicus 7
Hong Kong 86
Hopf, Ted 78
Hsu Hsin-liang 85
huadu 73–5, 79, 82–94, 203
Humala, Ollanta 160, 161
Human Security 15, 175–9, 183–8, 196, 209–12
and norm internalization 171–2, 177–80, 186–8
see also Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
Hume, David 24–5, 26, 29
Hyde Act 102, 109, 111

I
IAEA-India Safeguards Agreement 102, 109, 118
idealism
and realism 218–19
opposition to materialism 3, 6–7, 77
identity constructivism 173
India 15, 101–3, 106–19, 137–8, 181, 195, 197–202
and nuclear tests 137
and US nuclear deal 109–19
Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Agreement 101
Indo-US Reprocessing Agreement 109
Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) 21–2, 32–3
interactionality 14, 19–20
and causation 22–9
and emergence 34–40
and interpretivism 40–2
internalization see socialization
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 102, 115, 133–4, 200–1
Additional Protocol 111
international legitimation processes 104–5 see also norms
International Relations (IR) 11, 52, 61, 225
and paradigmism 1, 7, 194–7, 217
and pluralism 19, 125, 129, 147, 172, 176
theories of 30, 63, 66, 76–7, 145, 175–6
and theory as concepts 4
interpretive methodology 30, 32, 43, 131
interpretivism 19–20, 41–3, 223–4
intersubjectivity 6–8, 77, 79–80, 105–6, 174–5, 180, 198
and social construction 5–6
Iran 133, 138
Ireland 135
Israel 101, 112
Italy 24, 110

J
Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus 24, 30, 39–40, 42–3, 49, 53, 130–1, 213
and rhetorical coercion 39–40
and scientific ontology 4
see also Analyticism
Japan 24, 82–3
Jervis, Robert 227
Johnston, Alastair Iain 124, 130, 135
jus in bello 187
just war theory 180
jus ad bellum 187

K
Kant Immanuel
culture of anarchy 80, 82, 128, 219
Kaohsiung Incident 85
Katzenstein, Peter J. 34, 129
Kent, Ann 140
Keohane, Robert 49
King, Gary 49
Kinmen 86
Kirshner, Jonathan 126
Klotz, Audie 34, 64, 124, 130
Kolmasova, Sarka 211
Korean War 57, 83
Krasner, Stephan D. 178
Kratochwil, Friedrich 13, 223–4
The Concept of Politics 226
Krebs, Ronald R. 39–40, 42, 43, 130
Krulisova, Katerina 211
Kumar, A. Vinod 199

L
Laffey, Mark 200
Lakatos, Imre 32–33, 50, 61–2
League of Nations 24
Lee Teng-hui 86–7
liberal constructivisms 12, 124–5, 139–40
approach of 128–30
and persuasion 130
liberal institutionalism 185
liberalism 4, 206
and alternative combinations 16, 194, 224
critiques of 92, 157, 207
as a foreign policy 145–6, 149–54
and human nature 58, 64
view of time 11
Libya 15, 172, 177, 178–80, 183, 209, 211
and R2P principle 181–2, 184–8
Limited Test Ban Treaty 134
Lin I-hsiung 85
Lindh, Anna 138
Little, Richard 22
Livingston, Steven 152
Lobell, Steven 49–50, 53, 58–9, 61, 66–7, 77–8
localization see bentuhua
Locke, John
culture of anarchy 80, 82, 92, 203
logic of the alternative hypothesis 162
logic of appropriateness 3, 6–7, 37, 116, 128–9
logic of consequences 3, 6–8
logic of the social 35, 77
and agency 3–4
Lynch, Marc 123–4

M
Ma Ying-jeou 88, 90, 92
Machiavelli, Niccolò 219
Mainlanders 83–4, 86 see waishengren
Manchu 83
Mao Zedong 74, 136
materialism
and idealism debate 3, 6–7
and rationality 75, 77
and realism 14
Mattern, Janice Bially 38–40, 42–3, 195
Matzu 86
Mearsheimer, John 54–55
Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) 132, 138
Morgenthau, Hans 4–5, 12, 23–9, 35–9, 65–6, 76, 81, 94, 147, 219, 220, 221, 223, 224
critique of scientific man 5
and objective laws 25–9, 37–8
 on rationality and intractionality 23–4, 35–9, 220
Six Principles of Political Realism 76
Morocco 183
multicausality 26, 29, 32

N
Name Rectification Campaign 89
national interest 48–9, 76–9, 92–4, 172
and corporate interest 9–10
defined 56, 98
and norms 115–16
and power 8, 67–8, 78
as a social construct 56–7, 64–6, 77, 79, 92–4, 116, 173, 204
as survival 175–6, 196, 209
native Taiwanese 83 see benshengren
neoclassical realism (NCR) 6, 9, 12–13
and constructivist methodology 65–8
defined 48–50
and domestic politics 203, 223
and national interest 77–9, 94
and neopositivism 47–9, 59–67
and prudence 12
and the social constructs of
core critiques of 50–6, 58–9, 59–63
and sociality 49, 58–9, 125, 127, 129
and tautology 50–1
neopositivism 9, 47–9, 59–68
critique of method/methodology 47–9, 59–67
see also soft positivism
neorealism 1–2, 4, 7, 13, 48, 145
and agency 11–12
as an analytical starting point 62, 65
assumptions of 49
 and bandwagoning 51
critiques/weaknesses of 50–6, 59, 148
and culture 157, 167
defensive 51
and national interest 56
and rationality 8
systematism 47, 66–7
Netherlands 112
New Delhi 107–8, 110–11, 114, 116
New York Times 158, 163f
New Zealand 112, 135
Newman, Edward 174
Nexon, Daniel 53, 213
Niebuhr, Reinhold 146
Nixon, Richard 84
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) 101–3, 106–19, 132–5, 198–202
and Article VI 134
norm cascade 177, 187
norm contestation theory 108–9
and regimes 118–19
norm entrepreneurs 129, 173, 187
norm evolution 15, 115, 171–3, 176–7, 180, 182, 187–8, 209
norm life cycle 177–8
norms
causal power of 33, 38
and discourse constructivism 173
and internalization 128–9, 140, 172, 177, 181, 186, 188
and interpretation 42–3, 102–6, 113–14, 116–17, 198
and legitimacy 104–5, 117, 129
and power 103–6, 115–19
social construction of 176
as social facts 32
North Korea 101
Norway 112, 135
NPT Review and Extension Conference 134
nuclear apartheid 201
Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) 102, 107–9, 111–13, 117–18
waiver 102, 112–13
Nye, Joseph 128

O
Obama, Barack 138
objective model 159–64, 163f
Oksenberg, Michel 124
One China, Respective Interpretations (OCRI) 74, 79, 82, 86, 89
One Country Two Systems (OCTS) 84
ontology
intersubjective 223–4
process-based 128
scientific 4
Onuf, Nicholas 13, 174, 226
Open Door Policy of 1978 84
optimistic constructivists 123–5, 128, 130–1, 133, 139–40 see also liberal constructivists
Organization of American States (OAS) 159
organizational theory 7
Orientalist amnesia 202
Ostpolitik 227–8

P
Pakistan 101, 109–12, 133, 137, 138
pan-Blue 83, 86, 89
pan-Green 73–4, 86, 89–91
Sunflowers 89
see also Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
paradigmatism 197, 218–19
rejection of 213
paradigms 64, 212–13
as research networks 3
critique of core concept approach 194–7
framing in IR 1–4
Parsons, Craig 37–8, 43
and community Europe 30
and crosscutting ideas 32–4
Patomäki, Heikki 224
Paz, Oswaldo Álvarez 164
peaceful unification 132 see also Taiwan
Penghu 86
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) 133
Permanent Five (P5) 181, 184 see also United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
Peru 30–2, 160, 167
Philippines 135
philosophy of science 30, 41
pluralistic approaches to 81–2
Plato 24
Pluralism 218
polarity 53, 67
political realism 1–2, 7
defined 5
see also Hans Morgenthau
positive sanctions 126
positivism 13, 21–2, 81, 179, 224
and causation 24–6, 29
soft 13, 14, 49, 59, 65
see also epistemology
post-positivism 179
see also discourse analysis
post-structuralism 16, 197, 213, 225
Pouliot, Vincent 181
power
 and capabilities 6–7, 10, 52, 65–6, 126–7
communicative/rhetorical 34–5, 131
discursive 86, 117
fungibility 5, 10
non-material sources of 6, 127, 129
and persuasion 13, 23, 42
and politicization 226
process 225
relational 4–5, 7, 9–11, 65, 94, 115–16, 119, 126, 174
soft 38, 105, 125
sources of 4–5, 126–7
as a structural constraints 4–5, 33, 35–6, 41
see also balance of power
power politics 1, 12, 19, 42–3, 172, 180, 209–12, 219
and causation 20, 22–9, 35
and coercion 127
framework of 75–7, 203
and morality 117
and norms 202
praxis of 220
and process 224–7
and realist ontology 4–5, 125, 219
as relational 93, 126, 195
social construction of 14
as structural 196
precautionary principles 187 see also Responsibility to Protect
Presbyterian Church 88
Prieto, Germán 14, 30, 195, 223–5

Q
Qing dynasty 83
Queer studies 206–9, 225
R
rational choice theory 7, 9, 23, 58, 219
rationalism 19, 75, 77, 219, 223
causal effects of 29
and constructivist critiques 1, 7
and methodological individualism 36
rationality
and causation 27–9, 43, 176
instrumental 8, 23
and interactionality 19–26, 34–42
as reasonableness is realism 8, 76
as socially constructed 42
and strategic social construction 128
utopian 24–5
Realism 145, 175–6
concepts 4–5
and constructivism 1–4
defined 125–6
diverse strands of 12–14
and foreign policy 77, 126
and institutions 8–10
and logic of consequences 3, 6–8
offensive 54–5
and power politics 4–5, 125, 219
and prudence 12, 13, 61, 94, 219–20, 222–3, 227–8
rhetorical 13–14
and sociality 49, 58–9, 125, 127, 129
Realist Constructivism (RC)
and agency 10–12
and co-constitution 19, 34–41, 146–50, 167
critiques of 193–7
and interpretation 42–3, 179
and interpretivism 19–20, 41–3, 223–4
 and norm contestation theory 108–9, 118–19
and ontology 42
and oppositions 6–8, 12–13
power-sensitive approach 116, 119
and reflexivity 35, 205, 222
six assumptions of 147–8
and structure 77
realpolitik 4, 136, 183 see also power politics
reflexive constructivism 14
reflexive realism 13–14
reflexivity 35, 205, 222, 226
regimes 104, 118–19, 123
and intersubjective ontology 223–4
patterns of 115–16
regimes of truth 117
regulatory effects 177 see also constitutive effects
Reports of the UN Secretary General on R2P 186
Republic of China Independence see huadu
Responsibility to Protect (R2P) 171–88, 196, 209–13
criteria for military intervention 182, 185, 187
evolution of 177–80
pillars of 181–2, 186–7
responsibility while protecting 182
rhetorical coercion 39–40, 124, 128, 131, 140–1
rhetorical realism 13–14
rhetorical traps 124, 131, 137
Rice, Susan 111
Ripsman, Norrin 49–50, 53, 58–9, 61, 66–7, 77–8
Rose, Gideon 48, 50, 78
Ross, Robert S. 128
Ruggie, John 13, 223–4
Russia 52, 110, 112, 132, 180–4
Russian Atomic Energy Ministry 110
Ryzhov, Mikhail 110

S
Sagan, Scott 199
Salter, Mark 210
sanctions
as an instrument of socialization 124–6
Sarkar, Jayita 199
Schmitt, Carl 226–7
Schmittian Civil War 92
Schweller, Randall L. 55, 59, 126–7
scientific realism 20–1, 32, 224 see also critical realism
second great debate 11–12
securitization theory 187, 225
SEF-ARATS framework 89–91
semi-independence 152, 167 see also co-constitution
Sha Zukang 135–6
Sikkink, Kathryn 128–9, 177
Sil, Rudra 129
Singh, Jaswant 109
Singh, Manmohan 102, 111
Singh, Vikram 114
singularity 21, 29, 33, 37–8 see also causal emergence
six-point plan 184
social construction
components of 5–6
methodologies for study 12–14
mode of 10
processes of 42, 104, 128–9
strategic 106, 128
social purpose 10, 94, 127
socialization 77, 79–81, 124, 127, 129–30, 140, 172
soft positivism 13, 14, 49, 59, 65
South Africa 130, 181, 201
South China Sea 133, 140–1
South Korea 73
South Sudan 9
sovereignty as responsibility 171–2, 177–9, 186–7, 209
Soviet Union 51, 84, 132
speech-acts 174
Statement on our National Fate 88
Steele, Brent 11–13
Sterling-Folker, Jennifer 47, 50, 59
Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) 86, 89–91
strategic social construction 106, 128
Stratford, Richard 113
structural functionalism 53
structure
biological 10
ideational 30, 36–7, 42
sociolinguistic 38–9
static 11
Su Chi 86
Sudan 9
Sun Yat-sen 73–4, 83
Sweden 138
Switzerland 112, 135
Syria 15, 138, 172, 175, 178–82
and R2P principle 182–8, 209

T
taidu 73–5, 84–5, 87–91
Taipei 74–5, 79, 84, 87–8, 91–4
Taipei-Beijing Consensus of 1992 74, 82, 86, 89
Taipei Treaty of 1952 83
taishang 89–90
Taiwan, Relations Act of 1979 84
Taiwan, Republic of (ROT) 15, 73–94, 131–3, 138, 196
anomaly of 203–6
see also China
taiwan duli see taidu
Taiwan Independence see taidu
Taiwan Independence Clause 87
Taiwan problematique 78, 92, 203
Taiwan Strait 84, 86, 89, 91, 133
Taiwanization see bentuhua
Taiwanized mainstream see zhulipai
Talbott, Strobe 109–10
Taliaferro, Jeffrey 49, 50, 53, 58–9, 66–7, 77–8
Tellis, Ashley 112
Three Principles of the People 86
Tiananmen Square 133
tit-for-tat approach 137
tragedy of the commons 181, 185
Tsai Ing-wen 73–4

U
UN Conference of Disarmament (CD) 133–6
United Kingdom 110, 112, 132 see also Great Britain
United Nations 84, 200
United Nations Charter 181
Article 42 183
Chapter VII 184
United Nations Document System 131
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 172, 180–6, 188
resolutions 84, 180–2
United States (US) 24–5, 55, 200, 206
and arms control regimes 132–8
and Caribbean relations 207–8
 and Cuba 208
and engagement with China 123–8, 131–41
and Latin American relations 15, 145–67, 196, 206–9
and non-proliferation regime norms 101–3, 106–19, 198–201
and R2P 184–5
Uribe, Álvaro 160–4, 163f, 167
US Department of State 165–6
US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement 201–2
problematique of 196
Utopianism 24–5, 35

V
Vajpayee, Atal Bihari 110
Venezuela 149–67, 207–9
2002 coup 157–64, 163f
post-coup phase 165–6
Venezuelan National Assembly 165–6
Verba, Sidney 49–50
Vietnam War 57–8
Vreeland, James Raymond 57

W
waishengren 83–4, 86–8, 91
Walt, Stephen 78, 79
Waltz, Kenneth 5, 6, 53–7, 81, 228
Theory of International Politics 49
Waltzian neorealism 12–13
Washington Post 158, 161, 163f, 164–6
Weber, Cynthia 207–8
Weber, Max 63
Weiss, Leonard 199
Weiss, Thomas 187–8
Wendt, Alexander 20–1, 32, 34, 76–81, 128, 173–4, 219
Wendtian systemic constructivism (WC) 76–7
Western culture 145, 148
Westphalian sovereignty 197
White Terror 83
Wight, Colin 20
Wight, Martin 219
Wilson, Woodrow 24
Windsor, Philip 228
Wood, Steve 195
World War II 24–5, 55, 107

X
Xi Jinping 74–5, 91, 140

Y
Yugoslavia 93

Z
Zangger Committee 132
Zelikow, Philip 114
zhonghua duli 74 see huadu
Zhongli, Incident of 1977 85
zhulipai 87
Zoellick, Robert B. 139