Nonetheless, constructivist approaches to identity, norms, and ideas about the world and its social relations can impact understandings of what it means to be secure. The shared understandings given to objects are referred to as inter-subjective meanings, which Adler explains as collective knowledge (1997). New York: Columbia University Press. (Wendts book is vital reading for all constructivist scholars and his ontological and epistemological position on constructivism is set out more fully here. Ideational or even soft power the influence that is exerted that does not rely on hard power but rather attracts others to ideas and values (see Realist International Relations Theory and The Military by Schmidt in this volume) can be effective in global politics and choosing to go to war over ideas rather than material gains or even to not take advantage of material gain and an increase in power, serve as examples. In addition to considering how the two types of norm dynamics are related, the current norms literature brings traditional open questions in constructivism into sharp relief. Assessing the effects and effectiveness of the Geneva Conventions. There is an implicit equivalence made between contestation that goes on within a normative community (generated by the gap between general rules and specific situations) and contestation that occurs between different normative communities (inevitable tension between norms). The belief that reality is socially constructed leads constructivists to place a greater role on norm development, identity, and ideational power than the other major theoretical paradigms. Introduction: Ideational AlliesPsychology, Constructivism, and International Relations . In correlation to this, it would be fruitful to acknowledge the role of constructivism in international relations theory, as one could argue it is closely related to this analysis, where one may draw parallels between Norway and Sweden in the comprehension of the research. For the Athenians, the refusal of the Melians the much weaker party to submit and their preference for neutrality was an affront to their power. Our assessments, publications and research spread knowledge, spark enquiry and aid understanding around the world. Instead, attempts at synthesis of constructivism and rationalism are now en vogue (e.g., Fearon and Wendt 2001; Schimmelfennig 2001, 2005; Checkel and Zurn 2005; Kornprobst 2007; Culpepper 2008; Kelley 2008). [1] [2] [3] The most important ideational factors are those that are collectively held; these collectively held beliefs construct the interests and identities of actors. Berger, T. U. The market for ontological security. London: Routledge. Social Constructivism or Constructivism is a theory in International Relations which holds that developments in international relations are being constructed through social processes in accordance with ideational factors such as identity, norms, rules, etc. Actors (usually powerful ones, like leaders and influential citizens) continually shape - and sometimes reshape - the very nature of international relations through their actions and interactions. The main two paradigms is the Realists and the Liberalist school of thoughts. Legro (1996) provided insight on a traditional security issue by delineating how normative ideas embedded in organizational culture at the domestic level could explain puzzling (for traditional international relations theories) variation in war fighting decisions in World War II. The realist reading of Thucydides account of the Melian Dialogue (431BC) in the Peloponnesian War is seen as the classic illustration of power politics. Meanings: socially constructed. Actors can see and interpret the world and approach it differently therefore, anarchy is what states make of it. For Wendt, different cultures of anarchy were possible, which meant that the neorealist idea of a self-help system was limited to just a Hobbesian version that depended on military power for security. Social norms were conceptualized as aspects of social structure that emerged from the actions and beliefs of actors in specific communities; norms shaped those actions and beliefs by constituting actors identities and interests. In this sense, under a constructivist lens, key concepts like sovereignty and power can take on different meanings compared to how they are understood in realist frameworks or defense-oriented establishments. Theories on International Relations: Social Constructivism PJ October 14, 2018 Human Rights, Law and International Relations Previous Next The social constructivist approach is distinctive in that it emphasises human consciousness and knowledge in a way that 'treats ideas as structural factors which influence how actors interpret the world.' The identity of agents such as states matter because identity helps determine national interests. Krahmann, E. (2018). Kurki, M., & Sinclair, A. Social phenomenon such as states, alliances or international institutions, are not thought to exist independent of human meaning and action. Baylis revision International Relations. Norms and identity in world politics (pp. The scope of military conduct can also be institutionalized, and constructivism provides a way to understand such processes. Mearsheimer, J. J., & Walt, S. M. (2003). While realists would argue that decision to go to war are based on rational state interests, constructivists would argue that the Geneva Convention represents the idea that war is a social and cultural practice and driven by moral considerations. Consider the shared norms that define military conduct and the institutions that have evolved around military practice; from the Geneva Conventions to the classic texts on warfare that are part of military training, a process of social interaction is taking place where norms are learned, and culture and identity are shaped. How strong is the nuclear taboo today? Behavioral logics are concrete expressions of how mutual constitution works and what motivates actors to behave they way that they do. As political processes such as the 2008 economic crisis in Europe and Brexit show, theorising a polity. This recent research speaks to and is driven by broader questions of conceptualizing the relationship between actors and norms whether actors reason through or about social norms. Constructivists provided empirical studies on a full range of topics important to the international relations discipline both in areas largely neglected by mainstream international relations like human rights (Klotz 1995; Risse, Ropp and Sikkink 1999), development (Finnemore 1996), and areas directly relevant to mainstream concerns like security (e.g., Legro 1996; contributors to Katzenstein 1996; Price 1997; Tannenwald 1999). Post modernism is relatively new in international relations. An alternative set of norm dynamics may be implicated when one seeks to understand change in norms themselves. 1999; Jacobsen 2003). This is akin to what Krebs and Jackson (2007:434) describe as implication contests where actors agree on the nature of an issue, but not the policy implications and framing contests where there is fundamental disagreement about the situation at hand. Treating social norms as fully formed, static constructs, even for analytic convenience, underplayed this dynamism. On the contrary, this analytic device has a deep history in the sociological and economic literatures. In P. J. Katzenstein (Ed. Moreover, military alliances are increasingly not just about physical security but about binding together states with shared interests, identities, and norms. What agents want and who they are may be constituted by social structures, but there is never a complete sublimation of agents they retain an ability to reason about constitutive social structures and make relatively independent behavioral choices. 55K views 2 years ago International Relations Constructivism is one of critical theories in IR criticizing the classical theories. Constructivism is the claim that significant aspects of international relations are historically and socially contingent (subject to change), rather than inevitable consequences of human nature or other essential characteristics of world politics. Constructivism considers the relations between states (and other actors) as a social realm; less about the distribution of resources and power and more about the distribution of ideas. This approach challenged the rationalism and positivism of neorealism and neoliberalism. Percy, S. (2016). Social constructivism is well suited to address continuous changes in European integration. In eliciting conformance and stabilizing expectations norms do not and cannot define all possible behavior, especially when a norm first emerges. Table of Contents; Introduction to Social Constructivism: Rise of Social Constructivism in IR: Constructivism as social theory: Constructivist theories of International Relations: The social construction of Swedish neutrality: Challenges to Swedish identity and sovereignty. Abstract. 331336). Second, and more significantly, both the norm compliance and norm change research agendas engage seriously with notions of normative contestation, directly problematizing aspects of norm dynamics that tended to be held constant in earlier work. In the timeless wisdom of realist thought, the story of international relations is that the world is structured by anarchy. Moreover, social constructivism emphasizes social relations in global politics, and sees security and international politics as determined by ideas as well as material factors. On the learning literature more generally, see Levy , Jack , "Learning and Foreign Policy: Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield (Review Article)," International Organization 48 (Spring 1994 . It is through human agreement that a piece of paper, metal, or even cryptocurrency is seen as a form of money, which is assigned a certain value (Searle 1995, pp. Today's video is the third in our IR 101 series in which we discu. Even studies of norm emergence tended to treat the norms in question as relatively static one relatively fully formed norm is replaced by a new idea that becomes a norm. Second, there is a division between what is generally called conventional and critical constructivism (Hopf 1998), largely over questions of state centricity and treatment of identity. Social Constructivism posits the argumentation that academic discourse as opposed to political engagement is more fruitful in bringing about lasting and genuine change in global affairs. Shannon (2000:294) makes a sophisticated argument along these lines, claiming that due to the fuzzy nature of norms and situations, and due to the imperfect interpretation of such norms by human agency, oftentimes norms are what states (meaning state leaders) make of them. Such an interpretation of constructivist thought moves him to make a familiar argument about the split between norm-based and interest-based behavioral impulses (Shannon 2000:298302; Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007). or alliances (as realists would argue?). Constructivism is a theory of knowledge which argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning through world interactions and ideas. Social Constructivism is one of international relations approach. Ideas do not float freely: Transnational coalitions, domestic structures, and the end of the cold war. Onuf, N. (2013). Baumann, M. (2022). Instead, constructivism is held together by consensus on broader questions of social process its position on the agent-structure problem and the primacy of the ideational and the intersubjective aspects of social life (for overviews of constructivism see Onuf 1998; Ruggie 1998; Finnemore and Sikkink 2001; Ba and Hoffmann 2003). A key illustration here is the norm of human rights, which is widely accepted by actors (Katzenstein 1996). Sending goes so far as to claim that the logic of appropriateness is incompatible with constructivist thought because it violates the tenets of mutual constitution and does not allow for change he contends (2002:458) that in the logic of appropriateness, social structure has objective authority over actors, not allowing for the kind of reflection necessary for mutual constitution and change. The work of Cortell and Davis (2005) and Acharya (2004) are relevant examples of this type of compliance research. 1 2. introduction "the focus of social constructivism is on human awareness or consciousness and its place in world affairs. If the meaning of a norm can change or if different communities of actors adhere to different norms (or different versions of a norm), then norm-breaking takes on a different meaning. (2) Socialization how an extant norm or a nascent norm from one community diffuses and is internalized by actors outside that community. International Organization, 53(3), 433468. According to constructivism the priority is for social features instead of material. European Journal of International Relations, 5(4), 435450. Jacobsen (2003:60) recognizes the need to theorize this relationship observing that, constructivists of all stripes seem to agree that it is vital to theorize links between subjective experience and social/institutional structures. The two versions of norm dynamics discussed above posit different conceptions of the intersubjective/subjective relationship, but neither has developed the final answer to this open question. Constructivism The international relations theory that suggests that people create their own reality, . ), Handbook of military sciences (pp. International Organization, 59(4), 701012. Constructivism can produce richer understandings of the very basic questions that construct military studies: enemy perceptions, how identity drives threat/amity/cooperation in international relations, how states and actors respond to threat and the meanings that certain types of warfare involve, the stories told about war and what it means to be secure. Download. It brought former Warsaw Pact nations into its fold and strengthened convergence around normative issues such as human rights through social learning (Gheciu 2005; Fierke and Wiener 1999). How is it that western states like the UK, for example, do not fear thousands of nuclear weapons that the USA possesses, but worries about states like Iran or North Korea, who hold far fewer nuclear weapons? What if anarchy was not a given condition that ordered world politics? A constructivist lens on PMCs, however, reveals how questions of national identity can also be central to their use. Constructivism relies in part on the theory of the social construction of reality, which says that whatever reality is perceived to be, for the . First, both types of studies may benefit from more attention to the notion of intersubjective communities and their boundaries. Cham: Springer. Wendt, A. 451497). His refusal to allow the UN weapons inspectors into Iraq during the buildup to war in 2003 was seen as irrational to many in the west. The goal of most norms-oriented studies in the initial wave of empirical constructivist work was to explain something about how world politics functions. Whereas Morgenthaus classical realism described interests in terms of power as a truism of international relations, in empirical terms, power might not be a driver for states interests and actions. In his view, theories of cultures can not supplant theories of politics, and no casual theory of identity construction exists. Douglas, B. In the context of the global war on terror, US efforts to extract intelligence from suspected terrorists led to the use of enhanced interrogation techniques which was widely seen to have abrogated or contested the global prohibition on the use of torture (Steele 2008a; see also Birdsall (2016) who argues that it worked to strengthen the anti-torture norm). Early empirical studies of social norms tended to consider social norms as static and relatively specific social facts. The initial wave of empirical norms work provided a solid foundation for the newly emergent constructivist approach, but it tended to bracket the vibrant existence of norms themselves. Focusing on these elements of normative dynamics led to progress in how constructivists understood conformance with normative strictures, the spread of existing norms, and the emergence of new norms. States may join military alliances to bandwagon with stronger powers, as realists tell us. Allowing the meaning of social norms to vary in the course of analysis can quickly devolve into an expository morass. What is the main argument of constructivism? The focus was not on analyzing norms as much as it was using norms as a device to analyze world politics. Third, critical scholars argue that constructivism is deeply flawed because it is apolitical, does not adequately analyze categories such as norms, or simply resurrects rationalist ideas. To conclude social constructivism believe that reality does not exist outside our consciousness, it only exists as 'intersubjective awareness' among people. Psychology and Constructivism in International Relations: An Ideational Alliance. Comprised of a series of conventions that go back to 1864, it is now a part of customary international law, so it applies to all states during warfare. Beginning with the assumption that actors reason about social norms means considering norms to be (at least somewhat) external to actors, part of their social context, but at least potentially manipulable by actors. Rather than passive receptacles, norm takers have a very active role to play in socialization and can influence the meaning of the norms that constitute the very community they are being asked to join (Ba 2006). Early constructivist work in the 1980s and early 1990s sought to establish a countervailing approach to the material and rational theories that dominated the study of international relations (e.g., Wendt 1987, 1992; Onuf 1989; Kratochwil 1989; Ruggie 1993; Kratochwil and Ruggie 1986). Cooperation and Conflict, 49(4), 519535. The Peloponnesian War. At the core of social constructivism is the idea that international politics - and indeed human relations - are "socially constructed" rather than "given." Its core ideas are based around three ontological positions relating to identity, ideas, and mutual constitution. How are self-understandings and identity constituted in the international realm? Quintessentially, Finnemore and Sikkink (1998:914) noted the highly contingent and contested nature of normative change and normative influence in their examination of the norm life cycle. Those who study contestation do allow for reasoning about norms, appealing to notions of interpretation to generate different understandings of a norm with a community of norm acceptors. Identity informs preferences and interests, so to understand why certain states behave the way they do on the international stage, paying attention to how their identities drive their interests and actions matters. Following the initial success of empirical norms studies that established the efficacy of studying norms and showed that they mattered, current norms research explores when/where norms matter and how/when/why norms themselves change to a greater extent. Constructivism focuses on the social context in which international relations exist. Sandholtz (2008:121) deems this to be a built-in dynamic of change whereby the ever present gap between general rules and specific situations, as well as the inevitable tension between norms, creates openings for disputes.. Table of Contents Table of Contents. What does it derive its name from (it's fundamental proposition)? In other words, they worry that mutual constitution implies that actors have a difficult time stepping outside the bounds of their social/normative context to decide what is right to do. The way in which issues are constructed and interpreted as threatening can also depend heavily on identity and views of the external realm. Studies of norm diffusion or spread moved constructivists into the area of socialization. It examines the socialization process as more one of contestation between different normative systems and has broadened the scope of analysis to include attempts at socializing both powerful and weaker actors. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02866-4_105-1, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02866-4_105-1, eBook Packages: Springer Reference Political Science & International StudiesReference Module Humanities and Social Sciences, Over 10 million scientific documents at your fingertips, Not logged in When interacting with external norms, the targets of socialization reason about and in some cases manipulate the social norms (international or domestic) that shape their behavior. It will then consider some key criticisms of this approach and conclude with a short summary. Haas, P. M. (2016). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. New York: Columbia University Press. Conformance how social norms as intersubjective objects stabilize expectations and even bound what is considered to be possible (Yee 1996) was a crucial area for constructivists because without evidence of conformance with the strictures of social norms, constructivists could not demonstrate that norms mattered. Although the theory lies more on non-material factors that govern states, it explains that politics also plays a role in international relations. Constructivism, which reached the shores of IR in the 1980s, describes the dynamic, contingent and culturally based condition of the social world. While early constructivist theorizing proved to be an exciting new avenue for thinking about international relations in the abstract, both constructivists and their critics were eager to see constructivist theory applied empirically. Rather than see security and conflict in the same way, actors will interpret and pursue security based on the ideas, norms, identities, and values that have meaning for them. PubMedGoogle Scholar. This dynamism, it should also be noted, may not always be positive ideas about security can also regress or become less normative or progressive. Anarchy is not a given of the international system. In more historical examples, states that chose neutrality during times of war did so against strong material factors that would have potentially granted them safety and survival had they opted to join one side or the other. From the perspective of those who work on norms, there are very good reasons to focus on static and specific norms when analyzing international relations. Guzzini, S. (2005). Social constructivism emerged out of key debates in international relations theory in the 1980s concerned with agents and structures and has come to be seen as the fourth debate in international relations theorizing, which pitches constructivist against rationalist perspectives (Fierke and Jrgensen 2001, p. 3). Constructivism can explain how identity shapes interaction in the international realm for instance the assumption that when states regard each other as liberal democracies they are less likely to go to war with each other. Rationalist critiques relate to constructivist methodology and epistemological claims. First, unlike realist theory which sees actors as like units which respond to external phenomena in the same way, constructivists argue that who actors think they are matters. Clearly this is a continuum because if agents were truly independent from or entirely dependent upon social structures, we would not be talking about constructivism. Klotz (1995), for instance, chronicled how the anti-apartheid norm shaped the expectations and actions of the US towards South Africa in the 1980s. e. In international relations, constructivism is a social theory that asserts that significant aspects of international relations are shaped by ideational factors. Interpreting the impact of a norm. Understanding how ideas about danger and threat are socially constructed, and how states form social relations in the international system is a key starting point in discussions about global security. Constructivisms overwhelming focus on the state and state agents obscures other actors and processes. For neorealists, the relative material capabilities of states determine hierarchy and power in international relations. Abstract. While constructivism has made significant inroads into IR theorizing, it does not mean that it is unproblematic or immune from criticism. The first wave of empirical constructivist studies tended to freeze norms. The Athenians demand that neutral Melos side with them against Sparta. Staff & Defence College, Norwegian Defence University College, Oslo, Norway, Norwegian Defence University College / Norwegian Military Academy, Oslo, Norway. Hi!Welcome back to the King's College London International Relations Today Youtube channel. Indeed, norms, identity, and ideas are key factors in constructivist theory. Cooperation and Conflict, 51(2), 184199. They (2005:25) note, As domestic actors search about for new ideas to legitimate their self-interested preferences, the norms and institutions of the international system often provide them. While Cortell and Davis do not problematize the substance of the financial liberalization norm under examination, they do attend to a neglected aspect of norm dynamics the actions of those actors who are targeted for socialization. It stresses the social dimensions of International relations. Central to constructivism are concepts such as norms, institutions, and culture. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. (Ed.). The nuclear taboo: The United States and the normative basis of nuclear non-use. Constructivism had been marginalized by these mainstream theories because it focused on social construction instead of material construction (Barkin, 2017). One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. International Politics, 47(1), 125. Finally, the third theory of international relations, known as Constructivism, focuses on ideas, shared beliefs and identity as the main drivers of success. forthcoming). (2005). Our assessments, publications and research spread knowledge, spark enquiry and aid understanding around the world. Wiener (2007) has advanced what she is calling a new logic of contestedness and has explored (2004) the dynamics of interpretation and contestation in European responses to the 2003 Iraq War. First, norms are relatively stable if they were not, it would be hard to justify or observe this analytic category. An example of this can be seen in the case of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which was created in 2002 to hear cases of war crimes. Norm shift around the idea of sovereignty can be seen in the pillars of R2P that say that if a state cannot or will not stop human rights abuses within its own territory, other states have a compelling reason to intervene. Constructivism has provided a broader approach to understanding international relations and security beyond rationalist frameworks. 394395). An example here is in what is generally called the laws of armed conflict, such as the Geneva Conventions, which sets the rules for how victims of war are to be treated, and the Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907), which addressed the conduct of war, such as the types of weapons permissible in warfare. Ontological security in world politics: State identity and the security dilemma. Empirical norms studies have both drawn on these debates and fueled them with empirical data supporting different claims. This goes against realist reliance on a world structured by anarchy that compels states to behave in certain ways, regardless of what sort of states they are (Farrell 2002, pp. Instead of calculating what is best for improving its utility, an actor motivated by the logic of appropriateness will instead reason what actors like me should do. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. International Relations, 22(2), 243261. The current literature on compliance with social norms has taken a question that motivated the socialization studies of the 1990s Why do some transnational ideas and norms find greater acceptance in a particular locale than in others? (Acharya 2004:240) in new directions. It was a tool for constructivists to show that ideas, norms, and morals mattered vis--vis rationalist variables in explanations of world political phenomena. Similarly, rather than dismissing the more agentic logics, Pouliot (2008:276) argues that the logic of practice is ontologically prior and it is thanks to their practical sense that agents feel whether a given social context calls for instrumental rationality, norm compliance, or communicative action.. - 51.75.65.162. Silverstone, S. (2021). Journal of European Public Policy, 6(5), 721742. Intersubjective facts like social norms only exist within a community of actors that accept them. 6061). Only those with equal power could make such demands, and the Athenians make good on their threat to destroy the Melians, declaring that might is right and the weak suffer what they must (Thucydides 1951, pp. In addition, rather than taking the external norm as given, recent socialization studies examine compliance with international norms as a process by which states (already normatively constituted) interact with, manipulate, and (sometimes) incorporate external ideas in a dynamic fashion. In Searles book The Construction of Social Reality, he opens with a puzzle that concerned him for a long time: that there are portions of the real world, objective facts in the world, that are only facts by human agreementthings that exist only because we believe them to existlike money, property, government, and marriagesThese contrast with such facts as that Mount Everest has snow and ice near the summit or that hydrogen atoms have one electron, which are facts totally independent of any human opinions (1995, pp. And Davis ( 2005 ) and Acharya ( 2004 ) are relevant examples of this type of research... Of politics, 47 ( 1 ), 721742 like social norms to vary in the international system 22 2... Signed in, please check and try again vary in the course of analysis can quickly devolve an... Derive its name from ( it & # x27 ; s fundamental proposition ) role... Were not, it would be hard to justify or observe this analytic device has a deep history in timeless. 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