124). (2008b). Wiener (2004:203) argues that the interpretation of the meaning of norms, in particular, the meaning of generic sociocultural norms, cannot be assumed as stable and uncontested. Lebow, R. (2001). States may join military alliances to bandwagon with stronger powers, as realists tell us. International Organization, 46(2), 391425. The social construction of Swedish neutrality: Challenges to Swedish identity and sovereignty. The growth of Private Military Companies (PMCs) or Private Military Security Contractors (PMSCs) in the 1990s and their increased use in conflicts has been a consequence of a range of different factors: increasing neo-liberalization, cuts to defense budgets and a desire for states to outsource security. Tun, H. (2005). The analytic focus is shifting to the targets of socialization and the dynamic and agentic process whereby actors interact with their normative context. This means that the absence of a central power over states produces a world of perpetual insecurity, or Hobbesian state of nature (see Realist International Relations Theory and The Military by Schmidt in this volume), with conflict and violence a constant possibility. 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. Norms and identity in world politics. 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. They serve as concrete foundations for the different conceptions of norm dynamics that are emerging in the current literature because they provide conceptions of how actors and norms are linked. Norms and identity in world politics. The essay proceeds by first describing the initial establishment of constructivist norms research and critiques that flowed from the original choices made. Constructivism's approach to the subjects of threat, conflict and security in global politics originated from their fundamental emphasis on the social dimensions of international politics, thus it defined them as socially constructed elements in the process of identity formation under the influence of the norms and shared values of society. 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. In essence, they theorized norm diffusion as taking place from a community of Western states constituted by compliance with universal human rights norms to individual Southern states. (1996). Percy, S. (2016). talk, follow norms, create rules, etc.). This pivot is an interesting development in norms research for two reasons. What if anarchy was not a given condition that ordered world politics? But the nuclear issue is also important because it shows how competing ideas about norms co-exist or contrast for example, former US President Donald Trump tried to change the norm around the use of nuclear weapons, arguing for the ability to use low yield nuclear weapons and the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review returned to the idea that nuclear superiority mattered (Tannenwald 2018). Cooperation and Conflict, 49(4), 519535. (2008a). 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. Steele, B., Gould, H., & Kessler, O. Perhaps this is simply a matter of what questions are being asked. This study focuses on the definition of the social constructivism approach within the scope of International Relations (IR) theories and the discussions on this approach. Baylis revision International Relations. This realization was part of what prompted the serious focus on domestic political/normative contexts in much of this literature. This article aims to illuminate how social constructivism has evolved as a mainstream international relation (IR) paradigm within a short period of time. (1999). 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. To gain acceptance and make the case that constructivist ideas mattered empirically, constructivists endeavored to demonstrate how their ideational perspective could provide superior understanding and explanation of political phenomena. Empirical norms studies have both drawn on these debates and fueled them with empirical data supporting different claims. Constructivism had been marginalized by these mainstream theories because it focused on social construction instead of material construction (Barkin, 2017). 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? ), Epistemic communities, constructivism, and international environmental politics (pp. Wendt tends to view state identity in a singular way which can omit its complexity. Post modernism // Refer political theory (section 1A) also. Social constructivism can also help make sense of security and military phenomena, such as alliances and threat perceptions, or why states go to war. Critiques of constructivism tend to come from three areas: rationalist criticisms, issues over how constructivists see identity, and finally, criticism that constructivism is apolitical. Krahmann, E. (2018). Wendt, A. This aspect of the literature is more focused on how actors understand the norms that constitute them and alternatively consider how actors that reason through norms can contest and reconstruct the norms that bind communities together. Allowing the meaning of social norms to vary in the course of analysis can quickly devolve into an expository morass. Germany and Japan, for example, had antimilitaristic strategic cultures after the Second World War which impacted their military engagement and organization (Berger 1996; Hagstrm and Gustafsson 2015). In contrast to these other approaches, constructivism is a social theory (or family of social theories) or theory of process (Adler 1997, 2003; Checkel 1998; Wendt 1999; Hoffmann 2009), which means it necessarily lacks a priori commitments on key elements of international relations theories the identity, nature, interests, and behavior of important actors and the structure of world politics. Prominent in the initial empirical norms research in this vein were studies that examined how given norms in a particular community diffused to actors outside the community (e.g., Risse-Kappen 1994; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999; Checkel 2001; Johnston 2001). Hoffmann (2005) employs insights from the study of complex adaptation to understand how states that all accepted the norm of universal participation in climate governance came to have different subjective understandings of that norm. 1 2. introduction "the focus of social constructivism is on human awareness or consciousness and its place in world affairs. For liberals, the belief that liberal ideas such as democracy and the free market are ideas to be shared to make the world a better place suggests a transfer of ideas rather than an exchange of ideas. Constructivism The international relations theory that suggests that people create their own reality, . Rather than diminishing other major theories, according to its holders and proponents, constructivism theory provides wider illumination a larger explanation for determining the dynamic and the function of world politics. Social theory of international politics. In The New Constructivism in International Relations Theory, David McCourt offers a refreshing take on Constructivism by reviewing old, present, and new concepts in Constructivism and connects them pragmatically with methodological examples.Moreover, this book functions as a handbook on 'how to constructivist' in an era defined and dominated by new advances in computational social science. International Organization, 53(3), 433468. The second big claim of constructivism is that ideas matter with rationalist theorizing, material factors take precedence. . To be clear, constructivists have been quite good at demonstrating the replacement of one norm with another. Constructivism is an International Relations (IR) theory. Thucydides the constructivist. Constructivism demonstrates the flexibility and critical stance that characterizes the reflectivist theories by stressing the socially constructed aspect of international realities and highlighting the ever-changing nature of the study of International Relations. Weinhabits world of our making" (Onuf,1989),and setion i . In other words, actors can never significantly remove themselves from their social structure to make independent judgments. Bibliographical References Adler, E. (1997). Some scholars have sought a way through or out of the logic of appropriateness/logic of consequences debate by following March and Olsens (1998) suggestions about scrutinizing the relationship between the logics, especially possible temporal sequencing of the logics, theorizing that sometimes actors calculate optimal material courses and at others they reason about their normative/identity obligations (Shannon 2000; Nielson, Tierney, and Weaver 2006; see Muller 2004 for a caution on this synthesis strategy). The logic of anarchy is but one way in which it is possible to imagine how the international system works. Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars . 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. 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.. 23) and recognized as a medium of exchange for goods and services. Two have become particularly prominent compliance with the strictures of social norms and change in norms themselves. The strange career of Constructivism in International Relations" en Puchala, Do . Throughout the chapter, reference will be made to constructivisms epistemological (how we know it), ontological (what we know), teleological (what is the purpose), and methodological (the tools we use to study) standing, where it is located in IR theorizing, and what it can mean for understanding military phenomena (see Philosophy of Military Science by Sookermany in this volume). Roennfeldt, C. F. (2022). 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. Abstract. Interpreting the impact of a norm. This approach challenged the rationalism and positivism of neorealism and neoliberalism. Millennium, 33(3), 495521. This chapter will explore what constructivism is, and its underlying claims and key influences, while comparing its core tenets to theories such as realism (see Realist International Relations Theory and The Military by Schmidt in this volume) and liberalism (see Liberal International Relations Theory and The Military by Silverstone in this volume). I also explored the growing body of constructivist . Cooperation and Conflict, 40(1), 523. Critics found this dual understanding of the logic of appropriateness wanting and thus developed additional behavioral logics that modeled differing motivations and modes of behavior more explicitly. The culture of national security. Norm-breaking behavior may be evident but is only problematic for constructivist arguments if norms are specific and static. This chapter will also cover the different branches of constructivist thought and the main critiques of constructivism to highlight its key contributions and the problems it also raises. 331336). In A. M. Sookermany (Ed. In M. Evangelista & N. Tannenwald (Eds. This is a continuous, two-way process (2013, p. 4). Staff & Defence College, Norwegian Defence University College, Oslo, Norway, Norwegian Defence University College / Norwegian Military Academy, Oslo, Norway. Constructivist security studies: Portrait of a research program. Not all states interpret power in the material or hierarchical sense. FBI says Saddams weapons bluff aimed at Iran. International Relations: Constructivism pt1 1. The Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink volume developed the spiral model that explained socialization of recalcitrant Southern states into universal human rights norms by referring to the linkages between and actions of transnational human rights activists, domestic human rights activists in the target state, and powerful Western state sponsors. Constructivist ideas are present when attention is turned to alliances and security communities. Instead social norms are generic rules that allow agents to behave and get along in a wide range of situations. While neorealists argued that attacking Iraq was not in the national interests of the USA and that containment was more effective (Mearsheimer and Walt 2003), neoconservative hawks determined otherwise. Constructivism has provided a broader approach to understanding international relations and security beyond rationalist frameworks. He argued: If behavior in the real social world can almost always be located in some of the intermediate spaces between the corners of the triangle, one single metatheoretical orientation will probably not capture it. European Review of International Studies, 3(3), 713. European Journal of International Relations, 12(3), 341370. What Is Social Constructivism? International Organization, 52(4), 887917. Koschut, S. (2014). Tactical constructivism, method, and international relations. It was a tool for constructivists to show that ideas, norms, and morals mattered vis--vis rationalist variables in explanations of world political phenomena. 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. Our assessments, publications and research spread knowledge, spark enquiry and aid understanding around the world. 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. The main empirical focus tended to be on either the development of a European polity (e.g., Checkel 2001) or on attempts at socializing Southern states into (relatively) universal international norms like human rights and sovereign statehood (Finnemore 1996; Risse et al. Empirically oriented constructivists worked to show that shared ideas about appropriate state behavior had a significant impact on the nature and functioning of world politics. His (2000:2) logic of arguing is designed to clarify how actors develop a common knowledge and how norms and ideas can have a constitutive effect while retaining the reflection and choice Sending (2002:458) deems necessary for mutual constitution and change. forthcoming). Tannenwald, N. (1999). International Relations is in Social Studies, thus this study field tries to theorize a model that could explain everything that is going on between countries. Constructivist International Relations theorists tend to use concepts of socially constructed identities, ideas and norms to empirically and analytically examine . Self-identity and the IR state. The Geneva Convention (1949) is an example of an international regime. It is a social institution with norms, rules, and procedures to govern how civilians and combatants should be treated in war. 3536). You could not be signed in, please check and try again. New York: M. E. Sharpe. Wiener (2004:191, 192) notes that this behavioralist approach operates with stable norms and is best suited to inferring and predicting behavior by referring to a particular category of norms that entail standards for behavior. While these studies unveiled how the norms they examined contributed to dynamic political processes, they tended to hold the norms themselves constant. Social Constructivism Summary Notes. Does R2P matter? Despite their position of material weakness, the Melians argued that freedom and justice are more important. Fierke, K. M. (2001). 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. or alliances (as realists would argue?). A further example of norm erosion can be seen in the norm against the use of torture. In international relations, constructivism is a social theory that asserts that significant aspects of international relations are shaped by ideational factors (which are historically and socially constructed), not simply material factors. (Ed.). 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. Constructivism accounts for this issue by arguing that the social world is of our making (Onuf 1989). We dont do that: A constructivist perspective on the use and non-use of private military contractors by Denmark. Constructivist thought makes it clear that social norms do not exist independently of communities of actors that believe in and enact them. European Security, 27(3), 374392. Norms are also expectations about behavior (these are called regulatory norms because they define acceptable behavior). The Athenians demand that neutral Melos side with them against Sparta. On the contrary, the two parts of the norms literature described above tend to find themselves on different ends of the reasoning about normsreasoning through norms spectrum. Constructivisms overwhelming focus on the state and state agents obscures other actors and processes. 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). Instead, practices are the result of inarticulate, practical knowledge that makes what is done appear self-evident or commensenical.. Norms are born anew every day as actors instantiate them through their beliefs and actions and, as Sandholtz (2008:101) notes, normative structures, in other words, cannot stand still.. 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. e. In international relations, constructivism is a social theory that asserts that significant aspects of international relations are shaped by ideational factors. Issues such as those discussed immediately above raise the third criticism about constructivism, that "a weak or at least a controversial epistemology has become the basis for a strong pedagogic policy" (Phillips 1995, p. 11)).The primary influence underpinning much of the theoretical commitments of constructivist pedagogy was a highly influential paper written by Posner et al. 6667). Moreover, military alliances are increasingly not just about physical security but about binding together states with shared interests, identities, and norms. Yet Saddam did not want to appear weak to enemies such as Iran (Allen 2009). In the 1980s and 1990s, efforts to wind back the proliferation of nuclear weapons which by this stage had reached staggering proportions, particularly in the USA and USSR prompted scientists and nuclear experts, civil society organizations, and other actors, to form what is called epistemic communities. Social theory of international politics. 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. 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. CrossRef Security institutions as agents of socialization? This was a vastly different kind of theorizing than was current in the mainstream of international relations that was locked in the neorealist/neoliberal debate (e.g., Krasner 1983; Keohane 1984, 1986; Baldwin 1990; Grieco 1990). First, the compliance and norm change research agenda (loosely defined) is more internally focused than the previous wave of norms-oriented research. Steele, B. IR: The resurrection or new frontiers of incorporation. (2009). According to constructivism the priority is for social features instead of material. Risse (2000:6) captured the essence of the internal critique when he noted that the logic of appropriateness actually encompasses two different modes of social action and interaction. In one mode, appropriate actions are internalized and become thoughtlessly enacted at times as a precursor to or foundation of strategic behavior (Risse 2000:6) actors reasoning through social norms. Birdsall, A. Perhaps more fundamentally from a feminist perspective, Locher and Prugl contend that the objectivist stance of many constructivist scholars is inconsistent with their social ontology. While constructivism has made significant inroads into IR theorizing, it does not mean that it is unproblematic or immune from criticism. A Social Constructivist Interpretation of the Liberal Argument," European Journal of International Relations 1 (December 1995)CrossRef Google Scholar. Cham: Springer. Risses (2000) and Sendings (2002) critiques focus on the taken-for-granted mode of action implied the logic of appropriateness. This social learning aspect differs from realisms prescriptive approach that says nations will follow the strongest militaries to develop their strength and technological prowess with the anarchic structure of the international system guiding this logic. It has major implications for an understanding of knowledge, including scientific knowledge, and how to achieve it. Tannenwald, N. (2018). (1) Normative behavior how an extant norm influences behavior within a community. The realist reading of Thucydides account of the Melian Dialogue (431BC) in the Peloponnesian War is seen as the classic illustration of power politics. (2021). 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. McCourt, D. (2016). 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. (Eds.). London: Penguin. Grand strategy, strategic culture, practice: The social roots of Nordic defence. If it was not, then the international order and what security means could be something completely different. In K. M. Fierke & K. E. Jrgensen (Eds. Another topic that requires further consideration in future research is the relationship between intersubjective and subjective reality. B., & Heikka, H. (2005). A key illustration here is the norm of human rights, which is widely accepted by actors (Katzenstein 1996). Foreign Policy, 134, 5059. What was it all about after all? Identities are also constructed. Moravcsik, A. Early empirical approaches did engage with normative dynamics and change (e.g., Finnemore and Sikkink 1998), but the understanding of dynamics and change was relatively circumscribed. In A. M. Sookermany (Ed. van Meegdenburg, H. (2019). It will then consider some key criticisms of this approach and conclude with a short summary. To construct something is an act which brings into being a subject or object that otherwise would not exist. Seeing the world in this way as mutually constituted, driven by the interests of actors which relies on their ideas of themselves and others, and their approach to phenomena brings about different possibilities in international relations and security. (2019), and Kessler and Steele (2016) for recent advanced debates.) ), Constructing international relations: The next generation (pp. ), Handbook of military sciences (pp. These initial waves of constructivist writing met the challenge issued by Keohane and played a significant role in vaulting constructivism into prominence during the 1990s and early 2000s (Checkel 1998, 2004). Whether a state is democratic or autocratic, for example, does not seem to matter for neorealists such as Kenneth Waltz (see Realist International Relations Theory and The Military by Schmidt in this volume), because the anarchic structure is what is important for understanding state behavior. The rest of this section explores this distinction in greater detail, discussing the behavioral logics at the foundation of the about/through spectrum before examining the recent compliance and contestation literatures that are developing new ideas about norm dynamics. Social norms were conceived as aspects of social structure that emerged from the actions and beliefs of actors in specific communities and in turn norms shaped those actions and beliefs by constituting actors identities and interests. Although some debate exists over whether it is more of an approach rather than a theory (McCourt 2016, p. 476), its importance for international relations can be found in its emphasis on social relations between actors; how actors relate to each other shapes international politics. This also goes to the foundation of questions of the causes of war. This dynamism, it should also be noted, may not always be positive ideas about security can also regress or become less normative or progressive. But Wendt also identified a Lockean culture that demonstrated some restraint in warfare and a Kantian culture that was guided more by cooperation (Wendt 1999). (1992). Constructivism is based on the general notion that international relations are socially constructed. A constructivist lens on PMCs, however, reveals how questions of national identity can also be central to their use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. It then turns to a discussion of two directions currently being explored in social norms research and the open questions that remain. It matters if one assumes that norms are manipulable by political actors who can reason about them from an external standpoint or if norms (and social structure more generally) more fundamentally constitute actors such that they cannot stand outside the social norms that shape their interests and behaviors. The Peloponnesian War. Identity and culture can be problematic categories and distract from other factors that can explain international relations, such as capitalism or patriarchy (Kurki and Sinclair 2010). 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. Correspondence to Critical methodology and constructivism. Weber, C. (1999). Contrastingly, neorealist prescriptions of power see it as hard, material, military power (such as large military forces or superior weapons) and are concerned with its distribution in the international system. 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. Acharya (2004) goes further in that he allows for the substance of international norms to be molded to fit local contexts localization. Moreover, for some, constructivism is problematic because it is seen as apolitical and its efforts to form a via media with rationalism bring the state back in (Weber 1999; Zehfuss 2002). Not all states respond to external phenomena in the same way, which invokes a need to consider how domestic and cultural factors shape the identity and interests of actors. 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