social constructivism international relations

Fierke, K. M., & Wiener, A. Ideals that were really never in our possession: Torture, honor and US identity. Constructivism accounts for this issue by arguing that the social world is of our making (Onuf 1989). 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). 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. 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. 1516). 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. After all, these were Cold War institutions whose purpose was now over with the end of superpower politics. 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. John Dewey (1933/1998) is often cited as the philosophical founder of this approach. More info. 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. van Meegdenburg, H. (2019). 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. 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). Norms are shared beliefs, knowledge, and practice about the world in this sense, they are intersubjective, meaning a norm can be understood and shared amongst actors. In his study of how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and its constituent states interacted with global norms, Acharya (2004:251) demonstrates that localization does not extinguish the cognitive prior of the norm-takers but leads to its mutual inflection with external norms. International norms are adapted to local circumstances by actors with the ability to observe and manipulate ideas from the external normative context in so doing they alter the substance of the international norm to build congruence. Constructivism (International Relations) For decades, the international relations theory field was comprised largely of two more dominant approaches: the theory of realism, and liberalism/pluralism. The Pacific Review, 28(1), 122. In other words, actors can never significantly remove themselves from their social structure to make independent judgments. (1996). A key illustration here is the norm of human rights, which is widely accepted by actors (Katzenstein 1996). How militaries assess and interpret threat can be related to culture, intersubjective meanings, and social networks and understandings. Searle, J. R. (1995). Glanville, L. (2016). We unlock the potential of millions of people worldwide. Abstract: The history of social constructivism in International Relations (IR) is marked by cognitive change and continuity. 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. (2008b). Social phenomenon such as states, alliances or international institutions, are not thought to exist independent of human meaning and action. IR: The resurrection or new frontiers of incorporation. Identifies the norms and ideas associated with them. The second generations focus on norms emerged in the 1990s and a third generation extends constructivisms scope to bring in critical theory, emotions, and political psychology, among other approaches(See Steele (2017), Steele et al. 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. Download. London: Routledge. Critics too began to understand social norms as static and specific and this facilitated an erroneous notion that evidence of norm-breaking behavior somehow invalidated or falsified constructivist theorizing. European Security, 27(3), 374392. Allen, J. Introduction. Constructivism had been marginalized by these mainstream theories because it focused on social construction instead of material construction (Barkin, 2017). Constructivism theory is one of the models of the progressing emergence of international relations theory. Viewed in this way, as Onuf insists, "Constructivism applies to all fields of social inquiry" and "is a way of studying social relations - any kind of social relations." Constructivism sees power in terms of what it does and means (Guzzini 2005); ideas have power (e.g., that democracies are good). While this is obviously a false dichotomy and constructivist studies do not treat norms as exclusively internal or external to actors, the distinction matters for how scholars approach compliance and contestation. Correspondence to 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. (). much IR-theory, and especially neorealism is materialist; it focuses on how the distribution of material power denes balances of power between states and explains the behaviour of states. - Checkel (1998) argues that "without more sustained attention . (pp. for example, is that ideas and norms are hard to test empirically (Moravcsik 1999); they are intangible things that are difficult to measure or quantify, and it is hard to know if they played a significant role in affecting behavior (Farrell 2002, p. 60). 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. These works argue that norms do not provide fully specified rules for every situation, and especially not for novel situations. Krahmann, E. (2018). forthcoming). Along with recent work on strategic social construction the idea that norms can be deployed in the service of interests (regardless of whether those interests are pre-given or socially constructed themselves) or at least shape strategic behavior (e.g., Barnett and Coleman 2004; Muller 2004; Nielson, Tierney, and Weaver 2006; Seabrooke 2006) the recent writing on compliance has made progress on questions left open by the initial wave of empirical norms research. As Onuf states: Constructivism holds that people make society, and society makes people. 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. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 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. Does R2P matter? Seizing the middle ground: Constructivism in world politics. Contestation over variants of universal participation then had significant impact on the evolution of the universal participation norm and climate governance outcomes. It derives its name from the . talk, follow norms, create rules, etc.). Google Scholar. Moreover, military alliances are increasingly not just about physical security but about binding together states with shared interests, identities, and norms. To be sure, the international relations literature still contains healthy debate and sparring between constructivism and realism/liberalism (e.g., Petrova 2003; Fehl 2004; Williams 2004; Goddard and Nexon 2005; Srenson 2008). Gheciu, A. 331336). International Organization, 46(2), 391425. The logic of anarchy is but one way in which it is possible to imagine how the international system works. 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. A further example of norm erosion can be seen in the norm against the use of torture. 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). FBI says Saddams weapons bluff aimed at Iran. The way in which issues are constructed and interpreted as threatening can also depend heavily on identity and views of the external realm. Liberal international relations theory and the military. Some preexisting knowledge of speech act theory, constructivism, and securitization theory is useful before reading this chapter . European Journal of International Relations, 3(3), 319363. 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. Fierke, K. M., & Jrgensen, K. E. New York: Columbia University Press. London: Routledge. Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars . In this regard, although posited by Wendt as a via media (1992, 1999) or middle ground (Adler 1997) with rationalism, constructivism offers a different view of key concepts like power. Learning Objectives. 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. Cham: Springer. Ontological security in world politics: State identity and the security dilemma. INRODUCTION T O INTERNA TIONAL RELA TION THEO RIES 23/10/2018. While constructivism has made significant inroads into IR theorizing, it does not mean that it is unproblematic or immune from criticism.