Further, constructivists became more cautious about basing their analyses on the logic of appropriateness. What does it derive its name from (it's fundamental proposition)? Holding social norms relatively constant in order to do this was deemed an acceptable trade-off. This had some success. Manchester: Manchester University Press. All of this came about through processes of socialization and persuasion, where interested groups such as NGOs, epistemic communities, and other actors not only successfully changed the norm around the treatment of civilians and combatants in warfare but instigated this norm as part of identity, and how states define right behavior. Considering other factors to explain why states behave the way they do. Pouliot (2008:259) argues that most of what people do in world politics, as in any other social field, does not derive from conscious deliberation or thoughtful reflection. 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. In A. M. Sookermany (Ed. Wendt, A. (2021). Even so, more recently there has been some rejection of the ICC by a few African states, signaling that some states are unwilling to accept its authority. Our assessments, publications and research spread knowledge, spark enquiry and aid understanding around the world. In: Sookermany, A.M. (eds) Handbook of Military Sciences. Introduction: Ideational AlliesPsychology, Constructivism, and International Relations . Handbook of Military Sciences pp 116Cite as, 2 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. And while the focus on norms is important, there is an overwhelming tendency to examine good norms theres often the assumption that norms are good or ethical without critically analyzing what makes them good and what they mean for international change (Erskine 2012; Kowert and Legro 1996). Although the theory lies more on non-material factors that govern states, it explains that politics also plays a role in 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. 23) and recognized as a medium of exchange for goods and services. (2017). Philosophy of military sciences. European Journal of International Relations, 3(3), 319363. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Making sense, making worlds: Constructivism in social theory and international relations. Yet this dominant view of international relations was significantly challenged by Alexander Wendt in the early 1990s with the simple premise: anarchy is what states make of it (Wendt 1992, pp. International Relations, 22(2), 243261. (2) Socialization how an extant norm or a nascent norm from one community diffuses and is internalized by actors outside that community. Security communities. In his view, theories of cultures can not supplant theories of politics, and no casual theory of identity construction exists. What if anarchy was not a given condition that ordered world politics? (Eds.). (1999). For constructivists, a focus on identity makes it possible to consider more deeply how domestic factors, ideas, discourses, cultures, and norms shape the interests of states and the choices states make. 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. 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 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). Social Constructivist International Relations and the Military. 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. In M. Evangelista & N. Tannenwald (Eds. Some constructivists stress reflection and consider that agents are able to reason about the various pulls on their possible behavior (either solely normative/ideational pulls or those in addition to material/strategic pulls). If any further proof were needed for the continuing rise to fame of constructivism in International Relations, this would be it . This is a different way to think about and imagine the international realm beyond the narrow confines of rationalist power prescriptions. Thucydides. (2016). By the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, constructivists were engaging with both the small number of big important things that Waltz (1986:329, cited in Finnemore 1996:1) famously claimed for structural realism and the large number of big important things that other approaches ignored (Finnemore 1996:1). The causes of the Iraq war. 1 2. introduction "the focus of social constructivism is on human awareness or consciousness and its place in world affairs. However, when defined as ideas or expectations about appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998:891), it became an ideal conceptual tool for operationalizing processes of social construction. Along with recent work on strategic social construction the idea that norms can be deployed in the service of interests (regardless of whether those interests are pre-given or socially constructed themselves) or at least shape strategic behavior (e.g., Barnett and Coleman 2004; Muller 2004; Nielson, Tierney, and Weaver 2006; Seabrooke 2006) the recent writing on compliance has made progress on questions left open by the initial wave of empirical norms research. In 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. Ideals that were really never in our possession: Torture, honor and US identity. Realists have traditionally seen neutral states as weak and small, responding only to the external anarchic realm (Agius 2006). 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). (pp. 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 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. Not all states interpret power in the material or hierarchical sense. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-saddam-idUSTRE56113O20090702. 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. In eliciting conformance and stabilizing expectations norms do not and cannot define all possible behavior, especially when a norm first emerges. 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. In essence, these scholars and those who draw upon their work consider that much of behavior in world politics arises from ingrained, unconscious motivations either habits or practices that drive precognitive behavior. (Ed.). This suggests that there is something beyond the timeless wisdom of realism that offers only a tragic view of world politics that will never change. Social constructivism primarily seeks to demonstrate how the core aspects of the international relations are contrary to the assumptions of Neorealism and Neoliberalism within the frame of social construction, taking up forms of ongoing processes of social practice and interaction. 5. 219227). However, this focus did little to advance understanding of how norms themselves change without necessarily being replaced (Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007; Hoffmann 2005; Chwieroth 2008; Sandholtz 2008). The constructivist focus on norms is important for understanding teleological aspects of its idea of international relations that ideas can change world politics (Hopf 1998). European Security, 27(3), 374392. The goal was to show how a target behavior can be accounted by considering the ideational context, how ideas and norms constitute interests, or how social norms influence actors understandings of the material world. International Organization, 53(3), 433468. Zehfuss, M. (2002). Constructivism is a structural theory of the international system that makes the following core claims: (1) states are the principal units of analysis for international political theory; (2) the key structures in the states system are intersubjective rather than material; and. Ontological security in world politics: State identity and the security dilemma. Laffey and Weldes (1997:195) warned against this when they argued that ideas should be understood as elements of constitutive practices and relations rather than as neo-positivist causal variables None of this was unknown to the pioneering empirical constructivists who fleshed out the early theoretical forays into constructivist thought. The translation requires interpretation a subjective understanding of the intersubjective context to decide on a behavior. Contestation over variants of universal participation then had significant impact on the evolution of the universal participation norm and climate governance outcomes. During the First World War, Belgium, driven by a sense of honor, chose to fight Germany even though the Belgians risked and experienced catastrophic consequences (Steele 2008b). Having made the case that norms matter and having developed a number of theoretical frameworks to show how norms emerge, spread, and influence behavior, normsoriented constructivists have begun to turn their attention to a new set of questions. By Fizza Hameed Khan, Mahnoor Iqbal, Malaika Shahbaz, Sidra Noor, Raniya Ishtiaq. Constructivism has provided a broader approach to understanding international relations and security beyond rationalist frameworks. About us. Even among security communities such as the Nordic states, different strategic cultures can be found because they are informed by a range of historical and cultural experiences, with different experiences of war and conflict, membership of alliances, and other factors (see special issues of Cooperation and Conflict (2005) and Global Affairs (2018) for further discussions). Risses (2000) and Sendings (2002) critiques focus on the taken-for-granted mode of action implied the logic of appropriateness. New York: Columbia University Press. (1996). 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. (2019), and Kessler and Steele (2016) for recent advanced debates.) International Studies Review, 4(1), 4972. After making the case that norms matter and developing a number of theoretical frameworks to show how norms emerge, spread, and influence behavior, norms-oriented constructivists have shifted their attention to a new set of questions, and in particular compliance with the strictures of social norms and change in norms themselves. We dont do that: A constructivist perspective on the use and non-use of private military contractors by Denmark. 394395). More info. Adler, E., & Barnett, M. Cham: Springer. This is a continuous, two-way process (2013, p. 4). 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. Recent studies have taken the generic nature of norms more seriously and have subsequently focused on how actors must operationalize their normative context to take specific actions (Hoffmann 2005; Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007; Sandholtz 2008). Two have become particularly prominent compliance with the strictures of social norms and change in norms themselves. 451497). This freezing of norms tended to make them independent from politics as variables in political behavior. The Athenians demand that neutral Melos side with them against Sparta. Constructivisms key influences come from sociological and philosophical perspectives on the nature of reality and phenomena, which brings knowledge, language, and social relations to the fore. The inescapable tension between general rules and specific actions ceaselessly casts up disputes which in turn generate arguments, which then reshape both rules and conduct. The logical chain from general norms to contestation is not long. 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. ), Handbook of military sciences (pp. 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. Social Constructivism sees the whole discipline of International Relations as a social construction. Steele, B. London: Routledge. Constructivists hold that . Constructivists argue that international life is social, resulting from the ways people interact with each other (i.e. How militaries assess and interpret threat can be related to culture, intersubjective meanings, and social networks and understandings. As Tannenwald says, [e]ven as states pursue their interests, they do so within a normative structure (2017, p. 17). The culture of national security. Denmark exhibits of soft form of neoliberalism compared to that of the USA or UK, affecting views of the role of the market in terms of outsourcing security; moreover, Denmark has hard commitments to international humanitarian law which is likely to have tempered direct engagement of PMSCs (2019, pp. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to adequately cover these approaches, the Baumann chapter in this volumediscusses securitization; for works on ontological security that speak to international security and aspects of the military, see Mitzen (2006), Krahmann (2018), and Mlksoo (2018).) Adler, E. (1997). 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. 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. Yet Saddam did not want to appear weak to enemies such as Iran (Allen 2009). Constructivists are certainly aware that actual behavior in world politics fails to correlate exactly to what are in essence ideal typical models of behavior. Birdsall, A. As Farrell tells us, liberals and realists do not agree on what prevents war is it democracy (as liberals would contend?) 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. 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). Constructing institutional interests: EU and NATO enlargement. Table of Contents; Introduction to Social Constructivism: Rise of Social Constructivism in IR: Constructivism as social theory: Constructivist theories of International Relations: In other words, actors can never significantly remove themselves from their social structure to make independent judgments. First, norms are relatively stable if they were not, it would be hard to justify or observe this analytic category. The article argues that constructivism suffers from the same limitations as any other paradigm in IR, therefore, there is no reason to exclude this theory from forecasting effort. Ideas about whether actors reason about norms or through norms can be linked to behavioral logics, which provide conceptions of how actors and norms are linked. 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. Hopf, T. (1998). 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. Wendt, A. Ideas about whether actors reason about norms or through norms can be linked to underlying behavioral logics that constructivists have devised and developed since the inception of the approach. At the same time, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) had successfully pushed for the UN to adopt the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2020. Second, at a broader level, the current norms literature is wrestling with the relationship between intersubjective and subjective reality. Critical constructivists would seek to include different identities in how they understand the nation and present a more complex picture of what identity means and how it is contested and can be deconstructed (Fierke 2001). This criticism over methodology, it should be noted, does not wholly apply to the conventional strand of constructivism, which Wendt says can employ positivist scientific methods to verify or falsify claims (Wendt 1999); for example, to know something about a states military culture, one could look to opinion polls, regulations, training manuals, and the curricula at military academies that can provide data or information about how ideas and norms inform approaches to military organization and culture (Farrell 2002, pp. PubMedGoogle Scholar. A paradox of social norms is their dual quality. Treating social norms as fully formed, static constructs, even for analytic convenience, underplayed this dynamism. Cham: Springer responding only to the external anarchic realm ( Agius 2006 ) the material or hierarchical.. All states interpret power in the material or hierarchical sense exactly to are. Governance outcomes as a medium of exchange for goods and services as a medium exchange... 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