The construction of social reality. INRODUCTION T O INTERNA TIONAL RELA TION THEO RIES 23/10/2018. Constructivists discuss questions of identity and belief. As Sandholtz (2008:101) puts it disputes about acts are at the heart of a process that continually modifies social rules. In his view, theories of cultures can not supplant theories of politics, and no casual theory of identity construction exists. Fierke, K. M., & Wiener, A. International relations and military sciences. European Journal of International Relations, 3(3), 319363. 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 first is endogenous contestation actors that accept a general norm and are constituted by it nevertheless have different understandings of it or operationalize its strictures differently, leading to disputes and change in the meaning of the norm from within. International Theory, 4(3), 449468. Some preexisting knowledge of speech act theory, constructivism, and securitization theory is useful before reading this chapter . Poststructuralism in international relations: An exploration of discourse and the military. The strange career of Constructivism in International Relations" en Puchala, Do . Kessler, O., & Steele, B. What if anarchy was not a given condition that ordered world politics? Part of Springer Nature. (It should be noted here that social constructivism is often seen as part of a broader set of theoretical approaches that are concerned with identity and discourses, such as ontological security and securitization. Cham: Springer. 1 2. introduction "the focus of social constructivism is on human awareness or consciousness and its place in world affairs. International Relations, 22(2), 243261. Critical methodology and constructivism. Chapter 4 Constructivism and Interpretive Theory CCRAIGPARSONS [A constructivist argument claims tear people do one thing and not anurher due co the presence of certain social construct ideas, belies, noms, idenies, or some other iterpreuire fer through which people perceive the wood. (2010). Moreover, the Geneva Convention is an example of both a regulative and a constitutive norm, in that it not only proscribes state behavior but established a new international normative order, creating expectations for international behavior. New York: Columbia University Press. Power is influenced by norms, ideas, and practices; in a constructivist reading, power depends on how it is used and what it means in the interaction of states. 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. Intersubjective facts like social norms only exist within a community of actors that accept them. 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. 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. Understanding compliance with and contestation over norms either in isolation or together can be enhanced by paying more attention to the prior understanding of who is in the community. In military exercises with other nations, states share practices and ideas and in doing so, learn from each other. 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.. The nuclear taboo is another example of a regulative norm (prescribing non-use), but it was also a constitutive norm (associating the taboo with the idea that civilized nations would not resort to using nuclear weapons) (Tannenwald 1999). forthcoming). 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). Likewise, culture plays a significant role in international security. Koschut, S. (2014). Self-identity and the IR state. Acharya (2004) goes further in that he allows for the substance of international norms to be molded to fit local contexts localization. (2018). The underlying idea of the logic of appropriateness that actors draw upon ideas about what they should do in specific situations given who they are was consistent with social constructivisms commitment to the causal and constitutive (Wendt 1998) effects of norms. The goal of most norms-oriented studies in the initial wave of empirical constructivist work was to explain something about how world politics functions. Security communities. Norms and identity in world politics (pp. As one notable example, Keohane (1988:392) critiqued this new perspective by arguing that the greatest weakness of the reflective school lies not in deficiencies in their critical arguments but in the lack of a clear reflective research program that could be employed by students of world politics. At the forefront of the initial empirical push in constructivist research were the norms-oriented and identity approaches. However, some scholars found the mode of action where actors consciously reason about what is appropriate to be a problematic foundation for constructivist thought. Norm-breaking behavior may be evident but is only problematic for constructivist arguments if norms are specific and static. But a constructivist reading of the Melian Dialogue (Lebow 2001) shows how ideas rather than material factors played a role in the decision of the Melians, even if the outcome was grim (Agius 2006). The shared understandings given to objects are referred to as inter-subjective meanings, which Adler explains as collective knowledge (1997). 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). / (social) constructivism [1] [ ] [2] John Dewey (1933/1998) is often cited as the philosophical founder of this approach. Studies of contestation and norm change have begun to examine diverse issues like organizational change in international financial institutions (Nielson, Tierney, and Weaver 2006; Chwieroth 2008); European integration (Meyer 2005; Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007; Dimitrakopoulos 2008); environment (Bailey 2008); election monitoring (Kelley 2008); and security (Kornprobst 2007). As shared objects, they appear as external to any particular actor actors experience norms, at least in part, as external rules. This has led the constructivist literature away from Keohanes (1988) original vision of a division of labor constructivists provide insight into what the interests are, rational approaches take the analysis from there (Legro 1996). London: Routledge. Gheciu, A. For example, norms can challenge practices and beliefs that are seen to be no longer fit for purpose. 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. Put simply, social norms were treated as independent variables explanations for varied behaviors observed in world politics. In A. M. Sookermany (Ed. This approach challenged the rationalism and positivism of neorealism and neoliberalism. 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. Even though it was opposed by the USA, which did not want to subject its military forces to external war crime trials, it is an example of a constitutive norm (which creates new actors, interests and categories of action (Bjrkdahl 2002, pp. In discursive terms, language can convey meaning and associations, and define what is considered within and outside the norms (see Poststructuralism in International Relations: Discourse and the Military by Baumann in this volume). On the learning literature more generally, see Levy , Jack , "Learning and Foreign Policy: Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield (Review Article)," International Organization 48 (Spring 1994 . Constructivism considers these interactions as a sociological process in which its agents and structures are centered in a reciprocal constitution; a part of society can not be understood without the other ones. 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. Security institutions as agents of socialization? 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. 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. Steele, B. - Ikechukwu Aloysius Orjinta - Google Books Sign in Try the new Google Books Books View sample Add to my library. Nordic strategic culture. This paper's argument begins by assuming that constructivism is a contested concept. They do not simply replace bad norms but become established through what Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) call a norm cycle where new ideas and shared understandings emerge, become instituted and normalized. Norms and identity in world politics. International relations require various perspectives to comprehend the complexity of the interactions that take place in the international sphere. Behavioral logics are concrete expressions of how mutual constitution works and what motivates actors to behave they way that they do. Realist international relations theory and the military. forthcoming). The identity of agents such as states matter because identity helps determine national interests. 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. Kurki, M., & Sinclair, A. Introduction. The norms (both established and potential) meaning, constitutive properties, and behavioral strictures remain unchanged throughout the analysis (Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007). This chapter will take the reader through the key ideas of social constructivism also referred to as constructivism in this chapter showing how norms, culture, and ideas about identity shape actors, condition their relations with each other, and can impact the so-called given nature of international relations and transform understandings of power relations. In the other mode, actors actively consider their normative context in an attempt to reason about the best (appropriate) course of action actors reasoning about social norms. ), Constructing international relations: The next generation (pp. Rather the controversies mainly focus on how far one can push one logic of action to account for observable practices and which logic dominates a given situation. 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. Treating norms as generic has been at the foundation of the recent shift towards the study of contestation. Social constructivism is well suited to address continuous changes in European integration. Fierke, K. M. (2001). 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. McCourt, D. (2016). Constructivism The international relations theory that suggests that people create their own reality, . Making sense, making worlds: Constructivism in social theory and international relations. As Luke Glanville illustrates, while there were favorable conditions to ensure a successful R2P intervention (Gadaffi had made clear threats that evoked calls for genocide, the League of Arab States wanted international action and Libya had few allies), [E]ven those states that refused to endorse the resort to military forcerecognized the weight of the imperative to protect Libyan civilianseven if they disagreed over the means with which to do so (2016, p. 193). Risse-Kappen, T. (1994). The literature that has followed this keystone research (e.g., Acharya 2004; Cortell and Davis 2005; Farrell 2005; Mastenbroek and Kaeding 2006; Kornprobst 2007; Capie 2008) moves beyond the boundaries of earlier socialization research, especially the tendency to focus on displacement of local/domestic ideas with international norms through transnational teaching (Finnemore 1996; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999) or to attribute norm diffusion to fit between global and local norms (Cortell and Davis 1996; Florini 1996). As political processes such as the 2008 economic crisis in Europe and Brexit show, theorising a polity. (1996). (2001). For philosopher John Searle, language played an equally significant role. The logic of arguing has inspired the development of significant empirical research (e.g., Muller 2004; Bjola 2005; Leiteritz 2005; Mitzen 2005) and it is the foundation for some approaches to reasoning about social norms (the logic of consequences is also implicated in approaches that consider that actors reason about norms). 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. ), The culture of national security: Norms and identity in world politics (pp. In A. M. Sookermany (Ed. 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. 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. Arguments over the different actions feed back and alter the meaning of the original norms. - Checkel (1998) argues that "without more sustained attention . Both of these critiques run afoul of constructivist logic yet are legitimate given how norms were conceptualized in the initial wave of empirical constructivist work. Presents a social constructivist reading of securitization theory that, besides the Copenhagen school, also includes other constructivist interpretations of security that draw on securitization and speech act theory. Schmidt, B. One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. A Social Constructivist Interpretation of the Liberal Argument," European Journal of International Relations 1 (December 1995)CrossRef Google Scholar. These dual visions of normative dynamics are likely related, but the norms literature has yet to describe how. 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 UK and the USA are part of NATO, so share alliance membership, but have also stood shoulder to shoulder in conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq in response to global terrorism, which both states understand to be an existential threat to their way of life. Meaning is socially constructed this epistemological claim suggests that depending on ones position and perspective, knowledge and meaning produce different interpretations (Guzzini 2005, p. 498). 3536). 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. Theo Farrell (2002, p. 50) explains this in the following way: where actors are great powers, the social structure is an international system that gives meaning to great power and recognizes this identity in particular practices, such as the use of force against smaller states; through such practices, states great and small in turn shape the international system. If the world is anarchic, Wendt argued, it is because states believe it to be so, and seek to secure themselves by the logic that anarchy produced. Glanville, L. (2016). Today's video is the third in our IR 101 series in which we discu. Kissinger's implicit embrace of constructivism might have been a thermonuclear detonation in the Great International Relations Theory Paradigm War of the 1980s and 1990s. Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. 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. Allen, J. These initial works laid the theoretical foundation for an approach to world politics that included the assumption that important aspects of politics are socially constructed, a commitment to mutual constitution as an answer to the agent-structure problem, a dedication to the importance of intersubjective reality in contrast to objective/subjective realities, and a focus on ideational and identity factors in analyses of world politics. Social Constructivism, especially after the 1980s, has become a common approach in dealing with and examining different issues in the field of humanities and social sciences. They are thus animated entities that strengthen, weaken, and evolve. (1999). Allowing the meaning of social norms to vary in the course of analysis can quickly devolve into an expository morass. Discourse has power because language can shape how we view phenomena simple acts such as defining a conflict as one of terrorism, for example, then calls into effect a range of policy options associated with countering terrorism. More info. 6667). He considers that existing norms constrain the possibilities for action, but that different understandings of those norms inevitably arise in the community of norm acceptors. (1996). If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. Critical constructivists prefer to examine state identity in terms of its wider story (Fierke and Jrgensen 2001). This pivot is an interesting development in norms research for two reasons. 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. As Onuf states: Constructivism holds that people make society, and society makes people. forthcoming). 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). Baylis revision International Relations. Weber, C. (1999). 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." Norm contestation during the US War on Terror. Does R2P matter? They are both based on philosophical views. About us. Instead, practices are the result of inarticulate, practical knowledge that makes what is done appear self-evident or commensenical.. How are self-understandings and identity constituted in the international realm? Christine Agius . Tactical constructivism, method, and international relations. 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. They consider that actors can stand outside a normative structure to consider options. Social Constructivism Summary Notes. Early empirical studies of social norms tended to consider social norms as static and relatively specific social facts. Altmetric. Mlksoo, M. (2018). Anarchy is not a given of the international system. Rather it seeks to explore how the current reality evolved (Farrell 2002, p. 59). 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. 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. The Washington Quarterly, 41(3), 89109. This logic fitted well with the commitment to mutual constitution (the notion of what is appropriate for different identities is socially constructed) and it also laid the groundwork for the norms-based challenge to strictly material explanations of world politics. Realists have traditionally seen neutral states as weak and small, responding only to the external anarchic realm (Agius 2006). A similar concern motivated Risse (2000) to draw on Habermass work with communicative action and propose a new behavioral logic that would inject agency and more purposive reflection into the process of social construction. 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. The norms-oriented work that followed this initial burst of activity in the 2000s built upon the success that was achieved, but also changed the trajectory of research on social norms in world politics to include broader notions of norm dynamics. Culture can refer to symbolic or evaluative standards that guide relations and provide meaning. To dig deeper into what makes an agent or what structures global politics, constructivists look to norms and culture to make sense of what represents or guides behavior and how ideas of self inform that. Agius, C. (2022). 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