Constructivism summary lecture notes PDF

Preview

Summary

Summary notes - Lecturer Oz Hassan...

Description

Rbc John Gerard Ruggie ‘neoclassical’, ‘postmodernist’ and ‘naturalistic’ (1998: 35-6). Katzenstein, Keohane and Krasner there is ‘conventional’, ‘critical’ and ‘postmodern’ (1998: 675-8). Christian Reus-Smit (2005) constructivism has evolved into ‘systemic’, ‘unit-level’ and ‘holistic’ variants. Emanuel Adler (1997: 335-6) originally settled on cleavages between ‘modernist’, ‘rule-based’, ‘narrative knowing’ and ‘postmodernist’, but then altered the boundaries to ‘modernist’, ‘modernist linguistic’, ‘Critical’ and ‘Radical’ (2005: 95-8). ‘Wendt-ian’, ‘Kratochwil-ian’ and ‘Onuf-ian’ constructivism (Zehfuss 2002). The list of possible adjectives that could be applied to constructivist approaches does appear to be dizzyingly endless along a spectrum of ‘thick’ to ‘thin’. Complex spectrum of contructivsm that ultimatel rely in social divides Context of Emergence End of Cold War. Perceived poverty of Neo-Realism ● Came from deficits of neo realism - does not take in complexity of real world New theoretical openings. Different generation of scholars.

Philosophical influences Wittgenstein, Searle Berger and Luckmann Nicholas Onuf (onuf-ian) Constructivism is a theoretical stance whose name points up its central and distinctive claim. Social relations make people social beings; people as social beings make up a whole world, and not just a world of meaning, out of their social relation … The most obvious implication is that scholars (people, relations) always begin in the middle. Context is unavoidable. So are beginnings … I began with the process whereby we (as people, scholars) make the world and the world makes us. We basically have strucutre and agency, material and ideas, issues around continuity and change, and we have to face this on a daily basis at the same time.

As we do our analysis, we have to make analltyical chices of where to start, we don't have the language to capture these complicated processes. CONSTRUCTIVISM CORE: ● Agents and structures are mutually constitutive ○ The structure and the strategy work hand in hand and reinforce each other ○ Agents strategiese and the strategies becomes an important part of how international relations are understood ○ Strategy allows us to pursue our goals and make the wolrd better ● Global politics is a social realm in which interaction is important; ○ Social interatics ○ Social constuctivsm ○ Indivudals agencies are brough back into analysis ● State interests are the product of material and non-material factors (eg norms; history and identity; intersubjective interaction); ○ We need to open up the state, see that foriegn policy actors are doing to see what is going on ● Change is possible in global politics, even if difficult; ● Security is a social construction: security’s meaning is formed through interaction. Contestation and negotiation central. ○ Concepts like seciryt and national interest is made by us. ○ We do things because others to other things and we respond to that ○ Contestation and negotaioan is central to the way constructivists do their analysis ● The ‘stuff’ of international politics is made not given: it is "socially constructed" through intersubjective interaction. ● Nothing is natural or inevitable about states or the states-system. ○ There is nothing inevtiable about war or peace, its us that creates these concepts in the world we live in ● ‘Anarchy’ does not determine the outcome of states’ behaviour. ○ Sense of anarchy is what states make of it (quote), ● Ideas, norms, identities, interests just as important as ‘material’ capabilities of states. ● Social phenomena do not exist outside human meaning and social interaction. Identity and interest formation Actors in international politics do not have pre-given identities and interests. Identities and interests shaped through interaction. Uk has good indenty so if they have nuclean weapons its fine, North korea, not fine. Processes of interaction Actors make choices in the process of interacting with others bringing historically, culturally and politically distinct ‘realities’ into being.

US contructing its own identy as well as identity of terrorists after 9/11. In order to legitmise actions, identies are constructive. Social dimensions Importance of non-material structures. We need to understand the non-material part of the world ( ideas and identity) Role of norms, language and how ideas construct different possibilities and outcomes in international politics. - very differerent to realism and neo-realism Social dimensins becomes important, Ideas - also have multiple perspectives and changing over contexts, there is no single reality that we have to understand, its a lot more complex then, we need to undersnat the motivations behind actors. Can Social Constructivism provide a bridge between traditional and critical approaches to IR? Contructivism can sit between postivism and post-postivism Positivism = a particular way of understanding and organising our knowledge of the world (one associated with the scientific method). 1970s onwards: post-positivist turn in social/political thought (Fleck, Polanyi, Feyerabend).

Post -positivsm = Perspectivism Shift to analyse underlying epistemological, ontological, and axiological assumptions. We can never escape these assumptions: always reflect a particular perspective. Awareness of importance of starting points. Has some form of Relativism. Undermines notions of ‘Truth’ and ‘objectivity’. Everything is relative to everything else, there is not proper truth, it depends on you and context Undermines importance of a ‘scientific consensus’. - things can be boiled down and similified in terms of regularised pattern We cant escape these assumptions, they are always part of who we are

Postivism vs post postivism volutionary causal laws’ 2nd Great Debate. Belief in unity of the sciences.

Distinction between facts and values. Social world characterised by regularities. Replicable testing of validity.

‘Post-positivist debate’ in IR (Lapid calls it the 3rd Great Debate; really 4th?) 1) Realist-Idealist debate 2) Realist-Interpretivist (behaviourist) 3) Interparadigm debate - Realism, liberal institutionalism, structural marxism 4) Positivist- Post-positivist debate THROUGH THESE 4 , you get a sense of the debates going on right noe How applicaple are the sciences to the IR. how we form an idea on that is how constructivsm fits in

Different from inter-paradigm debate: How applicable is "science" to IR? 1980s – proliferation of post-positivist perspectives: Standpoint feminism Postmodernism/poststructuralism Postcolonial perspectives Constitutive approach to theorising. Truth claims can never be grounded. No ‘neutral’ perspective on international relations. Contstructivsn side debtqate: A ‘via media’ ‘Seized the middle ground’ (we can talk about the world in a not too subjective or objective way) ‘Bridge between positivism and postpositivism’ Potentially huge implications for IR theory.

Alexander Wendt (social theory of IR) ‘Anarchy is what states make of it’ (1992) and Social Theory of International Politics (1999). Agrees with Neo-Realists about the centrality of principle of anarchy. BUT – anarchy is not a trans-historical given and does not pre-determine outcomes. States’ interactions determine the effects of anarchical conditions. ‘Thin’ constructivism. Anarchy odesnt do what neo-realists say it does. Angents have different ideas ( tries to combine postivsm and post postivism)

Friedrich Kratochwil and Nicholas Onuf ‘Thick’ constructivism. Role of language not sufficiently emphasised in Wendt’s constructivism. Language doesn’t mirror action in international politics; it constitutes action. Repetition of speech acts produces norms that define identities, interests and behaviour. “I DO”!!! =makes you married, nothing has changed outside but just the langauge and contstituted the event. We then have other instituions that make it further real. We contitute a process of it. And that constructs norms. By saying someting you bring it into being. We make the world in the way we talk. Eg. we descibe the terrorists as well which created and contitues their identity as evil.

Criticsm and questions; Thin contructive) State is still seen as the most important actor in international politics. Narrow definition of ‘identity’ and ‘interest’. We treat the state as a person. More complex that realism but doesnt open up as much. Positivism and post-positivism rely on mutually exclusive assumptions. Is Wendt ultimately a positivist? Contructivsm is trying to be in post-positivsm and positivsm as then the arguments conflict each ohter.

(Thicker) Does constructivism go far enough? Violence; Exclusions; Normative dimensions.

Attacked by positivists for being too complex and not scientific; and post-positivists for being too parsimonious and giving too much ground.

Interventionss in hisoty; US in iraq war Yoguslasvia Syria: humantirian interventiona

Video notes

Social institutions and beliefs have no reality outside of out subjective undeerstanding of them yet presetn them selves as they are an objective par tof reality and in many ways do a funtion for individuals as if they were given objectively given yet they only persist due to common beliefs about them Anarchy is socialy construutre - only exists by ivirtue intersubujective norm by approiating sourruonding soveritny The cuture of anarchy, the intersubjective meaning and norms associated with any given international system might profoundly shape political behaviour within that system Indenity and how roles play out deterime the form of anarchy Realism does contain a role differention aspectp States are different by their indentities

Social contruction of power polticis Approach to anraachy via raitonalist theory aka neo relaism and neo liberal Anarachy is construcutrd Anarchy doens’t have to be a power politics sysstem - why states act towards all actors based on their menaing/realtionship they have USSR - end of colrd war Realtinship between US and USSR changed because their meanings for eachother changes and hence anarchy changes Anarchy was ceated due to the way states interact with themselvs

International Relations Thoeries Disclipline adn diversity 4th ed notes: 161 ● International realtions is a social construction, emerged from critique of more traditonal IR theories

162 ● The failure of OR scholars to predict or initially explain the end of the cold war on the basis of thedominant thoeries of IR, reingorced the importance of these questions. ● Contstrutivists, broadly defined, have shared a critique of the static material assumptions of traditional IR theory. They have emphasized that social dimestions of intrnational realtions and the possibility of change ● Reality is socially constructed THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY ● International realtions is a social construction ● To construct something is an act that brings the being a subject, or object that otherwise would not exist ● Wood exists in nature but tables, paper do not exist in nature, they are brought into existence by the acts of human creating ● Once construcuted, each of these objects has a particular meaning and use within a context 163 ● These objects are social construcutes so far as their shape and form is permeated with social values, norms, and assumptions rather than being the product of purely individual thought or meaning. ● Similary, states - that is collective subjects of IR- may build on the basic material of human nature but they take specific hisotircal, cultural and political forms that are a produce of human interatcion in the social world. ● Social construcution suggests different across context rather than a single objective reality. ● Contructiviss have sought to explain and understand change at the international level ● Traditional IR thoeries have ofted assumes the sameness of states ● The dramatic end of cold war and in its aftermath revealed the imporance of hisotrical context and raised questions about the transition from conflict to coperation or from peace to war. ● Social dimestions of IR ○ Importance of norms, rules, and language ● Created in responde to realisms failure to explain the end of cold war ● Based on analysis of how material and ideational factors combine in the construction of different possibilies and outcomes ● International politics is “a world of out making”(onuf 1989) ● In response to te over dermination of strucure in neo realist and neo liberal theory, construtivits introduced the possibility of agency and have emphasized proccesses of interaction. ● International realtions exists dependent on human meaning and action ● States and other actors do not merely react as rational individuals but interact in a meaningful world.

● The central themes of change, sociality and proccess of interaction point to the added value of conructuvism within a field hat has emphasized generalization across time materiality and rational choice. CONSTRUCTIVISM AND RATIONALISM 164 SOCIAL BEING ( NATURE OF BEING) ● Ontology: types of objects the world is composed of ● Rationalist thoeries of IR : basic unit of analysos is the indivdiaul (whether human or state) ● Neorealist theory treat states as if they are individuals who try to maximise their ultimate aim of survival. Neorealists such as Kenneth Waltz (1979) present individual states as the prior condition for a structure of anarchy which then constrains their character and behavior ● Multiple states acting in self-interest … would be suicide ● Neoliberals such as goldstein and Keohane(1993) focus on the role of ideas, contain a similar tension between individual and social. ● Idias are treates as casual factors that are exchanged by full formed individuals. ● Ruggie (1998:866) : individuals..are not born into any system of socuial relationships that helps shape who they became. WHen we first encounter them, they are already fully constituted and posed in a problem solving mode ● Questioned the individualist ontology of rationalism and emphasize instead a social ontology. ● Individuals and states cannot be seperated from a context of normative meaning which shapes who they are and the possibilities available to them. ● The prior condition for recognizing sovereignty of an individual states is a shared understanding and acceptance of the concept of it ● Rationalist: strucutre is a function of competition and distribution of material capabilites. Strucutures first and foremeost constrain the states. ● Constructivists: focus more on the norms and shared understanding of legitimate action, although material factors also play a role ○ Strutures not only constrain, they aslo consttitue the identity of actors ● The subejct of constructivism are guided by the logic of appropriatness ● What is rational is a function of legimacy, defined by shared values and nomrs within institutions or other social structures thater than prerly individual interests. ● Ole javob sending (2002:449): the self, in this logic, becomes social through acquiring and fulilling an institutional identity. 165 ● In this respect norms not aonly contrain behavriou, they constitute the identities of actors. ● Human rights are a constitutive feature of liberal democratic states and at international level, the identity of legitimate states MUTUAL CONSTITUTION

● A social structure leaves more space for agency, that is for the idnividual or state to influence their environment, as well as be influenced by it. - alexander went’s article on anarchy captures this ● It is not states in anarchy can, on a whim, change their circumstances. Rather relationships evolve over time. They are not characterizes, across board, by enmity and egoism. ● The USA and great britain have evolved as friends while other states enimies ● Many states in EU were former enimies who have learned to cooperate. ● Relatinships are product of hisotrical process and internations over time ● Wendt (1992, 404-5) illustrates this in his example of alter and ego. They meet for first time, through series of gestures , determine whether the other is hostile or freindly ● Each excercises an element of choice and thus, agency, in how this realtionship developd. ● They both coexist in a social relationship and their choices are partially dependent on the response of the other. ● Constructivits focus on the constitutive role of norms and shared understandings as well as the relationship between agency and strucuture. ● The subjects of international politics are not uniformally and unversiallyy rational egoists but have distinct indentities in which they are embedded. ● The subjects are not static but ever-evolving as they intereact with each other and their environemnt SOCIAL FACTS ● Rationalists assume a static world of asocial egoiists who are primarily concerned wtih matieral interests. ● While constructivits would not deny the importance of interets, they would tie...