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Explain the merits and disadvantages of a particular security studies approach. Constructivism

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Constructivism theories have provided both distinctive and theoretical explanations for the understanding of global politics. Nicholas Onuf and Alexander Wendt are well known theorists behind constructivism and it has often been associated with the end of the Cold War. The increase of a constructivism’s theoretical approach has emerged towards the end of the 1980s. The foundation of constructivism favours social analysis which is constructed on the subsequent assumptions: human interaction by ideational material factors and intersubjective beliefs which are shared as a collective understanding. The actors’ interests and identities are built from these beliefs (Jung 2019, p. 2).

Constructivism is a successful theory to understand international relations. Arguments will be presented which distinguish both the strengths and weaknesses of the approach and the Copenhagen Schools production of securitisation and desecuritisation. The success of constructivism is due to the challenge it poses to dominant realists and theoretical liberal paradigms. Therefore, it will be argued that constructivist reject one-sided material and argue that the social aspect is the most important function throughout international relations.

It argues that the mainstream approaches to international relations have not put enough importance on the position of ideas, discourse and identities in understanding the political performance of its actors. The aim of constructivism is to demonstrate that the three key components are: idea, identities and discourse, which are required in the heartland of international relations and security studies. Constructivism perceives the world through the nature of ontology and epistemology and it can be used to explain anarchy. Alexander Wendt claims that anarchy is what states make of it and follows a constructivist approach when making criticism towards state -centric styles, such as regime theory and neo-realism. Based on these approaches it takes the identity and interests of the states as a given, such as the

previous relationships to the process of state communications (Maslow & Nakamura 2008, p. 134).

Therefore, this provides an understanding of interest, identities and the transformation of structural change which is almost impossible. Both John Ruggie and Friedrich Kratochwil make note that the intersubjective quality of convergent anticipations are the basis of regimes which is not accessible to approaches that treat ideas as added variables. However, if constructivism insights and methods were incorporated this would provide an explanation (Bieler 2001, p. 96).

Constructivist approaches have been effective in this field due to its central focus on the social content within the construction of state interest, including international relations. For example, constructivists argue that the hostile relationship between North Korean missiles and the political actors of the United States is evident that political elites acknowledge that there is a social relationship between the military resources of other countries and America. The social relationship is based on the interaction between the countries, rather than the actual resources. The national interest of America cannot be ascertained or pursued without considering that social relationships are not permanent (Hurd 2008, p. 302).

Constructivism provides strengths when offering an account for the identity of politics. It provides an understanding of how ethnicity, religion, race, nationalism, gender and sexuality all have an accountability within frame work of global politics. It approaches these issues because they are essential to generate an understanding of the social phenomena. Constructivism argues that identities are part of the constitutive practices of the state. Therefore, productive of its actions both overseas and domestic. There has been an important

development of this issue regarding identity politics and the return of differences among the states. The identity within states will set the behaviour towards other states (Hopf 1998, p. 193).

A number of mainstream theories have failed to account for issues and concepts within the field of international relations. Constructivism explains actions that have occurred throughout the social world. It argues that it is not solely just the distribution of wealth, geographical conditions and material power which explains the behaviour of the state, but also the norms, identities and ideas. With the central focus on ideational factors, it is evident that reality is subject to change (McGlinchey, Walters & Scheinpflug 2017, p. 41).

Neoliberal scholars argue that within constructivism it presents weaknesses. They argue that constructivists have dedicated too much towards the questions of ontology and constitution, and in return, not contributed enough time towards the empirical and casual questions of how interest and identities are formed by practice in archaic conditions. Therefore, constructivists have not incorporated neoliberal insights into social cognition and learning (Wendt 1992, p. 425). Another weakness within constructivism is the lack of analysis conducted by scholars. A lack of analysis for states facing issues in an anarchic system as well as a poorly-defined argument for why there is a rise and fall of discourse. The problem is uncertainty and this is significantly amplified by the fact of deception (Copeland 2000, p. 202).

It is argued that the constructivism approach has significantly failed to account for how norms are established, identities are formed and how interests are shaped, these norms are both evil and revolutionary. However, in some sense, the approach of constructivism can be argued that it is not a functional theory of global politics, but a social theory which makes

statements about the nature of social change and social life. This oversight has resulted in one of the strongest arguments put forth against materialist claims, the two most destructive states of the twentieth century: Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union and without an understanding of these norms, ideas and identities held by powerful elites. The aspiration behind these political elites was the desire to rebuild their own societies and then the world (Jervis 1998, p. 974).

Other weaknesses within the constructivism approach include the lack of attention to research design. The majority of empirical studies investigates single issues or countries. However, if longitudinal or cross-national designs would assist in minimising the problem of overdetermination that is present in constructivists studies, where norms and social structures are entrenched as a casual variable, with minimal insight provided on how they explain the outcome. Scholars of constructivism should provide equivalent time to the negative aspects within international politics that are built on a social relationship.

Recently, there has been a tendency in scholarly work to only consider ethically acceptable norms, such as those establishing a stigma for the use of chemical or nuclear weapons, those in particular which assisted in ending the cold war. Future work should address this problem, by doing so it will protect academics from being classified from theoretical opponents as peaceniks. This will also result in applying their attention to crucially ignored issues such as the role of social construction in war and ethnic conflict (Checkel 1998, p. 339).

The Copenhagen School was responsible for the construction of securitisation and desecuritisation, in particular by Barry Buzan and Ole Weaver (Hansen 2012, p. 526).

The establishment of securitisation has been productive towards the study of security. It has categorised state security into different divisions (political, military, economic, societal and ecological). There are three defining features to establish when a threat becomes a breach of national security: the particular kind of threat, how the state perceives the threat and the intensity of how the threat operates. It is common for political elites to use the word ‘war’ such as the war on drugs to assist in having the issue securitised.

It is a political process for a successful securitisation, but the required politics for the acceptance are left drastically under-determined by this model. For an issue to become securitised it has to gain enough of a supporting audience and platform through speech and media so it can legitimately deploy emergency measures. The Copenhagen School allow their model for consideration of the contextual, external, authorised speakers and social roles of the speech act and under certain conditions (Salter 2008, p. 323).

Desecuritisation is solely issue dependent rather than static. Both internal and external requirements for securitization work the same way for the procedure of desecuritisation. The actor proposes that there is not a threat and that the threat can be appropriately managed within normal politics. Within different settings the successful desecuritisation functions differently. It is the expectation amongst security experts to interfere in the desecuritisation course and acquire the information of the conditions for failure and success. The experts have a powerful voice in preaching security and as a result implements a speech act, this speech act is deemed successful if the issue raised becomes recognised as a state security problem and changes the discourse for policy making (Salter 2008, p. 324).

Constructivism has emerged from the Copenhagen School and it has shown to be a promising theory when used in international relations. It is the idea of securitisation and de securitisation which examines how powerful political actors can influence or intervene future policies by the use of speech acts. A constructivist approach has strengths which include providing distinct advantages over other theoretical approaches due to its analysis of national interest: it has been successful in this area due to the focus mainly being around social content and the production of state interest. It also has significant strengths when accounting for the identity of politics. It provides an explanation of how religion, race, gender and sexuality play a part of global politics. Through the approach of a constructivist, it provides distinct advantages over other cognitive approaches when assessing the national interest which has always been at the centre of foreign-policy analysis and international relations.

Weaknesses within constructivism show that it does not account for how norms are established, identities are formed and how interests are shaped within the states. Neoliberal scholars have argued that constructivism has devoted too much time towards the queries of constitution and ontology but not enough effort towards the empirical and casual enquiries of how identities are formed by practices within anarchic environments. Thus, constructivism does not incorporate neoliberal insights into learning and social cognition.

Reference

Bieler, A 2001, ‘Questioning Cognitivism and Constructivism in IR Theory: Reflections on the Material Structure of Ideas’, Politics, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 93-100.

Checkel, J 1998, ‘The Constructivist Turn in International Relations Theory’, World Politics, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 324-348.

Copeland, D 2000, ‘The Constructivist Challenge to Structural Realism’, International Security, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 187-212.

Hansen, L 2012, ‘Reconstructing desecuritisation: the normative-political in the Copenhagen School and directions for how to apply it’, Review of International Studies, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 525-546.

Hopf, T 2020, ‘The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory’, International Security, vol. 23. No.1, pp. 171-200.

Jervis, R 1998, ‘Realism in the Study of World Politics’, International Organization, vol. 52, no. 4, pp. 971-991.

Jung, H 2019, ‘The Evolution of Social Constructivism in Political Science: Past to Present’, SAGE Open, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 1-10.

Maslow, S & Nakamura, A 2008, ‘Constructivism and Ecological Thought: A Critical Discussion on the Prospects for a ‘Greening’ of IR Theory’, Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 133-144.

McGlinchey, S, Walters, R & Scheinpflug, C 2017, International Relations Theory, 1st edn, E-International Relations, Open Textbook Library.

Salter, M 2008, ‘Securitization and desecuritization: a dramaturgical analysis of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority,’ Journal of International Relations and Development, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 321 – 349.

Wendt, A 1992, ‘Anarchy is what States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics’, International Organization, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 391-425....