Constructivists interested in norm change have recently begun reconceiving norm dynamics in a different way and have focused on contestation within communities of norm acceptors. 5. Cortell and Davis (2005) still invoke fit or congruence between the local context and global norms in explaining compliance with an international norm, but their twists on this theme are: (1) to examine socialization of a powerful actor Japan; and (2) to conceive of fit not as a given, but rather the result of conscious domestic political activity. forthcoming). Wendt, A. Constructivist ideas are present when attention is turned to alliances and security communities. According to this approach, the behaviour of humans is determined by their identity, which itself is shaped by society's values, history, practices, and institutions. Realists have traditionally seen neutral states as weak and small, responding only to the external anarchic realm (Agius 2006). We unlock the potential of millions of people worldwide. Second, at a broader level, the current norms literature is wrestling with the relationship between intersubjective and subjective reality. Table of Contents; Introduction to Social Constructivism: Rise of Social Constructivism in IR: Constructivism as social theory: Constructivist theories of International Relations: 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. This approach challenged the rationalism and positivism of neorealism and neoliberalism. The Pacific Review, 28(1), 122. Alexander Wendt's Social Theory of International Politics has been predicted to gain a status similar to that which Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics is thought to have enjoyed in the 1980s. It stresses the social dimensions of International relations. Finnemore, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Third, rather than see international relations as an anarchic realm where the lack of a central authority above states guarantees security, constructivism makes the claim that agents and structures are mutually constituted or shaped by each other. Constructivists also emphasize how domestic norms and values play a role in how states and their militaries approach conflict or understand the causes of conflict. First, the compliance and norm change research agenda (loosely defined) is more internally focused than the previous wave of norms-oriented research. Identities are also constructed. Download. This realization was part of what prompted the serious focus on domestic political/normative contexts in much of this literature. Constructivism demonstrates the flexibility and critical stance that characterizes the reflectivist theories by stressing the socially constructed aspect of international realities and highlighting the ever-changing nature of the study of International Relations. Instead social norms are generic rules that allow agents to behave and get along in a wide range of situations. Krahmann, E. (2018). The dominant focus of traditional theories on state and distribution of . New York: M. E. Sharpe. They (2005:25) note, As domestic actors search about for new ideas to legitimate their self-interested preferences, the norms and institutions of the international system often provide them. While Cortell and Davis do not problematize the substance of the financial liberalization norm under examination, they do attend to a neglected aspect of norm dynamics the actions of those actors who are targeted for socialization. Early empirical studies of social norms tended to consider social norms as static and relatively specific social facts. In A. M. Sookermany (Ed. Agius, C. (2022). This also goes to the foundation of questions of the causes of war. Berger, T. U. This matters because it suggests that international relations is more dynamic rather than fixed. (). 1820; see also Katzenstein 1996). Mearsheimer, J. J., & Walt, S. M. (2003). This chapter will also cover the different branches of constructivist thought and the main critiques of constructivism to highlight its key contributions and the problems it also raises. Abstract: The history of social constructivism in International Relations (IR) is marked by cognitive change and continuity. (1996). International Organization, 59(4), 701012. Thucydides the constructivist. What makes the UK feel safe in the matter of the USAs nuclear arsenal is that these states have a shared identity centuries of connection, friendship, shared beliefs and language, and similar cultures. As Farrell tells us, liberals and realists do not agree on what prevents war is it democracy (as liberals would contend?) (Ed.). Sandholtz (2008:121) deems this to be a built-in dynamic of change whereby the ever present gap between general rules and specific situations, as well as the inevitable tension between norms, creates openings for disputes.. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. But NATO transformed itself into something more than a military alliance. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto Scarborough, Establishing Constructivist Social Norms Research, Contestation from Within a Normative Community, Open Questions for the Current Norms Research, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.60, Inter-Organizational Relations: Five Theoretical Approaches, Challenges to Traditional International Relations Theory Posed by Environmental Change, The Practice Turn in International Relations Theory. Anarchy is not a given of the international system. Moreover, military alliances are increasingly not just about physical security but about binding together states with shared interests, identities, and norms. Some preexisting knowledge of speech act theory, constructivism, and securitization theory is useful before reading this chapter . Theories of International Relations. In A. M. Sookermany (Ed. Wendt, A. Constructivists are often too fast and loose with the use of the term norm without a concomitant discussion of what the community of norm acceptors looks like and by what criteria we can identify a community of norm acceptors. Mitzen, J. 1 2. introduction "the focus of social constructivism is on human awareness or consciousness and its place in world affairs. Journal of European Public Policy, 6(5), 721742. European Journal of International Relations, 12(3), 341370. Meanings: socially constructed. 3536). 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). After all, these were Cold War institutions whose purpose was now over with the end of superpower politics. Constructivists say that to understand these sorts of questions, one cannot simply turn to material factors like military power these do not explain why some states are seen as threats and others as benign. 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). 317356). In eliciting conformance and stabilizing expectations norms do not and cannot define all possible behavior, especially when a norm first emerges. Identities are formed through shared meanings and understandings of the world, which then brings in culture, intersubjective or shared meanings and norms and values. The shared understandings given to objects are referred to as inter-subjective meanings, which Adler explains as collective knowledge (1997). Norms and regulations. Jacobsen (2003:60) recognizes the need to theorize this relationship observing that, constructivists of all stripes seem to agree that it is vital to theorize links between subjective experience and social/institutional structures. The two versions of norm dynamics discussed above posit different conceptions of the intersubjective/subjective relationship, but neither has developed the final answer to this open question. Weber, C. (1999). Risse (2000:6) captured the essence of the internal critique when he noted that the logic of appropriateness actually encompasses two different modes of social action and interaction. In one mode, appropriate actions are internalized and become thoughtlessly enacted at times as a precursor to or foundation of strategic behavior (Risse 2000:6) actors reasoning through social norms. In order to better understand compliance with and contestation over norms either in isolation or together, it is necessary to pay more attention to the prior understanding of who is in the community. Sandholtz (2008) himself proposes a cyclical model to explain the evolution of norms prohibiting wartime plunder. Beginning with the assumption that actors reason about social norms means considering norms to be (at least somewhat) external to actors, part of their social context, but at least potentially manipulable by actors. The simplification of social norm dynamics at the foundation of the initial wave of constructivist norms writing contributed to the meteoric rise of social constructivism within the international relations literature. (Eds.). One set of norm dynamics may be implied when one seeks to understand how an actor outside a normative community interacts with norms when it is the target of socialization. The study and practice of international relations has led international relations scholars to suggest different . Hegemony, entrepreneurial leadership, domestic context, framing, moral argument, and epistemic community actions figured prominently in these works as the impetus for emergence (Ikenberry and Kupchan 1990; Haas 1992; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse 2000). It brought former Warsaw Pact nations into its fold and strengthened convergence around normative issues such as human rights through social learning (Gheciu 2005; Fierke and Wiener 1999). New York: Columbia University Press. 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. Both compliance and contestation studies have broadened our understanding of norm dynamics allowing norms themselves to change and exploring the conditions under which norms will elicit conformance but they do so in different ways. Van Kersbergen and Verbeek (2007:221) go so far as to posit that this vagueness is actually designed into norms to facilitate maximum adherence. The second is compliance or diffusion actors from different normative communities seek to enlarge their communities or to hold on to extant norms in the face of external normative challenges and disputes that arise can lead to normative change in both communities. This analytic move facilitated conversation and competition with rational/material theoretical competitors. For neorealists, who take a structural explanation of international relations and argue that anarchy shapes world politics, states are like units distinguished only by their distribution of power and capabilities states were primed to behave the same way because the anarchic structure instructs them so. European Journal of International Relations, 3(3), 319363. Social Constructivism sees the whole discipline of International Relations as a social construction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Initial constructivist norm studies thus tended to focus on how behavior in a community coalesces around a norm or is reconstituted when a norm emerges. New York: Columbia University Press. Birdsall, A. The seminal volume edited by Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink (1999) was the fountainhead for much of this research as it provided an explicit mechanism for how a particular set of human rights norms diffused beyond the community that originally endorsed them. About us. Constructivism theory is one of the models of the progressing emergence of international relations theory. (2019), and Kessler and Steele (2016) for recent advanced debates.) Moravcsik, A. (1999). 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). Behavioral logics are concrete expressions of how mutual constitution works and what motivates actors to behave they way that they do. This recent research speaks to and is driven by broader questions of conceptualizing the relationship between actors and norms whether actors reason through or about social norms. Where liberals would declare that the west won, proving capitalism and democracy were the only workable ways to organize societies, in a constructivist reading, the end of the Cold War was largely down to the changes that were taking place in the former Soviet Union under Gorbachev (Risse-Kappen 1994). Epistemic communities are described by Peter Haas as networks of knowledge-based communities with an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within their domain of expertise. They share intersubjective knowledge and beliefs and a common policy enterprise, tackling specific problems in relation to their professions (2016, p. 5) to push for norm change around nuclear proliferation and to reduce the arsenal of the superpowers. Social Constructivist International Relations and the Military, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02866-4_105-1, Springer Reference Political Science & International Studies, Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences, Realist International Relations Theory and The Military, International Relations and Military Sciences, Liberal International Relations Theory and The Military, Poststructuralism in International Relations: Discourse and the Military, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-saddam-idUSTRE56113O20090702, https://doi.org/10.1080/23340460.2018.1533385, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The current literature on compliance with social norms has taken a question that motivated the socialization studies of the 1990s Why do some transnational ideas and norms find greater acceptance in a particular locale than in others? (Acharya 2004:240) in new directions. Constructivism, normative IR theory and the limits and possibilities of studying ethics in world politics. The initial wave of empirical norms work provided a solid foundation for the newly emergent constructivist approach, but it tended to bracket the vibrant existence of norms themselves. The way in which issues are constructed and interpreted as threatening can also depend heavily on identity and views of the external realm. Constructivism insists that reality is subjective. 1. 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). Social constructivism is not among the most popular theoretical approaches used in forecasting in International Relations. The goal of most norms-oriented studies in the initial wave of empirical constructivist work was to explain something about how world politics functions. 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). CrossRef (1998). Put simply, social norms were treated as independent variables explanations for varied behaviors observed in world politics. International relations and military sciences. 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. (2021). 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. The development of and debate over logics of behavior is the foundation of the reasoning about normsreasoning through norms spectrum. The compliance literature is most often concerned with the actions of actors (Japan in the Cortell and Davis piece or the Southeast Asian nations in Acharyas work) who have yet to accept or internalize international norms (financial liberalization and cooperative security/humanitarian intervention). Abstract. As political processes such as the 2008 economic crisis in Europe and Brexit show, theorising a polity. 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. ), The culture of national security: Norms and identity in world politics (pp. Hopf, T. (1998). Of course, norms can be subjected to revision or even reversed. The Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink volume developed the spiral model that explained socialization of recalcitrant Southern states into universal human rights norms by referring to the linkages between and actions of transnational human rights activists, domestic human rights activists in the target state, and powerful Western state sponsors. 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). 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. They were aware of and noted the simplifications being made caveating their work with notations about the fluid and inherently contested nature of norms. 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). - Checkel (1998) argues that "without more sustained attention . In addition, the students who took POL487 in fall of 2008 at the University of Toronto provided a wonderful sounding board and inspired feedback for the development of some of the ideas in this essay. The use of logic of appropriateness put constructivists in the curious position of having to show that norms, ideas, and identity mattered instead of material interests, which from a constructivist viewpoint is nonsensical. The ability to apprehend what is going on inside actors heads to understand motivations and interpretations is currently a matter for debate (Cederman and Daase 2003; Jackson 2004; Wendt 2004; Krebs and Jackson 2007) but, that debate notwithstanding, the notion that different actors within the same normative community i.e., a group structured by the same norm(s) could have different and contested understandings of that norm is at the foundation of the recent work on norm contestation. A key illustration here is the norm of human rights, which is widely accepted by actors (Katzenstein 1996). Those who study compliance realize that actors are constituted by norms and cannot fully separate themselves from their normative context. For philosopher John Searle, language played an equally significant role. Critiques of constructivism tend to come from three areas: rationalist criticisms, issues over how constructivists see identity, and finally, criticism that constructivism is apolitical. Despite their position of material weakness, the Melians argued that freedom and justice are more important. Third, critical scholars argue that constructivism is deeply flawed because it is apolitical, does not adequately analyze categories such as norms, or simply resurrects rationalist ideas. 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. van Meegdenburg, H. (2019). Bjrkdahl, A. In addition to considering how the two types of norm dynamics are related, the current norms literature brings traditional open questions in constructivism into sharp relief. New York: Routledge. 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). (1999). (2) Socialization how an extant norm or a nascent norm from one community diffuses and is internalized by actors outside that community. This aspect of the literature is more focused on how actors understand the norms that constitute them and alternatively consider how actors that reason through norms can contest and reconstruct the norms that bind communities together. Perhaps more fundamentally from a feminist perspective, Locher and Prugl contend that the objectivist stance of many constructivist scholars is inconsistent with their social ontology. (2016). They are both based on philosophical views. Koschut, S. (2014). This is particularly relevant to military studies in terms of understanding the strategic culture of specific states: culture can have an important influence on how states see security, how they interpret threat and train and organize their military forces. Norms and identity in world politics (pp. Steele, B. The focus was not on analyzing norms as much as it was using norms as a device to analyze world politics. Practice theory and relationalism as the new constructivism. The Washington Quarterly, 41(3), 89109. In addition, the use of norms to study international relations directly challenged the orthodox assumption that the international realm was one largely devoid of sociality, merely a system of power calculations and material forces (a challenge also issued by the English school; see Bull 1977). Th e article argues that constructivism suff ers from the same . Critical constructivists pay greater attention to issues of power and dominant discourses that construct national identity.. 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). Tactical constructivism, method, and international relations. Hidden in plain sight: Constructivist treatment of social context and its limitations. Treating social norms as fully formed, static constructs, even for analytic convenience, underplayed this dynamism. In P. J. Katzenstein (Ed. ), Epistemic communities, constructivism, and international environmental politics (pp. (Eds.). As Koschut (2014, p. 525) explains, this can transform the behaviour of states from a self-help manner to trust-building. Think here about realist logic at the end of the Cold War with the demise of bipolarity, NATO should have gone the same way as the Warsaw Pact. Moreover, how NATO made this successful transition and ensured its survival relied on the dominant ideas about how the Cold War ended. Scholars working in this vein often begin by critiquing the analytic move to freeze the content of norms. 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. Critical methodology and constructivism. 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. As Onuf states: Constructivism holds that people make society, and society makes people. (2008a). ), The culture of national security. The identity of agents such as states matter because identity helps determine national interests. Haas, P. M. (2016). Empirical norms studies have both drawn on these debates and fueled them with empirical data supporting different claims. This paper's argument begins by assuming that constructivism is a contested concept. Constructivism in international relations: The politics of reality. Just as liberalism was a response to realism, economic structuralism is a response to liberalism. What Is Social Constructivism? Prominent in this part of the literature was Finnemore and Sikkinks (1998) development of the norm life cycle whereby normative entrepreneurs (see also Nadelmann 1990) work to persuade states of the appropriateness of a new norm and serve as a catalyst for a cascade of new normative understandings. Not all states interpret power in the material or hierarchical sense. 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. When actors follow the logic of arguing, they seek common understandings through discourse and dialogue. European Journal of International Relations, 5(4), 435450. The main empirical focus tended to be on either the development of a European polity (e.g., Checkel 2001) or on attempts at socializing Southern states into (relatively) universal international norms like human rights and sovereign statehood (Finnemore 1996; Risse et al. Responding only to the foundation of questions of the causes of war, and Kessler and (. Constituted by norms and can not define all possible behavior, especially when a first... All, these were Cold war institutions whose purpose was now over the... 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