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/. Mlksoo, M. (2018). Cooperation and Conflict, 40, 1. Not all states respond to external phenomena in the same way, which invokes a need to consider how domestic and cultural factors shape the identity and interests of actors. Keywords Constructivists International norms International relations Rationalism Strategic behaviour Like its revision of anarchy as an ordering principle in international relations, constructivism also changed perceptions about the relationship between agents and structures, brought attention to how ideas matter as much as material factors, and how identity, norms, and culture shape global relations. They are thus animated entities that strengthen, weaken, and evolve. In this regard, although posited by Wendt as a via media (1992, 1999) or middle ground (Adler 1997) with rationalism, constructivism offers a different view of key concepts like power. This reimagining is not new. Compliance studies tend to fall on the side of reasoning about norms, considering how actors react to external norms and attempts at socialization, while contestation studies tend to view actors as reasoning through norms, examining how communities of norm acceptors can alter the meaning of constitutive norms through their bounded interpretations of prevailing norms and actions in line with those interpretations. (2016). 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. 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). Th e article argues that constructivism suff ers from the same . Those who study compliance realize that actors are constituted by norms and cannot fully separate themselves from their normative context. WEEK 4 . 12). 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). 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). Making sense, making worlds: Constructivism in social theory and international relations. There. Mitzen, J. Practice theory and relationalism as the new constructivism. 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. Constructivism has provided a broader approach to understanding international relations and security beyond rationalist frameworks. 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). Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, You can also search for this author in This logic structured seminal empirical work that endeavored to show how ideational and normative factors could explain puzzles in world politics (e.g., Klotz 1995; Finnemore 1996). 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. Treating social norms as fully formed, static constructs, even for analytic convenience, underplayed this dynamism. In the 1980s and 1990s, efforts to wind back the proliferation of nuclear weapons which by this stage had reached staggering proportions, particularly in the USA and USSR prompted scientists and nuclear experts, civil society organizations, and other actors, to form what is called epistemic communities. A number of recent studies have examined just this tension and the range of empirical topics being considered from this perspective is now quite broad. (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. This standpoint of Constructivism is contrary to the 'atomized' 1820; see also Katzenstein 1996). This review examines the constructivist norms-oriented literature from early efforts geared at gaining acceptance in a field dominated by the neorealist/neoliberal debates, through the recent emergence of agendas focused on norm compliance and contestation. Intersubjective facts like social norms only exist within a community of actors that accept them. 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. Seeing the world in this way as mutually constituted, driven by the interests of actors which relies on their ideas of themselves and others, and their approach to phenomena brings about different possibilities in international relations and security. As Johnston (2001:494) clarifies, socialization is aimed at creating membership in a society where the intersubjective understandings of the society become taken for granted. These studies generally began from the perspective of a single, established norm and posited mechanisms (arguing, bargaining, persuading, and learning) for how the community of norm acceptors could be enlarged (Acharya 2004). Christine Agius . Not all states interpret power in the material or hierarchical sense. Yet, constructivists are beginning to define their enterprise more independently of competing approaches. The construction of social reality. Finally, the sociology of the discipline faced by early empirical constructivist studies virtually forced constructivists to adopt a focus on static norms. Studies of compliance and contestation must grapple with this fundamental characteristic of social norms in a more explicit way moving forward. What if anarchy was not a given condition that ordered world politics? International Organization, 46(2), 391425. Constructivism had been marginalized by these mainstream theories because it focused on social construction instead of material construction (Barkin, 2017). 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). On the learning literature more generally, see Levy , Jack , "Learning and Foreign Policy: Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield (Review Article)," International Organization 48 (Spring 1994 . The dominant focus of traditional theories on state and distribution of . These studies were inclined to treat social norms as independent variables and show how some political behavior is made possible or constrained by such ideational factors (e.g., Barkin and Cronin 1994; Klotz 1995; Finnemore 1996, 2003; Katzenstein 1996; Legro 1996; Price 1997; Tannenwald 1999). Adler, E., & Barnett, M. At the core of social constructivism is the idea that international politics and indeed human relations are socially constructed rather than given. Its core ideas are based around three ontological positions relating to identity, ideas, and mutual constitution. Scholars working in this vein often begin by critiquing the analytic move to freeze the content of norms. 2. 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. Constructivists used this logic in early efforts to contrast their work with more established rationalist perspectives on world politics (see especially Finnemore 1996) because the logic of appropriateness contends that actors in world politics undertake actions that are appropriate for their particular identity. ), Do the Geneva Conventions matter? Guzzini, S. (2005). Studies of norm diffusion or spread moved constructivists into the area of socialization. International Studies Review, 4(1), 4972. In military exercises with other nations, states share practices and ideas and in doing so, learn from each other. Introduction. Comprised of a series of conventions that go back to 1864, it is now a part of customary international law, so it applies to all states during warfare. Rather than see security and conflict in the same way, actors will interpret and pursue security based on the ideas, norms, identities, and values that have meaning for them. e. In international relations, constructivism is a social theory that asserts that significant aspects of international relations are shaped by ideational factors. Whether a state is democratic or autocratic, for example, does not seem to matter for neorealists such as Kenneth Waltz (see Realist International Relations Theory and The Military by Schmidt in this volume), because the anarchic structure is what is important for understanding state behavior. Regional order and peaceful change: Security communities as a via media in international relations theory. (Eds.). This had some success. Norms that challenged ideas like genocide, apartheid, the use of nuclear weapons, how to treat prisoners of war, how combatants are defined, and the role of women in armed forces emerge in opposition to existing norms. Social norms were considered, in many ways, the medium of mutual constitution. 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). Your current browser may not support copying via this button. 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. While constructivism has made significant inroads into IR theorizing, it does not mean that it is unproblematic or immune from criticism. The international system is defined by anarchy. Weinhabits world of our making" (Onuf,1989),and setion i . 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). New York: Routledge. 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. For example, when considering what national identity means for a state like the UK, critical constructivists would include forgotten experiences or identities that make up its multicultural society, rather than just define British identity as white. 6667). Hoffmann (2005) employs insights from the study of complex adaptation to understand how states that all accepted the norm of universal participation in climate governance came to have different subjective understandings of that norm. In M. Evangelista & N. Tannenwald (Eds. (Eds.). In his view, theories of cultures can not supplant theories of politics, and no casual theory of identity construction exists. Liberty University International Relations Chapter Four: Theories of International Relations: Economic Structuralism, Constructivism, and Feminism Notes. Critical constructivists pay greater attention to issues of power and dominant discourses that construct national identity.. Arguments over the different actions feed back and alter the meaning of the original norms. Norms are also expectations about behavior (these are called regulatory norms because they define acceptable behavior). Shannon (2000:294) makes a sophisticated argument along these lines, claiming that due to the fuzzy nature of norms and situations, and due to the imperfect interpretation of such norms by human agency, oftentimes norms are what states (meaning state leaders) make of them. Such an interpretation of constructivist thought moves him to make a familiar argument about the split between norm-based and interest-based behavioral impulses (Shannon 2000:298302; Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007). 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. Klotz (1995), for instance, chronicled how the anti-apartheid norm shaped the expectations and actions of the US towards South Africa in the 1980s. Treating norms as generic has been at the foundation of the recent shift towards the study of contestation. 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. Finnemore, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). In A. M. Sookermany (Ed. INRODUCTION T O INTERNA TIONAL RELA TION THEO RIES 23/10/2018. Instead, norms are general principles that must be translated into specific actions (Gregg 2003). 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. 1516). (2016). Some preexisting knowledge of speech act theory, constructivism, and securitization theory is useful before reading this chapter . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 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. 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. 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. Critical methodology and constructivism. Constructivist thought makes it clear that social norms do not exist independently of communities of actors that believe in and enact them. The norms (both established and potential) meaning, constitutive properties, and behavioral strictures remain unchanged throughout the analysis (Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007). 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. In P. M. Haas (Ed. ), The culture of national security: Norms and identity in world politics (pp. ), Epistemic communities, constructivism, and international environmental politics (pp. Berger, T. U. Power in the constructivist sense is less concerned with material power but sees ideas and discourses as powerful; power can be exercised in different ways. Just as liberalism was a response to realism, economic structuralism is a response to liberalism. Zehfuss, M. (2002). 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. forthcoming). Norms in international relations: Some conceptual and methodological reflections. They are both based on philosophical views. 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. 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. [1] [3] Norm emergence studies were concerned with how ideas come to achieve normative status (e.g., Nadelmann 1990; Klotz 1995; Finnemore 1996; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998) and why some ideas become norms and others do not (e.g., Cortell and Davis 1996, 2000; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Legro 2000; Payne 2001). Introduction: Ideational AlliesPsychology, Constructivism, and International Relations . 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. 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. About us. 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. Constructivists argue that international life is social, resulting from the ways people interact with each other (i.e. It derives its name from the . Those who study contestation do allow for reasoning about norms, appealing to notions of interpretation to generate different understandings of a norm with a community of norm acceptors. talk, follow norms, create rules, etc.). Conventional constructivists like Wendt see similarities between constructivism and rationalist perspectives and methodologies. In P. J. Katzenstein (Ed. For decades, the theory of International Relations was dominated by two approaches: realism and liberalism. 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. But we dont call it torture! Japan and identity change: Why it matters in international relations. If any further proof were needed for the continuing rise to fame of constructivism in International Relations, this would be it . As political processes such as the 2008 economic crisis in Europe and Brexit show, theorising a polity. Lebow, R. (2001). 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). What is the main argument of constructivism? At the core of social constructivism is the idea that international politics - and indeed human relations - are "socially constructed" rather than "given." Its core ideas are based around three ontological positions relating to identity, ideas, and mutual constitution. While realists would argue that decision to go to war are based on rational state interests, constructivists would argue that the Geneva Convention represents the idea that war is a social and cultural practice and driven by moral considerations. 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. 134). These initial waves of constructivist writing met the challenge issued by Keohane and played a significant role in vaulting constructivism into prominence during the 1990s and early 2000s (Checkel 1998, 2004). 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. Cooperation and Conflict, 40(1), 523. 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. Hi!Welcome back to the King's College London International Relations Today Youtube channel. As shared objects, they appear as external to any particular actor actors experience norms, at least in part, as external rules. The culture of national security. Other scholars deemed the logic of appropriateness (as well as the logics of consequences and arguing) to be too agentic to fit well with constructivist tenets. Poststructuralism in international relations: An exploration of discourse and the military. Farrell, T. (2002). As Onuf states: Constructivism holds that people make society, and society makes people. Ontological security in world politics: State identity and the security dilemma. 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. Essentialism believes that our identities are linked to a fixed, universal, innate 'essence'. An alternative set of norm dynamics may be implicated when one seeks to understand change in norms themselves. Millennium, 33(3), 495521. Moreover, social constructivism emphasizes social relations in global politics, and sees security and international politics as determined by ideas as well as material factors. (2005). 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. As Farrell tells us, liberals and realists do not agree on what prevents war is it democracy (as liberals would contend?) 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). Birdsall, A. Steele, B., Gould, H., & Kessler, O. 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. Initial constructivist studies of social norms generally clustered into three areas. Springer, Cham. Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. Risses (2000) and Sendings (2002) critiques focus on the taken-for-granted mode of action implied the logic of appropriateness. 115135). 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. Identifies the norms and ideas associated with them. Norms and regulations. The Sandholtz (2008:121) passage quoted above brings together the two types of normative dynamics discussed in this section. Fierke, K. M., & Jrgensen, K. E. For March and Olsen, the logic of consequences where agents undertake actions on the basis of rationally calculating the optimal (usually materially) course of action remained an insufficient foundation for theorizing behavior in international relations. 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). New York: Oxford University Press. 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. 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. As shared objects, they appear as external rules, 4972 essence & # x27 ; essence #! 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