Constructivism: The Social Construction of International Politics

1. Constructivism:The Social Construction of International Politics POL 3080 Approaches to IR

2. Introduction • Critique of static material assumptions of traditional IR theory; • Emphasis on the social dimensions of international relations and the possibility of change; • Differs from the traditional approaches (realism and liberalism) in terms of ontology and epistemology (not in terms of variables) • Different research program

3. International Politics as Social Construction • Construction -- an act that brings into being a subject or object that otherwise would not exist; • Once an object is constructed, it has a particular meaning and use within a given context; • Social phenomena take place in a specific historical, cultural and political context. They are a product of human interaction in a social world • The social constructs are in the form of social values, norms and assumptions.

4. Assumptions and Research Focus • Social construction assumes differences across context rather than a single objective reality (i.e. trying to explain the variation across different realities); • Main critique about realism and liberal approaches – they tend to explain the conditions of persistence; • Social dimension matters. The focus of the research is on the norms, rules and language; • IR is a “world of our making,” i.e. agents matter. The emphasis is on the process of interaction, where the individuals not only react but also interact in a meaningful way.

5. Ontological and Methodological Foundations I • Ontology (what do we know) - whether there is a real world out there that is independent of our knowledge of it. • Social ontology -- shared understanding and acceptance of the context. • Epistemology (how do we know it) -- whether we can discover the world through direct observation or not. • Rationalists accept the logic of consequences – the rational acts produce outcomes that maximize the interests of the individual units. • Constructivists accept the logic of appropriateness – rationality is a function of legitimacy defined by shared values and norms within various social structures. • Therefore, social context produces different outcomes for individuals (not only their individual interest matters).

6. Ontological and Methodological Foundations II • The primary concern for constructivists is to bring the social back into the discipline. • Constructivists accept the anti-foundationalist ontology, i.e. world DOES NOT exist independently of our knowledge about it (link between structure and agent). • Constructivists accept positivist epistemology – hypothesis testing, causality, explanation (Hopf). • Positivist epistemology gives considerable legitimacy of the constructivists in their debate with the rationalists.

7. The importance of Social Context • The role of agency – IR evolves over time and changes based on the agential factors, not only on the structural imperatives of anarchy. • Constructivists emphasize on the role of (a) norms; (b) shared understandings and; (c) relationships between agency and structure. • IR world is not static (i.e. given a priori) but exists only by the virtue of human acts. • These human acts are called social facts because they happen in a specific cultural, historical and political context. • Verstehen tradition (Max Weber) – action must always be understood from within, i.e. “what is people’s heads.”

8. Variation in the Constructivist Tradition • Conventional Constructivism (middle ground) – does not reject the scientific assumptions of positivist science. • Conventional constructivism advocates “the middle ground” between positivism and post-structuralism, which includes social ontology and positivist epistemology (Wendt). • Critical Constructivism – challenges conventional constructivism. Critical constructivists highlight the inseparability of social ontology and epistemology (Zehfuss, Kratochwil). • The essence of the debate between the conventional and the critical constructivists is on the consistency of the method (Fierke).

9. Key Components of the Constructivist Analysis • Language as the Unit of Analysis: the core is the distinction between rules and their interpretation. The dichotomy of objective and subjective. • Hypothesis testing (H0 and H Alt) – how the language is put to use by social actors as they construct the world; focus on the meaning of the rules and norms as expressed by the subjects of analysis. • Constructivist causation: addresses the question “how possible.” The focus is on the public language and the intentions embedded into it. • Reason and Cause – a reason has a different logic than a cause (therefore, it is flawed to call a reason a cause). The reason is tied up to the meaning and opens up a possibility to for the other to be engaged and to respond.