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. About us. International Organization, 46(2), 391425. They demonstrated that constructivism consisted of more than a metatheoretical critique of rational/material approaches and could indeed be used to structure rigorous empirical investigations across the spectrum of issues in international relations. In the attempt to understand when and where norms are likely to be efficacious, these authors stake out a position on the reasoning aboutreasoning through norms spectrum. Thucydides. Wendt, A. Download. In P. J. Katzenstein (Ed. Moreover, the Geneva Convention is an example of both a regulative and a constitutive norm, in that it not only proscribes state behavior but established a new international normative order, creating expectations for international behavior. 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. A constructivist lens on PMCs, however, reveals how questions of national identity can also be central to their use. 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. Hopf, T. (1998). In K. M. Fierke & K. E. Jrgensen (Eds. Arguments over the different actions feed back and alter the meaning of the original norms. Countering hybrid warfare as ontological security management: The emerging practices of the EU and NATO. While arguments remain about constructivisms ontological commitments and efforts to build a bridge between rationalist and reflectivist approaches, its relevance for military studies can be widely seen in terms of how it can broaden thinking about how to see and respond to other actors in terms of security and cooperation. While some of the major criticisms of constructivist thought should be at the forefront when considering security and military problems through this lens, the potential to see the world in more dynamic terms is one of constructivisms leading contributions. London: Routledge. (A vital critique of conventional constructivism that uses the case study of Germany and the debates to join in military interventions outside the NATO area). Norms are born anew every day as actors instantiate them through their beliefs and actions and, as Sandholtz (2008:101) notes, normative structures, in other words, cannot stand still.. In his view, theories of cultures can not supplant theories of politics, and no casual theory of identity construction exists. Finally, the sociology of the discipline faced by early empirical constructivist studies virtually forced constructivists to adopt a focus on static norms. Post Cold War Era- Provided much diverse approach to understand and analyze international relations. (3) state identities and interests are in important part constructed . Undoing the freezing of norms has been based on a reimagining of social norms as generic social facts that are inherently dynamic. Constructivism insists that reality is subjective. This goes against realist reliance on a world structured by anarchy that compels states to behave in certain ways, regardless of what sort of states they are (Farrell 2002, pp. 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. More recent constructivist norms scholarship has revisited this perspective on social norms, positing a different set of normative dynamics more focused on contestation over social norms. Critical methodology and constructivism. This chapter will explore what constructivism is, and its underlying claims and key influences, while comparing its core tenets to theories such as realism (see Realist International Relations Theory and The Military by Schmidt in this volume) and liberalism (see Liberal International Relations Theory and The Military by Silverstone in this volume). How is it that western states like the UK, for example, do not fear thousands of nuclear weapons that the USA possesses, but worries about states like Iran or North Korea, who hold far fewer nuclear weapons? However, the separation between the two kinds of norms research discussed above may ultimately be artificial. Springer, Cham. New York: Routledge. This article aims to illuminate how social constructivism has evolved as a mainstream international relation (IR) paradigm within a short period of time. "It's refreshing to see the authors address the pedagogy of English language learners within a non-deficit model. 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Steele, B. Although some debate exists over whether it is more of an approach rather than a theory (McCourt 2016, p. 476), its importance for international relations can be found in its emphasis on social relations between actors; how actors relate to each other shapes international politics. Studies of contestation and norm change have begun to examine diverse issues like organizational change in international financial institutions (Nielson, Tierney, and Weaver 2006; Chwieroth 2008); European integration (Meyer 2005; Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007; Dimitrakopoulos 2008); environment (Bailey 2008); election monitoring (Kelley 2008); and security (Kornprobst 2007). To gain acceptance and make the case that constructivist ideas mattered empirically, constructivists endeavored to demonstrate how their ideational perspective could provide superior understanding and explanation of political phenomena. This is a continuous, two-way process (2013, p. 4). van Meegdenburg, H. (2019). Thucydides the constructivist. Empirical norms studies have both drawn on these debates and fueled them with empirical data supporting different claims. Cham: Springer. The shared understandings given to objects are referred to as inter-subjective meanings, which Adler explains as collective knowledge (1997). Constructivism sees power in terms of what it does and means (Guzzini 2005); ideas have power (e.g., that democracies are good). Identity informs preferences and interests, so to understand why certain states behave the way they do on the international stage, paying attention to how their identities drive their interests and actions matters. Treating norms as generic has been at the foundation of the recent shift towards the study of contestation. (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. Constructivism The international relations theory that suggests that people create their own reality, . Ideals that were really never in our possession: Torture, honor and US identity. Yet, Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblances helps in understanding why an essence of constructivism need not be found. International relations require various perspectives to comprehend the complexity of the interactions that take place in the international sphere. Adler, E., & Barnett, M. Contestation over variants of universal participation then had significant impact on the evolution of the universal participation norm and climate governance outcomes. (2008a). 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. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Studies of compliance and contestation must grapple with this fundamental characteristic of social norms in a more explicit way moving forward. International Politics, 53(2), 176197. European Journal of International Relations, 3(3), 319363. The Constructivist Approach to Explain National Identity . We unlock the potential of millions of people worldwide. But some states refuse to do this, even if it is in their material interests to do so (see the example of neutral states in this chapter). Instead social norms are generic rules that allow agents to behave and get along in a wide range of situations. 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. for example, is that ideas and norms are hard to test empirically (Moravcsik 1999); they are intangible things that are difficult to measure or quantify, and it is hard to know if they played a significant role in affecting behavior (Farrell 2002, p. 60). Norms and regulatory instruments around the use of PMSCs and in what capacity they are used have emerged with the view to regulating them (Percy 2016, p. 221). The social construction of Swedish neutrality: Challenges to Swedish identity and sovereignty. This freezing of norms tended to make them independent from politics as variables in political behavior. Instead, norms are general principles that must be translated into specific actions (Gregg 2003). (1996). - Checkel (1998) argues that "without more sustained attention . In the context of the global war on terror, US efforts to extract intelligence from suspected terrorists led to the use of enhanced interrogation techniques which was widely seen to have abrogated or contested the global prohibition on the use of torture (Steele 2008a; see also Birdsall (2016) who argues that it worked to strengthen the anti-torture norm). While neorealists argued that attacking Iraq was not in the national interests of the USA and that containment was more effective (Mearsheimer and Walt 2003), neoconservative hawks determined otherwise. Constructivism considers the relations between states (and other actors) as a social realm; less about the distribution of resources and power and more about the distribution of ideas. One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. 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. Kowert, P., & Legro, J. Norms and regulations. Van Kersbergen and Verbeek (2007:221) go so far as to posit that this vagueness is actually designed into norms to facilitate maximum adherence. 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. 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). For example, norms can challenge practices and beliefs that are seen to be no longer fit for purpose. One of the big problems for rationalists, (When considering critiques of constructivism, it is important to note that those critiques are guided by the underlying epistemological and ontological positions of rationalist or other forms of theorizing.) (1996). Studies of norm diffusion or spread moved constructivists into the area of socialization. The nuclear taboo: The United States and the normative basis of nuclear non-use. 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. The focus was not on analyzing norms as much as it was using norms as a device to analyze world politics. ), Handbook of military sciences (pp. Essentialism believes that our identities are linked to a fixed, universal, innate 'essence'. Consider the shared norms that define military conduct and the institutions that have evolved around military practice; from the Geneva Conventions to the classic texts on warfare that are part of military training, a process of social interaction is taking place where norms are learned, and culture and identity are shaped. Understanding compliance with and contestation over norms either in isolation or together can be enhanced by paying more attention to the prior understanding of who is in the community. (2016). Critics found this dual understanding of the logic of appropriateness wanting and thus developed additional behavioral logics that modeled differing motivations and modes of behavior more explicitly. Philosophy of military sciences. PubMedGoogle Scholar. The dominant focus of traditional theories on state and distribution of . On the learning literature more generally, see Levy , Jack , "Learning and Foreign Policy: Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield (Review Article)," International Organization 48 (Spring 1994 . 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. Social constructivism primarily seeks to demonstrate how the core aspects of the international relations are contrary to the assumptions of Neorealism and Neoliberalism within the frame of social construction, taking up forms of ongoing processes of social practice and interaction. An example of this can be seen in the case of Libya in 2011, which is broadly hailed as a successful R2P intervention. While this is obviously a false dichotomy and constructivist studies do not treat norms as exclusively internal or external to actors, the distinction matters for how scholars approach compliance and contestation. 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. Just as liberalism was a response to realism, economic structuralism is a response to liberalism. 1820; see also Katzenstein 1996). Critics too began to understand social norms as static and specific and this facilitated an erroneous notion that evidence of norm-breaking behavior somehow invalidated or falsified constructivist theorizing. (One of the foundational texts that covers chapters on security and strategic culture, albeit from a mainly conventional perspective). Social Constructivist International Relations and the Military. 3. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-saddam-idUSTRE56113O20090702. Social phenomenon such as states, alliances or international institutions, are not thought to exist independent of human meaning and action. New York: Columbia University Press. Similarly, rather than dismissing the more agentic logics, Pouliot (2008:276) argues that the logic of practice is ontologically prior and it is thanks to their practical sense that agents feel whether a given social context calls for instrumental rationality, norm compliance, or communicative action.. In correlation to this, it would be fruitful to acknowledge the role of constructivism in international relations theory, as one could argue it is closely related to this analysis, where one may draw parallels between Norway and Sweden in the comprehension of the research. Allow agents to behave and get along in a wide range of situations economic. 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