Kessler, O., & Steele, B. 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. The study and practice of international relations has led international relations scholars to suggest different . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Constructivism can produce richer understandings of the very basic questions that construct military studies: enemy perceptions, how identity drives threat/amity/cooperation in international relations, how states and actors respond to threat and the meanings that certain types of warfare involve, the stories told about war and what it means to be secure. Constructivism sees power in terms of what it does and means (Guzzini 2005); ideas have power (e.g., that democracies are good). What if anarchy was not a given condition that ordered world politics? 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. 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. The strategic cultures of states are not the same: they are guided by perceptions, beliefs, ideas and norms that determine how states view the international system and how they use military force and priorities (Neumann and Heikka 2005, p. 6). Security communities. 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. Constructivism has provided a broader approach to understanding international relations and security beyond rationalist frameworks. International Organization, 59(4), 701012. How strong is the nuclear taboo today? Roennfeldt, C. F. (2022). Steele, B., Gould, H., & Kessler, O. 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. It is especially relevant and pertinent as a tool of criticism of widely held empirical and normative theories. Critiques Lack a theory of agency: - According to Hopt (The Promise of Constructivism in international relations theory, 1998), constructivism is an approach, not a theory; or at most a theory of process. (). Sandholtz (2008) himself proposes a cyclical model to explain the evolution of norms prohibiting wartime plunder. Constructivisms overwhelming focus on the state and state agents obscures other actors and processes. 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. Constructivists hold that . (Eds.). 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. 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). This has implications for the concept of anarchy, the agent-structure relationship, and national interests, but all three of these areas of research are also approachable through non-constructivist means. Just as liberalism was a response to realism, economic structuralism is a response to liberalism. Birdsall, A. Steele, B. Ontological security in world politics: State identity and the security dilemma. The irreducible core of constructivism for international relations is the recognition that international reality is socially constructed. Ideas do not float freely: Transnational coalitions, domestic structures, and the end of the cold war. Essentialism believes that our identities are linked to a fixed, universal, innate 'essence'. This chapter will concentrate on some of the main elements that have relevance for military studies. (1999). 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. 55K views 2 years ago International Relations Constructivism is one of critical theories in IR criticizing the classical theories. 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. 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. Moreover, how NATO made this successful transition and ensured its survival relied on the dominant ideas about how the Cold War ended. As Farrell tells us, liberals and realists do not agree on what prevents war is it democracy (as liberals would contend?) States may join military alliances to bandwagon with stronger powers, as realists tell us. (1996). 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. Early constructivist work in the 1980s and early 1990s sought to establish a countervailing approach to the material and rational theories that dominated the study of international relations (e.g., Wendt 1987, 1992; Onuf 1989; Kratochwil 1989; Ruggie 1993; Kratochwil and Ruggie 1986). 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. Our assessments, publications and research spread knowledge, spark enquiry and aid understanding around the world. But norms are never static and this meaning has also changed over time for instance, with the rise of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), sovereignty as an institution has become contingent on states fulfilling certain criteria such as not committing human rights abuse. Similarly, treating social norms as static independent variables led to calls for constructivists to define the conditions under which normative and nonnormative influences on behavior are likely to be the most important in determining behavior (Legro and Kowert 1996; Risse et al. Self-identity and the IR state. (2017). In his view, theories of cultures can not supplant theories of politics, and no casual theory of identity construction exists. This analytic move facilitated conversation and competition with rational/material theoretical competitors. This means that the absence of a central power over states produces a world of perpetual insecurity, or Hobbesian state of nature (see Realist International Relations Theory and The Military by Schmidt in this volume), with conflict and violence a constant possibility. How shared culture and identity matters in international security can be illustrated with the example of nuclear weapons. Theories of International Relations. What if behavior was due to factors other than norms or ideas? Constructivism is a structural theory of the international system that makes the following core claims: (1) states are the principal units of analysis for international political theory; (2) the key structures in the states system are intersubjective rather than material; and. Onuf, N. (2013). 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. How are self-understandings and identity constituted in the international realm? In both cases, compliance with an international norm behaving in a way that matches the behavioral strictures of the norm is expressly theorized and variation in compliance is explained not by pitting constructivist and rationalist/materialist variables, but by examining processes by which domestic actors interpret and manipulate international and local norms. From the perspective of those who work on norms, there are very good reasons to focus on static and specific norms when analyzing international relations. 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. A further example of norm erosion can be seen in the norm against the use of torture. 451497). Introduction to International Relations Theory 100% (10) 63. As Sandholtz (2008:101) puts it disputes about acts are at the heart of a process that continually modifies social rules. This was a vastly different kind of theorizing than was current in the mainstream of international relations that was locked in the neorealist/neoliberal debate (e.g., Krasner 1983; Keohane 1984, 1986; Baldwin 1990; Grieco 1990). But the existence of a norm is dependent on continual enactment by communities of actors actors thus also experience norms, at least in part, as internal rules (Hoffmann 2005). Constructing IR: The third generation. Constructivism has developed over the years and it is now possible to speak of it in terms of generations. The first generation is identified in the 1980s, where constructivism focused on agents and structures. In military exercises with other nations, states share practices and ideas and in doing so, learn from each other. Table of Contents Table of Contents. Contestation over variants of universal participation then had significant impact on the evolution of the universal participation norm and climate governance outcomes. These dual visions of normative dynamics are likely related, but the norms literature has yet to describe how. In more historical examples, states that chose neutrality during times of war did so against strong material factors that would have potentially granted them safety and survival had they opted to join one side or the other. The development of and debate over logics of behavior is the foundation of the reasoning about normsreasoning through norms spectrum. Schmidt, B. In R. Abrahamsen & A. Leander (Eds. (1996). Hopf, T. (1998). Yet the logic of appropriateness appears to cede the ground of purposeful, goal-oriented behavior to rationalist perspectives (whether it actually cedes this ground is an additional, and crucial question). His view, theories of cultures can not supplant theories of cultures not! 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