Social Constructivism

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Social Constructivism
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• Constructivism is a success story. It rose very
  quickly from rather humble beginnings to become,
  one of the leading schools in International
  Relations.
• Twenty years ago Constructivism did not exist.
  Ten years ago Constructivism was recognized as an
  exciting, but still unproven paradigm.
• Seven years ago one of the leading American
  Journals of International Relations,
  International Organization, exclaimed that the
  next great debate in the discipline would be
  between rationalism and Constructivism.

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In The Beginning...

• International relations theory in the 1980s was
  dominated by neorealism and neoliberal
  institutionalism both theories ascribed to
  materialism and individualism.
• Various scholars critical of neorealism and
  neoliberalism drew from critical and sociological
  theory to demonstrate the effect of normative
  structures on world politics.

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In The Beginning...

• The mainstream responded coolly to these
  challenges, demanding that critics demonstrate
  the superiority of these alternative claims
  through empirical research.

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The Rise of Constructivism

• The end of the Cold War meant that there was a
  new intellectual space for scholars to challenge
  existing theories of international politics.
• Constructivists drew from established
  sociological theory to demonstrate how social
  science could help international relations
  scholars understand the importance of identity
  and norms in world politics.

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The Rise of Constructivism

• Constructivists demonstrated how attention to
  norms and states identities could help uncover
  important issues neglected by neorealism and
  neoliberalism.
• Term Constructivism was coined by Nicholas Onuf
  in his important book, The World of Our Making
  (1989)

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Constructivism

• Constructivists are concerned with human
  consciousness, treat ideas as structural factors,
  consider the dynamic relationship between ideas
  and material forces as a consequence of how
  actors interpret their material reality, and are
  interested in how agents produce structures and
  how structures produce agents.
• Knowledge shapes how actors interpret and
  construct their social reality.

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Constructivism

• The normative structure shapes the identity and
  interests of actors such as states.
• Social facts such as sovereignty and human rights
  exist because of human agreement while brute
  facts such as mountains are independent of such
  agreements.
• Social rules are regulative, regulating already
  existing activities, and constitutive, make
  possible and define those very activities.

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Constructivism

• Social construction denaturalizes what is taken
  for granted, asks questions about the origins of
  what is now accepted as a fact of life and
  considers the alternative pathways that might
  have and can produce alternative worlds.
• Power can be understood not only as the ability
  of one actor to get another actor to do what she
  would not do otherwise but also as the production
  of identities and interests that limit the
  ability to control their fate.

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Constructivism

• Although the meanings that actors bring to their
  activities are shaped by the underlying culture,
  meanings are not always fixed but are a central
  feature of politics.
• Although constructivism and rational choice are
  generally viewed as competing approaches, at
  times they can be combined to deepen our
  understanding of global politics.

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Constructivism and Global Change

• The recognition that the world is socially
  constructed means that constructivists can
  investigate global change and transformation.
• A key issue in any study of global change is
  diffusion, captured by the concern with
  institutional isomorphism and the life cycle of
  norms.

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Constructivism and Global Change

• Although diffusion sometimes occur because of the
  view that the model is superior, frequently
  actors adopt a model because of external
  pressures and incentives to adopt a model that
  has symbolic legitimacy.
• Institutional isomorphism and the
  internationalization of norms raises issues of
  growing homogeneity in world politics, a
  deepening international community, and
  socialization processes.

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• Konstruktivisti pozajmljujuci iz razlicitih polja
  i naucnih disciplina, ispituju procese putem
  kojih lideri, narodi i kulture menjaju svoje
  preferencije, oblikuju vlastite identitete i uce
  novo ponaanje. Na primer, i ropstvo u
  devetnaestom veku i rasni aparthejd u Junoj
  Africi bili su nekad prihvaceni od strane vecine
  drava, ali su im se kasnije svet iroko
  suprotstavljao. Konstruktivisti se pitaju zato
  se to promenilo? Kakvu ulogu su igrale ideje?
  Hoce li praksa rata krenuti istim putem jednog
  dana? ta sa konceptom suverenih nacionalnih
  drava?

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• Svet je pun politickih entiteta kao to su
  plemena, nacije, i nevladine organizacije. Samo
  je u poslednjih nekoliko vekova suverena dava
  postala dominantan koncept. Konstruktivisti
  isticu da su koncepti poput nacije i
  suvereniteta, koji daju znacenje naim ivotima
  kao i naim teorijama, socijalno konstruisani, i
  ne postoje izvan nas, kao neka stalna realnost.
  Feministkinje koje pripadaju grupi
  konstruktivista dodaju da su jezik i predstave
  rata, kao sredinji instrumenti svetske politike,
  pod velikim uticajem roda.

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• Konstruktivizam je pre pristup nego teorija, ali
  on obezbeduje istovremeno korisnu kritiku i vaan
  dodatak glavnim teorijama realizma i liberalizma.
  Premda ponekad labavo formulisani i sa
  nedostatkom moci predvidanja, konstruktivisticki
  pristupi nas podsecaju na ono to dve glavne
  teorije cesto proputaju. Kao to cemo videti u
  narednom poglavlju, vano je uzeti u obzir i ono
  to se deava izvan instrumentalne racionalnosti
  ostvarivanja sadanjih ciljeva i pitati kako
  menjanje identiteta i interesa moe ponekad da
  vodi suptilnim pomeranjima u dravnim politikama,
  a ponekad prema dubinskim promenama u medunarodnm
  poslovima

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• Konstruktivisti nam pomau da razumemo kako se
  formiraju preferencije, kao i kako se stvara
  znanje koje prethodi ispoljavanju instrumentalne
  racionalnosti. U tom smislu, njihov pristup je
  pre komplementaran, nego to je u suprotnosti sa
  dvema glavnim teorijama.

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• Konstruktivisti naglaavaju da etnicitet nije
  nepromenljiva cinjenica koja neminovno dovodi do
  rata. On je drutveno zasnovan u smislu da
  simboli, mitovi i secanja mogu da se menjaju
  tokom vremena. Na primer, u Ruandi, koja je 1994.
  pretrpela genocid, ljudi su govorili istim
  jezikom i imali istu boju koe, ali su postojale
  razlike u statusu izmedu naroda Tutsi koji je
  migrirao u oblasti sa stocarskom kulturom
  vekovima ranije i brojnijeg naroda Hutu koji se
  bavio zemljoradnjom. Vremenom su meoviti brakovi
  i drutvene promene zamaglili neke od ovih
  razlika, ali one su ponovo ojacale tokom
  kolonijalne vlasti. U genocidu 1994. u kome je
  ubijeno 750 000 Tutsa, mnogi Huti koji su se
  zalagali za modernizaciju ili za koje se
  ispostavilo da su Tutsi, takode su ubijeni.

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• Intervencija je zbunjujuca zamisao, delom zbog
  toga to je ta rec istovremeno opisna i
  normativna. Ona ne samo da opisuje ono to se
  dogada, nego oblikuje i vrednosne sudove. Prema
  tome, diskusije o intervenciji cesto za sobom
  povlace moralne sporove.

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• Kako nacionalizam izaziva rat? Zaista, ta je
  nacionalizam, a ta je nacija? Konstruktivisti
  ukazuju da je koncept nacije problematican.
  Recnik definie naciju kao grupu koja se poziva
  na zajednicki identitet i pravo da bude drava.
  Ali koje vrste grupa to obuhvata? ta je izvor
  zajednickog identiteta? Jedno pozivanje je na
  etnicku slicnost, ali SAD su etnicki razlicite, a
  ipak jedna nacija.

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• Sledece pozivanje je na jezicku slicnost, ali
  vajcarska se jezicki razlikuje, a ipak je jedna
  nacija. Drugi kau da religija moe biti osnova
  nacije, i neke drave, kao to su Izrael i
  Pakistan, su uglavnom zasnovane na religijskom
  identitetu. Stvar je u tome da kada grupa ljudi
  sa zajednickim identitetom sebe naziva nacijom,
  mogu postojati razliciti izvori tog identiteta.
  Kako je rekao francuski mislilac Ernest Renan
  Sutinski element nacije je da svi njeni
  pojedinci moraju imati mnogo toga zajednickog,
  ali su takode morali zaboraviti mnoge stvari

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• Nacije se takode nazivaju imaginarnim
  zajednicama jer su prevelike da bi se svi
  medusobno poznavali, i zamiljanje igra znacajnu
  ulogu.
• Nacionalizam je varljiv zato to nije samo
  deskriptivni, nego i preskriptivni termin.

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???????????? ????????????

• Alexander Wendt, Anarchy is what States make of
  it, 1992
• Michael Barnett
• Nicholas Onuf
• Martha Finnemore
• Friedrich Cratochwill
• Peter Katzenstein

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Alexander Wendt, 1958, Mainz, Germany

• Ralph D. Mershon Professor of International
  Security, The Mershon CenterProfessor of
  Political Science, The Ohio State University
• Previously he was professor of Political Sciences
  at Yale University

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He defines constructivism as follows

• States are the principal units of analysis for
  international political theory
• The key structures in the states system are
  intersubjective, rather than material and
• states identities and interests are in important
  part constructed by these social structures,
  rather than given exogenously to the system by
  human nature or domestic politics.

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Anarchy Is what States make of It The Social
Construction of Power Politics

• International Organization, Volume 46, No. 2,
  Spring 1992, pp. 391-425.

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• I will not here contest the neorealist
  description of the contemporary state system as a
  competitive, self-help world, I will only dispute
  its explanation.
• I will develop my argument in three stages.
  First, I disentangle the concepts of self-help
  and anarchy by showing that self-interested
  conceptions of security are not a constitutive
  property of anarchy. Second, I show how self-help
  and competitive power politics may be produced
  causally by processes of interaction between
  states in which anarchy plays only a permissive
  role Third, I reintroduce first and second image
  determinants to assess their effects on identity
  formation in different kinds of anarchies.

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• Waltz defines political structure on three
  dimensions ordering principles (in this case,
  anarchy), principles of differentiation (which
  here drop out) and the distribution of
  capabilities. By itself, this definition predicts
  little about state behavior. It does not predict
  whether two states will be friends or foes, will
  recognize each others sovereignty, will have
  dynastic ties, will be revisionist or status quo
  powers, and so on.

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• The question whether self-help is a logical or
  contingent feature of anarchy. In this section, I
  develop the concept of a structure of identity
  and interest and show that no particular one
  follows logically from anarchy.
• A fundamental principle of constructivist social
  theory is that people act toward objects,
  including other factors, on the basis of the
  meanings that the objects have for them.
• States act differently toward enemies than they
  do toward friends because enemies are threatening
  and friends are not. Anarchy and the distribution
  of power are insufficient to tell us which is
  which.

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• The distribution of Power may always affect
  states calculation, but how it does so depends
  on the intersubjective understandings and
  expectations, on the distribution of knowledge,
  that constitute their conceptions of self and
  other.
• If society forgets what a university is, the
  powers and practices of professor and student
  cease to exist if the United States and Soviet
  Union decide that they are no longer enemies,
  the cold war is over.
• It is collective meanings that constitute the
  structures which organize our actions.

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• Actors acquire identities relatively stable,
  role-specific understandings and expectations
  about self-by participating in such collective
  meanings
• Identities are the basis of interests. Actors do
  not have a portfolio of interests that they
  carry around around independent of social
  context.
• An Institution is a relatively stable set or
  structure of identities and interests.
• Institutions are fundamentally cognitive entities
  that do not exist apart from actors ideas
  about how the world works.

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• Self-help is an institution, one of various
  structures of identity and interests that may
  exist under anarchy.
• Waltzs three part definition of structure
  therefore seems underspecified. In order to go
  from structure to action, we need to add a
  fourth the intersubjectively contstituted
  structure of identities and interests in the
  systems.

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• Competitive systems of interaction are prone to
  security dilemmas in which the efforts of
  actors to enhance their security unilaterally
  threatens the security of the others perpetuating
  distrust and alienation. The form of identities
  and interest that constitute such dilemmas,
  however, are themselves ongoing effects of, not
  exogenous to the interaction identities are
  produced in and through situated activity. We
  do not begin our relationship with the aliens in
  a security dilemma security dilemmas are not
  given by anarchy or nature.
• Identities and interests are constituted by
  collective meanings that are always in process.

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Social Theory of International Politics

• Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1999

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• In this book I develop a theory of the
  international system as a social construction.
• The subject of this book is the ontology of
  international life. The dominant ontology today
  in mainstream theories of international politics
  is materialist.
• In this book I try to show that Neorealisms
  problematic conclusions about International
  Politics stem from its underlying materialist and
  individualistic analogy, and that by viewing the
  system in idealist and holist terms we could
  arrive at a better understanding.

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??????????

• Dragan R. Simic, Nauka o bezbednosti- savremeni
  pristupi bezbednosti, Slubeni List SRJ, fakultet
  politickih nauka, Beograd, 2002, str. 73- 75.
• Michael Barnett, Social Contructivism, in
  Steve Smith, John Baylis, (Eds.), The
  Globalization of World Politics, Oxford
  University Press, New York, 2005, Third Edition,
  pp. 251-270
• Chris Brown, Understanding International
  Relations, Palgrave, London, 2005, Third Edition,
  pp. 48-52.
• Dozef S. Naj, Jr., Kako razumevati medunarodne
  sukobe, Stubovi kulture, Beograd, 2006, str.
  23-25.
• Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy is What States make
  of it", in, Robert J. Art, Robert Jervis,
  International Politics, Longman, New York, 2003,
  Sixth Edition, pp. 73- 80.
• Alexander Wendt, Constructing International
  Politics, International Security, Vol. 20, No.
  1, (Summer 1999), pp. 71-81
• Michael N. Barnett, Identity and Alliances in
  the Middle East, in Peter J. Katzenstein,
  (Ed.), The Culture of National Security-Norms and
  Identity in World Politics, Columbia University
  Press, New York, 1996, pp. 400-447
• Martha Finnemore, Constructing Norms of
  Humanitarian Intervention, in Peter J.
  Katzenstein, (Ed.), The Culture of National
  Security-Norms and Identity in World Politics,
  Columbia University Press, New York, 1996, pp.
  153-185
• Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International
  Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
  UK, 1999
• Martin Grifiths, Fifty key thinkers in
  International Relations, Routledge, London, 2005,
  pp. 199-204.
• Stefano Guzzini, Anna Leander, Constructivism and
  International Relations Alexander Wendt and his
  critics, Routledge, London, 2006

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