ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how Constructivism’s “five enduring strengths” shift the terms of discourse such that the standards of international relations–Realism and Liberalism–no longer occupy hegemonic positions within it. In this way, Constructivism makes room for other traditions, such as Daoism, to enter into the debate. Nick Onuf’s Constructivism subverts–and does so subtly. It draws on many of the same classical authors and some contemporary theorists that ground mainstream, Eurocentric scholarship in international relations. Yet Onuf is able to widen the field’s usual mooring in Realism/Liberalism, both classical and neo, to encompass an “alien” episteme such as Daoism. For the dao, nothing is ever complete. Like the ceaseless flow of water that it mirrors, the dao remains open, dynamic, and forever in stream. “Those who prize way-making do not seek fullness,” advises the Daodejing. Daoism transforms, not merely overturns, hegemonic rule.
