ABSTRACT
In recent academic scholarship it has become commonplace to see international politics described as “socially constructed.” Drawing on a variety of social theories-critical theory, postmodernism, feminist theory, historical institutionalism, sociological institutionalism, symbolic interactionism, structuration theory, and the like-students of international politics have increasingly accepted two basic tenets of “constructivism”: (1) that the structures of human association are determined primarily by shared ideas rather than material forces, and (2) that the identities and interests of purposive actors are constructed by these shared ideas rather than given by nature. The first represents an “idealist” approach to social life, and in its emphasis on the sharing of ideas it is also “social” in a way which the opposing “materialist” view’s emphasis on biology, technology, or the environment, is not. The second is a “holist” or “structuralist” approach because of its emphasis on the emergent powers of social structures, which opposes the “individualist” view that social structures are reducible to individuals. Constructivism could therefore be seen as a kind of “structural idealism.” […]
The international system is a hard case for constructivism on both the social and construction counts. On the social side, while norms and law govern most domestic politics, self-interest and coercion seem to rule international politics. International law and institutions exist, but the ability of this superstructure to counter the material base of power and interest seems limited. This suggests that the international system is not a very “social” place, and so provides intuitive support for materialism in that domain. On the construction side, while the dependence of individuals on society makes the claim that their identities are constructed by society relatively uncontroversial, the primary actors in
international politics, states, are much more autonomous from the social system in which they are embedded. Their foreign policy behavior is often determined primarily by domestic politics, the analogue to individual personality, rather than by the international system (society). Some states, like Albania or Burma, have interacted so little with others that they have been called “autistic.” This suggests that the international system does not do much “constructing” of states, and so provides intuitive support for individualism in that domain (assuming states are “individuals”). The underlying problem here is that the social structure of the international system is not very thick or dense, which seems to reduce substantially the scope for constructivist arguments. […]
The revival of constructivist thinking about international politics was accelerated by the end of the Cold War, which caught scholars on all sides off guard but left orthodoxies looking particularly exposed. Mainstream IR theory simply had difficulty explaining the end of the Gold War, or systemic change more generally. It seemed to many that these difficulties stemmed from IR’s materialist and individualist orientation, such that a more ideational and holistic view of international politics might do better. The resulting wave of constructivist IR theorizing was initially slow to develop a program of empirical research, and epistemological and substantive variations within it continue to encourage a broad but thin pattern of empirical cumulation. But in recent years the quality and depth of empirical work has grown considerably, and this trend shows every sign of continuing. This is crucial for the success of constructivist thinking in IR, since the ability to shed interesting light on concrete problems of world politics must ultimately be the test of a method’s worth. In addition, however, alongside and as a contribution to those empirical efforts it also seems important to clarify what constructivism is, how it differs from its materialist and individualist rivals, and what those differences might mean for theories of international politics.
