Conflict, Security, Foreign Policy, and International Political Economy by Brecher Michael;Harvey Frank P.;

Author:Brecher, Michael;Harvey, Frank P.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Constructivism

Constructivism, like behavioral research programs, represents a broad array of theorists and scholars rather than a coherent school of thought. Constructivists challenge the narrow scope of the actors and factors associated with the rival paradigms sketched above. This challenge assumes two forms. The first is based on epistemological, methodological, and evidentiary grounds. Constructivists stipulate a “cultural-institutional environment” that shapes and shoves actor behavior.50 The norms attributable to actors by constructivist researchers are argued to have causal effect. Rejected is the assumption of realists and neorealists that reduces these justifications to rationalizations of coercive power and material capabilities. Nor do constructivists accept the notion of neoliberal scholarship that the norms arising from international regimes and institutions are purely functional and instrumental, principally intervening variables in the exchanges of egoistic actors and subject to the shared, if differentially-enjoyed, utilities that institutions provide. Both material and rational instrumental reductionism are asserted to be inconclusive in explaining state behavior or the state’s conception of its interests, most prominently those bearing on its survival and security. As three prominent theorists explain: “it makes little sense to separate power and culture as distinct phenomena or causes: material power and coercion often derive their power from culture. . . . The issue is what accounts for power, not whether power is present.”51

The second line of constructivist attack is more fundamental and rests on ontological grounds. Most of the researchers already discussed assume the state and its interests as given. State interests, whether in pursuit of relative (realists/neorealists) or absolute (economic and institutionalist liberals) gains, are exogenously determined. Constructivists problematize both the state and its interests. Stress is placed on the formation of actor identities. Background cultural-institutional norms are alleged to define the identity of an actor or state. That identity then defines the interests of the state-actor. These interests are not uniform over time and space, nor is the state necessarily unitary. Why is the United States indifferent, for example, to the possession of nuclear weapons by France or Great Britain, both with substantial nuclear striking power, but feels threatened by the possibility that Iraq or North Korea might possess even one nuclear weapon? Why do the states of NATO form a Deutschian security community, dedicated to the peaceful resolution of conflicts even after the targeted rival, the Soviet Union and its satellites, has passed from the scene?52 Thomas Risse-Kappen argues that the democratic norms of these states defined these states as sharing a collective identity and interest in the peaceful resolution of differences.53 States may exist under conditions of anarchy, but “Anarchy Is What States Make Out of It,” as Alexander Wendt asserts.54 The cultural-institutional environment, essentially nonmaterial and ideational in composition, can purportedly reconstitute and transform the identities of states, the interests they believe important, and what forms of power they employ in pursuit of these interests.

Constructivists may be divided into two broad groups. “Light” constructivists concede the force of material factors in driving actor behavior. They do not reject outright the assumptions of other research paradigms.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.