Constructivism & International Society

Approachaka The English School

Background• British Committee for the Theory of International Politics

– Supported by the American Rockerfeller Foundation (1958)– Meets at Peterhouse, Cambridge

• Members: – Herbert Butterfield, Professor of History, Cambridge– Martin Wight, LSE and Chatham House (later Sussex)– Desmond Williams, an Irish diplomatic historian,

Catholic University College, Dublin; – Donald Mackinnon, a Scottish moral Philosopher– Michael Howard, a military historian.– Adam Watson, FCO– Hedley Bull – Aussie Scholar

International Society Approach

• Diplomatic Investigations, (1966)– Collection of essays. Major ideas are

published.

• International relations are anarchic, but they are not chaotic. – There are patterns and regularities in the

international system– States recognize these, take them in account

Anarchical Society

Hedley Bull, Anarchical Society (1977)

Five Institutions of International Society

• International Law

• Diplomacy

• War

• Balance of Power

• Great Powers

Anarchical SocietySystem of states: • two or more states • sufficient contact between them• sufficient impact on one another’s decisions• behaviour of each factors into calculations of the other.

Society of states (or international society):• conscious of certain common interests• conscious of certain common values • conceive of themselves to be bound common rules in

relations with one another• share in the working of common institutions.

Anarchical Society

• Members of international society will work to uphold the rules

• Recognition they will benefit from rules, order that is produced

• But how far will states go in upholding the rules?– Will get back to this in a moment!– Answer depends on theory

Martin Wight: Three Traditions

• Realist/Machiavelli• Rationalism/Grotian tradition

– institutions, international politics as rule goverened

• Revolutionism/Kant– human beings over states, changing current

international order

• IR Theory addresses certain questions

Order vs. JusticeOrder: a pattern or disposition of international

activity that sustains those goals of the society of states that are elementary, primary or universal

• preserving international society• maintaining peace• upholding the independence of member states

Maintaining order is the responsibilities of the great powers via:

- balance of power- War

Order vs. Justice

Justice - two kinds:

• Communicative: procedural justice– going to courts– international law

• Distributive: about who has what and who gets what– What do the international poor deserve?– What do the rich owe the poor?

Order vs. JusticeWhich is more important?• Addressing justice may be distruptive to

the international order– Distribution of power, prestige, resources– Humanitarian intervention

• Realists: Order• Revolutionaries: Justice• Rationalists: two camps

– Pluralists– Solidarists

Pluralism vs. Solidarism

Solidarists

• States will work to uphold the international order

• Also norms and values of international society– May include interventions– Emphasis on individuals

Pluralism vs. Solidarism

Pluralism• Tolerance as a norm of international society

– tolerance for different ways of life (live and let live)

• States should not intervene– allow states to develop independently,

• Intervention only if a state poses a threat to the international system.

• emphasis on state sovereignty as a norm of international politics

International Society Approach

Current agenda

• Humanitarian Intervention (Wheeler)

• Environment (Hurrell, Kingsbury)

• Human Rights (Vincent, Dunne and Wheeler)

Constructivism: Core Ideas• Anarchy is what states make of it.• Distinction between “brute” and “social” facts.

Brute Facts Social Facts

Facts which exist independent of human action.

- There is snow on Mount Everest.

Facts recognized by society-You are students-We are at a university

Constructivism: Core Ideas

• Socially constructed facts depend on humans to recognize them as true.

• Big mistake to confuse social facts and brute facts.

• ie: Realism recognizes anarchy as a “brute” fact rather than a socially constructed one.Confusion between the two suggests that

we believe that somethings are natural when they have really been constructed.

Constructivism: Core Ideas

• But anarchy is what states make of it– Does not dictate any particular course of

action.

• Onuf (1989) – We live in a “world of our making”– World is not pre-determined in advance by

non-human forces.

Constructivism: Approaches

Constructivism as a label

• Essentially, positivists who didn’t change their methods.

• Constructivism explains the “structure” of the international system.– Talk of bridging the rationalist-constructivist

divide.

Constructivism: Approaches

Wendt’s approach

• Structure is the product of human nature

• “structures” form because of our behaviour

• This doesn’t mean that it will be easy for human agents to change the international system.

Constructivism: Approaches

Rules of the Game approach (Critical)• “game” – not as in game theory• “game” of international politics is not pre-

determined• we can see how the “rules of the game”

are constituted. • Represents the “critical” aspect of the

theory– increasingly lost as theory becomes more

mainstream.

Constructivism & Normative Theory

Positivist theories: • little attention paid to the “make up” of

states. • States are rational choice actors• Doesn’t matter if it is democracy or a

totalitarian state• norms promoting cooperation will not work

because international relations is an ends-means calculation.

Constructivism & Normative TheoryConstructivists • identity does matter and is very important• Ie: relations between Australia and New

Zealand are different from relations between Australia and Indonesia.

• Common, shared identity that is important• John Ruggie: important that the United

states became post 1945 hegemon rather than USSR.– This cannot be explained by positivist methods.

Constructivism & Normative Theory

• Equally important, how states view one another

• If states see each other as threatening, may have a security dilemma.

• If states see each other as allies, relations are different.

• An action may be interpreted differently depending on where you stand. – If US buys military planes, Canada will

interpret this differently than China.

Constructivism & Normative Theory

• Similarity with English school:– just because there is anarchy, it doesn’t

mean there are chaos.

• within a system of anarchy, norms may emerge.

• Potential for an “anarchical society”

• Other ways to study the world than rational choice.

Popularity of Constructivism

Moves beyond critique and to analysis of international relations.

– “Selling out”?

Positivist methods shown to be problematic. – ability to explain, predict was not as good as

they claimed it to be.

Popularity of Constructivism

New scholars want to use critical IR theory, but want to do something with it. – Innovative theory, but also use empirical data. – introduction of new questions in IR: actors,

human rights, control of WMD

Constructivism showed new potential for theorists frustrated with limitations of their own theory.

Mainstream & Critical

Three things in common:

1. Normative or ideational structures are just as important as material structure

• ideas about identity, ideology and what it means to be a friend or an enemy play a role in how states treat one another.

Mainstream & Critical

2. How non-material structures condition identities is important because identities inform interests and therefore actions.

– “Identities are the basis of interests”.– Priests, politicians and students have certain

sense of interest that depends on their “roll”.

Mainstream & Critical

3. Agents (actors) and structures are mutually-constituted.

• Structures influence actors, but structures wouldn’t exists without them and their knowledge.

Mainstream & Critical

Constructivists as “structurationists”– Emphasize the impact of ideas (structures)

on identities– Actors maintain and ultimately transform

those structures. – reciprocal interaction: creates a relatively

stable social structure – States act in a particular way because there

are rules. But those rules must be upheld by the practices of states.