Lecture 4: Constructivism, Ideas, and Identities
Noel Anderson
POL209H5F
Department of Political Science
University of Toronto Mississauga
5 October 2021
Outline
1 Historical Roots
2 What is Constructivism?
3 A Constructivist Framework
4 Applying Constructivism: Anarchy is What States Make of It
5 Review
6 Looking Ahead to Next Week
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Outline
1 Historical Roots
2 What is Constructivism?
3 A Constructivist Framework
4 Applying Constructivism: Anarchy is What States Make of It
5 Review
6 Looking Ahead to Next Week
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Historical Roots
• A newer approach to the study of international relations
• Has become increasingly popular over the past three decades
• Like realism and liberalism, we can identify the intellectual
foundations of the approach in the work of past scholars
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Historical Roots
• Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
• Considered how ideational
factors affected social outcomes
• Emphasized that ideas have a
social force
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Historical Roots
• Max Weber (1864-1920)
• “We are cultural beings with the
capacity and the will to take a
deliberate attitude towards the
world and to lend it significance”
• It is the actors themselves that
construct meaning in the world
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Outline
1 Historical Roots
2 What is Constructivism?
3 A Constructivist Framework
4 Applying Constructivism: Anarchy is What States Make of It
5 Review
6 Looking Ahead to Next Week
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
What is Constructivism?
• The focus on material interests and power provided by realist
and liberal approaches has made important contributions, but
they:
I Assume the identities and interests of states
I Assume that identities and interests are fixed
I Mostly ignore the role of ideas and normative factors in world
politics
I Mostly ignore the social dimensions of international relations
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
What is Constructivism?
• Constructivists want to know what is going on before the
realist or liberal models “kick in”
I Where do identities and interests come from?
I What is the role of norms? How do they change?
I What are the social dimensions of state relationships and
behavior?
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What is Constructivism?
Constructivists argue that:
• Ideational factors are the building blocks of the international
system (not just material factors)
• Ideas are not only individually held, but also express collectively
understood meaning and intention
• Identities and interests of states (and other actors) are socially
constructed
I They are shared understandings that form the basis for how
actors interpret material reality
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
What is Constructivism?
• Important: constructivism is not a substantive theory of IR
the way realism or liberalism is
• Instead, it is a framework that lets us question that which is
taken for granted; it considers what produced, and
(re)produces, alternative worlds
• Use it as a lens for thinking about actors’ identities and
interests, and the nature of their social interaction
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Outline
1 Historical Roots
2 What is Constructivism?
3 A Constructivist Framework
4 Applying Constructivism: Anarchy is What States Make of It
5 Review
6 Looking Ahead to Next Week
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
A Constructivist Framework
A few key terms:
• Identities: “relatively stable, role-specific understandings and
expectations about self” (Wendt 1992: 397)
• Norms: “a standard of appropriate behavior for actors with a
given identity” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 891)
• Logic of appropriateness: internalized roles and rules to
which an actor conforms, not for instrumental reasons, but
because they understand the behavior to be “good” and/or
“appropriate” (see: March and Olsen 1998: 951-952)
I Compare with “logic of consequences”
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A Constructivist Framework
Three Kinds of Knowledge:
1 Objective: the world outside of and independent of human
perception and thought; the world as it is
2 Subjective: an individual’s unique perceptions and beliefs
about the world; the world as an individual experiences it
3 Intersubjective: beliefs that communities construct by shared
agreement; the world as communities make it to be
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
A Constructivist Framework
Three Kinds of Knowledge: An Example
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
A Constructivist Framework
• Constructivists are interested in the ways in which
intersubjective knowledge shapes states’ identities, interests,
and interactions
I Brute vs. social facts; regulative vs. constitutive rules; mutual
constitution
• Let’s explore these ideas using the example of sovereignty
I “The expectation that states have legal and political
supremacy—or ultimate authority—within their territorial
boundaries” (Frieden, Lake, and Schultz 2019: 8)
I Monopoly on the “legitimate” use of force/violence
I Territorial integrity and border inviolability
I Control over own policies and political processes, such as the
maintenance of domestic order and provision of governance
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A Constructivist Framework
“Brute facts” vs. “social facts”
• Brute facts:
I Facts about things that exist whether or not there is agreement
that they do
I Are part of objective knowledge
I If humans disappeared, they would not
I Examples: rivers, mountains, sloths, gravity
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A Constructivist Framework
“Brute facts” vs. “social facts”
• Social facts:
I Facts whose meaning and very existence depend on collective
agreement in a community
I Are part of intersubjective knowledge
I They are “true” relative to a given community and not via
correspondence with objective reality or an individual’s unique
subjective belief
I Examples: money, property rights, sovereignty, Valentine’s Day
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
A Constructivist Framework
• Sovereignty is a social fact:
it exists only within a
framework of shared
meaning, beliefs, and
recognition of the concept
• This shared idea affects
patterns of conflict,
economic aid, people’s lives
• Empowers (and disempowers)
some actors irrespective of
how dysfunctional (or
functional) they are
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
A Constructivist Framework
Regulative vs constitutive rules
• Regulative rule: regulates an existing activity
I Example: driving a car on the right-hand side of the road
• Constitutive rule: defines the set of practices that make up a
particular activity
I Example: the rules that make up the game “chess” create the
very possibility of playing chess
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A Constructivist Framework
Constitutive rules example: sovereignty
• The modern state system we study in this class is only
conceivable with the constitutive rules that make up sovereignty
• These rules:
I Shape who some actors are (states are defined by being
sovereign)
I Shape what states want (ex. protecting borders)
I Shape how states behave (create customs offices, diplomatic
protocols, border patrols)
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
A Constructivist Framework
• Intersubjectively held beliefs, social facts, and constitutive rules
highlight the ideational and social dimensions of international
relations
• They also highlight the interplay between actors and their
social context—that is, the cyclical relationship between actors
and their social environment
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A Constructivist Framework
• Actors shape their own social context...
• ...and the social context in turn shapes the actors
• They are “mutually constitutive”
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
A Constructivist Framework
Mutual constitution example: sovereignty
• Sovereignty is a set of rules that tells states how to interact
with one another
• The rules shape states’ identities, interests, and behaviors
• But the power of these rules (indeed their very existence!)
depends on states acting and interacting in accordance with
them
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A Constructivist Framework
Why this matters:
• Constructivism highlights the ways that actors pursue what
they believe is appropriate behavior based on their conceptions
of who they are and how they wish others to view them
• Because ideas about what is appropriate behavior can change,
so too can world politics
• State behavior can be altered by the efforts of activists (such
as advocacy networks, NGOs, human rights and environmental
groups) to promote new norms
• When these norms become entrenched and viewed as
legitimate, they can profoundly affect state behavior
I Example: chemical weapons taboo, R2P
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Outline
1 Historical Roots
2 What is Constructivism?
3 A Constructivist Framework
4 Applying Constructivism: Anarchy is What States Make of It
5 Review
6 Looking Ahead to Next Week
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Applying Constructivism
• We have seen that anarchy plays a central role in realist and
liberal approaches to IR
• Constructivists argue that the logic of anarchy at the heart of
these approaches is not set in stone
I Self-help is not caused by anarchy
I It is a set of practices, not an essential feature of anarchy
• In other words, “anarchy is what states make of it” (Wendt
1992)
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Applying Constructivism
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Applying Constructivism
• EU was not simply a response to power/threat of USSR:
post-Cold War integration deepened, did not fall apart
• EU has altered the nature of anarchy; we now see states
operating under a cooperative structure to the point of:
I Eliminating borders between themselves
I Recognizing “EU citizenship”
I Allowing the free movement of people
I Etc.
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Applying Constructivism
• In other words, European states have “(re)constructed” their
own, new social context through their actions and interactions
in the EU
• They have escaped the realist logic of anarchy within Europe
• And this is not simply a liberal institution for cooperation; it is
a forum that contains ideas, meanings, and rules that shape
how these states view the world, their interests, and their
identities
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Outline
1 Historical Roots
2 What is Constructivism?
3 A Constructivist Framework
4 Applying Constructivism: Anarchy is What States Make of It
5 Review
6 Looking Ahead to Next Week
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Review
Social constructivism is:
• An approach to international relations that emphasizes
ideational factors in world affairs, such as:
I The power of ideas in shaping and constraining the behaviors of
actors
I The importance of identities in defining what actors want
I The cyclical relationship between actors (their interests,
identities, and behaviors) and the social context/social structure
(ideas, meanings, rules) in which they exist
• Taken together, these insights provide an approach that
facilitates explaining the origins of, and changes in, the
identities and preferences of actors in the international system
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Outline
1 Historical Roots
2 What is Constructivism?
3 A Constructivist Framework
4 Applying Constructivism: Anarchy is What States Make of It
5 Review
6 Looking Ahead to Next Week
Historical Roots What is Constructivism A Constructivist Framework Applying Constructivism Review Looking Ahead
Looking Ahead
Next week:
• Reading week!
I No lecture video, no drop-in discussion session, no tutorials
• But when we get back...
• Topic: Rationalist Approaches and Strategic Interaction
• Readings:
I Frieden, Jeffry; David Lake; Kenneth Schultz. 2019.
“Understanding Interests, Interactions, and Institutions,” in
World Politics: Interests, Interactions, Institutions, 4th edition
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company): 42-87.
• Including the special topic appendix: “A Primer on Game
Theory”
I Oye, Kenneth. 1985. “Explaining Cooperation Under Anarchy:
Hypotheses and Strategies,” World Politics 38 (1): 1-24.
• Reminder: Policy briefs due on Oct. 19 at 11:59pm!
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