The Promise of Constructivism in IR
The Promise of Constructivism in IR
The Promise of Constructivism in IR
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The Promiseof TedHopf
Constructivismin
International
Relations
Theory
A
challenger to the
continuing dominance of neorealism and neoliberal institutionalismin the
studyof internationalrelationsin the United States,constructivism is regarded
with a greatdeal of skepticismby mainstreamscholars.1While the reasons for
this receptionare many,threecentralones are the mainstream'smiscastingof
constructivismas necessarilypostmodern and antipositivist;constructivism's
own ambivalence about whether it can buy into mainstreamsocial science
methods withoutsacrificingits theoreticaldistinctiveness;and, related to this
ambivalence, constructivism'sfailureto advance an alternativeresearchpro-
gram. In this article,I clarifyconstructivism'sclaims, outline the differences
between "conventional" and "critical"constructivism, and suggest a research
agenda thatboth provides alternativeunderstandingsof mainstreaminterna-
I am most gratefulto Matt Evangelista and Peter Katzensteinwho both read and commentedon
many less-than-inspiringdraftsof thiswork,and, more important,supported my overall research
agenda. I am also thankfulto Peter Kowert and Nicholas Onuf forinvitingme to Miami in the
winter of 1997 to a conferenceat Florida InternationalUniversityat which I was compelled to
come to grips with the differencebetween critical and conventional constructivisms.I also
benefitedfromespecially incisive and criticalcommentsfromHenrikkiHeikka, Badredine Arfi,
RobertKeohane, JamesRichter,Maria Fanis, Ned Lebow, Pradeep Chhibber,Richard Herrmann,
David Dessler, and one anonymous reviewer.I would also like to salute the members of my
graduate seminarin internationalrelationstheoryat the UniversityofMichigan,in particular,Irfan
Nooruddin, Frank Penirian,Todd Allee, and JonathanCanedo helped me figureout the relation-
ship between the mainstreamand its critics.
Ihnternational
Security,Vol. 23, No. 1 (Summer 1998), pp. 171-200
? 1998 by the Presidentand Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology.
171
Security23:1 | 172
International
8. Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Constructionof Power
Politics,"International
Organization,Vol. 46, No. 2 (Spring 1992), 391-425.
9. Elizabeth Kier,for example, shows how the same "objective" externalstructuralarrangement
of power cannotaccount forFrenchmilitarystrategybetween the two world wars. Elizabeth Kier,
"Culture and FrenchMilitaryDoctrinebeforeWorldWar II," in Katzenstein,TheCultureofNational
Security,pp. 186-215.
10. The focus on identitydoes not reflecta lack of appreciationforotherelementsin the construc-
tivistapproach, such as norms,culture,and institutions.Insofaras identitiesare the most proxi-
mate causes of choices,preferences,and action,I concentrateon them,but withthe fullrecognition
that identitiescannot be understood withouta simultaneous account of normative,cultural,and
institutionalcontext.
ThePromise | 175
ofConstructivism
13. Robert Keohane calls the failure to contextualizeinterestsone of the major weaknesses of
mainstreaminternationalrelations theory.Robert 0. Keohane, "InternationalInstitutions:Two
Approaches," InternationalStudiesQuarterly,Vol. 32, No. 4 (December 1988), pp. 390-391.
14. JeffreyLegro, forexample, has shown how the preferencesof greatpowers beforeand during
WorldWar II withrespectto theuse and nonuse ofstrategicbombing,and chemicaland submarine
warfare,are unfathomablewithoutfirstunderstandingthe identitiesof the militaryorganizations
responsible for shaping those preferences.Jeffrey W. Legro, "Culture and Preferencesin the
InternationalCooperation Two-Step,"AmericanPoliticalScienceReview,Vol. 90, No. 1 (March 1996),
pp. 118-137.
15. See, for example, Tannenwald, "Norms and Deterrence," and Kier, "Culture and French
MilitaryDoctrine before World War II," p. 203. For a brilliantaccount of how social structure
enables and impedes the constructionof identityand interest,see JaneK. Cowan, "Going Out for
Coffee?Contestingthe Grounds of Gendered Pleasures in Everyday Sociability,"in Peter Loizos
and Evthymios Papataxiarchis, eds., ContestedIdentities:Genderand Kinshipin Modern Greece
(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1991), pp. 196-197.
The PromiseofConstructivism
| 177
16. A rare effortin the mainstreamliteratureto break away fromthis focus on materialpower is
JudithGoldstein and Robert 0. Keohane, eds., Ideas and ForeignPolicy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
UniversityPress, 1993).
17. As R.B.J.Walkerhas clarified,"To suggest thatcultureand ideology are crucialforthe analysis
of world politicsis not necessarilyto take an idealist position.... On the contrary,
it is important
to recognizethatideas, consciousness,culture,and ideology are bound up withmore immediately
and economic power." In R.B.J.Walker,"East Wind,WestWind:
visible kinds of political,military,
Civilizations,Hegemonies, and World Orders," in Walker,ed., Culture,Ideology,and WorldOrder
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984), p. 3. See also Onuf, Worldof Our Making,p. 64. Joseph
Nye's conceptualizationof "soft" power could be usefullyread througha constructivist interpre-
tation.See JosephS. Nye, Jr.,Bound to Lead: The ChangingNatureofAmericanPower (New York:
Basic Books, 1991), esp. pp. 173-201.
18. Colin Gordon,ed., Power/Knowledge: SelectedInterviews 1972-1997,byMichel
anedOtherWritinigs,
Foucault(Brighton,Sussex, U.K.: HarvesterPress,1980); AntonioGramsci,Selectionis fromthePrison
Notebooks,trans. and ed., Quinton Hoare and GeoffreyNowell Smith (New York: International
International
Security23:1 | 178
22. See Doty,"The Bounds of Race," p. 454; and Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the RationalWorld
of Defense Intellectuals,"Signs:Journalof Womenin Cultureand Society,Vol. 12, No. 32 (Summer
1987), pp. 687-718.
23. See Richard K. Ashley, "Untying the Sovereign State: A Double Reading of the Anarchy
Problematique,"Millennium:JournalofInternational Studies,Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer 1988), p. 243,
fora discussion of this process.
24. Richard K. Ashley,"The Geopolitics of GeopoliticalSpace: Toward a CriticalSocial Theoryof
InternationalPolitics," Alternatives,
Vol. 12, No. 4 (October-December1987), p. 409.
25. RichardK. Ashley,"ForeignPolicy as PoliticalPerformance,"International StudiesNotes(1988),
p. 53.
International
Security23:1 | 180
Constructivisms:
Conventional
and Critical
43. Cynthia Weber points this out as a very importantdistinctionbetween her approach to the
state and more modernistapproaches. Webersimilarlyseparates conventionalconstructivists from
criticaltheorists.Max Weber,SimulatingSovereignty: Intervention, theState,and SymbolicExchange
(Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1995), p. 3.
44. For a review ofthisissue see FriedrichKratochwil,"Is theShip of Cultureat Sea or Returning?"
pp. 206-210.
45. The discussion of the work of Todorov and Nandy is in Naeem Inayatullah and David L.
Blaney,"Knowing Encounters:Beyond Parochialismin InternationalRelations Theory,"in Lapid
and Kratochwil,The ReturnofCultureand Identity, pp. 65-84.
46. For an account of identitybased on these three theorists,see Anne Norton, Reflections on
PoliticalIdentity(Baltimore,Md.: JohnsHopkins UniversityPress, 1988).
The PromiseofConstructivism
| 185
47. Inayatullahand Blaney,"Knowing Encounters,"pp. 65-66. For a very useful analysis of how
different accounts of identityhave made theirway throughfeministtheorizing,see Allison Weir,
Sacrificial
Logics:FeministTheoryand theCritiqueofIdentity(New York:Routledge, 1996).
48. My views on the differencesseparatingcriticaland conventionalconstructivistpositions on
power were shaped in conversationwith JimRichter.
49. See ArturoEscobar,"Discourse and Power in Development:Michel Foucault and theRelevance
of His Work to the Third World," Alternatives, Vol. 10, No. 4 (October-December 1984), esp.
pp. 377-378.
50. This is takenfromAndrew Linklater,"The Question oftheNext Stage in InternationalRelations
Theory: A Critical-Theoretical Point of View," Millennium:JournalofInternational Studies,Vol. 21,
No. 1 (Spring 1992), p. 91, and is based on his interpretationof JurgenHabermas. For a view on
preciselythe point of the emancipatorypower of criticaltheory,see Chris Brown,"'TurtlesAll the
Way Down': Anti-Foundationalism, CriticalTheory,and InternationalRelations,"Millennium:Jour-
nal ofInternationalStudies,Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer 1994), p. 219.
51. For an alternativeaccount of internationalrelationstheoryfroma criticaltheoryperspective
in which conventional constructivism'spositions can be found as well, see Richard K. Ashley,
"Three Modes of Economism," InternationalStudies Quarterly,Vol. 27, No. 4 (December 1983),
pp. 477-491. On the constructionof anarchy,in particular,see Ashley,"Untying the Sovereign
International
Security23:1 | 186
A Constructivist
Research
Agenda
This sectionaims at moving constructivismfromthe margins52by articulating
a loosely Lakatosian research program for a constructiviststudy of interna-
I presentthisresearchagenda in threesections.The firststep
tional relations.53
is to show that constructivismofferscompetingunderstandingsof some key
puzzles frommainstreaminternationalrelationstheory.The second move is to
suggest what new and innovative puzzles constructivismpromises to raise.
The last step is forconstructivismto point out its own weaknesses.
60. The regimes literatureis vast. For an early foundational volume that includes theoretical
and some self-critique,
specification,empiricalillustration, see StephenD. Krasner,ed., International
Regimes(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1983). Elaborationof the marketfailurelogic is in
Robert0. Keohane, AfterHegemony(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1984).
61. Keohane, "InternationalInstitutions,"p. 386.
International
Security23:1 | 190
65. On lags and stickiness,see Stephen D. Krasner,State Power and the Structureof International
Trade," WorldPolitics,Vol. 28, No. 3 (April 1976), pp. 317-343. On transactioncosts,see Keohane,
AfterHegemony.
66. Anotherconstructivist hypothesisoffersitselfhere: institutionalizedcooperationwill be more
likelyto endure to the extentthatthe identitiesof the membersof thatinstitutionare understood
as common and they are reproduced by a thick array of social practices. This is meant as a
continuum,with narrowself-interest being arrayedat one end of the spectrum,neoliberalinstitu-
tionalizationof self-interestedcooperationin the middle, communityof identitytoward the other
end, and harmonyat the otherpole.
67. Duncan Snidal, "The Limitsof Hegemonic StabilityTheory,"International Organization,Vol. 39,
No. 4 (Autumn 1985), esp. pp. 610-611.
68. For a comprehensivereview of the most recentliteratureon the democraticpeace, and an
empiricaltestthat shows thatsatisfactionwith the status quo (a variable subject to constructivist
interpretation)is the single most importantfactoraffectingthe use of force,by democracies and
authoritarianstates alike, see David L. Rousseau, ChristopherGelpi, and Dan Reiter,"Assessing
the Dyadic Nature of the DemocraticPeace, 1918-1988,"AmericanPoliticalScienceReview,Vol. 90,
No. 3 (September1996), p. 527.
International
Security23:1 | 192
saries are about. The latterhas more promise,but its naturalizationof certain
aspects of liberalism-the market,nonviolent resolution of differences,the
franchise,the FirstAmendment-and its crucial assumption thatthese norms
actually matterto decision makers in democraticstates when making choices
about war and peace with other democracies, are untenable and untested,
respectively.
Constructivismis perfectlysuited to the task of testingand fundamentally
revisingthe democraticpeace.69Its approach aims at apprehending how the
social practicesand normsof statesconstructthe identitiesand interestsof the
same. Ergo, if democracies do not fighteach other,then it must be because of
the way they understand each other,their intersubjectiveaccounts of each
other,and the socio-internationalpractices that accompany those accounts.70
But constructivismcould offera more general account of zones of peace, one
not limitedto democracies.Differentperiods of the historiesof bothAfricaand
Latin America have been marked by long stretchesof little or no warfare
between states. These pacific periods are obviously not associated with any
"objective" indicatorsof democracy.By investigatinghow Africanand Latin
American states constructedthemselves and others,it might be possible to
understandthese neglectedzones of "authoritarianpeace."
Constructivist
Puzzles
69. For a very well developed researchdesign to test constructivist versus mainstreamaccounts
of the democraticpeace, see Colin Kahl, "Constructinga Separate Peace: Constructivism,
Collective
Liberal Identity,and the Democratic Peace," SecurityStudies(forthcoming).
70. For accounts of the democraticpeace that focus on its contextualintersubjectivecharacters,
see Ido Oren, "The Subjectivityof the 'Democratic' Peace: Changing U.S. Perceptionsof Imperial
Germany,"International Security,Vol. 20, No. 2 (Fall 1995), pp. 147-184; Thomas Risse-Kappen,
Cooperationamong Democracies,p. 30; and Risse-Kappen, "Collective Identityin a Democratic
Community,"pp. 366-367.
71. I do not tryto compile a comprehensiveset of questions forconstructivists,
but instead merely
elaborate general themesforresearch,themes thatdo not have a prominentplace in mainstream
internationalrelationstheory.
The PromiseofConstructivism
| 193
72. For a criticalview of neorealism'sbelated effortsto capture nationalism,see Yosef Lapid and
FriedrichKratochwil,"Revisitingthe 'National': Toward an IdentityAgenda in Neorealism?, in
Lapid and Kratochwil,The Returnof Cultureand Identity,pp. 105-126. For a most imaginative
criticalconstructivisttreatmentof nationalism,see Daniel Deudney, "Ground Identity:Nature,
Place, and Space in Nationalism,"in ibid.,pp. 129-145; see also Roxanne Lynn Doty,"Sovereignty
and the Nation: Constructingthe Boundaries of National Identity,"in Thomas J. Bierstekerand
CynthiaWeber,eds., StateSovereignty as Social Construct(Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge University
Press, 1996) pp. 121-147.
73. For example,J.Ann TicknerobservesthatcontemporarymasculinizedWesternunderstandings
of themselveslead to feminizedportrayalsof the South as "emotional and unpredictable.Tickner,
"Identityin InternationalRelations Theory:FeministPerspectives,"in Lapid and Kratochwil,The
Return
ofCulture
andIdentity,
pp. 147-162.
74. For example,Risse-Kappen,"Collective Identityin a DemocraticCommunity,"findsa common
identitywithinthe NorthAtlanticTreatyOrganization;see also Iver B. Neumann and Jennifer M.
Welsh, "The Other in European self-definition," Review of InternationalStudies,Vol. 17, No. 4
(October 1991), pp. 327-348, for an exploration of "Christian" and "European" states versus
"Islamic" "Asiatic" Turkey.
International
Security23:1 | 194
75. Michael N. Barnett,"Institutions,Roles, and Disorder: The Case of the Arab States System,"
InternationalStudiesQuarterly, Vol. 37, No. 3 (September1993), pp. 271-296.
76. See Risse-Kappen,"Collective Identityin a DemocraticCommunity,"and Michael N. Barnett,
"Sovereignty,Nationalism, and Regional Order in the Arab System,"International Organization,
Vol. 49, No. 3 (Summer 1995), pp. 479-510, forexamples.
77. Yale Ferguson and Richard Mansbach, forexample, offera rich varietyof "polities," such as
city-states,civilizations,polis, empires, kingdoms, caliphates, each of which had and, in some
cases, has and will have, meaningfulidentitiesin world politics.Ferguson and Mansbach, "Past
as Prelude," pp. 22-28, and Sujata ChakrabartiPasic, "CulturingInternationalRelationsTheory,"
both in Lapid and Kratochwil,The ReturnofCultureand Identity, pp. 85-104.
78. Keohane, in "InternationalInstitutions,"p. 392, has made this observationabout "reflectivist"
scholarship..For similarlaments,see Dessler,"What's At Stake," p. 471; and Barnett,"Institutions,
Roles, and Disorder,"p. 276. Alexander Wendt acknowledges he has "systematicallybracketed"
domestic factorsin Wendt,"AnarchyIs What States Make of It," p. 423.
The PromiseofConstructivism
| 195
CONSTRUCTIVIST PROBLEMS
A constructivistresearchprogram,like all others,has unexplained anomalies,
but theirexistenceneed not necessitatethe donning of protectivebelts of any
sort.Conventionalconstructivism has one large problemthathas several parts.
FriedrichKratochwilhas observed thatno theoryof culturecan substitutefor
a theoryof politics.84Paul Kowert and Jeffrey Legro have pointed out that
thereis no causal theoryof identityconstructionofferedby any of the authors
in the Katzensteinvolume.85Both criticismsare as accurate as theyare differ-
ent,and imply different remedies.
Kratochwil's statementreinforcesthe point that constructivismis an ap-
proach, not a theory.And if it is a theory,it is a theoryof process, not sub-
stantive outcome. In order to achieve the latter,constructivismmust adopt
some theoryof politics to make it work. Criticaltheoryis farmore advanced
in thisregardthan conventionalconstructivism, but it comes at a price,a price
thatone may or may notbe willingto pay,depending on empirical,theoretical,
and/or aestheticinterests.I have described how differently criticaland con-
ventional constructivismtreatthe originsof identityand the nature of power.
TheConstructivist
Promise
The assumptionsthatunderlay constructivismaccount forits differentunder-
standing of world politics. Since actors and structuresare mutually con-
structed,state behavior in the face of differentdistributionsof power or
Corrections: