Even among security communities such as the Nordic states, different strategic cultures can be found because they are informed by a range of historical and cultural experiences, with different experiences of war and conflict, membership of alliances, and other factors (see special issues of Cooperation and Conflict (2005) and Global Affairs (2018) for further discussions). (2008a). For realists, the material structure of the world matters. Cham: Springer. Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. IR: The resurrection or new frontiers of incorporation. Hegemony, entrepreneurial leadership, domestic context, framing, moral argument, and epistemic community actions figured prominently in these works as the impetus for emergence (Ikenberry and Kupchan 1990; Haas 1992; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse 2000). Bibliographical References Adler, E. (1997). Norms and Social Constructivism in International Relations | Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies Social norms were conceptualized as aspects of social structure that emerged from the actions and beliefs of actors in specific communities; norms shaped those actions and beliefs by constituting actors' identities and interests. From this perspective, the logic of appropriateness, as it was developed through engagement with the logic of consequences foil, allowed the socially constructed ideational/normative world to play a role by providing cues as to what behaviors were appropriate. For constructivists, a focus on identity makes it possible to consider more deeply how domestic factors, ideas, discourses, cultures, and norms shape the interests of states and the choices states make. This means that the absence of a central power over states produces a world of perpetual insecurity, or Hobbesian state of nature (see Realist International Relations Theory and The Military by Schmidt in this volume), with conflict and violence a constant possibility. Norms, identity, and national security in Germany and Japan. An example of this can be seen in the case of Libya in 2011, which is broadly hailed as a successful R2P intervention. This was a vastly different kind of theorizing than was current in the mainstream of international relations that was locked in the neorealist/neoliberal debate (e.g., Krasner 1983; Keohane 1984, 1986; Baldwin 1990; Grieco 1990). The nuclear taboo is another example of a regulative norm (prescribing non-use), but it was also a constitutive norm (associating the taboo with the idea that civilized nations would not resort to using nuclear weapons) (Tannenwald 1999). 1 2. introduction "the focus of social constructivism is on human awareness or consciousness and its place in world affairs. 6667). Rebuttals to constructivist arguments used evidence of behavior that was inconsistent with the specific and unchanging strictures of norms in question to claim that nonconstructivist (usually material or rational) factors must be the driving catalyst of political behavior and outcomes (Shannon 2000). The international system is defined by anarchy. The underlying idea of the logic of appropriateness that actors draw upon ideas about what they should do in specific situations given who they are was consistent with social constructivisms commitment to the causal and constitutive (Wendt 1998) effects of norms. The rest of this section explores this distinction in greater detail, discussing the behavioral logics at the foundation of the about/through spectrum before examining the recent compliance and contestation literatures that are developing new ideas about norm dynamics. States interactions are socially constructed. New York: Columbia University Press. Percy, S. (2016). The identity of agents such as states matter because identity helps determine national interests. Anarchy is not a given of the international system. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02866-4_105-1, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02866-4_105-1, eBook Packages: Springer Reference Political Science & International StudiesReference Module Humanities and Social Sciences, Over 10 million scientific documents at your fingertips, Not logged in 1999; Jacobsen 2003). Pouliot (2008:259) argues that most of what people do in world politics, as in any other social field, does not derive from conscious deliberation or thoughtful reflection. The seminal volume edited by Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink (1999) was the fountainhead for much of this research as it provided an explicit mechanism for how a particular set of human rights norms diffused beyond the community that originally endorsed them. In addition, norms-oriented research and the constructivist literature writ large has begun to concern itself more with research questions that fall out from constructivist thought independently without as much reference to competing approaches (Checkel 2004). Bruner (1990) and Piaget (1972) are considered the chief theorists among the cognitive constructivists, while Vygotsky (1978) is the major theorist among the social constructivists. Ideas about whether actors reason about norms or through norms can be linked to underlying behavioral logics that constructivists have devised and developed since the inception of the approach. Two types of normative dynamics can be identified: the first is endogenous contestation; the second is compliance or diffusion. Special issue. We dont do that: A constructivist perspective on the use and non-use of private military contractors by Denmark. Power in the constructivist sense is less concerned with material power but sees ideas and discourses as powerful; power can be exercised in different ways. How strong is the nuclear taboo today? Introduction to special section: from Nordic exceptionalism to a third order priority variations of Nordicness in foreign and security policy. Power is influenced by norms, ideas, and practices; in a constructivist reading, power depends on how it is used and what it means in the interaction of states. Social constructionism is not the norm. First, the compliance and norm change research agenda (loosely defined) is more internally focused than the previous wave of norms-oriented research. Cham: Springer. Those facts that rely on human agreement (institutional facts) differ from brute facts (like mountains, for example), which do not need human institutions for their existence. Social Constructivism or Constructivism is a theory in International Relations which holds that developments in international relations are being constructed through social processes in accordance with ideational factors such as identity, norms, rules, etc. In order to better understand compliance with and contestation over norms either in isolation or together, it is necessary to pay more attention to the prior understanding of who is in the community. In contrast to these other approaches, constructivism is a social theory (or family of social theories) or theory of process (Adler 1997, 2003; Checkel 1998; Wendt 1999; Hoffmann 2009), which means it necessarily lacks a priori commitments on key elements of international relations theories the identity, nature, interests, and behavior of important actors and the structure of world politics. Steele, B. But a constructivist reading of the Melian Dialogue (Lebow 2001) shows how ideas rather than material factors played a role in the decision of the Melians, even if the outcome was grim (Agius 2006). Arguments over the different actions feed back and alter the meaning of the original norms. Cooperation and Conflict, 49(4), 519535. Kissinger's implicit embrace of constructivism might have been a thermonuclear detonation in the Great International Relations Theory Paradigm War of the 1980s and 1990s. Weber, C. (1999). Constructing institutional interests: EU and NATO enlargement. London: Routledge. This freezing of norms tended to make them independent from politics as variables in political behavior. B., & Heikka, H. (2005). All of this came about through processes of socialization and persuasion, where interested groups such as NGOs, epistemic communities, and other actors not only successfully changed the norm around the treatment of civilians and combatants in warfare but instigated this norm as part of identity, and how states define right behavior. Second, there is a division between what is generally called conventional and critical constructivism (Hopf 1998), largely over questions of state centricity and treatment of identity. Constructivists used this logic in early efforts to contrast their work with more established rationalist perspectives on world politics (see especially Finnemore 1996) because the logic of appropriateness contends that actors in world politics undertake actions that are appropriate for their particular identity. Seeing the world in this way as mutually constituted, driven by the interests of actors which relies on their ideas of themselves and others, and their approach to phenomena brings about different possibilities in international relations and security. It was a tool for constructivists to show that ideas, norms, and morals mattered vis--vis rationalist variables in explanations of world political phenomena. Studies of compliance and contestation must grapple with this fundamental characteristic of social norms in a more explicit way moving forward. (1996). [3] Agius, C. (2022). Constructivism The international relations theory that suggests that people create their own reality, . Constructivists interested in norm change have recently begun reconceiving norm dynamics in a different way and have focused on contestation within communities of norm acceptors. The dominant focus of traditional theories on state and distribution of . In the attempt to understand when and where norms are likely to be efficacious, these authors stake out a position on the reasoning aboutreasoning through norms spectrum. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. There is considerable confusion in the field on what precisely constitutes social constructivism and what distinguishes it from other approaches to international relations.1 As a result, it has become fairly common to introduce constructivism as yet another substantive theory of international rela- Culture can refer to symbolic or evaluative standards that guide relations and provide meaning. Our assessments, publications and research spread knowledge, spark enquiry and aid understanding around the world. Two strands of research, on the relations between strategic behaviour and international norms and between rationalism and constructivism, serve as examples of promising research in constructivist international relations theory. Constructivism's approach to the subjects of threat, conflict and security in global politics originated from their fundamental emphasis on the social dimensions of international politics, thus it defined them as socially constructed elements in the process of identity formation under the influence of the norms and shared values of society. From this mainly structural perspective, social norms were conceptualized as an alternative to rationalist/materialist variables in explanations of world politics. Manchester: Manchester University Press. One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. 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