Constructivist Approaches to International Politics

1. Constructivist Approaches to International Politics Alexander Wendt J A Morrison Peter Katzenstein Lecture 6 Thursday, 24 February 2011

2. Lec 6: Constructivist Approaches • The Discipline of Political Science • Rationalism • Constructivism • Rationalism & Constructivism Compared • “Anarchy is what states make of it”

3. Lec 6: Constructivist Approaches • The Discipline of Political Science • Rationalism • Constructivism • Rationalism & Constructivism Compared • “Anarchy is what states make of it”

4. Before we grapple with the “constructivist” approach to IP, it is worth noting something distinctive about the discipline of political science.

5. Different disciplines define and organize themselves in different ways.

6. Historians define themselves as those who adhere to a particular methodology: the construction of narrative.

7. Their goals may be more or less ambitious… As chroniclers, they may simply hope to document the progression of events and lower the barriers to understanding that progression. As social scientists, they may attempt to uncover causal relationships within their narratives.

8. Within the discipline, they arrange themselves based on distinctions of geographic and temporal space… “I’m a 19th Century Americanist.” “I study medieval France.” “I’m a scholar of Imperial Japan.” And so on.

9. They are meant to know the state of… Politics Gender Culture Historians are meant to be competent to discuss all the big issues within the context of their chosen time and space. Society Ethnicity Science in their particular historical spot.

10. Economists define themselves according to a specific approach—a specific framework and methodology.

11. In general, economists attempt to explain how individuals maximize their preferences given environmental constraints.

12. Economists utilize their same “kit of tools to [explain] everything from dental hygiene to nuclear war.” And “[e]conomists are notorious for their intellectual imperialism,” for their attempts to export their methodology to other disciplines. As Barry Eichengreen (an economist) put it… Eichengreen, Barry J. "Dental Hygeine and Nuclear War: How International Relations Looks from Economics." In Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics, edited by P. J. Katzenstein, R. O. Keohane and Stephen D. Krasner, 353-72. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. See p 353.

13. The discipline of political science, by contrast, is defined rather differently from the disciplines of history and economics.

14. Political science is a discipline defined by its substantive concern—politics—rather than its approach or methodology.

15. Political Economy Political Conflict Political Organization Political Culture Political Behavior Political Process To be a political scientist, one must study any of the many facets of politics… Political Theory (positive & normative) (There are more, of course.)

16. In terms of approach, however, political science is quite pluralistic.

17. Game Theory Historical Narrative Statistics Case Studies Surveys Interviews These substantive issues of politics are studied in any number of ways, using… Rational Choice Materialism Structurationist and Symbolic Interactionist Sociology

18. And political scientists generally import the approaches and methodologies developed in other fields: statistics, history, economics, psychology, and sociology. Thus, there is no distinctive “political scientific” approach.

19. But while this diversity does inspire constant conflict, it also brings the benefits of intellectual cross-fertilization. A critic would say that this makes political science schizophrenic and deeply fractured.

20. This way political scientists get a range of perspectives on a narrow set of what we think are very important issues.

21. Constructivism, in fact, was the product of this kind of intellectual cross-fertilization.

22. Lec 6: Constructivist Approaches • The Discipline of Political Science • Rationalism • Constructivism • Rationalism & Constructivism Compared • “Anarchy is what states make of it”

23. While Waltz, Mearsheimer, Keohane, Axelrod, Russett, et al, come to different conclusions about IP, their approach to studying IP is essentially the same.

24. They all assume: • Autonomous actors (states, policymakers) possess exogenously determined interests. • These actors attempt to maximize their preferences in a constrained environment (specifically, an anarchic environment). • IP is the sum total of actors’ attempts to maximize their preferences given these constraints.

25. These theorists all think about states in the international system in the same way that economists think about actors in markets.

26. They all employ (often explicitly) the economists’“rational choice” approach. Thus, they are sometimes called rationalists.

27. These rationalists explain how actors maximize their goals given various constraints. But they pay little attention to the source of these actors’ goals. Instead, these preferences are treated as exogenously determined—as determined outside the political process.

28. Lec 6: Constructivist Approaches • The Discipline of Political Science • Rationalism • Constructivism • Rationalism & Constructivism Compared • “Anarchy is what states make of it”

29. Constructivists utilize a different approach and pursue different questions.

30. Constructivists want to ask: how are these actors’ all-important preferences formed in the first place?

31. These constructivists want to endogenize several of the elements that rationalists treat as exogneously determined.

32. Or, as Katzenstein and Wendt put it…

33. “Despite important differences, cognitivists, poststructuralists, standpoint and postmodernfeminists, rule theorists, and structurationists share a concern with the basic ‘sociological’ issue bracketed by rationalists-namely, the issue of identity- and interest-formation..” (Wendt, 393) “[T]his book makes problematic the state interests that predominant explanations of national security often take for granted.” (Katzenstein, 1)

34. How, then, do constructivists study and understand where identities and interests come from?

35. While economists may best explain how actors maximize their preferences, sociologists have the most to say about how actors’ preferences develop in the first place.

36. Constructivists understand identities and interests to be the product of process rather than structure…

37. “State interests do not exist to be ‘discovered’ by self-interested, rational actors. Interests are constructed through a process of social interaction.” (Katzenstein, 2) “It is through reciprocal interaction, in other words, that we create and instantiate the relatively enduring social structures in terms of which we define our identities and interests.” (Wendt, 406) “State interests and strategies thus are shaped by a never-ending political process that generates publicly understood standards for action.” (Katzenstein, 21)

38. Lec 6: Constructivist Approaches • The Discipline of Political Science • Rationalism • Constructivism • Rationalism & Constructivism Compared • “Anarchy is what states make of it”

39. It is an approach, an understanding of what there is to study (ontology) and how to study it (epistemology). According to constructivists, constructivism is not a theory or a “school” of theories.

40. Constructivists also see “rationalism” as an approach rather than as an individual theory or school of theories.

41. But the two approaches differ significantly along several dimensions…

42. The Rationalist Ontology The Rationalist Epistemology Some Differences between Rationalists THE RATIONALIST APPROACH

43. Interstate Interactions The Outcome The Rationalist Ontology States’ Interests International Environment Strategies for Maximizing Interests The Building Blocks

44. Interstate Interactions The Outcome Note that these building blocks are determined prior to interstate interactions. Their values are exogenous to these interactions. The Rationalist Ontology States’ Interests International Environment Strategies for Maximizing Interests The Building Blocks

45. The Rationalist Epistemology • States are assumed to enjoy (bounded) rationality • States attempt to use strategies to maximize their preferences given their constraints • Different theories specify different values for these building blocks  This epistemology is borrowed from economics.

46. Here is where some of these rationalist theories differ from one another...

47. Interstate Interactions The Outcome Jervis: O/D Balance Keohane: Int’l Regimes Waltz: Balance of Power Mearsheimer: Hegemony Some Differences between Rationalists States’ Interests International Environment Strategies for Maximizing Interests Waltz & Mearsheimer: Disb’n of Power Goldstein: Incumbent Ideas The Building Blocks

48. The Constructivist Ontology The Constructivist Epistemology Some Differences between Constructivists THE CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH

49. Interstate Interactions The Determinative Process The Constructivist Ontology States’ Interests International Environment Strategies for Maximizing Interests The Products of Process

50. Interstate Interactions The Determinative Process Here, states’ interests, their environment, and their strategies are potentially all constituted through the process of interacting with one another. The Constructivist Ontology States’ Interests International Environment Strategies for Maximizing Interests The Products of Process