Social Constructivist approaches to international security Flashcards
In a cold war context exemplify the importance of discourse in society
- Gorbacheve renunciation of Brezhnev doctrine
- Reagan 1987 “tear down this wall”
how does social constructivism question rationalist approaches to security studies?
- Rationalism has positivist reductionist methodology where the criterion of truth is not sensory but is individual and deductive
- For example realism or liberalism
Name some of the things which social constructivists will question
- Role of military power in IR
- If norms have any real impact on state behaviour
- If it is possible for human nature to change
- If change is driven by something other than material structures
What are the key tenets of social constructivism / the main idea and who is a key thinker?
- Reality is result of the social construct of people and the structure it produces defines people themselves
- Norms of an actor guide behaviour
- Actors and the world they live in are mutually constituted
- ALEXANDER WENDT
- REJECTS THE MATERIALIST FOCUSES OF LIBERALISM / REALISM
what are possible applications of SC?
- WOT
- End of CW
- European integreation
- Nato persistence and post CW enlargement
Exemplify the importance of identity and how it can change over time.
UK is a member of NATO, OSCE, EU and at the same time has a strong USA relationship and strong link to favour the colonies
why is culture important?
it defines the strategic posture of a state in international relations, interpretations of human rights etc
How does Katzenstein explain norms?
give info on them for identity, their relation to the actor, and how they may be constitutive on behaviour
“collective explanations about proper behaviour for a given identity”
- they are vital for identity info
- constructed by the actor
- may be constitutive on behaviour e.g. self dtermination
what are critiques of social constructivism?
- it is more interpretation than explanation
- cant help predict future change in identities of actors
- essentially considers ideas / identity in a casual way when they should be an intersubjective relationship
- how can change take place in the international system if actors permanently involved in a process of construction?
Quote from Kratochwil
- ‘the human world is not simply given and or natural but that, on the contrary, the human world is one of artifice, that it is constructed through the actions of actors themselves’
Exemplify the importance of identity. Give a quote from Wendt to support it
- it’s why states like the USA and Iran do not agree
- ‘a gun in the hands of a friend is a different thing form one in the hands of an enemy and enmity is a social, not material relation’
Exemplify a good discursive construction of a security threat
- War on terror “this is the fight for all those who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom”
What did Adler say about identity?
- the identities, interests and behaviour of political agents are constructed by collective meaning, interpretations and assumptions; about the world
- e.g. why the USA allows the UK to have nuclear weapons but not Korea (history, identity, shared language, intersubjective meanings and ideas are held in common
what do Berger and Luckman say about identity?
- Identity is formed by social processes
- e.g. france and Germany used to be enemies but are no longer
Wendt said there are distinctions between what? (identity)
- corporate and social identity,
- corporate is intrinsic self realised identity of actor (exists pre interaction with others)
- Social identity sets meanings an actor attributes to itself while taking the perspective of others (actors may have multiple identities that vary in importance)
what additional identity distincitons did Wendt add to corporate and social?
- Type, role and collective identity
- type identities are multiple and intrinsic to actors
- Collective identity - “takes relationship between self and other to its logical conclusion” (identification)
Frederking said what about collective ideas and culture?
- ‘social rules that primarily make truth claims about the world … beliefs are shared understandings of the world’
Exemplify a study of culture that gives meaning to shared experience and action
- Berger’s study of German and Japanese post war anti militarism
- Strategic culture where culture is institutionalised
how does Katzenstein describe norms? (collective….)
- “collective expectations about proper behaviour for a given identity” e.g. DPT or R2P
how do norms work in society?
- norms compete with other norms. Then they are sometimes institutionalised if successful (Berger and Luckmann see this institutionalisation as habitualised human activity from the individual to the collective)
- regulatory norms tell us what to do
Nina Tanenwald says what? She examines what systemic and international norm?
- examines the norm of nuclear taboo as an interntional and systemic norm
Finnenmore looks at liberal norms how in the mid 19th century?
- he shows how humanitarian norms influence patterns since the mid 19th century like decolonisaiton, abolition of slavery, human rights and USA anti apartheid
What did Wendt argue that neorealism did? Gun
- Gave anarchy a privileged position in IR
“self help and power politics are institutions, not essential features of anarchy” its created from a mistrust and lack of cooperation
what does Hopf say? About social construct and the possibility of change
- everything is social construct which presents the possibility of change
Wendt “the logic of anarchy is constant”
