The English School & Constructivism Flashcards

1
Q

What is the institutional genesis of the English School?

A
- The British Committee on the Theory
  of International Politics - 1959
- Want to create a British account of
  international politics
- Want to create a more ‘valuable’ path
  of study
- The irony - funded by the Rockefeller
  Foundation
- Hedley Bull
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2
Q

Who was Hedley Bull?

A
- Attacks the American positivist
  political science
- Promotes the ‘classical approach’,
  espousing the importance of judgement
- Aspires to theorise change
- Fascinated with history
- The Anarchical Society - 1977
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3
Q

What was the Anarchical Society about?

A
- Anarchy and order are not
  antithetical - anarchy and hierarchy
  are
- Order does not require hierarchy
- Order can exist under anarchy
- International society maintains order
  under anarchy
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4
Q

What is the internal logic of the Anarchical Society?

A
  • Anarchy → Lockean (cooperation can
    exist), not Hobbesian
  • Elementary goals of social life →
    Life, truth, property
  • Elementary goals of international
    society → Self-preservation, peace,
    limitation of violence
  • Rules to regulate social life →
    Sovereignty, pacta sunt servanda,
    non-intervention
  • Fundamental Institutions → Diplomacy,
    international, balance of power,
    great powers, war
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5
Q

What are the sub-schools of the English School?

A
  • Pluralism

* Solidarism

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6
Q

What is Pluralism?

A
  • English school sub-school
  • Agreement on life, truth and property
  • But high degree of social difference,
    there is no actual substantive
    agreement
  • The institutions must protect the
    difference within a society
    characterised by heterogeneity
  • anti humanitarian intervention -
    uphold sovereign understandings
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7
Q

What is Solidarism?

A
  • English school sub-school
  • High level of agreement
  • International society is
    characterised by a particular
    understanding of life, truth and
    property
  • The institutions should promote not
    only order, but cultural agreement
  • pro humanitarian intervention
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8
Q

What in general is the English School?

A
  • Is flexible
  • Powered by the intellectual work of
    people like Locke and Grotius
  • Develops a chain of reasoning that
    underpins the validity of the
    definitional category of the
    international society
  • Order does not require hierarchy,
    order occurs when there are pattens
    of agreement son the five institutions
  • The institutions allow judgements to
    be made about real-world events
    through the extent to which they
    protect the rules of social life
  • Less predictive
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9
Q

What was the state of IR theory in the 80s?

A
  • Heat of the neo-neo debate
  • News disagree on the relative vs
    absolute gains
  • Neos agree on the types of questions
    that theory can and should answer
  • News are fascinated with explaining
    continuity and consistency
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10
Q

What was anarchy according to the neos?

A
- Anarchy is casual and one directional
  with one outcome
- Identity: static, survivalist,
  raitonal egoist
- Interests: utility maximisation
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11
Q

How did the end of the Cold War affect IR?

A
  • The mainstream is discredited (in
    terms of relevancy)
  • A set of empirical real world events
    that need to be explained
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12
Q

Who was Alexander Wendt?

A
  • German working in the USA
  • 1992 - “Anarchy is what states make
    of it”
  • 1999 - “Social Theory of
    International Politics”
  • Anarchy causes nothing, it is
    indeterminate
  • Mainstream theories are wrong because
    they assume stasis which means they
    cannot explain change, such as the
    end of the Cold War
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13
Q

What is the interpretation of Anarchy is what states make of it?

A
- Anarchy causes nothing, it must be
  interpreted 
- Ideational structures embed
  interpretation into the identity and
  interests of states
- Is US afraid of N.Korea’s nuclear
  capabilities because of material
  structures or ideational structures?
    - Enemy - identity
- A slave is not a slave without a
  master
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14
Q

What if the constructivist view of identity?

A
- Institutions, actors, individuals →
  (the state) → interest & identity
- Ideas, interests and identity are
  infinitely malleable
- Allows for multiple different
  identities with other actors (Aus &
  US, Aus & Indonesia)
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15
Q

Give an overview of constructivism

A
- Situated between rational choice
  approaches (the neo’s) and critical
  theory
- Anarchy is what states make of it
- Ideas and norms matter
- Identities and interests are
  endogenous
- Identities are mutually constituted
- Actors can have multiple identities
- Not a theory, is an approach &
  framework
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