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
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
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
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
5
Q
What are the sub-schools of the English School?
A
- Pluralism
* Solidarism
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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)
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