Hopf 1998 PDF

The Promiseof TedHopf
in
Constructivism
International
Relations
Theory
A
challenger to the
continuing dominance of neorealism and neoliberal institutionalismin the
is regarded
studyof internationalrelationsin the United States,constructivism
with a greatdeal of skepticismby mainstreamscholars.1While the reasons for
this receptionare many,threecentralones are the mainstream'smiscastingof
constructivismas necessarilypostmodern and antipositivist;constructivism's
own ambivalence about whether it can buy into mainstreamsocial science
methods withoutsacrificingits theoreticaldistinctiveness;and, related to this
ambivalence, constructivism'sfailureto advance an alternativeresearchprogram. In this article,I clarifyconstructivism'sclaims, outline the differences
and suggest a research
between "conventional" and "critical"constructivism,
agenda thatboth provides alternativeunderstandingsof mainstreaminternaTedHopfis VisitingProfessor
He is the
ofPeace Research,The MershonCenter,Ohio State University.
authorofPeripheralVisions: DeterrenceTheory and American ForeignPolicy in the Third World,
1965-1990 (Ann Arbor:University
ofMichiganPress,1994) and is at workon ConstructingForeign
and international
relationsis developed
Policyat Home: Moscow 1955-1999,in whicha theory
ofidentity
and tested.He can be reachedbye-mailat <<hopf.2@osu.edu>>.
I am most gratefulto Matt Evangelista and Peter Katzensteinwho both read and commentedon
draftsof thiswork,and, more important,supported my overall research
many less-than-inspiring
agenda. I am also thankfulto Peter Kowert and Nicholas Onuf forinvitingme to Miami in the
winter of 1997 to a conferenceat Florida InternationalUniversityat which I was compelled to
come to grips with the differencebetween critical and conventional constructivisms.I also
benefitedfromespecially incisive and criticalcommentsfromHenrikkiHeikka, Badredine Arfi,
RobertKeohane, JamesRichter,Maria Fanis, Ned Lebow, Pradeep Chhibber,Richard Herrmann,
David Dessler, and one anonymous reviewer.I would also like to salute the members of my
graduate seminarin internationalrelationstheoryat the UniversityofMichigan,in particular,Irfan
Nooruddin, Frank Penirian,Todd Allee, and JonathanCanedo helped me figureout the relationship between the mainstreamand its critics.
Politics(Read1. The canonical neorealistwork remainsKennethN. Waltz, TheoryofInternational
ing,Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1979). The debate between neorealismand neoliberalinstitutionalism
(New York:
is presented and summarized in David A. Baldwin, ed., Neorealismand Neoliberalism
Columbia UniversityPress, 1993). Constructivistchallenges can be found in Nicholas Greenwood
Relations(Columbia:
Onuf, Worldof Our Making:Rules and Rule in Social Theoryand International
Universityof South Carolina Press, 1989); PeterJ.Katzenstein,ed., The CultureofNationalSecurity:
Normsand Identityin WorldPolitics(New York:Columbia UniversityPress, 1996); and Yosef Lapid
and Identityin IR Theory(Boulder,Colo.:
and FriedrichV. Kratochwil,eds., The ReturnofCtulture
Lynne Rienner,1996).
Ihnternational
Security,
Vol. 23, No. 1 (Summer 1998), pp. 171-200
? 1998 by the Presidentand Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology.
171
This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
International
Security23:1 | 172
tional relationspuzzles and offersa few examples of what constructivismcan

uniquely bringto an understandingof world politics.
Constructivismoffersalternativeunderstandingsof a numberof the central
themesin internationalrelationstheory,including:the meaningof anarchyand
balance of power, the relationship between state identityand interest,an
elaborationof power,and the prospectsforchange in world politics.Construcand criticalvariants,the
tivismitselfshould be understood in its conventional
latterbeing more closely tied to criticalsocial theory.The conventionalconstructivist
desire to presentan alternativeto mainstreaminternationalrelations
theoryrequires a research program. Such a program includes constructivist
theory,the securitydilemma,neolibreconceptualizationsof balance-of-threat
research
eral cooperationtheory,and the democraticpeace. The constructivist
program has its own puzzles that concentrateon issues of identityin world
politics and the theorizationof domestic politics and culturein international
relationstheory.
andIssuesin Mainstream
Conventional
Constructivism
Relations
International
Theory
Since constructivismis best defined in relation to the issues it claims to
apprehend, I presentits position on several of the most significantthemes in
internationalrelationstheorytoday.
ACTORS
AND
STRUCTURES
ARE MUTUALLY
CONSTITUTED
How much do structuresconstrainand enable the actions of actors,and how

much can actorsdeviate fromthe constraintsof structure?In world politics,a
structureis a set of relativelyunchangeable constraintson the behavior of
states.2Although these constraintscan take the formof systems of material
dis/incentives,such as a balance of power or a market,as importantfroma
constructivistperspective is how an action does or does not reproduce both
For example, to the extentthatU.S. appeasement
the actor and the structure.3
in Vietnam was unimaginable because of U.S. identityas a great power,
2. Most importantforthisarticle,thisis the neorealistconceptualizationof internationalstructure.
Politics.
All referencesto neorealism,unless otherwisenoted,are fromWaltz,TheoryofInternational
3. FriedrichKratochwilsuggests thatthis differencein the understandingof structureis because
structuralismentered internationalrelations theory not through sociolinguistics,but through
microeconomics.FriedrichV. Kratochwil,"Is the Ship of Culture at Sea or Returning?"in Lapid
p. 211.
and Kratochwil,The ReturnofCultureand Identity,

ThePromise
ofConstructivism
| 173
militaryinterventionconstitutedthe United States as a greatpower. Appeasement was an unimaginable act. By engaging in the "enabled" action of intervention,the United States reproduced its own identityof greatpower, as well
as the structurethat gave meaning to its action. So, U.S. interventionin
Vietnamperpetuated the internationalintersubjectiveunderstandingof great
powers as those states thatuse militarypower against others.
Meaningfulbehavior,or action,4is possible only within an intersubjective
social context.Actors develop their relations with, and understandingsof,
others throughthe media of norms and practices.In the absence of norms,
exercises of power, or actions, would be devoid of meaning. Constitutive
norms define an identityby specifyingthe actions that will cause Others to
recognize that identityand respond to it appropriately.5Since structureis
meaninglesswithoutsome intersubjectiveset of normsand practices,anarchy,
mainstreaminternationalrelationstheory'smost crucialstructuralcomponent,
is meaningless.Neitheranarchy,thatis, the absence of any authorityabove the
state,nor the distributionof capabilities,can "socialize" statesto thedesiderata
of the internationalsystem'sstructureabsent some set of meaningfulnorms
and practices.6
A storymany use in first-year
internationalrelationscourses to demonstrate
the structuralextreme,that is, a situation where no agency is imaginable,
illustratesthe point. The scenario is a firein a theaterwhere all run for the
exits.7But absent knowledge of social practices or constitutivenorms,structure,even in this seeminglyoverdeterminedcircumstance,is still indeterminate. Even in a theaterwithjust one door,while all run forthatexit,who goes
first?Are they the strongestor the disabled, the women or the children,the
aged or the infirm,or is it just a mad dash? Determiningthe outcome will
require knowing more about the situationthan about the distributionof material power or the structureof authority.One will need to know about the
culture,norms,institutions,procedures,rules,and social practicesthatconstitute the actors and the structurealike.
4. The criticaldistinctionbetween action and behavior is made by Charles Taylor,"Interpretation
SocialScience:
and the Sciences ofMan," in Paul Rabinow and WilliamM. Sullivan,eds., Interpretive
A SecondLook(Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1987), pp. 33-81.
5. Ronald L. Jepperson,Alexander Wendt,and PeterJ.Katzenstein,"Norms, Identity,and Culture
in National Security,"in Katzenstein,The CultureofNationalSecurity,
p. 54.
Vol.
Organization,
6. David Dessler,"What's At Stake in theAgent-Structure
Debate?" International
43, No. 3 (Summer 1989), pp. 459-460.
7. Arnold Wolfers,Discord and Collaboration(Baltimore,Md.: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress,
1962).

International
Security23:1 | 174
ANARCHY
AS AN IMAGINED
COMMUNITY
Given that anarchy is structural,it must be mutually constitutedby actors

employingconstitutiverules and social practices,implyingthat anarchyis as
indeterminateas Arnold Wolfers'sfire.Alexander Wendt has offereda constructivistcritiqueof thisfundamentalstructuralpillar of mainstreaminternational relations theory.8But still more fundamentally,this move opens the
possibilityof thinkingof anarchy as having multiple meanings for different
actorsbased on theirown communitiesof intersubjectiveunderstandingsand
practices.And ifmultipleunderstandingsof anarchyare possible,thenone can
begin to theorize about differentdomains and issue areas of international
politics thatare understood by actors as more, or less, anarchic.
Self-help,the neorealistinferencethatall states should prefersecurityindedeterminedbehavior of an actor
pendence wheneverpossible, is a structurally
only to the extentthata single particularunderstandingof anarchyprevails.9
If theimplicationsof anarchyare not constantacross all relationshipsand issue
areas of internationalpolitics,thena continuumofanarchiesis possible. Where
there are catastrophicconsequences for not being able to rely on one's own
capacityto enforcean agreement,such as arms controlin a world of offensive
militaryadvantage, neorealistconceptualizationsof anarchyare most apt. But
where actors do not worrymuch about the potential costs of ceding control
over outcomes to other states or institutions,such as in the enforcementof
trade agreements,this is a realm of world politics where neorealistideas of
anarchyare just imaginary.
IDENTITIES
AND
INTERESTS
IN WORLD
POLITICS
Identitiesare necessary,in internationalpoliticsand domestic societyalike, in

order to ensure at least some minimal level of predictabilityand order.'0
Durable expectationsbetween states require intersubjectiveidentitiesthatare
stable to ensure predictablepatternsof behavior.A world without
sufficiently
8. Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Constructionof Power
Politics,"International
Organization,
Vol. 46, No. 2 (Spring 1992), 391-425.
9. Elizabeth Kier,for example, shows how the same "objective" externalstructuralarrangement
of power cannotaccount forFrenchmilitarystrategybetween the two world wars. Elizabeth Kier,
"Culture and FrenchMilitaryDoctrinebeforeWorldWar II," in Katzenstein,TheCultureofNational
Security,pp. 186-215.
10. The focus on identitydoes not reflecta lack of appreciationforotherelementsin the constructivistapproach, such as norms,culture,and institutions.Insofaras identitiesare the most proximate causes of choices,preferences,and action,I concentrateon them,but withthe fullrecognition
that identitiescannot be understood withouta simultaneous account of normative,cultural,and
institutionalcontext.

ThePromise
ofConstructivism
| 175
identitiesis a world of chaos, a world of pervasive and irremediableuncertainty,a world much more dangerous than anarchy.Identitiesperformthree
necessaryfunctionsin a society:theytellyou and otherswho you are and they
tell you who othersare.11In tellingyou who you are, identitiesstronglyimply
a particularset of interestsor preferenceswith respectto choices of action in
particulardomains, and with respectto particularactors.
The identityof a state implies its preferencesand consequent actions.12 A
state understandsothersaccording to the identityit attributesto them,while
simultaneouslyreproducingits own identitythroughdaily social practice.The
crucial observationhere is thatthe producer of the identityis not in controlof
what it ultimatelymeans to others; the intersubjectivestructureis the final
arbiterof meaning. For example, during the Cold War,Yugoslavia and other
East European countriesoftenunderstood the Soviet Union as Russia, despite
the factthatthe Soviet Union was tryinghard not to have thatidentity.Soviet
control over its own identitywas structurallyconstrainednot only by East
European understanding,but also by daily Soviet practice,which of course
included conversingwith East Europeans in Russian.
Whereas constructivismtreatsidentityas an empiricalquestion to be theorized within a historicalcontext,neorealism assumes that all units in global
politics have only one meaningfulidentity,that of self-interested
states.Constructivismstressesthat this propositionexempts fromtheorizationthe very
11. Henri Tajfel,Human Groupsand Social Categories:Studiesin SocialPsychology
(Cambridge,U.K.:
Cambridge UniversityPress, 1981), p. 255. Although there are many accounts of the origin of
I offera cognitiveexplanationbecause it has minimala prioriexpectations,assuming only
identity,
thatidentitiesare needed to reduce complexityto some manageable level.
12. Dana Eyre and Mark Suchman, forexample, findthat,controllingforrationalstrategicneed,
domestic coalition politics, and superpower manipulation,countries in the third world prefer
certain weapons systems over others because of their understandingof what it means to be
"modern" in the twentiethcentury.Dana P. Eyre and Mark C. Suchman, "Status,Norms, and the
Proliferationof Conventional Weapons: An InstitutionalTheory Approach," in Katzenstein,The
Cultureof National Security,pp. 73-113. Other examples of empirical research that have linked
particularidentitiesto particularsets of preferencesare "civilized" identitiesdriving attitudes
toward weapons of mass destruction;notions of what constitutes"humanitarian"shaping decisions to intervenein otherstates;the identityof a "normal" stateimplyingparticularSoviet foreign
policies; and "antimilitarist"identitiesin Japan and German shaping their post-World War II
foreignpolicies. These argumentscan be found in Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald,"Norms
and Deterrence:The Nuclear and Chemical Weapons Taboos," pp. 114-152; Martha Finnemore,
"ConstructingNorms of Humanitarian Intervention,"pp. 153-185; Robert Herman, "Identity,
Norms,and National Security:The Soviet ForeignPolicy Revolutionand the End of theCold War,"
pp. 271-316; and Thomas U. Berger,"Norms, Identity,and National Securityin Germany and
Japan,"pp. 317-356. All of the above are in Katzenstein,TheCultureofNationalSecurity.
On identity
and mutual intelligibility,
see Roxanne Lynn Doty, "The Bounds of 'Race' in InternationalRelations,"Millennium:JournalofInternational
Studies,Vol. 22, No. 3 (Winter1993), p. 454.

Security23:1 | 176
International
fundamentalsof internationalpolitical life,the nature and definitionof the

presumes to know, a priori,
actors. The neorealistassumption of self-interest
just what is the selfbeing identified.In otherwords, the state in international
politics,across time and space, is assumed to have a single eternalmeaning.
Constructivisminstead assumes that the selves, or identities,of states are a
variable; theylikelydepend on historical,cultural,political,and social context.
Constructivismand neorealism share the assumption that interestsimply
choices, but neorealism furtherassumes that states have the same a priori
interests.Such a homogenizingassumption is possible only if one denies that
interestsare the productsof the social practicesthatmutuallyconstituteactors
and structures.13Given thatinterestsare the productof identity,thatis, having
from
the identity"great power" implies a particularset of interestsdifferent
those implied by the identity"European Union member,"and that identities
are multiple,constructivist
logic precludes acceptance of pregiveninterests.14
exploresnot only how
By makinginterestsa centralvariable,constructivism
particular interestscome to be, but also why many interestsdo not. The
tautological,and thereforealso true,most common,and unsatisfyingexplanation is that interestsare absent where there is no reason for them, where
promised gains are too meager. Constructivism,instead, theorizes about the
meaning of absent interests.Just as identities and interestsare produced
as
throughsocial practices,missinginterestsare understoodby constructivists
produced absences, omissions that are the understandable product of social
practicesand structure.The social practicesthat constitutean identitycannot
imply intereststhat are not consistentwith the practices and structurethat
constitutethatidentity.At the extreme,an actor would not be able to imagine
an absent interest,even if presentedwith it.15
13. Robert Keohane calls the failure to contextualizeinterestsone of the major weaknesses of
mainstreaminternationalrelations theory.Robert 0. Keohane, "InternationalInstitutions:Two
StudiesQuarterly,
Vol. 32, No. 4 (December 1988), pp. 390-391.
Approaches," International
14. Jeffrey
Legro, forexample, has shown how the preferencesof greatpowers beforeand during
WorldWar II withrespectto theuse and nonuse ofstrategicbombing,and chemicaland submarine
warfare,are unfathomablewithoutfirstunderstandingthe identitiesof the militaryorganizations
W. Legro, "Culture and Preferencesin the
responsible for shaping those preferences.Jeffrey
InternationalCooperation Two-Step,"AmericanPoliticalScienceReview,Vol. 90, No. 1 (March 1996),
pp. 118-137.
15. See, for example, Tannenwald, "Norms and Deterrence," and Kier, "Culture and French
MilitaryDoctrine before World War II," p. 203. For a brilliantaccount of how social structure
enables and impedes the constructionof identityand interest,see JaneK. Cowan, "Going Out for
Coffee?Contestingthe Grounds of Gendered Pleasures in Everyday Sociability,"in Peter Loizos
and Evthymios Papataxiarchis, eds., ContestedIdentities:Genderand Kinshipin Modern Greece
(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1991), pp. 196-197.

The PromiseofConstructivism
| 177
The consequences of this treatmentof interestsand identitieswork in the

same directionas constructivism'saccount of structure,agency,and anarchy:
states are expected to have (1) a farwider arrayof potentialchoices of action
before them than is assumed by neorealism, and (2) these choices will be
constrainedby social structuresthatare mutuallycreatedby states and structures via social practices. In other words, states have more agency under
constructivism,but that agency is not in any sense unconstrained.To the
contrary,choices are rigorouslyconstrainedby the webs of understandingof
the practices,identities,and interestsof otheractors thatprevail in particular
historicalcontexts.
THE POWER
OF PRACTICE
Power is a centraltheoreticalelementforboth mainstreamand constructivist

approaches to internationalrelations theory,but their conceptualizations of
Neorealism and neoliberalinstitutionalism
assume
power are vastlydifferent.
thatmaterialpower, whethermilitaryor economic or both,is the single most
importantsource of influenceand authorityin global politics.16 Constructivism
argues thatboth materialand discursive power are necessaryforany understanding of world affairs.I emphasize both because oftenconstructivistsare
dismissed as unRealistic for believing in the power of knowledge, ideas,
culture,ideology,and language, thatis, discourse.17 The notion thatideas are
a formof power, that power is more than brute force,and that materialand
discursive power are related is not new. Michel Foucault's articulationof the
power/knowledge nexus, Antonio Gramsci's theoryof ideological hegemony,
and Max Weber's differentiation
of coercion fromauthorityare all precursors
to constructivism'sposition on power in political life.18Empiricalwork exists
16. A rare effortin the mainstreamliteratureto break away fromthis focus on materialpower is
JudithGoldstein and Robert 0. Keohane, eds., Ideas and ForeignPolicy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
UniversityPress, 1993).
17. As R.B.J.Walkerhas clarified,"To suggest thatcultureand ideology are crucialforthe analysis
it is important
of world politicsis not necessarilyto take an idealist position.... On the contrary,
to recognizethatideas, consciousness,culture,and ideology are bound up withmore immediately
visible kinds of political,military,
and economic power." In R.B.J.Walker,"East Wind,WestWind:
Civilizations,Hegemonies, and World Orders," in Walker,ed., Culture,Ideology,and WorldOrder
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984), p. 3. See also Onuf, Worldof Our Making,p. 64. Joseph
interpreNye's conceptualizationof "soft" power could be usefullyread througha constructivist
tation.See JosephS. Nye, Jr.,Bound to Lead: The ChangingNatureofAmericanPower (New York:
Basic Books, 1991), esp. pp. 173-201.
18. Colin Gordon,ed., Power/Knowledge:
SelectedInterviews
anedOtherWritinigs,
1972-1997,byMichel
Foucault(Brighton,Sussex, U.K.: HarvesterPress,1980); AntonioGramsci,Selectionis
fromthePrison
Notebooks,trans. and ed., Quinton Hoare and GeoffreyNowell Smith (New York: International

International
Security23:1 | 178
in both internationalrelationstheoryand securitystudies that demonstrates

the need to appreciateboth the materialand the discursiveaspects of power.19
Given that the operation of the material side of power is familiarfromthe
mainstreamliterature,here I concentrateon the discursive side, the power of
practicein constructivism.
The power of social practiceslies in theircapacityto reproducethe intersubjective meanings that constitutesocial structuresand actors alike. The U.S.
militaryinterventionin Vietnamwas consistentwith a numberof U.S. identities: great power, imperialist,enemy,ally, and so on. Others observing the
United States not only inferredU.S. identityfromits actions in Vietnam,but
also reproduced the intersubjectiveweb of meaning about what precisely
constitutedthatidentity.To the extent,forexample, thata group of countries
attributedan imperialistidentityto the United States,the meaning of being an
imperialiststatewas reproducedby the U.S. militaryintervention.In thisway,
social practicesnot only reproduceactorsthroughidentity,but also reproduce
an intersubjectivesocial structurethroughsocial practice.A most important
power of practiceis its capacityto produce predictabilityand so, order.Social
practicesgreatlyreduce uncertaintyamong actorswithina socially structured
community,therebyincreasingconfidencethatwhat actions one takes will be
followed by certainconsequences and responses fromothers.20
An actor is not even able to act as its identityuntil the relevantcommunity
of meaning,to paraphrase Karl Deutsch,21acknowledgesthe legitimacyof that
Publishers,1992); and Max Weber,FromMax Weber,ed., Hans Gerthand C. WrightMills (New

York:OxfordUniversityPress, 1946).
19. Price and Tannenwald show that even power as material as nuclear missiles and chemical
artilleryhad to be understood and interpretedbeforeit had any meaning. In Price and Tannenwald, "Norms and Deterrence."RobertCox has provided an account of the rise,reproduction,and
demise of nineteenth-century
Britishsupremacy,and the rise and reproductionof U.S. dominance
in the twentiethcenturythrougha close readingof the interactionbetween materialand discursive
power. RobertW. Cox, "Social Forces, States, and World Orders: Beyond InternationalRelations
Theory,"Millennium:JournalofInternational
Studies,Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring 1981), pp. 126-155.
20. Onuf sees these reproduciblepatternsof action as the product of "reflexiveself-regulation,"
wherebyagents referto theirown and other'spast and anticipatedactionsin deciding how to act.
Onuf,World
ofOurMaking,
p. 62.
21. Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalismand Social Communication:
An Inquiryinto the Foundationsof
Nationality(New York:MIT Press, 1953), pp. 60-80. Deutsch was a constructivist
long ahead of his
time to the extentthat he argued that individuals could not engage in meaningfulaction absent
in essence is RobertJervis's
some community-wideintersubjectivity.
Anotherwork constructivist
The Logic ofImages in International
Relations(Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1970).
Applying Erving Goffmann'sself-presentation
theoryto internationalpolitics,Jervispointed out
that state actions, such as gunboat diplomacy, were meaningless unless situated in a larger
intersubjectivecommunityof diplomaticpractice.

| 179
action,by thatactor,in thatsocial context.The power of practiceis the power

to produce intersubjectivemeaning withina social structure.It is a shortstep
fromthis authorizingpower of practiceto an understandingof practiceas a
way of bounding, or disciplininginterpretation,
making some interpretations
of realityless likelyto occur or prevail withina particularcommunity.22
The
meanings of actions of members of the community,as well as the actions of
Others,become fixed throughpractice;boundaries of understandingbecome
well known. In this way, the ultimatepower of practiceis to reproduce and
police an intersubjective
Social practices,to the extentthattheyauthoreality.23
rize, discipline,and police, have the power to reproduce entirecommunities,
including the internationalcommunity,as well as the many communitiesof
identityfound therein.24
State actions in the foreignpolicy realm are constrainedand empowered by
prevailing social practicesat home and abroad. Richard Ashley,for example,
writesof a foreignpolicy choice as being a kind of social practicethatat once
constitutesand empowers the state,definesits sociallyrecognizedcompetence,
and secures the boundaries that differentiate
the domestic and international
economic and political spheres of practice and, with them, the appropriate
domains in which specificactors may secure recognitionand act competently.
Finally,Ashley concludes, foreignpolicy practicedepends on the existenceof
intersubjective
"precedentsand shared symbolicmaterials-in orderto impose
structurepracinterpretations
upon events,silence alternativeinterpretations,
tices,and orchestratethe collectivemaking of history."25
Although I have necessarily concentratedon articulatinghow discursive
power works in this section, the power to control intersubjectiveunderstanding is not the only formof power relevantto a constructivistapproach
to world politics. Having resources that allow oneself to deploy discursive
power-the economic and militarywherewithalto sustain institutionsneces-
22. See Doty,"The Bounds of Race," p. 454; and Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the RationalWorld
of Defense Intellectuals,"Signs:Journalof Womenin Cultureand Society,Vol. 12, No. 32 (Summer
1987), pp. 687-718.
23. See Richard K. Ashley, "Untying the Sovereign State: A Double Reading of the Anarchy
Problematique,"Millennium:JournalofInternational
Studies,Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer 1988), p. 243,
fora discussion of this process.
24. Richard K. Ashley,"The Geopolitics of GeopoliticalSpace: Toward a CriticalSocial Theoryof
InternationalPolitics," Alternatives,
Vol. 12, No. 4 (October-December1987), p. 409.
25. RichardK. Ashley,"ForeignPolicy as PoliticalPerformance,"International
StudiesNotes(1988),
p. 53.

International
Security23:1 | 180
sary forthe formalizedreproductionof social practices-is almost always part

of the storyas well.
CHANGE
IN WORLD
POLITICS
Constructivismis agnostic about change in world politics.26It restoresmuch

varietyand differenceto world affairsand points out the practicesby which
intersubjectiveorder is maintained,but it does not offerany more hope for
change in world politicsthanneorealism.Constructivism'sinsightthatanarchy
is what states make of it, for example, implies that there are many different
understandingsof anarchyin the world, and so state actions should be more
varied than only self-help.But thisis an observationof already-existingreality,
or,more precisely,a set of hypothesesabout the same. These different
understandings of anarchy are still rooted in social structures,maintained by the
power of practice,and quite imperviousto change. What constructivismdoes
offeris an account of how and where change may occur.
One aspect of constructivist
power is thepower to reproduce,discipline,and
police. When such power is realized, change in world politics is very hard
indeed. These intersubjectivestructures,however, although difficultto challenge, are not impregnable.Alternativeactorswith alternativeidentities,practices, and sufficientmaterial resources are theoreticallycapable of effecting
change. RobertCox's account of Britishand Americansupremacy,forexample,
perhaps best illustratesthe extraordinarystayingpower of a well-articulated
ideological hegemony,but also its possible demise. And Walker rightlyobserves that constructivism,
to the extentthat it surfacesdiversity,difference,
and particularity,
opens up at least potentialalternativesto the currentprevailing structures.27
Constructivismconceives of the politics of identityas a continual contestfor controlover the power necessary to produce meaning in a
social group. So long as thereis difference,
thereis a potentialforchange.
Thus, contraryto some critics28
who assert thatconstructivism
believes that
change in world politicsis easy, that"bad" neorealiststructuresneed only be
thoughtaway, in factconstructivismappreciates the power of structure,if for
no other reason then it assumes that actors reproduce daily theirown constraintsthroughordinarypractice.Constructivism'sconceptualizationof the
26. Criticalconstructivismdenies this vigorously.
27. R.B.J.Walker,"Realism,Change, and InternationalPoliticalTheory,"International
StudiesQuarterly,Vol. 31, No. 1 (March 1987), pp. 76-77.
28. See, for example, John J. Mearsheimer,"The False Promise of InternationalInstitutions,"
International
Security,
Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter1994/1995),pp. 5-49, esp. 37-47.

| 181
relationshipbetween agency and structuregrounds its view thatsocial change

is both possible and difficult.
Neorealism's positionthatall statesare meaningfullyidentical denies a fairamount of possible change to its theoreticalstructure.
In sum, neorealismand constructivism
share fundamentalconcernswiththe
role of structurein world politics,the effectsof anarchyon statebehavior,the
definitionof stateinterests,the natureof power,and the prospectsforchange.
They disagree fundamentally,however, on each concern.Contra neorealism,
constructivismassumes that actors and structuresmutually constituteeach
other;anarchymust be interpretedto have meaning; stateinterestsare part of
the process of identityconstruction;power is both materialand discursive;and
change in world politics is both possible and difficult.
Constructivisms:
Conventional
and Critical
To the degree that constructivismcreates theoreticaland epistemologicaldistancebetween itselfand its originsin criticaltheory,it becomes "conventional"
constructivism.
Althoughconstructivismshares many of the foundationalelements of criticaltheory,it also resolves some issues by adopting defensible
rules of thumb,or conventions,ratherthanfollowingcriticaltheoryall theway
up the postmodern critical path.29I situate constructivismin this way to
highlightboth its commonalitieswith traditionalinternationalrelationstheory
and its differenceswith the criticaltheorywith which it is sometimesmisleadingly conflated.30Below I sketch out the relationshipbetween conventional
constructivismand criticalsocial theoryby identifyingboth those aspects of
critical theory that constructivismhas retained and those it has chosen to
conventionalize. The result, conventional constructivism,is a collection of
principles distilled from critical social theorybut without the latter'smore
consistenttheoreticalor epistemologicalfollow-through.
Both criticaland conventionalconstructivism
are on the same side of thebarricadesin YosefLapid's
characterizationof the battle zone: the fixed, natural, unitary,stable, and
29. Jepperson,Wendt,and Katzensteindifferentiate

the kind of "sociological" analysis performed
in theirvolume fromthe"radical constructivist
position"ofRichardAshley,David Campbell, R.B.J.
Walker,and Cynthia Weber.See Jepperson,Wendt,and Katzenstein,"Norms, Identity,and Culture,"p. 46, notes 41 and 42.
30. As, for example, in Mearsheimer,"The False Promise of InternationalInstitutions,"wherein
constructivism,reflectivism,postmodernism,and poststructuralismare all reduced to "critical
theory,"p. 37, note 128.

International
23:1 | 182
Security
essence-like,on the one (mainstreaminternationalrelationstheory)hand, and

the emergent,constructed,contested,interactive,and process-like,on theother
(constructivist)one.31
Conventional and criticalconstructivismdo share theoreticalfundamentals.
Both aim to "denaturalize" the social world, that is, to empiricallydiscover
and reveal how the institutionsand practicesand identitiesthat people take
as natural,given, or matterof fact,are, in fact,the product of human agency,
of social construction.32
Both believe thatintersubjectiverealityand meanings
are criticaldata forunderstandingthe social world.33Both insistthatall data
must be "contextualized,"thatis, theymust be relatedto, and situatedwithin,
the social environmentin which they were gathered,in order to understand
theirmeaning.34Both accept the nexus between power and knowledge, the
power of practice in its disciplinary,meaning-producing,mode.35Both also
accept the restorationof agency to human individuals. Finally,both stressthe
of the self and society,thatis, the mutual constitutionof actor and
reflexivity
structure.36
Perhaps where constructivismis most conventionalis in the area of methodology and epistemology.The authors of the theoreticalintroductionto The
CultureofNationalSecurity,
for example, vigorously,and perhaps defensively,
deny that their authors use "any special interpretivist
methodology."37The
authors are carefulto stressthattheydo not depart from"normal science" in
this volume, and none of the contributorseitherdeviates fromthatground or
questions whether it is appropriate.38This position is anathema to critical
theorywhich, as part of its constitutiveepistemology,has a lengthybill of
particularsagainst positivism.
31. Yosef Lapid, "Culture's Ship: Returnsand Departures in InternationalRelations Theory,"in
Lapid and Kratochwil,The ReturnofCultureand Identity,
pp. 3-20.
32. Mark Hoffman,"CriticalTheoryand the Inter-ParadigmDebate," Millennium:JournalofInternationalStudies,Vol. 16, No. 2 (Summer 1987), pp. 233-236.
33. Ashley,"The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space," p. 403.
34. In this respect,both criticaland conventionalconstructivismcan be understood as sharingan
interpretivist
epistemology,more generally.See Taylor,"Interpretationand the Sciences of Man."
35. James Der Derian, On Diplomacy.A Genealogyof WesternEstrangement
(Oxford,U.K.: Basil
Blackwell, 1987), p. 4.
36. R.B.J.Walker,"World Politics and WesternReason: Universalism,Pluralism,Hegemony," in
Walker,Culture,Ideology,and WorldOrder,p. 195; and Ashley,"The Geopolitics of Geopolitical
Space," pp. 409-410.
37. Jepperson,Wendt,and Katzenstein,"Norms, Identity,and Culture,"p. 67.
38. The only,even partial,exceptions are Price and Tannenwald, "Norms and Deterrence,"and
Michael N. Barnett,"Institutions,Roles, and Disorder: The Case of the Arab States System,"
International
StudiesQuarterly,
Vol. 37, No. 3 (September1993), pp. 271-296.

ThePromise
ofConstructivism
| 183
Conventional constructivism,
while expectingto uncover differences,
identities,and multiple understandings,still assumes that it can specifya set of
conditionsunder which one can expect to see one identityor another.This is
what Mark Hoffmanhas called "minimal foundationalism,accepting that a
contingentuniversalismis possible and may be necessary."In contrast,critical
theoryrejectseitherthe possibilityor the desirabilityof a minimal or contingentfoundationalism.39
Ashley chides all noncriticalapproaches for"anticipating analysis coming to a close." In allowing for such prematureclosure, the
analyst participatesin the normalization or naturalizationof what is being
observed, and riskshiding the patternsof dominationthatmightbe revealed
if closure could only be deferred.40
To reach an intellectuallysatisfyingpoint
of closure,constructivismadopts positivistconventionsabout sample characteristics,methods of difference,process tracing,and spuriousness checks. In
making this choice, criticaltheoristsargue, constructivismcan offeran understandingof social realitybut cannot criticizethe boundaries of its own understanding,and this is preciselywhat criticaltheoryis all about.41
So, forexample, Thomas Bergermakes claims about Japanese and German
nationalidentitiesthatimplya certainoutcome foran indefiniteperiod of time
to come.42Such a claim requiresthe presumed nonexistenceof relevantunobservables,as well as the assumptionthatthe practices,institutions,
norms,and
power relationsthatunderlay the productionof those identitiesare somehow
fixedor constant.Criticaltheoristswould see thisas an illusion of control;none
of these factorscan be so easily immobilized foreitheranalysis or prediction.
This differencemanifestsitself as well in how critical and conventional
constructivismunderstand identity.Conventional constructivists
wish to discover identitiesand their associated reproductivesocial practices,and then
offeran account of how those identitiesimply certain actions. But critical
theoristshave a differentaim. They also wish to surface identities,not to
articulatetheireffects,but to elaborate on how people come to believe in a
39. Mark Hoffman,"Restructuring,
Reconstruction,Reinscription,Rearticulation:Four Voices in
Critical InternationalTheory,"Millennium:Journalof International
Studies,Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring
1991), p. 170. David Campbell argues that no identity(or any other theoreticalelement for that
matter)may be allowed to be fixedor final.It mustbe criticallydeconstructedas soon as it acquires
a meaning.David Campbell, "ViolentPerformances:Identity,
in Lapid
Sovereignty,
Responsibility,"
and Kratochwil,The Returnof Cultureand Identity,
pp. 164-166. See also Stephen J.Rosow, "The
Forms of Internationalization:
Representationof WesternCulture on a Global Scale," Alternatives,
Vol. 15, No. 3 (July-September1990), p. 289, fordifferenceson this issue.
40. Ashley,"The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space," p. 408.
41. Hoffman,"Restructuring,
Reconstruction,Reinscription,Rearticulation,"p. 232.
42. Berger,"Norms, Identity,and National Securityin Germanyand Japan."

Security23:1 | 184
International
single version of a naturalized truth.In other words, criticaltheoryaims at

exploding the mythsassociated withidentityformation,whereas conventional
wish to treatthose identitiesas possible causes ofaction.Critical
constructivists
theorythus claims an interestin change, and a capacity to fosterchange, that
could make.
no conventionalconstructivist
In addition,and in a relatedvein, criticaltheoristsself-consciouslyrecognize
their own participationin the reproduction,constitution,and fixingof the
social entitiestheyobserve.43They realize thattheactorand observercan never
ignorethisinjunction,while largely
be separated. Conventionalconstructivists
adopting interpretivistunderstandingsof the connectivityof subjects with
meaning.The observerneverbecomes
othersubjectsin a web ofintersubjective
criticalinquiry.
a subject of the same self-reflective
also split over the originsof idenConventional and criticalconstructivists
accommodate a cognitiveaccount
Whereas conventionalconstructivists
tity.44
are more likelyto
foridentity,or offerno account at all, criticalconstructivists
see some formof alienationdrivingthe need foridentity.As remarkedabove,
conventionalconstructivismaccepts the existence of identitiesand wants to
use critiunderstandtheirreproductionand effects,but criticalconstructivists
cal social theory to specify some understanding of the origin of identity.
Tzvetan Todorov and Ashis Nandy, forexample, assume thatEuropean identitieswere incomplete(indeed, everyselfis incompletewithoutan other)until
The necestheyencounteredpeoples in the Americas and India, respectively.45
is
found in
own
identity
to
one's
produce
sity of differencewith an other
Hegel's bondsman's tale, where the more powerful slaveowner can neither
know his own identitynor exercisehis superiorpower untilhis slave, his other,
helps him constructthatidentitythroughpractice.Perhaps conventionalconstructivismcould accept this assumption: the need for others to construct
oneself,but criticalconstructivismmoves beyond thisposition with the aid of
Nietzsche,Freud, and Lacan.46The formerallows differenceto reign,whereas
43. Cynthia Weber points this out as a very importantdistinctionbetween her approach to the
from
state and more modernistapproaches. Webersimilarlyseparates conventionalconstructivists
theState,and SymbolicExchange
Intervention,
criticaltheorists.Max Weber,SimulatingSovereignty:
(Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1995), p. 3.
44. For a review ofthisissue see FriedrichKratochwil,"Is theShip of Cultureat Sea or Returning?"
pp. 206-210.
45. The discussion of the work of Todorov and Nandy is in Naeem Inayatullah and David L.
Blaney,"Knowing Encounters:Beyond Parochialismin InternationalRelations Theory,"in Lapid
pp. 65-84.
and Kratochwil,The ReturnofCultureand Identity,
on
46. For an account of identitybased on these three theorists,see Anne Norton, Reflections
PoliticalIdentity(Baltimore,Md.: JohnsHopkins UniversityPress, 1988).

| 185
the latterimplies eitherthe assimilationof the other,if deemed equal, or his

oppression,if inferior.47
Critical theory'sapproach toward identityis rooted in assumptions about
power.48Criticaltheoristssee power being exercisedin every social exchange,
and thereis always a dominantactorin thatexchange.Unmaskingthesepower
relationsis a large part of criticaltheory'ssubstantiveagenda; conventional
on the otherhand, remains "analyticallyneutral" on the issue
constructivism,
of power relations.Although conventionalconstructivistsshare the idea that
power is everywhere,because they believe that social practices reproduce
underlyingpower relations,theyare not necessarilyinterestedin interrogating
those relations. Critical theory'sassumption that all social relations are instances of hierarchy,subordination,or domination ironicallyappears similar
to the expectationsof realistsand neorealistsabout world politics.49The different conceptualizations of power imply differenttheoretical agendas.
Whereas conventional constructivismis aimed at the production of new
knowledge and insightsbased on novel understandings,"criticaltheoryanalyzes social constraintsand cultural understandingsfroma supreme human
interestin enlightenmentand emancipation."50
Although conventionaland criticalconstructivismshare a number of positions-mutual constitutionof actors and structures,anarchy as a social construct,power as both materialand discursive,and stateidentitiesand interests
as variables-conventional constructivismdoes not accept critical theory's
ideas about its own role in producing change and maintainsa fundamentally
different
understandingof power.51
47. Inayatullahand Blaney,"Knowing Encounters,"pp. 65-66. For a very useful analysis of how
different
accounts of identityhave made theirway throughfeministtheorizing,see Allison Weir,
Sacrificial
Logics:FeministTheoryand theCritiqueofIdentity(New York:Routledge, 1996).
48. My views on the differencesseparatingcriticaland conventionalconstructivistpositions on
power were shaped in conversationwith JimRichter.
49. See ArturoEscobar,"Discourse and Power in Development:Michel Foucault and theRelevance
of His Work to the Third World," Alternatives,
Vol. 10, No. 4 (October-December 1984), esp.
pp. 377-378.
50. This is takenfromAndrew Linklater,"The Question oftheNext Stage in InternationalRelations
Point of View," Millennium:JournalofInternational
Theory: A Critical-Theoretical
Studies,Vol. 21,
No. 1 (Spring 1992), p. 91, and is based on his interpretation
of JurgenHabermas. For a view on
preciselythe point of the emancipatorypower of criticaltheory,see Chris Brown,"'TurtlesAll the
Way Down': Anti-Foundationalism,
CriticalTheory,and InternationalRelations,"Millennium:Journal ofInternational
Studies,Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer 1994), p. 219.
51. For an alternativeaccount of internationalrelationstheoryfroma criticaltheoryperspective
in which conventional constructivism'spositions can be found as well, see Richard K. Ashley,
"Three Modes of Economism," InternationalStudies Quarterly,Vol. 27, No. 4 (December 1983),
pp. 477-491. On the constructionof anarchy,in particular,see Ashley,"Untying the Sovereign

International
Security23:1 | 186
A Constructivist
Research
Agenda
This sectionaims at moving constructivismfromthe margins52by articulating
a loosely Lakatosian research program for a constructiviststudy of internaI presentthisresearchagenda in threesections.The firststep
tional relations.53
is to show that constructivismofferscompetingunderstandingsof some key
puzzles frommainstreaminternationalrelationstheory.The second move is to
suggest what new and innovative puzzles constructivismpromises to raise.
The last step is forconstructivismto point out its own weaknesses.
MAINSTREAM
PUZZLES,
CONSTRUCTIVIST
SOLUTIONS
Constructivismcan provide alternativeaccounts of the balance of threat,securitydilemmas, neoliberal institutionalist

accounts of cooperation under anarchy,and the liberal theoryof the democraticpeace.
BALANCE OF THREAT. Neorealism tells us that states ally against power.
Steven Walt rightlyobserved that this is empiricallywrong. He suggested,
instead, that states ally against threats.The attemptedfix was to claim that
states will balance, not against power, but against particularkinds of power.
The latter is the power possessed by a relatively capable, geographically
proximatestate with offensivemilitarycapabilities and perceived hostile intentions.54
Whereas geographicalproximityand offensivemilitarycapacitycan
be established a priori,perceived intentionsthreatentautology.Several constructivistscholarshave pointed to balance of threatas one of the mainstream
State," p. 253. In addition, conventionalconstructivismis more willing to accept the ontological

status of the state when theorizing,whereas criticaltheorydemands thatthe state remain a zone
of contestation,and should be understood as such; its autonomous existence should not be
accepted. For the formerconventionalview, see Alexander Wendt,"ConstructingInternational
Politics," International
Security,Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), p. 72. For the criticalview of the
state,see Ashley,"Untyingthe Sovereign State," pp. 248-251.
52. For the challenge to constructiviststo develop a research program or be marginalized,see
Keohane, "InternationalInstitutions,"p. 392. For criticismin a similar vein, see Thomas J.Biersteker,"Critical Reflectionson Post-Positivismin InternationalRelations," InternationalStudies
Quarterly,
Vol. 33, No. 3 (September1989), p. 266.
53. It is a loose adaptation because, while I adopt Lakatosian criteriafor what constitutesa
progressiveand degenerativeshiftin a researchprogram,I do not adopt his standardsof falsificationismor theirassociated "protectivebelts" of auxiliaryhypotheses.See Imre Lakatos, "Falsification and the Methodology of ScientificResearch Programmes," in Imre Lakatos and Alan
Musgrave, eds., Criticismand the Growthof Knowledge(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University
Press, 1970), pp. 91-196.
54. Stephen M. Waltz,TheOriginsofAlliances(Ithaca,N.Y: Cornell UniversityPress, 1987,p. 5. By
acknowledging that "one cannot determinea priori . . . which sources of threatwill be most
importantin any given case; one can say only that all of them are likely to play a role," Waltz
does not offera nontautologicalmeans forspecifyingthreat.Quotation on p. 26.

| 187
What is missinghere
alternative.55
accountsmost susceptibleto a constructivist
is a theory of threatperception,and this is precisely what a constructivist
account of identityoffers.
Distributionof power cannotexplain the alliance patternsthatemergedafter
World War II; otherwise,the United States would have been balanced against,
not the Soviet Union. Instead,the issue mustbe how France,Britain,Germany,
and the United States came to understand Soviet militarycapabilities and
geographical proximityas threatening.The neorealistaccount would be that
the Soviet Union demonstratedby its behavior thatit was an objectivethreat
account would be thatthe state identities
to WesternEurope. A constructivist
of WesternEurope, the United States, and the Soviet Union, each rooted in
domesticsocioculturalmilieus,produced understandingsof one anotherbased
on differencesin identityand practice. The potential advantage of this approach is that it is more likelyto surfacedifferencesin how the Soviet threat
was constructedin differentsites than is the neorealistapproach, which accords objectivemeaning to Soviet conduct.
Let us imagine, for example, that the United States balanced against the
Soviet Union because of the latter'scommunistidentity,and what thatmeant
to the United States.If true,it means thatotherpossible Soviet identities,such
as an Asian, Stalinist,Russian, or authoritarianthreat,were not operative.So
what? First,how the United StatesunderstoodtheSoviet threat,as communist,
not only explains the anticommunistdirectionof U.S. actions in the Cold War,
but it also tellsus thattheUnited Statesunderstooditselfas theanticommunist
protectorof a particularset of values both at home and abroad. Second, how
the United States constructedthe Soviet communistthreatneeds to be understood in relation to how WesternEuropeans understood that threat.If, for
example, France understood the Soviet threatas a Russian threat,as an instance of superior Russian power in Europe, then France would not readily
join in U.S. anticommunistventures against the Soviet Union. In particular,
whereas theUnited Statessaw the thirdworld duringtheCold War as an arena
forbattlingcommunism,as in Vietnam,Europeans very rarelyunderstood it
in those terms,instead regardingthirdworld states as economic actors or as
formercolonies.
55. See Thomas Risse-Kappen, "Collective Identityin a Democratic Community:The Case of

pp. 361-368; Barnett,"Identityand AlliNATO," in Katzenstein,The CultureofNationalSecurity,
ances," pp. 401-404; Peter J. Katzenstein,"Introduction:AlternativePerspectives on National
pp. 27-28; Jepperson,Wendt,and KatzenSecurity,"in Katzenstein,TheCultureofNationalSecurity,
stein,"Norms, Identity,and Culture,p. 63; and Wendt,"ConstructingInternationalPolitics,"p. 78.

International
Security23:1 | 188
SECURITY DILEMMAS.
Securitydilemmas are the products of presumed uncertainty.56
They are assumed to be commonplace in world politics because
states presumably cannot know, with sufficientcertaintyor confidence,the
intentionsof others. But as importantas the securitydilemma is to understanding conflictualrelationsamong states,we do not see much evidence of
securitydilemmas among many pairs or groups of states:membersof the same
alliance, members of the same economic institution,perhaps two peaceful
states or two neutral states,and so on. In the study of world politics,uncertaintymightbe best treatedas a variable, not a constant.Constructivismcan
provide an understanding of what happens most of the time in relations
between states, namely, nothing threateningat all. By providing meaning,
identitiesreduce uncertainty.57
States understand differentstates differently.
Soviet and French nuclear
capabilitieshad different
meanings forBritishdecision makers. But of course
certaintyis not always a source of security.Knowing that anotherstate is an
aggressorresolves the securitydilemma,but only by replacingit with certain
insecurity,an increased confidencethat the other state is in fact threatening.
As Richard Ashley,bowing generouslyto Karl Deutsch, pointed out, politics
itselfis impossible in the absence of "a backgroundof mutual understandings
and habitual practices that orients and limits the mutual comprehensionof
practices,the significationof social action."58Constructivism'sempiricalmission is to surface the "background" that makes uncertaintya variable to
understand,ratherthan a constantto assume.
NEOLIBERAL
COOPERATION.
Neoliberalism offers compelling arguments
about how statescan achieve cooperationamong themselves.Simple iterative
interactionamong states,even when theypreferto exploit one another,may
stilllead to cooperativeoutcomes.The conditionsminimallynecessaryforsuch
outcomes include transparencyof action,capacityto monitorany noncooperalow
tive behavior and punish the same in a predictablefashion,a sufficiently
discount (high appreciation)rate forfuturegains fromthe relationship,and an
expectationthatthe relationshipwill not end in the foreseeablefuture.59
56. RobertJervis,"Cooperation under the SecurityDilemma," WorldPolitics,Vol. 30, No. 2 (March

1978), pp. 167-214.
57. I thankMaria Fanis forbringinghome to me the importanceof thinkingabout world politics
in this way.
58. Ashley,"Three Modes," p. 478; see also Ashley,"The Geopoliticsof GeopoliticalSpace," p. 414.
59. Kenneth A. Oye, "Explaining Cooperation under Anarchy: Hypotheses and Strategies,"in
KennethA. Oye, ed., Cooperation
underAnarchy(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1986),
pp. 1-24.

ThePromiseofConstructivism
| 189
Internationalinstitutions,whetherin the formof regimes,laws, treaties,or

organizations,help provide these necessary conditions for cooperation. By
having rules about what constitutesa violation of a relationship,institutions
help increase the confidenceof each statethatit will not be exploited and that
its own cooperative move will be reciprocated.By establishingformalmechanisms of surveillance,institutionsenable states to see what other states are
doing, again enhancing confidencethat a defectionwill be seen and a cooperativeaction will be followed by the same. By creatingrules and procedures
for surveillance and sanction, all parties can have greater confidence that
violations will be punished. By formalizingthese relationships,institutions
help reduce each state's discount rate for futuregains while increasingeach
state's expectationthatthe relationshipwill continueinto the future.60
Constructivismsharesneoliberalism'sconclusionthatcooperationis possible
under anarchy,but offersa very differentaccount of how that outcome
emerges. Robert Keohane presents as the heart of neoliberalismtwo fundamental assumptions:thereare potentiallybeneficialagreementsamong states
that have not been reached, and they are hard to achieve.61A constructivist
approach mightbegin by investigatinghow states understand theirinterests
withina particularissue area. The distributionof identitiesand interestsof the
relevantstates would then help account forwhethercooperation is possible.
The assumption of exogenous interestsis an obstacle to developing a theory
of cooperation.
Sittingdown to negotiatea trade agreementamong friends(as opposed to
adversaries or unknowns) affectsa state's willingnessto lead with a cooperativemove. Perhaps it would no longerunderstandits interestsas theunilateral
exploitationof the otherstate.Instead it mightsee itselfas a partnerin pursuit
of some value otherthan narrow strategicinterest.In LogicofCollectiveAction,
Mancur Olson bracketeda host of situationswhere cooperationwas relatively
easy,despite large numbersof players,the absence of a group large enough to
provide a public good, but sufficiently
small to avert coordinationproblems
(a k-group),no hegemonicleadership,and so on. These were situationswhere
communitiesof identityexisted such thatthe players were not in a noncooperativegame in the firstplace. Too littleattentionhas been paid to thisinsight.
60. The regimes literatureis vast. For an early foundational volume that includes theoretical
and some self-critique,
specification,empiricalillustration,
see StephenD. Krasner,ed., International
Regimes(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1983). Elaborationof the marketfailurelogic is in
Robert0. Keohane, AfterHegemony(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1984).
61. Keohane, "InternationalInstitutions,"p. 386.

International
Security23:1 | 190
A constructivist
account of cooperationwould reconstructsuch intersubjective
communitiesas a matterof course.
in reachingan agreement,she usually
When a neoliberalwritesof difficulty
has one particular problem in mind: uncertainty.Many of the institutional
mechanismsdescribed above are aimed at reducinguncertaintyamong states:
provision of transparency;facilitationof iteration;enabling of decomposition;
and of course the developmentof rules,monitoringcapabilities,and adjudicawould agree thatthese are all veryimportant,
tionprocedures.A constructivist
but thata priorissue must be raised: Is it not likelythatthe level of certainty
is a variable associated with identityand practice,and that,ceterisparibus,the
less certaintyone has, the more institutionaldevices are necessaryto produce
cooperation,theharderthatcooperationwill be to achieve, and themore likely
it will be to break down?
Neoliberalismhas concluded thatan importantpart of ensuringcompliance
with agreementsis the developmentof reputationsforreliability.62
One of the
most importantcomponentsof discursivepower is the capacity to reproduce
order and predictabilityin understandingsand expectations.In this respect,
identitiesare a congealed reputation,that is, the closest one can get in social
life to being able to confidentlyexpect the same actions fromanother actor
time aftertime. Identitiessubsume reputation;being a particularidentityis
sufficientto provide necessary diagnostic informationabout a state's likely
actions with respectto otherstates in particulardomains.63
On the other side of the life cycle, neoliberals argue that institutionsdie
when membersno longer"have incentivesto maintainthem."64But one of the
more enduringpuzzles forneoliberalsis why theseinstitutionspersistpast the
62. On the criticalimportanceof a theoryof reputationto account foreconomic transactions,such
as contracts,see David M. Kreps, "Corporate Culture and Economic Theory,"in JamesE. Alt and
Kenneth A. Shepsle, eds., Perspectives
on PositivePoliticalEconomy(Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge
UniversityPress,1990), pp. 90-143. Formal game-theoreticwork on reputationconsistentlyshows
thatit should matter,and it does, but onlywhen assumed to do so. Empiricalwork in international
relationshas shown thatreputationsdo not work as hypothesizedby most internationalrelations
theory.See JonathanMercer,Reputationand International
Politics(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1996); Ted Hopf, PeripheralVisions:Deterrence
Theoryand AmericanForeignPolicyin theThird
World,1965-1990 (Ann Arbor: Universityof Michigan Press, 1994); Richard Ned Lebow, Between
Peace and War:The NatureofInternational
Crisis(Baltimore,Md.: JohnsHopkins UniversityPress,
1981); and Jervis,LogicofImagesin International
Relations.
63. For a recognitionthat "shared focal points," a la Thomas Schelling,have much in common
with intersubjectiverealityand its capacity to promote cooperative solutions to iterativegames,
see GeoffreyGarrettand BarryR. Weingast,"Ideas, Interests,and Institutions:Constructingthe
European Community's Internal Market," in Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas and ForeignPolicy,
pp. 173-206.
64. Keohane, "InternationalInstitutions,"p. 387.

ThePromise
ofConstructivism
I 191
point that great powers have an apparent interestin sustainingthem. Their

answers include lags caused by domesticpoliticalresistanceto adjustment,the
stickinessof institutionalarrangements,and the transactioncosts entailed in
the renegotiationof agreementsand the establishmentof a new order.65An
alternativeconstructivisthypothesiswould be that if the identitiesbeing reproduced by the social practicesconstitutingthatinstitutionhave gone beyond
the strategicgame-playing self-regardingunits posited by neoliberals, and
have developed an understandingof each otheras partnersin some common
enterprise,thenthe institutionwill persist,even if apparent underlyingpower
and interestshave shifted.66Duncan Snidal, in his formalrepresentationof
what is most likelyto happen as a hegemon falters,includes as an untheorized
variable "interestin the regime," with the obvious positive relationshipbetween interestin the regime and willingnessto expend resourcesto maintain
it afterhegemonic decline.67Constructivistresearch,through exploring the
natureof the norms,practices,and identitiesconstitutingmembershipin some
can provide some measurable substantivecontentforthatvariable.
institution,
Although constructivistsand neoliberals agree that anarchy does not preclude cooperation among states, how they understand the emergence and
reproductionof such cooperation yields very different
accounts and research
agendas.
THE DEMOCRATIC
PEACE. The observation that democratic states have not
fought each other is an empirical regularityin search of a theory.Neither
structuralnor normativeaccountsfareverywell.68The formerrequiresassuming a consistentlybellicose executivebeing constrainedby a pacificpublic and
its duly-electedrepresentativeinstitutions-butonly when democraticadver65. On lags and stickiness,see Stephen D. Krasner,State Power and the Structureof International
Trade," WorldPolitics,Vol. 28, No. 3 (April 1976), pp. 317-343. On transactioncosts,see Keohane,
AfterHegemony.
66. Anotherconstructivist
hypothesisoffersitselfhere: institutionalizedcooperationwill be more
likelyto endure to the extentthatthe identitiesof the membersof thatinstitutionare understood
as common and they are reproduced by a thick array of social practices. This is meant as a
continuum,with narrowself-interest
being arrayedat one end of the spectrum,neoliberalinstitutionalizationof self-interested
cooperationin the middle, communityof identitytoward the other
end, and harmonyat the otherpole.
67. Duncan Snidal, "The Limitsof Hegemonic StabilityTheory,"International
Vol. 39,
Organization,
No. 4 (Autumn 1985), esp. pp. 610-611.
68. For a comprehensivereview of the most recentliteratureon the democraticpeace, and an
empiricaltestthat shows thatsatisfactionwith the status quo (a variable subject to constructivist
interpretation)
is the single most importantfactoraffectingthe use of force,by democracies and
authoritarianstates alike, see David L. Rousseau, ChristopherGelpi, and Dan Reiter,"Assessing
the Dyadic Nature of the DemocraticPeace, 1918-1988,"AmericanPoliticalScienceReview,Vol. 90,
No. 3 (September1996), p. 527.

International
Security23:1 | 192
saries are about. The latterhas more promise,but its naturalizationof certain
aspects of liberalism-the market,nonviolent resolution of differences,the
franchise,the FirstAmendment-and its crucial assumption thatthese norms
actually matterto decision makers in democraticstates when making choices
about war and peace with other democracies, are untenable and untested,
respectively.
Constructivismis perfectlysuited to the task of testingand fundamentally
revisingthe democraticpeace.69Its approach aims at apprehending how the
social practicesand normsof statesconstructthe identitiesand interestsof the
same. Ergo, if democracies do not fighteach other,then it must be because of
the way they understand each other,their intersubjectiveaccounts of each
other,and the socio-internationalpractices that accompany those accounts.70
But constructivismcould offera more general account of zones of peace, one
not limitedto democracies.Differentperiods of the historiesof bothAfricaand
Latin America have been marked by long stretchesof little or no warfare
between states. These pacific periods are obviously not associated with any
"objective" indicatorsof democracy.By investigatinghow Africanand Latin
American states constructedthemselves and others,it might be possible to
understandthese neglectedzones of "authoritarianpeace."
Constructivist
Puzzles
It proposes a way
Constructivismoffersan account of the politicsof identity.71
of understandinghow nationalism,ethnicity,
race, gender,religion,and sexuunderstoodcommunties,are each involved in
ality,and otherintersubjectively
an account of global politics. Understandinghow identitiesare constructed,
what norms and practicesaccompany theirreproduction,and how they constructeach otheris a major part of the constructivist
researchprogram.
69. For a very well developed researchdesign to test constructivist

versus mainstreamaccounts
of the democraticpeace, see Colin Kahl, "Constructinga Separate Peace: Constructivism,
Collective
Liberal Identity,and the Democratic Peace," SecurityStudies(forthcoming).
70. For accounts of the democraticpeace that focus on its contextualintersubjectivecharacters,
see Ido Oren, "The Subjectivityof the 'Democratic' Peace: Changing U.S. Perceptionsof Imperial
Germany,"International
Security,Vol. 20, No. 2 (Fall 1995), pp. 147-184; Thomas Risse-Kappen,
Cooperationamong Democracies,p. 30; and Risse-Kappen, "Collective Identityin a Democratic
Community,"pp. 366-367.
71. I do not tryto compile a comprehensiveset of questions forconstructivists,
but instead merely
elaborate general themesforresearch,themes thatdo not have a prominentplace in mainstream
internationalrelationstheory.

| 193
Although nationalism and ethnicityare receivingmore attentionin mainstreaminternationalrelationstheory,attentionto gender,sexuality,race, and

religionhave received much less, and certainlynone of them is part of either
neorealist or neoliberal accounts of how the world works.72Constructivism
promises to deal with these issues, not merely because they are topical or
heretoforeundervalued,but because as varietiesof identity,theyare centralto
how constructivism
generatesunderstandingsof social phenomena. Constructivismassumes, a priori,thatidentitiesare potentiallypart of the constitutive
practicesof the state,and so, productiveof its actions at home and abroad.73
One of the most importantby-productsof thisconcernwithidentitypolitics
is the returnof differencesamong states. The same state is, in effect,many
different
actorsin world politics,and different
statesbehave differently
toward
other states,based on the identitiesof each. If true, then we should expect
different
patternsof behavior across groups of states with different
identities
and interests.74
Although it is temptingto assert that similaritybreeds cooperation,it is impossible to make such an a prioriclaim. Identitieshave much
more meaning for each state than a mere label. Identitiesoffereach state an
understandingof other states,its nature,motives,interests,probable actions,
attitudes,and role in any given political context.
Understandinganotherstate as one identity,ratherthan another,has consequences for the possible actions of both. For example, Michael Barnetthas
speculated that the failure of deterrenceagainst Iraq in Kuwait in 1990 is
because Saudi Arabia was seen as an "Arab," ratherthan a "sovereign,"state.
Iraq's understandingof Saudi Arabia as an Arab state implied that Riyadh
would never allow U.S. forcesto deploy on Arab territory.
If,instead,Iraq had
72. For a criticalview of neorealism'sbelated effortsto capture nationalism,see Yosef Lapid and
FriedrichKratochwil,"Revisitingthe 'National': Toward an IdentityAgenda in Neorealism?, in
Lapid and Kratochwil,The Returnof Cultureand Identity,pp. 105-126. For a most imaginative
criticalconstructivisttreatmentof nationalism,see Daniel Deudney, "Ground Identity:Nature,
Place, and Space in Nationalism,"in ibid.,pp. 129-145; see also Roxanne Lynn Doty,"Sovereignty
and the Nation: Constructingthe Boundaries of National Identity,"in Thomas J. Bierstekerand
as Social Construct(Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge University
CynthiaWeber,eds., StateSovereignty
Press, 1996) pp. 121-147.
73. For example,J.Ann TicknerobservesthatcontemporarymasculinizedWesternunderstandings
of themselveslead to feminizedportrayalsof the South as "emotional and unpredictable.Tickner,
"Identityin InternationalRelations Theory:FeministPerspectives,"in Lapid and Kratochwil,The
Return
ofCulture
andIdentity,
pp. 147-162.
74. For example,Risse-Kappen,"Collective Identityin a DemocraticCommunity,"findsa common

identitywithinthe NorthAtlanticTreatyOrganization;see also Iver B. Neumann and Jennifer
M.
Welsh, "The Other in European self-definition,"
Review of InternationalStudies,Vol. 17, No. 4
(October 1991), pp. 327-348, for an exploration of "Christian" and "European" states versus
"Islamic" "Asiatic" Turkey.

International
Security23:1 | 194
understoodSaudi Arabia as a sovereignstate,in a realistworld,it would have

perhaps expected Saudi balancing against Iraqi actions in Kuwait, including
U.S. militaryintervention,and would have been deterred.75In other words,
neorealistpredictionsof balancing behavior,such as thatof Saudi Arabia, rely
on a single particularidentitybeing ascribed to that countryby Iraq. But if
alternativeidentitiesare possible, as constructivismsuggests, the neorealist
world is smaller than alleged.
Or anotherstatemay not be seen as another"state" at all, but instead as an
ally, friend,enemy,co-guarantor,threat,a democracy,and so on.76 Finally,
constructivism'sexpectationof multiple identitiesforactors in world politics
rests on an openness to local historicalcontext.This receptivityto identities
being generated and reproduced empirically,ratherthan restingon pregiven
assumptions, opens up the study of world politics to differentunits altogether.77
Hypothesizingdifferences
among statesallows formovementbeyond
the typical binary characterizationsof mainstream internationalrelations:
democratic-nondemocratic,
great power-non-greatpower, North-South,and
so forth.While these common axes of analysis are certainlyrelevant,constructivism promises to explain many other meaningfulcommunitiesof identity
throughoutworld politics.
A thirdconstructivist
promise is to returncultureand domestic politics to
internationalrelationstheory.To the extentthatconstructivism
is ontologically
agnostic-that is, it does not include or exclude any particularvariables as
meaningful-it envisions no disciplinarydivides between internationalrelations and comparativesubfields(or any fieldsforthatmatter).Constructivism
has no inherentfocus on "second image" accounts of world politics. In fact,
an appropriate criticismwould be that it has remained far too long at the
systemiclevel of analysis.78Nevertheless,constructivism
provides a promising
75. Michael N. Barnett,"Institutions,Roles, and Disorder: The Case of the Arab States System,"
International
StudiesQuarterly,
Vol. 37, No. 3 (September1993), pp. 271-296.
76. See Risse-Kappen,"Collective Identityin a DemocraticCommunity,"and Michael N. Barnett,
"Sovereignty,Nationalism, and Regional Order in the Arab System,"International
Organization,
Vol. 49, No. 3 (Summer 1995), pp. 479-510, forexamples.
77. Yale Ferguson and Richard Mansbach, forexample, offera rich varietyof "polities," such as
city-states,civilizations,polis, empires, kingdoms, caliphates, each of which had and, in some
cases, has and will have, meaningfulidentitiesin world politics.Ferguson and Mansbach, "Past
as Prelude," pp. 22-28, and Sujata ChakrabartiPasic, "CulturingInternationalRelationsTheory,"
both in Lapid and Kratochwil,The ReturnofCultureand Identity,
pp. 85-104.
78. Keohane, in "InternationalInstitutions,"p. 392, has made this observationabout "reflectivist"
scholarship..For similarlaments,see Dessler,"What's At Stake," p. 471; and Barnett,"Institutions,
Roles, and Disorder,"p. 276. Alexander Wendt acknowledges he has "systematicallybracketed"
domestic factorsin Wendt,"AnarchyIs What States Make of It," p. 423.

| 195
approach foruncoveringthose featuresof domestic society,culture,and politicsthatshould matterto stateidentityand stateactionin global politics.There
are many different
ways in which a constructivistaccount can operate at the
domestic level. I mentiononly several here.
Any state identityin world politics is partly the product of the social
practicesthatconstitutethatidentityat home.79In thisway,identitypoliticsat
home constrainand enable state identity,interests,and actions abroad. Ashis
Nandy has writtenabout the close connectionbetween VictorianBritishgenerationaland genderidentitiesat home and the colonizationof India. Victorian
Britaindrew a verystrictline between the sexes and also between generations,
differentiating
the latterinto young and old, productive and unproductive,
respectively.Britishcolonial dominance was understood as masculine in relationshipto Indian's femininesubmission,and Indian culturewas understood
as infantileand archaic.In these ways Victorianunderstandingsof itselfmade
India comprehensibleto Britainin a particularway.80Whereas conventional
accounts of colonialismand imperialismrelyon disparitiesin relativematerial
power to explain relations of domination and subordination,constructivists
would add thatno account of such hierarchicaloutcomes is completewithout
exploring how imperial identities are constructedboth at home and with
respectto the subordinatedOtherabroad.81Even ifmaterialpower is necessary
to produce imperialism,its reproductioncannotbe understoodwithoutinvestigatingthe social practices that accompanied it and the discursive power,
especially in the formof related identities,theywielded.
Within the state itself might exist areas of cultural practice, sufficiently
and authorization,to exerta constituempowered throughinstitutionalization
tive or causative influence on state policy.82The state's assumed need to
constructa nationalidentityat home to legitimizethe state'sextractiveauthority has effectson state identityabroad. A more criticalconstructivistaccount
79. Two worksthatmake the connectionbetween domesticidentityconstructionat home and state
relations:thestruggleagainstapartheid(Ithaca, N.Y.:
identityare Audie Klotz, Normsin international
Cornell UniversityPress, 1995); and Peter J.Katzenstein,CulturalNormsand National Security
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1996).
80. Inayatullahand Blaney,"Knowing Encounters,"pp. 76-80.
81. Compare this,for example, to Richard Cottam's very interestingaccount of imperial British
images of Egypt. The critical differenceis that Cottam does not see Britishconstructionsof
themselvesor theirsociety'sparts as relevantto an understandingof Britishimages of Egyptians.
RichardCottam,ForeignPolicyMotivation:A GeneralTheoryand Case Study(Pittsburgh:University
of PittsburghPress, 1977).
82. One mightsay thisabout the Frenchmilitarybetween World Wars I and II. See Kier,"Culture
and FrenchMilitaryDoctrinebeforeWorld War II."

International
Security23:1 | 196
mightbegin by positingthe state's need foran Other in world politics,so as

to justifyits own rule at home.83
A last promise of constructivismconcerns not so much researchissues as
research strategy.Constructivismoffersa heterogamous research approach:
fieldsand disciplines.Constructivism
thatis, it readilycombineswithdifferent
itselfis the product of structurallinguistics,postmodernpolitical theory,critical theory,culturaland media studies,literarycriticism,and no doubt others.
Far fromclaimingprimacyas a theoryof internationalpolitics,constructivism
lends itselfto collaborationwithotherapproaches,both withinpoliticalscience
and outside. Literaturesin decision making,politicalculture,socialization,and
experimentalcognitiveand social psychologywould seem to be most promising partners.
CONSTRUCTIVIST
PROBLEMS
A constructivist
researchprogram,like all others,has unexplained anomalies,
but theirexistenceneed not necessitatethe donning of protectivebelts of any
has one large problemthathas several parts.
sort.Conventionalconstructivism
FriedrichKratochwilhas observed thatno theoryof culturecan substitutefor
a theoryof politics.84Paul Kowert and Jeffrey
Legro have pointed out that
thereis no causal theoryof identityconstructionofferedby any of the authors
in the Katzensteinvolume.85Both criticismsare as accurate as theyare differremedies.
ent,and imply different
Kratochwil's statementreinforcesthe point that constructivismis an approach, not a theory.And if it is a theory,it is a theoryof process, not substantive outcome. In order to achieve the latter,constructivismmust adopt
some theoryof politics to make it work. Criticaltheoryis farmore advanced
but it comes at a price,a price
in thisregardthan conventionalconstructivism,
thatone may or may notbe willingto pay,depending on empirical,theoretical,
criticaland conand/or aestheticinterests.I have described how differently
ventional constructivismtreatthe originsof identityand the nature of power.
83. This is done by David Campbell, WritingSecurity:UnitedStatesForeignPolicyand thePolitics

ofIdentity(Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesota Press, 1992) and JimGeorge, DiscoursesofGlobal
Politics:A Critical(Re)Introduction
to International
Relations(Boulder,Colo.: Lynne Rienner,1994).
84. Kratochwil,"Is the Ship of Culture at Sea or Returning?"p. 206.
85. Paul Kowert and Jeffrey
Legro, "Norms, Identity,and Their Limits:A TheoreticalReprise,"in
and
Katzenstein,TheCultureofNationalSecurity,
p. 469. For othercriticalreviews of constructivism
T. Checkel, "The ConstructivistTurnin InternationalRelationsTheory,"
world politics,see Jeffrey
WorldPolitics,Vol. 50, No. 2 (January1998), pp. 324-348, and Emanuel Adler,"Seizing the Middle
Relations,Vol. 3, No. 3
Ground: Constructivismin World Politics,"EuropeanJournalofInternational
(1997), pp. 319-363.

| 197
It is here thatcriticaltheoryfindsits animatingtheoryof politics.By assuming

that the identitiesof the Self and Other are inextricablybound up in a relationship of power, and that the state is a dominating instrument,critical
theoristscan offertheoreticallyinformedaccounts of the politicsof identity:at
least along the dimensionsspecified,thatof hierarchy,
subordination,domination,emancipation,and state-societystruggle.
The price paid for such theories of politics,however,is an ironic one that
naturalizes certain "realities," privilegingsocial relations of dominance and
hierarchy.Of course, criticaltheoryasserts its ultimateopenness to variation
and change, but the point here is that its theoryof politics,a priori,is more
closed thanthatofits conventionalversion,which stands accused of theoretical
underspecification.The problem of underspecificationexistsbecause conventional constructivism,
as a theoryof process,does not specifythe existence,let
alone the precise nature or value, of its main causal/constitutiveelements:
identities,norms,practices,and social structures.Instead, constructivismspecifieshow these elements are theoreticallysituated vis-a-vis each other,providing an understanding of a process and an outcome, but no a priori
predictionper se. The advantages of such an approach are in the nonpareil
richness of its elaboration of causal/constitutivemechanisms in any given
social contextand its openness (and not just in the last instance,as in critical
theory)to the discoveryof othersubstantivetheoreticalelementsat work. The
cost here,however,is the absence of a causal theoryof identity.
The dilemma is thatthe more conventionalconstructivism
moves to furnish
such a causal theory,the more it loses the possibility of maintaining the
methods afford.But the dilemma is
ontologicalopenness thatits interpretivist
a continuum,not a binaryopposition.Conventionalconstructivists
can and do
specify their theoreticalelements in advance in practice. Just to take one
example, not a single authorin the Katzensteinvolume assessed gender,class,
or race in any of theiranalyses. This observation(not criticism)is intendedto
underlinehow conventionalconstructivists
already bound theira prioritheoreticaldomains according to empirical interestand theoreticalpriors. Morecan make predictions,if they choose. Their
over, conventionalconstructivists
only constraintis just how durable theybelieve the social structuresto be that
theyhave demonstratedare constrainingthe reproductionof identities,interests, norms,and practices,in some social context.For example, when RisseKappen argues that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members
regardeach otheras liberalallies, ratherthan as realiststatesbalancing against
a threat,he is making a prediction:ifNATO memberssee each otheras liberal
allies, NATO will persistbeyond the point where the threatdisappears.

International
Security23:1 | 198
One obstacle to the development of a causal model of identityis convenCriticaltheorists

tional constructivism'ssilence on the issue of intentionality.
confidentlydeclare theirindifferenceto the issue: establishingcausality is an
illusory goal. Kowert and Legro point out the failure of any author in the
Katzensteinvolume to establishmore than a correlativerelationshipbetween
an identityand an outcome. In fact,the authors do far more than that:they
control for alternativeexplanations and they show the connectionbetween
norms and interestsand outcomes. But what is missing is the decision based
on the identity.Here again, constructivist
heterogamyallows foran attempted
fix.The answer may lie in tryingto marryconstructivist
process to psychological process. Kowert and Legro discuss the possibilityin termsof the experimentalsocial psychologicalwork of MarilynBrewerand JonathanTurner.86
To
the extentit is possible to establisha causal link between a particularidentity,
such as Japanese antimilitarism,
and an interestin opposing Japanesemilitary
expenditures(or between beliefin a norm,such as humanitarianinterventionism, and an action to fulfillthatnorm),it mightbe attainablethroughongoing
work on the connectionbetween identityand behavior in social psychology.
The last problem with constructivismis really not so much a problem as it
is an advantage. Constructivism'stheoryof process and commitmentto interpretivistthickdescriptionplace extraordinarydemands on the researcherto
gathermountains of elaborate empiricaldata. To reconstructthe operation of
identitypolitics,even in a limited domain for a short period, requires thousands of pages of reading,monthsof interviewsand archival research,and a
standhost of less conventionalactivities,such as ridingpublic transportation,
ing in lines, and going to bars and caf6s to participatein local practices.(The
latterneed not be so onerous.) The point here is that the evidence necessary
to develop an understandingof,say,a nationalidentity,
its relationto domestic
identities,the practicesthatconstituteboth,implied interestsof each, and the
overall social structureis necessarilyvast and varied. Constructivismis no
shortcut.
TheConstructivist
Promise
The assumptionsthatunderlay constructivismaccount forits different
understanding of world politics. Since actors and structuresare mutually constructed,state behavior in the face of differentdistributionsof power or
86. Ibid., p. 479.

ofConstructivism
ThePromise
I 199
of the intersubjectivemeaning
anarchyis unknowable absent a reconstruction
and
actors
have
multipleidentities,and these
actors.
Since
of these structures
identitiesimply differentinterests,the a priori and exogenous attributionof
identicalintereststo statesis invalid. Since power is both materialand discursive, patternedbehavior over timeshould be understoodas a resultofmaterial
or economic power workingin concertwithideological structures,social practices,institutionalizednorms,and intersubjectivewebs of meaning. The greatest power of all is thatwhich disciplinesactorsto naturallyimagine only those
actions that reproduce the underlyingarrangementsof power-material and
social structuresare both enduring and mutadiscursive.Since constructivist
ble, change in world politicsis considered both difficultand possible.
A conventionalconstructivist
recastingof mainstreaminternationalrelations
puzzles is based on the implicationsof its assumptions.Since what constitutes
a threatcan never be stated as an a priori,primordialconstant,it should be
approached as a social constructionof an Other,and theorized at that level.
Since identities,norms, and social practices reduce uncertainty,the security
dilemma should not be the startingpoint foranalyzing relationsamong states.
Since states are already situated in multiple social contexts,any account of
(non)cooperation among them should begin by exploring how their understandingsof each othergeneratetheirrelevantinterests.Since communitiesof
identityare expected to exist,patternsof behavior that spur scholars to consider a liberalpeace should instead provokeus to considerzones of peace more
generally.
A conventional constructivistaccount of politics operates between mainstreaminternationalrelationsand criticaltheory.Conventional constructivism
rejectsthe mainstreampresumptionthatworld politicsis so homogenous that
universallyvalid generalizationscan be expected to come of theorizingabout
it. It denies the criticalconstructivist
position thatworld politics is so heterogeneous thatwe should presume to look foronly the unique and the differentiating.Contraryto both these two approaches, conventionalconstructivism
in world
presumes we should be looking forcommunitiesof intersubjectivity
politics,domains withinwhich actorsshare understandingsof themselvesand
each other,yielding predictable and replicable patterns of action within a
specificcontext.
Mainstream internationalrelations theorytreatsworld politics as an inteCritical theoryreby eithertime or territory.
grated whole, undifferentiated
gards world politicsas an arrayof fragmentsthatcan never add up to a whole,
and regards effortsto constructsuch a whole as a political move to impose

International
Security23:1 | 200
some kind of rationalistic,naturalized order on irrepressibledifference.Conventional constructivism,on the other hand, regards the world as a complicated and vast array of differentdomains, the apprehension of all of which
could never yield a fullycoherentpictureof internationalpolitics.The failure
to account forany one of them,however,will guarantee a theoreticallyunsatisfyingunderstandingof the world. In effect,the promise of constructivismis
to restore a kind of partial order and predictabilityto world politics that
derives not fromimposed homogeneity,but froman appreciationof difference.
Corrections:
In Alexei G. Arbatov,"MilitaryReformin Russia: Dilemmas, Obstacles, and
Prospects,"Vol. 22, No. 4 (Spring 1998): p. 86 line 13 should read "The quantity
of militarypersonnel . .. must be sacrificedforhigherqualityarms"; p. 90 line
17 should read "Numerical Balance"; p. 92 line 3 should read "reinforcement
advantages and interdictioncapabilities against Russian reinforcements";
p. 106 line 10 should read "has never been preprogrammedinto"; p. 109 line
11 should read "to findits forcelevels and structureon a prioritybasis"; p. 130
line 1 should read "down to a level of 1.2 millionby 1999"; and p. 130 line 25
should read "are not carriedout."


Hopf 1998 PDF

Transféré par

Informations du document

Description originale:

Titre original

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Hopf 1998 PDF

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

The Promiseof TedHopf

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

tional relationspuzzles and offersa few examples of what constructivismcan

How much do structuresconstrainand enable the actions of actors,and how

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

Given that anarchy is structural,it must be mutually constitutedby actors

Identitiesare necessary,in internationalpoliticsand domestic societyalike, in

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

fundamentalsof internationalpolitical life,the nature and definitionof the

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

The consequences of this treatmentof interestsand identitieswork in the

Power is a centraltheoreticalelementforboth mainstreamand constructivist

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

in both internationalrelationstheoryand securitystudies that demonstrates

Publishers,1992); and Max Weber,FromMax Weber,ed., Hans Gerthand C. WrightMills (New

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

action,by thatactor,in thatsocial context.The power of practiceis the power

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

sary forthe formalizedreproductionof social practices-is almost always part

Constructivismis agnostic about change in world politics.26It restoresmuch

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

relationshipbetween agency and structuregrounds its view thatsocial change

29. Jepperson,Wendt,and Katzensteindifferentiate

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

essence-like,on the one (mainstreaminternationalrelationstheory)hand, and

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

single version of a naturalized truth.In other words, criticaltheoryaims at

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

the latterimplies eitherthe assimilationof the other,if deemed equal, or his

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

Constructivismcan provide alternativeaccounts of the balance of threat,securitydilemmas, neoliberal institutionalist

State," p. 253. In addition, conventionalconstructivismis more willing to accept the ontological

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

55. See Thomas Risse-Kappen, "Collective Identityin a Democratic Community:The Case of

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

56. RobertJervis,"Cooperation under the SecurityDilemma," WorldPolitics,Vol. 30, No. 2 (March

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

Internationalinstitutions,whetherin the formof regimes,laws, treaties,or

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

point that great powers have an apparent interestin sustainingthem. Their

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

69. For a very well developed researchdesign to test constructivist

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

Although nationalism and ethnicityare receivingmore attentionin mainstreaminternationalrelationstheory,attentionto gender,sexuality,race, and

74. For example,Risse-Kappen,"Collective Identityin a DemocraticCommunity,"findsa common

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

understoodSaudi Arabia as a sovereignstate,in a realistworld,it would have

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

mightbegin by positingthe state's need foran Other in world politics,so as

83. This is done by David Campbell, WritingSecurity:UnitedStatesForeignPolicyand thePolitics

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

It is here thatcriticaltheoryfindsits animatingtheoryof politics.By assuming

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

One obstacle to the development of a causal model of identityis convenCriticaltheorists

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.53 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:57:42 PM