To what extent are the core perspectives of constructivism able to account for contemporary international relations? - A neorealism comparison. Essay by: Preben Gloersen PPR: 410d: Major Approaches to the Study of International Relations MA Diplomacy and International Relations Word count: 5375, including paraphrasing text, excluding front page and bibliography
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To what extent are the core perspectives of constructivism
able to account for contemporary international relations?
- A neorealism comparison.
Essay by: Preben Gloersen
PPR: 410d: Major Approaches to the Study of International Relations
MA Diplomacy and International Relations
Word count: 5375, including paraphrasing text, excluding front page and bibliography
Michaelmas Term, 2014
Introduction
In today’s world, the understanding of different states’ behaviour, policies and decision-
making processes is as important as ever. This is for example based on interdependent
domestic and external spheres (Sterling-Folker, 2002:20), increased transnational influence of
non-state actors in diplomatic processes (Stoltsfuz, 2008:347), and a global instability that has
not been seen since the late 1970s (Solomon & Lee, 2014). Consequently, the relevance of the
conceptual framework of theories of international relations is underlined.
Within this framework, constructivism has established itself as an integrated part of the
contested debate. By promoting a notion of a socially constructed reality, constructivism
seeks to frame analyses of foreign affairs (Adler, 1997:319).
This essay discusses to what extent the core perspectives of constructivism, compared to
neorealism, are able to account for contemporary international relations. It firstly presents a
brief overview of constructivism, and secondly contrasts constructivism’s empirical viability
to that of neorealism with regards to the occurrences of the Arab Spring and Russia’s
intervention in Ukraine. Thereafter, constructivism’s ability to balance empirical and
theoretical validation is considered.
The essay concludes that the precise capacity of the core perspectives of constructivism to
account for international relations, compared to neorealism, is individually interpreted and a
product of policymakers’ actions. Nonetheless, the capturing of complex events like the Arab
Spring and Russia’s intervention in Ukraine makes constructivism a valuable approach for
analysts and the theoretical international relations discipline as a whole.
2
Constructivism - a Brief Overview
Much of the theoretical debates of international relations have revolved around the school of
realism. Its prominent strain of neorealism is no exception, as it has been criticised for being
unable to clarify significant occurrences within international relations. This includes a lack of
sufficient explanations of why the Cold War ended shortly after neorealism’s founder Waltz
(1988:628) predicted that it would last as long as the structure of post-war global politics
endured. The following figure, based on content from Reus-Smit (2013:217-223), illustrates
how constructivism emerged as an approach to analyse foreign affairs in the theoretical
aftermath that followed the ending of the Cold War:
3
Figure constructed based on the content of Reus-Smit (2013:217-223).
4
Within the theorisation of international relations, the “constructivist turn” (Checkel, 1998:324) has been considered as either reaction to the third debate or as a source of a fourth debate (Fierke, 2010:179). The constructivism term was introduced to the discipline by Onuf (1989) and popularised through Wendt’s (1992) article Anarchy is what states make of it. While Wendt’s title maintains the idea of an anarchical international system, it underlines an alternative perspective to neorealism on reality and structure. His objective is to bridge a “cognitive, intersubjective conception of process in which identities and interests are endogenous to interaction” with “a rationalist-behavioural one in which they are exogenous” (Wendt, 1992:394). Hence, across interpretivists and positivists, systemic, unit–level and holistic theorists (Reus-Smit, 2002:487), there are some consolidated elements that make constructivism a distinct form of international relations theorisation (Copeland, 2006:3):
Table constructed based on the content of Copeland (2006:3).
The social aspects of these elements have resulted in realists criticising constructivism. This
includes attempts to associate it with the utopian idealism of the Interwar Period (Phillips,
2007:64). Still, constructivism can be used to criticise idealist thinking on ontological,
epistemological and normative grounds (Steele, 2007:23). Moreover, constructivists’ work on
issues like cultures of insecurity (Weldes et al., 1999) and ethnic cleansing (Rae, 2002:165-
212) prove that an analytical focus on the social construction of identity and interests is not
antithetical to a comprehension of the often grim realities of international relations (Phillips,
2007:65). In sum, constructivism’s theoretical foundation arguably constitutes a framework
for answering Pouliot’s (2004:320) questions about how social facts are socially created and
how they affect global politics. This will be further outlined in the next two sections of this
essay, as the main constructivist principles are contrasted to neorealism in the contemporary
international relations contexts of the Arab Spring and Russia’s intervention in Ukraine.
5
The Arab Spring
Manfreda (2015) defines the Arab Spring as “a series of anti-government protests, uprisings
and armed rebellions that spread across the Middle East in early 2011”. Davidson (2012)
illustrates the geographical ramifications:
Map constructed based on the content of Davidson (2012).
When he describes the preconditions for the Arab Spring, Andersen (2011) refers to the
Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as “the world’s tyranny belt”. At the same time,
several countries in the region experienced imbalances between growth in macroeconomic
Gross Domestic Product and Gross Domestic Product per capita, and between the number of
university graduates and vast unemployment (Momani, 2012). According to Gurr (1970:13),
the urge for human beings to revolt is psychologically rooted in a gap between what they
think they are able to achieve given the available means and what they believe they are
rightfully entitled to.
The neorealist view that the function of individuals is to be components in the creation of
tangible material capabilities (Mearsheimer, 2010:78-79), arguably illustrates some of the
challenges a system-based approach faces in capturing international relations events.
6
Conversely, one could suggest that the constructivist notion of “discursive power” (Lawson,
2013:29) proves its value by explaining the intrastate dynamics of the Arab Spring. This is
evidential through interpretations of the term itself, the uprisings’ perceived starting point and
the methods of how they prevailed.
Alhassen (2012) considers the Arab Spring term to be misleading as its portrayal of a renewed
identity insinuates that the Arab population was indifferent for decades. She further states that
in the MENA region, the most popular words used to describe the revolts are: karama, thawra
and haqooq (dignity, revolution and rights). It can be propounded that the widespread use of
these words illustrates the presence of ideational values, norms and meanings. Moreover, the
apparent pervasiveness of the underlying knowledge that typically is associated with the use
of such words indicates that the relevant ideational elements have existed for a while.
One could suggest that the way the aspirations of the Arab people surfaced reflects a reality
where the ideational structure and its agents mutually constitute each other. The Tunisian
street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi’s decision to set fire to himself to protest against the
treatment he received from the Tunisian regime is commonly seen as igniting the Arab Spring
(Andersen, 2011, Leraand, 2014A, Fisher, 2011). The mythical tendencies that characterise
the narratives of the Bouazizi event (Day, 2011) underline the presence of the creation of
impactful social facts. Hence, the personification of the frustration arguably rooted the
demand for change in the communal identity to an extent where the demand was reinforced
rather than rejected by the following surge in communication.
Since the Arab people’s desires initially received little encouragement from established
political parties, citizen journalism became a vital platform for communication (Andersen,
2011). This type of entrepreneurship was, with the use of the transformative power of new
technologies (Guéhenno, 2011) and social media, able to achieve breakthroughs against the
state-run media (Tufekci, 2011). On the one hand, the prominence of this social infrastructure
is often associated with the ideational aspirations of the Arab youth (Leraand, 2014B). On the
other hand, it scaled out of such boundaries as Andersen (2011) emphasises that ideas were
shared across socio-demographical parameters, geography and level of dictatorship.
7
As a result of the outlined mechanisms, Ritzer (2015:441) indicates that when analysing the
MENA events, it is in addition to the concept of social movements relevant to consider the
sociological elements that revolve around the concept of collective action. By identifying the
Arab Spring’s ideational components which neorealists deem unnecessary to explain, a
constructivist approach to the dynamics of collective action potentially accounts for the
rationality related factors that neorealism actively seeks to address.
Sharing the costs in order to solve a collective action problem appears to be at the core of
rational behaviour. Yet, the neorealist-embraced rational choice theory may struggle to
capture the premise and characteristics of this kind of cooperation based on the presence of
irrationality and altruism. The Arab Spring uprisings took place in unitary states whose
autocratic leaders, according to Andersen (2011), were reassured of their positions through
the Iranian regime’s suppression of the Green Revolution. Hence, the people of the MENA
countries arguably complied with what Shapiro (2000) defines as irrationality from the
standpoint of strategic rationality. Such irrationality means that individuals do not follow a
self-gain rationale since they choose the risk of being killed, wounded or imprisoned, rather
than to be a “free rider” that reaps the public benefits of the collective revolutionary activities
(Salert, 1976:34-35). Scott (2000:131) believes that the norm-based prevalence of altruism
that hampers rationalists’ explanations of collective action comprises “what Parsons (1937)
called the Hobbesian problem of order: if actions are self-interested, how is social life
possible?” Hence, the Arab Spring arguably supports Fiorina’s (2000) acknowledgement that
rational choice theory is less useful in contexts with a relatively high number of actors.
However, it can be propounded that neorealism is able to account for some key rationality
aspects of the Arab Spring. While the sources of the MENA violence are debatable, the
violence potentially reflects what Wallace (2012:37) calls social agents’ inability to fully
endorse the overall envisions they pursue. The “I know what I don’t want” quote of a
protester that took part in the events at Cairo’s Tahir Square (Brinjy, 2011) could therefore be
interpreted in a way that facilitates an understanding of the dissatisfied population as merely
troublemakers. Such image of the population is arguably reinforced by the enduring turmoil
that surrounded the post-revolution elections in Egypt. Furthermore, it may fit within the
neorealist view of the society as a strategic domain for the pursuit of predefined interests.
These conceptions are reasonably challenged through the notion that the plurality of
ideational elements produces different perspectives amongst the individuals that seek societal
around the kind of midrange theorising that, according to Rose (1998:168), “often is the best
social science can hope to achieve”. It could be suggested that such midrange theorising enables
a reduction in the tensions between theorists and practitioners, who Guzzini & Leander
(2006:92) believe “are drifting apart”, and that constructivism therefore is suitable for the “fox
analysts” defined by Berlin (1953). Hence, although “realist and liberal perspectives are still the
theories of choice among foreign policymakers and scholars of international relations”
(Flockhart, 2012:79), constructivism has arguably been established as a legitimate alternative.
Conclusion
States’ behaviour constitutes the fulcrum of the academic field of international relations, and
various theoretical paradigms seek to account for the relevant processes, patterns and events.
Within this context, the prominence of neorealism is based on some distinct notions. They include
states’ focus on survival in a power oriented anarchical international system. Still, neorealism’s
rigid emphasis on materialistic structures within this system has hampered its explanations of
significant occurrences like the ending of the Cold War. The result has been a theoretical space,
which constructivism’s core perspectives have aimed to fill by applying ideational structures in an
attempt to bridge the views of rationalists and critical theorists.
The contemporary need for a constructivist approach is evidential throughout analysis of the Arab
Spring and Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. The Arab people’s focus on dignity and rights
reflects the existence of an ideational structure that revolves around knowledge and values.
Moreover, the personification of the perceived inception of the MENA events and the way the
aspiration of change was socially reinforced across society and societies prove the interaction
between identity and interests, ideational structures and actors. Ideational elements are also visible
in the shared ideas and norms that surround president Putin’s domestically accepted justification
of Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. The definability of these ideational elements’ characteristics
is to some extent enhanced by Putin’s attempt to merge his own and the national identity.
17
Still, there are factors that apparently promote neorealist explanations through a state actor’s
marginalisation of the role of society. In terms of the Arab Spring, this could be found in a lack of
a fully endorsement of change, resulting in a dissatisfied population being viewed as merely
troublemakers. Regarding Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the marginalisation may be reflected in
Putin’s hypocritical referral to conflicting sovereignty norms and humanitarian intervention norms
within the domestic environment. The neorealist framework is potentially further validated by the
apparent outcome of systemic status quo in the balance of power within the international system.
In terms of the MENA region, this argument is rooted in minimal regionalisation and considerable
Western influence. In the case of Russia, the argument builds on the country’s partnership with
non-Western states due to the fear for the very same kind of influence.
However, constructivism’s main perspectives do not exclude materialistic structures, and they
account for what could be deemed as at least complementary necessities. The existence of
ideational structures in autocratic regimes like Russia and the Arab states hampers neorealist
assumptions. Specifically, there are evidences that apparent rational behaviour is characterised by
ideational forces within a given social context. The people of the MENA region approached a
collective action problem through the selfless behaviour of socialised individuals. In Russia, the
possibility that the Western economic sanctions will lead to a rational domestic rejection of the
justification of the intervention in Ukraine, just underlines the presence of an irrational strategy
based on emotions. Moreover, an understanding of the construction of social facts can be
necessary for explanations that target the international system. The ideas of the Arab Spring were
globalised, and some Arab countries’ post-Arab Spring implementation of publicly welcomed
policies points to dynamics of regionalisation. The emergence of ISIS and the role played by
rebels in Ukraine may to various extents illustrate the threat of non-state actors to societal identity
in a non-polar world.
Still, empirical validation does not equal theoretical validation, and constructivism faces criticism
in terms of the balance. There is a contradicting potential dependency on the existence of actors’
identity in order for it to be created, and the relative importance of the ideational structure seems
blurred. Furthermore, the sociological orientation could naturally make constructivism non-
falsifiable. Constructivists’ diverse approach to issues like these apparently strengthens the view
of constructivism as an abstract paradigm. However, most constructivists confine their ambitions
to an analytical framework of contingent generalisations. Collectively, such theorisation could
18
through a natural internal diversity, possibilities for cooperation with scholars of other theoretical
schools, and the reflectivist notion that a potential theoretical synthesis is not and end, maximise
explanatory opportunities based on an understanding of constructivism and its role within the
discipline.
In the end, to what extent constructivism’s core perspectives are able to account for contemporary
international relations, compared to neorealism, depends on policymakers’ actions. Nonetheless,
the sum of their actions constitutes patterns and constructivism captures significant and complex
events like the Arab Spring and Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. Constructivism is therefore a
viable approach for “fox analysts” who seek to get the right answer by defining instead of
defending. Hence, the application of constructivism could reduce the tension between theory and
practice, depending on “what analysts make of it”.
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