Still Missing the other Half

Abstract

This chapter addresses the origin and development of the two makings: world making and sense making. The chapter assesses the conception of agency in international relations, juxtaposing Nick Onuf’s international relations with Wiener’s inter-national relations as inter-cultural relations. It addresses two aspects: the first aspect concerns the missing other half by which the stress on world making rather than sense making of an emerging neo-Constructivist generation, and the second aspect concerns the question of agency in Nick Onuf’s world. The chapter discusses the challenge of sense making as the missing other half. It deals with the observation that while social Constructivists have whole-heartedly embraced the part about the social construction of reality, many neo-Constructivists of the younger generations have left behind the deeper questions of how norms “work” that were raised by the founding fathers of the movement. The chapter examines the conception of agency in international relations, juxtaposing Onuf’s international relations with Wiener’s inter-national relations as inter-cultural relations.