The meaning of hostile bipolarization: Interpreting the origins of the Cold War

Abstract

The origins of the Cold War have been the subject of numerous debates among international historians. On different occasions, historians have looked at International Relations Theory for insights and concepts to help understanding why and how the Cold War originated. While the postrevisionist paradigm was inspired by realism, for the last decade and a half, running parallel with broader theoretical developments in IR, large parts of the debate on the origins of the Cold War have focused on the role of ideas, ideology, and culture. However, the imported innovations had the effect of fragmenting our theoretical understanding of the origins of the Cold War, rather than offering a workable, coherent synthesis. Moreover, these accounts do not always sufficiently address problems of agency and causality. The debate on the origins of the Cold War, therefore, is in need of coherent theoretical frameworks which are capable of remedying these problems. This article argues that a possible way of generating such a framework is taking a closer look at hermeneutics and constructivism.