Constructivist Turn Research Articles

Rethinking Knowledge and Power: The Local and the Global

Earthly Politics: Local and Global in Environmental Governance. Edited by Sheila Jasanoff, Marybeth Long Martello. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. 376 pp., $67.00 cloth (ISBN: 0-262-10103-3), $27.00 paper (ISBN: 0-262-60059-5). As the watchword for the new millennium, globalization is both valorized and vilified (Mander and Goldsmith 1996; Friedman 2000). In either case, it is rarely denaturalized and recognized for the plethora of socially constructed processes that it is. The contributors to Earthly Politics: Local and Global in Environmental Governance seek to address this omission—and much more—in the context of environmental governance. Rather than dichotomizing the local and the global, this book demonstrates that both are essentially contested, dialectically constituting each other, and deployable in multiple arenas as rhetorical strategies. Most important, the authors of the thirteen case studies contained in the volume generate surprising insights from their unifying premise: that the generation, communication, and diffusion of knowledge is an eminently political project. Thus, Earthly Politics stands as an important antidote to two trends in international studies: the polarization that has occurred around the phenomenon of globalization, and the epistemological bias that privileges the supposedly objective neutrality of science over other ways of knowing. The book accomplishes this by importing significant insights and methodologies from other fields. International relations has been referred to as “the borrowing discipline.” Historically, international relations borrowed much from economics; more recently, the constructivist turn has been inspired by imports from sociology and philosophy of science. Earthly Politics advances the constructivist research agenda by drawing from the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies. How we understand environmental problems, the editors and contributors believe, shapes how we manage these problems. Yet, our understandings can never be divorced from discursive and cultural influences, an insight that is key to both the constructivist turn and postmodern influences in international relations theory (Katzenstein 1996; Lapid and Kratochwil 1996). The interdisciplinary orientation of Earthly Politics comes not only from an epistemological commitment of editors …

When norms clash: international norms, domestic practices, and Japan's internalisation of the GATT/WTO

Almost twenty years old, the constructivist turn in international relations scholarship has succeeded in demonstrating the effects of norms, both in guiding the interactions of states with one another as well as influencing the domestic political debates that give rise to foreign policy outcomes. More recently, scholars have begun to study empirically the interactions between international and domestic normative systems. The origins of many international norms have been located in national understandings of what constitutes appropriate behaviour in a given issue area. The reverse, however, is also held to be true. Many national-level norms have been adopted after first finding their articulation in international institutions.

Theory as a Factor and the Theorist as an Actor: The "Pragmatist Constructivist" Lessons of John Dewey and John Kenneth Galbraith1

In IR theory debates, there exists a recurring tendency to draw a distinction between problem-solving and critical theory. Whereas problem-solving theory ostensibly pertains to the short term, critical theory purportedly examines the evolution of more enduring social structures over the long term. In this essay, the argument is made that this distinction obscures the ongoing role—equally in the long and the short runs—of theory in the reconstitution of social structures. To highlight such possibilities, the essay calls for a “pragmatist constructivism,” which applies a critical approach to the analysis of not only long-term policy possibilities but also to ongoing policy matters. After reviewing the arguments of two essentially pragmatist-constructivist scholars—John Dewey and John Kenneth Galbraith—each of whom recognized the social bases of political life and designed their research with an eye to highlighting unappreciated policy possibilities, the piece concludes by stressing both the disciplinary constraints on IR theorists and the opportunity that the constructivist turn in IR theory offers for a more sustained engagement with public debates.

From Comparative Capitalism to Economic Constructivism: The Cornell Series in Political Economy

The Cornell Series in Political Economy was established twenty years ago by Cornell University Press. Since 1982 over 70 titles have appeared under its auspices, and over time the series has established itself as perhaps the leading political economy series in the USA. What makes the Cornell Series distinctive is how it has consistently eschewed both formal fads, for example, hard-core rational choice analyses, and thematic diversions, for example, globalisation, at a time when many other presses were ‘ambulance chasing’ the next big thing. In doing so, not only has the series kept its identity, but that identity has progressively evolved over time. The series as a whole can be grouped into three broad areas: the comparative study of capitalism (Europe and Asia); international organisation and governance; and the study of foreign economic policy. Having said this, there are of course overlaps, and volumes sometimes do not fit neatly into one or other category. Nonetheless, this is probably as general a grouping as one can make. Yet, despite such generality, trying to review the entire series comprehensively would be pointless given its sheer volume. Consequently, this essay will instead give a partial overview of what I see as some of the main contributions both to, and of, the series, especially in the area of comparative capitalisms. Indeed, rather than simply review, I wish to make the following argument. Implicit in this part of the series is a progression that begins in the mid 1980s with studies of European capitalism. The basic historical institutionalist framework that this initial work utilised takes an ideational and constructivist turn within the analysis of comparative capitalism and international relations in the 1990s. As a consequence, the series is now, perhaps more than any other, pushing forward the insights of constructivist theory into political economy. In doing so, the Cornell Series in Political Economy continues to provide consist-

Norms in International Relations: Some Conceptual and Methodological Reflections

Acknowledging the social constructivist turn in the study of norms, this article offers to demonstrate that the notion of norms is useful as an analytical tool and likely to become a lasting element in international relations theory. Ideational causality and the independent explanatory power of norms are methodological issues that have been debated widely. Despite arguing that norms matter, social constructivism has problems making a successful case for the independent influence of norms. This article explores social constructivism as an approach to understanding international norms and their origins.

Give Structure Its Due: Political Agency and the Vietnam Commitment Decisions

The constructivist turn in the study of world politics provides new impetus to studies of the political deliberations of human agents. The co-constitution of agents and structures implies the non-acceptability of accounts that fail to consider the interpretations human agents provide to structural conditions. But neither can we accept the reverse. Studies of the interpretations of political agents should adequately account for the structural constraints on those interpretations. This paper illustrates how easily agency studies can underestimate structural constraints by reference to a most serious and scholarly account of agency in the Vietnam War commitment decisions, Yuen Foong Khong's Analogies at War: Korea, Munich Dien Bien Phu and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965. The argumentative burden resides with those who offer accounts that hold or imply that agents acted from non-structural motives.

Feminism and Constructivism: Worlds Apart or Sharing the Middle Ground?

The discipline of international relations (IR) is witnessing a “constructivist turn.” In this article, we argue that the new preoccupation with constructivism provides a unique opportunity to further understanding between feminism and the IR mainstream. Feminism and constructivism share a commitment to an ontology of becoming that can serve as a common basis for conversation. Yet there are also profound differences between feminists and constructivists. First, most IR feminists approach gender and power as integral elements in processes of construction, whereas most constructivists consider power to be external to such processes. This failure to conceptualize power and gender as social and pervasive leads constructivists to miss an important part of the empirical reality of power politics. Second, constructivists tend to ignore the implications of a postpositivist epistemology, whereas for feminists the question of “Who knows?” is crucial. We argue that the constructivist failure to problematize the research process as a social (and therefore political) process of construction is logically inconsistent with an ontology of becoming. We introduce empirical materials to illustrate the advantages of feminist approaches. We hope to advance a dialogue between feminism and constructivism because the two approaches add to each other and in combination can yield better theoretical and empirical understandings of the world.

Is there any social constructivist-institutionalist divide? Unpacking social mechanisms affecting representational roles among EU decision-makers

Whereas a constructivist turn has occurred in recent international relations theory, a institutionalist turn has occurred in organization theories of the 1980s and 1990s. Social constructivism and organization theory exhibit important similarities as regards the basic underlying social mechanisms. Consequently, one rationale for comparing these two strands of argument rests on the observation that (i) some of the underlying social mechanisms are nearly identical, and (ii) they address the same dependent variables, i.e. identity formation and role enactment. The central question raised is how cognitive and integrative mechanisms may account for the role and identity perceptions evoked by government officials. Moreover, the frame of reference for the current discussion is national government officials participating on Commission expert committees and Council working parties. Building on survey and interview data, the current study shows that officials attending Commission expert committees tend to evoke expert roles more strongly than officials attending Council working parties. Moreover, supranational allegiances are enacted strongly among officials devoting a great deal of time and energy towards participating on these committees.

The Individual and Society in Psychological Theory

The first part of this article examines the ontological and epistemological presuppositions of various theories concerned with the interdependence between the individual and society. It shows that the majority of theories, namely those of the `constructivist turn', tend to reverse to ontologies which separate the individual and society into two independent units. They cannot, therefore, adequately examine the dynamic relationships between the individual and society in terms of their mutual change. The second part of the article draws attention to theories which adopt the ontologies of interdependent oppositions coming from dialectics. It is suggested that dynamic semiotics based on the study of signs and representations provides a plausible theoretical alternative to all areas of psychology concerned with the study of social change.