CHAPTER 7: WHOSE IDENTITY, WHOSE CONSTRUCTS AND WHOSE INTEREST? THE SYNTHESIS OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY DATA IN
3.6 Constructivism: A General Introduction
3.6.1 Filling Extant Gaps or Bringing New Insights? Identity in Constructivism
Theories of international relations like idealism, realism and liberalism share certain concepts though they differ on how these concepts affect interaction among nations. Materialism, conflict, national interests and instrumentalism can all be somehow explained by the above mentioned theories. On this score, constructivism does not seem to offer any novelty to what has hitherto been mooted as the main possibilities and factors of international relations. But, Ruggie (1998) argues, though constructivism addresses the same issues as those tackled by neorealism and neoliberalism, it does so from a different theoretical plane, thus drawing different conclusions and inspiring a different effect.
In a review article of books by Klotz (1995), Finnemore (1996) and Katzenstein (1996), Jeffrey T. Checkel (1998) argues that the neorealist-neoliberal debate about international politics and how gain-seeking behaviour occurs in the international system is consonant with constructivist
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research. Implying that constructivism does not introduce novelty in international relations theory, Checkel (1998:324), argues that the constructivist “critique of neorealists and neoliberals concerns not what these scholars do and say but what they ignore: the contents and sources of state interests and the social fabric of world politics.” However, constructivism has latterly launched an attack on neo-realism especially since the end of the Cold War (Copeland 1999).
The ideational shift that constructivism has made in understanding state behaviour indicates “a substantive [rather than negligible] theoretical shift in the field” of international relations (Blyth 2003:695).
According to Martha Finnemore (1996), certain activities of the post-Cold War international political system defy realist and liberal argumentation. These two theories look at the instrumentality of international relations: how state actions can bolster their power, economic or geostrategic fortunes in their interactions with or involvement in, other states. After the Cold War economically and militarily bigger states have been called upon and have responded favourably to protect citizens of other states; food relief missions to other states have been launched; there has also been relentless efforts to help build stumbling states like Cambodia and Somalia, to mention a few. That these states do not offer any real advantage or benefits to the countries helping them seems to defy realist and liberal thinking, in Finnemore’s argument. What seems to be the driving force for these interventions is the change of norms in the international system. Norms play a part in shaping the interests that states pursue and realist theorization would have little to say about this. Finnemore (1996) goes further to say norms shape state behaviour in “both systematic and systemic ways.” This, of course, does not diminish the fact that states might intervene for reasons other than material, including soft power.
In Wendt’s (1999:4) words, the end of the Cold War invigorated constructivism because it
“caught scholars on both sides off guard but left orthodoxies looking particularly exposed.”
Constructivism argues that anarchy and relative power are not the principal elements of state behaviour as neorealists would argue (Hopf 1998). Ideas that are shared intersubjectively and shape national identities and interests are regarded as the primary influences of state behaviour (Copeland 1999). This point will be stressed more in the ensuing content. At this level, it is sufficient to hint that if national identities and interests can change in the international system, then “the prospects for change in world politics” (Hopf 1998:172) become possible.
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Constructivism differs from the other theories in that it attaches social meaning to international relations phenomena (Hurd 2008). It does not controvert the practice and objectives of international relations; it merely introduces a social dimension to how practices are carried out and objectives are pursued. By doing this, constructivism has opened new theoretical pursuits in international relations on identity and interests (the aspect often “bracketed” by neorealist and neoliberals) and has therefore brought a fresh view of international politics (Checkel 1998:325).
The etymology of constructivism itself makes obvious the constructivist claim that relations among nations are socially constructed. State identities and interests, which ultimately shape state behaviour are also constructed; they are endogenous rather that exogenous to social interaction (Wendt 1992). Realist and liberal theorists seem to take identities and interests as given and hence independent of social dynamics and interpretation (Viotti and Kauppi 2012).
Relations among entities, in this case state actors, are shaped by the meaning that other actors evoke. Human and state actions are tuned towards objects and other states, influenced by the standing (or meaning) of those objects. For example, the meaning that North Korean and British nuclear weapons would have for the United States would vastly differ, though being equally destructive. To the United States, North Korean nuclear weapons carry a sinister threat and are likely to elicit hostile behaviour. British weapons are not likely to provoke such an attitude because Britain is considered a traditional ally of the United States, but North Korea is not. Thus, states act differently towards others depending on whether those other actors are friends or allies, or are foes and rivals (Wendt 1992).
Jackson and Sørensen (2007:162; see also Finnemore and Sikkink 2001) state that constructivism trains its eye on “human awareness of consciousness and its place in world affairs.”
Constructivism, according to Ian Hurd (2008:299, original emphasis) also looks at the
“social and relational construction of what states are and what they want.” This opens a new vista as to what constructivism observes as national identity (what states perceive about themselves and others and vice versa) and national interests (what their specific social standing with others will compel them to pursue or want). In essence, constructivism challenges the argument that interests have an objective existence, independent of national and international dynamics and their attendant social circumstances.
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Nations acquire certain social identities which can be dominant and stable at certain times; it is these identities that influence national interest. These identities are acquired through collective meaning that states attach to each other (Wendt 1992). However, the stability of these identities does not go on ad infinitum; they can be changed by more powerful domestic and international factors (see Checkel 1993). Furthermore, states do not have a single social identity. Identities are essentially relational; Peter Berger (1996:111) argues that "Identity, with its appropriate attachments of psychological reality, is always identity within a specific, socially constructed world.” If, as Wendt argues, states are akin to human personality with similar properties, it logically follows that state identities will also follow the pattern of human identity. Depending on whom one is interacting with, people take up a range of identities; for example, as mother, daughter, sister, wife and friend. In the same manner a state can be a competitor to one, an ally to another, and an enemy to a third, subject to the meaning it attaches to others and also to the meaning others attach to it. However, identities are complex in that even within nations identity complexities can abound.
A single nation can have identities that at some point can be almost diametrically opposed to one another. These complexes influence national preferences for economic development, political stability and social cohesion. Shulman (2005:68) cited Ukraine as an example of a country with a
“national identity complex” comprising eastern Ukrainians who identify more with their Slavic roots and those who identify themselves as “ethnic Ukrainians” (Shulman 2005:60). The difference in identities in a nation could also be accompanied by the strength of those holding opposing identities. A valid illustration would be whether the identity that matters the most in international relations is the identity of those who are charged with crafting foreign policy or the identity of the majority who might not necessarily be in power but embody the demographically dominant view of the country (White and McAllister 2010).
This becomes important in countries with parties and populations that are sustained by different political ideologies. For example, a party that has socialist inclinations, in rhetoric even if not in substance, and exhibits a suspicion to multiparty competition would presumably be more amenable to China. In the case that such a party is in power, it could muster the means to sell its identity as representative of its country. However, national identity could be transformed if a party with different ideological sympathies were to accede to power. In a country that carries out
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what, for African standards, could amount for credible elections, like Zambia, the dominant voice of leaders could actually be tempered by the voice and opinion of prospective electorates.
In other words, if an identity that a certain political party is selling is at variance with popular opinion, the concerned party could be compelled to experiment with other identities. Apart from identities and interests, the role of ideas in international relations is one area that constructivism emphasizes.