Constructivism and Socialization

The last two articles discussed too much material subjects- military, conflict, and war. Let's talk about another rising theoretical approach in IR theory- constructivism. Contrasting realist and institutionalist argument that discusses how the human nature guides the development of international politics, constructivists explore the source of behavior: what affects the fundamental belief of a state or an international organization.

Constructivists always touch the ontological question of state behavior. As Alex Wendt published the important works "Anarchy is what States make of it" and Social Theory of International Politics, he established solid theoretical foundation for constructivism. Wendt argues that state behavior is not constrained by exogenous structure force, which realist calls the anarchical international environment, but emerge from a process of intersubjective construction. State identity is not given. It is constructed during the interaction between states.

Idea can change the world. This is no longer a slogan used by idealist. Idea can be delivered through various channels in international arena. When one state adopts the idea, the other states might follow and recognize it. This does not suggest that state will violate its interests. The change is that the state originally did not believe it is its interest to do so eventually recognize that it can benefit from it.

Alastair Iain Johnston's book Social State talked about how states construct identity through socialization process of learning and mimicking. It is true that state can alter its belief of interest by socialization process. Barry Buzan's theory on international society is similar to this argument. He see international system as a society where states are like individuals. States interact with each other in the society, learning about each others' intention and coordinate different belief system.

In recent year, more constructivist work focus on the role of NGOs in changing state behavior. The relationship between state and NGOs is constructive because states are not forced to change its policy but voluntarily recognizes the importance of the issue. NGOs provide information, instruction, and advise to governments so they gradually accept that it is in their interest to do something. Martha Finnemore has many works discussing such constructive process. The International Landmine Treaty, for example, did not raise to much attention in the first place. But NGOs kept pushing it until international society finally learned it was important to deal with landmines all over the world.

There is of course huge criticism against constructivism. Realist, rationalist, and institutionalist all presented their defense that constructive process does not dominate state behavior. Some critics recognize the constructivist assumption but argue that it doesn;t make much difference. Mercer said the in-group out-group bias is essentially socially constructed but inevitably causes anarchical international system.

Constructivism has become popular over the past 2 decades. More effort was drawn to look at how state behavior are intersubjectively constructed by individual, NGO, and states. As its critics point out, the world does not always follow the constrcutivist theory, but constructivism does help us understand some phenomena that cannot be explained by main stream realist or liberal theory. Moreover, the theoretical framework of constructivism can be used to replace basic assumption of other theory. As Wendt and Fearon wrote in their article, rationalist and constructivist approach are not separate paths. It is possible to merge two approach to explore questions in IR.