IR Lecture 14 Social Constructivism You cant assume states are all rational actors that they re all alike in terms of identity including the way their key decision makers fundamentally perceive the world You cant assume states are all machines more or less doing whatever it takes to increase relative OR absolute power and that it s only natural for states to behave this way Their interests aren t pre given They don t know what to go after They learn hat to go after in processes of socialization introjecting the norms of international society Then through their day to day policies and actions they construct that same international society structuration o Structuration Diagram The Structurated Duality Jepperson Wendt and Katzenstein The Culture Of National Security Issues o They argued The security environments in which states find themselves embedded are NOT just material e g balance of military power but also importantly and even DECISIVELY cultural or institutional JWK s Three Layers to the International Cultural Institutional Environment ICE o 1 The layer of formal institutions or security REGIMES o 2 A world Political culture layer o 3 A Layer consisting of international patterns of amity and enmity Example Canada Cuba JWK s Key Novel Argument o Elements of the international cultural environment don t just affect the incentives facing states to behave in certain kinds of ways The ICE also affects the basic character of the states their identities o BREAKTHROUGH We reject the prevailing assumption shared by NEOREALISTS and NEOLIBERALS alike that the defining actor properties are intrinsic to states that they are all power seeking and material interest maximizing rational actors The ICE s Three Effects On State Identities o 1 Elements of it ca affect some states very prospects for survival Examples o 2 Changing ICE elements may change the modal character of state hood over time One more point on 2 o 3 ICE elements may cause variation in the character of statehood within a given international society so states may be similar in structure and function but be compelled by norms to play different roles Constitutive Vs Regulative Norms o 1 Constitutive norms specify properties and actions that will cause relevant others to recognize and validate a particular identity and respond to it appropriately Example demonstrate certain characteristics to be identified a state o 2 Regulative norms as the name would suggest simply regulate interactions among already constituted entities o Summary Taken together constitutive norms and regulative norms establish expectations about who the actors will be in a particular situation and how these particular actors should behave Socialization into the normal state role o Some norms are stronger in their constitutive power than others o Generally speaking the more states that uphold the norm especially powerful states the stronger the norm will be STRUCTURATION Again Structurated Diagram o If a strong or getting stronger state decides NOT to accept a regulative norm or resists a constitutive norm the norm will erode unless staunchly defended and upheld by the other powerful states o Rising China and Asian Democratization by Daniel C Lynch Defined by Defining democratization The Third Wave Theorists move into action The Neoliberal Approach to Democratization o Huntington People are rational animals who naturally demand democracy at some point One more point on Huntington Quotation in 1991 Time is on the side of democracy political systems by democratic ones o Giley Even the People s Republic of China s democratization is inevitable just a matter of time o Lynch Democratization doesn t just happen naturally at some point in a normal process of development Some might never become democratic and yet this too is NOT inevitable States aren t completely devoid of identity socialization to global culture They have internal identities that help determine whether they will be socialized argument was if you wanna understand why some Not all states will necessarily do it propensity to accept or resist if you don t accept Stable democratization can only result from state socialization to a global culture that steems it or receives it insists upon it World Polity Theory Constructivism Martha Finnemore and Science in the modern world polity o Connection between Huntington and those two authors Similar to Fukuyama China Thailand Taiwan Variation on the dependent variable The Chinese communist party NO TRUE GLOBAL OR UNIVERSAL Culture could ever exist
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