Constructivism
What is constructivism?
Significant aspects of IR are historically and socially constructed, rather than inevitable consequences of human nature or other essential characteristics of world politics
Social forces such as ideas, knowledge, norms, and rules influence states' identities and interests and the organization of world politics
Social theory, not a substantive theory of international politics: concerned with how to conceptualize the relationship between agents and structures
Core: social construction of reality
Socially constructed nature of actors and their identities and interests
Knowledge shapes how individuals construct & interpret their worlds
Social facts are dependent on human agreement (intersubjective), e.g. money, terrorism, human rights, sovereignty
Norms & Rules
Norms = expectations of appropriate behaviour shared by actors that hold a common identity
Even in a world of no overarching authority, there are norms that regulate behaviour
Alexander Wendt (1992): "Anarchy is what states make of it" = different beliefs and practices will generate divergent patters and organizations of world politics
Constructivism in the ME
Encompasses a wide variety of different theories: post-colonialism, feminism, Marxism, etc. - very vague
Also encompasses reductionist explanations such as Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations thesis
Fred Halliday (2005)
Cultural explanations seemed to take the ME as the exemplar of this approach - culture was deemed an all-explanatory source from which all else could be deduced
Concern with values and ideology is crucial in IR; one cannot explain IR with out it
However, ideational approach raises some difficulties
In regard to the West/Middle East dichotomy, it would be a mistake to swap an externally imposed set of categories for one bases on simple acceptance or understanding: vantage point of regional actor might equally contain its own illusions, distortions of history and its own warped animosities towards other people in the region
Constructivism runs the risk of ignoring interests and material factors
All explanations need to meet criteria of plausible explanation and accuracy
Michael Barnett (1998)
Situation in the ME is not animated by anarchy or the distribution of power
Arab politics can be understood as a series of dialogues concerning the relationship between identities, norms and regional order
Maybe it is wrong to exclusively apply one IR theory to a conflict and deem this the only valid explanation
IR theories merely provide different lenses that make light of different layers that make up a conflict
One must always keep in mind that the theories and their related conclusions function merely as instruments inside the toolbox of understanding for each unique case-by-case scenario
Identity
Entity that refers to the history, common memory, territorial place and culture of a people
Identities are not pre-given but objects of a permanent social construction and reconstruction
Alexander Wendt: identities express a performative and constitutive relation between the "self" and the "other"
Religion & Culture are often referred to in order to explain and/or justify political attitudes in the MENA region
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