Constructivism

Social constructivism assumes that ideas play a crucial role in shaping – or constructing – international politics, and that these ideas themselves are socially, or intersubjectively, constructed. This means that states and other political actors influence one another in forming their ideas. Such ideas can take many forms: perceptions and expectations about others and about situations; definitions of political interests; values and ideologies; scientific beliefs; and more.

Moreover, actors’ ideas and perceptions inform their behavior toward others. This idea-driven behavior, in turn, shapes relationships among actors and, through feedback, influences the very character of those actors. By emphasizing the role of ideas and social learning, constructivism stands as an idealist theory in contrast to materialist approaches. However, many constructivists do not reject materialist theories outright; rather, they offer complementary insights that enrich our understanding of international politics (Onuf, 1989; Ruggie, 1998; Wendt, 2009).

Critical versus Rationalist Theory
Constructivism can be regarded as an outgrowth of critical theory. Critical theory in IR challenges rationalist theories, such as neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism on both ontological and epistemological grounds. Ontologically, rationalist theories assume that actors, such as states, are atomistic – or pre-social –, self-interested and rational. Actors are pre-social in the sense that their identities and interests are pre-given, independent from interaction and learning among each other. By this token, neorealists assume that states have pre-given material security and economic interests, related to their place in the international structure. As egoistic actors that are well aware of their interests, states are regarded as rational actors. According to rational choice theory, states react rationally to external stimuli in the forms of threats and opportunities.

In contrasts, critical thinkers, including constructivists, hold that identities are formed, and interests defined ‘intersubjectively’, i.e. in a social context in which actors, as subjects, learn from each other. Hence identities and interests are socially constructed, instead of pre-given. This way, constructivists depart from simplistic notions of rationality assigned to actors. How actors react to external stimuli is determined by a complex set of factors including a mix of beliefs, values, uncertainty and emotions in a context of mostly incomplete information.

Epistemologically, rationalists hold to positivist and behavioralist images of the scientist who independently from the research subject makes empirical observations in order to discover causal mechanisms, which not only explain phenomena but even allow to predict the future. The rationalist scientist prefers parsimonious research designs, i.e. in which the complex reality is reduced to a few social-scientific laws.

Constructivists and other critical researchers tend to reject the idea of the neutral, independent scientist, as nobody is completely detached from the social reality under study. Aspects of personality such as DNA, social-economic status, historical-cultural background, ideology, personal experience, etc. affect and distort the way the researcher selects and approaches a research subject. Furthermore, social reality and world politics are considered too complex and human intelligence too limited to grasp them in an parsimonious positivist research design. Finally, constructivists are skeptical about universal and a-historical social-scientific laws, as they appreciate the unique social and historical context of phenomena (Reus-Smit, 2009).