CHAPTER 6
Social Constructivism
Introduction 162
The Rise of Constructivism in IR 162
Constructivism as Social Theory 164
Constructivist Theories of International
Relations 168
Critiques of Constructivism 172
The Constructivist Research Programme 175
KEY POINTS 176
QUESTIONS 177
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING 177
WEB LINKS 177
❚ Summary
This chapter introduces social constructivist theory of IR. We first clarify where constructivism
comes from and why it has established itself as an important approach in IR. Constructivism is
examined both as a meta-theory about the nature of the social world and as a substantial theory of
IR. Several examples of constructivist IR-theory are presented, followed by reflections on the
strengths and weaknesses of the approach.
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162 Introduction to International Relations
Introduction
The focus of social constructivism (in shorthand: constructivism) is on human awareness
or consciousness and its place in world affairs. Much IR-theory, and especially neorealism,
is materialist; it focuses on how the distribution of material power, such as military forces
and economic capabilities, defines balances of power between states and explains the behaviour
of states. Constructivists reject such a one-sided material focus. They argue that the
most important aspect of international relations is social, not material. Furthermore, they
argue that this social reality is not objective, or external, to the observer of international
affairs. The social and political world, including the world of international relations, is not a
physical entity or material object that is outside human consciousness. Consequently, the study
of international relations must focus on the ideas and beliefs that inform the actors on the
international scene as well as the shared understandings between them (see web link 6.01).
The international system is not something ‘out there’ like the solar system. It does not
exist on its own. It exists only as an intersubjective awareness among people; in that sense
the system is constituted by ideas, not by material forces. It is a human invention or creation
not of a physical or material kind but of a purely intellectual and ideational kind. It is a set
of ideas, a body of thought, a system of norms, which has been arranged by certain people
at a particular time and place.
If the thoughts and ideas that enter into the existence of international relations change, then
the system itself will change as well, because the system consists in thoughts and ideas. That
is the insight behind the oft-repeated phrase by constructivist Alexander Wendt: ‘anarchy is
what states make of it’ (1992). The claim sounds innocent but the potential consequences are
far-reaching: suddenly the world of IR becomes less fixated in an age-old structure of anarchy;
change becomes possible in a big way because people and states can start thinking about each
other in new ways and thus create new norms that may be radically different from old ones.
This chapter introduces constructivist theory of IR. We first clarify where constructivism
comes from and why it has established itself as an important approach in IR over a short
period of time. The nature of constructivist theory is examined: is it a meta-theory about the
nature of the social world or is it a substantial theory of IR, or is it both? That leads to a brief
presentation of the constructivist contributions to IR-theory and some reflections on the
strengths and weaknesses of the approach.
The Rise of Constructivism in IR
Beginning in the 1980s, constructivism has become an increasingly significant approach,
especially in North American IR. During the Cold War there was a clear pattern of power
balancing between two blocs, led by the United States and the Soviet Union respectively.
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Social Constructivism 163
After the end of the Cold War and following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the situation
turned much more fluid and open. It soon became clear that the parsimonious neorealist
theory was not at all clear about the future developments of the balance of power. Neorealist
logic dictates that other states will balance against the US because offsetting US power is a
means of guaranteeing one’s own security; such balancing will lead to the emergence of new
great powers in a multipolar system. But since the end of the Cold War, this has not happened;
Waltz argues that it will eventually happen ‘tomorrow’ (2002). Another neorealist,
Christopher Layne speculates that it could take some fifty years before Japan and Germany
start balancing against the US (1993). The constructivist claim is that neorealist uncertainty
is closely connected to the fact that the theory is overly spare and materialist; and constructivists
argue that a focus on thoughts and ideas leads to a better theory about anarchy and
power balancing.
Some liberals (see chapter 4) have basically accepted neorealist assumptions as a starting
point for analysis; they are of course vulnerable to much of the critique directed against neorealism
by constructivists. Other liberals did begin to focus more on the role of ideas after
the Cold War ended. When Francis Fukuyama proclaimed ‘the end of history’ (1989), he
was endorsing the role of ideas and especially the progress of liberal ideas in the world. But
he and other liberals are mostly interested in the concrete advance of liberal, democratic
government in the world. Even if constructivists are sympathetic to several elements of liberal
thinking, their focus is less on the advance of liberal ideas; it is on role of thinking and
ideas in general.
So the historical context (i.e. the end of the Cold War) and the theoretical discussion
between IR scholars (especially among neorealists and liberals) helped set the stage for a
constructivist approach. And constructivism became especially popular among North
American scholars, because that environment was dominated by the neorealist/neoliberal
approaches. In Europe, the International Society approach (see Chapter 5) had already to a
significant extent included the role of ideas and the importance of social interaction
between states in their analysis. In that sense, there was less intellectual space in Europe for
constructivists to fill out.
At the same time, constructivists were inspired by theoretical developments in other
social science disciplines, including philosophy and sociology. In sociology, Anthony
Giddens (1984) proposed the concept of structuration as a way of analysing the relationship
between structures and actors (see web link 6.02). According to Giddens, structures
(i.e. the rules and conditions that guide social action) do not determine what actors do in
any mechanical way, an impression one might get from the neorealist view of how the structure
of anarchy constrains state actors. The relationship between structures and actors
involves intersubjective understanding and meaning. Structures do constrain actors, but
actors can also transform structures by thinking about them and acting on them in new
ways. The notion of structuration therefore leads to a less rigid and more dynamic view of
the relationship between structure and actors. IR constructivists use this as a starting-point
for suggesting a less rigid view of anarchy.
We have noted some recent historical and theoretical developments that help explain the
rise of social constructivism in IR. But constructivism has deeper roots; it is not an entirely
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164 Introduction to International Relations
new approach. It also grows out of an old methodology that can be traced back at least to the
eighteenth-century writings of the Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico (Pompa 1982).
According to Vico, the natural world is made by God, but the historical world is made by
Man (Pompa 1982: 26). History is not some kind of unfolding or evolving process that is
external to human affairs. Men and women make their own history. They also make states
which are historical constructs. States are artificial creations and the state system is artificial
too; it is made by men and women and if they want to, they can change it and develop it in
new ways (see web link 6.03).
Immanuel Kant is another forerunner for social constructivism (Hacking 1999: 41). Kant
argued that we can obtain knowledge about the world, but it will always be subjective
knowledge in the sense that it is filtered through human consciousness. Max Weber emphasized
that the social world (i.e. the world of human interaction) is fundamentally different
from the natural world of physical phenomena. Human beings rely on ‘understanding’ of
each other’s actions and assigning ‘meaning’ to them. In order to comprehend human interaction,
we cannot merely describe it in the way we describe physical phenomena, such as a
boulder falling off a cliff; we need a different kind of interpretive understanding, or ‘verstehen’
(Morrison 1995: 273–82). Is the pat of another person’s face a punishment or a caress?
We cannot know until we assign meaning to the act. Weber concluded that ‘subjective
understanding is the specific characteristic of sociological knowledge’ (Weber 1977: 15).
Constructivists rely on such insights to emphasize the importance of ‘meaning’ and ‘understanding’
(Fierke and Jørgensen (eds) 2001).
Constructivism as Social Theory
We can distinguish between theories at different levels of abstraction. Social theory is the
more general theory about the social world, about social action, and about the relationship
between structures and actors. Substantive IR theory is theory about some aspect of international
relations. Constructivism is both a social theory and a number of different substantive
theories of IR; this section is about constructivism as a social theory; the next section is
about constructivist theories of IR.
In social theory, constructivists emphasize the social construction of reality. Human relations,
including international relations, consist of thought and ideas and not essentially of
material conditions or forces. This is the philosophically idealist element of constructivism
which contrasts with the materialist philosophy of much social science positivism (see
Chapter 11). According to constructivist philosophy, the social world is not a given: it is not
something ‘out there’ that exists independent of the thoughts and ideas of the people
involved in it. It is not an external reality whose laws can be discovered by scientific research
and explained by scientific theory as positivists and behaviouralists argue. The social and
political world is not part of nature. There are no natural laws of society or economics or
politics. History is not an evolving external process that is independent of human thought
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Social Constructivism 165
and ideas. That means that sociology or economics or political science or the study of history
cannot be objective ‘sciences’ in the strict positivist sense of the word.
Everything involved in the social world of men and women is made by them. The fact that
it is made by them makes it intelligible to them. The social world is a world of human consciousness:
of thoughts and beliefs, of ideas and concepts, of languages and discourses, of
signs, signals and understandings among human beings, especially groups of human beings,
such as states and nations. The social world is an intersubjective domain: it is meaningful to
people who made it and live in it, and who understand is precisely because they made it and
they are at home in it.
The social world is in part constructed of physical entities. But it is the ideas and beliefs
concerning those entities which are most important: what those entities signify in the minds
of people. The international system of security and defence, for example, consists of territories,
populations, weapons and other physical assets. But it is the ideas and understandings
according to which those assets are conceived, organized and used—e.g. in alliances, armed
forces, etc.—that is most important. The physical element is there, but it is secondary to the
intellectual element which infuses it with meaning, plans it, organizes it and guides it. The
thought that is involved in international security is more important, far more important,
than the physical assets that are involved because those assets have no meaning without the
intellectual component: they are mere things in themselves.
It is helpful to emphasize the contrast between a materialist view held by neorealists (and
neoliberals) and the ideational view held by constructivists. According to the materialist
view, power and national interest are the driving forces in international politics. Power is
ultimately military capability, supported by economic and other resources. National interest
is the self-regarding desire by states for power, security or wealth (Wendt 1999: 92). Power
and interest are seen as ‘material’ factors; they are objective entities in the sense that because
of anarchy states are compelled to be preoccupied with power and interest. In this view,
ideas matter little; they can be used to rationalize actions dictated by material interest. In the
ideational view held by social constructivists ideas always matter. ‘The starting premise is that
the material world is indeterminate and is interpreted within a larger context of meaning.
Social structures have three elements: shared knowledge, material resources, and practices.
First, social structures are defined, in part, by shared understandings, expectations, or knowledge.
These constitute the actors in a situation and the nature of their relationships, whether
cooperative or conflictual. A security dilemma, for example, is a social structure composed of
intersubjective understandings in which states are so distrustful that they make worst-case
assumptions about each other’s intentions, and as a result define their interests in self-help terms.
A security community is a different social structure, one composed of shared knowledge in which
states trust one another to resolve disputes without war. This dependence of social structure on
ideas is the sense in which constructivism has an idealist (or ‘idea-ist’) view of structure.
Wendt (1992: 73)
BOX 6.1 Wendt’s constructivist conception of social structures
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Ideas thus define the meaning of material power’ (Tannenwald 2005: 19). This constructivist
view of ideas is emphasized by Wendt in Box 6.2.
The core ideational element upon which constructivists focus is intersubjective beliefs
(and ideas, conceptions and assumptions) that are widely shared among people. Ideas must
be widely shared to matter; nonetheless they can be held by different groups, such as organizations,
policymakers, social groups or society). ‘Ideas are mental constructs held by individuals,
sets of distinctive beliefs, principles and attitudes that provide broad orientations
for behaviour and policy’ (Tannenwald 2005: 15). There are many different kinds of ideas.
Nina Tannenwald identifies four major types: ‘ideologies or shared belief systems, normative
beliefs, cause-effect beliefs, and policy prescriptions’ (Tannenwald 2005: 15); they are
described in Box 6.3.
Constructivism is an empirical approach to the study of international relations—empirical
in that it focuses on the intersubjective ideas that define international relations. The theory
displays some distinctive research interests and approaches. If the social and political
world consists, at base, of shared beliefs, how does that affect the way we should account for
important international events and episodes? Constructivists, as a rule, cannot subscribe to
mechanical positivist conceptions of causality. That is because the positivists do not probe
the intersubjective content of events and episodes. For example, the well-known billiard
ball image of international is rejected by constructivists because it fails to reveal the thoughts,
ideas, beliefs and so on of the actors involved in international conflicts. Constructivists want
to probe the inside of the billiard balls to arrive at a deeper understanding of such conflicts
(see web links 6.05 and 6.07).
Constructivists generally agree with Max Weber that they need to employ interpretive
understanding (verstehen) in order to analyse social action (Ruggie 1998). But they are not
in agreement about the extent to which it is possible to emulate the scientific ideas of the
natural sciences and produce scientific explanations based on hypotheses, data collection
The claim is not that ideas are more important than power and interest, or that they are
autonomous from power and interest. The claim is rather that power and interest have the effects
they do in virtue of the ideas that make them up. Power and interest explanations presuppose
ideas, and to that extent are not rivals to ideational explanations at all . . . Let me [propose] a rule
of thumb for idealists: when confronted by ostensibly “material” explanations, always inquire into
the discursive conditions which make them work. When Neorealists offer multipolarity as an
explanation for war, inquire into the discursive conditions that constitute the poles as enemies
rather than friends. When Liberals offer economic interdependence as an explanation for peace,
inquire into the discursive conditions that constitute states with identities that care about free
trade and economic growth. When Marxists offer capitalism as an explanation for state forms,
inquire into the discursive conditions that constitute capitalist relations of production. And so on.
Wendt (1999: 135–6)
BOX 6.2 The social constructivist view of ideas
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and generalization (see Chapter 11). On the one hand, constructivists reject the notion of
objective truth; social scientists cannot discover a ‘final truth’ about the world which is true
across time and place. On the other hand, constructivists do make ‘truth claims about the
subjects they have investigated . . . while admitting that their claims are always contingent
and partial interpretations of a complex world’ (Price and Reus-Smit 1998: 272).
At the same time, it is fair to say that constructivists do not agree entirely on this issue
(Fierke 2001). The view expressed here is closer to what has been called ‘conventional’ constructivism
(Hopf 1998) represented by such scholars as Alexander Wendt (1999), Peter
Katzenstein (1996b), Christian Reus-Smit (1997), John Ruggie (1998), Emmanuel Adler
and Michael Barnett (1998), Ted Hopf (2002), and Martha Finnemore (2003). ‘Critical’ constructivists
are much more sceptical about this position; they argue that ‘truth claims’ are not
possible because there is no neutral ground where we can decide about what is true. What we
call truth is always connected to different, more of less dominant, ways of thinking about the
world. Truth and power cannot be separated; indeed, the main task of critical constructivism
is to unmask that core relationship between truth and power, to criticize those dominant
versions of thinking that claim to be true for all. Critical constructivists include David
Campbell (1998), Jim George (1994), James Der Derian (1987), R. B. J. Walker (1993),
Andrew Linklater (1998) and Ann Tickner (1992). Our presentation of constructivist scholarship
focuses on ‘conventional’ constructivism. Salient aspects of ‘critical’ constructivism,
which we label postmodernism, are discussed in Chapter 11.
Ideologies or shared belief systems are a systematic set of doctrines or beliefs that reflect the
social needs and aspirations of a group, class, culture, or state. Examples include the Protestant
ethic or political ideologies such as liberalism, Marxism, and fascism . . .
Normative (or principled) beliefs are beliefs about right and wrong. They consist of values and
attitudes that specify criteria for distinguishing right from wrong or just from unjust and they imply
associated standards of behaviour, [for example] the role of human rights norms at the end of the
Cold War . . .
Causal beliefs are beliefs about cause-effect, or means-end relationships. They . . . provide
guidelines or strategies for individuals on how to achieve their objectives . . . [for example], Soviet
leaders’ changing beliefs about the efficacy (or more precisely non-efficacy) of the use of force
influenced their decision in 1989 not to use force to keep Eastern Europe under Soviet control.
Finally, policy prescriptions are the specific programmatic ideas that facilitate policymaking by
specifying how to solve particular policy problems. They are at the center of policy debates and
are associated with specific strategies and policy programs.
Tannenwald (2005: 15–16)
BOX 6.3 Four types of ideas
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Constructivist Theories of International Relations
Constructivism was introduced to IR by Nicholas Onuf (1989) who coined the term. It gathered
a larger following among scholars with a series of influential articles and a book by
Alexander Wendt (1987, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1999). We begin this brief and selective
overview of constructivist IR-theory with Wendt’s contribution.
The core of Wendt’s argument is the rejection of the neorealist position, according to
which anarchy must necessarily lead to self-help. Whether it does or not cannot be decided
a priori; it depends on the interaction between states. In these processes of interaction the
identities and interests of states are created. For neorealists, identities and interests are
given; states know who they are and what they want before they begin interaction with other
states. For Wendt, it is the very interaction with others that ‘create and instantiate one structure
of identities and interests rather than another; structure has no existence or causal powers
apart from process’ (Wendt 1992: 394). States want to survive and be secure; neorealists
and constructivists agree about that. But what kind of security policy follows from this? Do
states seek to become as powerful as possible or are they content with what they have?
Wendt argues that we can only find out by studying identities and interests as they are
shaped in the interaction between states.
In concrete terms, ‘if the United States and the Soviet Union decide that they are no longer
enemies, “the cold war is over”. It is collective meanings that constitute the structures which
organize our actions. Actors acquire identities—relatively stable, role-specific understanding
and expectations about self—by participating in such collective meaning’ (Wendt 1992:
397). West European states need not start power balancing against each other because the
Cold War is over, four decades of cooperation may have led to a new ‘European identity’ of
cooperation and friendship between them (Wendt 1992: 418) (see web links 6.16 and 6.17).
Wendt’s 1999 book further develops the argument introduced in the earlier articles. His
point of departure is the same as Waltz’s: interaction between states in a system characterised
by anarchy. But anarchy need not lead to self-help; that calls for further study of the
discursive interaction between states in order to discover what specific ‘culture of anarchy’
that has developed between them. Wendt suggests three major ideal types of anarchy:
Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian (1999: 257). In the Hobbesian culture, states view each
other as enemies; the logic of Hobbesian anarchy is ‘war of all against all’. States are adversaries
and war is endemic because violent conflict way of survival. Hobbesian anarchy,
according to Wendt, dominated the states system until the seventeenth century.
In the Lockean culture, states consider each other rivals, but there is also restraint; states
do not seek to eliminate each other, they recognize the other states’ right to exist. Lockean
anarchy has become a characteristic of the modern states’ system after the Peace of
Westphalia in 1648. Finally, in a Kantian culture, states view each other as friends, settle disputes
peacefully and support each other in the case of threat by a third party (Wendt 1999:
299). A Kantian culture has emerged among consolidated liberal democracies since the
Second World War (see web link 6.14).
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The three different cultures of anarchy can be internalized in different degrees; that is to
say, the way states view each other may be more or less deeply shared. Wendt makes a distinction
between three degrees of ‘cultural internalization’ (Wendt 1999: 254); the first
degree is a relatively weak commitment to shared ideas; the third degree a strong commitment.
We get a three by three table of ‘degrees of cooperation’ and ‘degrees of internalization’
respectively (see Box 6.4).
Wendt drives home the point that constructivism is not merely about ‘adding the role of
ideas’ to existing theories of IR. Material power and state interest are fundamentally formed
by ideas and social interaction. Therefore, states in an anarchic system may each possess
military and other capabilities which can be seen as potentially threatening by other states;
but enmity and arms races are not inevitable outcomes. Social interaction between states can
also lead to more benign and friendly cultures of anarchy.
Wendt’s analysis is systemic; it focuses on interaction between states in the international
system and disregards the role of domestic factors. Martha Finnemore has proposed another
variant of constructivist, systemic analysis in her 1996 book, National Interests in International
Society. Her starting point is the definition of states’ identities and interests. But instead of looking
at the social interaction between states, focus is on the norms of international society
and the way in which they affect state identities and interests. State behaviour is defined by
identity and interest. Identity and interests are defined by international forces, that is, by the
norms of behaviour embedded in international society. The norms of international society
are transmitted to states through international organizations. They shape national policies
by ‘teaching’ states what their interests should be (see web link 6.18).
3rd
2nd
1st
Hobbesian Lockean Kantian
Adapted from Wendt (1999: 254)
BOX 6.4 Cultures of anarchy and degrees of internalization
DEGREE OF INTERNALIZATION
DEGREE OF COOPERATION
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Finnemore’s analysis contains three case-studies: the adoption of science policy bureaucracies
by states after 1955; states’ acceptance of rule-governed norms of warfare; and states
accepting limits to economic sovereignty by allowing redistribution to take priority over
production values. The first case-study argues that the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has taught states how to develop science
bureaucracies. Science policy bureaucracies did not exist in many states prior to the mid-
1950s. At that time UNESCO began a drive to establish them, with considerable success:
they were set up in merely fourteen countries in 1955; by 1975, the number had increased
to nearly ninety. UNESCO successfully propagated the idea that in order to be a ‘modern
civilized’ state, having a science policy bureaucracy was a necessary ingredient.
The second case-study is about how states came to accept rule-governed norms of warfare.
Again, the argument is that an international organization was instrumental in promoting
humanitarian norms in warfare; in this case it is the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC). The ICRC succeeded in prescribing what was ‘appropriate behaviour’ for ‘civilized’
states involved in war. This would appear to be a ‘hard case’ for the constructivist approach,
because the ICRC could push through new norms in an area that neorealists would consider
critical for national interests, namely the right to unconstrained use of force during times of war.
The third and final case-study concerns the acceptance by Third World states of poverty
alleviation as a central norm of economic policy. Until the late 1960s the overriding objective
of economic policy was to increase production by focusing on economic growth. By the
early 1970s welfare improvement through economic redistribution became a principal goal
of economic policy. Finnemore argues that this normative shift was pushed by the World
Bank. The Bank’s president—Robert McNamara—played an essential role; he was convinced
that the bank should actively promote poverty alleviation in developing countries.
Martha Finnemore thus argues that international norms promoted by international
organizations can decisively influence national guidelines by pushing states to adopt these
norms in their national policies. Against neorealism, she argues that the changes brought
forward by the case-studies cannot be explained by pure national interests in powermaximation.
They need to be explained by a constructivist analysis emphasizing the central
role of norms in international society.
Systemic constructivists such as Finnemore and Wendt stress the importance of the
international environment in shaping state identities. Other constructivists put more
The fact that we live in an international society means that what we want and, in some ways, who
we are are shaped by the social norms, rules, understandings, and relationships we have with others.
These social realities are as influential as material realities in determining behaviour. Indeed,
they are what endow material realities with meaning and purpose.
In political terms, it is these social realities that provide us with ends to which power and wealth
can be used.
Finnemore (1996: 128)
BOX 6.5 Martha Finnemore on norms in international society
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Social Constructivism 171
emphasis on the domestic environment. One way of moving in this direction is to study how
international norms have dissimilar effects in different states and then speculate about the
domestic factors responsible for such variation. A volume edited by Thomas Risse (1999)
takes on this task in the area of international human rights norms. The authors demonstrate
how regime type, the experience of civil war and the presence of domestic human rights
organizations impinge on on the degree to which states are ready to comply with international
human rights norms (see web link 6.19).
The book edited by Peter Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security. Norms and Identity
in World Politics (1996a) aims to drive home the general constructivist claim that culture,
norms and identity matters, also in the core area of national security. In this context, many
essays put special emphasis on domestic norms. Alastair Johnston, for example, takes up the
case up Maoist China in order to see ‘how far ideational arguments can go in accounting for
realpolitik behaviour’ (Johnston 1996: 217). He identifies a specific ‘hard realpolitik’ strategic
culture in the Chinese tradition that informs and shapes Chinese security policies. The
argument is that Chinese decision-makers have ‘internalized this strategic culture’ and that
it ‘has persisted across vastly different interstate systems, regime types, levels of technology,
and types of threat’ (Johnston 1996: 217). In other words, neorealist accounts of Chinese
behaviour are incomplete because they fail to include such a notion of an idea-based
strategic culture; and precisely because its presence can be show across different systems it
is clear that ‘anarchy’ is not sufficient to account for the Chinese position.
Peter Katzenstein has written a book on Japan which further develops a constructivist argument
about the role of domestic norms in the area of national security (Katzenstein 1996b).
Systemic theorizing is inadequate, says Katzenstein, because it does not sufficiently appreciate
how the internal make-up of states affects their behaviour in the international system. The
emphasis in his analysis is on the domestic normative structure and how it influences state
identity, interests and policy. A major puzzle addressed is the shift from a militaristic foreign
policy before 1945 to a pacifist foreign policy after the world war. The analysis explains why
there was a broad consensus favouring a militaristic foreign policy before the war and how the
norms on which that consensus was based became profoundly contested as a result of the war.
The military’s position within the government was severely weakened; furthermore, the new
Today’s problem is no longer that of E.H. Carr, one of avoiding the sterility of realism and the
naïveté of liberalism. Our choice is more complex. We can remain intellectually riveted on a realist
world of states balancing power in a multipolar system. We can focus analytically with liberal
institutionalists on
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