Module Detail
Subject Name Political Science
Paper Name International Relations Theory and Politics Module
Name/Title
Constructivism and International Relations
Pre-requisites
Objectives • To make the understand of the constructivism in International Politics
• To analyze the constructivist critique of neo- realism
• Contribution of constructivism in the realm of IR theory
• Relevance of constructivism in contemporary time
Keywords Intersubjectivity
Identity
Otherisation
Ideas
Concepts
Contextual interpretation
Transformation
Culture
Security
Norms
Structure of Module / Syllabus of a module (Define Topic / Sub-topic of module)
Role Name Affiliation
Principal Investigator Prof. Ashutosh Kumar
Professor
Department of Political Science,
Panjab University Chandigarh.
Paper Coordinator Prof. Shibashis Chatterjee
Dr. Jayati Srivastava
Department of
International Relations, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.
School of International Studiess, JNU, New Delhi
Content Writer/Author (CW) Prof. Shibashis Chatterjee
Department of
International Relations, Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Content Reviewer (CR) Late Prof. Sekhar Ghosh
Ex-Professor of the Dept.
of Political Science, Burdwan University, West Bengal.
Language Editor (LE) Prof. Shibashis Chatterjee
Department of
International Relations, Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Constructivism and International Relations
Shibashis Chatterjee
The chapter on constructivism unfolds in four broad sections. The first section discusses some of the general features of the constructivist project in International Relations (IR) theory.
The second section looks into the work of Alexander Wendt, whose work is universally taken as paradigmatic. The next section surveys norm analysis in security studies, by focusing on the works of Katzenstein, Johnston and Adler, a genre that is widely considered as one of the most important areas of applied constructivist scholarship.
Constructivism in IR: A general overview
Like every major approach in IR, constructivism does not refer to a unified body of thought.
Ruggie, for instance, differentiates among three variants of constructivism, calling them neo- classical constructivism, post-modernist constructivism and naturalistic constructivism, respectively (Ruggie 1998: 880-882). Neo-classical constructivism is marked by features like pragmatism, use of analytical tools necessary for understanding inter-subjective meaning (like the speech act theory or the theory of communicative action), faith in an evolutionary epistemology and commitment to an idea of social science that is flexible and genuinely social.
Apart from himself, Ruggie included Kratochwil, Finnemore, Onuf, Katzenstein and Adler in this group.
The constructivist notion of inter-subjectivity involves both harmony and discord (Zehfuss 2002:
39-42). If community is a positive imagination of a perceived sense of collective identity, it is also simultaneously a process of otherisation, for any identity is logically a contrast to its other.
Identities both cohere and displace. While identities may be shared to some extent, beyond a point they are always incommensurate. An identity, thus, helps constructivists to consider the dynamics of differentiation and the politics of integration together.
The constructivists also make a powerful case for the role of ideas as prime movers in world politics (Ruggie 1998: 865-869, 878-880). This radically separates them from the structural realists. For Waltzian neorealism, the physical properties or material attributes of given
units exclusively determine their behaviour. There is no question of ideas having any causal role in this. States might use ideological justifications for strategic purposes. But ideology is treated as a facade, a chimera; it explains nothing. Although liberal institutionalism is not so categorical in its denial of any efficacy to ideas, its utilitarian cast and preference for a physicalist model does not allow ideas to generate independent effect. In contrast constructivists see ideas as causal. They normativise conflicts. Conflicts are ideational and material, intellectual as well as mechanical. Conflicts grow on different interpretations of facts. They are ideational in the sense of being ideologically constituted in the minds of men. For a constructivist, conflict is a matter of discordant or antithetical perceptions held by adversarial actors. Threats are always perceptual and ideational. Thus the classification of relations that is who becomes a friend or a foe depends on inter-subjective interpretations, on ideas, rather than the structurally deterministic pulls of anarchy. Since ideas shape the world, define actors and set preferences, they matter equally to the myriad dimensions of security as well.
If one eliminates the post-modern variety of constructivism as a category constructivism, three distinctive qualities emerge. First, constructivists like Wendt and Adler have strongly articulated a case for subtracting the gap between rationalism and constructivism on the one hand, and realism and constructivism on the other. Second, most constructivists have prepared concrete case-studies based on a constructivist epistemology and although a general theory of constructivism, one that subsumes the inner variations conclusively, is yet to emerge, the direction of research within the paradigm shows good consistency and focus. Third, constructivism has shown an excellent capacity to fill in several loopholes and limitations of the dominant rationalist paradigm, particularly with regard to research on constitutive norms. It is because of the modesty, intellectual sincerity and a disciplined eclecticism that the constructivist turn undoubtedly promises to be the most exciting prospect for the discipline.
The post-modern variety of constructivism, deriving its philosophical inspiration from the works of Nietzsche and borrowing heavily from the writings of Foucault and Derrida, is more radical. It stresses the “linguistic construction of subjects,” fashions an anti-foundational epistemology, denies social science and universal truth claims, celebrates diversity, and refutes the possibility of condition. Ruggie includes R. B. J. Walker, Der Derian, Campbell and the feminist scholar Spike Peterson as standard bearers of this genre. In contrast to Ruggie, however, we adopt the more conventional interpretation by excluding this group as ‘constructivists’. They are better
described as post-modern or post-structuralist scholars, who share little with the conventional constructivist assumptions.
Ruggie’s third variant is a compromise of the other two, which he grounds in the philosophical doctrine of scientific realism. Naturalistic constructivism is close to its neo-classical counterpart in its commitment to the idea of a social science. This approach believes in a common ontology for both sciences, but argues that knowledge is essentially about knowing non-observables, and that there is a knowable world of inter-subjective meaning that exists outside the mind of the scholar (Ruggie 1998: 881-882). Since Wendt’s contribution to constructivism has been paradigmatic, we shall look into his ideas separately.
The constructivists argue that the social world is a product of human consciousness consisting of different kinds of communicative idioms that congeal around some form of community. The social world is inter-subjectively constituted; it is made by people who live there in a manner they wish to understand and relate to. The social world is predicated on the material. However, the material entities become meaningful “things” through the ideas or beliefs that people come to have about them. Even in the hard world of military security, “meaning” rules. Thus, security is not a matter of brute physical assets. Mere arms or gadgets signify nothing. What matter are the ideas or beliefs underlying the making, organization and deployment of weapons as perceived by the people. The military assets are thus subjectively configured and assume potency in the consciousness of beings. For the constructivist, security is not only a matter of physical capabilities. The material attributes defining capability are no doubt important; but what is unquestionably prior is the understanding people develop of these capabilities (Jackson and Sorensen 2003: 255-257).
Contrary to neo-realism and neo-liberalism, therefore, the constructivists do not operate with set payoffs or settled preferences. Constructivists problematise what the mainstream takes for granted. They question how actors come to bear identities and interests. With the mainstream, identities are given; with constructivists, identities are acquired, constituted and transformed. To quote Ruggie: “Thus contra neo-realism, I argued that American hegemony was every bit as important as American hegemony in shaping the post-war order” (1998: 863). Constructivists also differ with neoliberal institutionalists over the dynamic of choice. Whereas neoliberals emphasize utility considerations, the constructivist enjoins identity, or the definition of self-hood as a motivator of such choice. Identities are seldom static; identity-transformations redefine the
schedule of state interests. In addition, the constructivists also talk in the language of norms.
Normative ideas are loaded with causal potency by key constructivist thinkers.
Alexander Wendt defines constructivism as follows: “Constructivism is a structural theory of the international system that makes the following core claims: (1) States are the principal units of analysis for international political theory; (2) the key structures in the state system are inter- subjective, rather than material; and (3) state identities and interests are in important parts constructed by these social structures, rather than given exogenously to the system by human nature or domestic politics” (Wendt 1994: 385).
Wendt’s constructivism is state-centric. But he does not take the state for granted. Wendt criticizes neorealists and neoliberals for their inability to explain the constitutive characters of international entities. They take the identities, interests and powers of the state for granted, or, as Wendt puts it, treat them as “ontologically primitive.” The utilitarian realist explanation of the sources of international conflict is superficial, for they mechanically derive conflict from the anarchical structures. What they lack precisely is a social theory of state interests, without which any proper investigation of the bases of international conflict and cooperation is impossible.
Thus anarchy visibly produces a range of state interactions and a variety of state behaviour, depending on how states derive their interests. For states are not dull, lifeless entities; they bear a collective identity that creates basic states “appetites,” such as the drives for physical security, stability, recognition by others, and development. How states fulfil their needs, however, depends upon their social identity: that is how states define themselves in relation to others within the international system. Hence, contrary to realism, anarchy is not logically wedded to conflict and a zero-sum view of the world. Wendt shows that a variety of social structures are possible under anarchy. The constructivist reading of a conflict is very different from the realist mode. First, as Wendt categorically puts it: “…the deep structure of anarchy [is]…cultural or ideational rather than material phenomenon.” Hence the logic of anarchy varies. Accordingly, there are different cultures of anarchy with their distinctive, concomitant roles. Wendt identifies three macro-level cultures of international politics, namely Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian, based on distinctive images of the relationship between the self and the other. The three cultures fit with three distinctive roles, viz. enemy, rival, and friends. The upshot of this agreement is that these cultures are distinctive in terms of how a state visualizes another, and there is a possibility of transformation of these of these images over time. States have plural social identities, some
cooperative and some conflicting, depending on how they define the social situation in which they live (Wendt 1999: Ch. 6). Wendt’s fundamental contribution therefore is to explain variations in state interactions through a social theory that discloses the dynamics of changing state preferences and actions.
Wendt’s constructivism not only provides a useful social theory of state preferences and action, but it also supplies a dynamic model of international interaction (Ruggie 1998: 874-876).
One of Wendt’s most important complaints against neo-realism is in fact its inability to explain transformation and change. Both Wendt and Ruggie point out to the essentially static character of neo-realism. Neo-realism’s grounding in an atomistic ontology of states in a state of anarchy makes it hostile to the idea of change. Although the pay-offs under anarchy might vary and its effects ameliorated by cooperative strategies, neo-realism sees no prospect of any alternation of the basic structure. The neo-realists err by failing to see that states do not merely perpetuate or reproduce the system structures over time, they also can and often do transform the structure by qualitative ways.
Wendt also challenges the concept of institutions deployed by the followers of rational choice theory (both neo-realists and neoliberals). The neo-realists simply negate the role of institutions as an independent variable in international politics. Neoliberals selectively liberate institutions, implying that they variously constrain pre-existing agents (states) by altering the cost-benefit calculus of different strategies. Wendt, in contrast, “empowers” institutions as being capable of constituting the agents in various domains of international relations, including security. For Wendt, the international structure combines social relationships and material capabilities: “Inter-subjective systemic structures consist of shared understanding, expectations, and social knowledge embedded in international institutions and threat complexes in terms of which states define some of their identities and interests” (Wendt 1992: 399). Institutions are
“…a relatively stable set structure of identities and interests … Institutions are fundamentally cognitive entities that do not exist apart from actors ideas about how the would works.” Wendt proposes that states and institutions are mutually constitutive. Institutions therefore are not outside or independent of states. They shape, regulate and give meaning to state action and often decide what it is to be a state; in short, they provide stable state identities. Since states and institutions co-act, with each bringing significant changes in the other, institutions can alter the line of states’ thinking and reconstitute state identities and interests at the systemic level.
Wendt’s constructivism hinges ultimately on the idea of identity. According to Wendt, the “daily life of international politics is an on-going process of states taking identities in relation to others, casting them into corresponding counter-identities, and playing out the result” (Wendt 1992: 21). In Social Theory of International Politics, Wendt shows how identity is defined and how it changes via interaction. He defines identity (in an earlier work) as “relatively stable, role- specific understandings and expectations about self” (Wendt 1992: 397). Although the assumption of relative stability of identities is there, it does not prevent the more pressing need to understand change and transformation of “self-hood.” Wendt says, “identities may be hard to change, but they are not carved in stone” (Wendt 1992: 21). The definition of identity impacts on security practices and shapes the security environment of states. Identities again provide the basis for interests. Most crucially, for Wendt, identity determines the kind of anarchy that prevails in the international system.
How identities are constituted? In order to answer this, Wendt employs the principles of Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory. Wendt’s central contention, following Giddens, is that units do not exist independent of the structures around them, but those structures also cannot be understood as independent of the agents, who either reproduce or transform the former. Wendt imputes a certain discursive quality to social structures as being “inseparable from the reasons and self-understandings” of agents. Identity of actors is determined through interactions (Zehfuss 2002: 41-42). Wendt, however, ontologically puts the state before such interactions, and endows it with functions independent of the social context. But beyond this, the identity of actors becomes communicative, repeating and responding to the practices of other agents over time.
This allows Wendt to refashion the binary of self and collective identity into a continuum. When states define others in exclusion of themselves, the result is conflict based on the definition of that identity itself. When others are a part of an actor’s definition of the self, cooperation and peace become possible, being predicated again in the qualities of the definition (of identity) itself (Zehfuss 2002: 40).
Alexander Wendt and constructivism
Alexander Wendt defines constructivism as follows: “Constructivism is a structural theory of the international system that makes the following core claims: “(1) States are the principal units of analysis for international political theory; (2) the key structures in the state
system are intersubjective, rather than material; and (3) state identities and interests are in important parts constructed by these social structures, rather than given exogenously to the system by human nature or domestic politics”. (Wendt, 1994 : 385)
Wendt’s constructivism is state-centric. But he does not take the state for granted. Wendt criticizes neorealist and neoliberals for their inability to explain the constitutive characters of international entities. They take the identities, interests and powers of the state for granted, or, as Wendt puts it, treat them as “ontologically primitive”. The utilitarian realist explanation of the sources of international conflict is superficial, for they mechanically derive conflict from the anarchical structures. What they lack precisely is a social theory of state interests, without which any proper investigation of the bases of international conflict and cooperation is impossible.
Thus anarchy visibly produces a range of state interactions and a variety of states behaviours, depending on how states despite their interests. For states are not dull, lifeless entities. They bear a collective identity that creates basic states “appetites”, such as the drives for physical security, stability, recognition by others, and development. How states fulfill their needs however, depends upon their social identity, that is how states define themselves in relation to others within the international system. Hence, contrary to realism, anarchy is not logically wedded to conflict and a zero-sum view of the world. Wendt shows that a variety of social structures are possible under anarchy. The constructivist reading of a conflict is very different from the realist mode. First, as Alexander Wendt categorically puts it: “…the deep structure of anarchy (is) … a cultural of ideational rather than material phenomenon”. Hence the logic of anarchy varies.
Accordingly, there are different cultures of anarchy with their distinctive, concomitant roles.
Wendt identifies three macro-level cultures of international politics, namely Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian, based on distinctive images of the relationship between the self and the other. The three cultures fit with three distinctive roles, viz. Enemy, rival and friends. The upshot of this agreement is that these cultures are distinctive in terms of how a state visualizes another, and there is a possibility of transformation of these of these images over time. States have plural social identities, some cooperative and some conflicting, depending on how they define the social situation in which they live. (Wendt, 1999, Chapter 6) Wendt’s fundamental contribution therefore is to explain variations in state interactions through a social theory that discloses the dynamics of changing state preferences and actions.
Wendt’s constructivism not only provides a useful social theory of state preferences and action, but it also supplies a dynamic model of international interaction. (Ruggie, 1998 :874-876) One of Wendt’s most important complain against neo-realism is in fact its inability to explain transformation and change. Both Wendt and Ruggie point out to the essentially static character of neo-realism. Neo-realism’s grounding in an atomistic ontology of states in a state of anarchy makes it hostile to the idea of change. Although the pay-offs under anarchy might vary and its effects ameliorated by cooperative strategies, neo-realism sees no prospect of any alternation of the basic structure. The neo-realists err by failing to see that states do not merely perpetuate or reproduce the system structures over time, they also can and often do transform the structure by qualitatively ways.
Wendt also challenges the concept of institutions deployed by the followers of rational choice theory (both neo-realists and neoliberals). The neo-realists simply negate the role of institutions as an independent variable in international politics. Neoliberals selectively liberate institutions, implying that they variously constrain pre-existing agents (states) by altering the cost-benefit calculus of different strategies. Wendt, in contrast, “empowers” institutions as being capable of constituting the agents in various domains of international relations, including security. For Wendt, international structure combines social relationships and material capabilities. According to Wendt: “Inter-subjective systemic structures consist of shared understanding, expectations, and social knowledge embedded in international institutions and threat complexes in terms of which states define some of their identities and interests”. (Wendt, 1992 : 399) Institutions are “… a relatively stable set structure of identities and interests … Institutions are fundamentally cognitive entities that do not exist apart from actors ideas about how the would works”. Wendt proposes that states and institutions are mutually constitutive.
Institutions therefore are not outside or independent of states. They shape, regulate and give meaning to state action and often decide what it is to be a state; in short, they provide stable state identities. Since states and institutions co-act, with each bringing significant changes in the other, institutions can alter the line of states – thinking, reconstitute state identities and interests at the systemic level.
Wendt’s constructivism hinges ultimately on the idea of identity. According to Wendt, the “daily life of international politics is on-going process of states taking identities in realism to others, casting them into corresponding counter-identities, and playing out the result”. (Wendt, 1992: 21) In Social Theory of International Politics, Wendt shows how identity is defined and how it changes via interaction. He defines identity (in an earlier work) as “relatively stable, role- specific understandings and expectations about self”. (Wendt, 1992 : 397) Although the assumption of relative stability of identities is there, it does not prevent the more pressing need to understand change & transformation of “self-hood”. Wendt says, “identities may be hard to change, but they are not carved in stone”. (Wendt, 1992: 21) The definition of identity impacts on security practices and shapes the security environment of states. Identities again provide the basis for interests. Most crucially, for Wendt, identity determines the kind of anarchy that prevails in the international system.
How identities are constituted? In order to answer this, Wendt employs the principles of Anthony Gidden’s structuration theory. (Giddens, 1997, 1984) Wendt central contention, following Giddens, is that units do not exist independent of the structures around them, but those structures also cannot be understood as independent of the agent’s, who either reproduce or transform the former. Wendt imputes a certain discursive quality to social structures as being
“inseparable from the reasons and self-understandings” of agents. Identity of actors is determined through interactions. (Zefuss, 2002: 41-42) Wendt, however, ontologically the state before such interactions, and endows it with functions independent of the social context. But beyond this, the identity of actors becomes communicative, repeating and responding to the practices of other agents over time. This allows Wendt to refashion the binary of self and collective identity into a continuum. When states define others in exclusion of themselves, the result is conflict based on the definition of that identity itself. When others are a part of an actor’s definition of the self, cooperation and peace become possible, being predicated again in the qualities of the definition (of identity) itself. (Zefuss, 2002 : 40)
The following propositions of constructivism, formulated by direct reference to Wendt’s work sum up the main thrust of the approach. (Wendt, 1999: 41-44)
1. The meaning and explanatory power of the distribution of capabilities is constituted by the distribution of interests in the system. Those interests, in turn, are ideas. Power and interest are therefore culturally constituted.
2. States are unitary actors bearing anthropomorphic attributes such as identities, interests and intentionality with a certain capacity for institutionalized collective action. The self–interested or power–seeking character of states, however, is contingent and socially constructed.
3. The states articulate/defines interest on the basis of identities and these interests are endogenous and changeable.
Norms and constructivism: Katzenstein, Johnston and Adler on norms, identity, strategic culture, and security community
The application of norms to security issues is one of the most fascinating theoretical developments that have happened in the two decades in security studies.1 In a broad scene, norm analysis is located within the constructivist paradigm and a large number of scholars have expressed their affiliation to the use of constructivism in security affairs. Norms have been used variously by security analysts, of which four deserve special mention. The most dominant approach in norm analysis remains that of Peter Katzenstein and his team, who have published extensive surveys on the role of norms, identity and culture in different dimensions of national security. (Katzenstein, 1996) A second tendency has been the use of norms to flesh out the theoretical implications of security community in constructive mode(s). The works of Adler, Amitava Acharya and Peter Hass deserve special mention within this genre. (Adler and Barnett 1998; Adler, 1997; Acharya; 1999; Haas, 1992) The third variety of norm analysis relates to the strategic culture approach, epitomized best by the writings of Alistair Johnston. (Johnston, 1995, 1996)The final variant of norm analysis can be called rather loosely as critical security studies, with Keith Krause and Michael L. Williams being leading figures in this field. (Krause and Williams, 1997) This section surveys the work done by Katzenstein, Johnston and Adler on norms, strategic culture and security communities respectively. (It leaves out critical security studies due to its closeness with critical geopolitics, which deserves a separate treatment).
1 On norms and IR, see Katzenstein (1996), Krause (1999), Acharya (1994, 1999); Kratochwill (1989); Wandt (1999); Alagappa (1998).
Katzenstein
Katzenstein’s central argument is that the security environment of a state is both materially and culturally/institutionally constituted. Further, the cultural environment not only regulates behaviour across issue-areas, it also constitutes the basic character of states, or their identity. (Katzenstein, 1996:33) These two assumptions contrast nicely with the neorealist and neoliberal understanding of security that take actors’ identities as given. Like Wendt, Katzenstein also problematizes the ontological status of the actors, emphasizing their socially contingent character rather than being exogenous to the environment. Third, norms and culture matter to the patterns of cooperation and conflict in international affairs, in friends’ actor’s selection of alliances, and in determination of grounds, neutrals and enemies. (Katzenstein, 1990:34)
Significantly enough, Katzenstein does not rule out the role of material factors behind the choice of security policies. He adds crucial ideational and cultural variables to the material, arguing in the process that conventional theories – neo-realism and neo-liberalism – are often unable to explain anomalies because of their neglect of cultural and ideational factors.
Katzenstein defines norms as “collective expectations for the proper behaviour of actors with a give “identity”. (Katzenstein, 1996:5) Norms are both “constitutive”, that is they help define the identity of an actor”, and “regulative” in the sense of specifying “standards of proper behavior”. “Thus norms either define (institute) identities in the first place … or prescribe or prescribe (regulate) behaviour for already constituted identities…”. (Katzenstein, 1996:54)
By summarizing the contributions to the path breaking volume The Culture of National Security, (1996) Katzenstein identified five crucial functions or effects of norms regarding national security. Thus “cultural and institutional elements of states’ environment, shape the national security interests or (directly) the security policies of states”; shape state identity”;
“variations in state identity affect the security interests or policies of states”; “configurations of state identity structures affect interstate normative structures, such a regimes or security communities”; and “state policies both reproduce and reconstruct cultural and institutional structure”. (Katzenstein, 1996 :52-65)
Whether experts or students of security agree or not, the work of Katzenstein in general and the volume in particular, has opened a new vista in security studies. The great strength of the enterprise inheres in its empirical orientation and the use of extensive and detailed case studies. It is true that some of the conclusions and findings of many of the essays are not too convincing, and, more crucially, do not rule out the possibility of rival interpretations. These points to the need for further tightening the approach, particularly in developing a methodology that can discriminate independent norm effect on security behaviour or practices. But this in no way detracts from the analytical usefulness of the approach. Katzenstein’s claims, that norms, culture and identity matters to security, actors are culturally and socially constituted, and security is at least as much a matter of ideas and cultural mediation as it is a reflex of material calculations, are invaluable to the development of an alternative thinking on security.
Johnston
Alaistair Johnston did not introduce the concept of strategic culture. Though the exact origin of the concept is difficult to specify, nevertheless, there is a broad agreement that Jack Snyder elaborated the concept in 1977 RAND paper on implications of Soviet strategic culture for limited nuclear war. (Krause, 1999: 11) Snyder, however, had neither a clear definition of the category, nor did he wish to apply it for analytical purposes. Strategic culture was simply an argument of the last resort when everything else has failed, a guard against excessive ethnocentricism and overt dependent on strategic rationality. Johnston’s contribution is seminar for the systematized three generations of scholarship on strategic culture and sought to improve upon themes.
Drawing on the work of Clifford Greetz, Johnston defines strategic culture as : An integrated system of symbols (e.g., argumentation structures, languages, analogies, metaphors) which acts to establish pervasive and long lasting strategic preferences by formulating concepts of the role and efficiency of military force in inter-state political affairs, and by clothing these conceptions with such an aura of
factuality that the strategic preferences seem uniquely realistic and efficacious”. (Johnston, 1995/2003 : 11)
Next, Johnston constructed certain “observable indicators” to trace strategic culture. This is essential for the ultimate task before the analyst: relating strategic cultural to behavioural choices. He attempts this by breaking down strategic culture into two parts: “the first consists of basic assumptions about the orderliness of the strategic environment…about the nature of the adversary and the threat is poses … and about the efficacy of the use of force. Together these comprise the central paradigm of a strategic culture.” (Johnston, 1995/2003 : 11)
The second part is more about “specifics”, that is the operational level assumptions relating to strategic options considered “most efficacious” in dealing with the “threat environment”. Thus Johnston’s strategic culture evolves in the form of “a limited, ranked set of grand strategy preferences” commensurate with the “objects of analysis”, and recursive in the time. (Johnston, 1995/2003 : 11)
A vital part of Johnston’s essay relates to methodology, where he urges for the adoption of (t) wo forms of content analysis … namely cognitive mapping and symbol analysis. Cognitive mapping “involves rigorously analyzing the contents of a particular document or sample of documents, and drawing graphically all cause-effect statements in this sample”. (Johnston, 1995/2003 : 14) Symbolic analysis, on the other hand, holds that “strategic culture may be reflected by symbols about the role of force in human affairs, about the efficacy of certain strategies, and hence about what sort of strategies are better than others”. Symbolic analysis includes the examination of “idioms and phrases”, key words, analysis and metaphors”.
(Johnston, 1995/2003: 14) The distilled by-product of cognitive mapping and symbol analysis has to move through three stages in order to link strategic culture with behaviour. (Johnston, 1995/2003: 15-16)
Johnston’s work, somewhat disturbingly, did not clarify the central puzzle: the specific link between a strategic culture and behavioural outcome. Johnston conceded that strategic culture could both be an independent and intervening variable explaining strategic choice or outcome. Yet, his contribution is useful for two reasons. First, his analysis concretizes the
research agenda considerably by situating the elements of strategic culture in the world of policymaking – in policy-making drafts, diaries, memorandums, documents, and other forms of recorded evidence. Second, Johnston’s detailed exposition is self-critical and cautious. It shows the limits of explaining through strategic culture, and the power-effects that it might have on other, equally plausible, explanations of policy choices. (Krause, 1998 : 11-12)
Like Katzenstein and Wendt, Johnston’s motion of strategic culture has been widely used in case studies across the world, concerning both Western and non-Western contexts. Johnston’s appropriation is particularly marked in graund strategy literature, where his delineation of the
“cultural paradigm” has become some kind of fetish. Conventional security analysts have monotonously dismissed strategic culture as a nonserviceable concept. Their negation nevertheless is too predictable to be taken seriously. However, one has to concede that much of strategic culture explanations of strategic behaviour/choice are liable to alternative (read realist) readings. It is in this sense, more than anything else, that the realist critique of Johnston’s inability to fashion a rigorous methodology, which genuinely and convincingly control for the effects of non-cultural variables on that might provide rival explanations(s) of a given strategic choice/behavior, cannot be altogether wished away.
Adler
Like Wendt and Katzenstein, Emmanuel Adler’s work hinges on the identity of identity.
Adler’s inspiration is Karl Deustch, who pioneered the concept of pluralistic security community in the fifties. Deutsch defined a political community as social groups with a process of political communication, some machinery for enforcement, and some popular habits of compliance.
(Deutsch et. al., 1957 : 3) Deutsch introduced the concept of security community as a group of people (or states) that have become integrated to the point where there is a “real assurance that the members of that community will not fight each other physically, but will settle their disputes in some other way”. (Deutsch et. al., 1957 : 5) Deutsch differentiated amalgamated and pluralistic security communities by the degree of integration. Amalgamated communities are the product of formal merging of independent states. Pluralistic communities, in contrast, retain the legal independence of constituting member states, but share “dependable expectations of peaceful change”. (Deutsch et. al., 1957 : 6)
Adler’s security communities are “socially constructed cognitive regions or community- regions”, whose security and welfare frontiers coincide with the limits of shared understandings and common identities. (Adler, 1997 : 250) Territoriality separates people and provides them (at least most) with a definite homeland. The state becomes the basis of citizen’s unconditional allegiance. Yet, states hang together for common purposes. Hence, the idea of a community life coterminous with territoriality is socially contingent. The region, conceived as transnational space, is also a legitimate collective imagination, bound by mutual recognition of a shared destiny and identity. Community-regions can therefore be the most powerful destination of men.
Such community-regions are “socially constructed”, spatially differentiated” and transnational in nature, constituted by “national, “transnational, and international elites and institutions”. (Adler, 1997: 253) Adler defines such regions as “regional systems of meanings … not limited to a specific geographic place”. (Adler, 1997: 253) People whose commitments go beyond sovereign territoriality, who can and do communicate/interact freely across borders, work with a political commitment towards promotion of regional interests, and catalyse such sentiments and perspectives in their respective jurisdictions, construct these regions.
The identity of the construct is vital. The community-regions are physical in the obvious sense. But more than this, Adler describes them as “cognitive regions or cognitive structures that help constitute the practices of their members, whose meanings, understandings, and identities help keep the region in place. (Adler, 1997: 254) Likewise, Adler and Barnett reworked Deutsch’s idea of security community as those regions comprised of sovereign states whose people maintain dependable expectations of peaceful change”. (Adler and Barnett, 1998 : 73) Deutsch’s classification of amalgamated and pluralistic security communities are reproduced by Adler and Barnett as loosely and tightly coupled variants, whose defining criteria, however, came from Wendt (trust, institutionalization, and the culture of anarchy) rather than Deutsch.
Two other themes stand out in Adler’s writings. First, Adler’s security community is essentially meant for liberal democracies. (Adler, 1997 : 257-260) Why this preference? Adler develops an interesting argument based on democracy to privilege the case for a liberal order.
Totalitarian systems might be capable of collective understanding, but they can never betray trust. An additional element comes from the culture of peaceful negotiation of conflicts, one that reinforces mutual trust among unknown members. Adler did concede that security communities were possible in other kinds of orders after all – but a liberal democratic order had to consecrate or diffuse the underlying norms in such regions. (Adler, 1997: 260)
Second, Adler in his subsequent writings did recognize the role of power behind the development and institutionalization of security communities, although in his earlier volume, Security Communities (1998), edited jointly with Michael Barnett, they erected a dichotomy between force and community, and asserted that friendship represented a direct challenge to the realist imagery of power-balancing. (Adler and Barnett, 1998: 5) Adler proposes a new understanding of power as the “authority to determine the shared meanings that embody the identities, interests, and practices of states, as well as the conditions that confer, defer, or deny access to ‘goods’ and benefits”. (Adler, 1997: 261) Meanings therefore are not only created but are often “imposed on physical objects” lacking them. Hence rule creation, implementation, umpiring and enforcement are “subtle and most effective form(s) of power”.
Adler also notes that social reality is not only a matter of identity and constructed/imposed meaning. The configuration of identity and the imposition of meaning are in large measure physically determined, with material and technological resources playing vital roles in this. (Adler, 1997 : 261-262) Adler’s norm analysis, inherent in his idea of security community, is thus theoretically closer to the Wendtian variety of constructivism, where both material and ideational factors are given due (though not equal) weightage.
Although Adler’s contribution is undoubtedly significant, several limitations mark his work of which two are particularly pressing. First, it is not quite clear in what specific sense Adler and Barnett join security and identity. Various associations are claimed, such as identity
‘imprints’ security (Adler and Barnett, 1998 : 3), to identity and security being ‘tied’ (Adler and Barnett, 1998 : 4) or married (Adler and Barnett, 1998 : 30), and identity being causal to security (Adler and Barnett, 1998 : 34). It is not clear therefore what exactly is the relationship between the two variables, for each of these three forms of association indicates distinctive relationship
and provides varying levels of importance as a factor of/in security. It identity “imprints”
security, it is an intervening variable that only mediates some other relationship, and this is not radically different from the realist position that rules out any autonomous role for friendship in promoting security. Marriage or tie-up, however, conjugates identity and security, without spelling out the extent of independent effect of the former on the latter. (Bially, 2000 : 301-302) As a constitutive factor it is not clear whether identity is really autonomous of its material underpinnings in defining security or not. The claim that identity is causal to security is robust and direct. But Adler’s insistence that one needs to put the material factors alongside identity confuses. For, in effect, this amounts a case for multi-causality, where it is quite clear that identity matters, without, however, any indication of how much of identity actually matters in specific instances. (Bially, 2000 : 302) There is nothing in Adler’s methodology that allows a precise measurement of the nature and extent of the relationship between identity and security, something that limits the originality as well utility of his concept, since several other scholars working within diverse theoretical traditions have noted the close or proximate association of the two.
The second problem relates to the applicability of the idea of security community. Like Deutsch, Adler’s ethno-centricism is transparent, his bias too overtly manifest. Given the criteria for the formation of a security community as a socially constructed cognitive region, the concept is unserviceable as an explanatory tool for the security predicament of the bulk of non-Western world (if not entirely). Although this apparently does nothing to the of the approach cognitive status, it cripples the prospect of generalization of the same. In contrast to the works of Wendt, Katzenstein and Johnston, Adler’s security community remains alien to the ontology of the Third World , and is particularly unsuited for any explanatory purpose in South Asia.
Concluding Observations
The constructivist formulations regarding the unpacking of the state and the mutability of state interaction lend sufficient flexibility to account for variations in the given relationship. The constructivists have a powerful case for explaining conflicts at all levels of existential reality.
Constructivists explain ethnic conflicts as security problems for states by turning them into identity clashes that seem to conform to the given evidence. Communities confront each other
only when they have sufficiently defined themselves in terms of exclusive or distinctive identities that both unite and divide at the same time. Constructivists do not freeze identities as settled. Identities are social constructs that change if people bearing them wish to alter them.
Thus in the ethnicity or nationalism of exclusion, the dominant group imposes its own values on others or excludes others on sharing of powers. This is what happened in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and in India’s northeastern states. However, a nationalism of exclusion need not be invariant.
Protracted, internecine conflicts could achieve reconciliation through learning. Communities might modify their construction of the other and start sharing a life-world. Both Tamil or Dravidian ethno-nationalism and secessionist Khalistan sub-nationalism metamorphosed from their notice, disintegrative mode to a peaceful accommodation within the Indian state, sharing their material and symbolic resources with other communities. Even the prospects of sharing larger assets in a peaceful stable situation might induce moderation in behaviour. Finally, ethnic conflicts can be tamed or discipline through judicious state policies that desist from a culturalisation of distinctive communities qua its rigid brand of territorial nationalism. Articulate just distribution policies for groups, and attempt to satisfy ethnic grievances through negotiation rather than force. In brief, identities are always in a flux and therefore conflicts of identities are neither recurrent nor perennial.
Theoretically, therefore, models of interaction can change and transformations can be qualitative. A Hobbesian world of mistrust, enmity, balance of threat, alliance and deterrence is different from a Kantian universe of trust, friendship, coordinated mutual interest, institutionalized cooperation and reciprocally sustained de-escalation of conflict. There is nothing too guarantee the perpetuity of the one at the expense of the other. If battling ethnic communities want peace they will find peace. They can reverse their modular construction of images; they can metamorphose their dealings. The constructivists, however, discipline the extent of such explanation. Wendt talks of cultural embeddedness – when relations are culturally defined and institutionalised over generations their transformation became very difficult. But this still does not rule out the possibility of change. There is a problem in this mode of argument – both continuity and change seem to follow from its theoretical injunction. But change is conditional. It occurs only with transformation in the definition of reality. Things change when people’s reading of their interests change. It happens when new ideas move people, fresh
identities are proposed, reflexivity is rehabilitated and power is reconfigured. Whether between states or communities, the ends do vary. Variable ends make for new identity constructions or reprioritization of the elements of a given social construct. Out understanding of who we are determines how we live with others. Hence ethnic conflicts evolve according to how identities are defined, the definitions being predicated on material condition facing the communities themselves in relation to the manifest practices of the state. In contrast to realist discourses that see only endless conflicts and an invariable security dilemma for groups, and liberalism that defines ethnic peace (or conflict) in terms of transaction costs and utility calculations, the constructivist tale ethnicity enables IR to interrogate ethnicity in cultural-ideational terms. The accent on identity construction and the malleability of the some makes constructivism a far superior handle to understand ethnic conflicts in general and those in South Asia in particular.
