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The Social Construction of Anarchy: Summary Notes
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- Kings College London (KCL)
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THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF ANARCHYSeminar Questions:
1. How is international politics ‘socially constructed’?
• It is socially constructed not only by the agents which inhabit it, but also by the interplay between
agents and system
• Wendt defines social construction in two parts: (1) it reflects that ‘the fundamental structures of
international politics are social rather than strictly material’ (2) it conveys that structures not only
shape behaviour, but fundamentally define actors’ identities and interests
• Hence, the international system is socially constructed through the generation and reproduction of
identities as well as shared or divergent collective understandings
2. What are the similarities and differences between Wendt’s ‘three cultures of anarchy’ and Wight’s ‘three
traditions of International Thought?
Similarities:
A. They are categorised in more or less the same way; Hobbes a representative of Machiavellians,
Locke of Grotians, and Kant of Kantians.
3. What is the significance of Identity for International Relations?
• An actor’s identity is integral in understanding international relations today, with identity helping to
shape and drive an actor’s interests as well as their interpretation and response to events
• Self interest and coercion are dominant in international politics, unlike domestic politics
• Despite the existence of international law and institutions, the ability of these bodies to counter the
material base of power is restricted
• Burma’s identity as isolations state controlled by a military junta with little regards for human rights
dictates its relations with other states - Burma’s identity is imperative to understanding its place in
international politics today and consequently, the way other states respond to them as a result
Constructivism = the claim that significant aspects of international relations are historically and socially
constructed, rather than inevitable consequences of human nature or other essential characteristics of world
politics. Actors and structure are mutually constructed.
Neorealists:
• Treat anarchy as a material phenomenon and treat the international system as a materialistic structure
• According to neorealism, anarchy is an immutable structure that determines states’ actions (Ibid, 247)
• Rationalist theories assume that once the identity of a country is determined, then the national interest is
also fixed
• In order to pursue a state’s own interests, the relationship between states is fundamentally conflicting
Lecture Notes:
• Constructivism is a rather broad term which refers to a range of approaches to thinking about international
politics, which focus on the role of perception or interpretation in all human conduct
• All constructivism launch from a fairly commonsensical position that the world that you see is not the
world as it really is
• Rather, you see or perceive data supplied to you by your senses, which must be constructed into something
meaningful (a chair, a lecture theatre, a persons) - this data doesn’t speak for itself, it is the job of the
historian, for instance, to make it speak by constructing historical narratives out of the data
• When might someones’ difference experience reveal a world that might simply not be visible to people
from radically different backgrounds, informed by different histories, say of British imperialism
• What’s at stake here is the problem of SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION - the world we see is the world that
reveals itself to us, and we are positioned by experience, upbringing, intellect and all else, DIFFERENTLY
within the social realm
• Constructivist analyses come in thick and think varieties, which more or less reflect different positions on
the question of ‘how far’ we should go in a acknowledging the world as socially constructed
• Thicker constructivist accounts tend to focus on the language people use and the discourses they develop
as means of explaining the world, saying that because we can’t get away from our social positioning, and
the way in which our constructions or stories about the world are thus always partial, we are better off
focusing on the stories themselves —> Thick constructivst accounts of war, for example, might look at the
stories that the two sides of a conflict told about each other in the build up of the war, and they might
, excavate how they came to see each other as terrible enemies, they might look at how ideas about race or
culture or historical birth-rights play into the ways in which different sides in a conflict came to see that
war as inevitable.
• A way of saying that stories matter in driving conflict
• Thick constructivist account are interested in how individuals, groups and nations identities are constructed
through the stories that we tell about ourselves and other, and that this process of story telling, constructing
friends and enemies, imagining ourselves into the world, is what scientists of international politics should
be interested in. We cant give a systemic explanation of war and int politics, because the stories that make
up the world ebb and flow, and never sit still.
• Thinner constructivist accounts think this process of storytelling and social construction matters, but they
think that we can get beneath the specific stories we tell to provide systemic explanations of what happens
in world politics = seek to provide explanation that works at the ‘systemic level of analysis’
• Wendt’s article sits at the thinner end of the scale
• Hobbes thought that man who live in what he called a State of Nature, before the social contract, lived in a
terrible condition of constant war against his fellow men because he was afraid they might kill him at any
moment, and take anything he has, either because of greed, pride touchiness, or simply because they too
are afraid of what he might do = HE DOES NOT TRUST anyone and as a consequence he has to be
eternally on guard against, that is to say suspicious and hostile in attitude towards his fellows —> THE
SECURITY DILEMMA
• states for realists are just like men Hobbes’ state of nature - constantly on guard against their fellows,
hostile and suspicious that their neighbours’ accumulation of power represents a mortal threat to one’s own
existence
• For Hobbes, of course, the awful condition of the SON is what drives men to get together and establish a
SOVEREIGN POWER, so that there will be NO MORE ANARCHY, but rather SOCIAL ORDER and law
under the sovereigns authority
• For realists, this is simply not an option at the international level because a world state does not exist and
isn't likely to
• For Rousseau, Hobbes is making a fundamental error; he is ascribing to Man in a SON essential
characteristics and IDEAS which individuals can ONLY ACQUIRE IN SOCIETY
• Rousseau observes that SOCIAL LIFE changes man - we get new characteristics and face new problems -
war between groups is one of these consequences of social life
• Conflict and war emerge as a historical and socially constructed phenomenon for Rousseau - war is not a
natural occurrence as it is by Hobbesian standards, created by unchanging systemic processes
• Hobbes thinks lots of things are natural to human individuals, that Rousseau thinks are CONSTRUCTED
through Social life
• Constructivists argue that we should be very careful about attributing to States in a state of nature
qualities they can only come to possess in an International Society (Wendt 139).
• They argue that, just as Hobbes makes all kinds of assumptions about what the nature of man is before
society, and as such – makes very strong assumptions about what man is ESSENTIALLY and
UNIVERSALLY like (violence, fearful, paranoid) - Realists make a whole series of assumptions about
what States are necessarily like in a structural condition of Anarchy.
• What constructivists critique in Realism is the idea that we can ASSUME lots about the behaviour of states
just by looking at the structural fact of anarchy (the lack of a world state), without looking at the details of
the SOCIAL relationships states find themselves in, and how this causes them to construct the world in
different ways
• The anarchical structure of the international (i.e. the lack of a common power), does NOT MEAN that
states will NECESSARILY act like paranoid, aggressive, uncooperative Realists - basically to act like
psychopaths
• Rather, they observe, that states today actually engage in a whole series of cooperative relationships, some
are generally friendly (France and Spain) DESPITE the fact of Anarchy, and don’t behave like psychopaths
at all!
• ES thinkers (who are in many ways quite close o constructivists) argue that STATES, once they are
engaged in REGULAR INTERACTION develop norms or rules which define a relatively ORDERED
Society despite Anarchy
• The idea of an ‘Inter-national society’ suggests that there are some basics pattern of predictability for state
behaviour which are sustained over time – which are reflected in things like diplomatic rules, international
law, mutual recognition of state sovereignty, even practices of war (like wearing uniforms and trying to
mostly avoid killing civilians)
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