Social Constructivism And Its Impact On International Relations

Rationality, in International Relations, refers to how states implement foreign policies to reach its certain goals. In the film, McNamara explains his conversation he had with Communist Cuban leader Fidel Castro regarding Castro’s acknowledgement that Cuba would have been destroyed by the United States if Soviet Union had not retracted their nuclear weapons. To McNamara’s surprise, rational leader Castro expressed his full acknowledgement and confessed that he was willing to let his country destroyed. Based on that conversation, McNamara concludes that rationality sometimes leads to unnecessary deaths of citizens, and that is not okay because human lives and their rights matter. In the article, One World, Rival Theory, John Snyder asserts, “Constructivism often echoes the theme human rights and international justice activist sound.” McNamara’s conclusion matches with Constructivism, and his lesson is useful because it warns people to think twice about their foreign policies and consider the

The discipline of international relations (IR) is one that has witnessed a multitude of variations and shifts. It has produced a fair amount of debate between academics within the international relations scholarship. Due to a plethora of circumstances scholars have subjected the traditional rationalist theories of neorealism and neoliberalism to critical re-evaluations. As a result, constructivism is a concept that has emerged as an alternative approach to dominant IR theories. It focuses on the importance of state identities in defining and gaining knowledge of state interests, actions and goals. There are theorists who purport that the rise of constructivism allows for a further understanding of another international theory, feminism.

According to constructivism “The world of international relations is not just the world of material capabilities and materialistic opportunities it is also a social world”. Constructivists believe that actor states are occupied with both normative and material factors. They do not deny that the material world shapes their structure, but they believe that through reflections and discourse, actor states are malleable and influenced by each other. Constructivism thus deals with the process through which principled ideals become social norms. In being so, constructivism becomes a critical component for the international recognition of a state. This becomes crucial for actors, as the internationalization of social norms will ensure compliance over external pressure. Thus, democracy promotion can be subsumed under the socialization and internalization by actors. The persistence of democratic international institutions after the cold war as well as the mass identification of states as democracies and the absence of a strong alternative political ideology have contributed to a process of socialization promoting democratic cooperation. Therefore, after the Cold

Three levels of analysis, each with its own distinct strength, reveals three different ways of understanding international relations. The first states that all nation-states behave similarly, the second emphasizes the unique internal factors of a nation-state, while the third level of analysis focuses on the individual deciding a state’s course of action. Each level of analysis is useful in the study of international relations. Indeed, used all together, it is not long before arriving at a point where a vast number of explanations for the actions of a country are brought to light. However, to best understand international relations, one level of analysis is more useful than the rest, because it provides the most comprehensive

The first view will be through the current predominant school of thought in international relations, realism. Although there are several different forms of realism the core ideas are that states are the central actors in international politics rather than individuals

Realism is a theory which believes that sovereign states are the primary actors in the international system. It also believes that the international system has always been anarchic due to the nature of states not trusting each other and each state seeking to gain or maximize its own power capability. The Realist approach to the Cold War was also that of an “anarchical constitutive” and had seen the Cold War as something that was not out of the ordinary. The realists believed that states are always competing to maximize their own power, “the basic premise of its understanding is that the Cold War was not historically unique. the Cold War rather reflected in general terms the ongoing logic of inter-state conflict derived from the anarchical constitutive nature of the international system, and the ‘power maximization’ policies of states” R.Saull (2001:7).

There are two, key conflicting theories in the study of international relations, idealism and realism, known to scholars as the ‘Great Debate’. Realism, offers an account of international affairs through four central ideas; that states are the key players in international relations, the decentralised international stage is anarchic, actors are rational and self-interested

In classifying Constructivism in International Relations: The Politics of Reality, Maya Zehfuss has postmodern commitments in her theoretical book.

Contemporary international relations is a complex field. Understanding events and attempting to make sense of them can be a daunting task. There are, however, tools available, which can assist in providing clarity to these complex issues. The first of these tools is historic knowledge. Without historic background of an issue, it is nearly impossible to understand the events driving that issue in modern times. A second tool, the one which will be the focus of this paper, is international relations theory. Theory can be defined as “a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action,” (Merriam-Webster) and can be used “in many cases as a basis of prediction.” (Mingst 56) There are three major theories which we

Social constructivism’s origins are largely attributed to Lev Vygotsky (1978). Vygotsky believed that social constructivism is the idea that learning occurs when people are socially active; in other words, learning is created through our interaction with others. In a constructivist style classroom, the focus shifts from the teacher teaching the students to the students teaching each other and having more control over what they learn by asking questions and coming up with their own conclusion on things (2016). This style of teaching can be very successful when the teacher provides enough scaffolding. In a typical classroom, you have a teacher standing in the front of the room lecturing to students while they sit and take notes on the information being given so they can spit it back up for a test they will have at the end of the unit. In the constructivist style classroom, the students are pushed to be more active and engaged in their learning process (Education Theory). The teacher creates an environment where students are urged to speak up and share what they think and have the class run more on a student run process. The teacher’s role in this style is not to sit and lecture information but rather engage students actively to find this information on their own and discover it so that it creates more meaning and provides a better understanding. The main goal in this type of learning environment is problem solving. This style of teaching promotes self-guidance and can even

For years since the gradual progression of terrorism in the 90s rationalist approaches such as Realism and Liberalism had seemed fitting to understand the war on terror and provided what was thought at the time as a clear understand for how terrorism is carried out and perhaps the behavior of terrorists themselves. However in the end of the Cold War the traditional IR scholars had a rude awaken regarding how they had predicted the outcome of the Cold war. They had unfortunately failed to predict its ending.

Alexander Wendt is the most outstanding advocate of the social constructivism in the context of international relations. Social constructivism is also expressed in the most important work of Wendt named “Social Theory of International Politics”.

Constructivism Realism agree with the theory that says the world is in anarchy (chaos). Constructivism also said that international relations can be established through conflict and cooperation. So here assessed the importance of existing institutions namely through regulative and constitutive. Each country needs to comply with the decree. If away, then there are various forms of action to be taken such as military, economic supply restrictions and others. So countries need to assess national interests whether to cooperate or not.

Realism is one of the main theories within International Relations. It provides the view that all actors within the international system act on their own self-interests to gain power. This essay intends to discuss its usefulness as a theory and the reasons for and against it being used to analyse world affairs. Firstly, it shall discuss how the theory is advantageous as it explains how shifts in the balance of power can lead to conflict however it is unable to explain why the distribution of power changes. Second, it will portray how it is useful because states do not need to be labelled as good or bad to fit the theory although it disregards the idea of Natural law and gives a cynical view of human morality. Finally, it will suggest that as the theory is very parsimonious, it can be applied to multiple situations within the world system. On the other hand, it will be said that it fails to look at individuals within a state and their influence on the actions of the state. These costs and benefits will be conveyed through the current tensions between the USA and North Korea to link the theory in with current world politics.

In “Structural Realism...” Waltz defends his theory of Structural Realism against criticism that its tenets are no longer valid in a post-Cold War world. The international system, he writes, is still anarchic, even though that system is unipolar instead of bipolar as it was during the Cold War, and that states still seek hegemony and power. A nation 's ideals and internal factors may count for something (he posits that the US intervention after the collapse of Yugoslavia was the result of such pressures),3 but they certainly shouldn 't. States should make decisions based on the idea of maintaining their own security and maintaining a balance of power in the international system.