Alexander Wendt
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Alexander Wendt is one of the core social constructivist scholars in the field of international relations. Wendt and scholars such as Nicholas Onuf, Peter J. Katzenstein, Michael Barnett, Kathryn Sikkink, John Ruggie, Martha Finnemore, and others have, within a relatively short period of time, established constructivism as one of the major schools of thought in the field. In a recent survey[1] Wendt was listed as one of the most influential scholars of international relations.
[edit] Biography
Alexander Wendt was born in 1958, and read political science and philosophy at Macalester College before receiving his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Minnesota in 1989, studying under Raymond "Bud" Duvall. Wendt taught at Yale University from 1989 to 1997, at Dartmouth College from 1997 to 1999, at the University of Chicago from 1999 to 2004, and is currently the Ralph D. Mershon Professor of International Security at the Ohio State University. He is married to Jennifer Mitzen, also a member of the Ohio State political science faculty. He is currently working on two projects: arguing for the inevitability of a world state, and investigating the possible implications of quantum mechanics for social science.
[edit] Social Theory of International Politics
Wendt's most influential work to date is Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge University Press, 1999), which builds on and goes beyond his 1992 article "Anarchy Is What States Make Of It". Social Theory of International Politics places itself as a response to Kenneth Waltz's 1979 work, Theory of International Politics, the canonical text of the neorealist school.
Wendt shares the fundamental premise of realists that the state system is in a situation of anarchy. However, he denies that anarchy alone is sufficient to determine a Hobbesian scenario of states competing against one another for survival. This challenges the central role given to the 'logic of anarchy' in neorealist scholarship. Indeed, Wendt claims there is no logic of anarchy per se. For Wendt, violent competition is only one of several possible outcomes of a state system under conditions of anarchy. Wendt reaches this conclusion by challenging neorealism's materialism, stressing the importance of ideas, norms, and culture. State interests, identities, and even the meaning of power itself are constituted by ideas. Thus, Wendt says, there is a sense in which Soviet and American ideas about the Cold War were the Cold War.
In Social Theory of International Politics, the ideas which constitute interests and identities are said to be 'intersubjectively constituted'. They are the result of an ongoing process of state interactions. Thus, it is process, rather than structure which determines the nature of international politics. Though the state system may at times conform to realist descriptions of violent competition, this is not a necessary state of affairs, but a result of a process of social construction.
Perhaps most importantly, by placing ideas, norms, and culture at the centre of his explanation of international politics, Wendt's theory has important implications for the possibility of progress in international politics. Contrary to neorealism's static materialist structuralism, Wendt's social theory bears on the 'tranformative potential' of international politics. His theory claims to reveal the potential for a more cooperative international relations.
[edit] Social Theory of International Politics - Context and Overview
Since the end of the cold war, realism, by most accounts the dominant paradigm in international relations theory, has been under assault by the emerging paradigm of constructivism. One group of realists--the structural (or neo-/systemic) realists who draw inspiration from Kenneth Waltz's seminal Theory of International Politics --has been a particular target for constructivists.
Such realists contend that anarchy and the distribution of relative power drive most of what goes on in world politics. Constructivists counter that structural realism misses what is often a more determinant factor, namely, the intersubjectively shared ideas that shape behavior by constituting the identities and interests of actors.
Wendt seeks to challenge the core neorealist premise that anarchy forces states into recurrent security competitions. According to Wendt, whether a system is conflictual or peaceful is a function not of anarchy and power but of the shared culture created through discursive social practices. Anarchy has no determinant "logic," only different cultural instantiations in history--as Hobbesian, Lockean, or Kantian cultures, depending on the level of actor compliance to certain behavioral norms Because each actor's conception of self (its interests and identity) is a product of the others' diplomatic gestures, states can reshape structure by process; through new gestures, they can reconstitute interests and identities toward more other-regarding and peaceful means and ends.
If "anarchy is what states make of it," then realism has been dealt a crushing blow: States are not condemned by their anarchic situation to worry constantly about relative power and to fall into tragic conflicts. They can act to alter the intersubjective culture that constitutes the system, solidifying over time the non-egoistic mind-sets needed for long-term peace.
[edit] Wendtian Constructivism vs. “Core Constructivism”
Three elements make constructivism a distinct form of international relations theorizing.
First, global politics is said to be guided by the intersubjectively shared ideas, norms, and values held by actors. Constructivists focus on the intersubjective dimension of knowledge, because they wish to emphasize the social aspect of human existence--the role of shared ideas as an ideational structure constraining and shaping behavior. This allows constructivists to pose this structure as a causal force separate from the material structure of neorealism.
Second, the ideational structure has a constitutive and not just regulative effect on actors. That is, the structure leads actors to redefine their interests and identities in the process of interacting (they become "socialized" by process). Thus unlike rationalist theories such as neorealism and neoliberalism, which hold interest and identities constant in order to isolate (respectively) the causal roles of power and international institutions, constructivism considers how ideational structures shape the very way actors define themselves--who they are, their goals, and the roles they believe they should play.
Third, ideational structures and actors ("agents") co-constitute and co-determine each other. Structures constitute actors in terms of their interests and identities, but structures are also produced, reproduced, and altered by the discursive practices of agents. This element allows constructivists to challenge the determinacy of neorealism. Structures are not reified objects that actors can do nothing about, but to which they must respond. Rather structures exist only through the reciprocal interaction of actors. This means that agents, through acts of social will, can change structures. They can thereby emancipate themselves from dysfunctional situations that are in turn replicating conflictual practices.
For constructivists, therefore, it is critical to recognize that an actor's reality at any point in time is historically constructed and contingent. It is the product of human activity-historical social practices--and thus can, at least in theory, be transcended by instantiating new social practices. This process of cultural change may be slow; after all, agents are sometimes going up against thousands of years of socialization. But even the most embedded structures can be altered by acts of will (and the requisite social mobilization). The neorealist presumption that there are universal patterns of international politics that work across space and time, driven by the given reality of structure, must therefore be discarded or at least highly qualified.
Wendt moves beyond this core constructivist framework. For Wendt, core constructivism in its different strands is simultaneously too extreme and too limited in its attack on neorealism. It is too extreme when it claims that it is "ideas all the way down," namely, that all aspects of human reality are shaped by socialization through discursive practices. Wendt argues, instead, that material forces do exist and may have independent causal effects on actor behavior. Moreover, the state is a real, self-organized actor that has certain basic interests prior to its interaction with other states.
Yet according to Wendt, constructivism is too limited when it simply tests ideas as causal factors against realist variables like power and interest, without exploring the degree to which these apparent "material" variables are really constituted by ideational processes.
His book's target is Waltzian neorealism, and the overarching goal is to do for constructivism what Waltz did for realism, namely, the building of a parsimonious systemic theory that reveals the overarching constraining and shaping force of structure--this time from an ideational perspective. (Thus the title's twist on Waltz's masterwork).
[edit] Wendt's Constructivist Theory
As with neorealism, Wendt's argument is founded on the notion that states are the primary actors in world politics. States are self-organized units constructed from within by the discursive practices of individuals and social groups. As units that exist in the collective knowledge of many individuals, they are not dependent on the thoughts of any one person. Moreover, as self-organized entities, each possesses a "corporate" identity as a sovereign actor, an identity not tied to interaction with other states.
Even more controversial for extreme constructivists, Wendt also suggests that states possess certain essential needs that arise from their nature as self-organized political units: needs for physical survival, autonomy, economic well-being, and collective self-esteem--namely, the group's need to feel good about itself. Wendt also contends, contrary to more extreme constructivists, that the state, at least initially, has a tendency to be egoistic in its relations with others.
Wendt acknowledges that members of groups, as social identity theory has shown, almost always show favoritism toward each other when dealing with members of the out-group. This means that in the initial stages of a state-to-state interaction, egoistic self-help behavior is likely to be exhibited.
Wendt's apparent concessions to the neorealist paradigm, however, do not mean that egoistic orientations will always be dominant, that states cannot learn to be more other-regarding and cooperative. Drawing upon symbolic interactionism, Wendt argues that interaction with other states can lead actors to significant redefinitions of self. In the process of interacting, states take on certain roles and assign roles to other states. This can lead to one of two results: a reproduction of initially egoistic conceptions of self and other, or a transformation of the shared ideational structure to one that is more collective and other-regarding. The critical point for Wendt is that a structure has no reality apart from its instantiation in process. Structure, he stresses, "exists, has effects, and evolves only because of agents and their practices". By casting the other in a nonegoistic light, and acting toward it from an other-regarding standpoint, actors can begin to build collective identities that include the other as part of the definition of self.
Wendt’s Critique of Neorealism
Wendt argues that behind Waltz's explicit model of international politics, emphasizing anarchy and the distribution of material capabilities as primary causal factors, lies an implicit model focusing on the distribution of interests across states. That is, neorealism cannot explain variations in international outcomes without implicitly invoking different types of states--some of which seek only to maintain what they have (status quo states) and some that seek to change the system through force (revisionist states). Systems consisting of only status quo states constitute "one kind of anarchy," while systems with revisionist states constitute another.
Wendt suggests that status quo states should be relatively peaceful (anarchies of a Lockean or perhaps Kantian kind), while revisionist states will be conflictual, with states always on the edge of elimination (anarchy with a Hobbesian culture). This argument implies that anarchy, as a mere absence of central authority, has no one "logic." Rather the way a particular anarchy and distribution of power plays itself out will depend critically on the distribution of interests in the system--"what states want".
Anarchy, thus, produces different motivations for different states, wherein some states are motivated by expansion and others by survival.Waltz's neorealism is therefore underspecified: A hidden variable, the distribution of interests (status quo vs. revisionist), is doing most of the explaining. So while states may have certain basic needs (such as needs for survival, esteem, and autonomy), how these needs are manifest in particular actors will be a product of social discursive practices.
The Three Cultures of Anarchy
In each culture - Hobbesian, Lockean, and Kantian - states play certain types of roles vis-a-vis each other, complete with specific behavioral norms.
In a Hobbesian culture, which according to Wendt dominated world affairs until the seventeenth century, states cast each other in the role of "enemy": The other is a threatening adversary that will observe no limits on the use of violence. Violence must therefore be employed as a basic tool for survival.
In a Lockean culture, which has characterized the modern state system since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, states view each other as rivals that may use violence to advance their interests, but that are required to refrain from eliminating each other.
In a Kantian culture, which has emerged only recently in relations between democracies, states play the role of friends, that is, states do not use force to settle disputes and work as a team against security threats.
The behavioral norms for each culture are known by the actors and are thus "shared" to at least a minimal degree (a minimal requirement for a culture).These norms, however, can be internalized to three degrees. In the first degree, consistent with neorealism, compliance to the norm is solely a function of coercion: The actor complies because of the threat of punishment founded on the relative superiority of the other actors. In the second degree, closer to the neoliberal view, actors conform to the norm not because they see it as legitimate, but merely because they think it is in their self-interest. Acceptance at both the first and second degrees is therefore purely instrumental, and when the costs and benefits of complying change, behavior should also change. At the third degree, consistent with constructivist logic, states have internalized the behavioral norms as legitimate, as part of who they are. They identify with the other's expectations, incorporating the other within their cognitive boundaries. Only at this level does the norm really "construct" states by shaping their core interests and identities as actors.
Given that there are three forms of culture, depending on the norms followed by the actors, and three degrees of internalization of these norms, Wendt portrays international systems as being in any one of nine possible modes at any particular time. On the horizontal axis, moving from left to right, is the "degree of cooperation" represented by the Hobbesian, Lockean, and Kantian cultures respectively. On the vertical axis, from bottom to top, are the three "degrees of internalization"
This three-by-three grid offers some advantages. It allows us to see conflictual Hobbesian systems as a product of shared internalized ideas at the third degree (a social construction) and not just as a product of material forces (the realist view). Moreover, high degrees of cooperation (a Kantian culture) can be a product of pure self-interested compliance resulting from the threat of punishment (first degree) or the simple benefits of cooperation (second degree). Conflict does not confirm realism, just as cooperation does not confirm liberalism or constructivism. It all depends on the degree of internalization--why the actors acted in a conflictual or cooperative fashion, why they treated each other as enemies, rivals, or friends.
Wendt's key assertion is that the culture in which states find themselves at any point in time depends on the discursive social practices that reproduce or transform each actor's view of self and other. Anarchy is what states make of it. A Hobbesian system will be sustained only if actors continue to act toward each other in egoistic, militaristic ways. Such a culture is not the inevitable result of anarchy and the material distribution of power, as neorealists would have it. Rather, because egoistic, violent mind-sets are maintained only by egoistic and violent processes, a culture of realpolitik can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If actors gesture differently, showing that they are casting the other in a less self-centered manner, then over time a Hobbesian culture can move to a Lockean and possibly Kantian form. We must never forget, Wendt reminds us, that cultures are not reified givens, but products of historical social processes. Today's "common sense" about international relations--that it is a se lf-help world of egoistic states--is itself a product of historically contingent ideas and not a true reflection of the intrinsic nature of states. By engaging in new practices, states can instantiate new ideational structures that help actors transcend collective-action problems and historical mistrust.
The constructivist move of regarding egoism as always an ongoing product of the social process helps us see that sell-interest is not some eternal given driving actor behavior, but an ongoing product of the system. As Wendt asserts, "If self-interest is not sustained by practice, it will die out."
[edit] Wendt’s Contributions to International Relations Paradigms
Liberalism
The book cuts against the grain of recent liberal and neoliberal developments by drawing inspiration from traditional "idealist" arguments of the interwar period. Wendt offers a socially scientific underpinning for the idealist claim that diplomacy can fundamentally change the way states think about themselves and others.
Recent liberal theory focuses on the impact of domestic-level forces in the formation of state preferences. Neoliberal institutionalism adopts realist assumptions about rational actors with exogenous preferences to consider how institutions further cooperation by solving problems of informational uncertainty. Against liberalism, Wendt poses the causal and constitutive role of systemic ideational structure on the preferences of states, independent of domestic-level processes. Against neoliberal institutionalism, Wendt's work challenges the assumption of exogenous preferences particularly the assumption of egoistic, absolute gains-maximizing states.
Constructivism
Strong constructivists will be frustrated by Wendt's acceptance that states and individuals have basic needs that are independent of social interaction, by his assertion that these actors are predisposed by nature to be egoistic (at least initially), and by his view that states are indeed actors with corporate identities that exist prior to interaction. Yet Wendt shows convincingly that without these baselines, social processes at the international level would have nothing to act upon. The extreme constructivist position--that it is ideas all the way down--leaves the theorist with all structure and no agents. Indeed, if actors were to be wholly constituted by structure, then the constructivist program would fall apart. Agents would be purely puppets of the ideational environment in which they find themselves. In such a situation, there is no possibility for transformation of the structure through the actions of agents. The system would continually reproduce itself, and change across time resulting from discursive practices would be impossible--except through exogenous material shocks outside of the model.
Neorealism
Wendt's critique of neorealism offers three main contributions.
First, he goes beyond liberal and constructivist theorists who treat power and interests as factors covered by realism, and who then seek simply to show that "ideas matter" as a separate causal force. Such theorists, by not asking whether power and interests are constituted by social interaction, give away too much to realism; they are reduced to performing mop-up operations for phenomena not explained by "realist" variables. Wendt shows that to the extent that ostensibly material variables such as power and interest are actually shaped by social practices, they should more properly be considered ideational variables consistent with a constructivist view of world politics.
Second, Wendt helps improve all systemic theorizing--whether neorealist, neoliberal, or constructivist--by providing the most rigorous philosophical justification yet produced for treating the state as an actor. Most systemic theorists view the state-as-actor assertion as a reasonable assumption for the purposes of theory building, and go no further. This leaves them vulnerable to unit-level theorists who counter that only individuals and social groups exist, and that therefore processes within the state must be the theoretical focus. Wendt demonstrates that the state is a real self-organizing entity that, being held in the collective memories of many individuals, is dependent for existence on no particular actor (just as other social groups are, for that matter).
Third, and most important, with his claim that "anarchy is what states make of it," Wendt offers the boldest critique of realism in the field. Against the realist assertion that anarchy forces states to worry constantly about survival and therefore about relative power, Wendt seeks to show that spirals of hostility, arms racing, and war are not inevitable in an anarchic system. If states fall into such conflicts, it is a result of their own social practices, which reproduce egoistic and militaristic mind-sets. Anarchy does not compel them to be conflictual. It is an empty vessel with no inherent logic.
To explain behavior and outcomes, this vessel must be filled with varying interests and identities--status quo or revisionist states whose characteristics are at least in part a function of international interaction. Such an analysis helps to overcome the pessimism inherent in many realist arguments. If states can transcend their past realpolitik mind-sets by instantiating new, more other-regarding practices, then hope for the future can be restored.
[edit] Criticisms of Wendt
Realist critics have argued that Wendt’s view of international politics has inherent flaws. Most important, it does not adequately address a critical aspect of the realist worldview: the problem of uncertainty.
For structural realists, it is states' uncertainty about the present and especially the future intentions of others that makes the levels and trends in relative power such fundamental causal variables. Neorealists argue that uncertainty about the other's present interests--whether the other is driven by security or nonsecurity motives--can be enough to lead security-seeking states to fight. To show how purely security-seeking states can still conflict, structural realists point to prudent leaders' uncertainty about two temporal dimensions- first, the present intentions of the other, and second, and even more critical, the future intentions of the other.
Both of these dimensions are at the heart of the realist understanding of the security dilemma. In a two-actor security dilemma, states A and B are both seeking only their own survival. But given the difficulty of seeing the other's motives state A worries that B currently harbors nonsecurity motives for war. Hence, if B takes steps only for its own security, these steps may be misinterpreted by A as preparations for aggression. State A's counterefforts, in turn, will likely be misinterpreted by B as moves to aggression, sparking a spiral of mistrust and hostility.
Even more intractable for systemic realists is the problem of future intentions. Even when states A and B are both fairly certain that the other is presently a security seeker, they have reason to worry that the other might change its spots some years later as a result of a change of leadership, a revolution, or simply a change of heart resulting from an increase in its power.
In short, structural realists understand that inherently aggressive states are possible. But they do not require the system in the present moment to contain such states for it to still fall into conflict. Contrary to Wendt's claim, therefore, anarchy and distributions of power can have effects that do not depend on assumptions about the real, current distribution of interests (even if the possibility of evil states down the road is important). Realism only needs states to be uncertain about the present and future interests of the other, and in anarchies of great powers, such uncertainty may often be profound.
This problem is exacerbated by the incentives that actors have to deceive one another, an issue Wendt does not address. And even when states are fairly sure of the other’s type or intentions, they know that it might change later on. States must therefore worry about any decline in their power, even in a seemingly friendly world, lest the others turn aggressive after achieving superiority. In such an environment of future uncertainty, levels and trends in relative power will thus act as a key constraint on state behavior.
By differentiating the cultures of anarchy in terms of the degree of cooperative behavior exhibited by states, Wendt's analysis reinforces the very dilemma underpinning the realist argument. If the other is acting cooperatively, how is one to know whether this reflects its peaceful character, or is just a facade masking aggressive desires? Wendt's discussion of the different degrees of internalization of the three cultures only exacerbates the problem. What drives behavior at the lower levels of internalization is precisely what is not shared between actors--their private incentives to comply for short-term selfish reasons.
This suggests that the neorealist and neoliberal paradigms, both of which emphasize the role of uncertainty when internalization is low or nonexistent, remain strong competitors to constructivism in explaining changing levels of cooperation through history. And because Wendt provides little empirical evidence to support his view in relation to these competitors, the debate over which paradigm possesses greater explanatory power remains open.
[edit] Works by Wendt
[edit] Books
- Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 0521469600
[edit] Articles
- "The agent-structure problem in international relations theory" in International Organization, vol. 41, no. 3, 1987.
- "Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics" in International Organization, vol. 46, no. 2, 1992.
- "The Difference that Realism Makes: Social Science and the Politics of Consent." (with Ian Shapiro) in 'Politics and Society 20:197-223, 1992
- “Dependent State Formation and Third World Militarization” (with Michael Barnett) in 'Review of International Studies, 19, 321-347., 1993
- "Collective identity formation and the international state" in American Political Science Review, vol. 88, no. 2, 1994.
- “Hierarchy Under Anarchy: Informal Empire and the East German State” (with Daniel Friedheim), 'International Organization, 49, 689-721, 1995
- "Constructing international politics" in International Security, vol. 20, no. 1, 1995.
- “On Constitution and Causation in International Relations,” 'Review of International Studies, 24 (special issue), 101-118, 1998
- "Driving with the rearview mirror: on the rational science of institutional design" International Organization, vol. 55, no. 4, 2001.
- "Why a world state is inevitable" in European Journal of International Relations, vol. 9, no. 4, 2003.
- "The state as person in international theory" in Review of International Studies, vol. 30, no. 2, 2004.
[edit] Chapters in Edited Volumes
- "Institutions and International Order." 1989 (with Raymond Duvall) In 'Global Changes and Theoretical Challengesedited by E. Czempiel, and J. Rosenau. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books.
- “The International System and Dependent Militarization” 1992 (with Michael Barnett), in Brian Job, ed., ''The Insecurity Dilemma: National Security of Third World States, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, pp. 97-119.
- “Norms, Identity and Culture in National Security” 1996 (with Ronald Jepperson and Peter Katzenstein), in Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 33-75.
- “What is IR For?: Notes Toward a Post-Critical View,” 2000 in Richard Wyn Jones, ed., 'Critical Theory and World Politics', Boulder: Lynne Rienner, pp. 205-224.
- "Rationalism v. Constructivism: A Skeptical View." 2002 (with James Fearon) In 'Handbook of International Relations', edited by W. Carlsnaes, T. Risse, and B. Simmons. London: Sage.
- "'Social Theory' as Cartesian Science: An Auto-Critique from a Quantum Perspective." 2006 In 'Constructivism and International Relations', edited by Stefano Guzzini and Anna Leander. London: Routledge.
[edit] Major Areas of Interest
[edit] References
- ^ Susan Peterson et al. "Teaching and Research Practices." College of William and Mary, Williamsburg. August 2005.
[edit] Bibliography
Dale C. Copeland, "The Constructivist Challenge to Structural Realism: A Review Essay" International Security Vol. 25, No. 2 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 187-212
Gillian Wylie, "International Relations' via Media: Still under Construction" International Studies Review Vol. 2, No. 3 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 123-126
