Incorporated by the Mainstream: Constructivism in the Theory of International Relations

Abstract

The article contains a critical surveying of social constructivism in the theory of international relations with the aim of clarifying the essence, peculiarities and contradictions of the constructivist approach to the analysis of world politics, to find out how social constructivism copes with the main functions of social science theory, to evaluate the productivity and further prospects of the sociologization of theorizing in the science of international relations.
It is substantiated that the popularity of social constructivism in Western political science at the beginning of the 21st century is not so much related to the convinced reinterpretation of the dominant theoretical doctrines by its representatives, as to the sharp changes in world politics after the end of the Cold War, which were not predicted and convincingly explained by mainstream paradigms.
The main concepts used by social constructivism are considered. Accor-ding to constructivists, the way to understanding changes, actions and behavior of actors in the international arena lies through understanding the intersubjectivity of key elements of global politics, as well as state identities and social norms, the combination of which forms interests. The main contribution of constructivism to international analysis is the theorizing around the structure–agency dichotomy, which leads to the conclusion that international anarchy is not inevitable or immutable.
The practical development of the military-political doctrines of the leading actors of global politics takes into account those aspects of international relations that social constructivism is concerned with. In particular, traditional strategic deterrence is tried to reducing a competitor’s perception of the benefits of aggression relative to restraint, as well as to forming the opponent’s proper perception of the combat reliability of the actor and partners; their perceptions of their own ability to control the risk of escalation.
Having managed to assert itself, social constructivism, for the sake of re-cognition among researchers and practitioners of international relations, was forced to somewhat moderate its original ontological radicalism. It is emphasized that after abandoning its own epistemology, the set of basic theses of canonical constructivism lacks originality, and it usually fails as a basis for an empirical research program. Concrete examples show that the conclusions of constructivists, as a rule, confirm or duplicate the conclusions of representatives of other paradigms, mostly (neo)liberalistic by origin. This refers to state-centrism, the conceptualization of international reality not as a system, but as a society, the analogy of state behavior with the behavior of an individual, making common cause in fact with soft power concept etc.
Social constructivism with an emphasis on the sociologization of analysis has considerable heuristic potential, which the initiators of the renewal of constructivism hope for, but it is too early to talk about constructivism as an independent theory and one of the three main pillars of the science of international relations.