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🌐 Core Themes +
- IR concepts (anarchism, power politics, institutionalism) are socially constructed by ongoing social practices.
- Focuses on social construction of ideas and concepts rather than human nature or state structure.
- Events and features of IR are interpreted, not merely explained.
- Critiques neo-realism and neo-liberalism for being too materialistic; emphasizes ideas, norms, identities.
- Structures of human association determined primarily by shared ideas rather than material forces (Alexander Wendt).
- Purposive actors’ identities and interests are constructed by shared ideas.
⚙️ Features +
- Critical theory revealing socially constructed nature of IR.
- Rejects cognitivist knowledge approach; knowledge emerges via social interactions.
- Focuses on role of ideas, identities, norms, and culture in international politics.
- Identity shapes interests, which determine actions.
- International organizations are purposive social agents shaping state interests.
- Closely aligned with post-modernist IR approaches.
🎓 Main Thinkers +
- Nicholas Onuf – coined the term ‘Constructivism’; book: World of Our Making (1989)
- Alexander Wendt – most influential; books: Social Theory of International Politics
- Peter J. Katzenstein
- Emanuel Adler
- Michael Barnett
- Kathryn Sikkink
- John Ruggie
- Martha Finnemore – book: National Interests in International Society, Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics