After and Beyond Alexander Wendt: Mapping Constructivist Pathways in International Relations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31430/BFSR9208Keywords:
Constructivism, Alexander Wendt, Anarchy Is What States Make of It, Critical Constructivism, New Constructivism, Social ConstructionAbstract
This article traces the different paths taken by constructivism in International Relations, from its emergence as a critical social theory in the 1980 s, in response to the third debate between positivist rationalists and post-positivist reflectivists, to Alexander Wendt's project to seize a middle ground and to bridge the rationalist–reflectivist epistemological gap. The article, then, examines the intra-debates among conventional and critical constructivists on Went's project, as well as the rise of the new constructivism after Wendt left the constructivist research program. The article explores the Wendtian project's epistemological tensions and demonstrates how such tensions led to a plurality within constructivism: modernist conventional and postmodernist critical (reflectivist). It highlights that Wendt's leaving constructivism and his shift to a quantum approach have not caused constructivism to decline, but instead, it continued to thrive through the efforts of a new generation of constructivists. The article argues that three main developments in International Relations over the past twenty years have contributed to its ongoing thriving: the decline of epistemological polarization among IR theories; the rise of critical realism as a philosophy of science in International Relations, and the emergence of analytical eclecticism.References
- Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics," International Organization , vol. 46, no. 2 (1992);
- Chris Reus-Smit, "The Constructivist Turn: Critical Theory after the Cold War," Working Paper , no. 1996/4, National Library of Australia, 1996, p. 10.
- Antje Wiener, "Constructivist Approaches in International Relations Theory: Puzzles and Promises," Constitutionalism Webpapers , no. 5 (2006), p. 12.
- Checkel, "The Constructivist Turn in International Relations Theory," p. 324.
- Checkel, "Social Constructivisms in Global and European Politics," p. 241.
- Checkel, "Social Constructivisms in Global and European Politics," p. 242.
- Stefano Guzzini & Anna Leander (eds.), Constructivism and International Relations: Alexander Wendt and His Critics (London: Routledge, 2006).
- Emanuel Adler & Vincent Pouliot, "International Practices," International Theory , vol. 3, no. 1 (2011); Ted Hopf, "Common-sense Constructivism and Hegemony in World Politics," International Organization , vol. 67, no. 2 (2013); Séverine Autoserre, Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Lise Morjé Howard, "US Foreign Policy Habits in Ethnic Conflict," International Studies Quarterly , vol. 59, no. 4 (2015); Christian Bueger & Frank Gadinger, International Practice Theory (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
- Brent J. Steele, Ontological Security in International Relations: Self–Identity and the IR State (New York: Routledge, 2008); Brent J. Steele, "Ontological Security and the Power of Self-Identity: British Neutrality and the American Civil War," Review of International Studies , vol. 31, no. 3 (2005); Jennifer Mitzen, "Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma," European Journal of International Relations , vol. 12, no. 3 (2006); Nina C. Krickel–Choi, "The Concept of Anxiety in Ontological Security Studies," International Studies Review , vol. 24, no. 3 (2022); Bahar Rumelili, "Integrating Anxiety into International Relations Theory: Hobbes, Existentialism, and Ontological Security," International Theory , vol. 12, no. 2 (2020);
- Neta Crawford, "The Passion of World Politics," International Security , vol. 24, no. 4 (2000); Janice Bially Mattern, Ordering International Politics: Identity, Crisis, and Representational Force (New York: Routledge, 2005); Janice Bially Mattern, "A Practice Theory of Emotion for International Relations," in: Emanuel Adler & Vincent Pouliot (eds.), International Practices (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Andrew A.G. Ross, Mixed Emotions: Beyond Fear and Hatred in International Conflict (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2014); Marcus Holmes, "Believing This and Alieving That: Theorizing Affect and Intuitions in International Politics," International Studies Quarterly , vol. 59, no. 4 (2015); Emma Hutchison, Affective Communities in World Politics: Collective Emotions after Trauma (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016).
- Kimberly Hutchings, Time and World Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013).
- John Cash, "Psychoanalysis, Cultures of Anarchy, and Ontological Insecurity," International Theory , vol. 12 (2020).
- Der Derian & Wendt (eds.).
- Emanuel Adler & Michael Barnett (eds.), Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
- Adler & Pouliot, International Practices ; Emanuel Adler, World Ordering: A Social Theory of Cognitive Evolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). J. Samuel Barkin & Laura Sjoberg (eds.), Interpretive Quantification: Methodological Explorations for Critical and Constructivist IR (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017). Peter Katzenstein & Stephen Nelson, "Reading the Right Signals and Reading the Signals Right: IPE and the Financial Crisis of 2008," Review of International Political Economy , vol. 20, no. 5 (2013); Stephen Nelson & Peter Katzenstein, "Uncertainty, Risk, and the Financial Crisis of 2008," International Organization , vol. 68, no. 2 (2014). Ian Hurd, After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the United Nations Security Council (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007); Michael Barnett & Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: International Organizations in World Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004); Finnemore & Wendt, pp. 1257-1259.
- Brent J. Steele, Harry D. Gould & Oliver Kessler (eds.), Tactical Constructivism, Method, and International Relations (London: Routledge, 2020).
- Rudra Sil & Peter J. Katzenstein, Beyond Paradigms: Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 10;
1Total citations
1From ACRPS journals
0External sources
Citing articles in ACRPS journals (1)
Sources: Crossref Cited-by, and the references (notes and reference lists) of the Center's own articles
Downloads
Published
2025-03-01
Article dates
Received: May 30, 2024 Revised: November 23, 2024 Accepted: February 16, 2025
Usage statistics
50 views 62 downloads
Issue
Section
Studies
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Mohammed Hemchi (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
