Constructivism in International Relations

Constructivism in Politics

• Focus on formal institutions and organizations
• Emergence of ideational turn in politics in the 1970s

Norms and International Relations

• Constructivism: ideational factors shape international relations, not just material factors
• A shared reality is created through interaction and knowledge
• Norms: standards of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity
• Categories of norms: regulative, constitutive, and prescriptive

Development Stages of Norms

• Stage 1: Norm Emergence
  • Started by norm entrepreneurs through persuasion and issue-framing
  • Society must understand and believe in the new norm
• Stage 2: Normative Contestation
  • Resistance to a given international norm
  • Critical engagement that affects political outcomes
• Stage 3: Norm Cascade
  • Norm entrepreneurs vs. norm leaders
  • Norm followers join due to legitimacy, reputation, esteem, etc.
  • Cascading through socialization, institutionalization, and demonstration
• Stage 4: Norm Internalization
  • Norms become taken for granted and integral to living
  • Thoughtless compliance

Women's Suffrage as an Example

• Norm Entrepreneur: suffragettes and organizations for women's voting rights
• Norm Emergence: women should have the same rights as men
• Tipping Point: rallies and lobbying legislators, and plebiscite in 1937
• Norm Cascade: debates among political circles and arguments with politicians
• Norm Internalization: succeeding constitutions have equal voting rights for women and men

Institutions

• Institutions are the rules of the game
• Consist of both informal constraints and formal rules
• Informal institutions reinforce formal institutions
• Classifications: economic, political, and social institutions
• Formal institutions: codified, e.g., contracts, handbooks, constitutions
• Informal institutions: not codified, e.g., values, morals, ethics, beliefs

Characteristics of Institutions

• Require repeated interactions to form agreed and predictable rules
• Have the capacity to self-reinforce and self-perpetuate
• Depend on individuals, their interactions, and patterns of thought
• Are neither static nor neutral; always changing yet durable

Organizations

• Formally or informally coordinated vehicles for promoting and protecting individual and shared interests and ideas
• If institutions are the rules of the game, then organizations are the players
• Organizations are crucial to institutional change