The Power of Identities and Wendt’s Constructivism …

Wendt’s ambition to formulate a social systemic theory⁸⁹ confines his constructivism within ontology⁹⁰ wherein he defines his approach as scientific realism, and by doing so reaching a combination of both being a positivist and a constructivist at the same time. Thus, he begins with constructivism but theorizes and makes his assumptions with positivism which he professes imbues scientific knowledge⁹¹.

Although he assumes the existence of a reality –out there– independent of human mind materially and ideationally, as a result of his ‘scientific realism’ which inevitably leads him to positivist camp; opposing to positivists, Wendt maintains that international relations are sustained under social (constructed) conditions rather than given (trans-historical) ones⁹².

Contrary to Onuf’s claim⁹³ that “people [who act on behalf of other people] are agents”,⁹⁴ Wendt purports that “states really are agents”⁹⁵. He argues that even though both national and international non-state actors play a vital role in contemporary world politics, states are the primary dominant units in –at least– explaining war or global violence because systems still change through states and they are still “the sole legitimate bearers of organized violence potential”⁹⁶. Accordingly, states are as real as humans that “we can legitimately attribute anthropomorphic qualities like desires, beliefs, and intentionality”⁹⁷. He draws an analogy between international politics and forests, and articulates that it is meaningless to criticize the former as being ‘state-

89 Wendt is not the only one shoots for a systemic analysis, See also Kratochwil, “On the Notion of

‘Interest’ in International Relations.”

90 According to Ruggie, the ontology of Wendt’s constructivism differs from the others’ because of its similarity with the natural sciences. In Ruggie’s words, “[s]cientific inquiry of both material and social worlds deals largely in non observables, be they quarks or international structures, and much of the time even the intersubjective aspects of social life exist independently of the mental states of most individuals that constitute it". See, Ruggie, “What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge”: 882.

91 An approach opposed by Kratochwil & Ruggie, as they assert that “epistemology has to match ontology”. See Kratochwil and Ruggie, “A State of the Art on an Art of the State”: 768.

92 Maja Zehfuss, Constructivism in International Relations: The Politics of Reality (Cambridge, NewYork, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 13-14.

93 To the extent that individuals represent their states, Wendt agrees with Onuf but with a rejection: “I emphasize the key role that concrete individuals (who as agents form 'governments’) play in instantiating states, but show that this does not vitiate a realist view of state agency.” See, Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, 197.

94 Onuf, Making Sense, Making Worlds, 4; See, also, Kratochwil’s: “the term ‘actor’ refers in my discussion variously to individuals and collectivities”. Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions, 10.

95 Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, 10.

96 ibid, 9.

97 ibid, 197.

centric’ and the latter for being ‘tree-centric’. Likewise, he maintains that ‘statism’ (in a broad sense, state-centric systemic international relations theory) does not pose any problem for explaining changes, the problematic proposition belongs to realism and rationalism, both of which are recognized as indispensable components of studying current issues in structural theory⁹⁸.

In his ‘synthetic approach’ Wendt combines elements from structuration⁹⁹ and symbolic interactionism¹⁰⁰ to attain a systemic theorizing. He makes three distinctions:

between ‘levels’ (micro –structures of interaction such as common knowledge– vs macro –structures of multiply realizable outcomes such as collective knowledge), between ‘effects’ (causal vs constitutive), and between ‘things’ (behavior vs properties –as agents’ identities and interests)¹⁰¹:

“All three distinctions concern how reality is structured, and to that extent the ontological debate about structures and agents ultimately is an empirical debate, with rationalist and constructivist social theorists simply interested in different aspects of how reality is structured”.

Wendt agrees with Neo-realists on the determining capability of material elements, however, he admits that “material conditions by themselves explain relatively little”¹⁰² about the structure of social systems, which is not given but constructed and therefore could be reconstructed. Thus, international politics could be reshaped over and over again. Considering ‘equal ontological status’ for agent and structure, as they are mutually constituted, he emphasizes that the structure is constructed by interests which are precisely ensued from ideas¹⁰³.

In his ‘reasonable middle ground’¹⁰⁴ Wendt unites the tenets of Waltzians, of mainstreamers, and of rational choice believers, as well as of idealists. He argues that

98 Alexander Wendt, “Identity Formation and the International State”, The American Political Science Review, v. 88, no. 2 (June 1994): 393.

99 Structuration Theory, which was proposed by Anthony Giddens, is a social theory of the creation and reproduction of systems and mainly based on structure-agent analysis. It is believed that there is no hierarchy between these two and none alone is sufficient to study. So micro and macro focused analysis should be carried out together.

100 It is a sociological perspective applied mainly in microsociology and social psychology. George Herbert Mean, who was the founder of this tradition, argued that people’s selves are social products, though purposive and creative. According to his student, Herbert Blumer, who took this perspective a step forward claimed that people act toward things. And their actions determined by the meaning that those encountered things have for them. People get these meanings from their social interaction and modify them through interpretation.

101 Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, 143.

102 ibid, 189.

103 Interests are truly ideas. See, ibid, 98.

104 As Kratochwil calls it. See, Kratochwil, The Puzzles of Politics, Inquiries into the Genesis and Transformation of International Relations, 154.

the main debate between idealists and materialists is not about to what extent do ideas or do power and interests constitute social life, but, rather about the contribution of brute materials to power and interests. He, then, clears his position of scientific realism¹⁰⁵ (opposition to the view that what there is in the world is somehow dependent on what we know or believe)¹⁰⁶ and posits his ‘rump materialism’ instead of brute materialism. His ‘rump materialism’¹⁰⁷ is related to material capabilities with “some intrinsic causal powers” and their effects on “interests (and shared ideas or culture)”¹⁰⁸ whereas brute material forces are the “things which exist […] independent of ideas, like human nature, [and] physical environment”¹⁰⁹. Therefore, Wendt, as a soft constructivist, avoids himself to be identified with either radical camps (idealist and materialist)¹¹⁰:

“The claim is not that ideas are more important than power and interest, or that they are autonomous from power and interest. Power and interest are just as important and determining as before. The claim is rather that power and interest have the effects they do in virtue of the ideas that make them up”.

Unlike radicals, as a soft-constructivist, he accepts the vital importance of material forces but also underlines that it is less than the importance of meanings that individuals construct around them. As stated by Wendt, any material explanations will inevitably fail unless discursive conditions involved. Realists, for example, evaluate multi-polarity in relation to war and view it as a dangerous situation that may create a volatile international system prone to war. Liberals state the crucial role of economic interdependence and relate the existence of economic interdependence as a condition that is conducive to peace. And Marxists criticize capitalism emphasizing the relation between capitalism and formation of states. Social constructivists, however, inquire into the discursive conditions that constitute “the poles as enemies rather than friends”, or “state[s] with identities that care about free trade and economic growth”, or

“capitalist relations of production”¹¹¹. Hence they evaluate the same terms and

105 Although he clearly states several times that interests are ideas he claims that international life cannot be ideas all the way down. Thus his scientific realism justifies that “ideas are based on and are regulated by an independently existing physical reality”, drawing on John Searle’s statement that “brute facts have ontological priority over institutional facts”. See, Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, 110.

106 ibid, 51.

107 Taking the idealist aspect and defending that interests are constitutive ideas Wendt, also, defends the rump materialist aspect that “they nevertheless must ultimately hook on to a material ground, human nature”. See, ibid, 129.

108 ibid, 98.

109 ibid, 94.

110 ibid, 135.

111 ibid, 135-136.

concepts as the rival theoretical approaches but mostly focus on how these terms and concepts are evaluated and which meanings are attributed to them.