DB1.

Constructivist Theory

Realists and liberals share in common the idea that states are rational egoists. The latter concept refers to the idea that actors do not care much about the welfare of others as an end in itself. Neoliberal is, as we have seen, take this assumption and argue that it is not incompatible with long-term cooperation. But what is left unsaid here is that if act as judge, that cooperation is no longer serving their long-term interest, then they will have no compunction from exiting the cooperative arrangement. In short, irrational egoist view of the social world is a statement about an identity that does not change through interaction, communication, or institutions. So, our hunters in the stag hunt enter the hunters, rational egoists, and they remain rational egoists throughout the hand and all the others to follow. No bonding occurs around the campfire. No shared values develop, no common obligations of felt and no sense of friendship emerges. The point of departure for constructivism. Our third theoretical approach is that international politics, like stag hunt or social constructs. By a social construct, they mean that there is nothing natural given all inevitable about social practices. The classic example that peoples use to explain this idea is the idea of money. The bank notes we carry in our wallets, or at one level, nothing more than bits of paper and ink. In this sense, they have no intrinsic material value hasn't of themselves. So, what makes the bits of paper and ink a commodity that we can exchange for goods and services. It's the collective meanings that we give to these bits of paper. And if we stopped acting on this collectively agreed, albeit unspoken understanding than money would cease to have value. Applying this understanding of the social furniture we live with to international politics. How we act at any time is shaped by the social practices in which we are embedded, and which are actual and critically produce and reproduce in the same way as we produce and reproduce money every time, we go shopping. Actions don't speak for themselves. And why some actions are taken and not others on the global stage is critically dependent on the identities of the actors, which in turn are bound up with the roles and social practices in which actors find themselves. So, if you are in a relationship of enmity with another actor, as with the United States and Iran today, this cost you into a role which both constraints and enables the possibilities of action. Conversely, if you are the United States and the United Kingdom, you are in a relationship of MIT or friendship. And this opens up a very different menu of choices as to how you act. The core claim of constructivism is that none of these relationships are fixed in stone. Because identities are changeable. Prove interaction and communication. And enemies can become friends. Just as friends can become enemies. It is no part of constructivism to argue that social practices will always lead to cooperation. Gas chambers, cannibalism, and human sacrifice. Or just as much social practices as cooperation, love, and pace to bring our theoretical threads together. While realism and liberalism can also explain the rise and fall of cooperation between states. Given their fixed conception of state identities as rational egoists, they would reduce explanation solely to the level of material interests. Constructivists would respond that realists and neoliberal was only looking at the tip of the iceberg. It is identities constructivists argue that shape how we think about our interests. To finally we turn to the stag hunt. Constructivist would say that if you're hunting party, include your best friends, your spouse, or your parents, it is highly likely that as a result of the positive identifications you would normally feel for them, you will want to cooperate because of the shared values. This type of bonding creates a very different set of identities and hence collectively shared meanings for each of the hunters, than is the case in Waltz's original story, where all the hunters are assumed to be rational egoists.