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Original Article

Saving identity from postmodernism?The normalization of constructivism inInternational Relations

Nik Hyneka,* and Andrea TetibaInstitute of International Relations, Nerudova 3, 118 50 Prague 1, Czech Republic.

E-mail: [email protected], web: http://www.iir.cz/display.asp?ida=441&idi=427

bDepartment of Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, Edward WrightBuilding, Dunbar Street, Aberdeen AB24 3QY, UK.

E-mail: [email protected], web: www.abdn.ac.uk/Bpol244

*Corresponding author. Institute of International Relations, Nerudova 3, 118 50 Prague 1,

Czech Republic.

Abstract International Relations’s (IR’s) intellectual history is almost alwaystreated as a history of ideas in isolation from both those discursive and political

economies which provide its disciplinary and wider (political) context. Thispaper contributes to this wider analysis by focusing on the impact of the field’sdiscursive economy. Specifically, using Foucaultian archaeologico-genealogicalstrategy of problematization to analyse the emergence and disciplinarytrajectories of Constructivism in IR, this paper argues that Constructivismhas been brought gradually closer to its mainstream Neo-utilitarian counterpartthrough a process of normalization, and investigates how it was possible forConstructivism to be purged of its early critical potential, both theoretical andpractical. The first part of the paper shows how the intellectual configuration of Constructivism and its disciplinary fortunes are inseparable from far-from-

unproblematic readings of the Philosophy of Social Science: the choices made atthis level are neither as intellectually neutral nor as disciplinarily inconsequen-tial as they are presented. The second and third parts chart the genealogies of Constructivism, showing how its overall normalization occurred in two stages,each revolving around particular practices and events. The second partconcentrates on older genealogies, analysing the politics of early classificatorypractices regarding Constructivism, and showing how these permitted thedistillation and immunization of Constructivism – and thus of the rest of themainstream scholarship which it was depicted as compatible with – againstmore radical Postmodernist/Post-structuralist critiques. Finally, the third part

focuses attention on recent genealogies, revealing new attempts to reconstructand reformulate Constructivism: here, indirect neutralization practices such asthe elaboration of ‘Pragmatist’ Constructivism, as well as the direct neutraliza-tion such as the formulation of ‘Realist’ Constructivism, are key events in

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Constructivism’s normalization. These apparently ‘critical’ alternatives that aimto ‘provide the identity variable’ in fact remain close to Neo-utilitarianism, buttheir successful representation as ‘critical’ help neutralize calls for greateropenness in mainstream IR. Rather than a simple intellectual history, it is thiscomplex process of (re)reading and (re)producing that counts as ‘Constructivism’,which explains both the normalization of Constructivism and the continuedmarginalization of Postmodernist/Post-structuralist approaches in mainstreamIR’s infra-disciplinary balance of intellectual power.Contemporary Political Theory (2010) 9, 171–199. doi:10.1057/cpt.2008.49

Keywords: Constructivism; international relations theory; Foucault; Philosophy of Social Science; Postmodernism/Post-structuralism

Introduction

Reviewing two decades of debates over Constructivism in International

Relations (IR) suggests that few such interventions since have shifted the field’s

centre of intellectual gravity away from the Neo-Realist/Neo-Liberal

convergence. These debates, however, taken as pivotal events are woven into

the field’s intellectual history, and unproblematically conflated with IR’sevolution as a field. Undoubtedly useful, these histories remain nonetheless

limited insofar as they ignore other factors that affect disciplinary fortunes,

from the discursive and political economies of knowledge production, to wider

intellectual trends and political contexts. Responding to calls for existing

accounts to be supplemented or questioned (Deibert, 1997; Waever, 1998),

this paper focuses on IR’s discursive economy: it analyses the links between the

intellectual histories of Constructivism in IR and the field’s broader discursive

economy, analysing how Constructivism has come to be thought of as

compatible with the Neo-Realist/Neo-Liberal convergence, and the consequentimpact on IR’s balance of infra-disciplinary power. To do this, debates about

Constructivism are approached as discursive practices within an existing

discursive economy: these practices – ultimately imposed upon events –

produce that ‘principle of regularity’ (Foucault, 2002 [1969], p. 191) upon

which IR’s ‘intellectual history’ is built. A ‘strategy of problematization’, will

help retrieve both the synchronic rules according to which the discourse around

Constructivism operates (its ‘archaeology’) and their diachronic evolution

(its ‘genealogy’; Foucault, 1992 [1984], pp. 11–12). This, in turn, enables an

analysis of the intellectual and disciplinary political impact of those particularconstructions.

The paper first outlines basic positions in Philosophy of Social Science

(PoSS) in order to clarify both Constructivism’s and mainstream IR’s

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172 r 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1470-8914 Contemporary Political Theory Vol. 9, 2, 171–199



intellectual commitments. These discussions then enable an analysis of how

selective readings of those terms of reference were deployed in debates overConstructivism’s classification, and over its compatibility with ‘social scientific’

IR. Viewed in this light, debates over taxonomies and over Constructivism’s

relations with Realism and Pragmatism reveal a series of ‘blind spots’ and a

convergence with Neo-utilitarian IR which cannot be explained purely in

terms of intellectual history but suggest a process of normalization of

Constructivism’s radical potential, a process which must in turn be read in

the context of wider relations between Neo-utilitarianism and Postmodernist/

Post-structuralist IR.1

Positions and Boundaries: Constructivism(s) in Philosophy of SocialScience and International Relations

The ‘Philosophical Turn’ has made serious IR scholarship impossible

without reference to PoSS: at once grounding and legitimizing theoretical

arguments, the selectivity/partiality of borrowings helps untangle how a

discursive economy of IR within which Constructivism can be normalized is

articulated.

Constructivism(s) and Philosophy of Social Science

Most Constructivists embark upon the obligatory journey to philosophical

legitimacy arguing that understanding Constructivism requires a grasp of basic

PoSS positions (for example Adler, 1997, 2003; Wendt, 1999; Guzzini, 2000;

Jørgensen, 2001). This section outlines those positions, how they have been

represented and appropriated, and the disciplinary effects of these readings

(cf. Hynek and Hynek, 2007).As Table 1 indicates, there is no single constructivist position in PoSS, but

rather a multiplicity of ontological and epistemological constructivisms.2

Ontologically, a distinction is usually made between mind-independence

and mind-dependence: proponents of the former argue objects exist

independently of observation, their counterparts suggest they exist at least

partly as a result of observers’ beliefs. There are two main mind-

independent positions: empiricism and scientific realism, with logical

positivism (or ‘logical empiricism’) less frequently mentioned. Empiricism

occupies positions (1A) and (1B). This monist position accepts that socialand natural sciences are both based on objects with analogous ontological

properties, and on the neutrality of observation, emphasizing that impartial

observation is not only possible, but necessary, insofar as value biases

Normalization of Constructivism in international relations

173r 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1470-8914 Contemporary Political Theory Vol. 9, 2, 171–199



threaten the entire research programme. Furthermore, empiricists argue

scientific knowledge can be closely connected to direct evidence by testing

all theories and hypotheses against direct observations. The difference

between naıve and constructive empiricism (1A and 1B) is epistemological

and lies in scientists’ role both in knowledge translation/production and in

different understandings of verification: unlike naıve empiricists defending

simple induction and maintaining that ‘immediate sense experience is by

itself sufficient to provide the foundations for knowledge’ (Uebel, 1992,

p. 205), constructive empiricists emphasize the importance of scientists in

knowledge production, with scientific theories being both semantically literal andempirically exact as a result (van Fraassen, 1980, pp. 10–11). As for

verification, whereas naıve empiricists take individual scientific statements

as the basis for knowledge verification, for constructive empiricists, theories

as a whole are the basis for verification or refutation: an untenable theory

will be replaced by a more literal and adequate theory (van Fraassen, 1980,

pp. 35, 78).3 Both positions concur that observational evidence is an

important source for knowledge, although logical positivists acknowledge

its limits (Kolakowski, 1972) and assert that knowledge also includes

elements not derived from direct empirical observation (Russell, 1978[1924]; Schlick, 1978 [1932]), arguing that some propositions are known

only by intuition and deduction (for example logical inferences from

‘protocol sentences’) (Ayer, 1978; Carnap, 1978 [1931]; cf. Popper, 1959).

Positions (2A) and (2B) encapsulate scientific realism, which requires

mind-independence ontologically, and shares empiricism’s trust in law-like

generalizations. The ontological difference between them stems from differ-

ences concerning what can be observed and thus researched: although

empiricism claims only observable entities can be objects of scientific inquiry,

scientific realism makes causal statements about underlying structures,including unobservable ones (Harre and Madden, 1975; Sayer, 1998) – what

matters are objects’ real, internal and manipulable mechanisms (Bhaskar, 1979;

Archer, 1998). Scientific realists give structures causal powers, arguing that

Table 1: Main ontological–epistemological positions in PoSS

ontology epistemology

non-constructivist (naı ve) Constructivist

mind-independence 1A. naıve empiricism 1B. constructivist empiricism

2A. naıve realism 2B. constructivist realism

mind-dependence 3A. naıve constructivism [non-sequitur] 3B. social constructivism

Based on Sismondo (1996, pp. 6–7, 79) and Sayer (1992, pp. 39–84).

Hynek and Teti




positing their existence provides the best explanation of behaviour (Lipton,

1991). As with empiricism, scientific realism is epistemologically divided intonaıve (common-sense) (2A) and constructivist (critical) (2B) variants (Varela

and Harre, 1996).4 Whereas the former largely brackets the impact of scientists

upon knowledge creation, the latter acknowledges the importance of

perception and cognition, and the active role scientists play (Sellars, 1970;

Outhwaite, 1998). The epistemological axis emphasizes differences between

empiricist and scientific realist perspectives on truth. Although constructivist

empiricists (van Fraassen, 1980) argue that science’s aim is to produce

empirically adequate theories and that this adequacy should determine a

theory’s acceptance, scientific realists aim to portray reality ‘as it is’, accepting

a theory only if it is believed to be true (Sayer, 1992; Sismondo, 1996).

Before the third position is outlined, the distinction between fundamental

physical reality and social reality will be addressed. Here, Kuhn and Searle

both affiliated themselves with constructivist realism (2B). Describing himself

as an ‘unconvinced realist’, Kuhn (1979, p. 415) argues for the coexistence of

social worlds constructed by scientists and the fundamental material world:

transformations in social worlds leave the fundamental world unaffected

because ontology is mind-independent. Analogously, Searle argues that ‘[w]e

live in exactly one world, not two or three or seventeen’ (1995, p. xi),

undermining a monist stance by distinguishing between fundamental materialreality and social realities. Searle’s affinity to constructivist realism is clear

in his defence of scientific realism and the correspondence theory of truth

(ibid ., Chapter 9).

In the final position, social constructivism (also ‘constructivism’ or

‘constructionism’, 3B), actors are argued to have both ontological and

epistemic influence, with more radical versions verging on the ‘epistemic

fallacy’ conflating the two. Because the existence of both physical and social

objects depends on thoughts and linguistic structures (ontological mind-

dependence), scientists cannot construct knowledge about these outside theirown ontological representations. The point is not to deny the existence of

material reality, as critics sometimes suggest, but to focus on the consequenti-

ality of representations of that reality. Here, social constructivism differs

from both Searlian and scientific realism: its anti-essentialism and anti-

foundationalism means truth cannot be ‘discovered’, but is created (Sayyid and

Zac, 1998, pp. 250–251).

Intellectual roots

Although roots of IR Constructivisms are richer than this account can render,

its inspirations can be divided into two major tracks: one ‘internal’ to





Anglophone IR, and the other ‘external’, drawing on Continental philosophy

and linguistics (cf. Hynek, 2005).‘Internal’ inspiration emerged autonomously from external developments

during the late 1980s. The reason for this isolation, as Ashley (1987;

cf. Hoffman, 1987) suggests, was the belief of (mainly US) (neo)realist and

(neo)liberal IR scholars in the unique position, value and exclusivity of their

approaches for policy makers, enhanced by their aim to provide technical

knowledge (manipulation and control) and practical knowledge (scripts for

tackling ‘real’ situations). Despite his behaviouralist commitments, the scholar

whose study of transnational security communities transcended this produc-

tion was Karl Deutsch (1957). His insights into the formation of North

Atlantic collective identity influenced early self-declared Constructivists (for

example Adler and Barnett, 1998). One of his students, Hayward Alker,

influenced several scholars in Constructivism’s ‘first wave’, from Katzenstein,

to Ashley and Onuf (who introduced the term ‘Constructivism’ in IR in 1989).

Comparably important was Ernst Haas’ (1958) liberal/neo-functionalist

analysis of complex social learning and of supra-national organizations

and their bureaucracies and cultures in (re)producing the fabric of world

politics. Haas’ work profoundly influenced his student, John Ruggie, who,

with Kratochwil (for example Kratochwil and Ruggie, 1986), challenged the

lack of reflexivity and the incompatibility of ontology and epistemology inregime theory. Ruggie (1998), Kratochwil (1989) and Onuf (1989) also made

important contributions in overcoming IR’s intellectual isolation, drawing on

authors such as Weber, Wittgenstein, Searle and Giddens.

The most significant contribution to contemporary Constructivism as a

distinct approach was made by Alexander Wendt, a representative of the

‘Minnesota School’. Wendt wrote several papers in the late 1980s and 1990s,

further elaborated in his Social Theory (1999; see also 1987, 1992). His systemic

approach represented ‘a kind of structural idealism’ (Wendt, 1999, p. xiii), and

has become, criticism notwithstanding, a benchmark for IR Constructivism.We emphasize the multiplicity of Constructivisms because Wendt’s version,

drawing on an eclectic literature, primarily Giddens’s and later Bhaskar’s, is

very different to Onuf and Kratochwil’s approach. Indeed, Onuf (2001, p. 10)

acknowledges that neither his nor Kratochwil’s founding texts much influenced

IR Constructivism.

Constructivism’s ‘external’ inspiration was rooted in critical social and

political theory, and found its way into IR during the so-called Third Debate

(the 1980s and early 1990s). Although critical social and political theory is

highly diverse, it can be subdivided into a minimal foundationalist currentdrawing on cultural Marxism, and an anti-foundational and anti-essentialist

current drawing on ‘Continental’ philosophy and linguistics (cf. Hoffman,

1991; Price and Reus-Smit, 1998). Andrew Linklater (1990) and Robert Cox

Hynek and Teti




(1983) are prominent scholars drawing on the Frankfurt School and Gramsci,

respectively. The second, more radical current is epitomized by Ashley (1986),Der Derian (1987, with Shapiro, 1989), Campbell (1998 [1992]) and Walker

(1993).

The end of the Cold War and the ‘Neo-Neo Synthesis’’ inability to account

for this macrostructural change provided a symbolic point of convergence

between internal and external strands’ attempts to debunk the myth of

objectivism (Hoffman, 1987). In the early 1990s, however, little indicated

Constructivism’s future intellectual preponderance. Scattered patches of

Constructivist thought were largely ignored: the ‘Third Debate’, a set of

exchanges directing attention to metatheoretical questions, did not involve

Constructivism. Rather, Constructivism’s distinct identity was created in

the wake of the ‘philosophical turn’: the rest of this paper sketches key

practices and events through which the discourse over Constructivism was

shaped, particularly in relation to mainstream Neo-utilitarian IR.

Genealogies of Normalization I: Classification, Distillation andImmunization

Foundational elements of IR Constructivism were presented above as they are

in the literature: a straightforward, if complex, intellectual history. The

remainder of this paper considers a series of debates around which the

narrative of Constructivism and its relation to mainstream and to Postmodern/

Post-structural scholarship have been built, analysing the way those debates

were articulated, and how their results provided the backbone of what

Constructivism is now commonly held to entail. This analysis suggests that the

modalities and implications of this process are broader than an intellectual

history identifies, effectively leading to the immunization of Neo-utilitarianIR against Postmodern/Post-structural critiques, and thus Constructivism’s

normalization (see Figure 1).

This section analyses the taxonomical debates over Constructivism’s

ontological, epistemological and methodological commitments. These are

crucial to what is accepted as Constructivism: despite being highly problematic

in terms of PoSS, the accepted solutions to these debates, through a series of

‘blind spots’, help skew IR’s discursive economy against radical critiques,

effectively ‘immunizing’ mainstream IR. Once Neo-utilitarian IR appropriated

a certain understanding of Constructivism, it could also claim to have dealtwith the reflexivist challenge: Constructivism, after all, ‘provides the identity

variable’. Nowhere is this clearer than in debates about Constructivism’s

compatibility with Pragmatism and Realism.





Figure

1:G

enealogicaltopographyofConstructivisms.

Hynek and Teti




Given the similarities between Constructivism’s and Postmodernist/Post-

structuralist ontological foundations (Table 1; 3B), simply deploying late-1980sConstructivism alongside Neo-utilitarianism (1A-B, 2A-B) would be impos-

sible. The proliferation of debates over the nature of Constructivism

throughout the 1990s was integral to its reconciliation with mainstream

scholarship. This ‘construction of Constructivism’, took place in two stages:

in the first, what appeared to be a purely taxonomical exercise was inextricably

linked to a ‘distillation’ of Constructivism, which ‘immunized’ Neo-utilitarian-

ism by effectively delegitimizing Postmodern/Post-structural critiques. At

times, the intention of many Constructivists – particularly ‘Wendtian’ – to

‘save identity from postmodernism’ was openly declared (for example

Checkel, 1998). Classifying Construcitivism, securing what scholarship

may be so labelled, was essential to this process. The second stage involved

debates over building particular theoretical formulations upon these

foundations – for example, ‘Pragmatist’ or ‘Realist’ Constructivism – broadly

securing the ‘neutralization’ of Constructivism’s radical potential by locating it

firmly within the social scientific consensus.

Disciplinary politics of taxonomy

Ruggie’s (1998, pp. 35–36) seminal paper identifies three kinds of Constructi-

vism: neo-classical, post-modernist and naturalistic. ‘Neo-classical’ Construc-

tivism, language-oriented but committed to social science, is identified

with authors such as Onuf, Kratochwil, Finnemore, Adler and so on. ‘Post-

modernist’ Constructivism supposedly builds on Nietzsche, Foucault and

Derrida, and rejects the idea of social science. Finally, ‘naturalist’ Con-

structivists such as Wendt, use Bhaskar’s scientific realism to defend a ‘deep

realism’ which might legitimize ‘scientific’ approaches. In Ruggie, the

Postmodern/Post-structural critics of mainstream IR still feature clearly,although the sequence of Constructivisms suggests a dialectical overcoming of

these critiques that ‘saves’ social science for mainstream IR.

Another hugely successful taxonomy distinguishes between conventional and

critical Constructivism (Hopf, 1998).5 Rooted in the ‘internal’ strand outlined

above, the former has largely been considered by Constructivists themselves a

result of seeds sown during the Cold War. By identifying Critical

Constructivism with a ‘postmodernism’ with which dialogue is supposedly

impossible either epistemologically or indeed morally, however, this ‘bipolar’

taxonomy delegitimizes Postmodern/Post-structural scholarship. Hopf arguesConstructivism was miscast ‘as necessarily postmodern and antipositivist’,

because conventional Constructivism, despite sharing ‘many of the founda-

tional elements of critical theory, [adopts] defensible rules of thumb, or





conventions, rather than following critical theory all the way up the

postmodern critical path’ (1998, p. 181) and that ‘to the degree thatconstructivism creates theoretical and epistemological distance between itself

and its origins in critical theory, it becomes ‘conventional’ constructivism’

(ibid., p. 181). This representation of Postmodern/Post-structural scholarship

implies that work which rejects rationalist ‘rules of thumb’ is indefensible, and

recreates an opposition between ‘social scientific’ Neo-utilitarianism and

Postmodernism/Post-structuralism which, since the epistemic criteria adopted

to adjudicate the viability of Constructivism are ‘rationalist’, delegitimizes non-

positivist scholarship (for example Keohane, 1986; Katzenstein et al , 1998;

cf. Smith, 2003, p. 142).

Drawing a distinction within the broad body of Constructivism between

variously named ‘critical’ and ‘conventional’ approaches immediately raises the

question of the relation of each to IR’s mainstream – indeed, the terminology

itself only makes sense taking Neo-utilitarian IR as its point of reference.

Unsurprisingly, whereas ‘critical’ or ‘postmodern’ Constructivism was attacked

for supposed incompatibility with social science, Constructivism’s emphasis on

that very ‘identity’, which Neo-utilitarianism was unable to account for,

motivated many to argue that a Constructivism existed, which criticized ‘not

what [mainstream] scholars do and say but what they ignore: the content and

source of state interests and social fabric of world politics’ (Checkel, 1998,p. 324). Thus, Checkel defends a ‘conventional’ Constructivism compatible with

social science (ibid., p. 327), whereas Wendt (1999, p. 75) distinguishes between

‘thick’ linguistic and ‘thin’ social scientific Constructivism.

Although these classifications may be more accurate in terms of some

scholars’ self-identification – Walker or Ashley would hardly consider

themselves Constructivists – they are also more intellectually loaded, implying

Constructivism should not be understood as Postmodern/Post-structural in any

guise (Campbell, 1998 [1992], Epilogue). As such, Neo-utilitarianism’s repre-

sentation of the field not only suggests that no Postmodern/Post-structuralapproaches can qualify as interlocutors, as they reject the idea that the study of

(international) politics can be ‘scientific’ (Keohane, 1986), but also marginalizes

non-Wendtian Constructivisms incompatible with a Neo-utilitarian mould.6

By excluding Postmodern/Post-structural scholarship per se, ‘critical’

Constructivism becomes limited to Onuf, Kratochwil and their followers.

But such a ‘bipolar’ representation also neutralizes the radical potential of the

latter, as it must either accept the bounds of social science, moving towards

‘conventional’ approaches, or reject them, thereby disqualifying itself from

‘inter-paradigmatic’ dialogue.

7

This polarization therefore has the disciplinaryeffect of de-legitimizing ‘postmodern’ critiques as unscientific if not downright

unscholarly,8 and reduces other potentially critical Constructivist voices to

a ‘loyal opposition’, providing at best a ‘thick’ description of norms backing up

Hynek and Teti




‘thinner’ versions. Rooted in the elision of ontological differences between

Constructivism and Neo-utilitarianism, the demarcation between modern/critical and postmodern/critical Constructivism polices the boundary of

acceptable research, contributing to the ‘immunization’ of mainstream IR

against Postmodern/Post-structural critiques.

From boundaries to bridges

Attempts to find a ‘unity of Constructivism’ have therefore involved presenting

it as homogeneous, and substantially continuous with (and complementary to)

mainstream IR. Conducted under the rubric of several devices – most

significantly the metaphor of Constructivism as a bridge between IR social

science and its critics – this quest enables a simultaneous distillation of a certain

kind of Constructivism, and the immunization of mainstream IR through its

purported compatibility with this Constructivism, erecting a fence between

Constructivism ‘proper’ and everything beyond its margins, that is, critical

Constructivism and especially Postmodernism/Post-structuralism.

Given early Constructivism’s ontological commitments (3B), it should be

clear that whether this distillation is at all possible is far from obvious. One

explanation for how this might have occurred lies in what Foucault callsthe ‘principle of commentary’. Foucault (1984, pp. 76–100) distinguishes

between the ‘principal discourse’ and the ‘mass of commentaries’: the principal

discourse – a new speech act – is always original and inventive, whereas

commentaries claim to repeat and gloss what has allegedly been pronounced in

the principal discourse. However, this ‘repetition’ can be rather different from

what might have originally been intended. In this case, if commentaries are

taken as accurate representations of primary sources and these are

simultaneously dropped from debate, commentary limits interpretive possibi-

lities, channelling discourse in certain directions whereas precluding others.This took place at several junctures in Constructivism’s case, with a series of

supposedly crucial references – Giddens, Searle, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Rorty

and so on – being notably absent from the debates they supposedly inform save

in their earliest days, and very marginally even then (see Figure 2).

Coupled with the disciplinary politics of taxonomy described above, the

bridge metaphor facilitated such a swap. The original principal Constructivist

discourse represented by Onuf, Kratochwil and Wendt, particularly its ‘double

hermeneutic’ implications, faded into the background through exposure to

Constructivism as presented by commentaries – secondary sources (forexample Adler, 1997, 2003; Checkel, 1997, 1998; Hopf, 1998; Katzenstein

et al , 1998; Smith, 2001) that eventually supplanted primary discourse. It

was through precisely such commentaries that Constructivism came to be





understood as an unproblematic continuation of ‘social science’, that it has

repeatedly been judged by objectivist criteria, and that everything lying farther

than modern ‘critical Constructivism’, with its role of separating the acceptable

from the unacceptable, has been marginalized (cf. Price and Reus-Smit, 1998;Guzzini, 2000).

The metaphor of Constructivism-as-bridge between Neo-utilitarianism and

Postmodernism/Post-structuralism facilitates this distillation of Constructivism

in three moments: first, the mainstream definition of knowledge as science

during the Third Debate and the predication of ‘inter-paradigmatic dialogue’

in ‘rationalist’ epistemologies effectively silences radical critiques, Constructi-

vist or otherwise (for example Campbell, 1998). Second, the combination of

dichotomizing taxonomies of Constructivism with its location as potential

inter-paradigmatic bridge ‘distills’ it, emptying it of critical potential, andforegrounds continuities with Neo-utilitarianism (epistemic and methodo-

logical commitments, the state’s ontological privilege and so on).

Finally, this definition of ‘knowledge’ also enabled the development of

‘bridges’ compatible with Neo-utilitarianism such as Pragmatist or Realist

Constructivism. In this sense, mainstreaming Constructivism ‘immunizes’

Neo-utilitarianism from both Postmodernist/Post-structuralist critiques and

from Constructivism’s own ontology.

Genealogies of Normalization II: Neutralizations by New Reconstructions

Whatever their intellectual merits, these debates effectively neutralized the

radical potential entailed by Constructivism’s ontologico-epistemological

Figure 2: Principal discourses and commentaries (based on Foucault, 1984).

Hynek and Teti




commitments (Figure 1; 3B). A discursive economy rooted in these readings of

‘social science’ could not but de-legitimize a non-positivist scholarship thatrejected the possibility of quests for ‘timeless wisdoms’.

But this balance of blindnesses remained delicate. What stabilized it and

legitimized the bridging function to which Constructivism was assigned was the

elaboration of theoretical constructs upon these mainstreamed foundations.

Two notable efforts in this direction were the invocation of Pragmatism to

emphasize the compatibility between Constructivism and social science

(Cochran, 2002) and defend Wendtian commitments to states (Haas and

Haas, 2002; Widmaier, 2004), and the theorization of a ‘Realist Constructi-

vism’. Reading philosophical Pragmatism as an epistemic stance bypassed

dangerous debates over Constructivist ontological foundations: ‘Pragmatism’s

pragmatism’ effectively rendered Constructivism’s ontological compatibility

with Neo-utilitarianism unproblematic. And ‘Realist Constructivism’ silenced

Postmodernist/Post-structuralist critiques by ‘providing the identity variable’.

Pragmatist constructivism as an indirect neutralization

That Pragmatism was concerned with ‘practical’ interventions is straight-

forward: why and how this entails Constructivism’s compatibility with

Neo-utilitarianism is less so. A considerable component of this appropriationrelies simply on the association – if not conflation – of Pragmatism and

pragmatism, associating Pragmatism with practicality, claiming Pragmatism-

as-pragmatism as philosophical legitimization of mainstreamed readings of

Constructivism. This conflation, or at least resemblance between terms is

present in Widmaier (2004), where Pragmatism supposedly corrects the

abstract excesses of both Neo-utilitarianism and Postmodernism/Post-struc-

turalism for the explicit purpose of policy relevance. Both Widmaier and

Millennium’s 2002 special issue use the lower case when referring both to

Pragmatism-as-philosophy and to pragmatism-as-practicality, giving rise toambiguity concerning what is meant (Pragmatist? pragmatic? both?). Widmaier

does this arguing that Dewey’s and Galbraith’s strength was that they were

both worldly and scholarly, ‘engaged in theoretical debates while also pursuing

policy agendas’ (2004, p. 443), emphasizing Pragmatism’s potential for

practical political engagement. Albert and Kopp-Malek (2002) explicitly argue

for a ‘non-capital-p-pragmatism’. Haas and Haas (2002) carefully distinguish

between ‘international relations’ and ‘International Relations’, but ambigu-

ously label their approach simply ‘pragmatic constructivism’, whereas Bohman

(2002) and Owen (2002) declare this association of meanings in their titles:‘How to make Social Science Practical : Pragmatism, Critical Social Science and

Multiperspectival Theory’ and ‘Re-Orienting International Relations: On

Pragmatism, Pluralism and Practical Reasoning’ (emphasis added).





Haas and Haas (2002) and Widmaier (2004) provide archetypical examples

of the appropriation of Pragmatism supporting mainstreamed Constructivism.Widmaier calls for Pragmatism as an underpinning for Wendtian Constructi-

vism,9 calling Dewey ‘a pragmatist proto-constructivist’ (2004, pp. 428, 432,

436, 438). Yet, these appropriations are themselves if anything more pragmatic

than Pragmatist. Widmaier’s (2004) ‘pragmatist-constructivism’ and Haas and

Haas’ (2002) ‘pragmatic constructivism’ sound similar, but the latter proposal

for Pragmatist Constructivism seems barely nominal, based merely on passing

references to Rorty and Menand. Neumann (2002) shifts the emphasis even

further, never invoking Pragmatism (aside from a solitary footnote mentioning

Peirce), never claiming to contribute to that intellectual tradition, and focusing

entirely and explicitly on the virtues of practice-grounded analysis. The very

inclusion of this paper in a special issue about ‘capital-p-Pragmatism’ implies

that Pragmatism and pragmatism are one and the same.

Pragmatists clearly always thought the political dimension of philosophy

important, and to the extent that they realized the intractability of

foundational and epistemological questions and ‘side-stepped’ some of them,

they were also practical , both academically and politically. But advocating

avoiding dogmatism means little beyond what should be canons of good

scholarship – conversely, being practical does not make one a Pragmatist.

Moreover, although there is a legitimate overlap between the two terms rooted inthe origins and political as well as epistemological project of Pragmatism, their

distinction and its disciplinary politics are equally important. Resolving the

ambiguity around both uses of ‘pragmatism’ in Millennium’s special issue

required little effort: adopting lower or higher cases for the two meanings, for

example. Blurring the Pragmatism/pragmatism boundary, whether intentionally

or not, effectively produces a ‘linguistic gambit’: the mainstream – particularly

Realist – infatuation with being ‘pragmatic’ makes the meliorative reform of

Pragmatism as an addition to Constructivism difficult to object to, despite its

implications being potentially far-reaching and indeed not dissimilar to those of more explicitly radical Postmodern/Post-structural critiques (Albert and Kopp-

Malek, 2002, p. 469, fn. 38). This is the implication of work by Bohman,

Cochran, Festenstein and Isacoff. However, this ‘opening’ has also been used by

other authors – Haas and Haas, Albert and Kopp-Malek, Owen, Widmaier, and

Neumann – to deflect radical critiques by invoking Pragmatism/pragmatism in

defence of an only slightly modified mainstream position (for example Wendt or

Checkel) thereby indirectly (and at least in some cases, unintentionally)

neutralizing Constructivism and bringing it closer to mainstream IR.

Pragmatism is also used by some to argue explicitly for an understanding of Constructivism, compatible with Neo-utilitarianism and squarely within

Wendt’s via media. Millennium’s editorial offered a candid statement echoing

many of Constructivism’s mantras: Pragmatism affords the possibility of

Hynek and Teti




overcoming the ‘stalemate opposing positivism and post-positivism’, and IR’s

‘fixation with absolute and exclusive ontological solutions’ by ‘[encouraging] amulti-perspectival style of inquiry that privileges practice and benefits from the

complementarity, rather than opposition, of different understandings’ (Haas

and Haas, 2002, p. iii). Specifically: ‘Pragmatism explicitly anchors social

science (and IR) to a notion of community – of inquiry, of agents – and gears

research to the idea of its betterment’ (ibid., p. iii). Through Pragmatism,

those refusing to ‘follow critical theory all the way up the postmodern

path’ can simultaneously claim a legitimate disregard for ontology and an

acknowledgement of the importance of ‘identity’ while having to sacrifice

neither social science, nor the objective moral purchase it promises. Several

contributors echo this stance, such as Haas and Haas, who argue that

‘incommensurate ontological and epistemological positions [y] fundamentally

impair the ability to develop cumulative knowledge about international

institutions and their role in international relations’ (ibid., p. 573). Analo-

gously, claiming that Constructivism is in fact a form of constructivist realism

(2B), Adler (2003, p. 96) states that one of the four main influences on

Constructivism is Pragmatism.

Whether one draws on classical Pragmatists or on Neo-pragmatists,

however, this move to associate Pragmatism, Constructivism and

Neo-utilitarianism is problematic. Classical Pragmatists – Peirce, WilliamJames, Dewey, Austin – argue ‘truth’ is never a priori , always provisional,

always context-specific, and therefore must be judged solely on its usefulness in

achieving some purpose. Moreover, Pragmatists do not believe one can talk

about a world external to language, the implication being that agents

build knowledge from different standpoints and in order to change the world

in different ways: hence, social ontologies must be ‘fluid’.

Neo-pragmatism builds particularly on Dewey and James, emphasizing the

language-dependent nature of claims to ‘knowledge’, that the world can be

described correctly from multiple perspectives, and that therefore an idea’s‘truth’ is dependent on its context and usefulness, and cannot indicate anything

beyond this. Putnam (1990) and Rorty (1979, 1991) conclude that science does

not and cannot possess a privileged vantage point upon reality. Moreover,

although Putnam and Rorty disagree on the extent to which the ‘external

world’ provides some constraint on truth – Putnam trying to rescue some such

dimension, Rorty opposing this – Neo-pragmatists are committed to the idea

that the social world is changeable, and all Pragmatists remain sceptical of

transcendental claims.

Against this background, some readings of Pragmatism offered inMillennium’s special issue are puzzling. Pragmatism is used to address

ontological and epistemological tensions arising from Neo-utilitarian

attempts to counter Postmodern/Post-structural critiques by assimilating





Constructivism. Although Pragmatism generally eschews ontological claims

while arguing that it is possible to proceed accumulating valid knowledge andacting upon the world meaningfully despite this ‘knowledge’ being only

temporarily valid, it nonetheless sits decidedly ill at ease with conventional

Constructivism. Firstly, Pragmatism rejects that ontological realism character-

istic of much Neo-utilitarianism which transpires – declared or otherwise – in

criticism of Postmodern/Post-structural theories of power as ‘inadequate’

because they do not reflect the ‘realities’ of politics. This anti-realism leads

Pragmatists to reject questions of essences – sovereign, anarchic and so on –

emphasizing that both questions and essences or indeed foundations are

inevitably context-dependent, subjective, programmatic and transformative.

There can be no ‘timeless wisdom’, Realist or otherwise. Secondly, Pragmatism

also rejects the idea that Neo-utilitarianism somehow accesses a superior form

of knowledge. Most Pragmatists do not believe science ‘succeeds’ because it is

in touch with reality in privileged ways, with Rorty (1998, p. 48) arguing that

concepts of truth, objectivity and reality cannot be invoked to explain

inferential references or standards of warrant. Finally, Neo-utilitarian social

science’s promise to retrieve spatio-temporally invariant and observer-

independent law-like generalizations relies crucially on the fixity of the

properties of the objects it analyses: if either Constructivists or Pragmatists are

right about the ‘fluidity’ of ontology, this project becomes impossible. This isnot to say social scientific methods cannot generate ‘knowledge’, but espousing

Pragmatism renders indefensible claims about its spatio-temporally invariant

and observer-neutral status.

Given this fundamental tension between Neo-utilitarianism and the

implications of a ‘fluid’ ontology in Constructivism or indeed Pragmatism, it

is unsurprising that Pragmatism has been read by some as offering the

possibility of eschewing ontology entirely, and, at an epistemological level, of

requiring that regardless of their coherence, ideas should simply ‘work’ in order

to legitimize their use. Nonetheless, the use of Pragmatism to grounda reconciliation between Neo-utilitarianism and Constructivism’s radical

implications remains unsustainable.

Realist (Re)construction as a direct neutralization

As noted above, the taxonomical division between critical and conventional

Constructivisms ‘immunize’ mainstream IR insofar as it raises the question of

Constructivism’s direct relation to Neo-utilitarian IR and sets up the answer bydelegitimizing non-positivist solutions. To the degree this discursive economy is

unstable, appropriate ‘interparadigmatic’ theoretical elaborations help mask

the precarious nature of Neo-utilitarianism’s solution. Virtually simultaneously

Hynek and Teti




to the ‘taxonomical’ debate and the foray into Pragmatism, a considerable

interest in Constructivism’s ‘liberalism’ and a possible convergence withRealism emerged. Following the trajectory which led to ‘Realist Constructi-

vism’ is particularly instructive (for example Checkel, 1998; Copeland, 2000;

Sterling-Folker, 2000, 2002a, b; Farrell, 2002; Barkin, 2003; Hamlet, 2003;

Jackson, 2004; Jackson and Nexon, 2004).

Some, like Copeland, argue that ‘Constructivists focus on the intersubjective

dimension of knowledge, because they wish to emphasize the social aspect of

human existence [allowing] constructivists to pose [shared ideas] as a causal

force separate from the material structure of neorealism’ (2000, pp. 189–190).

Similarly, Farrell suggests that the realization that identities are causal with

respect to action ‘leads constructivists and culturalists to problematize that

which realists and neoliberals take for granted, like identities and interests’

(2002, p. 52). Farrell also emphasizes that a ‘common realist misconception

about constructivism [is] that it lacks a positivist epistemology but has a

normative agenda’ (2002, p. 51). Others explicitly argue that, as a theoretical

framework rather than a substantive theory, Constructivism is compatible with

several theories, including Realism: Jepperson et al argue that Constructivism

‘neither advances nor depends upon any special methodology or epistemology’

(in Jepperson et al ., 1996, p. 65); Kratochwil and Ruggie add that it is

‘compatible with a positivist epistemology’ (ibid ., p. 81), soon echoed by Checkel(1998, p. 327), whereas Barkin (2003, p. 338) argues that ‘neither pure realism

nor pure idealism [sic] can account for political change, only the interplay

between the two’ (ibid., p. 337). Sterling-Folker (2002a) goes so far as to argue

that Realism and Constructivism share ‘Darwinian’ foundations. Soon after,

explicit suggestions appear that a ‘Realist Constructivism’ should be formulated

(Sterling-Folker, 2002a; Barkin, 2003; Jackson, 2004). These analyses prepare the

discursive grounds for the legitimacy of a Realist–Constructivist convergence.

Beyond being possible, such an approach should also be desirable, and it is

not difficult to find arguments that such ‘Realist Constructivism’ couldcontribute to analysis in several ways: Sterling-Folker (2002a, p. 75), for

example, argues ‘Realism and Constructivism need one another in order to

compensate for their worst excesses’. With regard to power, Realist Con-

structivism could fill a gap between mainstream and critical theory by ‘including

in any exploration of power, not only postmodern theory’s study of the

subjective text and positivist realism’s study of objective phenomena, but also

constructivism’s study of intersubjectivity – norms and social rules’ (Barkin,

2003, p. 338). This would involve guiding scholars ‘to think like a classical realist

about the variety of power while guiding [them] to analyze the role of that powerin international political life like a constructivist’ (Mattern, 2004, p. 345). Realist

Constructivism would concede that ‘anarchy [may be] a social construction’

while remaining sceptical ‘about the degree to which power can be transcended’





(Jackson and Nexon, 2004, p. 339). Moreover, ‘Realist Constructivism’ would

furnish Realism with a richer understanding of ‘identity’, ‘change’ and of theinterplay of power and ‘normative change’ (Barkin, 2003, p. 337) while helping

Constructivism compensate for its liberal bias (ibid., p. 326).

This formulation, however, is flawed both logically and in its representations

of Neo-utilitarianism and Postmodernism/Post-structuralism. To ground the

Realist–Constructivist convergence, Barkin (2003, pp. 330–331) characterizes

Neo-realism as ‘logical positivism’, conflates the latter with ‘Positivism’, then

claims that Classical Realism is ‘empiricist’, and that as such it is compatible

with Constructivism. This disregards Neo-utilitarian commitments to the

existence and fixity of a social reality external to and independent of observers,

and to the possibility of socio-political spatio-temporally invariant law-like

generalizations. On these grounds, logical positivism, empiricism and main-

stream IR might agree, but these are precisely the positions that Constructi-

vism’s ontology are incompatible with. For example, Mattern’s (2004, p. 345)

own argument that Realist Constructivism should recognize international

politics’ ‘intersubjectively and culturally constituted’ ontology implies re-

opening precisely the question of Constructivism’s ontological difference from

Neo-utilitarian IR, yet she goes on to advocate and develop ‘Realist

Constructivism’ untroubled.

If Constructivism is about anything, it is not simply ‘identity’, but about the‘fluidity’ of ontology deriving directly from identity’s mutually constituted

inter-subjectivity. Despite this, the analyses above invariably take Constructi-

vism as a methodological or epistemological standpoint. This does not mean

that Kratochwil, Ruggie or others are mistaken about the compatibility of such

an ontology with Neo-utilitarian epistemology or methods (for example

Farrell, 2002, p. 51). Quantitative methods are not incompatible with ‘an

ontology that gives causal weight to cultural variables’, but the changeable

nature of those cultural variables is incompatible with claims to ‘timeless

wisdoms’: it is the status ascribed to the results of enquiry which is the coreof the Neo-utilitarian–Postmodern/Post-structuralist divide. Yet ‘Realist

Constructivism’ represents nothing if not the aim of retaining the spatio-

temporal invariance of ‘laws’ and observer-neutrality. The possibility and

primacy of these epistemic aims constitutes precisely the Neo-utilitarian–

Postmodern/Post-structuralist disagreement, which genuinely challenges the

possibility of inter-paradigmatic dialogue (for example Teti, 2007).

Moreover, in debates about Constructivism this dividing line seems to have

‘migrated’ from the demarcation of boundaries between Neo-utilitarian IR

and Constructivism per se to a distinction between ‘critical’ and ‘conventional’Constructivism. The importance of this ‘migration’ is that by ‘mainstreaming’

Constructivism, it effectively reinforces Neo-utilitarianism rather than

challenge it, neutralizing precisely Constructivism’s most radical implications.

Hynek and Teti




That a research programme be capable of incorporating new theses, methods

or research foci is generally a sign of strength, but questions should beasked when those new elements are accepted despite starkly contradicting

programme’s core.

Nor were these debates over the Neo-utilitarian–Postmodern/Post-structur-

alist divide unprecedented upon Constructivism’s emergence in the late 1980s:

they were central to the ‘Philosophical Turn’. In fact, recent claims about

the importance of social scientific approaches crucial to the quest for

Constructivist/Neo-utilitarian convergence strikingly echo Keohane’s (1986)

call that ‘scientific’ testing adjudicate between ‘rationalism’ and ‘reflectivism’.

Moving away from questions of foundations, there are several other features

of the emergence of Realist Constructivism that deserve attention.

Reprising the familiar Realist Leitmotiv of Liberalism – here reincarnated as

Constructivism – as a well-meaning but naıve and woolly minded and in any

case analytically inadequate attempt to ‘transcend power’, ‘idealist’ in the

derogatory sense, has proven particularly popular. This leads some advocates

of Realist Constructivism to rather odd conclusions. Mattern, for example,

infers that ‘postmodernism’ is unable to conceive power except as ‘passively

enacted through social relationships’, missing those ‘variegated forms of

expression’ and ‘productive’ dimensions that would allow an understanding of

‘power [as] a question to be investigated, not a variable or process to beaccounted for’ whereas Realist Constructivism considers ‘how specific actors

wield different forms of power (authority, force, care, and so on) through

different expressions (linguistic, symbolic, material, and so on) to produce

different social realities’ (Mattern, 2004, p. 345). Attempts to berate

Postmodern/Post-structural scholarship on these grounds are rather ironic,

because the key criticism levelled at Neo-utilitarianism is precisely its limited,

unreflective conception of power.

Another vital aspect of Realist Constructivism’s emergence relates to its role

in the politics of Constructivism’s relations with mainstream IR. Farrell (2002),virtually alone among those advocating the possibility of dialogue with

Neo-utilitarianism, explicitly acknowledges the politics of relations between the

two, suggesting these pivot essentially on what ‘posture’ Constructivists

take viz. Neo-utilitarianism, ‘friend or foe’. For example, in response to Price

and Reus-Smit (1998), who note the shared roots of Constructivist approaches

in critical political theory and argue for a ‘rapprochement’ between critical and

conventional constructivists rather than with the ‘Neo-utilitarian’ mainstream,

Farrell (2002, p. 60) cautions that this risks incurring dismissal rather than

engagement. This is a recognition that the outcome of these debates – which,as Farrell notes, could be crucial to Constructivism’s very survival – has at

least as much to do with perceptions about intellectual and political

commitments as with argumentation per se. In the context of a debate which,





although foregrounding the ‘causal importance of ideas’ and their relation with

power, manages to ignore self-reflection on how it goes about constructingitself, this is a welcome exception. However, it cannot lessen the striking

parallel between this (Realist) Constructivist silence and its counterpart in

debates about Pragmatism.

This section has examined additional disciplinary consequences of ‘taxono-

mical polarization’ in debates on Constructivism, noting how it enables a non-

ontological interpretation of Constructivism as ‘focused on ideas’. This implies

a division of labour between Realism’s materialist focus and Constructivism’s

‘idealism’, complementarity rather than antagonism, making it virtually

impossible for Constructivism to present any substantive challenge. In this

sense, the selective articulation of a Constructivist/Neo-utilitarian convergence

responds to the ‘Constructivist challenge’ by eliding its ontological roots.

Having accepted with little substantial modification mainstream epistemic

standards, de-legitimizing non-Neo-utilitarian epistemologies, this ‘conver-

gence’ can only subsume Constructivism within the paradigm it sought to

undermine, as provider of the ‘identity variable’. This focus on epistemology

and methodology, however, cannot exorcize the implications of the ‘duality

of structure’: in trying to ‘save identity from postmodernists’ (Checkel, 1998,

p. 327) the emperor has acquired decidedly ill-fitting new clothes.

Blind spots

The emerging consensus sketched above is far from logically coherent: it

involves – indeed, requires – ‘blind spots’, such as the lack of reflexivity in

analysing its own ontological, epistemic, methodological and political

commitments. These blind spots are themselves integral to the mainstreaming

of Constructivism.

Two key ‘blind spots’ are related to the intersubjectivity and co-constitutiveness of Constructivist ontology. The first is a surprising absence

from the literature. If one of the hallmarks of Constructivism is the notion of

co-constitution agency and structure, Constructivists themselves have focused

on discourse, largely ignoring the material, whereas one might have said that

the true ‘promise of Constructivism’ was its ‘double co-constitutiveness’,

the analysis of the co-constitution of both material and ideational structure

and agency. This ‘blind spot’ facilitated branding Constructivism as ‘idealist’

both in the limited sense of dealing with ideas alone, and in the pejorative sense

typical of Realism, which notoriously ‘creates a narrative that uses therhetorical device of dichotomization to set itself up as the standard of prudent

statecraft against the utopianism of ‘idealists’’ (Lynch, 1999, p. 59; also: Steele,

2007, p. 28). Wendt himself explicitly distinguished Constructivism from

Hynek and Teti




Liberalism precisely because, since Carr, ‘‘Idealist’ has functioned in IR

primarily as an epithet for naıvete´

and utopianism’ (1999, p. 33). To the extentthat ‘idealism’ signifies a focus on ideas, this label facilitated an interpretation

of its relation to Neo-utilitarianism as one of complementarity rather than

antagonism.

A second ‘blind spot’ is the decreasing concern for Constructivism’s early

ontological claims. During the 1990s, Constructivists seemed to systematically

shift/de-emphasize ontological commitments: indeed, the debate about

Constructivism’s relation to mainstream IR – particularly around ‘Realist

Constructivism’ – bypasses ontology virtually entirely (cf. Reus-Smit, 2002,

p. 493). Wendt, IR’s most influential expounder of PoSS during the 1990s,

provides the best example of this: although his earlier work carefully outlined

the implications of a structurationist ontology for agent-structure co-

constitution, he later abandons Giddens’ ontology and its double hermeneutic

implications (3B) for Bhaskar’s scientific realism (2B). Moreover, Wendt’s

later commitment to ‘positivism’ (‘I am a positivist’; 1999, p. 39) conflates two

ontologically incompatible positions: constructivist empiricism (1B) and

constructivist realism (2B). Simultaneously, his shifting emphasis towards

epistemology obscures ontological discrepancies, highlighting shared epistemic

commitments, implying that a Constructivist ‘scientific’ project is possible.

Similarly, Adler attempts to equate constructivist realism (2B) and IRConstructivism via Searle and the Pragmatists. Despite acknowledging

Pragmatism’s ontological ‘agnosticism’ Adler (2003, p. 97) argues that since

‘[a]ll strands of constructivism converge on an ontology that depicts the social

world’ (ibid., p. 100), ‘[s]ome differences between Wendt and his critics may be

reconciled by pragmatist realism [y] Contra Smith, we need a realist ontology

[y] Contra Wendt, however, we need a pragmatist epistemology’ (ibid.,

p. 107), thereby effectively transferring Constructivism from 3B to 2B. Thus,

the reconciliation of social science with identity’s constructedness can be

predicated on retaining the latter while taking state identity as given, coherent,non-contradictory and before context (Adler, 1997; Wendt, 1999; cf. Zehfuss,

2001): when Checkel indicates what challenges face ‘conventional, and

mostly positivist constructivists’ (2004, p. 239) he omits ontology, arguing

that the most important task is to adjudicate whether ‘persuasion’ or

‘deliberation’ are key causal mechanisms of preference change (see Figure 3).

Thus, the implications of Constructivism’s structurationist ontology end up

neutralized either through some ontological privilege for the state, or by

arguing that states behave as if their identity were fixed. Either way, states’

ontological fixity or epistemic privilege remains incompatible with claims thatidentities and attendant political practices are spatio-temporally variable.

This neutralization of ontology crucially affects debates about relations

between ‘positivism and its others’, specifically whether Constructivism can





provide a via media, because on these grounds, echoing Keohane’s 1986 ISA

Presidential Address, it becomes possible to predicate dialogue on those very

‘social scientific’ grounds that are the bone of contention. It is therefore

unsurprising that Wendt alone has been taken as watermark of Constructivism

in bridge-building attempts (Steele, 2007, p. 30) not because he alone is

sympathetic to Neo-utilitarianism (cf. Kratochwil, 1988), but because, unlike

Onuf or Kratochwil, his (later) ontological commitments do not raise the

issue of the status of the ‘knowledge’ generated through Neo-utilitarian

epistemologies applied to changeable ontological foundations.A third, related ‘blindness’ is the paucity of reflections on how these

analyses are themselves inextricable from particular normative commitments

(and their reproduction). Despite focusing on ‘language games’ and knowl-

edge-praxis relations in agents, Constructivists fail to analyse the linkage

between power, identity and knowledge by reflecting on the process of (their

own) knowledge production. This should be especially surprising given

Wendt’s hugely popular use of Giddens (1984, pp. 32–33, 348), who explicitly

argues that a ‘double hermeneutic’ flows directly from the ‘duality of structure’.

By contrast, Pragmatists, like Post-structuralists, engage with precisely suchquestions. Rorty (1982) argues that one must ask not ‘What is the essence

of such-and-such a problem?’ but ‘What sort of vocabulary, what image of

man, would produce such problems? What does the persistence of such

problems show us about being twentieth-century Europeans?’ Pragmatism

provides an unambiguously politicized answer to these questions, recognizing

that observation and knowledge cannot be neutral, fixed or objective,

but are always for someone and for something (Bohman, 2002, pp. 500–501,

fn 1), both insofar as observers come to a problem from a particular

background and agenda, and because their actions are transformative of ‘reality’. The silence on the politics of knowledge production, despite the

supposed ‘critical turn’ that Constructivism affords mainstream IR, is

deafening.

Figure 3: The politics of redrawing boundaries: Re-positioning of constructivism from PoSS to IR.

Hynek and Teti




How has the debate over Constructivism avoided such issues, and how have

such ‘blind spots’ been sustained over time? The answer is linked to theportrayal of Constructivism as a Neo-utilitarian undertaking in two ways.

First, because the ‘scientific method’ supposedly provides a self-correcting

epistemological mechanism, attention to the knowledge production process

becomes ultimately redundant. Second, because the ‘dichotomized ontological

logic that assumes into reality a distinction between a realm of empiricist ‘fact’

and a realm of ‘theorized’ knowledge’ (George, 1994, p. 18), which lies at the

heart of mainstream IR and ‘its associated representationalist view of language,

[tend] to discourage wider reflection on [y] deep intersubjective beliefs that

orient, shape and constrain’ the production of ideas (Deibert, 1997, p. 169) so

that, contrary to Pragmatists, ‘[n]othing social need enter into questions

regarding the truth of a belief, because truth is a relation determined by a

solitary subject standing in relation to an independent reality’ (Manicas in

Deibert, 1997, p. 169). Thus, ‘a number of questions not only go unanswered,

they are never raised. These include questions of the historical origin and

nature of the community-based standards which define what counts as reliable

knowledge, as well as the question of the merits of those standards in the light

of possible alternatives’ (Neufeld, 1993, p. 26).

Conclusion

Although it has at times been recognized that the field’s history cannot be

reduced to a mere sequence of ideas (Waever, 1998), IR’s intellectual history

has less often become the object of sustained analysis. This paper has sought to

make a contribution in this direction by analysing one aspect of the field’s

discursive economy – the emergence and disciplinary trajectories of

Constructivism – by applying Foucaultian archaeologico-genealogical strategy

of problematization. This approach reveals how Constructivism has been

drawn gradually closer to its mainstream Neo-utilitarian counterpart, andhow this normalization effectively purged Constructivism of its early critical

potential.

The paper first showed how Constructivism’s current intellectual configura-

tion and its rise to disciplinary prominence are inseparable from far-from-

unproblematic readings of basic problems in the Philosophy of Social Science:

choices made at this level are neither as intellectually neutral nor as

disciplinarily inconsequential as they are presented. The paper then charted

the genealogy of early Constructivism, analysing the politics of early

classificatory practices to reveal how these permitted the distillation andimmunization of Constructivism against more radical Postmodernist/

Post-structuralist critiques. Finally, the paper focused attention on recent

events that enabled the neutralization of this radical critical potential both





indirectly – for example, through ‘Pragmatist’ Constructivism – and directly,

through the formulation of ‘Realist Constructivism’. Thus, the overallnormalization of Constructivism occurred in different stages, each revolving

around particular debates: apparently ‘critical’ alternatives that aim to ‘provide

the identity variable’, in fact, remain close to Neo-utilitarianism, but their

successful representation as ‘critical’ helped neutralize Postmodern/Post-

structuralist critiques.

A striking implication of this analysis is that Constructivism, as a theoretical

construction assessed against its own standards, strictly speaking does not

exist. If by Constructivism one means the standpoint absorbed into main-

stream IR then, as Sterling-Folker (2002a) argues, one is hard-pressed to find

significant ontological, epistemological or indeed methodological differences

with respect to Neo-utilitarianism. If, on the other hand, moving from early

formulations of its ontology and the double hermeneutics which ensue,

one takes Constructivism to entail ontological anti-foundationalism and anti-

essentialism, one must recognize that such calls and such formulations are

not new, but are present in more rigorous and complete ways in Postmodern/

Post-structuralist critiques. Either way, it is difficult not to conclude that

Constructivism is not all it is made out to be. Yet, if Constructivism does not

‘exist’ in these senses, it has certainly had a crucial impact on the field as

a discursive practice: the debate over its nature has been crucial to IR’sinfra-disciplinary balance of intellectual power, and thus to the vision of

international politics which, from this field, percolates into policy design and

public debate.

Although these results are necessarily partial, this paper has shown that the

intellectual configuration and fortunes of Constructivism are influenced by

more than the straightforward intellectual history through which mainstream

IR usually tells its own story. Specifically, the theoretical moves and ‘blind

spots’ outlined above simultaneously produced the normalization of Con-

structivism and the immunization of its more radical strands, and the silencingof Postmodernist/Post-structuralist critiques to Neo-utilitarianism. From this

vantage point, calls for Constructivism to ‘save identity from postmodernists’

(Checkel, 1998, p. 325) are clearly rooted in a blindness and selectivity in the

elaboration of contemporary ‘Social Scientific’ forms of Constructivism,

which are themselves built into the very terms through which Neo-utilitarian

scholarship understands its remit (for example Keohane, 1986). This

complex process of (re)reading and (re)producing what counts as ‘Constructi-

vism’ helps explain not only the normalization of Constructivism itself, but,

insofar as it helps explain Neo-utilitarianism’s continued insulation fromPostmodernist/Post-structuralist critiques, also provides an important key

to understanding the reproduction of IR’s infra-disciplinary centre of

intellectual gravity.

Hynek and Teti




Acknowledgement

We thank Jozef Batora, Theo Farrell, Yale Ferguson, Stefano Guzzini, Audie

Klotz and Cecelia Lynch and three anonymous reviewers and the editors for

comments on earlier drafts. Financial support from the Czech Academy of

Science (grant number KJB708140803) is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

1 Although the division is usually framed in positivist/post-positivist terms, we resort to this

alternative labelling for reasons elucidated further below (see especially ‘Blind spots’ and Figure 3).2 Capitalized terms refer to IR scholarship, whereas lower-case terms designate PoSS positions.

3 Partially shared key assumptions by empiricists and logical positivists sometimes lead to their

incorrect conflation. We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for emphasizing this point.

4 Bhaskar (1997) distinguishes between general scientific-realist theory of science (‘transcendental

realism’) and a narrower version appertaining to social science (‘critical naturalism’).

5 Several earlier formulations echo Hopf’s. Adler (1997) distinguishes between modern, legal,

narrative and genealogical Constructivism, with the first three falling under Hopf’s ‘conven-

tional’ rubric. Adler (1997, 2003) speaks about a ‘weak programme’ designating Neo-Kantian

Constructivism close to (3B) and a scientific ‘strong programme’, encapsulating most IR

Constructivists. Price and Reus-Smit (1998) and Reus-Smit (2002) distinguish between minimal

foundationalist/positivist/modern and anti-foundationalist/interpretive/postmodern currents.6 Sterling-Folker (2000) consequently argues that functionalist/liberal logic is inherent to all

Constructivism, subsuming under this rubric (neo)Functionalism and (neo)Liberal Institution-

alism.

7 The taxonomies discussed are actually defined in methodological rather than ontological or

epistemological terms, further ‘neutralizing’ ‘thick’ Constructivism, because Postmodern/Post-

structural methods are considered ‘unscientific’.

8 Ironically, the representation of social scientific scholarship as bias-free justifies criticism of

Postmodernists/Post-structuralists on the grounds of their normative commitments (for example

Reus-Smit, 2002, p. 501; Checkel, 2004, p. 236).

9 Widmaier is probably aware of Millennium’s special issue, as he cites Isacoff’s contribution,

although this is the sole piece he refers, ignoring Haas and Haas’ introductory paper.

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Date submitted: 30 April 2008

Date accepted: 15 September 2008


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