From Constructivism to Deconstructivism: theorising the Construction and Culmination of identities
Toru
Oga*
Commentary Welcome to toruoga@yahoo.co.jp
Abstract
Since the late 1980s, the
rationalist orthodoxy, so-called the neo-neo synthesis, has been challenged by
two radicals: constructivism (i.e., Ruggie, Wendt) and deconstructivism (i.e.,
Ashley and Walker). Both undertakes the explanation of identity in world
politics: while constructivists employ the positivist epistemology and using
empirical observation for analysing identity, deconstructivism radically
challenges the positivism and adopting discourse analysis. Needless to say,
there have been the counter-critiques from the rationalist side (e.g., Measheimer,
Keohane) about the methodological invalidity of both constructivists and
deconstructivists. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to compare these two
radicals: especially Alexander Wendt for constructivism and David Campbell for
deconstructivism. The examination focuses on which of them can provide the
better accounts for construction and culmination of identity, and how they can
appropriately respond to the positivist critiques.
This is a preliminary investigation.
Please do not quote without the permission of the Author.
1. Introducing the Third Debate
Theories of international relations (IR) have been developed through the three great debates. The first debate took place in the 1920s and 1930s between Utopianism and Realism: how to achieve peace building. The second debate appeared in the 1950s and 1960s between traditional and structural realism: how IR theories theorise scientifically. Then, the third debate has arisen from the late 1980s onwards between positivism and post-positivism: whether positivist theories of IR are valid, if not, what can be an alternative. Each debate involves the substantial theoretical issues such as: the political issue of ‘utopianism versus realism’ in the first, the methodological issue of ‘history versus science’ in the second, and the epistemological issue of ‘rationalism versus reflectivism’ (Keohane 1988, Lapid 1989, Wæver 1996) in the third debate.
In the late 1970s, there was the restoration of realism, which is initiated by Kenneth Waltz (1979). Since then realism has become neo-realism and has dominated in the IR literatures, as the so-called neo-neo synthesis (neo-realist synthesis): Neo-realism and neo-liberalism largely orchestrated as the rationalist-materialist approach. The third debate is, in a sense, the radical challenge of post-positivism to the neo-neo synthesis. Furthermore, the third debate has drastically changed the theoretical map of IR: a previous division of theory, which appeared in the inter-paradigm debate in the 1970s - realism, liberalism, and Marxisim - has been largely replaced by three orthodoxies-rationalism, constructivism, and deconstructivism. Within the post-positivist pole, post-structuralist IR theory (deconstructivism),[1] on the one hand, most radically challenged the positivist-realist legacy during the last fifteen years (e.g., Ashley 1988, Campbell 1998a, 1998b, Der Derian and Shapiro 1989, George 1994, Walker 1993, etc.). On the other hand, constructivists emerged, in the 1990s, to bridge the radical forms of post-positivism and positivism: constructivism is distinguished from other post-positivism. Whereas deconstructivism, like post-structuralism and some feminists and the English school, has radically challenged rationalist research agendas, constructivism has been compatible with the positivism of neo-realism. More precisely, although deconstructivists try to account for identity/difference by analysing discourse, constructivists attempt to explain identity and interest by empirical data in the scientific methods. In this sense, constructivism has synthesised, rather than challenged, the neo-realist research programme. In other words, whereas deconstructivism deconstructs the neo-realist features of international studies by emphasising the role of discourse, constructivism tries to reconstruct the positivist-realist legacy of IR, namely the role of ideas. Further, against the emergence of critical and radical challenges to realist orthodoxy, Mearsheimer (1998) claims that post-positivism is not clear about how particular ideas, identities, and discourses rise and decline, and asks: “what determines why some discourses become dominant and others lose out in the marketplace of ideas? What is the mechanism that governs the rise and fall of discourses?” (1998: 374).
The aim of this paper is to compare constructivism and deconstructivism in the way they explain the rise and fall of identity, by replying to Mearsheimer’s criticism. In other words, which approaches, empirical data or discourse analysis, better formulates and account for the construction of identities. It is my contention that constructivists, who use empirical data to demonstrate identity, fail in this task. Alternatively, deconstruvtists successfully formulate identity by analysing discourse. For the purpose of examining discourse analysis as a method, I refer to Laclau and Mouffe (1985, 1987) who reject an ontological difference between texts and behaviours, and I examine the methodological adequacy of discourse analysis. This is because deconstructivists/post-structursalists like Campbell use discourse analysis in order to account for practices and behaviours in world politics. In this regard, this is not just ‘textualism’, in the sense that discourse analysis can examine the rise and fall of identity.
The organisation of this paper consists of four parts: the first part reviews the debates from the inter-paradigm debate in the 1970s to the third debate, which has emerged since the late 1980s, and clarifies the similarities and differences of the three orthodoxies in the third debate: rationalism (neo-realism and neo-liberals), constructivism, and deconstructivism (mainly post-structuralists but some feminists and English school as well). The next two parts examine the theoretical framework of constructivism and deconstructivism with specific references to Alexander Wendt’s Social Theory Of International Politics on constructivism, and two works of David Campbell, Writing Security, and National Deconstruction on post-structuralism. Finally, I examine whether constructivists or deconstructivists can formulate the rise and fall of identity. That is, whether constructivism explains identity using empirical data? If not, is deconstruvtisism an alternative to the positivist-realist legacy with specific regard to the formulation of identity by discourse analysis?
2. Three orthodoxies in the Third Debate
2-1. Rationalism
and the neo-neo synthesis
IR theories were traditionally dominated by the three
perspectives: realism, idealism, and behaviouralism. The consequence of the
first debate in the 1940s undermined the idealist perspective, while the second
debate in the 1950s and 1960s enhanced the behaviouralist hegemony: what Jim
George calls the ‘Positivist-Realist Legacy’ (George 1994). Afterwards, three
dominant paradigms emerged in the IR literature in the 1970s and 1980s:
realism/neo-realism, liberal/neo-liberalism, Marxism/radicalism (Smith 1996,
Viotti and Kauppi 1993, Wæver 1996), and all three paradigms were closely
associated with the positivist epistemology of science (Smith 1996: 11,
Zalewski and Enloe 1995: 298).[2]
Realism
Anarchy Military
Polyarchy Economic
Liberalism
Marxism
Interdependence Dependence
[Figure 1: Three orthodoxies in the 1970s ]
Following the positivist epistemology, three
paradigms argue differently: figure 1 above shows that, while realists argue
that the world is anarchic, and that there is little likelihood of cooperation
among states, liberals maintain that state cooperation is possible in certain
circumstances: there is some order despite the absence of central government:
while liberals argue that the relations among states is mutually influence each
other, Marxists claim that this is a domination-dependence rather than
interdependence: and whereas Marxists are closely associated with the economic
analysis of class, realists focus on military capabilities. In other words,
Realists and Marxists agree in recognising the role of power and struggle in
contrast to the more harmony-oriented liberalism. Marxists and liberals
together attack the narrow state universe of realists. And, of course, the
Marxists on many issues meet a common front of realists and liberals who reject
revolutionary changes (Wæver 1996: 152).
As a consequence of the victory of positivism in the second debate in the 1960s and the resurgence of realism in the late 1970s (e.g., Theory of International Politics by Kenneth Waltz in 1979), IR theories have been dominated by the positivism-realism approach. Waltz, in this context, follows scientific structuralism with his deductionist approach: ‘theory’ seeks to identify the systemic generalised explanations of reality. He goes further with the following three key theoretical assumptions: (1) IR has to be developed through general theories of natural science. (2) This general theory can not be achieved if IR theories remain associated with ‘inductivist illusion’ and reductionism. (3) The general theory is achievable if IR theory seeks to explain the systemic order of international politics.
This positivist-realist legacy has, despite slight differences and dichotomies, persisted in later positivist scholars of IR: Robert Gilpin, Stephan Krasner, and Robert Keohane. Whereas they have a number of differences to debate, namely anarchy, regime, state cooperation etc., they belong to the Neo-realist research programme, which has been called the ‘neo-neo synthesis’ (Ashley 1986 [1984], Patomäki and Wight 2000, Ruggie 1986 Wæver 1996). Despite the substantive debate between neo-realists and neo-liberal institutionalists, neo-liberal institutionalism does not actually challenge but complements Waltz’s neo-realism (see also Keohane 1984, Mearsheimer 1998). Neo-liberalism is “a pragmatic readjustment of power politics behaviour” (George 1994: 133). This indicates that neo-realism and neo-liberals are no longer incommensurable: they commonly share the ‘rationalist’ research programme. This ‘neo-neo synthesis’ has been the dominant IR approach since the 1980s.
2-2. Emerging
constructivism and deconstructivism
Along with the neo-neo synthesis, ‘reflectivism’ emerged
as a counterpart of rationalism (Keohane 1988). Reflectivism emphasises
interpretations rather than empirical data, because norms and regimes are,
according to reflectivists, unable to be studied by positivist methods.
Instead, inter-subjective meanings are only researchable by non-positivist
methods (Kratochwill and Ruggie 1986, Wæver 1996). As figure 2 shows, critical
IR theories (reflectivist or post-positivist) emerged to challenge the
positivist and rationalist frameworks of IR: What Lapid (1988) calls ‘the Third
Debate’. Ontologically, they challenge the rationalist conception of human
nature: interests and actions are not always rational, and emphasise the social
construction of actors’ identities in shaping interests and actions.
Epistemologically, they challenge the positivist approach to knowledge: there
is no objective truth by countering
the behaviouralist hegemony, and advocate a plurality of approaches by
highlighting interpretative approaches (Price and Reus-Smit 1998: 261).
Rationalism
Reflectivism
Realism
Neo-Neo Synthesis
Liberalism Marxism
[Figure 2: IR debate in the late 1980s, see also,Wæver 1996]
There
are a lot of strands within the post-positivist approach, most of which emerged
in the Third debate.
Notably, post-structuralism, which appeared in the 1980s, and constructivism,
which emerged in the 1990s, play an opposite role in the third debate:
post-structuralism most radically challenges the rationalist research agenda,
while constructivists does not directly challenge but modify rationalism.
Post-structuralist project, on the one hand, attempts to deconstruct the positivism-realism legacy by employing
post-positivist epistemology and ontology: examining the role of
intersubjectivity using the tools of discourses analysis.
On the other hand, constructivism
is the relatively late
commer and emerged to reconstruct the neo-neo synthesis
by introducing a post-positivist ontology, such as the role of ideas and
identities, but it maintains the positivist epistemology and methodology,
namely scientific methods and empirical observation. The constructivist projects
attempt to bridge the gap between rationalism and reflectivism. Furthermore, Wendt puts himself as a critical theorist and
maintains that critical IR theory is “a family of theories that include postmodernists
(Ashley, Walker), constructivists (Adler, Kratochwil, Ruggie, and now
Katzenstein), neo-Marxist (Cox, Gill), and feminists (Peterson, Sylvester) and
others” (1998: 416), and asking ‘how world politics is socially constructed’.
Critical IR theory opposes to the neo-neo synthesis on two counts: (1) opposing
materialism: the structures of international politics are social rather than
material. (2) opposing rationalism: these structures consist of identities and
interests rather than just behaviours (ibid: 416-7).
[Figure 3: Constructivist
projects,
see also Baylis and Smith 1997, Patomäki and Wight 2000]
One might argue that constructivism is a part of the broad
constellation of critical IR theories. However, not only post-structuralists,
but also other scholars label constructivism as rationalism and positivism
(Campbell 1996, 2001, George 1994, Keohane 2000, Kratochwil 2000, Price and
Reus-Smit 1998, Smith 2000).[3]
In short, constructivists have reconstructed the neo-neo synthesis using a
positivist epistemology, while deconstructivists/post-structuralists
have deconstructed the rationalists’ research programmes using a
post-positivist epistemology. Thus the previous division of IR theory in the
1980s: realism, liberalism, and Marxism, has been replaced by rationalism,
constructivism, and deconstructivism (post-structuralism, some feminism and the
English School) in the 1990s.[4]
[Figure 4:
Three orthodoxies in the 1990s]
Rationalism
material empirical data
idea discourse
Constructivism Deconstructivism
Foundationalism Anti-Foundationalism
Figure 4 indicates that, while rationalists focus on material forces, constructivists emphasise the role of ideas: although materialism privileges the material structures, such as natural resourses, geography, forces of destruction, and mode of production, what constructivists call idealism claims that social structures are constructed by ideational factors rather than material forces (Wendt 1999: 23-5). While rationalists research empirical data, deconstructivists research discourse: the rationalist methods favour empirical data, because they believe in (1) unity of science - there are no methodological differences between the natural and social sciences, (2) strong distinction between facts and values - facts are highly neutral between competing theories, (3) discovering regularities in the social world as natural scientists discover regularities in the natural world, and (4) empiricist epistemology - true statements are supported by empirical data. By contrast, deconstructivists insist that the social world can only be accountable for within specific discourses, rather than by reference to empirical data (Baylis and Smith 1997). More importantly, whereas constructivists are working with a foundationalist epistemology, deconstructivists are closely associated with anti-foundationalists (Baylis and Smith 1997, Wæver 1996): foundationalists argue that all claims can be judged true or false by testing or evaluating against neutral and objective theoretical procedures. However, anti-foundationalists disagree since there are no neutral/ objective foundations for judging true or false. In this regard, although rationalism and constructivism commonly reject anti-foundational epistemology and use empirical observation for theory testing, constructivism and deconstructivism both give importance to intersubjectivity rather than material forces. However, what deconstructivists focus on is not what Wendt calls ‘idealism’, but ‘discourse’. In the next two parts, I contrast and compare how constructivists and deconstructivists explain identity formation by using either empirical data or discourse analysis.
3. Constructivism
3-1. John Ruggie
The emergence of ‘social constructivism’ in the realm of IR was initiated by John Ruggie (1998), who claims that the neo-neo synthesis (or positivist-realist legacy) fails to explain interests and identities. Firstly, the neo-neo synthesis is unable to explain how territorial states formed particular identities and interests. Secondly, it fails to explain how state identity and interest are co-constituted. Finally, there increasingly emerges the normative factor in IR, such as humanitarian intervention, which neo-realism totally ignores. Accordingly, constructivists focus on the role of ideas in the international arena. “Social constructivist have sought to understand the fully array of roles that ideas play in world politics, rather than specifying a priori roles based on theoretical presuppositions and then testing for those specified roles, as Neo-utilitarian do” (Ruggie 1998: 867). The interests and identities of the state are not primarily determined but socially constructed. Similarly to the deconstructivist theories, which I examine below, constructivists also insist that identity comes from difference and exploring the role of ‘the other’ (ibid: 873).
Within constructivism, the first substantive challenge towards the Waltzian account of neo-realism appeared with the concept of anarchy in the mid-1980s. While Waltz asserts that anarchy is the undeniable ‘out there’ in international politics, Ruggie (1986) challenges the positivist notion of anarchy by comparing the medieval and modern international systems. He employs an analogy of private property right and state sovereignty as follows: modern states, unlike to medieval and feudal states, have a substantive concept and legislation of private property right. By the same token, the modern state sovereignty has a certain territory and a military to defend it. This means that a social construction of private property right is also articulated with a notion of state sovereignty. “The chief characteristic of the modern concept of private property is the right to exclude others from the possession of an object. And the chief characteristic of modern authority is its totalisation, the integration into one public realm of parcelised and private authority” (ibid: 143). That is, both the medieval and modern international systems are anarchical, but different meanings have been socially constructed. The modern international system has a norm of state sovereignty (each state has a certain ‘right’ over its territory), which is ambiguous in the medieval era. Ruggie wrote
In sum, this [the medieval international system] was quintessentially a system of segmental territorial rule: it was an anarchy. But, it was a form of segmental territorial rule that had none of the connotations of possessiveness and exclusiveness conveyed by the modern concept of sovereignty. It represents a heteronomous organisation of territorial rights and claims- of political space (Ibid).
Later, Ruggie develops this notion of the social construction of sovereignty in international transformation. As a critique of Waltzian structuralism, Ruggie introduces ‘structuration’ from Anthony Giddens. With reference to the international governance of the oceans, and exclusive economic zones, he identifies two keys in the theory of structuration.
First, that structure be treated simultaneously as dependent as well as independent variable, that the appropriate formulation in fact would combine this duality of structure in a theory of structuration. Second, that the one component of international structure that is permitted to vary in the prevailing structural theories shows no variation, but it may be that change is taking place precisely in those other components of international structure that are assumed not to vary at all! (Ruggie 1989: 27).
To understand the transformation of the ocean and exclusive economic zone issues, it is insufficient to focus on material forces, rather one should focus on the ‘constitutive structure’ of the social totality and social discourses, which gives meaning to the social totality (ibid: 29). In so doing, Ruggie criticises the rationalist-materialist research programmes into structure, which were initiated by Waltz: “Fundamental international transformation- the medieval to modern shift, for example, or a shift from the modern to some postmodern form of organising political space on this planet- is well beyond the grasp of physicalist conceptions of structure” (ibid: 30).
3-2. Alexander Wendt
Alexander Wendt goes further to develop the Ruggie’s concept of anarchy. Wendt claims that anarchy is socially constructed among states: there have been three cultures of anarchy: Hobbesian, Lockean, and Kantian. Overall, he maintains that ‘anarchy is what states make of it’: states have different conceptions of anarchy and of their relations in successive periods. As Ruggie outlined, Westphalia was the cornerstone, which marked a division between the medieval and modern international systems with regard to states’ acknowledgement of each other’s sovereignty. While the Lockean culture of anarchy has been dominant in the world political sphere for three centuries following Westphalia in 1648, the behaviour of North American and Western European states in the last five decades since WWII, have seemed to go beyond the Lockean and shifted to the Kantian culture of anarchy (Wendt 1999: 297).
Figure 5 below indicates the core features of the three cultures of anarchy. First, the Hobbesian culture is characterised by enmity, which lies “at one end of a spectrum of role relations governing the use of violence between Self and Other, distinct in kind from rivals and friends” (Wendt 1999: 260). The notion of enmity shared among states refers to the image of self and other, and this leads to ‘War of all against all’: the international system is entirely self-help. For example, the Greeks regarded Persians as barbarians, the Crusaders represented the Turks as infidels, more recently, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the early Cold War, Northern Ireland, Pol Pot, Palestinian and Israeli fundamentalists, and the Bosnian civil war were all based on hostile representations of the other.
Second, the
Lockean culture is distinguished from the Hobbesian, since it emphasises
rivalry rather than enmity. Although the rival is, like the enemy, constituted
with reference to the self and the other, the representation of rivals is less
threatening: rivals recognise the each other’s right of sovereignty, while
enmity implies violent conquest or domination (Ibid: 279). Wendt employs
Ruggie’s analogy between private property rights and state sovereignty: states,
despite their rivalry, see sovereignty as a right. That is why ‘death rate’ of
states is drastically reduced since Westphalia. States are never killed: even the smallest state has sovereign right.
Rights
are social capacities that are conferred on actors by others’ ‘permission’ to
do certain things. A powerful state may have the material capability to defend
its sovereignty against all comers, but even without that ability a weak state
can enjoy its sovereignty if other states recognise it as a right (Ibid: 280).
Hobbesian
(Pre-Westphalia) |
-War of all against all -Self-help -Enmity |
Lockean
(Since Westphalia) |
-Other-help: fight against an outsider -Rivalry |
Kantian(Since WWII) |
-International society -Harmony -Friendship (Collective identity): Self and other are united into a
‘cognitive region’ |
[Figure 5: Three cultures of
anarchy]
Under this culture, states are undertaking ‘other-help’ rather than self-help. This is because the Lockean culture creates a similar manner among states and an expansion of the sense of the self in which they are willing to help one another. There are, according to Wendt (ibid: 283-96), three features of Lockean Cultures of anarchy. First, the different meaning of war: wars for conquest are rare, and states tend to collectively act to avoid the occurrence of wars in order to maintain the status quo. Second, membership and low death rate in the system: membership in the system is stable, since states mutually recognise their sovereignty. Thus the death of the state is quite rare: it may explain why weak states like Singapore and Monaco in the modern era can enjoy their sovereignty, and strong states like the Aztecs and Incas in the medieval era could not. Third, balance of power: Wendt contends that the balance of power is the effect of a mutual recognition of sovereignty rather than a product of anarchy, because under the Lockean anarchy, survival is not a pressing issue for the state and power maximisation is much more prominent than Hobbesean anarchy. Interestingly Wendt suggests that Waltz is associated with Lockean rather than Hobbesian anarchy, because:
His [Waltz] analogy to markets, which presuppose institutions that ensure that actors do not kill each other, his emphasis on balancing, his observation that modern states have a low death rate, and his assumption that states are security- rather than power-seeking are all things associated with the relatively self-restrained Lockean Culture, not the war of all against all (Ibid: 285).
Finally, Kantian anarchy is initiated by friendship with two principles: the rule of non-violence and the rule of mutual aid. US and Britain, for example, have a special relationship which is described as Kantian friendship: on the one hand, although there are some disputes between these two states, these processes have been totally initiated by non-violent and non-military means. On the other hand, if the security of either state is threatened by the third state (i.e., Nazi Germany, and USSR), they will fight as a team in order to defend themselves (Ibid: 298-9). Then collective security is possible, because “The cognitive boundaries of the Self are extended to include the Other: Self and Other form a single ‘cognitive region’ ” (ibid: 305).
In summary, constructivism pose three ontological propositions as follow. First, the role of ideas is more important than the role of material forces: how actors identify their material structures. “Intersubjective systemic structures consist of the shared understandings, expectations, and social knowledge embedded in international institutions and threat complexes, in terms of which states define (some of) their identities and interests” (Wendt 1994: 389). That is, intersubjective structure entitles the specific meanings to the material capabilities. In this sense, the Cold war, for example, was an intersubjective rather than material structure, in the sense states share perception and understanding by the axis of East and West: for example, nuclear capability of US and USSR poses a different meaning to Western Europe.
Second, identity constitutes interests and actions: “Identities are the basis of interests” (Wendt 1992: 398). Following the Ruggie’s contention above, Wendt argues that sovereignty is an institution, which is constituted by intersubjective understanding: “There is no sovereignty without an other…The essence of this community is a mutual recognition of one another’s right to exercise exclusive political authority within territorial limits” (ibid: 412). There are two mechanisms of identity formation: natural and cultural selection. Wendt argues that natural selection, on the one hand, is not a process of war of all against all, but a process of differential reproduction: he cites that there were 600,000 political entities in the world 3000 years ago, while only 200 today. Natural selection, according to Wendt, explains well about the emergence of the Hobbesean anarchy in the international system. A huge numbers of political entities ware unable to reproduce, and play power politics to survive. Natural selection plays a greater explanatory role in the world without shared ideas and knowledge (Wendt 1999:321-4). However, since the Westphalia, the death rate of political entities has dramatically fallen despite continuing warfare and unequal distribution of power.
In this regard, Wendt introduces the cultural selection: an evolutional mechanism that transfers the dominant ways of behaviours by especially imitation and social learning. The imitation is in which states imitate the successful former, and these imitations promotes the homogenisation of the state-system. Imitation is spread faster than natural selection. “Whereas natural selection can change a population’s characteristics only over many generations, imitation can do so as quick as an idea’s success can be demonstrated, certainly within the span of a single generation (ibid: 326). And this may explain the rapid expansion of the homogenised state forms in the late twentieth century without material incentives linked with reproductive process. Further, the social learning
Third, the agents and structures are mutually constituted, because structure is constructed by the way states define their identities and interests. Like Ruggie, Wendt also introduces structurationism instead of the neo-realists’ structuralist ontology. “The goal of structurationist ontology is to replace the ‘dualism’ of agency and social structure that pervades individualist and collectivist ontology with a perspective that recognises the ‘codetermined irreducibility’ of these two fundamental units of social analysis” (Wendt and Duvall 1989: 59). In opposing to individualism, structurationism accepts unobservable social structures that generate agent, and in opposing to structuralism, they oppose functionalism. These oppositions deconstruct subordination of one to other and/or relations of dependent or independent, instead it constructs ‘dialectical synthesis’ between agent and structure (Wendt 1987: 356). There are three key components of structuration: ‘Agents’ are purposive and socially recognised individuals or groups that intentionally and unintentionally produce/reproduce social structure. States are also agents in the way they are socially recognised by other states. ‘Systems’ are sets of interactions and practices among agents. For instance, state-system is sets of interaction and practices among existing states one another. ‘Structures’ are sets of internal relations that define identities, powers, and interests. State is also internal relations that constitutes identity and interest (Wendt and Duvall 1989: 59).
4. Deconstructivism
4-1. Richard Ashley
Ashley (1988) challenges the dominant interpretations of anarchy: while positivist-realist legacy asserts the logic of power politics in the anarchical world, Ashley focuses on the ‘Otherness’ of the Anarchical realm- Anarchy gives to an emphasis for the sovereign identity, in that the sovereign identity inside is sustained by anarchical realm outside, because sovereignty implies peace, order, and harmony, whereas anarchy indicates war, chaos, and violence. Ashley wrote
On
the one hand, the sign of ‘sovereignty’ betokens a rational identity: a
homogeneous and continuous presence that is hierarchically ordered, that has a
unique centre of decision presenting over a coherent ‘self’, and that is
demarcated from, and in opposition to, an external domain of difference and
change that resists assimilation to its identical being. On the other hand, the
sign of ‘anarchy’ betokens this residual external domain: an aleatory domain
characterised by difference and discontinuity, contingency and ambiguity, that
can be known only for its lack of the coherent truth and meaning expressed by a
sovereign presence (ibid: 230).
Ashley deconstructs the notions of Anarchy Problematique by using the Derrida’s double reading. As his first reading, he formulates three following conceptions: (1) the conception of the state an identical decision-making entity over a domestic society. (2) the conception of cooperation as an instruments of achieving national interests through joint action among states. (3) the conception of anarchy as a problematical situation, which is defined by a sense of a presence and an absence: in the presence, there are multiple state-system, a series of identical decision-making entity. In the absence, there is no global government and universal authority, which rule the world politics among states (ibid: 235-6). And his second reading implies to turn simple dichotomy between sovereign versus anarchy: sovereign signifies the homogeneity and rational order, while anarchy signifies the heterogeneity in an absence of centre and irrational order.
The
state must be represented as an entity having a coherent set of interests and
processing some set of means that it is able to deploy in the service of these
interests. This in turn requires that the state be represented as an entity
having absolute boundaries unambiguously demarcating a domestic ‘inside’ and
setting it off from an international ‘outside’
(Ibid: 248).
4-2. David Campbell
Campbell’s two works (1998a and 1998b) have precisely developed the Ashley’s notion of ‘anarchy problematique’: on the one hand, Writing Security (Campbell 1998a) focuses on the US foreign policy as the reading of the modernist sovereignty and anarchy problematique. Campbell deconstructs the dominant images of foreign policy, which negotiates state cooperation and tension between peace and war. He means ‘foreign policy’ is the process of differentiation: During the Cold War, the American free world identity has been constructed with specific reference to the communist block as an outside, because identity is defined as exclusionary forces in terms of inside and outside: an identity within inside is constructed with reference to the outside. “Identity can be understood as the outcome of exclusionary practices in which resistant element to a secure identity on the ‘inside’ are linked through a discourse of ‘danger’ with threats identified and located on the ‘outside’” (ibid: 68). Thus, the goal of foreign policy is to identify self and other by clarifying an outside. “Foreign Policy, being those practices of differentiation implicated in all confrontations between a self and other, embraces both positive and negative valences” (ibid: 73). This means the state identity and the realms of anarchy are co-associating: harmonious state identity inside is articulated with specific reference to violent anarchy outside. Campbell develops state-anarchy axis by Ashley in the sense that as outside of the sovereignty is dangerous, foreign policy can play roles as differentiation between peaceful inside and dangerous outside of state sovereignty in order to articulate the state identity within the state. Jim George puts
The
sovereign state (the US) is, in this way, framed and given identity in terms of
the discourse of anarchy and danger ‘outside’ it. Its foreign policy,
consequently, is accorded an irreducible logic which privileges the theory and
practice of power politics in its efforts to respond to the anarchical world
‘out there’…More importantly, the US must begin to critically reflect upon
itself, to reflect that its identity, framed in relation to danger between states
in an anarchical world, is part of a much larger regime of framing concerned
with the disciplining of dangers within the state (George 1993:
226).
In Writing Security, Campbell puts “There is a United States of America, and there are many who declare themselves to be ‘Americans’…but ‘America’ only exists by virtue of people coming to live in a particular place” (Campbell 1998a: 91). The US foreign policy has played a reproductive function of the American identity, which is clearly and specifically influenced by the communist threats. In actual fact, the US foreign policy during the Cold War had focused on identification of danger with reference to the Soviet Union. For instance, Kennan wrote in 1950 that communism has been seen as “a crisis of our own civilisation” (ibid: 27). That is, the foreign policy can be seen as the hegemonic projects in order to construct the particular national identity. This is the articulated antagonism between the civilised American and the barbaric communism (ibid: 139-40). For example, this below is what Campbell introduces as an articulated Americanism.
Ole Hanson, the mayor of Seattle in 1919,
published a book the following year that contained this articulation of
Americanism.
Americanism stands for liberty: Bolshevism
is premeditated slavery.
Americanism is a synonym for
self-government: Bolshevism believes in a dictatorship of tyrants.
Americanism means equality: Bolshevism
stands for class division and class rule.
Americanism stands for orderly, continuous,
never-ending progress: Bolshevism stands for retrograding to barbaric
government.
Americanism stands for law: Bolshevism
disdains law.
Americanism stands for hope: Bolshevism
stands for despair.
Americanism is founded on family love and
family life: Bolshevism is against family life.
Americanism stands for one wife and one
country: Bolshevism stands for free love and no country.
Americanism means increased production and
increased prosperity for all: Bolshevism stands for destruction, restriction of
output, and compulsory poverty.
Americanism believes in strength:
Bolshevism teaches premeditated weakness and inefficiency.
Americanism has taught, and Americans have
practiced morality: Bolshevism teaches and its votaries practice immorality,
indecency, cruelty, rape, murder, theft, arson.
Americanism stands for God and good: Bolshevism is against both God and good (ibid 143-4).
These sentences are as if exclusionary catalogue of Inside/Outside, which implies the civilised America inside and the barbaric Bolshevism outside. This trend has lasted in foreign policies of successive presidency: free world identity against the Soviet communism and threats of the sovietaisation of the world has been the dominant American public discourse in Nixon, Carter, and Regan administration that accommodate their foreign policy with this form between friend and enemy. The Nixon administration had stabilised the US Cold War identity that accommodated the global development of this articulation, which dichotomises between the civilised and the barbaric.
On the other hand, National Deconstruction (Campbell 1998b) examines the dissolution of Yugoslavian sovereignty and explosion of ethnic, religious, and cultural conflicts. Campbell exemplifies the anarchy problematique in the case of Bosnia (George 1995: 212). The sovereign state and the realms of anarchy is not ‘out there’, rather it is articulating by the discursive practice. Once, state sovereignty is disarticulated, ethnic identity is constructed with specific reference to other ethnicity: in a sense, the Bosnian identity inside is articulated by the other ethnicity in Yugoslavia outside.
In National deconstruction, Campbell also challenges the dominant interpretation of ethnic conflict in Bosnia with regard to the foundationalist accounts of the ethnic conflict, which is examined by the fixed territory and identity. Instead, he introduces Derrida’s notion of difference between inside/outside, and argues that the nationalist imaginary inside requires the violent relationship with others outside. He puts
In
contrast, this book aims to demonstrate that the settled norms of international
society- in particular, the idea that the national community requires the nexus
of demarcated territory and fixed identity- were not only insufficient to
enable a response to the Bosnian war, they were complicit in and necessary for
the conduct of the war itself. This is because inscribing the boundaries that
make the installation of the nationalist imaginary possible requires the
expulsion from the resultant ‘domestic’ space of all that comes to be regarded
as alien, foreign, and dangerous (Campbell 1998b: 13).
Campbell uses the Derrida’s deconstructive reading for examining ethnic violence. For one thing, he cited General Milan Gvero, the deputy commander of Bosnian Serb nationalist forces: “We say everybody has to live on his own territory, Muslims on Muslim territory, Serbs on Serbian…This (Serb areas in Bosnia) is pure Serbian territory, and there is no power on earth that can make us surrender it” (Quoted by Campbell 1998b: 45). In the Bosnian conflict, there are two predominant narratives: one is the civil war, which antagonises between various groups emerged in a variety of reasons. The other is international conflict, in which one state threatens another (Ibid: 61). According to the dominant interpretations, ethnicity is defined by the fixed components such as language, culture, nation, race, religion, and so forth. However, he deconstructs this dominant image of ethnicity and maintains that ethnicity is contingently constructed in the relation to the identity/ difference. “Ethnicity is a term that signifies relationships of power in the problematic of identity/ difference rather than being a signifier for which there is a stable referent (ibid: 92). This means, ethnicity is the best understood as contingent components: the contingent relationship between politics of identity and difference. The exclusionary practices in language, race, nation, and religion for instance, construct the imaginary of ‘ethnicity’, which is sustained by the antagonistic relation between inside and outside.
The
norm of territorial and cultural alignment, with its nexus between sovereignty
and identity, is central to international relations’ construction of the world
as comprising sovereign states in an anarchic realm. It is also the norm
(identified here as ‘ontopology’) that informed both the nationalists of the
former Yugoslavia and the negotiators of the international community. Although
it is no more than a form of ‘nostalgia for the politics of place’ ” (ibid:
165).
5. Explaining identity: Wendt and Campbell compared
For the purpose of evaluating constructivism and deconstructivism in the context of the third debate, I focus on three themes: ontology, epistemology, and methodology. This is because, as I noted above, the third debate is the disputation between positivism and post-positivism over these three issues: the role of the material versus the idea as ontology, foundationalism versus anti-foundationalism as epistemology, and empirical data versus discourse as methodology. Thus, I compare constructivism and deconstructivism with respect to these three theoretical issues, in terms of accounts of identity formation. In other words, I will attempt to determine whether constructivism or deconstructivism, could be the alternative of the positivist-realist legacy.
5-1. Ontology:
the relation between the material and the idea
Wendt maintains the dichotomy between materialism and idealism and emphasises in many instances the role of ideas rather than that of material forces. Wendt defines idealism in negative terms: (1) It is not a normative, but a scientific view how the world is. (2) Similarly, it does not assume any normative or moral commitments about human nature. (3) It does not mean that shared ideas have no objective reality. (4) It does not mean that social change is easy or possible in a given context, which is socially constructed. (5) It does not mean that power and interest are unimportant. According to Wendt, idealists share a minimal contention that “the deep structure of society is constituted by ideas rather than material forces” (Wendt 1999: 25). Although he clearly states that “in the end, there can only be two possibilities, materialist and idealist, because there are only two kinds of stuff in the world, material and ideational” (Ibid: 137), this is problematic given his simple division between materialism and idealism.
Firstly, as it is closely connected with a methodological issue, his first component of idealism assumes that this is a scientific view of how the world is. However, Wendt’s view is incompatible with, not only other post-positivists but also other constructivists. Constructivists like Kratochwil and Ruggie maintain that ideas and norms cannot be examined scientifically and/or empirically. “The positivist model of explanation is not easily applied to cases in which norms, so defined, are a significant element in the phenomena to be explained” (Kratochwil and Ruggie 1986: 767). Further, Wendt does not provide sufficient scientific/empirical data to demonstrate his propositions (Krasner 2000).
Secondly, Wendt maps neo-Gramscian Marxism as materialist, postmodern IR as idealist (Wendt 1999: 32 figure 2). However, according to his own definition of idealism, these are neither materialist nor idealist. This is because, contrary to the third component of his definition: idealism does not mean that shared ideas have no objective reality, post-modern IR radically contends that there is no objective truth. Moreover, Post-modernists focus on discourses rather than ideas:
By
not problematising the ideas versus materialist opposition, an important aspect
of postmodernism is misrepresented. The assumption is made that there is
agreement within all branches of constructivism that it is ideas that
socially construct things, whereas the focus for many postmodernists is discourse,
which is not synonymous with ideas (Doty 2000: 138).
Besides, contrary to the fourth component of his definition:
idealism does not mean that social change is possible in a given context,
Neo-Gramscian, although it distinguishes itself from utopian planning of
emancipation, emphasises the counter-hegemonic social movement in order to seek
an alternative world order.[5]
Thirdly, Wendt is very vague about the relation between the material and the idea. He insists that ideas give meanings to material forces, but says little about how?: “The critical point for Wendt is that ‘ideas’ are not mere variables but constitutive of ‘brute material forces’. What does he mean when he says that ideas constitute material forces?” (Palan 2000: 589). Moreover, Smith argues that Wendt suffers from “A confusing and ambiguous picture of the relationship between material and ideational, sometimes the material is an independent causal variable, at other times it is dependent variable whose power depends on ideational, at still other times it is an intervening variable” (Smith 2000: 154). For example, Wendt wrote as follow: “[T]he effects of anarchy and material structure depend on what states want” (Wendt 1999: 96): “[A]t some level material forces are constituted independently of society, and effect society in a causal way. Material forces are not constituted solely by social meanings” (ibid : 111): “Ultimately it is our ambitions, fears, and hopes- the things we want material forces for- that drives social evolution, not the material forces as such” (ibid: 113).
By contrast, deconstructivists departures from a dichotomy between material and idea: they focus on the embedded roles of ideas in the material world, which are shaped by the articulations of discourse (i.e., Campbell 1998a, 1998b, 2001, Doty 2000). Laclau and Mouffe propose ‘radical materialism’: “ideas do not constitute a closed and self-generated world, but are rooted in the ensemble of material conditions of society” (1987: 90). They continue
The
‘State’ or the ‘ideas’ would not be self-constituted identities but rather
‘differences’ in the Saussurean sense, whose only identity is established
relationally with other differences such as ‘productive forces’, ‘relations of
production’, etc…that the material reproduction of society is part of
discursive totalities which determine the meaning of the most ‘sublime’ forms
of political and intellectual life (ibid).
Following this position, Campbell does not take as idealism what Wendt meant, instead he focuses on how discourse articulates the relations between the material and the ideas. Campbell says:
One
of the most significant and negative consequences of constructivism so conceived
would be that it could invite a misreading in terms of
constructivism-as-philosophical-idealism (so that if policy makes through
differently the world would automatically the different). Such a concern is far
from being misplaced. Writing Security does not embody a constructivist
argument: it is, instead, concerned with the performative constitution of
identity (1998a: 219).
In the context of the dichotomy between materialism and idealism, the latter is “a different formulation of the same basic assumptions shared with the former” (ibid: 221).
5-2. Epistemology:
foundationalism and anti-foundationalism
Whereas Wendt clearly relies on foundationalism of the idea, Campbell falls into anti-foundationalism. Wendt argues that human description and social relations have nothing to do with any discourses (Wendt 1999: 49). But Kratochwil counters that essentialist descriptions do not help to understand symbolic structures in social lives, because these descriptions are neither neutral nor objective: “we cannot talk about ‘things in themselves’, but need descriptions: these descriptions are not neutral and somehow objective but embrace all types of social practices and interests that then makes the things into what they are called or referred to” (Kratochwil 2000: 95).
With regard to identity formation, Wendt’s foundationalism, however, suffers from the following shortcomings. Firstly, Wendt explains that interests are constituted by ideas and identities (1992: 398, 1999: 133-4). However, he does not show how identity is constituted: how the Hobbesian culture is constructed and how it has shifted to the Lockean and Kantian. “Wendt has no discussion of how actors are constituted into self and other in the first place…There is no discussion of how subjectivity and identities are formed, there is no discussion of the ‘identity of identity’ ” (Smith 2000: 160). Second, Wendt argues, by using Foucauldian logic, that the Hobbesian and Lockean anarchy are initiated by exclusion, but that in Kantian anarchy, states overcome exclusion and Others become a part of the Self. However, he does not provide reasons why states changes their perspective and/or why others becomes self.
He
[Wendt] does not, however, complete his hypothetical picture by giving an
account of how an international system may move from the Hobbesian culture of
enmity to the Lockean one of rivalry…However, Wendt’s exploration of the paths
from the Lockean to Kantian culture turns out also to be a hypothetical one,
pointing to a few factors which may contribute to bringing about such a
transformation, and not aimed to explain any specific case of transition
(Suganami 2002: 24-5).
Thirdly, Wendt says that imitation and social learning are an engine of homogenisation and socialisation of the state-system. However, he is ambiguous about the extent to which imitation and social learning play a role in socialising the state-system, and he provides no empirical demonstration of this.
Campbell observes that, although the early writings of Wendt (i.e., 1987) focus on the constitutive nature of agent and structure, he has gradually converged with state-centric views (i.e., 1994). “Indeed, Wendt’s self-professed modernist constructivism - which he has since dubbed ‘an essentialist or weak constructivism’- reendorses state-centric realism, with its implication of volitional agents, while marginalising a more radical understanding of identity” (Campbell 1998a: 219). Wendt’s version of foundationalism suffers from ambiguity as to how the certain ideas and identities come to be dominant and declined. By following an anti-foundational stance, Campbell, however, defines identity as difference (ibid: 9): there are no pre-existing foundations that determine an identity. Rather, identities are constructed through the differences between inside and outside. “the constitution of identity is achieved through the inscription of boundaries that serve to demarcate an ‘inside’ from an ‘outside’, a ‘self’ from an ‘other’, a ‘domestic’ from a ‘foreign’ (ibid). This is the most significant distinction between constructivists like Wendt and deconstructivists like Campbell: while the former assert that world politics is socially constructed (i.e., anarchy is what states make of it), the latter are more specific in the sense, that world politics is socially constructed by differences and discourses. States and sovereignties in world politics are constructed by discourses of identities, rather than the ideas and interests that constructivists use.
5-3. Methodology:
empirical data and discourse
Numerous positivist scholars (Keohane 1988, 1996, Krasner 2000, Mearsheimer 1998) challenge post-positivism on methodology: contrary to the positivism that employs theory-testing through empirical data, post-positivism, according to its critics, lacks a clear methodology to examine the transformation of world politics. This position may be represented by Mearsheimer whom I cited in the early part of this paper, who argues that post-positivism does not have a theoretical framework or mechanisms to explain the rise and fall of particular norms, ideas, and discourses. Toward these criticisms, post-positivists, like constructivists and deconstructivists, have developed tools to explain identity: constructivists explain using empirical data, and deconstructivists by discourse analysis. Here, my contention is that constructivists fail to account for identities using empirical data, and discourse analysis could be an alternative to it, since identities cannot be measured scientifically. Wendt fails to explain identity formation empirically. His concepts of identity formation, such as natural selection and cultural selection, cannot be supported by empirical data. As I noted, while Wendt argues that the Hobbesian anarchy initiated by self-help has been transferred to the Lockean anarchy by other-help, this is unsupported by empirical data. Krasner argues that “Wendt’s argument, however, is unsupported by empirical data and confronted by the thinness of norms in the international environment…The robustness of norms is particularly problematic in the international system because there is no structure of authority that can adjudicate among competing claims” (2000: 131).
In contrast, Campbell takes the opposite approach: explaining identity by discourses. He conceptualises identity as difference, and examines the differences by analysing discourse: identities are constituted by differentiation between the inside and outside (i.e., US free-world identity inside and barbarian communist world outside: Serbian ethnicity inside and others, like the Muslims, outside). These differentiations between inside and outside have diffused beyond the closure of the linguistic model. Discourse analysis then explores such antagonisms through the evolutions of discourse, since empirical methods are not available to study antagonism, which are not logical or objective phenomena. In other words, it uncovers the meaning of social structures by analysing how “political forces and social actors construct meanings within incomplete and undecidable social structures” (Howarth 2000: 129). Discourse analysis deals with text, because the concept of discourse denotes the meaning- and value-producing practice (Shapiro 1989: 14). This means that texts represent the evolution of discourse in social structures. In other words, there is no ontological distinction between text and behaviours because every object is constituted by discourse. Laclau and Mouffe argue:
Our
analysis rejects the distinction between discursive and non-discursive
practices. It affirms a)that every object is constituted as an object of
discourse, insofar as no object is given outside every discursive condition of
emergence: and b)that any distinction between what are usually called the
linguistic and behavioural aspects of a social practice, is either an incorrect
distinction or ought to find its place as a differentiation within the social
production of meaning, which is structured under the form of discursive
totalities (1985: 107)
Also
The
fact that every object is constituted as an object of discourse has nothing
to do with whether there is a world external to thought, or with
realism/idealism opposition. An earthquake or the falling of the brick is an
event that certainly exists, in the sense that it occurs here and now, independently
of my will. But whether their specificity as object is constituted in terms of
‘natural phenomena’ or ‘expressions of the wrath of God’, depends upon the
structuring of a discursive field. What is denied is not that such objects
exist externally to thought, but the rather different assertion that they could
constitute themselves as objects outside of any discursive condition of
emergence (ibid: 108).
These two quotations above strongly indicate the methodological relevance of discourse analysis. Positivist like Mearsheimer insist that there is no mechanism or authority to assess identity. Although Wendt fails to formulate identity formation and interest using empirical data, Campbell demonstrates the rise and fall of identity using discourse analysis. He defines identity as difference, and, for the purpose of assessing the difference, employs discourse analysis to examine US foreign policy and ethnic identity in Bosnia. Laclau and Mouffe, on the one hand, deconstruct an ontological distinction between textual and behavioural practices: the identity through the differentiation is constituted by discourse in society at large. On the other hand, they go further to deconstruct another ontology-materialism and idealism, in the sense that dichotomy between materialism and idealism is not appropriate, rather, the idea is embedded and constituted within the material structure by discursive totalities.
6. Concluding remarks
This paper deals with how constructivists and deconstructivists formulate the evolution of identity with specific reference to Wendt and Campbell. Wendt builds his theory of social constructivism by developing Ruggie’s concept of anarchy and territoriality. Wendt argues that anarchy is not an undeniable fact in world politics as realists assert, rather it is a construction among states. He categorises three anarchical cultures: the Hobbesian, the Lockean, and the Kantian. However, Wendt’s arguments fail on three counts. Ontologically, his dichotomy between materialism and idealism is inadequate, since his map of the relation between material and idea is ambiguous. Epistemologically, his essentialism does not sufficiently explain identity formation (e.g., the path from the Lockean to the Kantian culture of anarchy). Methodologically, although Wendt attempts to demonstrate the rise and fall of identity with reference to empirical tests, his arguments are unsupported by empirical data.
By contrast, Campbell does not rely on the materialism-idealism opposition. Rather he focuses on discourse based on the radical materialism of Laclau and Mouffe, in order to explain the rise and fall of identity. Contrary to constructivism, Campbell’s ontological position is that ideas are constituted in the material structure with reference to discourse. He demonstrates the role of discourse in the US foreign policy and the conflict in Bosnia. Also, Campbell’s anti-foundationalist epistemology explains identity formation much better than Wendt, in the sense that identity is constituted as difference and exclusion between an inside and an outside. Finally, by rejecting the constructivist methodology that explains identity by reference to empirical tests, Campbell attempts to account for identity formation by discourse. This is because if a particular identity is dominant, such a discourse also becomes dominant. In the case of US foreign policy, for instance, Campbell demonstrates how discourse that was antagonistic towards communism, became dominant in the US in order to account for the rise of the free world identity during the Cold War. Barry Buzan wrote
Discourse
analysis can uncover one thing: discourse. Whenever discourse and the
structures thereof are interesting in themselves, discourse analysis makes
sense…The technique is simple: Read, looking for arguments that takes the
rhetorical and logical form defined here as security…The analysis should be
conducted on texts that are central in the sense that if a security
discourse is operative in this community, it should be expected to materialise
in this text because this occasion is sufficiently important (Buzan etal 1998:
177)
Overall, post-structuralists such as Campbell who employing discourse analysis are better able to explain identity formation than constructivists like Wendt, who aim to adopt empirical tests. Moreover, discourse analysis has been able to respond to Mearsheimer’s critique on the mechanisms of discourse. The works of Campbell well-explains how a particular identity becomes dominant and then declines with reference to the US foreign policy and the conflict in Bosnia.
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