Intro to international relations. Class 3

1.

PLS 150 INTRO TO INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
DR MAJA SAVEVSKA
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science and International Relations
SSH | Nazarbayev University
Office: 8.502
Email: [email protected]
04-09-22
Intro to IR
Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan

2.

Agenda for Week Three
Monday
• Holiday
Wednesday
Friday
• Current
Events
(10min)
• Lecture on
constructivism
(40min)
• Current
Events (10
min)
• Lecture on
feminist
approaches
(40min)

3.

Current Events

4.

Theoretical Approaches
Realism
Liberalism
Constructivism

5.

Realism
Most important actor and level
of analysis
Main concern
Assumptions about states
Objectives
International system
Role of IOs
Central Variable
Liberalism/Neoliberal
Institutionalism
Constructivism

6.

Overview of Previous Theories
Realism
Anarchy › self-help
States are
positional actors
Relative gains
Balance of power
Neo-Liberal Institutionalism
States are rational
actors: egotistic, but
not envious
Absolute gains
IOs facilitate
cooperation

7.

Constructivism
HISTORY
Response to
neorealism and
neoliberal
institutionalism
Late 1980s, early
1990s
MAIN PROPONENTS
Alexander Wendt,
John Ruggie, Nicolas
Onuf, Martha
Finnemore, Friedrich
Kratochwil

8.

Constructivism
Social Facts
Social facts are very real (ex: institutions,
language, norms etc.)
They are products of the intersubjective
(collective) held beliefs
Social facts have causal properties, while
material facts are indeterminate

9.

Constructivism
Social Facts
Global affairs are laden with social
facts:
Anarchy
During Cold War
After Cold War
Ex: Sovereignty
Treaty of Westphalia
Today R2P Norm

10.

Constructivism
Main Claim
Ideas and norms matter
Thus, we need to pay attention to
the intersubjective structure of
meaning and not the structure of
power

11.

Constructivism
Ideas and Norms
Norms assign meaning to material facts
Change in ideas can change behaviour

12.

Constructivism
STATES
States are not self-interested rational
actors with fixed preference over time
States are utility maximizers but
perception of utility depends on
intersubjective understanding

13.

Fundamental Differences
Rational Choice
Actors have clear
and fixed
preferences over
outcomes
Constructivism
Preference are not
exogenously given,
but constructed
Interests cannot be
assumed from
behaviour, but must
be explained
Perception matters

14.

Constructivism
INTERNATIONAL SOCIEITY
Anarchy is what states make of it
Logic of appropriateness not of
consequences
Identity is not prior to international
society (no optimization prior to
socialization)

15.

Constructivism
Interactions
Interactions influences preference
Ex. Trade negotiations: persuasive argumentation
not just coercive bargaining

16.

Inter-Subjective Understanding
Transnational
Non-State
Actors
States
International
Organizations
Communicative
action i.e.
discursive
practices
Ex: reporting,
monitoring,
shaming
Reconfiguration
of new identities.
Change in the
inter-subjective
understanding

17.

Case Study: US Grand Strategy Towards
Russia
Constructivism
Rational choice approaches
How would neorealists
and neoliberal
institutionalists explain
the rising US-Russia
tensions?
How would
constructivists explain
the shift in US foreign
policy towards Russia?