Social Constructivism

Like critical theorists and post modernists, constructivists argue that there is no external,
objective social reality as such. The social and political world is not a physical entity or
material object that is outside the realm of human consciousness. The international system
does not exist on its own like the solar system. It exists only as an inter-subjective awareness
among people. It is a human invention or creation of a purely intellectual and ideational kind.
It is a set of ideas which has been arranged by certain people at a particular time and place.
The system will change when there is a change in the thoughts and ideas that enter into the
existence of International Relations.
Constructivists reject the view of positivists and behaviouralists that reality can be studied
through a scientific approach because it is not an external reality that can be discovered by
scientific research and explained by scientific theory. The social and political world is not part of
nature. Therefore, there are no natural laws of society, economics or politics. The social world is
a world of human consciousness: of thoughts and beliefs, of ideas and concepts, of languages
and discourses, of signs, signals, and understandings among human beings, especially groups of
human beings, such as states and nations. The social world, being an inter subjective domain, is
meaningful to the people who make it and live in it.
Peter Katzenstein (The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics) and
Alexander Wendt ('Anarchy is What States Make of It) are some of the leading scholars of this
approach.

The international systems of security and defense consists of territories population, weapons
and other physical assets. But it is the ideas and belief behind those assets which are most
important. The intellect is the main guiding principle behind the conception, organization and
use of such cases in alliances, armed forces etc. Although the physical element is also present, it
is secondary to the intellectual element. The physical assets lose the meaning and utility
without the intellectual component. Nations, nationalism and national identities are social
constructions of time and place.
According to constructivists, conflict is not understood as a collision between forces or entities.
It is rather, a disagreement or dispute or disagreement or dispute or misunderstanding or lack
of communication or some other intellectual discord between conscious agents. It is a conflict
of minds and wills of the parties involved. Therefore, to understand it properly it is necessary to
enquire to the discourses at play. Thus the sentiments, the beliefs and the ideas by which
conflict is organized and expressed, are immensely important. Research then, is a matter of
interpretation rather than explanation.

Constructivists are not satisfied with the explanations of neorealism because the latter tends to
disregard such conditioning elements and, on the contrary, focus on military power and material
interests alone. For constructivist, international relations are more complex, and they pay
particular attention to the cultural-institutional normative aspects of that complexity.
Moreover, culture, identity, norms and institutions are all elements of an inter-subjective
domain that is created rather than an objective world that is discovered.

Alexander Wendt captured the core of constructivism in International Relations in his remark,
anarchy is what states make of it. He takes a clear position against the positivist theory of
Neorealism and particularly that of Kenneth Waltz. For Wendt, there is no objective
international world apart from the practices and institutions that states arrange among
them. By arguing that "Self-help and power politics are institutions, not essential features of
anarchy”. Wendt rejects the central thesis of Neorealism. There is nothing like a security
dilemma between sovereign states because any situation, that states find themselves in, is a
situation that they themselves have created. States are not prisoners of the anarchical
structure of the state system. They construct one another in their relations and in so doing, they
also construct the international anarchy that defines their relation. When anarchy is what states
make of it, there is nothing inevitable or unchangeable about world politics. If states change
their conceptions as to who they are, what their interests are, what they want etc, then the
situation will change accordingly.