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Nicholas Onuf (born 1941) is an American scholar. Onuf is currently Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Florida International University and is on the editorial boards of International Political Sociology, Cooperation and Conflict, and Contexto Internacional. He is a constructivist scholar of international relations. [1] He has been credited with coining the term "Constructivism." [2]
His best known contribution to constructivism is set out in World of Our Making (University of South Carolina Press, 1989). His premise is based on a continuum of performative language, rules and rule. Three types of speech act (instructive, directive, commissive) yield corresponding types of rules that, in turn, yield three types of rule (hegemony, hierarchy, heteronomy). Compliance with rules helps sustain rule, but failure to abide by them erodes rule. Rule, generally through institutionalized means, has distributive effects in political society (domestic or international), granting privileged access to material and symbolic resources to some agents over others.
One novelty of this approach is to go beyond the 'anarchy problematique' in IR (Richard Ashley's term). Instead of different types of anarchy (as in Alexander Wendt's Hobbesian, Lockean, and Kantian anarchichal settings), Onuf presents hegemony, hierarchy, and heteronomy as different structures of domination in world affairs (i.e. the absence of world government does not necessarily imply anarchy). These structures are respectively enabled by the repetition over time of behavior consistent with instructive, hierarchichal, and commissive rules by agents.
Instructive rules constitute reality: if one person utters the locution 'country X has moral superiority in world affairs', another person accepts it (illocution), and many other people act accordingly (perlocution), reality will have been constituted by this speech act. This may be converted into a number of instructive rules, which in turn, if followed over time, create, for instance, cultural hegemony. Hierarchichal rules work likewise but have to do with social relations based on force. Cold War spheres of influence are a classical example of their deployment in world affairs. Commissive rules create obligations for agents that would otherwise not exist: when an agent utters the locution 'I promise to make tariff cuts', such a statement can only exist in and through language and may be converted into a general rule. Such rules limit the agent's autonomy, resulting in a heteronomous structure of domination such as that found in the core-periphery setting of the world economy as expounded by Dependency Theory.
Onuf further developed and refined the ideas set out in World in a series of chapters in edited volumes:
International relations (IR) are the interactions among sovereign states. The scientific study of those interactions is also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns all activities among states—such as war, diplomacy, trade, and foreign policy—as well as relations with and among other international actors, such as intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), international legal bodies, and multinational corporations (MNCs). There are several schools of thought within IR, of which the most prominent are realism, liberalism, and constructivism.
International relations theory is the study of international relations (IR) from a theoretical perspective. It seeks to explain behaviors and outcomes in international politics. The four most prominent schools of thought are realism, liberalism, constructivism, and rational choice. Whereas realism and liberalism make broad and specific predictions about international relations, constructivism and rational choice are methodological approaches that focus on certain types of social explanation for phenomena.
Alexander Wendt is an American political scientist who is one of the core social constructivist researchers in the field of international relations, and a key contributor to quantum social science. Wendt and academics such as Nicholas Onuf, Peter J. Katzenstein, Emanuel Adler, Michael Barnett, Kathryn Sikkink, John Ruggie, Martha Finnemore, and others have, within a relatively short period, established constructivism as one of the major schools of thought in the field.
Regime theory is a theory within international relations derived from the liberal tradition that argues that international institutions or regimes affect the behavior of states or other international actors. It assumes that cooperation is possible in the anarchic system of states, as regimes are, by definition, instances of international cooperation.
Realism, a dominant school of thought in international relations theory, is a theoretical framework that sees the global system as lacking a centralized authority, leading to a state of anarchy. It centers on states as primary actors, driven by rational self-interest and navigating a system shaped by power politics, national interest, and a pursuit of security and self-preservation.
Reflectivism is an umbrella label used in International Relations theory for a range of theoretical approaches which oppose rational-choice accounts of social phenomena and positivism generally. The label was popularised by Robert Keohane in his presidential address to the International Studies Association in 1988. The address was entitled "International Institutions: Two Approaches", and contrasted two broad approaches to the study of international institutions. One was "rationalism", the other what Keohane referred to as "reflectivism". Rationalists — including realists, neo-realists, liberals, neo-liberals, and scholars using game-theoretic or expected-utility models — are theorists who adopt the broad theoretical and ontological commitments of rational-choice theory.
Marxist and neo-Marxist international relations theories are paradigms which reject the realist/liberal view of state conflict or cooperation, instead focusing on the economic and material aspects. It purports to reveal how the economy trumps other concerns, which allows for the elevation of class as the focus of the study.
In international relations (IR), constructivism is a social theory that asserts that significant aspects of international relations are shaped by ideational factors. The most important ideational factors are those that are collectively held; these collectively held beliefs construct the interests and identities of actors.
In international relations theory, the concept of anarchy is the idea that the world lacks any supreme authority or sovereignty. In an anarchic state, there is no hierarchically superior, coercive power that can resolve disputes, enforce law, or order the system of international politics. In international relations, anarchy is widely accepted as the starting point for international relations theory.
The English School of international relations theory maintains that there is a 'society of states' at the international level, despite the condition of anarchy. The English school stands for the conviction that ideas, rather than simply material capabilities, shape the conduct of international politics, and therefore deserve analysis and critique. In this sense it is similar to constructivism, though the English School has its roots more in world history, international law and political theory, and is more open to normative approaches than is generally the case with constructivism.
Christian Reus-Smit is Professor of International Relations (IR) at the University of Queensland, in Brisbane Australia. He is an internationally renowned scholar in the field of IR. Reus-Smit's research focuses on the institutional nature and evolution of international orders, and he has published on widely on issues of international relations theory, international law, multilateralism, human rights, American power, and most recently, cultural diversity and international order. He is long-time editor of the Cambridge Studies in International Relations book series, and was a Founding Editor with Duncan Snidal and Alexander Wendt of the leading journal International Theory. His publications have been awarded many prizes, including the Susan Strange Best Book Prize (2014), the BISA Best Article Prize (2002), and the Northedge Prize (1992). In 2013-14 Professor Reus-Smit served as a Vice-President of the International Studies Association.
James D. Fearon is the Theodore and Francis Geballe Professor of Political Science at Stanford University; he is known for his work on the theory of civil wars, international bargaining, war's inefficiency puzzle, audience costs, and ethnic constructivism. According to a 2011 survey of International Relations scholars, Fearon is among the most influential International Relations scholars of the last twenty years. His 1995 article "Rationalist Explanations for War" is the most assigned journal article in International Relations graduate training at U.S. universities.
Jennifer Sterling-Folker is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut. She was the Alan R. Bennett Honors Professor of Political Science. She is a specialist in International Relations theory.
Martha Finnemore is an American constructivist scholar of international relations, and University Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. She is considered among the most influential international relations scholars. Her scholarship has highlighted the role of norms and culture in international politics, as well as shown that international organizations are consequential and purposive social agents in world politics that can shape state interests.
Feminist constructivism is an international relations theory which builds upon the theory of constructivism. Feminist constructivism focuses upon the study of how ideas about gender influence global politics. It is the communication between two postcolonial theories; feminism and constructivism, and how they both share similar key ideas in creating gender equality globally.
Social Theory of International Politics is a book by Alexander Wendt. It expresses a constructivist approach to the study of international relations and is one of the leading texts within the constructivist approach to international relations scholarship.
"Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics" is a journal article by Alexander Wendt published in International Organization in 1992 that outlines a constructivist approach to international relations theory.
The rationalist–constructivist debate is an ontological debate within international relations theory between rationalism and constructivism. In a 1998 article, Christian Reus-Smit and Richard Price suggested that the rationalist–constructivist debate was, or was about to become, the most significant in the discipline of international relations theory. The debate can be seen as to be centered on preference formation, with rationalist theories characterising changes in terms of shifts in capabilities, whereas constructivists focus on preference formation.
Rodney Bruce Hall is an American Professor of International Relations and among those scholars known as Second Generation Constructivists. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in physics and subsequently a master's degree in international relations and a PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania under the supervision of Friedrich Kratochwil, one of the founding scholars of constructivism in international relations.
J. Samuel Barkin is a Canadian political scientist and a professor of global governance and human security at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Constructivism was introduced to IR by Nicholas Onuf (1989) who coined the term
The term "constructivism" comes from Nicholas Onuf
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