Theodore Hopf (born 1959) is an American academic and a leading figure in constructivism in international relations theory. He was a Provost Chair Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore (NUS). [1] He was also jointly appointed as Research Cluster Leader on Identities at the Asia Research Institute (ARI) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). [2] [3]
Theodore Hopf received his BA from Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1983 and Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University. [4] His main fields of interest are international relations theory, qualitative research methods, and identity, with special reference to the Soviet Union and the former Soviet space.
Hopf was the Provost Chair Professor of Political Science at NUS, and previously served on the faculties of Ohio State University, Ohio University and the University of Michigan. Hopf also held a 3-year joint appointment as Cluster Leader of the Identities Cluster in the Asia Research Institute (ARI) and Department of Political Science, National University of Singapore (NUS) from 1 July 2017 - 1 December 2020.
Following an internal, non-independent university review, Hopf's tenure was revoked and he was dismissed from the National University of Singapore on 1 December 2020 over an allegation of sexual misconduct. [5] A report sent to all staff, students and alumni on the same date states that Hopf admitted to making offensive remarks to a student about her body and sending a sexually explicit text. However, according to the report, Hopf claimed that the text was accidental and did not admit any allegations of physical harassment. Nonetheless, without awaiting an independent police investigation, the review board found that allegations of unwanted physical contact were "credible", and Hopf was found to have failed to follow the Staff Code of Conduct. [6]
His contribution to constructivism has been to bring the domestic into the theorization of how states acquire their identities. This provides a mid-range constructivism, below systemic, but avoiding the psychologism of individual levels of analysis. Hopf has been a force in advocating the adoption of as many mainstream social science methodological techniques as possible so long as their adoption does not do violence to the interpretivist roots of constructivism. Most recently he has been exploring how habits contribute to a constructivist understanding of social order in world politics. [7]
He has authored or edited five books. His 2002 Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign Policies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999, published by Cornell University Press won the Marshall D. Shulman Award, presented by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, for the best book of 2003 on the international politics of the former Soviet Union and Central Europe. In April 2012, Reconstructing the Cold War: The Early Years, 1945–1958, was published by Oxford University Press. [8]
A full list of Hopf's scholarly publications is maintained at his website.
Constructivism may refer to:
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 three most prominent schools of thought are realism, liberalism and constructivism. 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.
Friedrich Kratochwil is a German university professor who studied at the University of Munich before migrating to the United States, then subsequently returning to Europe. He received a PhD from Princeton University.
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, Erik Ringmar and others have, within a relatively short period, established constructivism as one of the major schools of thought in the field.
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.
Christian Reus-Smit is Professor of International Relations (IR) at the University of Melbourne, 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.
The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy is an autonomous postgraduate school of the National University of Singapore (NUS), named after the late former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew.
Chua Beng Huat is a Singaporean sociologist. He is currently Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Social Science at the National University of Singapore, and concurrently serving as a faculty member at the Yale-NUS College. "He has previously served as Provost Chair Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Science (2009-2017), Research Leader, Cultural Studies in Asia Research Cluster, Asia Research Institute (2000-2015); Convenor Cultural Studies Programmes (2008-2013) and Head, the Department of Sociology (2009-2015), National University of Singapore".
Thomas Risse is a Berlin-based international relations scholar. He currently acts as chair of the Center for Transnational Relations, Foreign and Security Policy at the Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science of Freie Universität Berlin. Furthermore, he has several engagements in German and international research networks, and heads the PhD program of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.
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.
Jeffrey T. Checkel is an American academic associated with the theory of constructivist school of international relations. He is currently professor and chair in International Politics at the European University Institute, Florence.
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.
Bryan Stanley Turner is a British and Australian sociologist. He was born in January 1945 in Birmingham, England. Turner has held university appointments in England, Scotland, Australia, Germany, Holland, Singapore and the United States. He was a Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge (1998–2005) and Research Team Leader for the Religion Cluster at the Asian Research Institute, National University of Singapore (2005–2008).
Huang Jianli is a retired Associate Professor of Chinese History at the National University of Singapore. He was a research associate at the East Asian Institute and Invited Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Chinese Language and Culture, Nanyang Technological University. Huang was the 2011 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow on Southeast Asia.
Tan Tai Yong is a Singaporean academic who is the current President of Singapore University of Social Sciences. He served as the President of Yale-NUS College from 2017 to 2022. He is also Chairman of the Management Board of the Institute of South Asian Studies, an autonomous university-level research institute in NUS. He was a former Nominated Member of Parliament and served from 2014 to 2015.
Zheng Yongnian is a Chinese political scientist and political commentator who has studied and written on contemporary China and especially on Chinese politics. Zheng joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen in September 2020 and was appointed Director of the Advanced Institute of Global and Contemporary China Studies. He became the founding dean of the university's School of Public Policy in September 2024. He was a professor and director of the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore since 2008 until his resignation in 2020 amid alleged incidents of sexual misconduct.
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.
Chih-yu Shih is a political science professor in Taiwan and National Chair Professor of the Republic of China. He has proposed a balance of relationship theory that both universally applies to bilateral relationships and complements the existing balance of power theory.
Lily L.L. Kong is a Singaporean geographer currently serving as president of the Singapore Management University (SMU). She is the first female and Singaporean academic to helm a Singapore university. Prior joining SMU, she was a faculty member at the Department of Geography of the National University of Singapore (NUS) and had held various senior managerial positions at NUS.