NOTES ESSAY IR ME
Setting:
- Introduction – what the essay is about
- Constructivism meaning/ foreign policy what is – 2 strands 3 forms – role of norms + ideas +
identities + language - constructivism contribution to foreign policy (w respect to what other
failure)
- LIBEARLISM AND REALISM DIDN’T CONSIDER THE IDEATIONAL FACTOR only about material IN
WORLD POLITICS – problem
- Iraq invasion case study – cause of strategic culture (set of norms normative aspects) bring about a
new norm, norm can change - ideas (ideology – neoconservatism of bush adm) shaping US foreign
policy, manipulation of info, speeches using vocab. precisely – realism òiberalism not good to
explain it
- Conclusion: construvism best to explain not the only one
FIRST READING
https://www.e-ir.info/2011/07/17/the-relevance-of-constructivism-to-foreign-policy-analysis/
AIM key contributions of constructivism to fpa (which revitalize it)
Foreign Policy Analysis been studied in liberal – realist perspective but it is “a kind of free-floating
enterprise,” arguing that for the FPA agenda to be revitalized and reinvigorated, “it must hitch its wagon to
some of the critical substantive debates going on in IR theory today.”
For Houghton, “the most logical base” from which FPA can be approached social constructivism for its
“the cognitive psychological approach to the study of foreign policy.”
Relationship foreign policy – constructivism: 3 ways
1. the role actors and bureaucracies play in shaping foreign policy
2. the process of decision-making
3. the effect of international system or society on the conduct of foreign policy by states
1) similarities between constructivism, especially the conventional or American strand, and foreign policy
analysis, particularly its cognitive branch, is their common concentration on the ways in which “various
cognitive processes” impact upon foreign policy construction, as well as on agency and agents, either
“state-based foreign policy elites” – stressed by FP analysts – or “non-state norm entrepreneurs” –
highlighted by constructivists – that influence and orientate foreign policy practices
2) With respect to differences between constructivist and FPA examinations of foreign policy, one can
point to the level of inquiry which is mostly “micro” in FPA, concerning individual policy-makers’ “learning
and psychological biases,” and “macro” in conventional constructivist analyses, focusing on “broader social
structural context” and investigating “the role of social learning” instead.[4] Apart from this
methodological distinction, they also differ in epistemological terms in that the bulk of FPA literature
follow a “loosely positivist epistemology” whereas constructivism is deeply divided between positivist and
interpretive perspectives.
constructivism has appeared in two major varieties, North American and European:
Differences in their approach ranging from those that “reject scientific-style theorizing and stress the
interpretive nature of social science and other sciences” to those that allow for the use of natural science-
like and empirical theoretical insights in explaining international relations dynamics.+ differ principally in
Setting:
- Introduction – what the essay is about
- Constructivism meaning/ foreign policy what is – 2 strands 3 forms – role of norms + ideas +
identities + language - constructivism contribution to foreign policy (w respect to what other
failure)
- LIBEARLISM AND REALISM DIDN’T CONSIDER THE IDEATIONAL FACTOR only about material IN
WORLD POLITICS – problem
- Iraq invasion case study – cause of strategic culture (set of norms normative aspects) bring about a
new norm, norm can change - ideas (ideology – neoconservatism of bush adm) shaping US foreign
policy, manipulation of info, speeches using vocab. precisely – realism òiberalism not good to
explain it
- Conclusion: construvism best to explain not the only one
FIRST READING
https://www.e-ir.info/2011/07/17/the-relevance-of-constructivism-to-foreign-policy-analysis/
AIM key contributions of constructivism to fpa (which revitalize it)
Foreign Policy Analysis been studied in liberal – realist perspective but it is “a kind of free-floating
enterprise,” arguing that for the FPA agenda to be revitalized and reinvigorated, “it must hitch its wagon to
some of the critical substantive debates going on in IR theory today.”
For Houghton, “the most logical base” from which FPA can be approached social constructivism for its
“the cognitive psychological approach to the study of foreign policy.”
Relationship foreign policy – constructivism: 3 ways
1. the role actors and bureaucracies play in shaping foreign policy
2. the process of decision-making
3. the effect of international system or society on the conduct of foreign policy by states
1) similarities between constructivism, especially the conventional or American strand, and foreign policy
analysis, particularly its cognitive branch, is their common concentration on the ways in which “various
cognitive processes” impact upon foreign policy construction, as well as on agency and agents, either
“state-based foreign policy elites” – stressed by FP analysts – or “non-state norm entrepreneurs” –
highlighted by constructivists – that influence and orientate foreign policy practices
2) With respect to differences between constructivist and FPA examinations of foreign policy, one can
point to the level of inquiry which is mostly “micro” in FPA, concerning individual policy-makers’ “learning
and psychological biases,” and “macro” in conventional constructivist analyses, focusing on “broader social
structural context” and investigating “the role of social learning” instead.[4] Apart from this
methodological distinction, they also differ in epistemological terms in that the bulk of FPA literature
follow a “loosely positivist epistemology” whereas constructivism is deeply divided between positivist and
interpretive perspectives.
constructivism has appeared in two major varieties, North American and European:
Differences in their approach ranging from those that “reject scientific-style theorizing and stress the
interpretive nature of social science and other sciences” to those that allow for the use of natural science-
like and empirical theoretical insights in explaining international relations dynamics.+ differ principally in
