Alexander Wendt is among the most influential scholars in
the field of international relations and rightly so as his work has deeply affected
the way that scholars now think about international relations. In the first
chapter of his essay “Social Theory of International Politics” Wendt talks
about that constructivism theory that he feels is the most realistic and
credible and also focuses on the epistemology and ontology. He supports his view
by providing counter arguments to the critic’s criticism, using general logic
and providing evidence/examples from international relations and politics.
To start off, Wendt talks about his ‘state centric approach’
and ‘systems theory’ beliefs. He talks about how states are extremely important
actors in the internal political domain and so the international system can
change based on how states change and their relations to other states. Wendt
agrees that it might be the case that non-state actors are slowly becoming more
important actors but at the end of the day any system change that happens still
happens though states. He also argues that the states are not independent of
each other, rather states change based on the changes of their relationship
with other states as well as changes in other states and that together this
leads to a change in the international system.
However what I find lacking in his arguments is the lack of ‘man’.
Wendt’s phrases his argument in a way that seems to indicate that there is no element of
man which causes changes in the international system. And as shown by Waltz,
man is an important element that should be thought of when deciding how changes
might come about.
Wendt goes on to talk about the differences between
constructivism and its alternatives on three different dimensions: methodology,
ontology and empirical differences. He
also goes on to talk about how he is a positivist, that “what really matters is
what there is rather then how we know about it” and that science should be
question driven rather than method driven.
Interesting how you feel that there is a lack of man in Wendt's argument. Perhaps the idea of social constructivism that he advocates takes into account the general agency of the society and its response to foreign factors. If he were to look at it strictly from a man's perspective, it would become more of an anthropological debate.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Scheherazade. Man is central to his argument because his argument is about ideas. Where do ideas come from? From man of course.
ReplyDelete