On Global Learning and the politics of the New Constructivism

Introduction

The question Constructivism’s political and ethical commitments emerged at the same time as Constructivism itself appeared on the IR scene in the late 1980s and 1990s. From one direction, critical, post-structural and post-modernist theorists such as Robert Cox and Richard Ashley defected from the new Constructivist perspective, while feminists like the aforementioned Enloe and Tickner continued to explore the normatively gendered structure of world politics. In so doing, the “posties” implied that Constructivism shared the conservative politics of the then-reigning “neorealist-neoliberal” synthesis. From the other side, however, rationalists like Robert Keohane distanced themselves from a Constructivism lumped in with so-called “reflectivist” work on institutions, implying that at heart Constructivism shared the progressive/Marxian politics of the “posties.” For their part, many early constructivists like Martha Finnemore, Audie Klotz, Richard Price, Kathryn Sikkink, Margaret Keck were in no doubt that their chosen perspective did indeed have such progressive politics. By highlighting how normative agreements, and the role of sub-state actors in their formation and spread, could act back against the interests of the militarily and economically powerful, Constructivism had an inherent politics. Yet, at the same time, a new consensus was emerging that saw Constructivism as a “via media” between rationalist and critical/post-positivist positions, and therefore could escape the “dangerous liaison” with critical/post-positivist modes of thought. Via media Constructivism became one label among many others that emerged to grasp a mainstream constructivist approach focused on explanation of world politics using concepts like norms, identities, and culture, rather than critique or normative evaluation of those same features of world politics.

In a recent book that describes a New Constructivism in International Relations Theory (McCourt, 2022), I argued that Constructivism as an approach in IR is politically agnostic. Allow me to briefly explain. The New Constructivism is a capacious label covering connected movements toward practice theory, relationalism, emotions and micro-sociology, and various network perspectives. A full overview of these approaches is beyond the scope of this forum, but they are part of a New Constructivism in that they make up a shift away from the early (or by implication “Old”) constructivism described above, at the same time as doing what Constructivism in IR does, which is to borrow from cognate fields like sociology, social psychology, and cultural anthropology, to expand the field’s conceptual language beyond narrow rationalist imaginaries. Older Constructivism made a disciplinary splash by depicting states and non-state actors (Keck and Kathryn, 1998) as driven by norms of behavior, from what is expected of great powers (Ringmar, 1996), to what proportion of female legislators a modern state should employ (Towns, 2010). However, Constructivism soon became equated with the conceptual triptych of norms, identity, and culture viewed in fixed, essentialized, terms. Missing was the practice, struggle, emotions, relations, networks of influence, etc, by which normative arrangements come to cause action in world politics. The core features of the New Constructivism, I claim, are (1) anti-foundationalism; (2) anti-essentialism; (3) methodological omnivorousness; (4) conceptual pluralism; (5) necessarily historical nature; 6) political agnosticism; (7) inherent reflexivity; and finally, (8) its attunement to affect and emotion (McCourt, 2022).

Ralph (2023) agrees fully on all but no. 5: the New Constructivism’s political agnosticism, the claim that constructivism doesn’t have a politics, “a theoretically informed view on what counts as good versus bad social change,” able thereby to explain processes and change many of us might view with distaste. However, In On Global Learning, Ralph makes the case for a Pragmatic Constructivism which, drawing on the work of John Dewey and others, posits for IR constructivists a specific comportment toward and ethical commitments vis-à-vis world politics.

Specifically, this commitment is to a social role within which constructivists assess whether normative arrangements “alleviate the lived problems” of global publics. These “normative arrangements” can include regimes and international organizations, national identities and cultures, and the deep normative structure of international relations—the traditional bailiwick of IR constructivists, who view these arrangements as more than the surface epiphenomena described by interest- and power-focused rationalists and realists, respectively. For Ralph, the job of constructivists is to analyze whether and how far the normative content of world politics make the lives of real peoples and communities better. In terms of political commitments, therefore, by combining Deweyan insights with those from the literature on communities of practice, it follows for Ralph that IR Constructivism implies a commitment to liberal democracy. The reason is that unlike autocratic or authoritarian ones, democratic arrangements, Ralph argues, are best positioned to deal with the pluralism of interests and identities that exist in politics at every level. On its face optimistic, Ralph is clear that self-interestedness and disagreement are the basic stuff of politics. In terms evocative of the work of umlaut on the u, so Jürgen Habermas, Ralph nevertheless places faith in the potential of agonistic political communities to learn together the best way to alleviate lived social problems. While enlightened despots might occasionally hit upon the public good, their tendency toward elite and populist capture renders them far less able to represent publics, and continually learn how best—if imperfectly—to do so.

Like the politicians they study, academics are loathe to reassess their assumptions, not to mention change their mind, sooner doubling down than admitting they might be wrong. Yet, I am convinced that, following Dewey, Ralph has identified a legitimate politics of the New Constructivism. As Ralph explains, “because New Constructivism’s anti-essentialism and anti-foundationalism demands treating values as hypotheses it leans heavily toward the Pragmatist’s ethical commitment to deliberation and learning; and it is not far from that toward a political commitment to democracy as a form of social inquiry and a means of coping with (and defending) pluralism. This commitment to democracy seems to be unstated in the argument that New Constructivism accommodates ‘a plurality of ethical commitments’ (McCourt, 2022).”

But is Ralph’s pragmatic constructivism the only comportment toward politics appropriate to the New Constructivism as a whole? There remains no “view from nowhere” from which to assess whether any given set of norms and practices alleviate lived experiences. As a meta-political claim, consequently, I have no reservations: communities can disagree on what specific arrangements best alleviate lived problems, but they should be able to agree that participating in the clarification of which norms do or do not alleviate lived problems is the role of the scholar. But what might be termed a primary political claim, I am not yet convinced. In part, this is because I remain skeptical that what we have in most advanced democracies is really all that liberal or democratic. In part, however, I would not want to close the space of the New Constructivism for asking that very question, in adequately reflexive, relational, non-essentialist and historical ways—a form of analysis which might give us a good handle on why the liberal democracy we have is so lacking in its ability to do what Ralph wants: alleviate lived social problems.

Ralph’s challenge to the claim that the New Constructivism is necessarily political agnostic is a real one, and I’ll leave it to readers to decide whether they agree with Ralph or my initial position, and I hope to learn from them in turn. I am now convinced that, were I to write the book again (perhaps a second edition?), I would at the least re-word my claim that the New Constructivism is necessarily politically agnostic, if not remove the claim altogether.