Professional Documents
Culture Documents
International Relations
Psychology and Constructivism
in International Relations
an ideational alliance
edited by
Vaughn P. Shannon and
Paul A. Kowert
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
jz1253.p79 2012
327.101dc23
2011020858
Preface
not only complement each other but are natural allies urging more atten-
tion to subjective or ideational concerns within the broader conversation
of international relations scholarship. There are clearly different views of
the ideational alliance within these pages, from those seeking to adjust a
particular constructivist or psychological argument to those seeking a
broader synthesis. We did not expect contributors to this volume necessar-
ily to agree about each point of convergence. Precisely these differences are
likely to be productive as this conversation unfolds.
From its inspiration to its realization, this book was made possible
through the generous help and counsel of many people. Both of the editors
owe a particular debt to the unique community of scholars at Ohio State
University, where Shannon was a doctoral student and Kowert held a post-
doctoral fellowship. Some members of this community (Margaret Her-
mann and Richard Ned Lebow, for example) no longer call Columbus
home, while others (Richard Herrmann and Ted Hopf) remain. Collec-
tively, however, they have provided exceptional training to a generation of
students interested in many of the issues on which this book focuses. We
consider ourselves fortunate to have been a part of this unique intellectual
environment.
We particularly thank Marijke Breuning (also a part of the Invisible Col-
lege of Political Psychology based at the Ohio State Universitys Mershon
Center) and Richard Herrmann for conversations and comments that pro-
vided early inspiration for this book project. At the 2008 and 2009 ISA con-
ference panels organized as part of this project, David Brule, Spyridon
Kotsovilis, and Alex Mintz offered illuminating comments and suggestions.
Rose McDermott and Anthony Lopez perform a similar service by con-
tributing an essay to this volume that reects critically on the other chap-
ters and on the whole. And anonymous reviewers from the University of
Michigan Press pushed us to rene and clarify the collective and individual
efforts of the project, saving us from many errors along the way.
During the 20089 academic year, the Fulbright Program provided sup-
portand Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, provided a congenial envi-
ronmentfor Kowert to continue work on this project. As we prepared the
manuscript for print, Melody Herr at the University of Michigan Press not
only believed in our vision but also fought to make it a reality while en-
couraging us along the way. Wright State graduate assistant Charlene Pres -
ton was immensely helpful in compiling and formatting the bibliography.
preface vii
Finally, as usual, our families suffered for our editorial sinschief among
them our inability to complete each step more quickly and with fewer dis-
ruptions to their lives. We are in their debt.
Vaughn Shannon
Dayton, Ohio
Paul Kowert
Miami, Florida
Contents
References 239
Contributors 271
Index 275
Introduction: Ideational AlliesPsychology,
Constructivism, and International Relations
vaughn p. shannon
minate situations that culture studies may be able to explain, but such
a concession begs the question of what is (or, rather, what is not) a struc-
turally indeterminate situation requiring the perspective of agent interpre-
tation.29 Richard Herrmann warns against objectivists dressed in subjec-
tivist, phenomenological clothingthat is, studies that measure
perceptions and expectations with objectivist indicators.30 We share the
view in this volume that few if any situations can be obviously assessed
without the perspective of actors.
The classic case of objectivism is Wolferss example of the house on re.
A metaphor of threatfear of losing the cherished possession of life, cou-
pled with the stark external threat to lifeproduces the same reaction,
whatever the psychological peculiarities of the actors.31 Hopf counters
that even in such a seemingly overdetermined circumstance whereby all
run for that exit, questions remain about who goes rst that may be an-
swered by norms about women and children, for example.32 Or what if
someone does not leave the house as a consequence of altruistic sacrice or
suicidal tendencies, misperception of the danger, or a strong motivation to
collect valuables and the wishful thinking that there will still be time to get
out? Second-order questions also arise: By which route or in what order do
people exit? The internalist (phenomenological) approaches of psychology
and constructivism help to answer these questions.33
Many mainstream models also pride themselves as universalistic: trans-
historical theories applicable across space and time. Anarchys effects and
cost-benet calculating behavior are applied to any leader, past, present, fu-
ture. Neither regime type nor personal beliefs have a mitigating role of
signicance: At bottom, all political actors are sensible, goal-driven, mate-
rially constrained rational actors. This is a boon for producing generalizable
propositions, but a common criticism of structural realism and rational
choice is the indeterminate nature of each, reliant as they are on auxiliary
assumptions or ad hoc explanations.34 Katzenstein claims that neorealism
is too general and underspecied, calling instead for studies that prob-
lematize what is given: anarchy and rational states within the system.35
By contrast is the contextual approach, sensitive to context and the spa-
tiotemporal limits of generalizability. Both psychology and constructivism
accept that cultures and even decision makers may possess unique if possi-
bly similar characteristics, though the processes of social construction and
decision making may be generalizable and even universal.36
Introduction 7
ideational theories
Long-standing and salient critiques have come from the theoretical camps
of political psychology and constructivism. These arenas have certain com-
mon criticisms of the dominant paradigms, most notably the subjective na-
ture of reality and the importance of ideational factors over material ones.
Both imply that reality is not as important to understanding action as is the
understanding of the world by the people who occupy it. According to con-
structivist Jutta Weldes,
The realist national interest rests upon the assumption that an indepen-
dent reality is directly accessible both to statesmen and to analysts. . . . The
difculty . . . is that objects and events do not present themselves unprob-
lematically to the observer. . . . [D]etermining what the particular situation
faced by a state is, what if any threat a state faces, and what the correct na-
tional interest with respect to that situation or threat is, always requires in-
terpretation.37
This statement could easily have come from a political psychologist. The
basis of that interpretation is what psychologists and constructivists study.
Rationalists presume a goal-driven utilitarian process based on exogenous
preferences; psychology and constructivism challenge exogenous or im-
puted preferences with an examination of the beliefs and identities that sit-
uate people in a political context.
Psychology, too, questions the decision process on grounds of
bounded rationality, wherein the human mind is cognitively limited and
the human is motivated to simplify reality to meet needs and goals.38 Some
constructivists go further to question any goal-driven process, rational or
otherwise, and offer instead models of habit-driven behavior or logics of
appropriateness, in which choice is constrained by social structures
dening the parameters of the possible.
These common threads linking psychology and constructivismthe
focus on ideational factors and process, the importance of identity, and the
importance of understanding how agents view the world rather than as-
suming or imputing the analysts presumptionsprovide grounds for an
ideational alliance against prevailing rationalist/materialist approaches.
The differences between them are useful critiques and holes that each can
8 psychology and constructivism in international relations
Political psychology as a eld has evolved over the twentieth century, de-
riving numerous insights from a diverse array of psychological perspec-
tives. Despite political psychologys diversity, some observers note a com-
mon core set of assumptions serving as consensual premises and scope
conditions, including the importance of how individuals interpret, dene,
and represent their political environments and how determining prefer-
ences facilitates understanding of what motivates action and how interpre-
tations and choices are framed.39 Contrary to the objectivist approaches
discussed previously, these assumptions speak to psychologys legacy of
subjectivism: Reality is perceived by the individual, and a persons unique
experiences lead to the formation and accumulation of beliefs that serve in
the further perception, interpretation, and evaluation of incoming infor-
mation.40 McDermott suggests that in political psychology, most believe
contextual effects are crucial for understanding phenomena of interest.41
From the multiple threads of different psychological theories, three
general categories of research organize this discussion: (1) personality stud-
ies, (2) cognitive psychology, and (3) social psychology.42 Personality stud-
ies represent the oldest tradition in political psychology.43 Following
Freud, early psychodynamic and psychoanalytic approaches focused on
unconscious mental states and childhood experiences shaping leaders de-
cisions and behavior. The study of personality or leadership traits has
evolved with the basic goal of uncovering the relatively enduring yet dy-
namic predispositions guiding political behavior.44 Trait and motive theo-
ries replaced idiosyncratic psychobiography to create systematized empiri-
cally identiable aspects of leadership across time and situations. Georges
work, for example, evolved into operational code analysis as structured
patterned beliefs and tendencies guiding leadership decision making.45
Margaret Hermanns work on foreign policy orientations distinguishes in-
dependent leaders from participatory leaders based on their openness
and exibility toward others and toward change.46 Later leadership trait
analysis has measured personality dimensions at a distance to track
which leaders are more or less sensitive to their environments, more or less
Introduction 9
distrustful, more or less risk seeking, more or less narcissistic, and so forth.47
The implications on foreign policy have to do with being open to informa-
tion and advice, bias in relations with other countries, and degree of risk in
foreign policy crises.
Such dispositionist studies of individual leaders have faced the situa-
tionist critique that uniform constraints on politicians make individual
differences irrelevant.48 Crenshaw warns against depoliticizing psycholog-
ical studies that ignore contextual variables.49 Greenstein notes that agent
disposition matters depending on (1) the extent that environment can be
restructured; (2) the position of the actor in that political environment;
and (3) the actors tendencies and strengths.50 Different types are more or
less sensitive to contextmore or less inuenced by outside attitudes and
norms. It becomes important, then, to identify leaders along this dimen-
sion to know how they will respond to external political and social pres-
sures.51 While our volume does not employ any personality studies in rela-
tion to constructivism, the work of Shannon and Keller employs leadership
trait analysis to examine how international norms are differently perceived
and violated based on individual traits of distrust sensitivity to context.52
In response to the reductionist charges against psychoanalytical and
personality studies, the behaviorist movement in psychology shed the in-
ternal workings and demons of the mind for a focus on behavior in re-
sponse to environmental stimuli. The resulting typical Pavlovian stimu-
lus-response model, recounted and critiqued in chapter 8 by Rose
McDermott and Anthony Lopez, denies human agency and belies variation
in human choice to the same environment. In response to this trend came
the cognitive revolution,53 whereby mental processes were studied sys-
tematically to open the black box between stimulus and response and dis-
cover how different people perceive and respond to a stimulus.
Through the cognitive approach, fundamental cognitive processes and
patterns have been ascertained over the years of psychological research, in-
cluding insights that (1) perceptions and attention are selective and that (2)
memory, attention, and perception are biased to bolster individual needs
and beliefs as people seek to reinforce beliefs.54 Through ideational con-
structs and human processes, structure will be imposed on uncertain situ-
ations, resolving uncertainty with categorical inferences.55 Rather than
mechanically responding to environmental incentives or stimuli, judg-
ment and choice are mediated by the biases and mental tools of the bound-
edly rational cognitive miser that is the human decision maker.56 Given
10 psychology and constructivism in international relations
time and information constraints and our own limits on knowledge and in-
formation processing, humans rely on cognitive shortcuts that simplify re-
ality and permit efcient (if fallible) decisions to be made.
From the cognitive perspective, it is believed that ones existing beliefs,
attitudes, and values matter in shaping choice and behavior. Cognitive de-
vices such as schema and heuristics reveal tendencies to make decisions
based on preexisting images or the most recent or salient lessons of past ex-
perience.57 Prospect theory has enlightened scholars about decisions made
under risk at odds with rationalist predictions, noting human tendencies to
be risk averse but conditioned by how a situation is framed (as loss or
gain).58 Attribution theory has shed insights into how people as naive sci-
entists understand and explain human behavior in terms of situational or
dispositional causes.59
Of course, these well-demonstrated psychological phenomena of cog-
nitive psychology are not without caveat. The tendency of preexisting be-
liefs to inuence the interpretation of new information, for example, de-
pends on ones level of knowledge and expertise and on the particular
situation and expectations contained therein. Uncommitted thinkers are
more open-minded, for example, and the more complex and uncertain the
environment, the more likely people are to rely on schemas and heuris-
tics.60 Nonetheless, distinct patterns of misperception have been noted,
contributing to a robust research tradition since the 1950s, particularly in
the eld of foreign policy decision making.61
Applications of cognitive tools to foreign policy situations abound in
this volume. Chapters 46 elaborate on decision-making models in the
context of U.S. and Turkish foreign policy, in which framing and evalua-
tion are organized by either shared or competing social expectations. In the
case of Turkey, role theorys focus on identity guides interests and choice,
and such identity can become contested by different agents.62 Chapter 5
also explores role theory in the construction of choices in the development
aid debate. In chapter 6, U.S. decision making involves competing frames
from differing cognitive conceptions of the situation and appropriate re-
sponses to it.
Beyond cold cognition, some studies focus on how emotions
inuence beliefs, perceptions, and behavior. People are not computers but
feeling and emotional beings, with mental and emotional stakes in the be-
liefs and egos they hold. Emotions can affect, distort, and shape interpreta-
tions, attributions, and behaviors, such as loyalty and discrimination. They
Introduction 11
can lead to bad decisions, such as the start of wars doomed to failure, or
guide normal decision processes.63 People often interpret reality to con-
form to central core values. Wishful thinking and ego defense lead people
selectively to interpret information, opening themselves to misperceptions
and bad decisions as a result.64 Studies show that people motivated by
greed or fear can alter their perceptions to justify everything from war to
colonial subjugation.65 Chapter 7, for example, explores the role of anxiety
and pride in Chinese and American threat perception.
A nal area popular in political psychology is broadly dened as social
psychologyhow individuals thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are inu -
enced by other people or social situations. Social cognition is the study of
how individuals process information about themselves and other individu-
als and of how perceptions and social motivations guide interpersonal ex-
changes and the cognitive representations of social groups.66 Among the
most popular theories, as exemplied in chapters 2 and 3, is social identity
theory (SIT) from scholars Henri Tajfel and Jonathan Turner. SIT was a re-
sponse to studies categorizing boys into groups in ways that led to violence
and other things wicked, disturbed, and vicious.67 Seeking the minimal
conditions necessary to trigger discrimination and conict between
groups, Tajfel found that arbitrary, ad hoc groupings of individuals without
any resources or competing values at stake were enough to trigger the twin
forces of in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination, so that the
mere perception of another group makes beating the outgroup more im-
portant than sheer prot.68 Social identities become a way of organizing
individuals and directing their behavior in an intergroup situation. Social
categorization denes the Self in relation to Others, and individual needs
and esteem become tied up in a favorable in-group evaluation.69 Messages
from in-groups are seen as persuasive even if the content is weak, while
out-group messages with strong content are treated with suspicion.70
SIT has profound and debated implications for international relations.
Signaling benign intentions becomes difcult for enemies, and there is a
tendency to downplay ones negative contributions to conict.71 Friends
and enemies are treated differently partly because they and their actions
are perceived differently. More controversial is whether SIT dynamics make
conict inevitable. Mercer has argued that it does, while Gries and others
suggest that the escalation to conict is contingent on other avenues for
maintaining esteem in competition with others.72
Other theories and insights under the rubric of social psychology in-
12 psychology and constructivism in international relations
clude the rise of human rights norms and other constraints on the conduct
and purpose of war.94
Another aspect of constructivist analysis is state identity, which is
treated as a source of values and interests and as shaped by global or do-
mestic normative methods of socialization or persuasion.95 Constructivists
investigate the possibility for changing identity and creating shared identi-
ties as well as whether and how shared identity changes interstate relations
from conict to cooperation. From regional security communities that
seem to have overcome local security dilemmas to broader questions of
an international community based on enmity, rivalry, or friendship, col-
lective identity is argued as driving behavior more than the mere material
lack of a higher authority (what realists call anarchy).96
Wendt notes that macrolevel regularities over time and space necessitate
going beyond individualist conceptualizations, arguing that individual be-
liefs are informed by shared beliefs.100 While safe from reductionism, the
risk is the abandonment of free will, individualism, and personal sources of
motivation. Rosati notes that the pervasive constructivist study of ideas,
identity, and beliefs occurs at such a general level that it ignores, or is
poorly grounded, in the workings of the human mind.101 What McDer-
mott and Lopez (chap. 8) call the neobehaviorist tendencies of presum-
ing a blank-slate model of individuals as receptacles of cultural inuence
and learning threatens to remove agency from the agent-structure dy-
namic. Constructivist work on identity change has been compared to neo-
liberalism and functionalism for the optimism and ease placed in the
change advocated.102 Despite the heroic efforts to delineate the virtues of
agent-structure interaction in theory, much of the constructivist work has
been thoroughly structuralist.103 Wendt, focusing on different global cul-
tures of anarchy, nds constructivism difcult to reconcile with the
methodological individualism that underlies both rational choice theory
and the misperceptions literature, which holds that thought, and thus
identity, is ontologically prior to society.104
Just as not all psychology is individualist, not all constructivism is
structural. Several constructivists critique Wendt for being too structural
and statecentric and for his anthropomorphized understanding of the
state that treats states as unitary actors with a single identity.105 The pre-
sumed universality of international society, Rosow notes, elides the frag-
mentation, diversity and pluralism of social identity that we nd in global
political space.106 Those operating at the domestic level, or unit-level
constructivists, examine either the inuence of domestic cultural forces as
a source of interests and action or the way different local norms and
16 psychology and constructivism in international relations
the battle for status in the cases of China and Russia in the current inter-
national system. In chapter 3, Anstee concentrates on the process of man-
aging social identities to negotiate normative constraint. SIT helps her un-
derstand the negotiable and uid nature of norms and their constraints, as
leaders attempt to maintain a positive self-image for their country through
dialogue regarding the meaning of shared norms within a community. This
perspective, which ts comfortably with linguistic modernist notions of
constructivism, provides psychological microfoundations for such dialogi-
cal negotiations.
Just how norms matter in decisions has been unsatisfactorily answered
by constructivism. Wendt asserts that states are under pressure to internal-
ize the role pervading the culture of anarchy at any particular time but
does not defend why or by what means pressure exists.114 Similarly,
Finnemore and Sikkink suggest social motives for states to adopt and ad-
here to norms: social pressure, guilt, and esteem.115 Such motives are social-
psychological and beg for psychological explication as microfoundations
for social theory. Legro and Kowert note the important problem that nor-
mative arguments cannot explain variation, and the authors critique con-
structivist approaches for the ubiquity of norms, the lack of agency, and
the inability to measure or know how shared expectations are.116 Goldgeier
and Tetlock suggest that constructivists can draw on psychology to address
this inability to specify the conditions under which different groups view
different norms as applicable117 and that constructivist theories draw more
from work on bounded rationality and human emotions to shape judg-
ments.118 Psychology addresses moral dilemmas relevant to normative be-
havior, and studies show how leaders resolve awkward decisions in man-
ners that bolster self-image and remove guilt.119
Psychological studies speak to normative behavior in group settings in
ways that reinforce constructivist insights. Individual attitudes and behav-
iors are acknowledged to be inuenced by social rules, roles, and situations.
Conformity to social norms fullls the established needs for acceptance
and belonging as well as the cognitive need to know how to act in situa-
tions.120 Yet rules are also many and varied, and psychological mechanisms
mediate which norms come to matter. Goldgeier and Tetlock note situa-
tions in which decision makers caught making taboo trade-offs are often
ostracized by the moral communities within which they once held leader-
ship roles. So decision makers go to great efforts to portray their decision
18 psychology and constructivism in international relations
process as free of any taint of taboo trade-offs, and their adversaries strug-
gle to convince key constituencies that the boundaries of the unthinkable
have been breached.121
Breuning argues that the persuasiveness of an analogy depends on its
conformity to decision makers national self-perception and notes that
analogies structure the explicit discourse about an issue domain in foreign
policy debate.122 In chapter 5, she illustrates the dynamics of norm evolu-
tion through mechanisms of grafting and persuasion that draw on the psy-
chological tool of analogical reasoning. Examining the rise of new norms
of foreign aid with references to the Marshall Plan makes certain arguments
more persuasive and plays to certain audiences and their foundational
identities. The role of cognitive and affective limits in judgment and per-
ception underlies all these analyses as the baseline of psychological analy-
sis. These limits do not suggest awed decision making as much as cogni-
tively limited sets of choices, options, and perceptions of the possible.
Constructivism considers politics limited by similar parameters at broader
levels of normative structures. Politics in the end is about the art of the pos-
sible; psychology and constructivism are just arguing at different levels
about what is cognitively and affectively possible.
What of the limits of political psychology? For all of its promise, political
psychology has not attained a dominant, paradigmatic position in the eld
of international relations in general. One reason may be that it contains
such a diverse set of claims; no one model of decision making has achieved
wide acceptance, and it has been unable to establish with condence the
contextual political conditions that promote one rather than another kind
of process.123 Three other criticisms of political psychology, which con-
structivism may strengthen, include (1) the reductionism of its individual-
ist premises, (2) the universal, transcultural claims about human psychol-
ogy, and (3) the static nature of many of their models and ndings.124
As for psychologys focus on what Tetlock and Goldgeier call the mi-
cro-reductionist syllogism,125 some scholars lament the unfullled
promise of an allegedly social psychology for its individualistic orienta-
tionwhat Simon called the social psychology of one.126 Boekle, Rit-
tberger, and Wagner note that although proponents of cognitive theories
do not dispute the social origins of individual beliefs and values, they re-
Introduction 19
versality of the human cognitive and affective machinery. This idea has
been questioned on empirical and theoretical grounds. Some observers
note that many ndings have been experimental in nature, raising ques-
tions of external validity and the presumed universality of psychological
claims. As Copeland ponders, do the conclusions drawn about universal
tendencies in human nature come from 51 percent or 99 percent of re-
spondents in controlled experimental settings?138 At issue is not the valid-
ity of the results as much as the generalizability of results as universal
givens. Attribution theory has been challenged by studies showing that dis-
positional attributions common in North America are not replicated in
parts of Japan, for example.139 Cultural psychologists note that individual
variation in cognitive styles exists; different individuals may have different
cognitive patterns according to culture or idiosyncracies.140 Differences in
subcultures may exist as well, leading to warnings against overgeneraliza-
tions and calls for bottom-up, empirically validated bases of identities and
norms in populations.141
Despite these caveats, some universal claims in political psychology still
apply: The human mind seeks certainty and actively provides meaning to
the environment, including categorizations of Others in relation to Self,
and humans acquire cognitive belief structures that tend to remain sta-
ble.142 Nonetheless, where cross-cultural variation exists in the process and
content of beliefs, however, constructivism can show how decision makers
interests and choices are constrained or directed by certain values.143 It is
instructive, then, to turn to what constructivism is and why it would
benet from psychology just as psychology would benet from construc-
tivism. In this volume, Gries, Peng, and Crowson (chap. 7) examine the
material versus symbolic foundations of foreign policy action, with the lat-
ter focusing on perceptions and constructions of the Other and rooted in
notions of pride and identity. Looking at symbolic motivators of threat per-
ception cross-nationally (China and the United States), the chapter shows
that threat constructions vary rather than represent a universal model.
Finally, psychology tends to approach puzzles of decision making and
international relations from a static point of view. A slice of time is ana-
lyzed for what beliefs and perceptions framed a policy debate, and then
how the process led to a decision is traced. But beliefs, values, and percep-
tions are rarely traced for their change or origins, leaving open a large ques-
tion regarding the origins of preferences and beliefs. But psychology has
Introduction 21
been short on accounting for social change and individual change. For con-
structivists, the reason is that knowledge is made, not found, which
leaves psychological theory with the problem of how knowledge could be
made.144 Evolutionary learning is possible through mechanisms of persua-
sion, framing, and the work of epistemic authorities.
Perceptions and images of the Otherthe starting point for many cog-
nitive analysescan also change, but image theory traditionally focuses on
the existing perceptions and not their evolution, even suggesting that the
roots of such cognitive schemata are too varied and unique to sort out in a
generalizable way.145 Notable exceptions exist, such as Larsons analysis of
the origins of containment in U.S. strategic thinking and Rosatis analysis
of how President Jimmy Carters beliefs changed with the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan.146 Normative behavior is suggested as a tool for judging
others and making inferences about their status in international society.147
The consensus and hegemony of ideas in groups affect their persuasiveness
and ones resistance to change, as Bar-Tal demonstrates in his synthesis of
social and psychological theory.148
Framing this section as I have done may give the impression of authors
choosing one side to correct another side, but the process is not that con-
sistently simple. Some contributions are more one-sided, suggesting how
psychology, for example, can help constructivism (chap. 2). Others attempt
a mutuality and integration between the perspectives. Kowerts chapter 1,
Completing the Ideational Triangle: Identity, Choice, and Obligation in
International Relations, explores the psychological, linguistic, and social
foundations of international obligation, arguing that constructivism and
psychology need each other to make sense of normativity and interna-
tional legal obligations.
conclusion
Despite each sides critiques of the other, a common purpose of social and
psychological theorizing provides a unifying perspective: Both seek to un-
derstand how a socially structured sense of Self interacts with fundamental
psychological processes in the task of interpreting ones environment and
inferring intention from Others in that environment. Goldgeier and Tet-
lock suggest that at a foundational level, a cognitive psychological analy-
22 psychology and constructivism in international relations
sis. But we believe these differences are likely to be productive after a dia-
logue has begun, and we offer innovation in theoretical synthesis as well as
diverse empirical investigations including both case studies and experi-
mental design.
Notes
30
Completing the Ideational Triangle 31
weaponry by some states but fear its acquisition by others. To the latter, we
assign an identity labelrogues, perhapsindicative of the threat.
Labels matter, of course, for their subjective connotations. Yet again, it
is not merely subjectivity that is at issue here but also the problem of moti-
vation. For ideationists, identity serves as a crucial signal of intentions. In
this volume, the problem of identity and intent is taken up by Larson,
Anstee, and Ilgit and Ozkececi-Taner. Each of their chapters takes social
identity theory, developed through experimentation in social psychology,
as a point of departure. Not coincidentally, however, each in its own way
seeks to move beyond simple distinctions between Self and Other by ex-
ploring the microfoundations of social categorization, comparison, and
stereotyping (Larson), by giving more attention to active strategies of iden-
tity management (Anstee), or by considering the destabilizing effects of do-
mestic politics on state identities (Ilgit and Ozkececi-Taner). Precisely be-
cause international relations demands a more complex accounting of
national intent, all of these authors are led beyond the fundamental in-
group/out-group division stressed by social identity theorists to uncover
more complex patterns of motivation, inscribed as social identities. They
are united, however, in seeing identity as an important guide to preferences
and thereby choice. Without this analytical tool, social scientists would be
obliged to fall back on inferences about intent from precisely the behavior
they seek to explain.
Confronted everywhere by choices, therefore, we rely not only on our
subjective understanding of the trade-offs these choices entail but also on
our own desires (as well as the presumed desires of others) to evaluate these
choices. That is, choice does not require merely available alternatives but
also the formulation of a hierarchy of alternatives. This may be accom-
plished with regard to ones own preferences, but the ideationist approach
to choice properly rests on a third leg as well: social normativity. This, then,
is the analytical tripod of ideational approaches to international rela-
tions (gure 1).
Choice is a matter not only of having alternatives and preferences but
also of reckoning with normative constraint. Put another way, we evaluate
choices not only with respect to our own desires and interests or even those
of others but also with regard to standards for proper behavior. The belief
that such standards are importantin opposition to the claims advanced
in international relations particularly by realistsserves as the third point
of connection between political psychologists and constructivists.
34 psychology and constructivism in international relations
Social Construction
Before saying more about the role of emotion, it makes sense to begin
with the part of the story made familiar by the common practice of con-
ceiving of norms as shared beliefs. Those who dene norms as beliefs adopt
a seemingly reasonable starting point. Norms are beliefs, although this does
not sufce as a denition. We have certain beliefs about what we ought and
ought not do. Moreover, and perhaps more important, these beliefs have a
certain structure, and they might be arranged in many ways.
A great deal of cognitive research has focused, for example, on the ex-
tent to which beliefs are consistent with one another, and it remains one of
the basic premises of cognitive psychology that people are strongly moti-
vated to promote the structural consistency of their beliefs.17 It is also
widely accepted that beliefs exist in a hierarchy ranging from the most fun-
damental, cherished, and unyielding beliefs to more casual notions. Hur-
witz and Pefey, to take an example relevant to international relations, un-
covered this structure in public attitudes regarding foreign policy issues,
distinguishing between core attitudes that are highly resistant to change
and applied, policy-related beliefs that are more malleable though nonethe-
less correlated with core beliefs.18 Beliefs may thus be strongly or weakly
held. Some beliefs may be central in the sense that many other beliefs de-
pend on them, while other beliefs are more peripheral. Yet neither consis-
tency nor hierarchy tells us much about the normative structure of beliefs.
Normatively, beliefs can be distinguished according to the way they are
brought to bear on other people. Although psychologists rarely concern
themselves with the point, the cognitive and semiotic structures of norma-
tivity must, in fact, be linked at a fairly basic level. It is through language,
after all, that our beliefs inuence other people. One might object that ac-
tions speak louder than words, of course, but this misses the point. Under-
standing is possible only through the functioning of language, which, by
dividing the world of our experience into categories, makes it possible for
us to talk and even to think about it. It is not possible for actions to speak
at all without the meaningful categories of words. This is one of the central
premises of the linguistic turn in epistemology and ontology.19 And
when language becomes speech, normative constraint is one possible per-
locutionary consequence. If speech has any perlocutionary consequences
(if it has any effect at all on listeners), in fact, then some part of this effect
is normative.
The normative effects of speech can be classied according to type in
Completing the Ideational Triangle 39
Fig. 2. Speech acts and normative domains. See Weber and Kowert 2007 for an-
other discussion of these four kinds of speech acts. (Adapted from Weber and
Kowert 2007, 28.)
several ways. We might ask, for example, whether the speaker or the audi-
ence is chiey the target of these normative effects. Is the speech intended
to bind those who uttered it or those to whom it was directed? We might
also ask what bind means in this context. Are there different kinds of bind-
ing (regardless of target) that we can accomplish with speech? Answers to
this question often start by observing that speech may have either the pur-
pose of changing the world (that is, of binding or tting the world to
words) or the purpose of declaring that a certain description of the world is
apt (that is, of binding or tting words to the world). Anscombe thus dis-
tinguished between these two purposes according to their direction of
t.20 Psychologically, our intent may be either descriptive or performa-
tive.21 In the same fashion and for essentially the same reason, Bhaskar dis-
tinguishes between the constitutive and regulative functions of language.22
And again, the intended target of these constitutive or regulative acts (i.e.,
the perlocutionary subject of the speech in question) can be either the au-
dience or the speaker. Combining these two distinctions yields four vari-
eties of speech acts, each with a distinctive normative purpose (gure 2).
Perhaps the most straightforward sort of normative statements are
those that tell other people how to behave. Such directives are what typi-
cally come to mind as illustrations of normative speech. Get out of the
way and, in international relations, Stop interfering in our internal af-
fairs are examples of directives. They are efforts to change the world by
prevailing on the target (audience) of this speech to behave in a certain
fashion. They try to t the world to the state of affairs they describe. Obvi-
ously, not all directives meet with success. Some such messages may not be
received. Others, though clearly heard, may be ignored. Yet all directives
claim authority, whether or not it is recognized and accepted, to change
40 psychology and constructivism in international relations
the world through the actions of other people. They are straightforward ef-
forts to produce obligations and the recognition of those obligations on the
part of others.
A second class of speech acts, commitments, also tries to change the
world by tting it to a specied state of affairs. The difference between di-
rectives and commitments, however, is that the latter call on the speaker
rather than the audience to accomplish this purpose. Commitments are
promises. When speakers issue promises, they create obligations to act (in
the future) in a certain way. Such speech is thus performative in two ways.
It usually creates expectations on the part of its intended audience and al-
ways creates obligations for those who issue promises. In civil and interna-
tional law, contracts or treaties are the embodiment of such commissive
speech acts: Their normative power is unquestioned (pacta sunt servanda),
and their force is directed at those who sign and thus speak them.
The remaining two categories of speech are concerned not with the
proper state of the world but with the proper way to describe it. The direc-
tion of t for assertions is the reverse of commitments or directives: Asser-
tions match words to the world, rather than the other way around. More-
over, assertions are intended to create a certain obligation on the part of
their audience: not to act to change the world but to agree with a charac-
terization of the world. The extent of this obligation varies enormously.
Some assertions seem trivial: These are my new shoes. But describing or
naming things in the right way can be the key to changing the world. Po-
litical campaigns thus tend to rely at least as much on assertive slogans as
on directives issued to voters. In 1960, John F. Kennedys supporters de-
clared that it was a time for greatness and thus by implication a time for
a change as well. The Bill Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns pursued
similar strategies, leaving it to voters to draw the obvious conclusion about
which candidate would deliver change. Ronald Reagans reelection cam-
paign also adopted Kennedys assertive style but did so with the opposite
purpose: to argue against change. By proclaiming that it was morning
again in America, Reagan urged voters to return him to ofce. In all of
these campaigns, the normative power of assertions (about either problems
or successes) was sufcient for their directive political purposes. So, in a
more sinister vein, was Adolf Hitlers proclamation, Ein Volk, ein Reich,
ein Fhrer.
The remaining possible combination of purpose (direction of t) and
audience occurs with expressive speech acts. Expressions are also descrip-
Completing the Ideational Triangle 41
tions, but they describe a private rather than a public state of affairs. Both
exclamations (Ouch!) and apologies (Im sorry.) are examples of ex-
pressive speech acts. Unlike assertions, they produce no obligation on the
part of the audience to agree. Because the world to which they refer is ex-
clusively available to the speaker, the audience has no basis for agreement
or disagreement. The purpose of expressions is accomplished by their ut-
terance rather than by anything to which the speaker or the audience is ob-
ligated. This is true, moreover, even though we sometimes do attach great
importance to expressions of contrition or apologies. Consider the tense
standoff between the United States and China after an EP-3 surveillance air-
craft collided with a Chinese ghter jet in April 2001, killing the jets pilot
and forcing the spy plane to make an emergency landing on Hainan Island.
Responsibility for the accident was (and remains) in dispute, and the U.S.
aircrew was held in Chinese custody until President George W. Bush deliv-
ered to Chinese authorities a letter expressing sorrow for the incident and
the Chinese loss of life. In cases such as this, it is clear that parties to a dis-
pute may attach a great deal of normative importance to apologies.23 But
this obligation is created by assertions (about who is to blame), not by the
apology itself. Unlike the other speech acts discussed here, expressions
have no direct normative consequences and are thus omitted from the re-
mainder of this discussion.
A nal point worth keeping in mind about any speech act is that the
context of speech potentially has a great impact on its perlocutionary ef-
fect. The importance of context is easily illustrated by considering declara-
tions, which are sometimes interpreted as a distinct category of speech acts.
Declarations are speech acts that both describe a state of affairs and, by
their utterance, bring that state of affairs into being. They appear, in other
words, to exhibit a double direction of t. Thus, when a judge declares,
Youre guilty, she both describes and brings about a new state of affairs.
The normative target of declaratives is also confusing. Although they are
intended to (and do) change the world, they neither compel others to
change it nor commit the speaker to doing so. Instead, they change the
world by their utterance. The key to making sense of these puzzles is rec-
ognizing that declaratives rely, for their perlocutionary effectiveness, on
previously established normative authority. Their ability to change the
world, in other words, is derivative of previously institutionalized norma-
tive arrangements. If I say to someone, Youre guilty, it can only be inter-
preted as an assertion (since I have no special authority to make such dec-
42 psychology and constructivism in international relations
larations). But a judges position gives her speech a performative power that
mine lacks. The act itself, therefore, is an assertive. But the institutionalized
context causes this assertion to change the world, an especially clear illus-
tration of Onufs dictum that saying is doing.24
It is evident that the basic linguistic tools of asserting, directing, and
committing give us considerable power both to change the world and to do
so in ways that have normative implications. Moreover, through the insti-
tutionalization of the rules entailed in speech, we can erect frameworks of
rules with highly complex normative consequences. This has been the cen-
tral claim of language- or rule-oriented constructivists such as Onuf and
Kratochwil.25 Our ability to generate these arrangements clearly relies on
capacities that are both cognitive and semantic. There is no normative be-
havior in the absence of either the cognitive or the semiotic structures that
support it. The typology of normative structures offered here helps to clar-
ify how, through the expedient of language, beliefs come to have norma-
tive effects. Yet these structures do not sufce to make action normative.
Rather, they put the force of obligation to specic uses. To explain that ob-
ligation has force, however, something more is required.
Some versions of the claim that sharing beliefs (or, more simply, words)
sufces in itself to establish normativity can be dispensed with fairly easily.
Certainly, it will not do to evade the problem merely by dening norma-
tivity as language or beliefs that entail an understanding of obligation.
Such Berkeleian phenomenalism treats the understanding that a certain
kind of relation is called an obligation as equivalent to the understanding
that obligations have force. This approach defeats the effort to explain nor-
mative force before it can get off the ground, leading down the path toward
an entirely solipsistic account of obligation.
Similarly, we cannot explain the force of obligation by the extent to
which obligations are accepted without once again dening the problem
away by treating the force of obligation as equivalent to the extent to
which people believe this force exists. The question remains: Why do obli-
gations have force? Many people believe in ghosts, extrasensory percep-
tion, and psychokinetic powers, but this certainly creates no obligation for
everyone else to believe in such phenomena. This is where the usual treat-
Completing the Ideational Triangle 43
law and come to a complete stop before proceeding. But all conceivable ar-
guments to this effect require that someone be in a position to care about
the outcome. Perhaps there is a pedestrian in the way after all, momentar-
ily hidden from view by a tumbleweed. Perhaps outing this law will
weaken the drivers moral sensibility in the future. It is not hard to imagine
reasons why a stop sign must be obeyed even when no one would seem to
care. Yet all such arguments stipulate a party who does care about some
consequence of ignoring the stop sign. We cannot simply assert that the
rule must be obeyed: The problem is to show why the rule has normative
force.
To be sure, mattering also requires cognitive structurethat is, the
comparing of ideas, objects, or causal chains. Or rather, the understanding
that something matters requires such cognitive structure. How well stu-
dents perform in the classroom matters to us because we perceive a causal
chain connecting this performance to their future opportunities. It might
also matter because we perceive its connection to our own future opportu-
nities, which could be constrained if we teach ineffectively. Thus, we per-
ceive that academic performance matters. Yet again, perceiving these causal
chains is not enough. Success in the classroom matters not because we per-
ceive that it has consequences but because we (or others) care about these
consequences.
In sum, our sense of obligation depends on the degree to which we care
about things in our world (objects and events), our relation to those things,
and the consequences of our acts for those things and relations. Yet this
claim hardly begins to specify what it means to carewhat it is about hu-
man beings and their experience that produces such a state. Indeed, it fails
even to suggest what kind of state caring is. Is it a physiological state, an af-
fective state, a cognitive state, or some combination of these? Providing an
answer to this question is the fundamental contribution psychology can
make to an account of normativity. The remainder of this chapter offers a
brief sketch of how we come to care about things, relations, and their con-
sequences, thereby making normative accounts of these things possible.
Valence
tally, they suggest, is that the things that matter to us do so because they
are either good or bad. Aristotle makes such an argument in Nicomachean
Ethics, contending that all feelings are susceptible to excess (vice) or mod-
eration (virtue). For Aristotle, this dualism is a property of the world:
Things are capable of being good or bad, true or false.27 This is the principle
of bivalence, which constructivist psychologist Rom Harr formulates as,
The theoretical statements of a science are true or false by virtue of the
way the world is.28
This section develops the argument that a different principle of bi -
valence is actually more useful: The things and relations of the world and the
consequences of our actions in the world are either good or bad by virtue of the
way we are. This claim is equivalent, ontologically, to the claim that the
world has properties capable of being represented truly or falsely, rightly or
wrongly, well or badly. In other words, the way the world is (to all of us) in-
extricably linked to the way all of us are, and the way we are imputes value
to judgments about the world. This is the axiological principle: We repre-
sent the world in terms of value distinctions that depend on our capacity
to care about and react to the world. Such evaluations make use of binary
oppositions, representing things as true or false, good or bad, and so on.
This quality of our emotional responses to the world, their application
of an evaluative spectrum, is valence. As Onuf points out, the etymology of
valence is telling: As used in a variety of disciplines, the term valence
points to the position of some thing in a binary relation, but not just this.
The Latin adjective valens means strong, robust or healthy. The noun
valentia suggests good health. Valens is the past participle of the verb valre
(to be strong or worthy), which is the root of the terms valor and value.29
The link to health is not accidental. It suggests that our bodily reaction to
things is at the heart (so to speak) of evaluative responses.
As human beings with bodies, minds and various powers, we think of our-
selves as strong or weak, healthy or not. These properties are contraries. We
consider them as continuous variablesthe included middlewhen we
make comparisons (her will is stronger than his is). Yet we also oppose them
as things in . . . binary relations (people are either healthy or sick, strong
willed or weak willed), and we tend to classify people accordingly (men are
strong, children and emperors are willful, women are caring and resource-
ful). Yet this is not all we do. We often say, being robust or healthy is good;
it is better to be stronger; strength and health are good things, as opposed
46 psychology and constructivism in international relations
to being weak and sick, which are bad things. We talk about growth and de-
cay the same way. Strong and healthy bodies (minds, powers) are good, and
what is good is to be encouraged. Weakness is bad and to be discouraged.30
The meaning of the term valence implies the principle of bivalence as re-
formulated previously: that the world is capable of being represented in
terms of such evaluative oppositions.
Paul Grice describes the move from our particular feelings to our gen-
eral ideas about good and bad as Humean projection.31 In Humes words,
The mind has a great propensity to spread itself on external objects, and
to conjoin with them any internal impressions, which they occasion, and
which always make their appearance at the same time that these objects
discover themselves to the senses.32 Axiological projection takes us from
our bodily states to a world that we think of as full of good and bad things
and relations because of what we feel and how we act. If indeed we think
the world is this way, we thereby make it so.
Contemporary psychologists seem to draw the same sorts of conclu-
sions when they write about emotions in a general, theoretical way. From
a global perspective, Andrew Ortony, Gerald Clore, and Allan Collins have
asserted, it seems that past research on emotions converges on only two
generalizations. One is that emotion consists of arousal and appraisal. . . .
The other is . . . that any dimensional characterization of emotions is likely
to include at least the two dimensions of activation and valence. But, on
closer inspection, even these two generalizations appear to be merely two
sides of the same coin.33 That is, emotions may be stronger or weaker, and
they may be either positively or negatively evaluative. Focusing on the sec-
ond of these generalizations, psychologists generally take for granted that
appraisal involves the assignment of valence. Thus, Ortony, Clore, and
Collins identify three basic classes of emotions: being pleased vs. displeased
(reaction to events), approving vs. disapproving (reaction to agents), and lik-
ing vs. disliking (reaction to objects).34 Each class of emotions applies the
axiological principal to a different aspect of the world: events, agents, and
objects.
There would seem to be general agreement that emotions are neither
bodily states nor cognitive states, although they typically have both bodily
and cognitive aspects, and these aspects are linked what we commonly call
our feelings. Yet to consider the body rst, our physical state does not
sufce to dene our mental state, to distinguish, for example, between
Completing the Ideational Triangle 47
calm and boredom. Nor is cognition, with its reliance on language, entirely
sufcient. Although we cannot think without language, we can feel with-
out it. Indeed, we can be scared speechless or happy beyond words. Alex-
ithymia, to draw an example from clinical psychology, is (just as the term
implies) the inability to put into words, think about, or even become cog-
nitively aware of ones own emotions or emotional state.35 Signicantly, it
is associated with antisocial behavior.36
Valence is precisely the quality of an emotional response that makes
things matterbecause they are felt to be either good or bad. To do any-
thing with emotion, of course, cognition is clearly required.37 Ortony,
Clore, and Collins have developed this claim in some detail, arguing that
emotion is subject to specic structures of appraisal.38 Appraisal of events is
undertaken in terms of desirability, evaluated with reference to individual
or collective goals. Objects are appraised in terms of appeal, with reference
to attitudes. And appraisal of actions is conducted in terms of praisewor-
thiness, with reference to standards. Whether this typology of appraisal
sufces to describe the cognitive structure of emotions is not immediately
important. It is enough to demonstrate that an evaluative superstructure is
attached to most, if not all, emotions.
The evaluative component of emotionsthat is to say valenceis the
missing ingredient in this account of normativity. Valence makes things of
all kinds matter. As Hume famously argued, it thus constitutes the differ-
ence between reasons for moral behavior and motives that actually cause
us to behave morally. The force of obligation, as opposed to the reason for
an obligation, relies on valent emotions. Of course, emotion also has a lex-
ical structure that elaborates emotional responses to different degrees and
in different ways in different languages.39 Obligations certainly depend on
far more than the extent to which people mind violations. Yet a central
nding of research into emotion is that neither valent emotion nor nor-
mativity as its deontic entailment is reducible purely to its cognitive or lin-
guistic aspect.
Ambivalence
nience may be one reason so few scholars have made serious efforts to mea-
sure normativity itself, yet none of the constituent aspects of normativ-
ityevaluative beliefs, semiotic direction of t, or valenceare intrinsi-
cally unsuited to measurement. The emotive practice of bivalence,
however, introduces another problem that is epistemological rather than
methodological.
Science thrives on a commitment to bivalent representation. As an on-
tological principle, the world itself is said to consist of things that are either
true or false (if they are not true). If the same cannot be said for normative
aspects of the world, then they cannot be considered objects for science.
The fundamental epistemological problem for science, then, is to negotiate
some sort of connection to this (bivalent) world. Presumably, this connec-
tion cannot be established with normativity itself. Thinking so, at least, is
Webers legacy. So, ironically, bivalence as a scientic principle seems to rule
out the study of valence on the grounds that as an emotional reaction to the
world, it is also inherently subjective. Separating normativityvalence, in
particularfrom the study of norms thereby becomes more than a method-
ological convenience. To many, it has seemed a scientic necessity.
The frustration born of these conclusions has throughout the twentieth
century chipped away at representational epistemology in its many guises:
correspondence, verisimilitude, reliability, and so on. Against those who
wish to abandon the conversation, Harr has suggested that the problem is
in fact bivalence itself.
The current debate about the proper way to interpret the efforts of scientists
to describe and comprehend the world has taken a form which has been de-
termined by the way the defenders of realism and their critics have taken
the realist point of view. Scientic realism has been dened in terms of
truth and falsity, in particular in terms of the truth and falsity of statements
appearing in theories. . . . Since this ideal is unattainable, setting ones
sights upon it can only be described as quixotic.40
conclusion
meaningful for someone. That is to say, they require the basic emotional
structure of valence.
A nal irony of the more typically cognitive and sociological approach
to normativity is that international relations scholarship has been so intent
on showing that norms matter in the conduct of foreign policy without
recognizing that mattering is essential to understanding norms themselves.
Treating norms as shared informationcommon understandings of appro-
priate behaviorhas the unintended consequence of reifying obligations
and thereby rendering their ontological status mysterious. Hume antici-
pated this development, arguing in the Treatise that although morality is
more properly felt than judgd of . . . , this feeling or sentiment is com-
monly so soft and gentle, that we are apt to confound it with an idea.42 For
agents to share purely cognitive understandings of obligations, the obliga-
tions themselves must be out there somewhere, oating in some sort of
ideological ether that makes them available to the perceptive faculties of
relevant agents. Thomas Risse has cogently argued that such ideas do not
oat freely.43 They are constrained, after all, by a material world.
So they are, but it might be more helpful to abandon the metaphor of
oating norms altogether. Normativity must be constrained by material
considerations because it relies on human reactions to the world, and these
reactions are not free of the material aspects of humanity. Norms are not so
much out there, in other words, as in herein our dual capacities for lan-
guage and evaluation. The various ways speech acts bring intent to bear on
the world (or on words) and the way valence charges such behavior with
evaluative meaning together provide a far more concrete foundation for
the claim that norms matter. They matter not because they are out there
and we are subject to them but because our efforts to interact with a world
of agents, things, and relations inevitably matters to us. That is, norms
matter because of the way we are and not (only) because of the way the
world is.
As contributors to the effort to understand how exactly we are, con-
structivists and psychologists are indeed natural allies. Of course, this effort
is common to all the social sciences. So it is no surprise that three basic
questions about ourselveswho we are, what we want, and what we
should wanttend to erode rather than to reinforce disciplinary bound-
aries. The greater puzzle is that social science should be so willing to avert
its gaze, in the name of scientic objectivity, from the manifest evidence
that we do care about how the world should be and not only about how it
52 psychology and constructivism in international relations
is. Perhaps Harr is right that the bivalence principle itself encourages our
pursuit of unattainable scientic standards. It may even be that objectivity
is a good standard for science. Yet there is no way objectively to defend this
proposition. Happily, we are endowed with the subjective, emotional ca-
pacity to embrace the conviction that this is how science ought to be.
Notes
relations theory, see Fierke and Jrgensen 2001, particularly the chapters by
Fierke and Jrgensen, Kratochwil, and Onuf.
20. Anscombe 1963.
21. Austin (1962) made this distinction but also found it problematic and ul-
timately argued that the distinction collapses. See also Parker and Sedgwick
1995; Searle 1989. In general, description and performativity are better thought
of as two functions of speech than as indicators of two different kinds of speech
acts.
22. Bhaskar 1979. Kant made the same distinction between regulation and con-
stitution in his Critique of Pure Reason (1933). See also Rawls 1955.
23. While Chinese authorities interpreted President Bushs letter as an apol-
ogy, American authorities characterized it as an expression of sorrow or regret,
presumably indicating that the United States did not accept blame for the
incident.
24. Onuf 1989.
25. For further development of this argument, see Weber and Kowert 2007,
2734.
26. Hume 1978, 470.
27. See Barnes 1984, 3738; Onuf 2006.
28. Harr 1986, 38.
29. Onuf 2006.
30. Onuf 2006.
31. Grice 1991, 1079.
32. Hume 1978, 167.
33. Ortony, Clore, and Collins 1988, 6. See also Block 1957; Davitz 1969.
34. Ortony, Clore, and Collins 1988, 33.
35. Sifneos 1973.
36. Keltikangas-Jrvinen 1982; Krystal 1979, 1988.
37. Abelson 1983.
38. Ortony, Clore, and Collins 1988.
39. Wierzbicka 1986.
40. Harr 1986, 35.
41. Harr 1986, 166.
42. Hume 1978, 470.
43. Risse-Kappen 1994.
part i
57
58 psychology and constructivism in international relations
Viewing the Self through Others eyes is what George Herbert Mead called
the Me component of the Self. Interactions with Others reinforce, invali-
date, or modify the initial denition of Others attitudes and responses. Re-
sponses to Others treatment constitute the I component of the Self. Over
time, the Self and Others negotiate a mutually accepted view of appropriate
behavior, as each interaction socializes the person to societal expectations
and the individual internalizes the Others norms and standards.12
Similarly, Wendt proposes that a state takes on the role of the Other, in-
ternalizing the Others expectations about who it is. The state initially
brings to the encounter certain beliefs about who the Other is and how it is
likely to respond. Through its actions, the other state conrms, under-
mines, or modies the states original preconceptions. By interpreting the
Others actions, a state learns to see itself through the eyes of the Other.
Each state assimilates the Others conception of its role. Wendt states that
role identities are the meanings that others attribute to themselves when
seeing themselves as an object, that is, from the perspective of the other.
Consequently, state identities cannot be predicted on the basis of each
states internal properties or material capabilities. Through actions and re-
actions, states implicitly negotiate their identities and over time adopt a
shared view of who each of them is.13
States not only learn but reproduce their identities through interaction.
Behaving toward the Other as if it had certain interests will encourage the
Other to act accordingly. Viewing the Other as an enemy or friend is there-
fore a self-fullling prophecy. If the Other views it as an enemy, the state
will mirror that identity, a reected appraisal of itself. The two states will
carry those beliefs into subsequent encounters, where beliefs will again
guide behavior.14 While explaining the reproduction of patterns in inter-
national relations, this conception of identity formation has difculty ex-
plaining important shifts in state identity, as witnessed by the end of the
Cold War. The constructivist account also seems to underplay the role of
agents in selecting their own identities.
Several scholars have pointed out that constructivists take identities as ex-
ogenous and do not identify the causal mechanisms or microprocesses that
lead to the formation of one identity rather than another. Related to the
inattention to microfoundations, constructivists give priority to structure
60 psychology and constructivism in international relations
over agency, even though they posit that they are mutually constitutive
and that neither should be viewed in isolation from the other.15
This conception of role is necessarily highly stable. If the content of
role expectations changed abruptly, then individuals would not know how
to behave, leading to anomie and social disorganization. Social roles evolve
through time but do so slowly, as occupants adjust to their environments.16
In role theory, behavior changes in response to changes in role, but that is
easier for an individual to accomplish than a state.17
By dening the process of identity formation as how Others treat the
state, constructivists are confronted with the same problem as neorealists
that is, an inability to explain fundamental changes in international rela-
tions. If states internalize Others role expectations, it is difcult to see how
a relationship of enmity can be overcome. If mutual identities are repro-
duced through social interaction, as self-fullling prophecies, how can they
ever change? To break out of the cycle, a state would have to change its
identity, adopting a friendly posture. But if identities are socially con-
structed, then the source of change would have to lie somewhere elseei-
ther with the states domestic politics or with exogenous forces, which are
excluded from systemic constructivism.
Wendt suggests that a state can transform its identity in three stages: (1)
breakdown of consensus about identity commitments; (2) critical reexami-
nation of old ideas about the state and Other and the practices that repro-
duce them; (3) acting toward the Other as if the state already had a new
identity to induce the Other to change its practices and adopt a changed
image of itself that will be reected back on the state (altercasting). For
example, Wendt argues that Marxist-Leninist interpretations of interna-
tional relations lost legitimacy because of the Soviet Unions inability to
keep up with the economic and technological challenge posed by the West.
That the West reassured the Soviets that there was little chance that the
United States would invade the Soviet Union helped to unfreeze conict
schemas and bring about a leadership transition. Soviet leader Mikhail Gor-
bachev persuaded Ronald Reagan to trust the Soviet Union by acting as if
he trusted the United Statesthat is, by making unilateral concessions and
self-binding commitments. Like neorealists, Wendt attributes Gorbachevs
foreign policy shift to material causes (i.e., the decline in the Soviet power
position).18
This interpretation is not persuasive, however, because Gorbachevs
new thinking, announced in 1986, helped to delegitimize the Marxist-
How Identities Form and Change 61
structure that constrains and inuences state interactions? For Wendt, roles
emerge out of interactions rather than from the social structure. To explain
relations between states, constructivism needs to consider the impact of
power and status structures.
Constructivists overlook differences in power and status that both con-
stitute and cause state identities. States are highly unequal in strength, re-
source endowment, geographic location, and so on. In short, there are hi-
erarchies of both status and power, differences that shape state interactions
and identities. In the current international system, there is a hierarchy by
which some states are considered to be outside the international commu-
nity because they have not accepted norms of democratic capitalism.26 It is
not just that more powerful states can induce others to behave in the de-
sired way by means of rewards and punishments. What states want de-
pends on their relative power. The desire for status also plays an important
role in states construction of their identities. As states grow in power, they
seek to shape the international status hierarchy and governance structures
set in place when they were weaker.27
Constructivism is not yet a theory about international politics because
it lacks substantive propositions predicting international outcomes. Con-
structivism provides a taxonomy but not a theory: The links between key
concepts such as intersubjectivity, identity, interests, norms, and behavior
are unclear. Wendt and other constructivists do not deal with the psychol-
ogy of identity, the generative sociocognitive mechanisms that underlie
identity formation. Without analyzing why states choose a particular iden-
tity out of a range of cultural choices, constructivism cannot explain state
foreign policy. Consequently, constructivism needs to be supplemented
with substantive theory about identity self-denition to explain real-world
foreign policy behavior. Such a theory can be derived from SIT in social
psychology.
SIT from psychology is better suited to explaining how identities form and
change.28 Although a cognitive theory, SIT is not reductionist because it
studies relations among groups rather than individuals; it views group phe-
nomena as emergent rather than the sum of individual behavior. European
How Identities Form and Change 63
have reference to the Self. Social categories dene the individuals place in
society. Self-identication is evaluative and comparative: Belonging to a
group is to be better or worse than other groups. Belonging to a low-status
group is damaging to self-esteem.41 In an experiment, students were more
likely to wear their universitys clothes after their football team had won a
game than when they had lost. Students referred to the team as we when
their school won but as they when it lost.42 Similarly, Russia has long
viewed itself as a European rather than Asian power because to be European
connotes higher status and prestige. Partly as a result of the experience of
the Mongol invasion, Russians have long identied the East with bar-
barism.43 Russian president Vladimir Putin told U.S. Secretary of State
Madeline Albright privately that although he ate Chinese food and used
chopsticks, thats exotic stuff. Thats not our mentality. Our mentality is
European. Putin wants Russia to be considered a member of the Western
club.44 Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russian foreign policy has
been obsessed with the West and with Western evaluations of Russia, even
though more economic opportunity would exist in the East, with Japan
and China.45
Groups, then, are motivated to achieve a positive identity. When their
identity is threatened by derogation from an out-group or unfavorable
comparisons, SIT suggests that they can pursue one of several identity-
management strategies, depending on the malleability of group character-
istics or the receptiveness of higher-status groups.
Where boundaries are rigid, individuals cannot pass into the higher-sta-
tus group, no matter how hard they try. If they believe that the status struc-
ture is illegitimate and capable of being changed, they may then join with
fellow members of the lower-status group to improve their groups relative
status through social competition.50 Examples include the U.S. civil rights
and womens movements, which used political pressure to force a redistri-
bution of economic resources and government positions that are the basis
of status in U.S. society. The object of social competition is to improve the
groups relative position rather than to maximize wealth or power. The
space race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the late 1950s
and 1960s was primarily about status and prestige rather than national se-
curity or strategic advantage. Indicators of status competition include arms
races, rivalry over spheres of inuence, military demonstrations aimed at
one-upmanship, and military intervention against a smaller power.
If the power structure proves to be immutable, group members may
achieve positive distinctiveness by exercising social creativity.51 Groups can
redene the value of what was considered to be a negative characteristic, as
in the slogan adopted by African Americans in the 1960s, Black is beauti-
ful. Alternatively, group members may nd a new dimension on which
their group excels. For example, a losing soccer team may console itself by
saying, We are better sports or We played better as a team.52 Smokers
who were informed that their group had an oral xation (inferior status)
and that smoking was difcult to quit (impermeable boundaries) rated
smokers as more likeable and competent than nonsmokers, thereby com-
pensating for being labeled as having poor social adjustment by nding an-
other dimension for comparison.53
National groups as well may enhance their psychological status by nd-
ing new criteria for self-evaluation. In a eld study, southern Italians, part
of a region considered backward, conceded that northern Italians were
more self-controlled and industrious but described themselves as strong,
courageous, and constant.54 When joined with the wealthier, more eco-
nomically advanced West Germany, some East Germans maintained a pos-
itive identity by devaluing material wealth as less important to the East
German identity.55
From 1947 to 1964, Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru sought
great-power status for India by assuming a world leadership role in pro-
moting nuclear disarmament, foreign assistance to developing states, racial
equality, and the restructuring of the United Nations to allow for greater
How Identities Form and Change 67
representation of Asia and Africa. Nehru argued that India had a distinctive
voice as the representative of new states in Asia and refused to align with
either the United States or the Soviet bloc. The Indian prime minister ob-
jected strongly to power politics and alliances, emphasizing instead coop-
eration, peaceful coexistence, and peaceful negotiations. Nehru behaved as
if India were already a great power despite its lack of hard capabilities.56
Indicators that a state is pursuing social creativity include efforts to
achieve prestige outside the realm of geopolitical competition, such as soft
power, a developmental model, diplomatic mediation, and promotion of
new international norms. The states leaders are likely to take an active role
on the international stage to achieve prestige for the state.
In sum, in contrast with constructivism, SIT emphasizes the important
differences between states in relative power and status. States are motivated
to achieve a positive identity, and when this is threatened by unfavorable
comparisons with an out-group, elites may reframe their states identity in
a more positive direction. Thus, the fundamental process is not interaction.
as in constructivism, but social comparison.
I exemplify these dynamics with illustrative case studies of Russia and
China, powers whose policies are more consistent with the predictions of
SIT in that changes in their identity are a response to dissatisfaction with
their relative position on the status hierarchy, not a response to how others
treat them. Indeed, Russia and China have rebelled against efforts to cast
them as merely regional powers. That Russian and Chinese identity forma-
tion and change replicate patterns hypothesized in SIT suggests that the
theory warrants further empirical study in political science.
illustrative cases
China
norms.58 China claims that its rise will be peaceful, in contrast to that of
Germany and Japan, which plundered resources and pursued hege-
mony before World War II, or that of the United States and the Soviet
Union vying for global domination during the Cold War.59
China was motivated to change its identity by the decline in its inter-
national standing brought about by the end of the Cold War. Beginning in
1978, Deng Xiaoping pursued a strategy of social mobility, seeking to en-
hance Chinas power and status through integration in the international
economic order and therefore allowing trade and direct foreign invest-
ment. The Chinese governments June 1989 massacre of student protesters
at Tiananmen Square led to the regimes temporary ostracism and the im-
position of economic sanctions by the United States and other Western
countries. With the waning of the Soviet threat, the United States no
longer needed China to counterbalance the Soviet Union and was free to
criticize the Chinese regimes human rights abuses. China lost its
signicance as part of the strategic triangle. The rapid collapse of com-
munist regimes in Eastern Europe in the autumn of 1989 raised doubts
about the longevity of the Chinese communist regime and made Chinese
leaders appear reactionary as liberal democracy was spreading throughout
the world. Taiwan was becoming more democratic as well, and the rise of
Taiwanese nationalism and increased U.S. support threatened prospects for
Taiwans unication with China. Many Chinese believe that Chinas re-
nascence will be incomplete unless Taiwan, a territory that was forcibly
taken from China in the nineteenth century, is restored.60
In an unfamiliar world, Chinese leaders attempts to formulate a new
grand strategy oundered. In the early 1990s, Chinese analysts believed
that the status hierarchy was unstable and shifting toward multipolarity.61
China was encouraged by the resumption of rapid economic growth in
1992, the end of the post-Tiananmen isolation, and growth in Chinese mil-
itary capabilities.62 In the mid-1990s, Jiang Zemin and his followers
adopted a more assertive foreign policy of social competition to increase
Chinas prole in the Asia-Pacic region. But Chinese assertiveness in the
Taiwan Strait (where the Chinese carried out military exercises and missile
tests) and the South China Sea (where China occupied disputed territory in
the Spratly Islands) increased fears of a China threat in the Asia-Pacic.
Chinese elites were concerned that anxiety about the China threat might
cause the United States and its allies to adopt a containment policy to pre-
vent Chinas rise.63
How Identities Form and Change 69
tinued assertiveness might cause other states to join the United States in
blocking Chinas rise to great-power status.73
Constructivists might object that China was socialized to change its
identity by Asian institutions and norms.74 But the regional institutions
that China joined in the mid-1990s, including ASEAN, are weak, consen-
sus-based organizations. The members of ASEAN have widely different ca-
pabilities, and they share few norms other than respect for sovereignty and
the need for mutual consensus. In 2003, China took a major step in sign-
ing the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, which calls for peaceful
settlement of territorial disputes and noninterference in internal affairs.75
In general, China has been very selective in deciding which norms to ac-
cept among those propagated by international institutions.76
Russia
States. Against the recommendation of his advisers, Putin allowed the use
of Russian airspace for humanitarian rescues, agreed to U.S. use of military
bases in Central Asia, shared intelligence, provided a bridge to a Russian-
trained military force inside Afghanistan (the Northern Alliance), and con-
tinued massive arms shipments to the alliance.81
Putin made substantial concessions to establish a strategic partnership
with the United States without asking for a quid pro quo. He renewed co-
operation with NATO under the auspices of the newly established NATO-
Russia Council, accepted the unilateral abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Mis-
sile Treaty, agreed to a strategic arms reduction treaty that allowed the
United States to store dismantled warheads, and closed down bases in Cuba
and Vietnam.82
In return, Putin expected to be treated as a partner with the United
States in maintaining world order. Putin had some initial successes in es-
tablishing a cooperative relationship with the United States. In May 2002,
the United States and Russia signed a joint declaration on strategic rela-
tions that referred to the two countries as partners, emphasized coopera-
tion in safeguarding stability in the post-Soviet space, and provided for co-
operation in developing a joint strategic missile defense system.83
But the Bush administration was not willing to accept Russia as an
equal partner. This was evident in the casual U.S. disregard for Moscows
objections to the 2003 war against Iraq, further enlargement of NATO, and
more vocal criticism of Putins domestic policies.84 Russian elites were par-
ticularly incensed by the color revolutions from 2003 to 2005 in Georgia,
Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, regarding them as the outcome of Western inter-
ference in the post-Soviet space, a sphere of privileged Russian interest, and
perhaps a model for destabilizing the Russian regime.85
Contrary to both neoliberalism and constructivism, Russia is resisting
socialization and acceptance of international norms, as indicated by the
notion of sovereign democracy, promoted by Vladislav Surkov, the Krem-
lins chief ideologist. Sovereign democracy means that Russia will decide
the timing and path of its democratization free from external interference.
A sovereign democracy is free to decide policies based on national interests
rather than as a consequence of pressure to conform to international
norms. While Russia wants to be a normal state, not the head of a rival
bloc of states, it wants to redene what normal means by emphasizing con-
formity to international law, use of international organizations, and re-
spect for sovereignty.86
72 psychology and constructivism in international relations
conclusion
equal partners. This illustrates that state identity is not merely a product of
socialization but is shaped by internal needs for positive status, psycholog-
ical variables that are the focus of SIT.
Notes
76
Norms and the Management of Identities 77
The concept of social identity has various meanings across the social sci-
ences.5 The social identity approach referred to here, as drawn from social
psychology, focuses on a denition of social identity in terms of group
membership.6 Social identity theory (SIT), which provided the original ba-
sis for the social identity approach, highlights individuals motivations to
become group members, as shown in chapter 2 in relation to changing
group identity and achieving a positive social identity through relative po-
sitioning and being part of a high-status group. I focus, however, on the
consequences of membership for social and normative inuence to address
the how questions of international norm contestation and defection.7
Self-categorization theory (SCT) is important here, focusing as it does
on the cognitive underpinnings of social identity.8 Categorization into so-
cial groups serves to satisfy the basic human need to reduce cognitive com-
plexity and create a degree of parsimony with regard to the complex social
world. We need look no further than the U.S. and British leaders broad cat-
egorization of the world into civilized and noncivilized groupings during
the war on terror to see evidence of such factors.
Self-categorization as a group member enacts the associated social iden-
tity (thought to be largely derived from prototypical members), which,
when salient, forms the basis of our interests; if we identify highly with the
particular group, a benet to the group is considered to be a benet to the
Self. In addition, a favorable representation of the social group is consid-
ered positively in relation to the Self. If individuals come to dene them-
selves in terms of a particular social identity, then the norms of that iden-
tity are seen as crucial to identity maintenance and thus self-related
emotions.9 They form the basis of our sense of self and associated per-
ceptions, feelings, attitudes and behavior.10 Our beliefs about appropriate
behavior are deemed to be a direct consequence of our self-perception as
a group member, and are generated through interaction withinand per-
taining tothe relevant social group.11
Social norms thus contribute to denitions of and, furthermore, consti-
tute group identity, which is inuential when salient. They provide behav-
ioral guidelines, particularly when ambiguity exists, they create expecta-
tions for the behavior of other group members, and they provide a sense of
structure to situations that may otherwise prove chaotic.12 Enactment of
these norms related to the social group also serves as a means by which to
Norms and the Management of Identities 79
Thus, strategies were sought to render the human rights social grouping
compatible with the perceived demands of the superordinate through re-
framing the central normative content. A lack of acceptance, however,
drew the Blair government toward compartmentalization and the con-
struction of boundaries for this grouping.
The third strategy identied by Roccas and Brewer involves intersection
representation, where the overlapping attributes of the diverse social identi-
ties are acknowledged and are viewed on this exclusive basis.44 Only the at-
tributes common to all the social identities form the area of focus as the ba-
sis for a new and very narrow category. The authors give the example of
women and researchers as categories to form the exclusive category of women
researchers. While this process draws from the existing social identities to
constitute the exclusive category, Hutter and Crisp have also demonstrated
that when we cannot rely on the attributes of the categories themselves to
explain the conjunction, we generate new emergent attributes.45 They offer
the example of a Harvard-educated carpenter, where the conjunction de-
mands new attributes not based in either category.
Blair certainly attempted to emphasize the areas where the superordi-
nate group overlapped with the subgroups to allow for the contestation of
the liberal democratic international norms governing detention; however,
this approach did not lead to intersection representation in relation to these
social groups, in the way that Roccas and Brewer outline, since an exclusive
category was not formed. Intersection representation would indeed exclude
certain elements of the superordinate, which would be problematic given
that a strong identication with this grouping appeared to exist. Overlap-
ping instead appeared to be used to support the dominance strategy.46
The nal strategy Roccas and Brewer highlight is that of merging social
identities.47 All divergent social identities are held despite their lack of con-
vergence, as they all share at least some common features. They are all seen
on the most inclusive terms. Which of these four strategies is chosen de-
pends strongly on the degree of conict between the different social groups
and corresponding social identities. An additive strategy (such as Roccas
and Brewers nal category) is highly unlikely in times of contestation,
when differences are accentuated, as was the situation with regard to the
Blair government and the contestation of liberal democratic international
norms governing detention. However, merging is likely to be fairly easy
when conict is not apparent. Where conicting normative demands exist,
management is crucial to increase tolerance, and efforts will tend to be
86 psychology and constructivism in international relations
conclusion
While this chapter has taken an optimistic view of the benets of an en-
hanced engagement with the social identity approach, the framework does
not generate assumptions about content and provides little value as a pre-
dictive tool as a consequence of the number of factors involved. However,
in terms of providing the foundations to construct a narrative focusing on
processes of contestation in relation to liberal democratic international
normsso important to constructivist researchmuch value exists.
The social identity approach is a growing area in social psychology, pro-
viding a range of relevant insights. I have focused in this chapter on the
management of social identities as one particularly interesting site of de-
velopment. However, it is just thata site of development. Cross-disciplin-
ary engagement would certainly be hugely benecial to provide more em-
pirical research for further advancement. The fundamental principles of
multiplicity and an interactive approach to leadership certainly present us
with a rm basis from which to explore norm contestation alongside norm
inuence in international relations.
Notes
1. Flockhart 2006, 89118; Hopf 2002; Shannon and Keller 2007, 79104. See
also Farrell 2005, 44888; Shannon 2000.
2. Assessment of this nature is important if we are to account for the varying
impact of international norms on behavior. See, e.g., Checkel 1998; Yee 1996.
See also Rousseau 2006 in relation to bridging the individual, domestic, and in-
ternational levels of analysis.
3. For norm strength, see Legro 1995; for variations in internalization and dif-
fusion, see Flockhart 2006; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999; for personality, see
Shannon and Keller 2007.
4. In this chapter, I refer to liberal democratic international norms, which are
understood as expectations for appropriate behavior as referent to membership
of a group of liberal democratic states within international society. Liberal
democratic norms are constitutive of this group identity and what it means to
be a member, serving as a guide to action. These insights draw from a body of
constructivist research associated with Finnemore 1996b; Kowert and Legro
1996; Legro 1995; Price 1997; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999. I also draw from
scholars working from a social identity perspective, such as Christensen et al.
2004; Postmes, Haslam, and Swaab 2005.
5. For a review of the different types of social identity conceptions, see
Brewer 2001.
6. This approach to social psychology is based on a body of literature that has
been developing since the 1970s. The key tenets of this perspective are found in
Norms and the Management of Identities 89
both social identity theory (SIT) and self-categorization theory (SCT), which,
taken together, present an account of the psychological processes of group
membership.
7. Billig and Tajfel 1973; Tajfel 1970, 1982b.
8. Turner et al. 1987.
9. Christensen et al. 2004, 1295.
10. Hogg and Vaughan 2005.
11. Christensen et al. 2004. A range of studies have demonstrated the impor-
tance of social norms in the experimental setting. For classic examples, see Asch
1955, 1956; Sherif 1936.
12. Christensen et al. 2004.
13. For this point, see Fierkes (2007) review of constructivism.
14. For further information on how SCT accounts for uctuating salience, see
Hogg and Vaughan 2005, 128.
15. This process relies on a ow of causation from context to social identity
salience and then action.
16. Hogg, Terry, and White 1995, 261.
17. Constraints on changes in group norms can be found in these other
memberships as well as from the various audiences aware of these changes.
18. Chekroun and Brauer 2002, 853.
19. These include norms prohibiting torture; prohibitions on disappearances,
extralegal executions, the death penalty, arbitrary arrest and detention, and
indenite detention without due process; and proscriptions relating to nonre-
foulement. Contestation has arisen in various areas relating to detention in
U.K. government policy. The issue most prominent internationally has been
the establishment of memorandums of understanding or diplomatic assur-
ances contesting the specic norms of nonrefoulement. Perhaps more revi-
sionist, though, have been the supporting arguments domestically concerning
extensions to the period of pretrial detention, which have implications inter-
nationally in terms of example setting.
20. Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999.
21. Shannon and Keller 2007.
22. Haslam and Reicher 2007, 141.
23. Haslam and Reicher 2007, 128.
24. Haslam and Reicher 2007, 141.
25. One example of a real-world study highlighting this is Gibson 2006,
whose assessment of in-group attachment suggests that the inuences on
people are not puried; instead, they are often highly cross-cutting and contex-
tual (697).
26. For an interesting study that considers the construction of boundaries be-
tween in-groups and out-groups, where they are drawn, and their implications
for cooperation and conict, see Rousseau 2006.
27. The hierarchical ranking of social groups in terms of salience and
importance.
90 psychology and constructivism in international relations
48. The latter usage need not be direct in construction, but instead, as Klein,
Spears, and Reicher 2007 point out, the use of ambiguity in discourse relating to
multiple audiences is a potentially very signicant strategy.
49. For U.K. courts rejection of some of Blairs detention policies that have
continued into the premiership of Gordon Brown, see Amnesty International
2008; Human Rights Watch 2008. See also the statements from members of the
House of Lords (such as Lord Goldsmith, Blairs former attorney general) against
the governments policy of extending pretrial detention for terror suspects (BBC
2008).
50. Castle 2006.
chapter 4
Identity and Decision Making: Toward a
Collaborative Approach to State Action
asli ilgit and binnur ozkececi-taner
92
Identity and Decision Making 93
what implications for state action can best be answered by adopting a num-
ber of core assumptions regarding the state identity and decision-making
approaches of constructivism and FPA, respectively. Whereas constructivist
state identity approach explains state action when the established state
identity is not challenged, the decision-making approach sheds light on
moments when decisions go against an embedded state identity. Therefore,
understanding state action in world politics necessitates collaboration be-
tween FPDM and state identity scholars that will account for both the im-
pact of cultural patterns on decision makers5 and the limits of the larger
normative and social system, demonstrating that decision makers are cul-
ture bearers6 but not cultural dupes.7
We provide a critical review of constructivist state identity and FPDM
scholarship to illustrate their complementary nature. Acknowledging the
differences within constructivism, we focus on the constructivist ap-
proaches that emphasize domestic identity construction and discourse an-
alytical perspective, as these are the most relevant and complementary to
foreign policy analysis.8 We then analyze two foreign policy cases from the
Turkish context to show how the complementarities between the two liter-
atures could be put into practice. Turkey provides a laboratory to test the
strength of our major arguments. The long-standing Kemalist state identity
has been under increasing pressure, especially since the mid-1980s, largely
as a consequence of (re)emerging ideas such as political Islam and Kurdish
nationalism in the domestic political scene and a new international struc-
ture with the end of the Cold War. Turkish decision makers frequently nd
themselves caught between the constraints imposed by Kemalism and the
growing inuence of other sociopolitical ideas, some of which the decision
makers themselves represent. Finally, we conclude by evaluating our claims
in light of our ndings and discuss the implications for future research.
ward or in the external environment are less permanent than state identity
in terms of their temporal stability and attitudinal attributes,17 while
state identity is a result of that states interaction with others at the inter-
national level and hence is relatively more stable. Holstis adoption of an
inductive approach to exploring what role conceptions policymakers per-
ceive and dene illustrates that NRCs are neither consistently xed nor in-
disputable across time and that their impact on interests and policies is
likely to become stronger the more they become part of a nations political
culture.18 But which conceptions emerge and become hegemonic is where
constructivism provides analytical leverage.
Meanwhile, many constructivists have parted with Wendts heavily sys-
temic and sticky treatment of state identity, suggesting that identity could
be constructed within various institutional contexts and is the product of
multiple and competing domestic discourses rooted in foundational prin-
ciples.19 In her analysis on the U.S. identity in the early years of indepen-
dence, Bukovansky argues that political, philosophical, and legal principles
gave state identity its meaning and provided foundational background
conditions under which state ofcials dened the national interest.20 Her
study shows that these principles were foundations of the U.S. liberal neu-
trality role that channeled the interests of the Hamiltonians, who advo-
cated trade with the European powers and a commercial growth policy, and
the Jeffersonians, who preferred a westward expansion and an isolationist
policy, into a national interest of political neutrality.21 Barnett, conversely,
highlights the role of institutional contexts for creating multiple, some-
times conictual, norm-based roles for states22 and concludes that these
contested norms are a reection of social roles that make particular policies
and actions desirable, legitimate and intelligible.23 Similarly, Weldes ar-
gues that state ofcials engage in an ongoing process of interpretation of
international context to understand the situations their states face and to
develop appropriate responses. For Weldes, this denition of situation is
a product of the representations of identities and relationships con-
structed by state ofcials.24 Finally, Hopf argues for an account of state
identity as a product of the interaction between a state and its own society.
He argues that states domestic identity discourses establish a social cog-
nitive structure that helps them understand themselves and Others in
world politics and that makes threats and opportunities, enemies and al-
lies, intelligible, thinkable and possible.25
These and other authors draw our attention to decision makers at-
96 psychology and constructivism in international relations
sis provides the context and the situation that is rearticulated by various
political actors in foreign policy making in recent decades. We then focus
on the Turkish political landscape in the 1990s, analyzing how Turkeys Ke-
malist state identity began to be challenged by different political groups
and foreign policy decision makers yet at some points became rather resis-
tant to challenges. We focus on two cases from two different coalition gov-
ernment periods in the 1990s to clarify and further illustrate our claims.39
Partners in a coalition government that hold different worldviews usually
interpret state identity in different ways, have distinct ways of framing pol-
icy issues, and offer divergent alternatives to be implemented as foreign
policy. Our empirical cases demonstrate this dynamic relationship between
how a state identity (Kemalism) is either reinterpreted or dismissed by cer-
tain political actors and how interaction inuences state action.
Our rst case, Turkeys foreign policy toward Syria, particularly in rela-
tion to terrorism by the Partiya Karkern Kurdistan (Kurdish Workers
Party, PKK), is from the ANASOL-D coalition government period. Our sec-
ond case is from the REFAHYOL coalition government period, when Turkey
for the rst time launched an initiative, the Developing-8 (D-8) project, to-
ward institutionalized cooperation among Muslim countries. The rst case
shows how an uncontested state identity may explain and make sense of a
certain state action when decision makers internalize that state identity
and do not question its limitations and opportunities. The second case il-
lustrates that the situation becomes a bit trickier if the state identity is be-
ing challenged by precisely the people who are about to make foreign pol-
icy decisions and commit state resources for a policy that goes against or at
least does not conform to the established identity. With these two cases, we
give a more detailed analysis of a variety of political actors that are involved
in the foreign policy decision-making process, thereby offering an explana-
tion of the divergent and/or similar understandings of Turkish identity and
their impact on political actors foreign policy choices.
After the formation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the single-party rule
under Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (Republican Peoples Party, CHP) estab-
Identity and Decision Making 99
lished the Kemalist identity as the foundation of the Turkish state and rec-
ognized the maintenance of nations independence and the preservation of
Turkeys modern and secular national regime as the two pillars of Turkish
foreign policy until 1946.40 After 1947, the international system, structured
by the bipolarity of the Cold War, consolidated Turkeys identity rooted in
Kemalist principles and provided the essential environment for Turkish for-
eign policy decision makers, who sought to preserve the status quo in in-
ternational relations and preferred a passive and cautious foreign policy
with a Western orientation.
The end of the Cold War, however, marked a turning point in Turkeys
foreign and security policy in that the country found itself in a new inter-
national environment and a new domestic political scene. The postCold
War security environment brought the question of whether Turkey would
maintain its Western orientation, symbolized by its membership in various
Western organizations such as NATO and its aspirations for EU member-
ship. Domestically, the democratization process and the process of the EU
membership led the (re)emerging of ideas of political Islam and ethnic Kur-
dish nationalism to challenge the dominant principles of Kemalist iden-
tity.41 At the same time, the Turkish armed forces, with their strict adher-
ence to Kemalist principles and dedication to preserving Turkeys Kemalist
identity, continued to struggle with these divergent political discourses.
Consequently, Turkish politics in the 1990s was marked by conict be-
tween the deeply embedded Kemalist identity that has provided guidelines
for policymakers since the early 1920s and the emergence of new ideas and
reemergence of old ideas that challenge that identity.42
One very important component of the Kemalist foreign policy is its be-
lief in the importance of international agreements and the principle of
pacta sund servanda. Since Ataturk believed that the military victories
should be complemented with treaties and international agreements, Ke-
malists have stressed the importance of the international agreements and
treaties concluded between Turkey and other entities.50 In addition, ac-
cording to the Kemalists, international organizations, which derive their le-
gitimacy from international agreements, also play an important role in in-
ternational affairs. One of the Turkish republics rst steps was to join the
League of Nations.
Furthermore, the fact that the sovereign rights and independence of the
Turkish people had been disregarded by the victorious powers of World
War I and that the Turks were forced to ght to regain their independence
and their homeland had important effects both on subsequent Kemalist at-
titudes vis--vis foreign powers, especially those in Europe, and on Turkish
nation-building efforts. The Sevres Treaty, Kemalists believe, showed that
102 psychology and constructivism in international relations
The Turks were a great nation even before they had accepted Islam. How-
ever, after they had accepted this religion, it loosened their national ties and
numbed their national feelings. That was a natural outcome because the
purpose of Islam as laid down out by Mohammed was an ummet policy.56
Although Turkey has geographical, cultural, and religious ties with the
Muslim world, Kemalist foreign policy absolutely rejected any kind of
close relations with the Muslim countries in general and with the Arabs in
particular, primarily to minimize the inuence of Islam from those areas.
The new leadership believed that Islam as a religion and a form of gover-
nance was responsible for the laziness and the fatalism of the Muslim so-
cieties. Ataturk suggested that the predominance of Islam and its teach-
ings have prevented intellectual and scientic progress in these societies
and created a big gap between them and the modernized (i.e., secular)
world. The dishonesty and disloyalty of the Arab people to the Ottoman
Empire during World War I were also inuential in Kemalist thinking. In
addition to security considerations in the region and the value Kemalism
places on Turkeys territorial borders, the Kemalist foreign policy in the
Middle East was mostly interested in the status quo and order and has
preferred neutrality.57
104 psychology and constructivism in international relations
Hostility between Turkey and Syria, which share an 870 kilometer (545
mile) border, continued for decades, showing remarkable durability al-
though it never turned into open warfare.58 Each side charged the other
with enemy-like behavior. The Kemalist view is that the Arabs are not to be
trusted because they stabbed Turkey in the back by siding with the British
and French rather than the Ottomans during World War I.
The main problem between Turkey and Syria started in the late 1970s,
when the Syrian leadership started granting asylum to various Kurdish and
Armenian guerrilla groups, which Turkey considered terrorists, as a way of
strengthening its bargaining power with regard to other problems with
Turkey. One of the central gures of this policy against Turkey was Abdul-
lah Ocalan, the leader of the PKK, which sought the formation of a Kurdish
state within the Turkish borders. Throughout 1980s, the Syrian govern-
ment regularly denied that it gave support to the PKK or allowed Ocalan to
stay in Syria. However, Ocalan reportedly met with Soviet diplomats in
Damascus soon after the signing of the 1987 agreement in which Turkey
agreed to guarantee Syria ve hundred cubic meters per second of Eu-
phrates water in exchange for antiterrorist assurances from Damascus.59 In
theory, this agreement was to provide the basis for the settlement of both
the water dispute and Syrian support for the PKK. In practice, however, ten-
sions between Turkey and Syria continued to increase, reaching a breaking
point during 199495, when Turkish intelligence revealed that Syrian lead-
ers were providing a safe haven for the PKK and Ocalan even though the
party had been declared an outlawed organization in a 1992 joint agree-
ment.60 In response, Turkey froze substantive ofcial contacts with Syria in
1995.
In identity terms, the enemy image is very powerful in explaining the
Turkish-Syrian relationship. The international and regional structure dur-
ing the Cold War period had consolidated these images as Turkey and Syria
chose opposing camps, with Turkey a NATO member since 1952 and Syria
a longtime Soviet arms client and supporter. That major difference rein-
forced preexisting antagonisms and enemy images until the end of the
Cold War. Further, the Kemalist principles that give the meaning to
Turkeys secular identity and neutral foreign policy role in the Middle East-
ern affairs, particularly in the Arab world, reinforced this image of Syria as
an enemy.
Identity and Decision Making 105
The rst ofcial trips of a newly elected head of government are important
for every country because they are intended to get recognition, to show the
importance of relations with the countries being visited, and to symbolize
the newly elected cabinets foreign relations priorities. In fact, the rst
ofcial trips are so important that a change even in the sequence of visits
can suggest or may be interpreted as hinting a change in a countrys foreign
policy orientation. Turkey has always given specic attention to these vis-
its, and until the REFAHYOL period, newly elected prime ministers gener-
ally paid their rst ofcial visits to European capitals.69 These visits illus-
trated Turkeys Western orientation as well as the continuing priority
Turkish leaders gave to their Western allies. But when Necmettin Erbakan,
the leader of the Refah Partisi (Welfare Party, RP), came to power, he paid
his rst ofcial visits as prime minister to Muslim countries.
Erbakans decision did not really shock many people either inside or
outside of Turkey despite the constraints he faced as a partner in a coalition
government. On the contrary, it conrmed the view that the RPs Islamic
orientation would modify the nature of Turkeys foreign policy orientation.
108 psychology and constructivism in international relations
The D-8s declared aims meshed with those of the RPs program, in-
cluding helping the poor and disadvantaged have a say in economic mat-
ters. This was in line with the RPs motto, Just order. Despite the RPs in-
sistence that the basic intention behind forming the D-8 was to create
neither a separate Islamic grouping . . . nor a bloc against the developed
states, particularly of the West,81 the project was initiated to strengthen
Muslim countries position. According to the RP, Muslim Third World
countries were ready for an alternative just world order and were willing
to cooperate with one another to bring it about, accepting Turkeys leader-
ship in the effort
The DYP, the RPs coalition partner, was not ready or willing to partici-
pate in Turkeys rapprochement with Iran and Libya, seeing such efforts as
incompatible with both Turkeys NATO membership and the partys West-
ern orientation. In fact, the rst serious indication of discord had surfaced
during the early days of the coalition government when Ciller assured
Western ambassadors that Erbakan would not pay his rst ofcial visit to
Syria and Iran.82 The undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Onur Oymen, suggested that despite the RPs novel initiatives, Cillers
statements represented Turkeys ofcial policies.
The military believed that the REFAHYOL foreign policy lacked rm-
ness.83 Deputy chief of the general staff Cevik Bir criticized Ciller for ap-
peasing her coalition partner and for failing to take Turkeys national inter-
ests seriously and to represent them efciently.84 Although the military
used the media to try to prevent or at least postpone the formation of the
D-8,85 it had no other avenues of inuence. The D-8 under Erbakans lead-
ership symbolized a challenge to Turkeys policy of noninvolvement in
Muslim affairs and to the countrys secular principles, and the military saw
Erbakans efforts as a threat to Turkeys national interests and as proof of
the RPs Islamist intentions.86 To balance the RPs assertive foreign policy
behavior, the military started its own initiatives.
As this episode exemplies, Turkish foreign policy under the RE-
FAHYOL coalition government challenged the entrenched Kemalist state
identity and thus represented a complete departure from Turkeys foreign
policy prescriptionsthat is, a Western orientation with neutrality and
noninvolvement with regard to the Muslim states. The RPs Islamist ideas
competed with the secular ideas of Kemalist circles by identifying different
focal points of Turkish history and creating different narratives of Turkish
Identity and Decision Making 111
conclusion
Notes
its different advocates. As a result, scholars have divided the literature into var-
ious constructivist camps to differentiate conventional causal analysis from
critical postpositivism (see Hopf 1998; for an argument against these attempts
to compartmentalize constructivism, see Klotz and Lynch 2007).
9. Voss and Dorsey 1992. Those advocating the importance of examining
how decisions are made have raised a series of challenges to the rationalist ac-
counts of foreign policy-making. In one inuential study, Snyder, Bruck, and
Sapin (1962) argue that policymakers interpretations of the world and the ways
their preferences become aggregated in the decision-making process affect the
way that foreign policy problems are framed, the options that are selected, the
choices made, and what gets implemented. By the 1970s, theoretical models of
decision making such as bureaucratic politics, groupthink, and cognitive ap-
proaches to governmental policy-making critiqued the empirical gapspuz-
zles and anomalies (Hagan 2001, 6) in realist explanations of foreign policy.
See Allison 1971; Halperin 1974; M. Hermann and Hagan 1998; Janis 1972; Jervis
1976. See also Garrison 1999; Khong 1992; Lebow and Stein 1994; t Hart 1994;
t Hart, Stern, and Sundelius 1997; Vertzberger 1990. For a comprehensive re-
view, see Ozkececi-Taner and Hermann 2007.
10. Wendt 1992, 397.
11. Wendt 1999, 224.
12. Wendt 1999, 259.
13. Klotz 1995.
14. Aggestam 1999.
15. Rosenau 1990, 213; Walker 1987, 271, quoted in Aggestam 1999.
16. K. Holsti 1970; Krotz 2002.
17. O. Holsti 1977.
18. Aggestam 1999.
19. Barnett 1998, 1999; Bukovansky 1997; Hopf 2002; Neumann 1999; Weldes
1998.
20. Bukovansky 1997.
21. Bukovansky 1997, 21820.
22. Barnett 1999, 9.
23. Barnett 1998, 30.
24. Weldes 1999, 1314.
25. Hopf 2002, 16.
26. Barnett 1999, 15; Rittberger and Schimmelfennig 2005; Schimmelfennig
2003.
27. Stern 2004, 115, 120. We acknowledge that most FPDM approaches em-
phasize the subjective nature of foreign policy decision making as opposed to
intersubjective nature of state actions that many constructivists propose.
28. Stern 2004, 116; Sylvan 1998, 4. See also Charlick-Payley and Sylvan
2000; Sylvan, Grove, and Martinson 2005.
29. Stern 1999, 33; Stern 2004, 111; Stern and Sundelius 2002.
30. Beer, Healy, and Bourne 2004.
31. Beer, Healy, and Bourne 2004; Cottam 1994; Herrmann and Fischerkeller
1995; Schafer 1997; Young and Schafer 1998.
114 psychology and constructivism in international relations
modernization initiated during this time period. The Ottoman experience be-
fore, during, and after World War I and the resulting Turkish Independence War
with major European states; the Sevres Treaty imposed on the Ottoman Empire
in 1920; and the thoughts of the Young Turks were among the main factors in
the formation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 and its Kemalist identity. For a
more detailed historical analysis of the Turkish Republics formation and the
emergence of Kemalist principles, see Aydin 1999; Cecen 2007; Lewis 1961;
Mardin 1962.
46. Cecen 2007.
47. Aksin 1991; Aydin 1999; Kedourie 1999; Lewis 1961; Stone 2001.
48. Ataturk 1933.
49. Aydin 1999, 163.
50. Ataturk and the new leaderships insistence on the signing of the Lau-
sanne Treaty in 1924, in which the territorial borders of the Turkish Republic
were recognized by the victors of World War I, is an example of this.
51. Kushner 1997.
52. Ataturk 1933.
53. Aydin 1999.
54. Ataturk 1933; Aydin 1999.
55. Aydin 1999, 163.
56. Quoted in Bozdaglioglu 2002, 64.
57. Bozdaglioglu 2002, 170.
58. Makovsky 1999. The Syrian leadership still sees Turkey as the successor of
the Ottoman Empire, which the Syrians believe attempted de-Arabize the Ara-
bian Peninsula for four centuries before World War I. Syria blames the Ottoman
administration for Syrias relative underdevelopment today. The Turkish side,
conversely, argues that Syria, the self-proclaimed leader of Arab nationalism, is
the epitome of the Arab treachery. Three main problems have affected Turkish-
Syrian relations since the 1950s: the question of the sovereignty of the city of
Hatay/Alexandretta; the issue of sharing the water of the Euphrates and Orontes
Rivers; and the problem of the PKK. Even though these issues are very much in-
terrelated, we limit ourselves only to the issue of PKK terrorism and mention
the other issues only when relevant to our case.
59. Kut 1993.
60. Alacam 199495, 1517.
61. The Turkish military denes its main principle as strictly adhering to
Ataturks principle of Peace at home, peace in the world: The Armed Forces
of the Turkish Republic are not a part of any aggressive intentions, but will be
called upon when its independence, nation, country and honor are under
threat or in parallel with the common ideals of international organizations of
which it is a member (www.tsk.mil.tr).
62. Milliyet, October 4, 1998.
63. Milliyet, October 3, 6, 1998.
64. Mufti 2002.
116 psychology and constructivism in international relations
65. We distinguish between a unitary and a unied state. While foreign policy
or international relations literature focuses largely on the unitary state usu-
ally underlying the states decision-making mechanism, in the Turkish political
context, the discursive emphasis is mainly on a unied state, denoting
Turkeys territorial and national security.
66. Milliyet, October 7, 1998; President Demirel, October 1, 1998.
67. Washington Times, October 3, 1998.
68. Bukovansky 1997.
69. The REFAHYOL coalition government was formed by two center-right
parties, Refah Partisi (RP, Welfare Party) and Dogru Yol Partisi (DYP, True Path
Party).
70. Cakir 1994. Since 1970, when Necmettin Erbakan established the rst
Turkish Islamist party, the Milli Nizam Partisi (National Order Party), the same
Islamist party has endured under different names: Milli Nizam Partisi (197071),
Milli Selamet Partisi (National Salvation Party, 197281), Refah Partisi (Welfare
Party, 198398), and Fazilet Partisi (Virtue Party, 1997).
71. RP Election Manifesto 1995, 29.
72. Milliyet, August 1012, 1996.
73. Sevket Kazan proposed to Iran, Iraq, and Syria that a meeting be held
about terrorism in the region (Aykan 1999) without informing the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.
74. Milliyet, August 2, 1996.
75. Aykan 1999.
76. Makovsky 1997; Oran 20002001.
77. Aykan 1999.
78. Milliyet, January 11, 15, 25, February 34, 1997, July 18, 1996; Cumhuriyet,
January 15, 25, 1997; Kohen in Milliyet, February 5, 1997.
79. Aykan 1999.
80. For detailed information about the D-8, see http://www.developing-
8net/topics.htm.
81. Milliyet, May 3, 1997.
82. Cumhuriyet, July 12, 1996.
83. Cumhuriyet, June 11, 2728, 1997.
84. Cumhuriyet, June 2728, 1997.
85. See esp. the writings of Sukru Elekdag in Milliyet, Hikmet Cetinkaya in
Cumhuriyet, and Oktay Eksi in Hurriyet, October 15, 1996June 15, 1997.
86. The military stated in February 1997 that the primary internal enemy to
the Turkish Republic was irtica (Islamic fundamentalism) and declared that
weapons could be used against this enemy if that was the only option left.
87. Bukovansky 1997.
part ii
development is not a new idea. And yet it is. The meaning of develop-
ment has been constructed and re-constructed across time.1 Recent inter-
national debate about development cooperation has been accompanied by
calls for a new Marshall Plan. This analogy helped to shape ideas and argu-
ments as development norms were re-constructed at the dawn of the
twenty-rst century.
Recent studies on the construction, adoption, and diffusion of interna-
tional norms have focused on the adaptation of international norms in
light of domestic cultural values.2 Such studies generally accept the inter-
national norm as preexisting and presume (1) that decision makers accu-
rately perceive domestic values and (2) that these domestic values are rela-
tively static givens. However, psychological perspectives provide reasons to
doubt these assumptions. Prospect theory has amply demonstrated that
perception is affected by contextual variables, which predispose decision
makers to some choices more than others.3 Poliheuristic theory has shown
that perception and decision making are inherently political processes that
cannot be understood apart from the decision makers values and objec-
tives.4 In addition, studies have shown that historical context matters in
shaping perspective.5
Earlier efforts to explain the diffusion of norms have generally not in-
119
120 psychology and constructivism in international relations
Recent years have seen renewed attention to the global divide between rich
and poor countries and the role of aid in eliminating this gap. In the time
between the promulgation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration
in 2000 and its International Conference on Financing for Development,
held in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2002, British policymakers called for a
modern Marshall Plan.8 The call was meant to support the effort to es-
tablish a global consensus regarding a renewed commitment to develop-
ment. Indeed, the meeting in Monterrey issued the Monterrey Consensus
on Financing for Development.9 The use of the Marshall Plan analogy by
international leaders in this debate underscored the enduring appeal of the
American initiative that aided in Europes postWorld War II recoveryor,
rather, of the idea that the plan has come to exemplify.
The Marshall Plan has become analogous with the optimistic
condence that foreign aid can help foster a world without want, an idea
that is eerily similar to the contemporary notion that with sufcient and
targeted aid ows, we can end poverty in our time.10 I do not focus here
on evaluating whether ending poverty in our time is indeed possible. In-
stead, I focus on the re-construction of the core ideas of development.
While development is not a new idea, neither is the recognition that it
is unavoidably a normative concept involving very basic choices and val-
ues.11 Although a broad normative consensus appears to exist that devel-
opment is a worthwhile objective, the core objectives as well as the avenues
for achieving them have remained a matter of debate. Indeed, Szirmai
notes a certain trendiness in thinking about development in the
postWorld War II and postcolonial period.12 This is especially true when
considering plans for how development is best encouraged, but normative
and strategic shifts have also occurred.
Finnemore traces the emergence of the focus on poverty alleviation as
a core norm in the global development community. She suggests that as a
result of the emergence of this norm, the collective international under-
standing of what development is all about has changed.13 Moreover, she
argues that the focus on poverty alleviation not only suggests a change in
the denition of development but also changes the unit of analysis:
Poverty moved from being a condition of states to a condition of
people.14 This, in turn, has inuenced policy. Rather than focusing merely
122 psychology and constructivism in international relations
on increasing GNP or, perhaps, GNP per capita, development also came
to entail a focus on the distribution of those gains.15 Finnemore ac-
knowledges that this norm is often violated in practice, but she nonethe-
less insists that it provides a yardstick by which to gauge the policies of
countries and international organizations involved in the development
process.16
More recently, Busby has investigated the normative foundations of ar-
guments regarding debt relief, whereas Hook describes the creation of a
new institution in support of policy innovation based on a specic set of
norms regarding development.17 Busby emphasizes the process of persuad-
ing key actors, or gatekeepers, to support debt relief. He focuses less on the
diffusion of the norm than on the strategy employed to achieve support for
its implementation. Hook focuses on the creation of a new institution, the
Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which was designed to effect a
normative change in the development cooperation policy of one donor
state, the United States.
Both Busby and Hook suggest that the postCold War environment cre-
ated the novel foreign policy conditions under which such changes could
take place.18 Busby points to (domestic) advocacy movements that emerged
after the end of the Cold War, whereas Hook highlights World Bank stud-
ies, scholarly publications, and media commentaries that created the nor-
mative context for a shift in U.S. development cooperation policy. Neither
author argues that these events caused the policy changes; both portray the
events as the backdrop that made these changes possible.
The end of the Cold War presented decision makers with a novel for-
eign policy context in which the old, security-related incentives for aiding
developing countries lost their currency and a new set of countries with
economies in transition emerged and required attention. Around the same
time, globalization emerged as the concept that dened the increased in-
terconnectedness of societies and economies around the world. Neither the
concept nor the phenomenon it described were new. What was new was
the increasingly broad-based awareness of that interconnectedness and its
possible implications. Advocacy movements and other actors renewed
their attention to global inequality and developmentattention that is
best understood in the context of globalization and uncertainty about the
structure of the international system.
It is perhaps unsurprising that the Marshall Plan analogy has
(re)emerged within this context. Decision makers were confronted with
Re-Constructing Development Assistance 123
140000 __________________________________________________________________________
120000 __________________________________________________________________________
100000 __________________________________________________________________________
80000 __________________________________________________________________________
60000 __________________________________________________________________________
40000 __________________________________________________________________________
20000 __________________________________________________________________________
0 __________________________________________________________________________
1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008
Fig. 1. U.S. and combined OECD states Official Development Assistance (ODA)
in millions of constant dollars (2005 = 100)
constant dollars) provided by both the United States and the combined
twenty-two members of the DAC. The U.S. contribution in absolute dol-
lars is substantial. Hence, if it were to adopt this international develop-
ment norm, this would have a signicant impact on development efforts
globally.
Is the creation of the MCC evidence that the United States subscribes to
the Millennium Declarations norms? If so, the textual evidence should
demonstrate a similarity between international declarations and reports,
on the one hand, and statements and policy initiatives made by U.S. deci-
sion makers, on the other. This similarity should extend not only to the
norms and values expressed by the (representatives of) international orga-
nizations and the U.S. government but also to the stated core audience and
the mechanisms for the achievement of the stated purposes.
As the literature suggests, norm diffusion from the international level of
analysis (represented by epistemic communities and international organi-
zations) to state-level foreign policy requires not just favorable domestic
constraints (the ability to create a credible cultural match) but alsoand
most importantdecision makers willingness to serve as supportive policy
gatekeepers. Whereas small states might be expected to be eager adopters of
130 psychology and constructivism in international relations
The turn of the millennium constitutes a focal point for a rethinking of de-
velopment cooperation at both the international and state levels. Hence,
Re-Constructing Development Assistance 131
The window of time bounded by the meetings that produced these two dec-
larations is therefore crucial, representing an era in which world leaders fo-
cused on norms and ideas about development cooperation.
The Millennium Declarations objectives include more than develop-
ment cooperation. They are wide ranging and include a rededication by the
UN members to the principles enshrined in the organizations charter as
well as important principles and conventions agreed on throughout UN
history. However, the explicit statement of tangible development goals
and specic dates by which to achieve themstands out and has received
the most explicit attention.
In several places, the declaration discusses increased aid ows. For ex-
ample, it calls on the members to grant more generous development as-
sistance, especially to countries that are genuinely making an effort to ap-
ply their resources to poverty reduction, and advocates that donor states
increase nancial and technical assistance to address the special prob-
lems of landlocked developing countries.62 Furthermore, UN members vow
to take special measures to address the challenges of poverty eradication
and sustainable development in Africa, including debt cancellation, im-
proved market access, enhanced Ofcial Development Assistance and in-
creased ows of Foreign Direct Investment, as well as transfers of technol-
ogy.63 The UN members also promise to seek better coordination between
their efforts, committing themselves to ensuring greater policy coherence
and better cooperation between the United Nations, its agencies, the Bret-
ton Woods Institutions and the World Trade Organization, as well as other
multilateral bodies, with a view to achieving a fully coordinated approach
to the problems of peace and development.64
Although the Millennium Declaration features the sort of hopeful but
vague language common to broad declarations by international organiza-
tions, the document also includes a list of specic development targets,
starting with the intent to halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of the
worlds people whose income is less than one dollar a day.65 Hook points
out that the declaration is not the rst to identify explicit measures of de-
velopment progress and timetables for higher aid levels but claims that it
demonstrates a renewed commitment to the aid regime after a decade of
postCold War drift.66
In other words, the Millennium Declaration constitutes an important
focusing event that resulted in renewed attention for development cooper-
ation and the role of aid. It emphasizes the mutual responsibilities of donor
Re-Constructing Development Assistance 133
countries (to provide more aid and less interference) and recipient states (to
provide good governance and a focus on poverty reduction) but also high-
lights the role of good governance at the international level and of
transparency in the nancial, monetary and trading systems.67
Other conferences have dealt with aspects of the agenda set out in the
Millennium Declaration, but the Monterrey Conference provides the focal
point for nancing for development.68 Aid plays an important part in this
nancing and has often sparked debate. The period between the Millen-
nium Declaration and the Monterrey Conference provides a well-dened
window of time in which a sharpened focus existed on the role of aid in de-
velopment as well as on the merits of various mechanisms by which it is
dispensed and distributed.
While there are parallels between our time and 50 years ago no historical
analogies can ever be exact. Far more so than in Marshalls time, our inter-
dependence means that what happens to the poorest citizen in the poorest
country can directly affect the richest citizen in the richest country.91
How do these ideas correspond with long-held beliefs in the United States,
especially regarding foreign aid and development? Research on foreign pol-
icy and public opinion provides conicting images of the engagement of
the public with development cooperation. Some studies suggest that in the
aftermath of the Cold War, the public has become less supportive of foreign
aid.95 To the contrary, other observers suggest that the American public
strongly supports the principle of foreign aid, especially when it is con-
structed in terms of moral arguments.96 Still others claim that foreign aid is
a low-salience subject and that the public consequently does not have a
strong opinion, giving decision makers substantial leeway to make policy
as they see t.97
In fact, decision makers apparently do make policy as they see t, but
not because the public lacks an opinion. Instead, a gap exists between de-
cision makers perceptions of public opinion and actual public opinion.98
Kull and Ramsay argue that this gap results from a failure to seek out in-
formation about the public and a tendency to assume that the vocal public
is representative of the general public.99
Hook attributes the Bush administrations MCA initiative to pressure
from religious groups, which reversed a history of hostility toward foreign
aid and emerged as forceful advocates of poverty relief in the 1990s.100
Busby takes a slightly different approach and suggests that the reframing of
Re-Constructing Development Assistance 141
The MCA has been lauded as the most signicant structural change in U.S.
foreign aid since the passage of the Foreign Assistance Act in 1961.106 In-
deed, the MCA constitutes a bold proposal. Its innovative nature was un-
derscored by the creation of the MCC to administer it. Previous authors
have not, however, asked whether and to what degree the MCA reects the
values and norms of the UN Millennium Declaration and other emerging
international norms.
The MCA proposal results from the efforts of an interagency task force
that was convened in the summer of 2001 by the White House to consider
a new initiative for the United States government to announce at the
March 2002 development conference in Monterrey, Mexico.107 The presi-
dent convened the task force around the time the Zedillo Commissions re-
port was released, prior to September 11, but the task force did not complete
its work until after the attacks. The task force was aware of the speeches by
Blair and Brown. The deliberations of the task force are not a matter of pub-
lic record, so it is not possible to know how and to what degree these doc-
142 psychology and constructivism in international relations
however, shows that some marked differences exist between the emerging
normative consensus and the American proposal. Moreover, these differ-
ences cannot be explained easily as grafting and pruning to adapt interna-
tional norms to create a cultural match, as the match between domestic
public opinion and the international epistemic community appears
stronger than the match between either and the MCA proposal. In sum, the
MCA proposal apparently reects preferences held by the president and his
advisers more than the grafting or pruning to make an international norm
consistent with domestic values.
Notes
1. In so doing, I follow the notion that norms change in meaning across time
and that the meaning of a norm is historically contingent. See Price 1995.
2. Acharya 2004; Busby 2007; Checkel 1999; Finnemore 1996b; Price 1995,
1997.
146 psychology and constructivism in international relations
3. Ariely 2008; Farnham 1990; Levy 1992, 1996; Quattrone and Tversky
1988; Tversky and Kahneman 1981, 45358.
4. Mintz 2003; Mintz and Geva 1997.
5. Breuning 1997, 1998; Chafetz, Abramson, and Grillot 1996; Hudson 1999.
6. Breuning 1997, 1998; Chafetz, Abramson, and Grillot 1996; Hudson 1999.
7. See Houghton 1996; Hudson 1999; Khong 1992; Peterson 1997.
8. E.g., Brown 2001.
9. United Nations 2002.
10. The phrase is from Hoffman 1962. The contemporary corollary is Sachs
2005. Works that describe the Marshall Plan as the direct ancestor to modern
development assistance include Ellerman 2006; Lancaster 2007; Lumsdaine
1993; H. Stein 2008; Wood 1986; Zimmerman and Hook 1996. A more nuanced
account is presented in Breuning 2003.
11. Szirmai 2005, 9.
12. Szirmai 2005, 2.
13. Finnemore 1996b, 126.
14. Finnemore 1996b, 90.
15. Finnemore 1996b, 90, 95.
16. Finnemore 1996b, 125.
17. Busby 2007; Hook 2008.
18. Busby 2007; Hook 2008.
19. Houghton 1996, 523.
20. Houghton 1996; Peterson 1997.
21. Breuning 2003; Sylvan, Ostrom, and Gannon 1994.
22. Price 1995, 1997; Checkel 1999.
23. Acharya 2004, 269.
24. Acharya 2004, 246.
25. Hemmer 1999; Houghton 1996; Khong 1992; Reiter 1996.
26. Finnemore 1996b, 91.
27. On the former, see, e.g., Busby 2007; Finnemore 1996b, 2003; Peterson
1997. On the latter, see, e.g., Hemmer 1999; Houghton 1996; Khong 1992; Reiter
1996.
28. On using analogies better, see Neustadt and May 1986. On other aspects
of analogical reasoning, see Jervis 1976; Vertzberger 1990.
29. Houghton 1996; Peterson 1997.
30. On norms and beliefs, see Boyd and Hopple 1987; Busby 2007; Finnemore
1996b; J. Goldstein and Keohane 1993; Hook 2008. On foreign policy change,
see Goldmann 1988; Gustavsson 1999, 7395; Hagan 1989a, 1989b, 1994; C. Her-
mann 1990; K. Holsti 1982, 1991; O. Holsti, Siverson, and George 1980; Moon
1985; Rosenau 1981; Skidmore 1994; S. Smith 1981.
31. Finnemore (1996b) and Price (1995, 1997) trace changes in international
norms; Busby (2007) and Hook (2008) emphasize national policy making.
32. Gustavsson 1999; C. Hermann 1990.
33. On international sources of foreign policy change, see K. Holsti 1991. On
Re-Constructing Development Assistance 147
domestic sources, see Boyd and Hopple 1987; Brunk and Minehart 1984; Gold-
mann 1988; Hagan 1989a, 1989b, 1994; Moon 1985; Rosenau 1981; Skidmore
1994; S. Smith 1981.
34. Hey 2003; Katzenstein 1985; Rosati 1994; Volgy and Schwarz 1991.
35. Cox and Dufn 2008; Kull 1995; Kull and Destler 1999; Kull and Ramsay
2000.
36. C. Hermann 1990.
37. Busby 2007; K. Holsti 1982; Pickering 1998, 2002.
38. Volgy and Schwarz 1991, 29. See also Goldmann 1988.
39. Gustavsson 1999; Pickering 2002.
40. Busby 2007; Gustavsson 1999; Hook 2008; Kingdon 1984, 1995.
41. Gustavsson 1999.
42. Busby 2007, 253.
43. Hook 2008.
44. Goldmann 1988; Volgy and Schwarz 1991.
45. Acharya 2004.
46. K. Holsti 1982; Pickering 1998, 2002.
47. Busby 2007.
48. Busby 2007, 262.
49. Breuning 2007.
50. Hey 2003; Katzenstein 1985; Volgy and Schwarz 1991.
51. Skidmore 2005.
52. Keohane 1984; Skidmore 2005.
53. Pearson 1969. See also Ruttan 1996.
54. Zedillo 2001.
55. OECD 1996.
56. Busby 2007.
57. Skidmore 2005, 207.
58. Hook 2008; Radelet 2003; Economist, February 16, 2008, 5556.
59. Keohane 1984; Skidmore 2005.
60. On grafting, see Checkel 1999; Price 1995, 1997. On pruning, see Acharya
2004.
61. Busby 2007.
62. United Nations 2000 (Millennium Declaration, III.15 and III.18,
respectively).
63. United Nations 2000, VII.28.
64. United Nations 2000, VIII.30.
65. United Nations, III.19.
66. Hook 2008, 156. See also Lancaster 2007.
67. United Nations 2000, III.13.
68. The ofcial title of this UN-sponsored conference was International Con-
ference on Financing for Development.
69. E.g., Ruttan 1996; Szirmai 2005.
70. See also Hook 2008.
148 psychology and constructivism in international relations
71. E.g., Alesina and Dollar 2000; Boone 1996; Burnside and Dollar 2000;
Collier and Dollar 2002; World Bank 1998.
72. DAC 1996, 1.
73. Hook 2008; Lancaster 2007.
74. DAC 1996; United Nations 2000.
75. DAC 1996, 8.
76. DAC 1996, 3.
77. DAC 1996, 2.
78. DAC 1996, 1.
79. Finnemore 1996b.
80. DAC 1996, 2.
81. DAC 1996, 13.
82. Zedillo 2001, 24. See also Kanbur and Sandler 1999.
83. Zedillo 2001, 23.
84. Zedillo 2001, 11.
85. Zedillo 2001, 3.
86. Times, October 3, 2001.
87. Times, October 3, 2001.
88. Brown 2001.
89. Breuning 2003. See also Eberstadt 1988; Hoffman 1962; Hook 1995;
Lumsdaine 1993; Packenham 1973; Wood 1986; Zimmerman 1993.
90. Brown 2001.
91. Brown 2001.
92. Brown 2001.
93. Brown 2001.
94. Brown 2003.
95. Cox and Dufn 2008; O. Holsti 1996.
96. Kull 1995; Kull and Ramsay 2000.
97. Lancaster 2007; Rosner 1995.
98. Kull and Destler 1999; Kull and Ramsay 2000.
99. Kull and Ramsay 2000, 113.
100. Hook 2008, 154. See also Lancaster 2007.
101. Busby 2007.
102. Kull 1995, 103.
103. Kull, Ramsay, and Lewis 2003.
104. Kull 1995.
105. Kull and Destler 1999; Kull and Ramsay 2000.
106. Hook 2008, 148. See also Lancaster 2007; Nowels 2005.
107. Hook 2008, 160.
108. Bush 2002.
109. Bush 2002.
110. Bush 2002.
111. Brown 2001, 2003.
112. Bush 2002; emphasis added.
Re-Constructing Development Assistance 149
113. The logic behind the MCA seems similar to the logic behind the No
Child Left Behind initiative.
114. Lancaster 2007, 92. See also Hook 2008.
115. Hook 2008, 158.
116. Esp. Acharya 2004. See also Checkel 1999.
117. Kull, Ramsay, and Lewis 2003.
chapter 6
Agent-Level and Social Constructivism:
The Case of the Iran Hostage Crisis
david patrick houghton
the theme of this volume is the status of social constructivism and the
psychological approach to international relations as ideational allies.1 A
natural place to begin, then, is to examine in what sense this claim is true.
The question can be answered, of course, in a rather negative fashion: In
other words, we may usefully delineate what both are opposed to. If an op-
position to neorealism and neoliberalism were all they held in common,
for example, social constructivism would share little more with the psy-
chological approach than Saddam Hussein had in common with the
United States during the early 1980s vis--vis Iran. This chapter proposes,
however, that the familial linkages between the two constitute more than
just marriages of convenience. In a more positive sense, both agree on a
number of things in substantive or ontological respects, commonalities
that make them in some ways natural bedfellows. This is particularly true
of what Christian Reus-Smit terms unit-level constructivism, an ap-
proach used to complement more structure-oriented versions that lack an
account of agency.2 This unit-level approach, like psychological perspec-
tives, eschews overly structural conceptions of state behavior in favor of a
focus on individuals preferences and actions.
Vendulka Kubalkova has suggested that while social constructivists typ-
ically nd fault with the way in which foreign policy analysis often down-
plays the importance of structural or systemic factors, they nevertheless
applaud the tendency of [foreign policy analysis] to look for the agent
the foreign-policy decision makerwherever he/she might be found. The
150
Agent-Level and Social Constructivism 151
active mode of foreign policy expressed even in the term making also res-
onates with the constructivists stress on processes of social construction.3
Similarly, Houghton argues for the basic compatibility of the two camps
and for the formation of a closer academic relationship between them.
Tracing the historical roots of constructivism, he suggests that the psycho-
logical approach to international relations provided one stream that led to
the formulation of the more recent body of theory,4 and, as Wendt freely
concedes, constructivist assumptions underlie the phenomenological tra-
dition in the study of foreign policy, starting with the work of Snyder,
Bruck, and Sapin, and continuing on with Robert Jervis and Ned Lebow.5
A commonality pertinent to this essay is psychology and construc-
tivisms inhospitability to rational-choice approaches. As Brian Ripley
notes, neorealists in general see a world of states acting on the basis of the
rational calculation of self-interests, while in the psychology of interna-
tional relations, decision makers act on the basis of their denition of the
situation.6 While the two approaches may appear to be saying the same
thingeven the calculation of self-interests must often be subjectivethe
rst is often premised on a model comprehensive rationality, perfect infor-
mation and exhaustive information searches (Homo economicus), while the
second draws on the assumptions of bounded rationality, satiscing, and
cognitive shortcuts (Homo psychologicus).7
Constructivism, like psychology, challenges the origins of preferences
in rational models. But constructivism also challenges the notion of strate-
gic and calculating choice in pursuit of preferences. In contrast to rational-
ist (and psychological) focus on the logic of consequences (LOC), con-
structivist and sociological approaches offer a competing logic of
appropriateness (LOA) governing political behavior.8 In the former logic,
actors choose actions for their perceived utility in reaching some goals; in
the latter logic, actors choices are directed toward notions of societal ex-
pectations of right and wrong, regardless of efciencies of outcome. As
March and Olsen put it,
competing logics?
of the world or at least with one camp within that the discipline, and it is
easy to see how the LoA would appeal to constructivists. The logic of con-
sequences, conversely, begins from a more individually based perspective.
We start by identifying alternatives and then select the best one after
weighing the likely costs and benets of each and then making an in-
formed choice. Though psychological approaches to international rela-
tions obviously reject many of the tenets of rational choice, they do adopt
a bounded rationality perspective that focuses on the cognitive shortcuts
and heuristics that real-life decision makers employ, highlighting the ways
in which human beings depart from an idealized or comprehensive model
of rationality. In some sense, therefore, many psychological approaches t
into this second category, not least because psychology often seeks to ex-
plain specic choices.
As Vaughn Shannon has suggested, however, political psychology is
best thought of as a bridge between the two logics because it has something
valuable to say about each.11 Rationalism commits us to the belief that
states will violate international norms whenever it is in their interest to do
sosuggesting that such violations will be all too commonwhile con-
structivists often portray norms as all-embracing constraints. We know,
however, that there are occasions on which even widely accepted norms
may be violated (the Bush administrations well-documented embrace of
torture as a method and departure from the Geneva Convention being one
case in point), while in other cases, those norms seem to play a key role in
decision making (the Kennedy administrations rejection of an airstrike
during the Cuban missile crisis on the basis of the argument that We are
not that kind of nation provides a similarly well-known example). Clearly,
as Shannon notes, we need a more subtle body of theorizing for under-
standing this issue.
One such approach is offered by political psychology, because it can ex-
plain when states follow and violate international norms, Shannon sug-
gests. For example, conforming to norms enhances ones social approval in
the eyes of others and helps decision makers maintain a positive self-im-
age.12 Conversely, decision makers may violate norms when they come to
see the adversary or enemy as morally corrupt or degenerate, for example.
They may become motivated to see themselves as entirely justied in vio-
lating an international norm through the creation of justifying images of
the Other.13 Psychology, in other words, provides us with an account of the
motivational foundations of both norm-accepting and norm-rejecting be-
154 psychology and constructivism in international relations
havior. The two logics are hence not mutually exclusive, and in this sense
psychology lies at the intersection of the LoA and LoC rather than tting
neatly into one category or the other.14
There is a further sense in which the LoA and LoC should not be
thought of as entirely exclusive: Placing something in the category appro-
priate or inappropriate inherently involves a cognitive decision-making
process. Schema theory, for example, deals with the placement of novel
stimuli into familiar categories. When a decision maker regards the appro-
priateness of an action, he or she must logically have cognitively tted
that action into one mental category or another (whether or not that
process took place consciously).15 Sometimes this matching process may
also occur through the use of analogical reasoning, in which a situation re-
sembles a previous case encountered in the past and an action is then ei-
ther pursued or avoided (depending on the outcome of that previous
case).16 We judge what is appropriate by analogy with other cases or by as-
sessing what class of events we think an action ts.
In a distinction closely related to that of the LOA and LOC, while psy-
chological analysts focus on traditional why questions, social construc-
tivists prefer to mine how-possible issues. As Roxanne Doty puts it,
When the U.S. embassy in Tehran was seized by Iranian radicals on No-
vember 4, 1979, the rst reaction among senior members of the Carter ad-
ministration was one of stunned disbelief, combined with a hopeful sense
that events in Tehran would not develop into a full-blown crisis.20 Perhaps
they should not have been so surprised at this turn of events, since Presi-
dent Carter had predicted that this might well occur if the United States al-
lowed the Shah of Iran (then dying of cancer) to enter the country. But
there was nevertheless a widespread sense of expectation that the problem
would be resolved swiftly.21 In previous instances where embassies were oc-
156 psychology and constructivism in international relations
cupied by hostile forces, the host governments had swiftly stepped in to re-
store order and return control to the United States. When Carter rst
learned that the embassy had been overrun, he thought they might have
abused or gone into the embassy or something, but I never dreamed that
the government would not eventually, maybe over a period of hours, come
on in there.22 A similar incident had occurred in February 1979, and that
event had been swiftly resolved. At a senior staff meeting held just after the
crisis broke, White House chief of staff Hamilton Jordan told those assem-
bled not to worry about the hostage situation. Dont forget, he noted,
this same thing happened last February. Were talking to our diplomats at
the embassy and Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yazdi and Prime Minister Mehdi
Bazargan at the Foreign Ministry. As soon as the government gets its act to-
gether, theyll free our people.23
The broader context in which the crisis occurred was one of increasing
hostility toward the United States from the nascent regime in Tehran, a cli-
mate of anger and historical misunderstanding unwittingly fed by the
Carter administration. The 1953 coup, which most American decision mak-
ers assumed had been long forgotten, remained a potent memory in Iran,
where it was widely assumed that the Carter administration would autho-
rize a military or royal takeover of the country. Eisenhower had done just
that in the early 1950s, when he restored the Shah to the Peacock Throne
as a puppet of the United States. When it became widely known that polit-
ical moderates Yazdi and Bazargan had met with U.S. national security ad-
viser Zbigniew Brzezinski in Algeria on November 1, 1979, the news only
heaped fuel on the res of suspicion rife in Irans capital, and the news had
the side effect of strengthening Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeinis hand in the
internal struggle for power going on after the Islamic revolution.
Although Carter had come to ofce in some ways as the rst postCold
War president, events were increasingly forcing him back into the widely
shared anticommunist mind-set of the time.24 One of the greatest fears of
Carter and Brzezinski in particular was that Khomeini would move Iran
closer to the Soviet orbit, an eventuality that seems unlikely in retrospect
but that indicates contemporary confusion about where radical Islams po-
litical loyalties might lie. Thus, collectively shared ideas about the Cold
Warwhat Jutta Weldes calls the Cold War imaginarycame to domi-
nate the way in which many decision makers viewed the crisis in Tehran.
The Special Coordinating Committee (SCC)25 rst met on November 5,
the day after the crisis began. At this stage, very little was known about why
Agent-Level and Social Constructivism 157
the embassy had been overrun or even about the identity of the captors.
The decision makers original denition of what was occurring was shat-
tered on November 6, when Ayatollah Khomeini not only refused to help
return the embassy to American hands but endorsed its capture by the Iran-
ian militants. In the policymakers eyes, this turned what could have been
a minor (if troublesome) incident into a full-scale policy crisis, for the con-
frontation was not now a disagreement between the U.S. government and
a group of conspiracy-minded hot-headed students with the 1953 coup as a
reference point but a dispute between the United States and the state of
Iran.
The critical SCC and National Security Council (NSC) meetings, which
would set the agenda for much of the later discussion and debate, occurred
on November 6. The rst full meeting of the NSC on the hostage issue took
place that afternoon, and the battle lines began to be drawn in a crisis that
would drag on for an agonizing 444 days. Secretary of state Cyrus Vance
made it clear from the outset that he favored a negotiated settlement to re-
solve the crisis, while Brzezinski argued for a more forceful stance, initially
favoring negotiation but wishing to back this up with tougher action if
talks did not produce swift results. At this meeting and the SCC meeting
that preceded it, Vance suggested two options for pressuring the Iranians
into releasing the hostages: (1) encouraging the Shah to leave the United
States, and (2) negotiating with Khomeini.
Brzezinski focused instead on possible military options, suggesting a
number of alternatives, including a rescue mission loosely modeled on the
dramatic Israeli raid at Entebbe in 1976.26 This and Vances proposals in ef-
fect gave decision makers seven options to consider:
Absent from this list was the option of doing nothing in the hope that
the situation would soon blow over. This alternative never received serious
consideration. The seizure of the hostages clearly violated international
158 psychology and constructivism in international relations
such advice out of hand. The presidents reasons for doing so may seem
obvious to us, but he was probably responding to both international and
domestic norms about the use of nuclear weapons as well as the antici-
pated costs of violating them (as we would expect most if not all U.S. pres-
idents to do). The logic of appropriateness is mainly useful as a device in
ruling some things out and others in, even though this is a critical and un-
derexamined aspect of foreign policy decision making. If we want to arrive
at a more detailed and nuanced sense of how leaders select from the re-
maining pool of alternatives, however, we must adopt a more consequen-
tialist approach. One such approach explains the hostage crisis decision
making by reference to the analogies that shaped the decision makers
cognitive perceptions.
several very signicant respects: the Tehran embassy where the hostages
were being held was not an airport, it was situated inland, and it was lo-
cated a long way from any U.S. military base. Furthermore, Tehran was a
major, densely populated city, and almost all previous rescue operations
had been conducted in sparsely populated rural areas. The Joint Chiefs re-
minded us that downtown Tehran was not the same thing as Entebbe Air-
port. There was no way to get a rescue team into the middle of the city,
with thousands of demonstrators milling about, without getting the
hostages killed in the process, Vance later recalled.38 I thought clearly
about Entebbe, and I felt it to be a very, very different situation, he noted.
And therefore trying to strike some kind of parallel about Entebbe to me
was irrational.39
In place of Entebbe, Vance offered his own analogies. As he would later
recall, Those kind of things have happened before. . . . [W]e have had
other embassies that have been seized or hostages that have been seized in
the past on this side of the [Atlantic] ocean, so it wasnt the rst time.40
Vance recalled, I also believed strongly that the hostages would be released
safely once they had served their political purpose in Iran. I found support
for this conclusion in what had happened in two similar cases where Amer-
icans were held hostage. These were the Angus Ward incident, involving
the seizure of our consular staff in Mukden at the end of World War II, and
the case of the USS Pueblo.41 In both of these cases, military rescue opera-
tions had been ruled out as too risky, and negotiation had been used to ob-
tain the release of the hostages. Ward, the U.S. consul general in Mukden,
China; his wife; and his staff were held captive from November 1948 to No-
vember 1949 after being seized, apparently at the instigation of the Chinese
government itself or, at least, factions within it. As Russell Buhite notes, In
making this move, Chinese Communist forces were challenging diplo-
matic practices that had evolved over several centuries.42 While President
Truman considered mounting a rescue mission to save Ward, negotiations
eventually achieved this result. Similarly, in January 1968, the North Ko -
reans seized the Pueblo, an American spy ship, and took its crew of eighty-
three men hostage. The hostages remained in captivity until the following
December, when they were released after extensive negotiations. To win
the crewmens release, U.S. negotiators working in Panmunjon signed a
confession of wrongdoing while simultaneously openly disclaiming its va-
lidity, but the use of military force was not considered a viable option by
the president or the vast majority of his advisers.43
Agent-Level and Social Constructivism 163
The safety and well-being of the American hostages became a constant con-
cern for me, no matter what other duties I was performing as President. I
would walk in the White House gardens early in the morning and lie awake
at night, trying to think of additional steps I could take to gain their free-
dom without sacricing the honor and security of our nation. I listened to
every proposal, no matter how preposterous, all the way from delivering the
Shah for trial as the revolutionaries demanded, to dropping an atomic
bomb on Tehran.47
did for both Lyndon Johnson and Dean Rusk when the time came to make
hard decisions about Vietnam.50
One (anecdotal) example dealing with the emotive content of Vietnam
as an analogy comes from my experience interviewing Vance in 1995.51
From the start, our discussion was deeply emotional for Vance, and I could
see right away why he had given very few interviews on this topic. Vance
had been McNamaras deputy in the Pentagon during the early part of the
Vietnam War and had been present at many of the key meetings when LBJ
made the fateful decision to plunge the United States deeper and deeper
into the jungles of Southeast Asia. Vance especially recalled that he had
seen a lot of things screwed up that involved the use of helicopters,
which were integral to the 1980 hostage rescue mission. As I broached the
topic of Vietnam, I could see that his eyes were starting to redden, and he
told me that talking about Vietnam even thentwenty years after the last
helicopters had left the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigonwas hard, very
hard. Talking about his resignation as Carters secretary of state (fteen
years prior to our interview) was obviously very painful, too, and I got the
clear impressionthough Vance never said as muchthat Vietnam was ef-
fectively a no-go area in the interview, that he really did not want to ex-
plore that angle further.52
conclusion
Bridge-building exercises like this one are always subject to the potential
criticism that the author is bringing together incommensurate projects.
One of the most compelling challenges to this argument might be that so-
cial constructivism and the psychological approach to foreign policy analy-
sis simply do not go together in an epistemological sense.53 The third de-
bate that raged during the 1980s and early 1990s has certainly sensitized
international relations scholars to these issues, but probably overly so. To
the extent that the psychological approach is seen as a purely positivist and
social constructivism purely postpositivist, there may well be little for the
two camps to talk about, but the epistemological division is fortunately not
as neat as this characterization would suggest. When pushed, modernist
and Wendtian constructivists often describe themselves as positivists or at
least concede that explaining the worldand searching for regularities
166 psychology and constructivism in international relations
within itis a central part of what they do. Moreover, many of those who
use the psychological approach have moved away from the kind of search
for lawlike propositions that characterized foreign policy analysis during
the 1960s and become far more eclectic than was previously the case.
Equally overplayed may be the proposition that the two camps cannot
collaborate because in the agency-structure debate, the psychological ap-
proach tends to privilege agency over structure, while the opposite is true
of much social constructivism. (Alexander Wendts version of construc-
tivism is mostly structural, for example, while the psychological approach
of Robert Jervis focuses mostly on agency.) Moreover, even some construc-
tivists who argue that outcomes are coconstituted by agents and structures
exhibit a tendency to privilege structure over agency. However, this is pre-
cisely the reason why collaboration between constructivists and cogni-
tivists might prove so fruitful. Each is strong where the other is weak, with
constructivists often lacking a theory of agency and cognitivists lacking a
theory of structure. There are clearly circumstances in which structures
seem to play a greater role than agents in driving outcomes, but the oppo-
site is equally true.
One caveat is certainly in order here, however. This chapter focuses on
the ways in which psychology may throw light on reasoning processes at
the logic of consequences stage. This argument is not intended to suggest,
however, that psychology cannot also say a great deal about the logic of
appropriateness. Academic political science, especially in the study of for-
eign policy decision making, has drawn most heavily from cognitive psy-
chology, which focuses largely on what international relations scholars
term the individual level of analysis. Some political scientists even treat
psychological perspectives in general as synonymous with this level. Nev-
ertheless, an older tradition within social psychology shares sociologys
focus on the context or environment within which action takes place and
has long focused especially on the ways in which social rulesoften un-
written but nevertheless powerfulshape and inhibit behavior; stated in
constructivist terms, this body of work focuses on how the Self is in part
created by the Other. The work of Solomon Asch, for example, shows how
the presence of an invented consensus among others in a group can cause
its members to disregard the evidence of their own eyes.54 John Darley
and Bibb Latans famous research on bystander intervention (or the lack
thereof) in response to accidents and other crisis-type events deals di-
Agent-Level and Social Constructivism 167
rectly with the ways in which the presence of the Other may inhibit
moral action.55 Future work might focus on the ways in which psychol-
ogy aids in our explanation of the construction of LoA as opposed to sim-
ply LoC.
Social constructivism and the psychological approach to international
relations are in many respects similar, so much so that they are occasion-
ally even confused with one another.56 In the end, social constructivism is
a general framework, not a theory of international politics or foreign policy
per se, and it is thus quite possible to combine this framework with other
ideational approaches; indeed, support for this position has come from a
perhaps unexpected sourceWendt. Although his version of construc-
tivism is highly structural in character, he allows that a potentially fruitful
dialogue between cognitive theories of foreign policy and cultural theories
of structure is possible given that the former has always maintained that
interests are constituted by ideas, not somehow objectively given.57
The main reason for bringing together these two ideational allies lies in
the fact that psychological approaches to international relations rarely fo-
cus on collective ideas or intersubjective identities, while social construc-
tivists rarely confront the importance of individual identitieswhat Va-
lerie Hudson has termed actor-specic theory.58 As Ole Jacob Sending has
noted, the logic of appropriateness operates at the structural level, and it is
therefore difcult if not impossible to use as an account of individual ac-
tion or as an explanation of change in general.59 The logic of consequences,
conversely, provides a ready remedy for these failings. One logic deals with
the collective, while the other deals with the idiosyncratic, but common
sense dictates that both types of phenomena exist.
In fact, there have already been various suggestions in the literature
that we should become rather less dogmatic in our choice of logics. March
and Olsen doubt whether all circumstances demand the logic of appropri-
ateness, for example, adopting a more pragmatic stance.60 Similarly, Fearon
and Wendt agree that the choice of logic may depend primarily on the type
of decision-making task at hand, suggesting that each logic may have a
comparative advantage in analyzing settings where one or the other mode
of decision-making is at issue.61 While they clearly have in mind the no-
tion that both rational-choice approaches and constructivism may be ap-
plicable at different times and places, the same observation can easily be
made about cognitivism and constructivism.
168 psychology and constructivism in international relations
Notes
29. One can argue that the decision not to use nuclear weapons in this in-
stance was a rational, logic-of-consequences-type decision as well, since drop-
ping a nuclear bomb on Tehran might of course have killed or severely sickened
the American hostages. However, the fact that this was never even debated
within Carters decision-making forumsthe president simply dismissed it out
of handpoints to it having been excluded from consideration at the LoA
stage.
30. Carter 1982, 455.
31. S. Turner 1991, 32.
32. Sick 1985, 145.
33. Sick 1985, 14546.
34. Amin was not being magnanimous by allowing Entebbe Airport to be
used; he was anti-Israeli, was almost certainly anti-Semitic, and gloated over
what the hijackers had done.
35. Zbigniew Brzezinski, interview by author, Washington DC, February 3,
1995.
36. Cyrus Vance, interview by author, New York, February 14, 1995.
37. Destler, Gelb, and Lake 1984, 224.
38. Quoted in Terence Smith, Putting the Hostages Lives First, New York
Times Magazine, May 17, 1981, 78.
39. Vance, interview.
40. Vance, interview.
41. Vance 1983, 4089.
42. Vance 1983, 120.
43. Buhite 1995, 149.
44. Carter 1979, 2242.
45. See McDermott 1992; S. Smith 1985.
46. See, e.g., Crawford 2000.
47. Carter 1982, 459.
48. Houghton 2001; Khong 1992.
49. Khong 1992, 22526. See also Crawford 2000, 14142.
50. Khong 1992.
51. Vance, interview.
52. Vance, interview.
53. For more sustained response to these criticisms, see Houghton 2007,
3941.
54. See, e.g., Asch 1955.
55. Latan and Darley 1970.
56. See, e.g., Duffy 2001, 165.
57. Wendt 1999, 134.
58. Hudson 2005.
59. Sending 2002.
60. March and Olsen 1998, 95354.
61. Fearon and Wendt 2002.
chapter 7
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in
International Relations: A Cross-National
Experimental Analysis of Symbolic and
Material Gains and Losses
peter hays gries, kaiping peng,
and h. michael crowson
170
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in IR 171
NATION,ac
U.S. China
FRAME,a
Loss Gain
Symbolic Material
mat. mat. mat. mat.
DOMAIN a
Individual
loss gain loss gain
ence that seeks to explain the causes of human behavior. Because of the
random assignment of our American and Chinese subjects to our experi-
mental conditions, we feel condent that the results we obtained were
caused by our four independent variables, a claim that is more difcult to
make in correlational designs.
Gain and loss are operationalized within our scenarios with minimal alter-
ations to reduce the likelihood of extraneous issues inuencing our depen-
dent measures. For example, the shelter scenario begins with Your house
was completely destroyed by a ood. Winter is approaching. Since you have
no other resources, the government is paying for your family to stay in gov-
ernment housing, and has just announced that it . . . The material gain
condition then ends with, will extend its disaster housing program for an-
other six months. The material loss condition, by contrast, concludes with
. . . is terminating its disaster program and will evict your family. Similarly,
in the belonging scenario beginning with Its the end of your senior year in
college, and you decide to throw a party to celebrate with your friends . . . ,
the symbolic gain scenario ends with . . . All of your friends show up and
pledge that you will all be friends forever. The symbolic loss version, how-
ever, ends with . . . Nobody shows up and you discover that your so-called
friends do not want to be your friends any more.
Alexander Wendt has asserted that states are people too.15 Whether we
agree with Wendt about the ontological status of the state, it is clear that
both the materialist and symbolic security studies camps generally rely on
176 psychology and constructivism in international relations
an analogy with individual human needs. Materialists assume that like in-
dividuals, states prioritize survival or at least relative physical well-being.
Symbolic analysts posit that states, again like individuals, are driven by
higher human needs for belonging and esteem. Both camps thus appear to
share the anthropomorphizing assumption that
To put this hypothesis to the test, we added a third variable, level, to our
design. It has two conditions, individual and international. We opera-
tionalize level by adding a parallel set of scenarios at the international level
to the individual-level scenarios. In the material domain, the international
scenarios involve environmental security (pollution problems caused by
another state), energy security (competition between states for oil reserves),
economic security (relative national economic growth rates), and military
security (advances in out-group missile technologies). In the symbolic do-
main, the international scenarios involve love (international esteem for the
national popular culture), belonging (spread of national language use on
the Internet), prestige (predicted medal count at the coming 2008 Beijing
Olympics), and reputation (popularity of president at a UN General Assem-
bly speech).
As with the individual scenarios, all the international scenarios have
both gain and loss versions. For example, the energy security international
material scenario reads (with gain/loss modications italicized), A
U.S./Chinese oil company has just purchased monopoly rights to drill in the
two largest oil elds in Africa, beating out a Chinese/U.S. company. Energy
experts predict a dramatic increase/decrease in U.S. energy security over the
next ten years. Similarly, the prestige international symbolic scenario
reads, Sports analysts now predict that the United States/China will double
the Chinese/American medal count at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In their
view, the United States/China will be the only sports superpower in the
twenty-rst century. The full list of individual- and international-level sce-
narios appears in appendix A.
Unlike the domain and frame variables, which are between-subjects vari-
ables, level is a within-subjects variable. A student randomly assigned to the
symbolic loss condition, for example, would rst read and answer ques-
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in IR 177
tions about the four individual-level symbolic loss scenarios and then do
the same for the four international-level symbolic loss scenarios. Each stu-
dent, in other words, would read and respond to questions about a total of
eight scenarios, four each at the individual and international levels.
The nal independent variable in our two by two by two by two design is
nation (United States/China). In our view, it is no longer tenable to gener-
alize about universal psychological dynamics without cross-national sam-
ples. There is simply too much evidence of cross-national variation in psy-
chological processes to justify such an approach today. However, while the
now well-established eld of cross-cultural psychology has empirically
demonstrated a wide variety of cross-national differences,16 it has not ade-
quately explained their origins. Indeed, cross-cultural psychology is in a
way a misnomer, as it appears to imply that the psychological differences
uncovered are cultural in origin. In fact, the bulk of the evidence in the
eld points to differences into which one is socialized or that one learns
simply as the result of spending time in a particular national/regional/cul-
tural context.
China and the United States have been chosen as our two national
cases for two reasons. First, from a foreign policy perspective, United
StatesChina relations are arguably the most important state-to-state rela-
tions of the twenty-rst century. Many Americans are ambivalent about
Chinas rise and the challenge that it poses to American preeminence in
world affairs. Many Chinese, for their part, fear American hegemony and
its perceived efforts to contain China. The relationship suffers from a
lack of mutual trust. The paucity of substantive knowledge about the dy-
namics of security and insecurity in U.S.-China relations and the subjects
importance to twenty-rst-century world peace justify the choice of the
United States and China as our cases.
Second, from a theoretical perspective, the idea of a Chinese obsession
with face persists today and has a direct bearing on the issue of symbolic
and material gains and losses. The Chinese, both Western and Chinese
sources repeatedly tell us, are culturally predisposed to be sensitive to issues
of face.17 At the same time, Americans supposedly disregard face in favor of
more objective calculations of material self-interest.
178 psychology and constructivism in international relations
We are skeptical of this view, believing that both Chinese and Ameri-
cans are sensitive to both symbolic and material politics. To put hypothesis
4 to the test, however, we rst adapted the original English-language survey
to the Chinese perspective. For example, in the Chinese version, the mate-
rial gain condition of the energy scenario read, A Chinese oil company has
just purchased monopoly rights to drill in the two largest oil elds in
Africa, beating out a U.S. company. This statement reverses the words Chi-
nese and U.S. from the U.S. material gain condition, thus making the con-
tent of the U.S. material gain version the same as the Chinese material loss
condition and the U.S. material loss the same as the Chinese material gain.
We then translated the adapted survey into Chinese and then back-trans-
lated it to ensure comparability. All of the English- and Chinese-language
scenarios are available in appendix B.
Because our two by two by two by two design entailed sixteen conditions,
and we desired at least 30 students per condition (actual M = 32.56), a sam-
ple of 521 university students (284 female, 215 male, and 22 who did not in-
dicate their gender) was recruited to participate in the study on a voluntary
basis in the spring of 2006. Of this sample, 240 were Americans at a state
university in Colorado and 281 were Chinese at a state university in Beijing.
Participants ranged in age from 17 to 32 (Median age = 20), and a t-test re-
vealed that the American students (M = 20.58, SD = 4.44) were only slightly
older than the Chinese students (M = 19.88, SD = 2.23), t = 2.27, p = .024.
By utilizing real-world United StatesChina scenarios but doing so with
student samples, our design situated itself in a space between a pure mini-
mal in-group laboratory setting and the real world. It thus suffers from
many of the same limitations as both pure minimal in-group work (e.g., ex-
ternal validity issues) and natural-setting real-world work (e.g., internal va-
lidity issues). In our opinion, however, this middle ground is ideal for ini-
tial exploratory analyses. On the external validity issue, our student
samples, while certainly not representative of all Chinese and Americans,
illustrate underlying psychological processes that are largely relative, not
absolute, in nature. Whether our ndings are generalizable to broader pop-
ulations is an empirical question to be addressed in future research.
We tested the Chinese and American participants in fteen-minute ses-
sions. The experimenter told participants that the purpose of the study was
to assess their reactions to eight scenarios. After assuring participants that
their responses would be kept anonymous, the experimenter administered
survey packets. Participants lled out a series of questionnaires individu-
ally. After completing the packet, participants were thanked for their par-
ticipation, debriefed (i.e., informed that none of the scenarios that they
had read were real), and released. The ethical standards of the American Po-
litical Science Association and American Psychological Associations were
strictly followed during data collection and analysis.
results
To analyze the impact of domain and frame on anxiety and pride, we rst
created composite dependent variables. For anxiety, we rst created a mean
of participants responses to the two items I feel worried and I feel
afraid for each scenario. We then aggregated these means at the individual
and international levels separately for the symbolic and material groups,
resulting in adequate alphas of .79, .76, .79, and .78 for the individual ma-
terial (four items), individual symbolic (four items), international material
(four items), and international symbolic (three items)21 conditions, respec-
tively. The symbolic and material pairs were then combined to create a sin-
gle individual anxiety variable and a single international anxiety variable.
The same process of measure construction was repeated for pride, yielding
adequate to excellent alphas of .77, .90, .90, and .89, respectively.
A two-way factorial ANOVA on American participants individual-level
anxiety scores revealed main effects of material/symbolic and gain/loss as
well as a statistically signicant interaction. Gain/loss was both statistically
signicant, F (1,218) = 196.79, p < .001, and had a massive effect size (hp2 =
.47), with losses generating much more anxiety than gains.22 Gain/loss thus
serves as an excellent internal validity check, clearly demonstrating that
our manipulations worked. Material/symbolic, F (1,218) = 92.272, p < .001,
also had a very large (though smaller than gain/loss) effect size of hp2 = .30,
with material scenarios generating more anxiety than symbolic ones. (See
table 1 for the means and standard deviations.) Finally, the interaction of
gain/loss and material/symbolic was statistically signicant, F (1,218) =
18.14, p < .001, with a medium effect size, hp2 = .08. As the left graph in
gure 2 shows, the material loss condition generated the highest levels of
anxiety, followed by symbolic loss, material gain, and symbolic gain. That
material losses generated the most anxiety is consistent with a rationalist
view that would emphasize relative gains and a focus on the material
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in IR 181
Domain
6 material
symbolic
4
Anxiety levels
4
3
2 2
| | | |
gain loss gain loss
Frame Frame
realm. However, the nding that symbolic gains reduced anxiety more
than did material gains supports the symbolic politics position.
Moving from the individual to the international levels, a two-way fac-
torial ANOVA on American participants international-level anxiety scores
again revealed main effects of material/symbolic and gain/loss as well as a
statistically signicant interaction. This time, however, the relative effect
sizes were reversed, with material/symbolic, F (1,216) = 92.03, p < .001, hav-
ing an effect size, hp2 =.30, almost double that of gain/loss, F (1,216) = 42.43,
182 psychology and constructivism in international relations
p < .001, hp2 =.16. While the effect sizes of material/symbolic remained
largely unchanged when moving from the individual (hp2 = .30) to interna-
tional levels (hp2 = .30), the gain/loss effect size dropped dramatically from
hp2 = .47 to hp2 = .16. As the right graph in gure 2 shows, our American sub-
jects appear to have been decidedly more concerned about personal than
national gains or losses. The interaction was also statistically signicant,
F (1,216) = 35.95, p < .001, and had a large effect size, hp2 = .14.
Combining these results, two patterns emerge. First, overall, American
participants reported much lower levels of anxiety in response to the inter-
national-level scenarios than to the individual-level scenarios. They are
much more sensitive to the personal than to the national. Second, the sym-
bolic loss condition at the international level begs for explanation, lower
than even the material gain condition. Either the American participants are
genuinely unconcerned about symbolic threats to their nation, or there is
a presentation effect whereby they pretend (to themselves and/or to others)
that they are unconcerned.
Moving on from the negative emotion of anxiety to the positive emo-
tion of pride, we ran a two-way factorial ANOVA on American participants
individual-level pride scores, again nding main effects of gain/loss, mate-
rial/symbolic, and a statistically signicant interaction. The effect size (hp2
= .71) of gain/loss, F (1,222) = 544.42, p < .001, was massive, with gains (M
= 4.89, SD = .09) generating much more pride than did losses (M = 1.99, SD
= .09). This again serves as a manipulation check, demonstrating that our
scenarios did indeed work. Material/symbolic, F (1,222) = 38.89, p < .001,
had a much smaller but still large effect size (hp2 = .15), with symbolic sce-
narios (M = 3.83, SD = .09) generating signicantly more pride than did ma-
terial scenarios (M = 3.05, SD = .09). The interaction, F (1,222) = 22.62, p <
.001, had a medium to large effect size (hp2 = .09), with symbolic gains (M
= 5.57, SD = .12) generating the most pride, followed by material gains (M =
4.21, SD = .13) and the two loss conditions, (M = 2.08, SD = .12 and M = 1.89,
SD = .13 for symbolic and material losses, respectively). At the personal
level, in short, American students drew more pride from symbolic than ma-
terial gains, while symbolic and material losses appeared to hurt about the
same.
Moving to the international level, a nal two-way ANOVA revealed
main effects of both of our factors but not of their interaction. The effect
size (hp2 = .22) of gain/loss, F (1,221) = 60.74, p < .001, was the largest, with
gains (M = 4.18, SD = .12) generating much more pride than losses (M = 2.78,
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in IR 183
11.78, p = .001. Figure 3 reveals that although the overall effect size, hp2 =
.02, is on the small side, the Chinese participants reported much more anx-
iety in the international symbolic loss condition than the U.S. participants
did. Less clear, however, is whether this is evidence of heightened Chinese
concern about losses of international face or of depressed U.S. scores, with
Americans claiming not to care about symbolic losses at the international
level.
Turning to the positive emotion of pride, a three-way ANOVA at the in-
dividual level revealed main effects of gain (M = 4.74, SD = .08) over loss (M
Domain
International anxiety levels
6 material
symbolic
4
5
4
3
2
2
| | | |
gain loss gain loss
Frame Frame
Nation
5.00
U.S.
4.00
3.00
2.00
| |
gain loss
Frame
= 1.91, SD = .08), F (1,499) = 632.08, p < .001, hp2 = .56, symbolic (M = 3.64,
SD = .079) over material (M = 3.01, SD = .08), F (1,499) = 31.49, p < .001, hp2
= .06, and nation, F (1,499) = 3.95, p = .05, although the effect size for the
latter, hp2 = .01, was very small. The only statistically signicant interaction
was gain/loss and material/symbolic, F (1,499) = 25.88, p < .001, hp2 = .05.
Both American and Chinese students reported signicantly more pride in
personal symbolic gains (M = 5.35, SD = .11) than in material gains (M =
4.14, SD = .11), with symbolic losses (M = 1.94, SD = .11) and material losses
(M = 1.88, SD = .12) virtually indistinguishable.
Our nal three-way ANOVA was on pride at the international level.
There were main effects of both gain/loss, F (1,497) = 275.61, p < .001, and
material/symbolic, F (1,497) = 12.73, p < .001, although the effect size of the
latter, hp2 = .03, was dwarfed by that of the former, hp2 = .36. Although there
was no main effect of nation, there was a statistically signicant interaction,
F (1,497) = 41.83, p < .001, between nation and frame, with a substantial ef-
fect size of hp2 = .08. As displayed in gure 4, compared to the Americans,
Chinese reported both higher levels of pride with national gains (China M
= 5.18, SD = .13; U.S. M = 4.18, SD = .14), and lower levels of pride with na-
tional losses (China M = 1.99, SD = .13; U.S. M = 2.78, SD = .15). Indeed, sub-
tracting losses scores from gains scores reveals that Chinese participants
(3.19 difference) were more than twice as affected by national gains and
losses as the American participants (1.4 difference) were.
186 psychology and constructivism in international relations
discussion
With these results in hand, we are now in position to return to our original
hypotheses. Is security a matter of physical survival, or does it depend on
feelings of belonging? The mixed results presented here provide partial sup-
port for both the materialist hypothesis (1a) and the symbolic hypothesis
(1b). At both the individual and international levels, the material scenarios
generated much more anxiety than the symbolic scenarios did, supporting
the materialist camp. However, as revealed in both gures 1 and 2, de-
pressed anxiety scores at the international level in the symbolic loss condi-
tion clearly indicate that the symbolic scenarios had an impact, although it
is unclear whether the American respondents were genuinely unconcerned
or whether a presentation effect was involved.
Pride was another matter entirely. At both the individual and interna-
tional levels, American respondents reported more pride in response to
symbolic than to material scenarios. And unlike with anxiety, there was no
drop-off in absolute levels of pride when shifting from the individual to in-
ternational levels. Americans drew as much pride from their nations sym-
bolic gains as from personal social achievements. This evidence clearly sup-
ports the symbolic politics camp.
Did frame and domain interact? The evidence presented here unequivo-
cally supports nondirectional hypothesis 2 that material and symbolic
gains and losses produce varying levels of (in)security. Of the four ANOVAs
conducted on the U.S. data, only one, on international pride, did not yield
a statistically signicant domain-by-frame interaction. The other three pro-
duced statistically signicant results for the interaction, all at the p < .001
level. The effect sizes, furthermore, were moderate to large. In general, ma-
terial losses produced the most anxiety, while symbolic gains produced the
most pride.
Are the dynamics of security and insecurity the same at the individual
and international levels? Our data suggests that hypothesis 3 cannot be
maintained: scenarios set at the individual and international levels pro-
duce signicant differences in anxiety and pride. This is particularly clear
in gure 2, where the shift from the individual to the international levels
produced a notable decrease in American reports of anxiety, particularly in
the symbolic loss condition. Conversely, Americans reported similar levels
of pride at the individual and international levels.
Finally, do cross-national differences exist in the determinants of (in)se-
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in IR 187
conclusion
In The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, John Mearsheimer contends that the
anarchical structure of the international system forces states into a perpet-
ual quest for power and hegemony, to better their chances of survival.23
Naeem Inayatullah and David Blaney, by contrast, contend that the deep-
188 psychology and constructivism in international relations
Material gain/loss
1. Shelter. Your house was completely destroyed by a flood. Winter is
approaching. Since you have no other resources, the government is pay-
ing for your family to stay in government housing and has just
announced that it will extend its disaster housing program for another
six months / is terminating its disaster program and will evict your
family.
6/
2. Food and water. You live with your family in the countryside and live
off of the vegetables that you grow on the family farm. A large chemi-
cal plant has just been built nearby, and a new road allows you better
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in IR 189
access to the market where you can sell your produce and purchase fer-
tilizers to increase your yield / the water that irrigates your fields has just
turned black, killing your crops.
119()
/
Symbolic gain/loss
1. Love. You have been dating your boy-/girlfriend for over three months
and realize that you love him/her. You decide to take a risk and tell
him/her that you love him/her. He/She responds by saying that he/she
loves you too / doesnt love you anymore and wants to break up.
190 psychology and constructivism in international relations
//
/////
2. Belonging. Its the end of your senior year in college, and you decide to
throw a party to celebrate with your friends. All of your friends show up
and pledge that you will all be friends forever. / Nobody shows up and
you discover that your so-called friends do not want to be your friend
anymore.
3. Prestige. During your senior year at high school, you decide to apply to
a very well-regarded university. You are admitted and offered a presti-
gious scholarship. / Your application is rejected and you are unable to
attend university.
Material gain/loss
1. Pollution. China recently closed several massive pollution generating
factories in Chinas northeast that had been contributing to air pollu-
tion on the U.S. West Coast. West Coast residents, according to a con-
gressional report, have since experienced a significant improvement in
the quality of their air. / A recent chemical plant explosion in northeast
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in IR 191
China created a massive chemical cloud that followed the jet stream
across the Pacific Ocean and has poisoned the air along the U.S. West
Coast. Many people have been forced to flee their homes.
//
/
/
/
/
Symbolic gain/loss
1. Love. South Koreans are increasingly choosing to study in the U.S./
China, rather than China/the U.S. Korean survey research indicates that
192 psychology and constructivism in international relations
//
//
/
/
/
3. Prestige. Sports analysts now predict that the U.S./China will double
the Chinese/American medal count at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In
their view, the U.S./China will be the only sports superpower in the 21st
century.
2008/
//
Notes
1. Waltz 1979.
2. McSweeney 1999, 35, 153; Ruggie 1998a, 3.
3. Buzan 1991; McSweeney 1999, 154; Mitzen 2006; Paris 2001.
4. Adler and Barnett 1998; Booth 2005; Campbell 1998. For an overview, see
S. Smith 2005.
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in IR 193
reflection, synthesis,
and assessment
chapter 8
Psychology and Constructivism:
Uneasy Bedfellows?
rose m c dermott and anthony lopez
197
198 psychology and constructivism in international relations
inuence behavior through implicit mechanisms and processes. So, for ex-
ample, the amygdala (the main area in the brain that processes emotion)
reacts with greater fear to faces of a different race; this nding appears to
hold true for both men and women. This study did not examine relative
rates of fear between blacks and whites, so it is not possible to tell if blacks
show greater fear of whites than the reverse. However, these effects do not
exist outside the social construction of reality. White people do not display
such fear when presented with black faces that are familiar or famous, such
as Tiger Woods or Bill Cosby.5 Signicantly, the only additional mediating
factors appears to be romantic relationship; people in interracial sexual re-
lationships do not demonstrate high levels of fear activation when pre-
sented with other-race faces.6
One of the difculties in conducting this research, in fact, derives from
the pervasive nature of ideas themselves. Ideas are everywhere, but know-
ing how strongly any given individual espouses a particular belief or how
people choose which ideas to adopt and which to ignore is no easy feat. But
before psychologists and constructivists can claim that ideas drive behav-
ior, they must provide evidence for the foundational link between the two
rather than just assert such a connection. And, in this regard, psychology
can provide some microfoundational directives about which ideas are most
likely to guide behavior.
Although not all attitudes inuence actions, aspects of an idea itself at
times can affect the extent to which it inuences behavior. Salient ideas7
and more fully informed ones8 seem to generate more consistent behavior
in their wake. Attitudes and ideas that develop from direct personal experi-
ence exert a much greater impact on behavior than those that come from
observation or more abstract education.9 When ideas are learned under
these circumstances, individuals demonstrate much greater condence in
such attitudes, which also remain more stable and more resistant to per-
suasion.10 In addition, attitudes that emerge from a vested self-interest are
more likely to inuence behavior, for obvious reasons.
Having to think about the reasons for an idea makes it more likely that
attitudes and behaviors will line up in a consistent fashion.11 This appears
especially true when such attitudes are based on very little information,
rest on emotional foundations, or are weakly held.12 One of the factors that
appears to motivate individuals spontaneously to seek out reasons for their
ideas occurs when others react in an unexpected fashion. From a construc-
tivist standpoint, this feature provides critical insight into one of the mi-
200 psychology and constructivism in international relations
identity theory
Identity Models
Marcia drew on Erikson to develop his identity status model.20 This model
combined elements of high and low identity exploration and commitment
to produce four identity status categories in a two-by-two table. Marcia la-
beled these classications identity diffusion, identity foreclosure, identity mora-
torium, and identity achievement. In one of the very few experimental stud-
Psychology and Constructivism 203
their identity explorations and those who seemed to feel that their behav-
iors had been driven by more external incentives.26 In focusing on the dif-
ferences individuals felt in the meaning they attached to various dimen-
sions of their identity, Waterman developed his personal expressiveness
construct. In this model, personal meaning can serve as an avenue for self-
discovery or self-actualization.27
Three additional expansions of Marcias identity status model deserve
mention. Kurtines, Azmitia, and Alvarezs so-called coconstructivist per-
spective provides an existentialist take on identity development, focusing
on issues of choice, responsibility, and controlquite similar to those is-
sues raised by Kowert (chap. 1) in this volume.28 Kurtines believes that iden-
tity evolves in a creative process between individuals and their social and
cultural environment. In this way, individuals and society coconstruct each
other. This individual model is indeed conceptually similar to Wendts con-
structivist theory of the relationship between agent and structure in the in-
ternational environment. Kurtines focuses on the ways in which individu-
als become active agents who choose their identities from the variety of
available options; individuals must therefore sustain consciousness and re-
sponsibility for all the choices they make in this way. He notes in particu-
lar the importance of socially desirable attributes, such as creativity, sus-
pension of judgment, critical discussion, and integrity of character, each of
which remains essential in the successful cocreation of identity.
Adams presents another developmental social psychology of identity.29
In this model, Adams divides the social context into both micro- and
macroprocesses. He argues that the macroprocesses of peoples social and
cultural environment become incorporated into their identity through mi-
cropractices of interpersonal relationship. Again, his notions of microprac-
tices mirror similar discussions in Wendt. In this way, both personal and so-
cial forces inuence identity development, but the mechanisms by which
they evolve differ; distinguishing oneself from others requires a process of
differentiation, while integration represents the social mechanism by
which individuals connect with others. In this regard, Adams posits two
forms of identity, personal and collective (social).
Finally, Ct presents an identity capital model that focuses primarily
on social identity.30 Unlike previous identity theorists who emphasized the
origins of identity, Ct concentrates on the consequences of identity for-
mation. He sees the value of personal identity in the social utility it brings.
He argues that individuals use their resources to negotiate and bargain for
Psychology and Constructivism 205
social resources. This model offers the most macrolevel analysis of identity
formation in this tradition.
These alternative models of identity development, which lie outside of
the social identity theory literature, nonetheless provide a microfounda-
tional basis for an integrated ideational model of international relations. By
locating identity development within a reciprocal constructed social envi-
ronment, it becomes possible to establish a model of identity that simulta-
neously embodies both individual and social roles. In this way, drawing on
a broader model of personal identity development can enhance psycholog-
ical theorys ability to inform constructivist notions of social identity in a
more comprehensive fashion.
constructivism as neobehaviorism
(1) tabula rasa actors who (2) respond to environmental stimuli via rein-
forcement. These similarities are simple yet profound, and their impor-
tance will become clearer in responding to two challenges that construc-
tivism rests fundamentally on a behaviorist model of cognition and
behavior.
The rst challenge is that for constructivists, behavior is mutually con-
stitutive. While behaviorists posit one-way causality between environmen-
tal stimulus and individual response, constructivists believe in reciprocal
causality between these forces. The product of this reciprocal causality is a
shared meaning that affects both actors expectations of and behavior to-
ward each other. This is the most obvious way that constructivists might
seem to differ from behaviorists.
The response to this challenge rests on the nature of learning and rein-
forcement. Mutually constitutive behavior does not contradict the main
tenets of behaviorism but merely adds an intermediate step that behavior-
ists might simply view as redundant and/or unnecessary. Whether causal-
ity is reciprocal rather than one-way is negligible because the basic behav-
iorist mechanism is the same. In other words, whether environment affects
behavior in a strict one-way sense or whether one posits individual identi-
ties as a constitutive feature of their environment and then develops the
concept of shared meaning that emerges as a product of social interaction,
the basic mechanism that makes this all possible is unchanged. What is this
basic mechanism?
Behaviorists posited that whatever innate psychological properties hu-
mans possessed were few in number and were basically limited to general
learning principles. All that behaviorists believed was necessary for humans
to act according to operant conditioning was a general ability to learn by
the consequences of reinforcement. This view asserts that the human brain
consists of very few decision-making rules through which all decisions are
processedthe general-purpose mechanism. The most popular general-
purpose mechanism is known as rationality, and its most extreme form has
come through behavioral understandings of human psychology that pres-
ent environmental contingencies, incentives, and reinforcements as the
primary determinants of choice.
How does constructivism t in? The logic of constructivism implies
indeed, requiresthat nothing in our minds predisposes us to accepting or
seeking particular identities over others. Only learning from our environ-
ment allows that choice. The main mechanism by which the formation
Psychology and Constructivism 207
an adaptationist alternative
conclusion
of identity, and the nature of personal choice and decision making. How-
ever, some difcult hurdles remain before such a project can achieve ma-
ture fruition.
First, the relationship between identity and behavior does not always
follow a straightforward path. Establishing a clear sense of when ideas
translate into actions and when they may not manifest so clearly provides
a necessary rst link in developing a model of international behavior. Sec-
ond, because they are theoretical models disputing the empirical basis for
many of the minimal group paradigms on which social identity theory
rests, it becomes incumbent on scholars to consider alternative models of
identity development on which to base constructivist constructs. Finally,
many variants of constructivism rest on a domain-general model of the hu-
man mind, positing stimulus-response learning mechanisms as the basis
for socialization. In the wake of increasing evidence disputing the empiri-
cal basis for such claims,44 such behaviorist notions should be abandoned
in favor of models resting on a more domain-specic notion of psycholog-
ical adaptation, positing and supporting leaning mechanisms that rest on
endogenous albeit not necessarily universal motives that can serve as a ba-
sis for understanding the origins of preferences.
Ideational models offer a viable alternative to rational and material the-
ories of action. Yet the latter models often gain both traction and support as
a result of their greater degree of parsimony. A unied model of ideational
causation could go far toward advancing a compelling alternative to such
models. Further work toward this goal should prove well worth the inherent
challenges that will need to be overcome to achieve this objective.
Notes
As the devout in the Middle Ages would murmur a precautionary God willing
before stating a plan or a wish, those who write about the problems of man and
society have learned to insert a precautionary in our culture into statements
which would have read, fteen years ago, merely as Adolescence is always a time
of stress and strain, Children are more imaginative than adults, All artists are
neurotics, Women are more passive than men, etc.
margaret mead
paul a. kowert
margaret mead was far too optimistic. Perhaps many social scientists
have learned in the past seventy years a measure of caution before extend-
ing generalizations across time and space, gender, class, and so on. But the
urge to universalism is powerful, and nowhere more so, ironically, than in
the eld of international relations. The importation of powerful microeco-
nomic models to develop rationalistic accounts of power politics is perhaps
the most evident manifestation of this universalism. Few realist (or neo -
realist) accounts of international politics nd it necessary to circumscribe
their claims with reference to cultural difference.1 Neo-Marxists have been
no less inclined toward general pronouncements about the causes of un-
even development, and the neoliberal inheritors of Wilsonian idealism
likewise nd in democratization and perhaps globalization teleologies of
comprehensive suitability.
One might expect more attention to cultural context from scholars of
international relations. And, indeed, the emergence of constructivism in
international relations represents, at least in part, precisely this sort of re-
215
216 psychology and constructivism in international relations
not merely accept the likelihood and perhaps even the validity of alterna-
tive perceptions of reality. They also point out that these alternative visions
are socially institutionalized, with powerful normative effects. These vi-
sions of reality are not, in other words, simply the consequence of individ-
ual differences in perceptive faculties. Instead, they are social constructions
that exert a powerful inuence over individual perceptions. This is not to
deny agency; they are human constructions, after all. Yet in Thomas Risse-
Kappens pithy phrase, Ideas do not oat freely.8 This approach serves no-
tice that, for most constructivists, the contextual limits to generalized the-
ory are social rather than individual. About the consequences of social
construction and the emergence of powerful behavioral normsof multi-
lateralism or humanitarianism, for exampleconstructivists have said a
great deal.9 The process of social construction, however, is usually glossed
over in a rush to show that the consequences of social construction, efca-
cious norms, do indeed constrain international behavior.
This self-consciously social constructivism gives rise to a second irony of
international relations theory. In addition to the perennial irtation of in-
ternational relations scholarship with theory that ignores intercultural dif-
ference, the most prominent critics of this universalizing tendency have
been strikingly reluctant to make common cause. Constructivists are not
the only international relations scholars to note that seemingly objective
phenomena are in fact subject to a wide variety of interpretations. An ap-
preciation for this sort of subjectivity has been part of foreign policy analy-
sis at least since Nathan Leitess famous efforts to understand the Soviet
worldview gave rise to the analysis of what he called operational codes.10
The importance of perception gained even greater visibility with Robert
Jerviss landmark Perception and Misperception in International Relations.11
The roster of foreign policy scholars indebted to these authors concern
with perception and cognition is by now very long.
The parallel between the analysis of perception and belief systems by
political psychologists and social construction by constructivists is sug-
gested by the publication, only one year apart, of Yaacov Vertzbergers The
World in Their Minds (from the former perspective) and Nicholas Onufs
World of Our Making (from the latter).12 Vertzberger offered a broad-based
overview of cognitive approaches to foreign policy, including chapters
specically on the group and organizational milieu in which decisions are
made, the effects of social and cultural context, and the use and abuse of
history by foreign policy makers. Vertzbergers approach, in other words, is
218 psychology and constructivism in international relations
a reappraisal of rationalism
The suggestion that leaders and states choose strategically from among
available identities within a given normative context hints strongly at a de-
cision process that is essentially rational. Yet if the ideational alliance be-
tween constructivists and political psychologists has any position on ratio-
nalism, it is more often presumed to be antagonistic rather than
complementary. In this volumes introduction, Vaughn P. Shannon takes
this antagonism to be one of the main points of convergence between po-
litical psychologists and constructivists. Similarly, David Patrick Houghton
views both approaches as hostile to rationalismpolitical psychology be-
cause of its understanding of the decision process as characterized by errors
of perception and judgment, and constructivism because of its embrace of
a logic of appropriateness rather than of consequences.
One problem with the alliance, of course, is that political psychologists
and constructivists appear to reject rationalism for reasons that might also
drive them apart from each other. Whereas political psychology is commit-
ted to a different view of individual choice than is economic rationalism,
constructivism is committed to a social interpretation of choice situations.
As Wendt puts it, constructivism rejects the methodological individualism
Conclusion 225
In a similar vein, James Fearon and Alexander Wendt argue that construc-
tivism and rationalism often yield similar, or at least complementary, ac-
counts of international life and that even though their respective van-
tage points tend in practice to highlight some questions and not others, in
many cases there may be much to be gained by using the tools of one to try
to answer questions that tend to be asked primarily by the other.45
It is probably not an accident that Checkel, Fearon, and Wendt stress
the complementarity of rationalist and constructivist accounts of interna-
tional relations. Constructivists have rarely been as antagonistic to ratio-
nal-choice assumptions as have political psychologists. And this is precisely
why constructivism in particular is well suited to serve as a bridge between
Conclusion 227
an ideational alliance
Social identity theory has long been the most obvious point of encounter
between constructivists and political psychologists, and it is no accident
that several chapters in this volume address it in one way or another. This
path is sufciently well worn that its familiar ruts have tended to steer con-
230 psychology and constructivism in international relations
contributions to this volume also argues for greater attention to the under-
pinnings of SIT. They make the case that social identity theorists have paid
far too little attention to alternative psychological accounts of identity.
Starting with Erik Eriksons life-span model of identity development, they
trace the evolution of multiple branches of identity theory.58 Rather than
embracing one or another of these perspectives, they argue that social psy-
chological investigations of identity are far more varied than one might as-
sume given the prominence of SIT in the tradition of Tajfel and Turner.
Both constructivists and political psychologists would do well to broaden
their horizons.
Theorizing Normativity
McDermott and Lopezs reminder that social identity has attracted atten-
tion from a diverse array of scholars is welcome. The point is equally apt
when applied to the relationship between ideas and behavior. Construc-
tivists and political psychologists alike have tended to assume that individ-
uals act on the basis of subjective understandings that operate in ways pre-
dicted either by cognitive or sociological theory. Perhaps they depend
heavily on readily available analogies, as Houghton suggests.59 Perhaps
they are inuenced by the global diffusion of social norms, as in the case of
Breunings discussion of the Millennium Development Goals.60 These ar-
guments are certainly plausible enough, but McDermott and Lopez voice
an important warning. Research in cognitive psychology makes it very
clear that ideas do not necessarily predict behavior. The point is not that
ideas are completely unrelated to behavior, of course, or that behavior can-
not be predicted. But people often believe or say they believe one thing but
act in ways suggesting that they believe something else.61 It is crucial,
therefore, to spell out the mechanisms whereby ideas and social norms are
translated into behavior.
McDermott and Lopez point out that a range of psychological factors
mediate the relationship between ideas and behavior, including idea
salience, personal experience, vested interests, efforts at justication, per-
sonal values, and so on. And as Anstee points out, the process through
which ideas inuence behavior can be conscious and strategic as well as sub-
conscious.62 Decision elites may take steps to selectively reinforce certain
norms or to promote specic identities. In general, research on political cog-
nition challenges the lamentable tendency of much scholarship on the
inuence of social norms to treat ideas as a sort of virus. They may spread
232 psychology and constructivism in international relations
more or less quickly, following one transmission belt or another, but like a
virus they operate in certain routine ways once they have infected a
groups belief systems. Inexorably, in this view, they change beliefs and
thereby alter behavior. This epidemiological view of norms utterly fails to
do justice to the myriad ways normative inuence is shaped in practice by
the psychological, social, and political context within which ideas may or
may not inuence agent behavior. McDermott and Lopez are right to object
that norms simply do not work like a virus or, to change the metaphor, seep
like a stain across the political landscape, changing behavior in their wake.
In fact, although some studies treat the two terms as more or less equiv-
alent, ideas differ from norms in at least one important respect.63 Norms
carry a force of obligation in a way that ideaseven widely shared ideas
do not. There is a cognitive aspect to both, of course. That is, both ideas
and norms convey meaning. But norms also convert this meaning into an
obligation to act through a mechanism that constructivists and political
psychologists share a strong interest in understanding better. My rst chap-
ter in this volume takes up the problem of getting normative, emphasiz-
ing the role of emotion as a microfoundation for normativity. I also draw
more heavily on language-oriented constructivist scholarship than do the
other contributors to this collection. In this way, I explore the normative
underpinnings of the chapters that follow, focusing on either identity and
agency or beliefs and choice. Taking normativity seriously requires more
than a cursory nod to shared identities or beliefs, and it is particularly un-
fortunate that the philosophical works of those constructivists most care-
fully attuned to normative language, such as Nicholas Onuf and Friedrich
Kratochwil, have not to a greater extent inspired testable theories and em-
pirical research.64 Empirical strategy is, moreover, another domain in
which constructivists and political psychologists rarely seem to compare
notes. This is a third aspect of their ideational alliance with considerable
unrealized potential.
Empirical Cross-Pollination
other chapters in this volume, taken together, tend instead to illustrate the
virtues of domain-specic theory. They do not view their subjects as tabu-
lae rasae, free of social or cultural context. Nor, however, do they reject the-
ory development out of hand. Situating useful theory in a cultural context
may require something of a tightrope act, but these are precisely the sort of
intellectual gymnastics championed by Margaret Mead.
conclusion
This chapter has focused on the benets not only of alliance but more im-
portantly of dialogue between constructivists and political psychologists
working in the eld of international relations. This dialogue has a variety
of potential advantages. It suggests ways for constructivists interested in so-
cial norms and those interested in social identity to speak to one another.
It also suggests ways for constructivists and especially political psycholo-
gists to move beyond a facile antagonism toward rational-choice ap-
proaches. And it points to multiple theoretical and methodological syner-
gies made possible by their ideational collaboration.
None of the contributors to this book addresses at least one fairly obvi-
ous theme of complementarity: the extent to which political psychology
and constructivism can mutually contribute to improved accounts of psy-
chology.68 This is a book by and for international relations scholars, so
there is nothing surprising in the choice to ignore this additional way in
which constructivists and political psychologist are natural allies. Con-
structivism as an ontological and epistemological orientation is arguably
less well established in psychology than in political science and interna-
tional relations. Rom Harr, for one, has produced an extensive body of
work extending constructivist insights into psychology, exploring the so-
cial (and political) construction of the individual and the mind, and en-
gaging scientic realism, much as Alexander Wendt has done in interna-
tional relations.69 Yet in general and apart from those working in the areas
of political and social psychology, psychologists have paid less attention to
issues such as those raised in this book.
Although the eld of psychology seems no more disposed overall to re-
spect Meads warning about culture-insensitive generalization than when
she issued it, perhaps the time is ripe in the eld of international relations
for theories that are more culturally aware; more sophisticated in their
Conclusion 235
Notes
239
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Contributors
Peter Hays Gries is Associate Professor and Harold J. & Ruth Newman
Chair of the Institute for U.S.-China Issues, and Director of the Sino-Amer-
ican Security Dialogue (SASD) at the University of Oklahoma. He is author
of Chinas New Nationalism, coeditor of State and Society in 21st-Century
271
272 contributors
China, and has written over 20 academic journal articles and book chap-
ters. His work focuses on nationalism, the political psychology of interna-
tional affairs, and Chinas domestic politics and foreign policy. Peter re-
ceived a PhD in Political Science from the University of California,
Berkeley. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Mershon Center for Security
Studies at Ohio State University, and an assistant professor of Political Sci-
ence at the University of Colorado before coming to Oklahoma.
Asli Ilgit received her PhD from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and
Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2010. She joined the Department of
Political Science at Gustavus Adolphus College in 2010 as an Assistant Pro-
fessor. Her dissertation examines inter- and intrapolitical party debates on
German state identity and foreign and security policy since unication.
Her general research interests include construction of state identity, politics
of identity in international relations, comparative foreign policy analysis,
issues of international security, and the politics of immigration, with a fo-
cus on Europe and Middle East.
tries; and how do leaders incorporate normative principles into their policy
choices? Paul Kowert is the author of Groupthink or Deadlock: When Do Lead-
ers Learn from Their Advisors (2002) and Cultures of Order: Leadership, Lan-
guage, and Social Reconstruction in Germany and Japan (with Katja Weber,
2007). He received his doctorate from Cornell University in 1992, and
joined the faculty of the FIU International Relations Department in 1994.
Adaptationist perspective, 24, 198, 21112 Culture, 6, 19, 20, 61, 64, 72, 93, 95, 172,
Analogy, 18, 23, 11924, 130, 139, 144, 187, 21516, 218; of anarchy, 15, 17;
16465, 168n16 Lockean, 69
ANASOL-D, 98, 1057
Association for Southeast Asian Nations Developing-8 (D-8), 98, 10710
(ASEAN), 6970 Development Assistance Committee. See
Atakurk, Mustafa Kemal, 99103 OECD
Attribution theory, 10, 12, 20, 29n138 Dogru Yol Partisi (True Path Party, DYP),
10811
Behaviorism, 9, 25, 198, 20511, 213
Beliefs, 1823, 3438, 4243, 49, 58, 63, Emotion, 4, 1011, 17, 3435, 37, 38,
82, 84, 94, 12324, 140, 152, 155, 159, 4352, 63, 78, 16365, 172, 178, 18384,
200, 225, 232 198200, 207, 211, 232; anxiety, 17172,
Bivalence. See under valence 17884, 18687, 228; pride, 20, 172, 178,
Blair, Tony, 22, 77, 8186, 131, 135, 139, 18087, 228
141, 222 Entebbe, 157, 16163, 169n34, 228, 237n54
Bounded rationality, 7, 17, 151, 153 Epistemic communities, 125, 12730,
Brown, Gordon, 91n49, 131, 139, 144 13335, 14045
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 15657, 15961, 228, Erbakan, Necmettin, 10710
23738n54 European Union (EU), 69, 99, 102, 106,
Bush, George W., 41, 53n23, 71, 120, 130, 108, 109
131, 14045, 153, 223
Foreign policy analysis (FPA), 9293, 150
Carter, Jimmy, 21, 152, 15559, 161, Foreign policy decision making (FPDM),
16365, 22829 9297, 113n27
Categorization. See Social categorization
China, 17, 20, 22, 41, 61, 6770, 162, 173, Germany, 66, 68, 69
17687
Clinton, Bill, 40 Heuristics, 10, 19, 153
Constructivism, 1221, 5862; conven- Hume, David, 3536, 37, 43, 47, 51
tional (modernist), 1213, 16; critical,
1213; linguistic, 17, 35; as neobehavior- Ideationists, 25, 79, 1213, 3133, 36
ism, 20511; systemic, 3, 12, 16, 60, 61, Identity, 2, 5, 10, 1216, 19, 22, 24, 3233,
65; unit-level, 1516 50, 5768, 7073, 7684, 86, 90n29,
Cultural match, 125, 12729, 14041, 9299, 120, 151, 157, 159, 172, 197, 198,
14345 200205, 2078, 213, 216, 21824, 227,
275
276 index
Realism, 1, 2, 4, 6, 24, 36, 48, 171, Status, 16, 17, 5758, 6173, 7678, 2024,
234 222
Refah Partisi (Welfare Party, RP), Structuralism, 34, 15, 170, 188, 220
1078 Symbolic interactionism, 58, 236n22
REFAHYOL government, 98, 10710 Symbolic politics, 20, 24, 17188, 228
Role theory, 10, 22, 23, 57, 60, 220; na- Syria, 98, 1047
tional role conceptions (NRC), 92,
9495, 97, 111 Taboo trade-offs, 1718
Russia, 17, 22, 58, 61, 65, 67, 6972, 218 Turkey, 10, 93, 98112, 223
Schema, 10, 21, 60, 63, 154 United Kingdom, 22, 80, 8386
Self-categorization theory (SCT), 78, 81, United Nations, 66, 121, 124, 126, 13134,
221 176
Social categorization, 11, 33, 6365, 221 United States, 41, 6061, 6572, 84, 108,
Social comparison, 16, 6365, 67 122, 12631, 14042, 150, 15565,
Social identity. See under identity 17679, 18384, 212
Social identity theory (SIT), 11, 16, 33, 57, Universalism, 2, 6, 215
6265, 7273, 76, 78, 197, 200203, 205, USS Pueblo, 159, 162
213, 221, 22930
Soviet Union (USSR), 21, 60, 6568, 72, Valence, 35, 4447, 49, 51; bivalence,
97, 104, 156, 217, 218 4850, 52
Speech acts, 3842, 51; assertions, 40; Vance, Cyrus, 157, 16162, 165, 228
commitments, 40; declarations, 4142; Vietnam, 71, 159, 165
directives, 39; expressive, 4041
Standard social science model (SSSM), Zedillo Commission, 126, 131, 135,
205, 207, 211 13942, 144