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Psychology and Constructivism in

International Relations
Psychology and Constructivism
in International Relations
an ideational alliance

edited by
Vaughn P. Shannon and
Paul A. Kowert

The University of Michigan Press


Ann Arbor
Copyright by the University of Michigan 2012
All rights reserved

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including


illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107
and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the
public press), without written permission from the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Psychology and constructivism in international relations : an


ideational alliance / edited by Vaughn P. Shannon and Paul A.
Kowert.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-472-11799-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-472-02781-1 (e-book)
1. International relationsPsychological aspects. 2. Group
identityPolitical aspects. 3. Constructivism (Philosophy)
I. Shannon, Vaughn P. II. Kowert, Paul, 1964

jz1253.p79 2012
327.101dc23
2011020858
Preface

Divided by terminology and a certain mutual wariness, constructivists and


political psychologists nevertheless share an interest in many of the same
research questions. Both groups of scholars are convinced that human sub-
jectivity and social identity are central to our understanding of the politi-
cal world. Both have stressed agency and choice as a counterweight,
though not a replacement, for institutional or structural theories. And al-
though it is less widely appreciated, both make an essential contribution to
our understanding of normative constraint.
It is striking, then, how rarely constructivists and political psychologists
speak directly to one another. Constructivists have often been at pains to
stress the ways their arguments are social (and sociological) while charac-
terizing psychology as a purely individualist enterprise and ignoring devel-
opments in social psychology. For their part, political psychologists have
viewed the metatheoretical challenge of late modern and postmodern con-
structivism with suspicion, consequently deriving almost no inspiration
from constructivist scholarship. The unfortunate result has been two paral-
lel and potentially complementary research programs that scarcely benet
at all, in practice, from cross-fertilization and dialogue.
This volume explores the potential for a long-overdue synthesis of re-
search in constructivism and political psychology. We have been engaged
in this dialogue for more than a decade, and we are very much heartened
to see others exploring the ties between these literatures with increasing
frequency. The contributors to this volume participated with us in panels
at the 2008 and 2009 annual meetings of the International Studies Associ-
ation, presenting theoretical and empirical research at the intersection of
psychology, constructivism, and international relations. Their voices add
to a rising chorus suggesting that constructivism and political psychology
vi 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

Introduction: Ideational AlliesPsychology, Constructivism,


and International Relations 1
Vaughn P. Shannon

1. Completing the Ideational Triangle: Identity, Choice, and


Obligation in International Relations 30
Paul A. Kowert

part i. identity and the construction of agents


2. How Identities Form and Change: Supplementing
Constructivism with Social Psychology 57
Deborah Welch Larson

3. Norms and the Management of Identities: The Case for


Engagement between Constructivism and the Social
Identity Approach 76
Jodie Anstee

4. Identity and Decision Making: Toward a Collaborative


Approach to State Action 92
Asli Ilgit and Binnur Ozkececi-Taner

part ii. beliefs and the construction of choices


5. Re-Constructing Development Assistance: Analogies, Ideas,
and Norms at the Dawn of the New Millennium 119
Marijke Breuning
6. Agent-Level and Social Constructivism: The Case of the Iran
Hostage Crisis 150
David Patrick Houghton

7. Determinants of Security and Insecurity in International Relations:


A Cross-National Experimental Analysis of Symbolic and
Material Gains and Losses 170
Peter Hays Gries, Kaiping Peng, and H. Michael Crowson

part iii. reflection, synthesis, and assessment


8. Psychology and Constructivism: Uneasy Bedfellows? 197
Rose McDermott and Anthony Lopez

Conclusion: Context and Contributions of the


Ideational Alliance 215
Paul A. Kowert

References 239
Contributors 271
Index 275
Introduction: Ideational AlliesPsychology,
Constructivism, and International Relations
vaughn p. shannon

this book is about two important literatures of international relations,


political psychology and constructivism, each of which has for years inter-
preted world politics through the lenses of identity and beliefs but has
done so quite independently of the other. Within months in 198990, two
books were publishedYaacov Vertzbergers The World in Their Minds and
Nicholas Onufs World of Our Makingreecting a shared premise about in-
ternational relations as importantly determined by how decision makers
perceived and constructed reality.1 The former, a work of political psychol-
ogy, and the latter, a work of constructivism, advanced their respective
elds in understanding and elaborating on the (inter)subjective nature of
world politics.
Both psychology and constructivism have sought to challenge or em-
bellish mainstream international theoryrealism and rational-choice per-
spectives in particularby highlighting the indeterminate nature of analy-
ses rooted in material forces or assumptions of perfect rationality. Although
constructivists and political psychologists adopt different terminology and
cite different authors for inspiration, their mutual interest in human sub-
jectivity and identity politics is striking. It is surprising, then, how rarely
scholars in the two camps speak directly to one another. This volume ad-
dresses this lack of dialogue and explores the potential for theoretical and
empirical cross-fertilization of these ideational allies. Each research area has
much to offer the elds of foreign policy analysis and international rela-
tions, but few scholars have explored how psychology and constructivism
relate or what they can offer each other.
2 psychology and constructivism in international relations

This book explores both theoretical and empirical issues of comple-


mentarity, emphasizing the potential for integration in an ideational para-
digm. Our essays share the call for psychological microfoundations to so-
cial theory, which together provide realistic assumptions of human
behavior. We bring agency back into the agent-structure coconstruction,
we focus on (inter)subjective constructions and narratives that shape the
possibilities of foreign policy, and we emphasize process: how identity and
perceptions affect construction processes and how norms constrain the
perceptual and decision-making processes and choices.
This introductory essay engages constructivism and political psychol-
ogy, assessing how they can help each other further solutions to some fun-
damental puzzles of international relations. I begin with an overview of in-
ternational relations theory, situating psychology and constructivism
within the broader eld. I critique and engage mainstream perspectives (re-
alism and rational choice), suggesting how psychology and constructivism
speak to them. I then turn to an overview of psychological and construc-
tivist international relations, pointing to similarities and differences as well
as to issue areas each has discussed without the insights of the other. I make
a case for how each complements and strengthens the other and how to-
gether they offer a compelling perspective on world politics. I conclude by
providing an overview of this volumes contributions and how they speak
to aspects of the psychological-constructivist bridge-building project.

situating international relations theories

Mainstream international relations theory has long been dominated by re-


alism, (neo)liberalism, and rational-choice perspectives. It is beyond my
task to review and critique these diverse theoretical camps in detail.2 In-
stead, I focus on a few attributes common to many of these perspectives
rationalism, objectivism, universalismand the problems they pose to the
study of international relations. I also address the ontological questions of
individualism versus holism and materialism versus ideaism as features of
mainstream theoretical paradigms.3 I assert not that material or rational
theories are unimportant or wrong but that they are incomplete. I show
how constructivism and psychology give meaning to the material and to
the preferences on which purposive action is based.
Before beginning our discussion of mainstream theories, it is helpful to
introduce ontological dimensions that help dene both these and
Introduction 3

ideational alternatives. Adapting from typologies of Jepperson, Wendt, and


Katzenstein (1996), Desch (1998), and Wendt (1999), two axes recur in or-
ganizing how international relations perspectives view reality and its chief
inuences: the material-ideational axis and the individualist-structuralist
axis (table 1). Psychology and constructivism tend to share the ideational
axis while often diverging in terms of the relative focus on individual ver-
sus environment.
Different theories of international relations have been criticized for
their individualist ontological foundations, and others have been critiqued
for their structural nature at the expense of agency. The ontological posi-
tion of individualism privileges agents over structure, taking for granted ac-
tors and preferences in the study of how they interact in a specied envi-
ronment.4 Krasner explicates the actor-oriented approach, which takes
actors as ontological givens, with actors and preferences exogenous (as op-
posed to the sociological approach, which takes institutional structures as
ontological givens).5 Individualism suggests the theoretical primacy of in-
dividual actors over social collectives, with the individual acting unit as
essentially private, autonomous, and existing prior to and independent
of larger social institutions.6 Rational-choice, psychology, and biological
theories at the individual level are often charged with reductionism for ig-
noring broader social and political contexts.
Structuralism neither problematizes structure nor allows it to alter or be
altered by agents.7 Tetlock and Goldgeier refer to the macro-reductionist
syllogism driving such an approach: Policymakers are tightly constrained
by political and economic forces and respond rationally to these forces
with little need for psychology.8 Though Wendt calls neorealism individ-
ualist because it does not question the origins of states and does not permit

TABLE 1. A Typology of IR Theories


Materialism Idea-ism
Structural Neorealism Systemic constructivism
Individual Biology Cognitive, social and leadership
Psychology
Source: Adapted from Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein 1996, 38; Wendt 1999, 32; Desch
1998, 156.
Note: Table 1 illustrates the shared idea-ism of psychology and constructivism, while locat-
ing their usual domains of theorization along levels of analysis. Of course all these lines reify
what are fluid and diverse theoretical schools. Psychology is not purely ideational when it comes
to neurological and evolutionary aspects of human information processing, nor purely individ-
ual when it comes to group dynamics. Mainstream constructivists acknowledge at least a rump
materialism (Wendt 1999, 10913, 13035), and constructivisms norms and identities exist at
all levels, global, regional, societal, subnational, and group, down to any N of 2 or more.
4 psychology and constructivism in international relations

the system to alter the state identity or constitutive elements,9 neorealism


is a structural theory in that it posits that states conform to environmental
pressures of anarchy and the distribution of power in patterned ways. To
structuralists in the vein of neorealism, all subjective relations are inter-
preted as psychological and are banished from inquiry.10
In theory, constructivism claims to transcend either agent or structure
to provide the middle ground for each levels inuence on the other.11 In
practice, many constructivist studies have ended up structuralist in bent
in Wendts case, avowedly so. Though psychology has a reputation for be-
ing individualist, dealing as it does with the workings of the human mind
and traits, it speaks to group and intergroup relations as well, blurring the
lines between levels. More accurately, then, gradations of levels are ripe for
modeling, from the individual to small group social and material structures
to larger societal structures to transnational and global structures. Psychol-
ogy and constructivism can overlap in the area of group structures as well
as inform each other on the role of individual mediating social structures
and vice versa.
A second ontological position presupposes the importance of material-
ism over ideational things.12 Neorealism is to a great extent concerned with
material factorsthat is, wealth and power. While relevant, wealth and
power are not exhaustive of the motivating forces in world politics and are
often indeterminate in their implications for state behavior. Ikenberry
shows that unipolarity does not deterministically yield unilateralism for
U.S. policy.13 Van Evera charges classical realism and neorealism with being
barren of useful hypotheses and suggests that the causes of war attributed
to matters of gross structure of power have only moderate real-world ap-
plicability.14 He concludes that realist hypotheses of war explain a great
deal of history only if they are recast as hypotheses on the effects of false
perceptions.15 Walt recasts balance of power in terms of balance of threat,
with threat being determined by the less tangible aggressive intentions.16
Just what constitutes aggressive intentions, however, may be in the eye of
the beholder, as suggested by studies in psychology and constructivism.17
In the case of misperceptions and threat perception, psychology and con-
structivism can offer realists a more complete assessment of fundamental
questions of the ideational and emotional bases of (in)security. Chapter 7
speaks directly to this matter.
The dominant approaches to international relations are also rationalist
in nature in that they follow from certain presumptions in their theory
Introduction 5

buildingthat is, egoistic actors pursuing self-interest. Utilitarianism is


characterized by its rationalist premises, dened in means-ends terms, in
that actors strive to serve their intrinsic desires or ends in the most efcient
means possible.18 Neoliberals, for example, see institutions as efciency-
oriented and goal-directed, serving members exogenous preferences.19 The
strategic-choice approach is a recent statement of rationalism, consisting of
assumptions that actors make purposive choices to meet their goals,
which they rank order in a consistent manner (transitive preferences),
and that outcomes are based on the strategic interactions of such rational
actors.20
Rationalism has been critiqued from the ideational camps of both con-
structivism and psychology. Constructivism critiques these presumptions of
efciency and the neglect of path-dependent and historically situated insti-
tutions.21 There is also debate about the logic of action behind rationalism
(i.e., utilitarian consequentialism) versus socially embedded logics of appro-
priateness or habit,22 and this debate has implications for how states behave
internationally. It has been argued from a psychological perspective that the
two logics are not mutually exclusive,23 and Houghton argues in chapter 6
that both logics may be involved in decision making. Psychological models
tend to side with the consequentialist approach of rationality but highlight
the bounded nature of human rationality.24 Steinbruner suggests that the
analytic (rational-actor) paradigm assumes such sophisticated information
processing that it strains credulity to impute such procedures to real deci-
sion makers, and political psychological studies have demonstrated re-
peatedly that people do not conform to the normative standards of instru-
mental rationality and optimization.25 While rationalism can explain
bargaining choices in some situations, Kowert notes that they say nothing
about who the actors are or how their interests were constituted,26 issues
fundamentally tied to identity and beliefs.
Conventional approaches also tend to be objectivist in that the world is
real, clearly comprehensible, and commonly perceived by all actors. The
objectivist strategy of many scholars assumes the external environment
can be accurately described by the scholar and accurately surmised by
world actors.27 Reality is approached from an externalist approach in
which the given state of the world is ascertained by the scholar and its ef-
fects on state behavior are imputed. Hopf notes that neorealists and other
rationalist approaches take interests and the state as having a single eter-
nal meaning.28 Michael Desch acknowledges some structurally indeter-
6 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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

ll of the others. I turn now to elaborating on psychology and construc-


tivism applied to international relations and how they may complement
each others weaknesses.

Psychological 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 various intergroup situations, dened by Sherif as whenever indi-


viduals belonging to one group interact, collectively or individually, with
another group or its members in terms of their group identication.73 Ex-
tending attribution theory to the social level has yielded the group attri-
bution error, by which one overestimates the impact of dispositions on
group behavior, while self-serving biases are found in group-serving lev-
els to bolster the ego by a generous reading of ones group behavior.74 The
group-level out-group homogeneity bias has been found to perpetuate
stereotypes that help justify violence and reduce the likelihood of negotia-
tion.75 All of these dynamics feed individual ego needs for belonging de-
rived from group membership, which Baumeister and Leary call a power-
ful, fundamental, and extremely pervasive motivation within an
ongoing relational bond.76 These universal motivations combine with
the individuality of ones perceptions and beliefs to create a perspective
sensitive to context yet amenable to generalizable processes and patterns of
behavior.

Constructivist International Relations

Constructivism is a social perspective arguing that agents and structures co-


construct each other and that ideational factors and intersubjective mean-
ing matter.77 Onuf describes it as a continuous two-way process in that hu-
mans make the world what it is while social relations make or construct
us.78 The constructivist turn in international relations began in the 1980s
with metatheoretical critiques of prevailing theories (neorealism) and con-
ventions of international relations social science more generally.79
Just as political psychology is varied, so, too, is the wealth of scholar-
ship labeled constructivism. There are varieties of constructivism: conven-
tional and critical. Adlers excellent overview of constructivism divides the
diverse literature into four broad categories: modernist, linguistic, radical,
and critical.80 Modernist (or neoclassical or conventional) constructivism
accepts the precepts of positivist inquiry and has a cognitive interest in
understanding and uncovering causal social mechanisms and constitu-
tive social relations.81 Price and Reus-Smit divide modernist construc-
tivism into systemic and holistic variants, the former being heavily top-
down with regard to agent-structure interaction and the latter being more
balanced and attuned to nonsystemic sources of identity.
Linguistic constructivism, addressed directly by Paul A. Kowert in chap-
Introduction 13

ter 1, is modernist in the sense of being aimed at understanding but adheres


to a subjective hermeneutics in which objective knowledge is impossible
and all things are mediated by language.82 Radical theory combines this
subjective hermeneutics with an emancipatory mission (in contrast to the
conservative mission of mere understanding or explanation).83 Here,
social structures are deemed oppressive to certain peoples or ideas, and de-
construction of such power-linguistic structures liberates ideas and thus
opens new possibilities for people. A nal related category for Adler, critical
theory, combines this emancipatory mission with a pragmatist approach
and objective hermeneutics.84 Price and Reus-Smit divide critical theory
into modern and postmodern variants, akin to Adlers critical and radical
forms of interpretivism.85
Constructivism comes in many variations, all of which share the view
that agents and structures coconstruct each other and that ideational fac-
tors and intersubjective meaning matter.86 Anthony Giddens provides in-
tellectual foundation for constructivist thinking, positing the duality of
structure in structuration theory.87 Whereas realists and institutionalists
posit a choice process organized around the logic of consequential action
(utilitarian weighing of costs and benets), many constructivists posit a
choice process informed by the logic of appropriateness, matching social
identities with normative expectations that provide guidelines for legiti-
mate behavior.88 Most constructivists, suggests Brent Steele, assume to
varying degrees that the world is held together by social ideas and inter-
subjective understandings which constitute and are constituted by social
identities.89 Most proponents of this view accept that norms and identities
both affect and are sustained by practice (recursivity) and that the material
world exists but is only recognized through the intersubjective under-
standings of agents.90
The contributors to this volume speak most directly to modernist or
conventional constructivism as opposed to critical constructivism.91 Mod-
ernist constructivist research focuses on the role of norms and identity in
the constitution of interests and cause of behavior in world politics. The
study of norms from conventional constructivism has addressed every-
thing from their role in conditioning and justifying behavior to how norms
change and evolve. For Klotz, antiapartheid norms reconstituted how U.S.
interests were conceived regarding South Africa.92 For Tannenwald, social
prohibitions constrained U.S. leaders from using nuclear weapons after
1945 despite their potential military utility in war.93 Other examples in-
14 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

limits and complements of the ideational allies

Constructivism and political psychology have differences that some ob-


servers see as insurmountable hurdles to collaboration: individualist versus
holist orientations and the positivist versus postpositivist orientation of
major proponents. While the latter issue is not trivial, it remains beyond
the scope of this book, whose contributors remain grounded in positivism
and best t modernist constructivism. As for the issue of levels of analysis,
some scholars are pessimistic about any bridge from psychology to con-
structivism. The constructivist focus on the collective rather than the sub-
jective distinguishes a sociological approach that contrasts with economic
or psychological models.97 McDermott notes that psychological models
diverge from constructivist analysis in myriad and signicant ways, but
this does not mean that psychology and constructivist models need be an-
tagonistic. She suggests that political psychology can provide a micro-
foundational basis for understanding preferences and interpreting/fram-
ing the environment, while constructivists have the added dimension of
sociological and cultural forces on such dynamics.98
While psychology and constructivism each has its limits, this volume
explores how they complement each others weaknesses. A common theme
seems to be how the virtues of constructivism set macrostructural bound-
aries on the perceptions of values and possible responses based on prevail-
ing norms and identity, while psychology provides microfoundations for
the motives behind normative behavior and identity change. Together
Introduction 15

they fulll the agent-structure dynamic promised in constructivist critiques


of structural realism at the end of the 1980s.99 I proceed with a critique of
constructivism and how psychology addresses these problems, then show
how constructivism helps psychology against its weaknesses. In so doing, I
introduce readers to the contributions in this volume, providing a context
for understanding the contributors role in this dialogue between
ideational allies.

Constructivist Weaknesses, Psychologys Promise

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

identities mediate perceptions of and receptivity to global cultural forces.107


Others note that agents are neither structural idiots nor simply the bear-
ers of social roles and enactors of social norms; they also are artful and ac-
tive interpreters of them.108 Barnett suggests that political actors are
likely to have competing interpretations of the meanings associated with
identity and to compete to x a particular national identity because of
deeply held convictions that can be individual in origin.109
We t most comfortably with the holistic modernist camp in the sense
that psychology focuses on nonsystemic sources of identity and is more
critical of the Wendtian systemic form, which can appear overly static and
thus have trouble explaining how agents and structures change.110
Houghton advocates a dialogue between psychology and constructivism to
complement each others strengths: Psychology is perceived as having no
theory of structure and constructivism no theory of agency.111 He suggests
that social norms are at their strongest in accounting for policy positions
simply taken for granted across the board, while individual beliefs allow us
to differentiate further the details of the decision making process . . . indi-
vidual and social construction.112 Houghton develops this theme in chap-
ter 6, exploring both the socially shared constructions informing the Iran-
ian hostage crisis and individual differences within such intersubjective
parameters. Similarly, but in the context of Turkish foreign policy decision
making, Ilgit and Ozkececi-Taner (chap. 4) explore the changing nature of
identity in Turkish politics, from consensual ideas of Kemalism to the rise
of contested values and interpretations of Turkish ideas in later foreign pol-
icy-making. Together, these chapters show the value of incorporating both
macroideas and microbeliefs in understanding how policy is formed under
different circumstances. Culturally prevalent ideas set boundaries but do
not determine choice; norm entrepreneurs with different ideas create for-
eign policy debate and rifts.
To the extent that constructivism is deeply informed by identity and
beliefs,113 social psychologyand especially SIToffers fertile ground for
dialogue. In this volume, two selections focus directly on SIT in different
ways. In chapter 2, Larson focuses on identity-management strategies of
categorization and social comparison in terms of relative status motives.
Contrary to the consensus view of norms prevalent in constructivism, Lar-
son suggests that the microfoundations of status and power motives drive
identity politics and identity change in more realistic ways. She illustrates
Introduction 17

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.

Psychologys Weaknesses, Constructivist Promise

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

gard the individual beliefs held by decision makers as exerting independent


inuence . . . ascribed a great deal of autonomy vis--vis their social envi-
ronment.127 Moscovici is more blunt: He considers psychologists to be
sociological ignoramuses.128 Hopf notes that despite its name social psy-
chology offers no theoretical account . . . for the origins of an individuals
identity or identities.129 Jerome Bruner, himself instrumental in the cog-
nitive revolution, pushed the cultural turn in psychology, criticizing cogni-
tivism for ignoring culture as the medium of the mental and constitu-
tive of the mind.130
Some political psychologists defend the individualist approach, while
others acknowledge its weaknesses of being insensitive to political reali-
ties.131 Many psychological studies acknowledge contextual variables such
as ambiguous and uncertain situations and information and time con-
straints as key to the invocation of decision heuristics and the primacy of
agent interpretation.132 Goldgeier and Tetlock note that the greater the
transparency of a situation, the less latitude there is for slippage between
reality and mental representations of reality, which make knowing individ-
ual traits and beliefs less vital.133 Steinbruners cybernetic model notes that
routine decisions are made habitually according to standard operating pro-
cedures, saving leadership variables for novel situations.134
Nonetheless, more attention to the interaction between individual and
political and social groups is recognized, and constructivism can assist in
that project.135 Given the propensity for individualism, the potential of
contextual inuence implies a role for social and cultural theories that
stress the role of norms and rules under institutionalized environments.
Constructivists rightly point out that when decisions are made by groups,
the interaction becomes social and subject to social and intersubjective dy-
namics.136 How individual beliefs become aggregated and distilled into
nal decisions is an important avenue for future inquiry.137
Individual beliefs may in fact be a product of such broader cultural
themes; if such is the case, a parsimonious analysis need only concern itself
with the latter. Yet if differences exist, analysis that ignores the role of each
is incomplete. In this volume, Houghton (chap. 6) and Ilgit and Ozkececi-
Taner (chap. 4) take up the interplay of individual decision elite beliefs ver-
sus broader constructions in society and system, analyzing the role of each
in U.S. policy toward Iran in the hostage crisis and in 1990s Turkish foreign
policy, respectively.
A second criticism of political psychology relates to the presumed uni-
20 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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 of world politics is compatible with the constructivist program.149 But


the efforts to incorporate insights from cognitive science into the con-
structivist program are only beginning.
This collection of essays provides theoretical and empirical foundations
for the dialogue and integration of the ideational theories of psychology
and constructivism. The contributions to this volume are individual and
varied but address common themes regarding bridging levels of analysis,
psychology, and constructivism. Kowert argues in chapter 1 that normative
obligation is both a linguistic and a psychological property, exploring the
psychological, linguistic, and social foundations of international obliga-
tion. He argues that constructivism and psychology need each other to
make sense of normativity and by extension of international legal obliga-
tions. His chapter develops a new foundation for joining linguistic con-
structivism and political psychology, with implications for the study of
identity and normative beliefs.
Building off these introductory chapters and the themes of identity and
beliefs that underlie both constructivism and psychology, the remainder of
this volume is divided into three sections. Part 1 investigates the politics of
identity construction. Deborah Welch Larsons How Identities Form and
Change: Supplementing Constructivism with Social Psychology addresses
deciencies in the constructivist account of identity, arguing that states do
not always mirror the identity that others have for them. Larson follows
her critique with a theory of identity formation grounded in SIT to explain
why identities form and change. She illustrates her claims with brief refer-
ence to Chinas, Russias, and Indias perceptions of themselves and the sys-
tem around them and adds psychological underpinnings for realist claims
of relative position and status in world politics.
Jodie Anstee also addresses the possibilities of SIT in bolstering con-
structivist notions of identity but focuses on identity management in the
face of international normative pressures. In her chapter, Norms and the
Management of Identities: The Case for Engagement between Construc-
tivism and the Social Identity Approach, Anstee demonstrates how actors
can argue within normative parameters to maintain good social standing as
members of an in-group, illustrating her theoretical insights with examples
from the United Kingdoms Tony Blair administration.
Identity is also central to Asli Ilgit and Binnur Ozkececi-Taners Iden-
tity and Decision Making: Toward a Collaborative Approach to State Ac-
Introduction 23

tion. The authors address the complementarity of constructivist state


identity and psychologys national role theory to provide fruitful ground
for collaboration in explaining state action. They show the extent to which
state identity parsimoniously explains foreign policy patterns, while the
decision-making approach that explores variation within leadership beliefs
assists in understanding foreign policy when state identities are contested.
They bolster their argument with case studies from Turkish foreign policy.
Part 2 involves studies applying psychology and constructivism to the
question of beliefs and choice. Beliefs can be shared or personal and can be
consensual or contested, with different implications for the behavior of
states and other actors. Marijke Breuning considers the role of analogies in
helping frame and diffuse foreign aid norms into new countries in Re-
Constructing Development Assistance: Analogies, Ideas, and Norms at the
Dawn of the New Millennium. Policymakers calling for a modern Mar-
shall Plan underscored the enduring appeal of the program that aided in
Europes postWorld War II recovery as analogous to aid for development.
Breuning shows how the Marshall Plan analogy helped construct a partic-
ular conception of the role of monetary aid in development and addresses
how the enduring popularity of the Marshall Plan analogy structures rela-
tionships with the developing world.
David Patrick Houghtons Agent-Level and Social Constructivism: The
Case of the Iran Hostage Crisis counters the claim that psychological ap-
proaches to international relations and social constructivism are incom-
patible, illustrating the manner in which the two approaches might be
combined in an empirical case study. Taking the Iran hostage crisis as the
case study and addressing both conventional why and social construc-
tivist how-possible questions, Houghton shows how psychological ap-
proaches to foreign policy analysis and social constructivism may usefully
complement one another. Social constructivisms emphasis on intersubjec-
tive beliefs, identities, and representations, which conventional foreign
policy decision-making approaches traditionally eschew, is matched with a
psychological approach to choice that constructivists seem to lack.
Peter Hays Gries, Kaiping Peng, and H. Michael Crowson provide an ex-
perimental approach to uncovering ideational inuences in Determinants
of Security and Insecurity in International Relations: A Cross-National Ex-
perimental Analysis of Symbolic and Material Gains and Losses. The au-
thors note that theorists are divided on the fundamental determinants of
24 psychology and constructivism in international relations

security and insecurity in international relations, with realists focusing on


material determinants while psychological and constructivist theories
point to nonmaterial factors as central to threat perception. Gries, Peng,
and Crowson use experimental methods to explore when, whether, and
how material and symbolic politics matter for security and insecurity in in-
ternational relations. This chapter provides an empirical basis for dialogue
not just across ideational theories but explicitly with materialist security
studies. It also demonstrates the potential for using conventional, rigorous
methodologies in pursuit of ideational variables, a long-standing construc-
tivist concern to which the psychological tradition of experimental and
survey methods can speak.150
Part 3 reects on and assesses this books efforts as well as the broader
notion of wedding aspects of psychology and constructivism. Rose McDer-
mott and Anthony Lopez assess the promises and pitfalls of the marriage of
psychology and constructivism. Offering an alternative notion of identity
development to those rooted in SIT (e.g., Larson and Anstee), McDermott
and Lopez illustrate how individual identity can interact with the social
world without necessitating in-group favoritism and out-group denigra-
tion. The authors advocate an adaptationist perspective for locating the
source of individual differences in preferences. Kowerts concluding chap-
ter not only summarizes the works and purposes in this volume but illumi-
nates future paths for research and theorization. He extends our ideational
bridge building to suggest how these theoretical and empirical insights can
further inform and complement rationalist approaches. We hope this book
represents an impetus for such future research.
Asserting that ideas and identities matter is our premise and starting
point: The theoretical and empirical works herein demonstrate how, when,
and why such ideational phenomena matter, with due attention both to
psychological tendencies and to social dynamics. We argue for theorizing
that works across levels, truly attentive to agent and structure, from an in-
teractionist perspective in which agents make decisions in an environment
not of their making.151 A signicant part of that environment is social. We
demonstrate that despite their differences, constructivism and psychology
can and should strengthen each other as well as realist and rationalist per-
spectives. This book does not settle all differences of perspective among
scholars from the two camps, and the contributors to this volume clearly
have different views of the alliance, with some seeking to clarify con-
structivism with psychological contributions and others seeking a synthe-
Introduction 25

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

1. Onuf 1989; Vertzberger 1990.


2. Jervis 1976; Katzenstein 1996a; Monroe 2001; Monroe with Maher 1995;
Rosati 2000; Vertzberger 1990; Wendt 1999.
3. Wendt 1999.
4. Wendt 1999, chap. 1.
5. Krasner 1999, 43.
6. Ashley 1986, 274.
7. Ashley 1986, 28086.
8. Tetlock and Goldgeier 2000.
9. Wendt 1987.
10. Ashley 1986, 287.
11. Adler 1997; Wendt 1987, 1999.
12. Wendt 1999, chap. 1.
13. Ikenberry 2004.
14. Van Evera 1999, 711.
15. Van Evera 1999, 6.
16. Walt 1987.
17. Gries 2005; Rousseau 2006.
18. Ashley 1986, 274.
19. Katzenstein 1996a, 17; March and Olsen 1998.
20. Lake and Powell 1999, 68.
21. Sterling-Folker 2000 argues that neoliberalism and constructivism are not
that far apart in optimistic premises necessary to predict change in identity and
institutions.
22. Hopf 2002; March and Olsen 1998.
23. Shannon 2000.
24. McDermott 2004, 1517.
25. Monroe with Maher 1995; H. Simon 1985; J. G. Stein 2002, 109; Stein-
bruner 1974, 1213.
26. Kowert 199899, 2. On integrating psychology and rationalism, see Lep-
gold and Lamborn 2001; on integrating constructivism and rationalism, see
Fearon and Wendt 2002.
27. Herrmann 2002, 120.
28. Hopf 1998, 176.
29. Desch 1998.
30. Bueno de Mesquita 1981; Herrmann 2002, 12425; Reiter 1996.
26 psychology and constructivism in international relations

31. Wolfers 1962, 13.


32. Hopf 1998, 173. Hopf frames the story as a re in a theater, as opposed to
Wolferss house on re.
33. Jervis 1976, 1921. For constructivists I would ask: Do the actors share the
social expectations prevalent at the time regarding women and children, for ex-
ample? Which people would violate social norms and which would sacrice?
34. Monroe 2001; Monroe with Maher 1995; H. Simon 1985; Sterling-Folker
2002.
35. Katzenstein 1996a, 26.
36. McDermott 2004, 8.
37. Weldes 1996, 279.
38. H. Simon 1957, 1985.
39. M. Hermann 2002. See also Rosati 2000.
40. Bar Tal 2002, 18081; see also S. Fiske and Taylor 1991.
41. McDermott 2004, 67.
42. McDermott 2004, 4950, lists subdisciplines of developmental psychol-
ogy; personality studies; evolutionary; neurological, neurocognitive, and phys-
iological psychology; social psychology; and cognitive psychology.
43. Cottam et al. 2004, 13.
44. DiRenzo 1974.
45. George 1969; McDermott 2004, 220; S. Walker and Falkowski 1984.
46. M. Hermann 1980.
47. Kowert and Hermann 1997.
48. McDermott 2004, 221. On the distinction between dispositionist and sit-
uationist psychology, see Houghton 2009.
49. Crenshaw 1990.
50. Greenstein 1967, 1992.
51. Hermann and Kegley 1995; M. Hermann et al. 2001, 6465.
52. Shannon and Keller 2007.
53. McDermott 2004, 4849.
54. S. Fiske and Taylor 1991; Mercer 1995.
55. Jervis 1976, 3; Rosati 2000, 53.
56. H. Simon 1957.
57. Cottam et al. 2004, 3943; Khong 1992; Larson 1994, 112; McDermott
2004, 5767.
58. McDermott 1998.
59. Heider 1958; McDermott 2004, 10910.
60. S. Fiske and Taylor 1991; Rosati 2000, 5657; Steinbruner 1974.
61. Maoz 1990; Rosati 2000, 5859; Sylvan and Voss 1998.
62. For a comparison of role-based conceptions of identity with other psy-
chological treatments of identity, see Brewer 2001. For an application of role
theory to nuclear proliferation, see Hymans 2006.
63. Crawford 2000; Jervis 1976; Welch 2003.
64. Jervis 1976; Lebow 1981; McDermott 2004, 176.
Introduction 27

65. Cottam 1994; Herrmann 1988.


66. Brewer and Miller 1996, 1; Kunda 2000, 3.
67. Sherif 1966, 85; recounted in Mercer 1995, 237.
68. Mercer 1995, 240; Tajfel 1982a.
69. M. Brewer 1979; Perdue et al. 1990; Tajfel 1982a.
70. Mackie and Hamilton 1990.
71. Jervis 1976; Mercer 1996; Silverstein 1989.
72. Gries 2005; Mercer 1995; Rousseau 2006.
73. Sherif 1966, 12.
74. McDermott 2004, 25657.
75. McDermott 2004, 257.
76. Baumeister and Leary 1995.
77. Adler 1997; Hopf 1998.
78. Onuf 1998, 59.
79. Ashley 1986; Wendt 1987, 1992.
80. Adler 2002.
81. Adler 2002, 97; Hopf 1998; Ruggie 1998a, 35.
82. Kratochwil 1989, for example. An emerging category of linguistic con-
structivism is being called the practice turn. Contrary to the linguistic turn,
which Neumann (2002) says comprises only textual approaches, Adler (2005,
9798) argues that practices evolve in tandem with collective knowledge and
that communities of practice mediate between states and individuals in shap-
ing new ideas and identities. Focusing on social mechanisms for change brings
practice to the foreground between agent and structure. See also Neumann
2007; Pouliot 2007, 2008.
83. Ashley 1986; Doty 1993.
84. Adler 2002, 9798.
85. Price and Reus-Smit 1998, 262, 26869.
86. Adler 1997; Hopf 1998; Onuf 1998, 59.
87. Sewell 1992.
88. Goldgeier and Tetlock 2001; March and Olsen 1998; Wendt 1999.
89. Steele 2007, 25.
90. Onuf 1998. On recursivity, see Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein 1996.
91. Critical constructivism has its equivalent in critical psychology. See
Suedfeld 2002.
92. Klotz 1995.
93. Tannenwald 1999.
94. Finnemore 1996a, 2003; Legro 1996, 1997; Price 1997, Tannenwald 1999;
Thomas 2001.
95. For an example of global socialization, see Finnemore 1996b; Wendt
1999. For theories of domestic constructions of identity, see Hopf 2002; Weldes
1996, 1999.
96. Wendt 1994, 1999. On security communities, see Adler and Barnett 1998.
97. Katzenstein 1996a, 7.
28 psychology and constructivism in international relations

98. McDermott 2004, 13.


99. Carlsnaes 1992; Dessler 1989; Wendt 1987.
100. Wendt 1999, 216.
101. Rosati 2000, 5354.
102. Adler and Barnett 1998; Sterling-Folker 2000; Wendt 1994.
103. Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein 1996, 44 n. 30.
104. Wendt 1999, 335.
105. Price and Reus-Smit 1998; Weldes 1996, 280.
106. Rosow 1990, 288.
107. Checkel 1999; Cortell and Davis 1996, 2000; Hopf 2002.
108. Adler 1997, 325; Barnett 1998, 27.
109. Barnett 1999, 10, 16.
110. Price and Reus-Smit 1998, 268.
111. Houghton 2007, 4142.
112. Houghton 2007, 42.
113. J. G. Stein 2002, 303.
114. Wendt 1999, 259.
115. Finnemore and Sikkink 1998.
116. Kowert and Legro 1996, 492.
117. Adler and Barnett 1998; Goldgeier and Tetlock 2001.
118. Goldgeier and Tetlock 2001; Kahneman and Tversky 1979; H. Simon
1957.
119. Heider 1958; Herrmann 1988; Shannon 2000.
120. Haney and Zimbardo 1977; McDermott 2004, 8085; Shannon 2000.
121. Goldgeier and Tetlock 2001.
122. Breuning 2003, 232. On analogies, see also Houghton 1996; Khong 1992;
Spellman and Holyoak 1992.
123. J. G. Stein 2002, 10910.
124. A fourth critique regarding the positivist premises of psychology again
resides outside the scope of our book. But for more on the critique from con-
structionist psychology, see Bakhurst and Shanker 2001, 23; Nightingale and
Cromby 1999.
125. Tetlock and Goldgeier 2000.
126. Bar-Tal 2000, 15660.
127. Boekle, Rittberger, and Wagner 2001, 108. See also constructivist cri-
tiques by Shapiro et al. 1988 and Doty 1993.
128. Moscovici 1984, 6768.
129. Hopf 2002, 2.
130. Bakhurst and Shanker 2001, 13; Bruner 1990.
131. Crenshaw 1990; Deutsch and Kinnvall 2002, 16; M. Hermann 2002; Mc-
Dermott 2004, 11.
132. Steinbruner 1974.
133. Goldgeier and Tetlock 2001.
134. Steinbruner 1974.
Introduction 29

135. McDermott 2004, 18.


136. Shapiro, Bonham, and Heradstveit 1988.
137. Beasley 1998; Maoz 1990; Weldes 1996, 1999.
138. Copeland 1997, 46. He further notes a tendency on the left to reverse the
attribution error, blaming the Self for bad things while bestowing situational
causes on the bad deeds of enemies (47 n. 28).
139. A. Fiske et al. 1998.
140. Renshon 2002, 12123; Renshon and Duckitt 2000; Welch 2003, 204.
141. Herrmann and Shannon 2001.
142. Rosati 2000.
143. Berger 1998; Dufeld 1999; Johnston 1995.
144. Olson 2001, 106.
145. Herrmann 1988.
146. Larson 1985; Rosati 1987.
147. Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein 1996.
148. Bar-Tal 2000. See also Garrison 2001; Rousseau 2006.
149. Goldgeier and Tetlock 2001.
150. The literature on constructivist methods has begun to proliferate. See,
e.g., Checkel 2006. On the various ways to methodologically investigate iden-
tity, see Abdelal et al. 2009.
151. Tetlock 1992.
chapter 1
Completing the Ideational Triangle:
Identity, Choice, and Obligation in
International Relations
paul a. kowert

three problems have repeatedly driven scholars of international politics


away from their own familiar theories and arguments and into the territory
of other disciplines, including above all economics, psychology, and soci-
ology but also anthropology, cultural geography, gender studies, and law,
among others. Simply put, these are the problems of identity, choice, and ob-
ligation. Perhaps no important social issue can properly be studied from a
perspective of disciplinary isolation or intellectual autarky. Yet these three
in particular command interdisciplinary attention, for they circumscribe
the basic human dilemmas of who we are, how we behave, and how we
ought to behave.
Not coincidentally, these three problems animate the essays in this vol-
ume, which explore the mutually reinforcing contributions of political psy-
chology and constructivism to international relations theory. Political psy-
chologists and constructivists agree that in a world of our making, the
independent effects of ideas (worldviews, social constructions, social cog-
nitions, and so on) are central to accounts of the choices people (and states)
make. This is the shared premise of contemporary classics, such as Robert
Jerviss Perception and Misperception in International Politics and Alexander
Wendts Social Theory of International Politics.1 And it is the point of depar-
ture for the chapters in this volume by Breuning, Houghton, and Gries,
Peng, and Crowson, all of which explore the impact on choice of alterna-
tive conceptions (or constructions) of strategic or economic reality.

30
Completing the Ideational Triangle 31

These works and many other contributions to political psychology and


constructivism in a similar vein make two general points about choice.
First, choices matter. Notwithstanding the degree to which our choices are
limited by circumstanceand notwithstanding the degree to which deeper
patterns are at work in human history, exerting an inuence over us that
we may only dimly perceivewe are nevertheless besieged by choices. This
is no less true of political leaders, constrained though they are by the insti-
tutional tendencies and requirements of their position. It is a simple task to
think of policy decisions that in retrospect could have been better. And it is
almost as easy to think of ways in which matters could have been even
worse.
That policy choices benet from good judgment is evident, and this re-
alization points toward the second general point about choice: Judgments
about the world, good or bad, are necessarily subjective. This conviction,
above all, separates both political psychologists and constructivists from
scholars who are sometimes characterized as materialists. This epithet is not
entirely apt as a description of those who believe, for example, that the dis-
tribution of power or wealth among countries exerts a powerful inuence
on the foreign policy behavior of these countries. Neither power nor
wealth is, strictly speaking, a material thing, even though material objects
such as weapons or gold can contribute a great deal to achieving either or
both. Nor is a distribution a material thing. Yet the argument of the materi-
alists, who might better be called objectivists, is really that our judgments
about these things correspond more or less unproblematically to a material
reality. Constructivists and political psychologists believe instead that,
quite often, our judgments are highly problematic, depending as much on
our ideas about things and on our ways of handling these ideas as on the
things themselves.
One judgment about choice that does not reliably distinguish ideation-
ists from other scholars is their position on the extent to which choice be-
havior can be described as rational. As a group, political psychologists prob-
ably tend to register more skepticism than do constructivists about both the
descriptive and heuristic value of neoclassical economic models. Yet it is
probably fair to say that neither group takes a categorical position on this is-
sue. Most criticism of the rational model is a matter of degree rather than
kind: Decision makers commit a nearly endless variety of cognitive and mo-
tivated errors as they struggle to dene problems, gather information about
them, evaluate this information, and make choices. But even the most
32 psychology and constructivism in international relations

botched efforts at policy-making are usually recognizable as (sometimes


faint) approximations of rational choice. That is, they satisfy the minimal
criterion of predicating behavior on transitively held preferences. Whereas
economics tends to view this problem as a matter of kind (choices are ratio-
nal if they meet this standard; otherwise they are not), psychologists instead
tend to view it as a matter of degree, with actual choices rarely approaching
either end of the spectrum between rationality and irrationality.
The assumption of rationality is both powerful and problematic. But
whether one tends toward the optimistic or the pessimistic, it is clearly in-
complete, lacking as it must an account of preferences (the alternative
would be to vouch for the rationality of certain preferences). Mutual dis-
satisfaction with this aspect of rationalism propels both political psycholo-
gists and constructivists toward a second point of convergence: identity
matters. To put it another way, ideationists agree that our choices depend
rst on the subjective manner in which we conceive of the world around
us. Yet our choices also depend, just as surely, on who we are. Our identity
is expected to serve as a guide to what we want and to how we wish for the
world to be constructed. As Katzenstein, Keohane, and Krasner have elo-
quently pointed out, we might attribute the rapid growth of attention to
the problem of identity after the turn of the century to this assumption as
much as to the emergence of a postCold War politics of ethnonational
partition.2 To be sure, identity politics had gained scholarly cachet from the
resurgence of cultural, religious, and ethnic divisions long held in abeyance
by Cold War political pressures.3 Yet both political psychologists and con-
structivists had already arrived at the conclusion that identity matters, as
much because of the theoretical promise of this conviction as because of its
contemporary relevance.
Fundamentally, identity is important as a guide to intent. Neoutilitari-
ans have mostly sought to expunge the problem of intent from interna-
tional relations scholarship, relying instead on the simplifying assump-
tions that states want nothing as much as relative gains in power
(neorealists) or absolute gains in wealth (neoliberals). Yet one need only re-
call Hans Morgenthaus distinction between status quo and revisionist
states to appreciate that even for realists who are mostly committed to an
objectivist outlook, intent nonetheless matters. It was Morgenthaus ana-
lytical starting point, and it nds resonance even among neorealists in, for
example, Stephen Walts distinction between the balance of power and the
balance of threat.4 It is why we accept the development of nuclear
Completing the Ideational Triangle 33

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

Social Identity Social Normativity

Fig. 1. The analytical tripod of ideational approaches

This conviction is also, one must acknowledge, the least well-developed


aspect of the ideational alliance between psychologists and constructivists.
The latter in particular have argued that norms (as well as ideas and identi-
ties) matter in international relations, and they have drawn attention to
the ways injunctions about the permissibility of certain kinds of weapons
or about the proper conditions for humanitarian intervention shape na-
tional behavior.5 In this respect, constructivists are indebted, perhaps more
than they usually acknowledge, to a long tradition of scholarship in inter-
national law that acknowledges the force of normative obligation.6 Still
less, in any case, do constructivists perceive a debt on this score to psy-
chology. To the contrary, they have usually sought to distinguish their con-
cern with social norms from the concerns of psychologists, whose ap-
proach is presumably both more individualist and more ideational (that is,
pertaining to cognitions rather than obligations).
Yet psychologists have not completely ignored the problem of norma-
tivity, and there are some grounds for wishing that greater cross-pollina-
tion might occur between the two groups of scholars. Ringelmanns early
experiments on social loang, which found that subjects worked harder on
certain physical tasks individually than as members of a group, present the
problem of moral hazard through a psychological lens.7 And Sherifs study
of social norms used the autokinetic effect to demonstrate the powerful ef-
fects of social pressures on judgments about ambiguous stimuli.8 It is far
from obvious that social psychologists are intrinsically less concerned with
social pressures than are their constructivist colleagues.
Nevertheless, it seems fair to acknowledge that psychologists tend to
view norms as a combination of information and drive states, induced per-
haps by social context but ultimately operating at the level of the individ-
ual. Through a psychological lens, in other words, norms are generally re-
duced to beliefs and emotions inspired by a given social context. The
Completing the Ideational Triangle 35

beliefs at issue are those conveying an understanding of what one ought to


do, and the emotions produce a desire to do it (or perhaps not to do it). For
the most part, psychologists do not view norms as actually having norma-
tive force in the way moral philosophers (or even sociologists and interna-
tional legal scholars) typically have in mind. They do not generally address
the questions, for example, of whether one actually ought to work harder
(or to loaf) in the presence of others or whether one should actually agree
with others judgments about an ambiguous stimulus. The emergence of
actual norms has not so much been the concern of psychology as have
been the mechanisms by which individuals perceive and act on normative
inuences.
The remainder of this chapter develops the argument that psychology
can nevertheless make an important contribution to a constructivist un-
derstanding of obligation. Indeed, a constructivist account of obligation
cannot succeed without certain critical psychological underpinnings. This
is not to say that international relations theorists interested in the problem
of normativity must always delve into the psychological aspects of obliga-
tion. For the most part, international relations concerns itself with which
norms matter to the conduct of states (or other global actors), when they
matter, to whom they matter (again returning to the problem of identity),
and with what consequences. The remaining chapters in this book concern
themselves with these sorts of problems, focusing on identity and the prob-
lem of agency or on beliefs and the problem of choice. Yet normative
claims about both agents and choices must rest on some kind of founda-
tion. As in architecture, moreover, that foundation has certain conse-
quences for the shape of the structure erected on it. This chapter sketches
out what such a foundation might look like, drawing on the psychology of
valuation, or valence, for insight.
At the heart of the matter is the problem of how an idea, a belief, or a
statement becomes normative. Political psychology and constructivism
nd a third point of convergence in their mutual efforts to provide a co-
herent understanding, rooted in social science, of this process. Things get
normative, in part, because of the way language works, which might be
considered the Wittgensteinian answer. This is the answer given by many
constructivists (notably, language- or rule-oriented constructivists). But
normativity also depends on the way the brain works, linking together
emotional force and reasoned judgment, a position that one might label
Humean.9 In their efforts to navigate this gap between the Humean and
36 psychology and constructivism in international relations

Wittgensteinian perspectives, ideationists in international relations are


themselves more commonly divided than unied, with the psychologically
minded tending to side with Hume, and the constructivists loosely with
Wittgenstein. Their common desire to understand the force of normative
prescriptions in international relations, however, demands a more robust
effort at synthesis.

cognitive and linguistic structures of obligation

The problem of obligation in international relations was for a time almost


exclusively the concern of international legal scholars.10 The realist attack
on idealism banished normative issues from other parts of the eld, and
the neoutilitarians behavioralist inclination reinforced this tendency, so
that it has been necessary in recent years to bring norms back into the eld
of international relations. In doing so and with few exceptions, scholars
committed to social scientic approaches looked for inspiration not to in-
ternational legal theory but instead to sociology.11
Rummaging in the graveyard of sociological studies, as Katzenstein
appropriately puts it, constructivists led these efforts to rehabilitate the
problem of normativity.12 To preserve a social scientic outlook, however,
they have mostly sought to exclude ethical or deontic perspectives from
their investigation of international norms. Not wishing, for obvious rea-
sons, to endorse any particular moral outlook, they opted instead to treat
norms as ideas whose effects could be measured in much the same way as
the distribution of power or wealth among states (though not, of course,
using the same metrics). The result is a purely cognitive denition of norms
as shared ideas or understandings. Alexander Wendt says that norms are
shared beliefs that may or may not manifest in behavior depending on
their strength.13 Martha Finnemore adopts what she considers a simple
and sociologically standard way [of dening norms] as shared expectations
about appropriate behavior held by a community of actors.14 Similarly, for
Audie Klotz, they are shared (thus social) understandings of standards for
behavior.15 The presumed advantage of these denitions parallels the ad-
vantage claimed by cognitive psychologists in the face of Freudian depth
psychology: They substitute measurable beliefs about rights and duties for
the measurement of rights and duties themselves.
Completing the Ideational Triangle 37

This approach might be construed as advantageous for two reasons.


Measuring normative obligation would seem rst to place the scholar in
the position of having to dene these obligations and thus apparently re-
quire the scholar to abandon a position of moral neutrality. Klotzs demon-
stration of the power of antiapartheid norms offers a useful case in point.
Norms of racial equality are sufciently above challenge that Klotz can dis-
pense with this entire problem on one hand while at the same time re-
stricting her formal denition of norms to beliefs about standards.16 No
one should doubt that apartheid deserves to be condemned. But Klotz mea-
sures beliefs about the moral force of this norm, not this moral force itself.
To accomplish the latter would require a way of conceiving of moral or nor-
mative force itself as a meaningful variable. And this, in turn, requires a
clearer understanding of the way things become normative.
The second presumed advantage of construing norms in purely cogni-
tive terms is that they are notor at least do not appear to beavailable for
study construed in any other way. Viewing norms as beliefs has the virtue
of bringing to bear on their study the elaborate instrumentation of survey
research, experimentation, and content analysis. Social scientists are skilled
at measuring beliefs, making them an attractive target. In contrast, moral
force seems to pose daunting measurement challenges.
Yet normativity does not consist simply of beliefseven collective or
institutionalized beliefsabout obligation. And it is not just deontic lan-
guage or the ability to manipulate signs with deontic purpose. Nor does
normativity amount simply to evaluative feelings associated with beliefs
about obligation, though it surely involves such feelings. To function nor-
matively, beliefs require evaluative, emotional force. Put more simply, nor-
mativity depends on creating feelings of obligation. For emotions to gener-
ate obligation, they must be linked to beliefs, and these beliefs must be
capable of being articulated in certain ways. The constructivist interest in
shared beliefs and in language thus gets an important part of the story
right. Obligation does indeed require belief. Yet not all beliefs are norma-
tive (any more than all choices are rational). The functioning of language
on one hand and emotion on the other endows certain beliefs with nor-
mative force. Humes insight was that normativity depends on a will or
commitment to act in a certain way. Wittgensteins was that language func-
tions in certain characteristic ways to attach meaning to will. Norms are
thus inescapably emotive, cognitive, and linguistic phenomena.
38 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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

Normative Target Is:


Self Other
Fit Words to World (Expressions) Assertions
Fit World to Words Commitments Directives

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.

caring about consequences

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

ments of normativity go wrong. By equating normativity with shared be-


liefs, they suggest that beliefs about normative force are themselves equiva-
lent to normative force.
The link between beliefs and normativity is that beliefs become actions
through the medium of language. Beliefs thus have consequences. An ac-
tionverbal or otherwisethat can have no consequences is not subject to
normative claims. Such an action ts neither the world to any particular
words nor the reverse. It is hard to imagine a pure example of an action
with no consequences (or potential consequences), but the importance of
consequences is still easy to perceive. Sometimes, walking down the street
and minding ones own business has no consequences. Failing to watch
where one is going might have consequences. The directive Hey, watch
out! has force in the latter case. It has this force not because it is said or be-
cause it is understood, although speech and understanding are both essen-
tial, but because of these potential consequences. And this force requires
more than cognitive appreciation of consequentiality (or, for that matter, a
state of the world in which consequences are possible). It requires that con-
sequences matter. Mattering is not exclusively a function of either language
or beliefsit requires an emotional state.
To say that consequences matter is to say that one or more agents care
about them. This does not require that anyone be materially affected by
whatever action produced those consequences. Whether anyone is better
or worse off, though germane to moral reasoning, is not in itself sufcient
to generate obligation. We must attach different feelings to different out-
comes so that better off and worse off make sense. Hume reached the
same conclusion in his Treatise: Since vice and virtue are not discoverable
merely by reason, or the comparison of ideas, it must be by means of some
impression or sentiment they occasion, that we are able to mark the differ-
ence betwixt them.26
One objection to this argument is that it seems to demand greater at-
tention than we often give to normative purpose or perhaps even to ab-
solve those who do not care from judgment. But the stipulation that ac-
tion must matter does not mean that it must matter to everyone. If it
matters to no one, however, then it cannot be the subject of a normative
statement. A practical analogy is the problem of lawbreaking in circum-
stances when no one is expected to mind. Imagine approaching a stop sign
at the intersection of two roads in a desert with good visibility in all direc-
tions. It is possible to argue that one is nevertheless obligated to obey the
44 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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

We experience a multitude of feelings. Long before psychologists addressed


the subject, philosophers organized their understanding of these feelings in
terms of emotional binaries. What we feel about things most fundamen-
Completing the Ideational Triangle 45

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

If valence sheds light on the psychological foundations of normative force,


paving the way for a general account of obligation, it nonetheless creates a
renewed dilemma for those seeking a satisfactory way to understand obli-
gation in the domain of international relations. Methodological conve-
48 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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

The bivalence principle, then, sets up science for an epistemological fall. It


demands acceptable grounds for demonstrating somethingtruth or fal-
sitythat is conceived of as a property of the world but that is really more
properly understood as a function of our relationship to the world. This re-
lationship has its cognitive, semiotic, and emotive elements. This is trou-
bling, rst because scientists are supposed to observe rather than partici-
Completing the Ideational Triangle 49

pate in this equation, and second because normativity is supposed to be ap-


plied to scientic practice (a good theory) and not to scientic founda-
tions themselves (a good epistemology).
Harr thus wishes to shift the terrain of the discussion away from (in-
evitably) bivalent demonstrations of correspondence or reliability and in-
stead toward the practice of referring to the world. When we do sowhen,
for example, we make assertionswe engage in a normative practice. As in-
stitutionalized in scientic communities, this normative practice takes the
form of trust.

There is a shifting but always distinguishable shoal of accepted beliefs on


which our claims to knowledge, that is to be trusted by our fellow scientists
(and eventually by the lay community) are grounded. Grounding is not in
propositions or statements, but in material practices. We trust beliefs that
have been produced by reliable people using reliable methods. Reliability
and trust are tied into one another through the idea of beliefs as a basis for
action.41

When we make scientic assertions, we expect others to trust that we have


good reasons for doing so. This trust can be sustained only by regulating
our behavior in trustworthy ways.
Valence is as crucial to our understanding of scientic norms as to our
understanding of any other kind of norm. Saying so, however, disturbs our
sense that emotion must be held apart from these norms. This is one nor-
mative arenaarguably, the normative arenain which normative stan-
dards envisage denying precisely the thing that gives them normative
force: emotion. This is a strong incentive to exclude normativity from our
study of norms. Yet doing so misstates the relationship between science
and its object. Science consists of assertions, directions, and promises that
seek, among their other objectives, to encourage trust. This process is fun-
damentally normative and incidentally emotive. Of course, this does not
mean that emotion constitutes a scientic standard or that raising ones
voice will necessarily foster trust.
Given the centrality of trust to the scientic enterprise, there is nothing
surprising in scientists tendency to embrace the bivalence principle. Bi-
valence encourages decisive (and thus apparently trustworthy) representa-
tions of the world. Nor is it really surprising to conclude that science itself
consists of normative principles or even that these principles tend to dis-
50 psychology and constructivism in international relations

courage an awareness of this quality of scientic practice. Recognizing Aris-


totelian conceptions of bivalence as a (mostly) useful artice, however, un-
dermines the claims of those who prefer a rigid division between fact and
value. It likewise defeats the rationale for treating normativity itself as out-
of-bounds for scientic inquiry.

conclusion

This chapter begins with three problems constituting an ideational trian-


gle: who we are, how we behave, and how we ought to behave. None of
these problems can be understood without recognizing the importance of
subjective interpretation, and in international relations this recognition in-
forms both political psychology and constructivist research. Subjectivity is
not generally held to be an impediment to the study of identity or choice.
The problem of obligation, however, seems either to be held apart or to be
distorted by efforts to render it a proper object of scientic research. This
chapter argues against both of these tendencies.
In international relations, the problem of obligation was mostly rele-
gated to the subeld of international law, sequestered from efforts to build
increasingly scientic accounts of state behavior. Constructivists, in reac-
tion, have developed a growing body of evidence that national policies are
subject after all to perceived normative constraints. To build this case, how-
ever, most constructivist treatments essentially neuter obligations by treat-
ing them as nothing more than shared understandings, typically linked to
prescribed identities. These arguments are not wrong, but they are strik-
ingly incomplete.
Obligation does rely on shared understandings. These understandings
tell us how states (or people) ought to behave, but they do not in them-
selves show that agents should behave in a certain fashion. In other words,
they tell us about the content of obligations rather than the force of obli-
gations. If we take seriously the claim that states and their leaders are sub-
ject to normative constraints, then we require a way to conceptualize nor-
mative force. Inspired by the Humean conviction that passion provides the
necessary motive force for moral choices, this chapter develops the argu-
ment that language-oriented constructivism and emotional psychology are
necessarily allies. Normativity cannot take form without the semiotic struc-
tures that give obligations meaning. At the same time, obligations must be
Completing the Ideational Triangle 51

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

1. Jervis 1976; Wendt 1999.


2. Katzenstein, Keohane, and Krasner 1998.
3. Lapid and Kratochwil 1996.
4. Morgenthau 1948; Walt 1987.
5. Finnemore 1996b; Price 1997; Tannenwald 1999.
6. See, however, Pauluss (2001) complaint that antifoundational scholar-
ship poses its own set of challenges to international legal theory, even as such
scholars often place normative considerations at the forefront of their research.
7. Ringelmanns (1913) study found that children worked harder on certain
tasks, such as pulling ropes or pushing objects, when working by themselves
than when performing the same tasks as a member of a group. Ringelmanns re-
search on social loang contrasts with even earlier studies (Triplett 1898) that
found that the presence of others can improve performance on certain cogni-
tive tasks (social facilitation). For a classic effort to synthesize the ndings of
these classic studies, see Zajonc 1965.
8. Sherif 1935, 1936. The autokinetic effect occurs when, for example, a dot
of light is projected on a screen in a darkened room. With no other visible ref-
erence points, the light appears to move. Sherif found that confederates had a
strong effect on subjects estimates of this movement.
9. For a thoughtful contemporary overview of Humes approach to moral
sentiment, see Baier 1991. Also notable is M. Smiths (1987) neo-Humean ac-
count of belief-desire pairings as reasons for action.
10. The remainder of this chapter relies heavily on arguments originally de-
veloped in Kowert and Onuf 2004.
11. For examples of scholars who have returned to international legal theory
for insight, see Finnemore 2000; Ratner 2000.
12. Katzenstein 1996a, 1.
13. Wendt 1999, 185.
14. Finnemore 1996a, 22.
15. Klotz 1995, 14.
16. Klotz 1995.
17. Festinger 1957; Heider 1958.
18. Hurwitz and Pefey 1987. See also Hurwitz, Pefey, and Seligson 1993.
19. For a recent discussion of the linguistic turn as it relates to international
Completing the Ideational Triangle 53

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

identity and the


construction of agents
chapter 2
How Identities Form and Change:
Supplementing Constructivism with
Social Psychology
deborah welch larson

identity has become a core concept in international relations theory.


Constructivists have convincingly argued that the distribution of capabili-
ties in the international system alone does not determine state preferences;
rather, a states identity shapes and motivates its interests and behavior.1
Constructivists have been less successful at explaining how identities are
formed and change. Constructivists propose that state identities emerge
from interactions between states, that they are dened and constituted by
state practices.2 But this raises the further question of the origins of the
practices that produce and reproduce state identities. How do states form
an identity, and when and how does that change?
I propose some hypotheses on identity formation and change using so-
cial psychology.3 Social identity theory (SIT) offers an interrelated set of hy-
potheses on the microfoundations of social identity and the conditions un-
der which groups will try to improve their identities.4 By incorporating the
microfoundations of categorization and social comparison, the role of sta-
tus and hierarchy considerations, and strategies adopted by lower-status
groups to improve their relative position, we can explain why a state
chooses a particular identity. Moreover, SIT is superior to role theory5 be-
cause it views social groups as arrayed in a status hierarchy. Role theory
does not incorporate status and power distinctions.
In the rst section, I discuss general principles of constructivism and
how identities are formed through interaction. There are two major prob-

57
58 psychology and constructivism in international relations

lems with constructivist theories of identity formationinability to ex-


plain change and lack of attention to agents. The third section presents ba-
sic principles of SIT and outlines hypotheses on the conditions under
which lower-status groups try to change their identities. The fourth section
illustrates these hypotheses with examples drawn from rising powersIn-
dia, China, and Russiawith an emphasis on the period since 9/11.

constructivism and identity formation

In recent years, constructivists have made important contributions to our


understanding of international politics by highlighting the importance of
intersubjective perceptions and shared understandings. Constructivists
have persuasively argued that international structures are constituted and
given meaning by shared knowledge.6 Many aspects of international life
would be unintelligible without shared knowledge, including such con-
cepts as state, treaty, and sovereignty. Shared knowledge shapes the meaning
of signals, conventions, and practices. To the psychological tradition of in-
ternational relations, which has long highlighted the importance of beliefs
and perceptions in shaping state behavior,7 constructivists have added the
social construction of meaning and the role of a common culture that tran-
scends the beliefs of individual leaders or ofcials.8
Constructivists argue that state identities shape perceptions of their in-
terests and assumptions about what behavior is appropriate to a given situ-
ation. Wendt draws on symbolic interactionism and the concept of role to
explain state identities.9 From the perspective of symbolic interactionism,
the Self is dened by means of social categories and their corresponding
roles. Roles are social because they presume shared expectations about be-
havior appropriate to the role. Roles are also social in that every role pre-
supposes a counter role: Employers cannot exist without employees, or
professors without students.10 The Self is a multifaceted construction of the
different social roles that the individual occupies in societywife, mother,
daughter, teacher, blood donor, church member. Similarly, a state may play
any of multiple rolesas sovereign, leader of the free world, capitalist, im-
perial power, and so on.11
Individuals learn the expectations attached to these positions through
interaction with others. Through symbolic cues and personal experience, the
individual anticipates the responses of Others with whom she must interact.
How Identities Form and Change 59

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.

Constructivism and Identity Change

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

Leninist understanding of international politics. Western inuence on the


content of the new thinking was limited to some West German Social
Democratic politicians and research institutes. The new thinking empha-
sized the priority of universal human interests over class struggle and the
need for mutual security.19
Identity formation cannot be explained solely in terms of interactions.
States, no less than individuals, do not always mirror the identity that Oth-
ers have for them. Women have rebelled against societies expectations
that their occupational roles should be conned to homemaking and rais-
ing children. Similarly, India rejected international efforts to prevent it
from acquiring nuclear weapons. For India to accede to the nonprolifera-
tion treaty would have meant renouncing great-power status. Despite its
agricultural economy and poverty, India has long perceived itself as an in-
cipient great power.20 Individual leadersJawarhalal Nehru, Bismarck,
Woodrow Wilson, Stalinmay deliberately establish new identities for
their states. Constructivists slight the I as creator in favor of the Me as re-
ceptacle of others expectations.
States have a variety of national cultural traditions from which to
choose in establishing their identities. For example, the United States,
which faces two oceans, has been both a Pacic power trying to isolate it-
self from entanglement in European power politics and an Atlantic power
with a permanent military presence in Europe. The American tradition in-
cludes Theodore Roosevelts big stick realpolitik as well as Woodrow Wil-
sons democratic liberalism.21 Since the nineteenth century, Western mem-
bers of the Russian intelligentsia, who believe that Russia must follow the
example set by Western states to modernize, have engaged in debate with
Slavophiles, who believe that Russias position as a Eurasian power and its
special history give it a unique position that requires that Russia follow a
separate path and destiny, a third way.22 China has variously taken the
identity of a revolutionary state, developing state, and now a responsible
world power.23 Systemic constructivists such as Wendt do not examine do-
mestic politics that determines why a particular identity is selected.
It is unfortunate that constructivists have focused so much on interac-
tions, because in so doing, they have lost sight of a central constructivist
insight: Social structures are not reducible to individuals.24 In Wendts so-
cial theory, collective identity emerges out of interactions between states.
After enough states adopt a view of others as enemies, rivals, or friends, a
tipping point is reached and a culture is constituted.25 But where is the
62 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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.

a social psychological theory


of identity formation

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

psychologists, led by Henri Tajfel of Britain and Serge Moscovici of France,


developed SIT in the 1960s and 1970s in opposition to what they perceived
as the overly individualistic and cognitive social psychology practiced in
the United States. American social psychologists viewed groups from the
standpoint of individual members; they studied individuals in groups. In
contrast, believing that an important part of an individuals identity de-
rives from membership in a group, social identity theorists study the group
in the individual. Thus, SIT can be viewed as part of the sociological tradi-
tion of studying social structures. But because it is a psychological theory,
SIT identies the cognitive mechanisms that cause individuals to identify
with a group and groups to adopt particular identities.29
The cognitive mechanisms that produce group behavior identities are
categorization and social comparison. We perceive the world and partition ex-
perience in terms of categories or schemas because without some means of
ordering and classifying information, the ood of stimuli and sensory im-
pressions would overwhelm us. Categories simplify and give meaning to
social experience. Each social category both describes and prescribes: It tells
people what they are like and how they should think, feel, and behave. To
render the external world more meaningful and manageable, people
overemphasize similarities within categories and exaggerate differences be-
tween categories. People are particularly apt to accentuate differences on
those dimensions that separate one group from another, such as norms, be-
liefs, appearance, and so on. Categorization therefore tends to sharpen in-
tergroup boundaries and to produce stereotyping.30 Cognitive processes of
categorization and self-comparison are necessary for understanding and
acting in the social world. But the same processes that are functional for
perception yield stereotyping, prejudice, favoritism toward the in-group,
status competition, and so on.
A social identity is that part of an individuals self-concept which de-
rives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups)
together with the value and emotional signicance attached to that mem-
bership.31 Evaluation of the characteristics of ones group rests on social
comparisons with those of others. These comparisons allow one to measure
ones abilities, opinions, and experience. Social identity is relative and
comparative. Traits such as social status, wealth, or group achievements
have no meaning apart from differences with other groups and the value
connotations of those distinctions. Indeed, the group itself does not exist
unless other groups are also there.32
64 psychology and constructivism in international relations

A group comprises two or more individuals who belong to a common


social category such as nationality, race, class, occupation, sex, religion, or
ethnicity. Identication with a group is a psychological phenomenon that
has self-evaluative and behavioral consequences. One can belong to a group
without identifying with it. Because individuals typically belong to multiple
categories, they have a repertoire of identities from which to choose.33
Social categories stand in relations of power and status relative to one
another. Social groupswhether professions, jobs, races, universities, or
ethnic groupsmay be arrayed on a status hierarchy based on societys
evaluation of group traits. The hierarchy of groups and their relationship to
each other comprises the social structure, which exists prior to the individ-
ual.34 Status is a positional good; it is dened relative to someone else. I can
only have more status if you have less.35 Realists view international politics
as a struggle for power and status in which states are arrayed in a pecking
order. In contrast to constructivists, who along with Durkheim adopt a
consensus view of society as based on shared values and intersubjective
meanings, social identity theorists owe more to conict theorists such as
Marx and Weber, who depicted group relations as inherently conictual be-
cause of pervasive differences in power and status.36 While constructivists
are agnostic about whether relations between states are conictual or co-
operative, depending on the prevailing culture, they do assume that the
parties agree on the nature of their relationship and that this constitutes so-
cial knowledge. As a cognitive theory, SIT allows for the possibility that
meanings may not be intersubjective, that there may be mutual misper-
ception of the Others motives and intentions.
People are motivated to achieve an identity that is positively distinctive
relative to out-groups.37 Experiments show that people will discriminate
against an out-group even though the groups are based on nothing more
than counting numbers of dots or choosing a painter. Subjects try to max-
imize the difference between their own group and the out-groups payoffs,
even when doing so costs them money and the other members are un-
known to them.38 In these minimal group experiments, the groups were
deliberately structured to be equal in power and status, to control for alter-
native explanations for group favoritism.39 But not surprisingly, SIT re-
searchers have also found substantial in-group bias where there are pro-
nounced differences in status and power between groups, whether based
on occupation, military rank, ethnicity, or region.40
People show favoritism to their own group because social categories
How Identities Form and Change 65

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.

Identity Management Strategies

Groups may adopt any of three identity-management strategiessocial mo-


bility, social competition, and social creativityto improve their position de-
pending on whether group boundaries are perceived as permeable and the
status hierarchy is perceived as stable and legitimate.46
If elite groups are open, a lower-status group may emulate the values
and practices of the higher-status group to pass or gain admission.47 Before
World War I, states such as Prussia and Japan achieved the rank of great
power through emulation of the technology, military organization, and in-
dustrial organization of the established powers.48 At the turn of the cen-
tury, the United States easily achieved great-power status because its culture
and institutions were already similar to those of Great Britain, the domi-
nant power.49
66 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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

We may nd illustrations of these identity-management strategies in the


foreign policies of rising powers in the international system, China and
Russia.57 Despite major differences in their foreign policies, both are moti-
vated by the desire to restore their great-power status.

China

China is currently pursuing a social creativity strategy, seeking to achieve


prestige as a responsible world power and promoter of cooperative security
68 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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

Beginning in the mid-1990s, China has increasingly sought to obtain


status as a responsible global power.64 To increase its diplomatic impor-
tance, China has formed strategic partnerships with major powers such
as Russia, the United States, France, Britain, and Germany and with re-
gional groups such as the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
and the European Union.65 In line with its New Security Concept, rst in-
troduced in 199697, China claims that these partnerships are not directed
against any power. The New Security Concept calls for basing security on
mutual trust and mutual benet, in contrast to outmoded power politics
and bilateral military alliances.66
Although Beijing had preferred bilateral negotiations that maximized
its leverage, China began to participate actively in multilateral organiza-
tions such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and ASEAN Plus Three (South Ko-
rea, Japan, and China).67 Multilateralism raises Chinas diplomatic prole,
demonstrates its responsible behavior, and reassures its neighbors about
Chinas future foreign policy intentions.
After 9/11, China seized an opportunity to play a constructive role in
the U.S.-led war on terror by sharing limited intelligence on Islamic ex-
tremist groups in the Far East and by using its traditionally close ties with
Pakistan to persuade President Pervez Musharraf to cooperate with U.S.
anti-Taliban efforts in Afghanistan.68 Since 20023, China has also taken an
active role in hosting and brokering Six Party Talks to persuade North Ko-
rea to give up its nuclear program.69
China claims that it is pursuing win-win policies and that its growth in
power will not threaten its neighbors.70 The emphasis on positive-sum co-
operation rather than competition is consistent with a social creativity
strategy. To that end, China is making a deliberate effort to increase its soft
power by providing no-strings aid and investment in infrastructure pro-
jects to countries in Latin America and Africa.71 In line with the argument
that Chinas growth is an opportunity rather than a threat, in 2010 China
entered into a free-trade agreement with ASEAN, having already offered an
early harvest of trade concessions to weaker economies.72
China did not adopt a more pacic foreign policy because the United
States treated China as a friend, in line with Lockean culture, as Wendts
theory would predict. Indeed, one precipitant of the Chinese turn to peace
and development was the 199596 Taiwan Strait Crisis, where Chinas ring
of missiles in the Taiwan Strait provoked the United States to send two car-
rier battle groups to the vicinity. The Chinese leadership realized that con-
70 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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

When Putin assumed the presidency in 1999, Russias international status


was at its lowest due to the recent devaluation of the ruble, Western con-
demnation of the war in Chechnya, and Boris Yeltsins blustering but inef-
fectual efforts to oppose the NATO-led war in Kosovo. Putins aim was to re-
store Russias great-power status.77
Since the end of the Cold War, Russia had rst pursued a policy of ro-
mantic Atlanticism, a social mobility strategy of trying to gain admission to
Western clubs by becoming a liberal, free-market democracy. But the U.S.
decision to enlarge NATO to include former members of the Warsaw Pact
meant that Russia would not be admitted into the Western liberal commu-
nity.78 From 1995 to 1999, Russia followed a social competition strategy un-
der Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, engaging in competitive diplo-
matic balancing, but it could not restrain U.S. actions.79
The failure of these polar alternatives created the possibility for Putin to
pursue a third way, seeking to enhance Russias reputation not through
Western-centrism or competition with the United States but through seek-
ing a different kind of status based on Russias behaving as a constructive,
responsible world power. Putin pursued a social creativity strategy, trying to
secure recognition of Russias great-power status by becoming a partner
with the United States in the war on terror and reshaping international se-
curity regimes.80
Putin saw the terrorist attacks on 9/11 as an opportunity to align Russia
with the West and to make Russia appear stronger by helping the United
How Identities Form and Change 71

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

Putin currently is trying to restore respect for Russia, mainly by reacting


strongly and assertively to U.S. policies that appear to impinge on Russias
special interests in states that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, a pol-
icy that is best exemplied by the August 2008 Russian incursion into
Georgia, which was intended to deter Georgia and Ukraine from joining
NATO as well as to assert Russias comeback on the world stage.87 Russia
also encouraged Uzbekistan to expel U.S. military forces in 200588 and of-
fered Kyrgyzstan substantial aid as an inducement to end U.S. rights to use
the base in Manas.89 Following President Barack Obamas policy of treating
Russian leaders with greater respect, Russias cooperation with the United
States has increased, as is evidenced by the signing of a follow-on strategic
arms reduction treaty.90

conclusion

Constructivists have much to offer international relations theorists by illu-


minating how socially shared culture and values shape state interactions.
Constructivists have performed a major service by highlighting how state
identities shape interests rather than vice versa, as realists have argued.
Nevertheless, constructivism as currently formulated does not give
enough attention to the role of agents in choosing their own identities. Its
account of identity formation is static at a time when the character of in-
ternational politics is rapidly changing. Although some constructivists pre-
fer constitutive over causal explanation explanations,91 we need to under-
stand why state identities change, and these fundamental changes cannot
be understood solely by changes in interpretation or constitutive practices.
Here SIT has much to offer constructivists. As a theory that presumes
that differences in status and power matter, SIT is directly relevant to inter-
national politics. At the same time, as a psychological theory, SIT does not
overemphasize material factors in shaping state identities. SIT recognizes
that a states choice of identities is constrained by the social structure and
by its relative capabilities but argues that there is still leeway for choice. Dif-
ferences in the identities that states pursue can have a major effect on
whether relations between states are cooperative or conictual, as demon-
strated by changes in Chinese and Russian identities since the end of the
Cold War. China and Russia were more amenable to supporting U.S. efforts
at global governance when the United States treated them with respect, as
How Identities Form and Change 73

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

1. For important works in political science, see Katzenstein 1996a; Wendt


1992, 392425; Wendt 1999.
2. Wendt 1992, 4056; Wendt 1999, 36, 327.
3. Several scholars have suggested that social psychology would provide a
good microfoundation for a theory of identity formation and change. See Hopf
1998, 198; Katzenstein 1996a, 513; Kowert and Legro 1996, 47778; Ruggie 1998b,
88485.
4. For seminal works in SIT, see Hogg and Abrams 1988; Tajfel 1978, 1982a;
Tajfel and Turner 1979, 3347; Van Knippenberg 1984. For applications of SIT to
international relations, see Larson and Shevchenko 2003; Mercer 1995.
5. Burke and Reitzes 1981; Callero 1985; Stryker 1980; Stryker and Statham
1985.
6. Kratochwil 1989; Kratochwil and Ruggie 1986.
7. Jervis 1976.
8. See Houghton 2007, 28, 38.
9. Mead 1939; Stryker 1980.
10. Stryker 1980, 5760, 13031; Wendt 1999, 227.
11. Stryker 1980, 60; Wendt 1992, 39798; Wendt 1999, 23031.
12. Burke and Reitzes 1981, 8392; Stryker 1980, 3738, 6263; Stryker and
Statham 1985, 324, 327.
13. Wendt 1999, 32731, 33435.
14. Wendt 1999, 331, 334.
15. Checkel 1998, 335, 342, 34445; Katzenstein 1996a, 513; Kowert and Legro
1996, 469; Ruggie 1998b, 864; S. Smith 2000, 160, 162.
16. Stryker and Statham 1985, 331.
17. Hogg, Terry, and White 1995, 263.
18. Wendt 1992, 41921.
19. Larson and Shevchenko 2003, 97.
20. Nayar and Paul 2003, 3, 7677.
21. Kissinger 1994.
22. Hosking 2001, 27577; Lieven 2000, 246. On the current range of com-
peting Russian foreign policy identities, see Legvold 2007, 10914.
23. Foot 2001; Rozman 1999.
24. On the similarities between the interactionism of neorealism and con-
structivism, see Jervis 1998.
25. Wendt 1999, 26465.
26. Clark 2005, 173, 177.
74 psychology and constructivism in international relations

27. Gilpin 1981.


28. For a comparison between identity theory and SIT, see Hogg, Terry, and
White 1995, 25569.
29. Hogg and Abrams 1988, 1011, 13, 17.
30. Hogg and Abrams 1988, 17, 1920; Tajfel and Turner 1979; Van Knippen-
berg 1984, 561.
31. Tajfel 1978, 63.
32. Tajfel 1978, 6667; Abrams and Hogg 1990, 3.
33. Hogg and Abrams 1988, 7, 14.
34. Hogg and Abrams 1988, 14.
35. On positional goods, see Hirsch 1976, 2728, 5253. For applications to in-
ternational relations, see Jervis 1993, 58; Schweller 1999.
36. Hogg and Abrams 1988, 15.
37. Hogg and Abrams 1988, 14; Tajfel 1978; Tajfel and Turner 1979, 40.
38. For discussion of these experiments, see Bourhis and Gagnon 2001.
39. Hymans 2002, 11.
40. Boldry and Kashy 1999; Bourhis and Hill 1982, 42368; Capozza,
Bonaldo, and Di Maggio 1982; Grant 1992; Mummendey, Kessler, et al. 1999;
Van Knippenberg 1984, 56566.
41. Tajfel and Turner 1979, 40.
42. Cialdini et al. 1976.
43. Legvold 2007, 11314.
44. New York Times, March 27, 2000, A1.
45. Lo 2002, 8, 1618, 9495.
46. Tajfel and Turner 1979.
47. Abrams and Hogg 1990, 45; Ellemers, Van Knippenberg, and Wilke 1990,
23346.
48. Kennedy 1987, 2036, 20915.
49. Rock 1989, 2463.
50. Tajfel 1978, 5152; Tajfel and Turner 1979; J. Turner 1975. For experimen-
tal evidence, see Ellemers, Wilke, and Van Knippenberg 1993; Mummendey,
Kessler, et al. 1999; Ouwerkerk and Ellemers 2002; Overbeck et al. 2004; Veen-
stra and Haslam 2000.
51. Bourhis and Hill 1982; Hinkle and Brown 1990; Hogg and Abrams 1988,
2829, 5657; Lemaine 1974; Spears, Doosje, and Ellemers 1997; Tajfel and
Turner 1986; Van Knippenberg 1984.
52. Lalonde 1992.
53. Jackson et al. 1996.
54. Capozza, Bonaldo, and Di Maggio 1982.
55. Mummendey, Klink, et al. 1999.
56. Nayar and Paul 2003, 13641.
57. For more detailed analysis of the Chinese and Russian cases, see Larson
and Shevchenko 2010, 6395.
58. Deng 2008.
59. Bijian 2005, 22.
How Identities Form and Change 75

60. Miller and Xiaohong 2001, 14041.


61. Foot 2006, 7794.
62. A. Goldstein 2005, 4647, 7677.
63. A. Goldstein 2005, 4748.
64. Foot 2005, 14153; A. Goldstein 2005; Shambaugh 20045.
65. A. Goldstein 2005, chap. 7.
66. Gill 2007, 45.
67. Cheng-Chwee 2005, 11314; Shambaugh 20045, 6869.
68. T. Christensen 2002, 407.
69. Lampton and Ewing 2003.
70. Glosny 2006, 2832.
71. Ding 2008, 193213.
72. Cheng-Chwee 2005, 10910.
73. T. Christensen 2006, 11621.
74. Johnston 2008.
75. Yaqing and Ling 2008, 12123, 131.
76. Kent 2002, 34364.
77. This is the consensus of the literature on Putins foreign policy. See Han-
son 2005, 16398; Lo 2002, 16465, 168; Mankoff 2009, 41; Sakwa 2008, 245;
Tsygankov 2008, 39.
78. Light 1996, 4445, 7879, 85; Tsygankov 2006, 5859.
79. Lo 2002, 5859, 1078.
80. Lo 2003, 54, 12425.
81. Shevtsova 2003, 207.
82. Aron 2002.
83. Shevtsova 2007, 22930.
84. Lo 2008, 94.
85. Shevtsova 2007, 24142; Simes 2007, 4344.
86. Averre 2008, 33; Mankoff 2009, 1516.
87. Helene Cooper and Thom Shanker, After Mixed Messages and Unheeded
Warnings from the U.S., a Conict Erupts, New York Times, August 13, 2008, 10;
Steven Lee Meyers, No Cold War but Big Chill, New York Times, August 16,
2008, 1; Helene Cooper, C. J. Chivers, and Clifford J. Levy, How a Spat Became
a Showdown, New York Times, August 18, 2008, 1.
88. Mankoff 2009, 27576.
89. Clifford J. Levy, At the Crossroad of Empires, a Mouse Struts, New York
Times, July 26, 2009, Week in Review 4.
90. Peter Baker and Dan Bilefsky, Obama and Medvedev Sign Nuclear Arms
Pact, New York Times, April 9, 2010, A8.
91. Wendt 1999, 10118.
chapter 3
Norms and the Management of Identities:
The Case for Engagement between
Constructivism and the Social
Identity Approach
jodie anstee

in recent years, we have seen much interest in the potential value of an


increased role for psychology in constructivist research. Insights generated
in the discipline of psychology and the subeld of political psychology
have been utilized in a number of ways. Shannon and Keller have used per-
sonality trait analysis to explain a specic case of international norm viola-
tion; Hopf has used psychology to establish how identity works, particu-
larly as a cognitive shortcut; and Flockhart has employed social identity
theory to examine variations in the diffusion of international norms.1
While these scholars have drawn from different areas of psychology, their
utilization of microfoundational insights illuminates key variables that
have a signicant role in the functioning of norms and collective identities
in international relations.2
This chapter further advances this growing research body by demon-
strating how the social identity approach of social psychology provides a
framework for understanding the interactive processes of contestation in
relation to international norms. In contrast to chapter 2, where Deborah
Larson uses social identity theory to explain why state identities change
in response to dissatisfaction with the international hierarchy and the de-
sire for positive distinctiveness, this chapter is concerned primarily with
the functioning of international norms in a context where the actor in
question is already a member of a high-status group and has a high rela-

76
Norms and the Management of Identities 77

tive positioning. More specically, I assess how the normative constraints


of the liberal democratic group of states (a high-status group) were nego-
tiated by Tony Blairs British government (high relative positioning) to al-
low for behavior that contests the groups accepted standards of appro-
priateness in relation to detention standards. How did the Blair
government negotiate the normative constraints of the liberal democratic
social identity, which it wanted to maintain, in a way that minimized the
resulting negative effects on self-esteem and reputation? Contestation
and defection from group norms have a negative effect by distancing the
actor from the social identity, both in terms of self-perception and the
perception of others.
Whereas research into the varying impact of normative structures in
the international sphere has tended to focus on disparities in norm
strength, variations in internalization and diffusion at the state level, or the
personalities of state leaders, the interactive processes highlighted by the
social identity approach capture elements of the broader social context that
have a signicant impact on normative inuence internationally.3 Thus,
these contributions enable much more accurate claims regarding the
processes of norm inuence and contestation.
To make a case for further engagement with the interactive elements of
the social identity approach, I begin by outlining the basic principles of
this psychological perspective. I reveal how the social identity approach
underpins many aspects of the constructivist research program beyond the
focus on identity change and relative positioning in chapter 2. Second, I
elaborate on how the processes of group membership are fundamental to
understanding variations in norm inuence. Finally, I show how this leads
us to an assessment of the management strategies employed by political
elites, in relation to the multiple social identities associated with the state.
The main argument throughout this chapter is that the management
strategies highlighted in the social identity approach in relation to norma-
tive inuence (dominance, intersection representation, compartmentaliza-
tion, and merging) are crucial to our understanding of the processes of con-
testation regarding liberal democratic international norms.4 To illustrate, I
draw from the discourse of the Blair government between 2001 and 2006
regarding detention practices that pertain to membership in an interna-
tional group of liberal democratic states. Thus, I emphasize the contesta-
tion of liberal democratic norms by a state that portrays itself and is gener-
ally seen as a prototypical group member.
78 psychology and constructivism in international relations

the social identity approach

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

validate membership in the particular social group, both to oneself and to


others.
We can take an example here from constructivist research, where be-
ing a liberal democratic state is generally understood to inuence the hu-
man rights behavior of states with this identity.13 If we follow the micro-
foundational insights generated in the social identity approach, being a
liberal democratic state forms the basis for an international grouping of
like-minded states. While constructivist research tends to focus on inter-
national norms as referent to international society, the liberal democratic
grouping tends to dominate our understanding of these norms. The
norms referred to in this chapter, which govern human rights and deten-
tion practices, relate to the large group of liberal democratic states that
dominates in the international sphere. Thus, if political elites identify
highly with this social group, and it is salient in the context, then the
norms of the group will be inuential and favorable representations will
be seen to reect positively on members.
Defection and contestation of such norms have drawn much attention
from constructivist scholars. By viewing the liberal democratic grouping as
only one of many group memberships, the social identity approach allows
signicant room for variation in inuence and the shaping of interests, de-
pending on shifts in both context and identication with the social groups.
To speak of a singular international group of states with universal applica-
bility would mask a great deal of variation in groupings, which is a core
premise of the social identity approach. These factors, including the
salience of representations of the social group, are essential to any assess-
ment of normative impact in relation to being a liberal democratic state.
This idea certainly supports claims regarding norm inuence for those with
a certain identity, but it also provides greater specicity to such assertions
by focusing attention on the signicant role of the multiplicity of mem-
berships that interact in the international sphere.
For example, in the international realm, political elites, as representa-
tives of their states, are members of many groups, among them both for-
malized institutions (e.g., NATO, the EU, and the UN) and less formal fac-
tions (e.g., the group of liberal democratic states). Political elites are also
associated with domestic and transnational social identities, such as those
constituting human rights groupings, as well as legal and military group-
ings. This phenomenon is signicant for constructivists when assessing
state interests and the impact of international norms on the behavior of
80 psychology and constructivism in international relations

states or political elites, as multiple normative inuences are involved and


may or may not be complementary.
While membership and relationship to the social group are identied as
key factors in understanding behavior, the intergroup dynamics are also
important. There is much emphasis on the comparative context in terms of
providing motivation for a particular membership and informing our un-
derstanding of that membership. Intergroup comparisons, whether or not
they lead to bias and favoritism and regardless of the particular circum-
stances involved, are by no means static in nature. Instead, that which con-
stitutes the comparison changes as a function of the intergroup environ-
ment. Political elites representing the United Kingdom, for example, will
make different comparisons when interacting with representatives from
other EU states then when interacting with U.S. representatives. Different
memberships will be salient. Furthermore, as Larson demonstrates in chap-
ter 2, relative positioning in terms of status also inuences intergroup com-
parisons. The actual intergroup situation of which actors are part shapes
the comparisons that are made. As a consequence, identication with a va-
riety of social groups is based on a degree of uidity that depends on shifts
in the comparative context and changing intergroup dynamics.14
While this may appear to suggest that context dictates which isolated
social identity is most salient for actors, such is not in fact the case. We do
not completely switch social identity (as based on membership) dependent
on our situation, yet there is a degree of reorganization where certain social
identities obtain greater signicance as a result of their contextual rele-
vance.15 Context also plays an important role in inuencing changes to the
prototype for a particular group. The content of social identities may there-
fore be transformed or vary to a degree based on context. Hogg, Terry, and
White summarize this focus on content in addition to category salience:
Social identity is highly dynamic: it is responsive, in both type and con-
tent, to intergroup dimensions of immediate social comparative con-
texts.16 So, too, are the social norms that constitute a social identity and
group membership subject to variation in relation to context (involving in-
tergroup comparison and the salience of other social group memberships).17
This discussion directs our attention to social group memberships, with
their varying content, to understand variations in international normative
inuence. If social norms are understood as referent to the social group,
then determining what is considered counternormative also depends on
Norms and the Management of Identities 81

the group setting.18 While deviant behavior generates disapproval, this


process may be difcult to determine in certain contexts as a consequence
of the multiplicity of group memberships and the various audiences inter-
preting actions. Much will instead depend on context and the existence of
a superordinate grouping from which to judge norm defection. Interna-
tionally, the existence of various groupings allows for much dispute over
the applicability of liberal democratic international norms, building con-
testation and shifts in inuence into our framework of understanding.
The basic premise that constructivists can take from the social identity
approach is that self-categorization as a member of a group is crucial in de-
termining social and normative inuence, providing a cognitive basis for
the differential impact of norms on behavior. These microfoundations give
greater clarity to constructivist insights into how political elites process in-
ternational norms. From this basis, I demonstrate how a framework focus-
ing on the management of social identities by political elites, in terms of
the social groups associated with the state, provides signicant insight into
the processes of contestation and defection from liberal democratic inter-
national norms.

the management of social identities

I propose that in appreciating the processes of norm contestation, we can


gain much from assessing the management strategies employed by state
leaders. Such strategies provide a framework through which to understand
the interactive nature of normative constraint in specic cases. I refer to the
discourse of the Blair government from 2001 to 2006 and the public dia-
logue with various social groups associated with the state with regard to the
contestation of and defection from liberal democratic international norms
governing detention.19
The study of leadership grounded in the social identity approach cer-
tainly differs considerably from other ways in which constructivists have
engaged with leadership, often either by negating the importance of lead-
ership after norms are internalized20 or by focusing on the attributes lead-
ers possess.21 Research in the social identity approach privileges social cate-
gory membership rather than individual characteristics. Leadership is seen
as fundamentally dependent on the development of a shared identity. In
82 psychology and constructivism in international relations

contrast to a prioritization of individuals specic personality traits, beliefs,


and attitudes, leadership is understood as a much more dynamic, active
and practical process of social identity management.22 By studying the in-
teractive processes between leaderson the one hand sharing an identity
with followers, on the other creating and managing these social identi-
tieswe can appreciate the balance between existing constraints and fu-
ture possibilities,23 dependent on the way in which actors harness social
identities and construct social reality. Norm entrepreneurs and norm lead-
ers often are presented as isolated from their social context to promote
their ideas and practices; however, instead of separating such leaders and
entrepreneurs from their social context, the social identity approach high-
lights the interactive processes that function at the micro level.
This approach to leadership differs from that which is often taken in
psychology and political psychology in that it directs research toward the
processes of social identity management. As Haslam and Reicher suggest,
leadership is more about doing than having.24 In contrast to the more
traditional interpretations of the social identity approach, these develop-
ments allow for greater manipulation of social identities by inuential
group members or political elites, both in terms of t to context as well as
salience. These factors are considered central in inuencing and organizing
constructions of social reality.
A move toward assessing the management strategies of state leaders and
political elites also better engages the complexities of the political context.
While previous laboratory-based social identity studies have tended to fo-
cus on clearly dened groups, with a singular salient in-group and out-
group, the political context is clearly much more complicated.25 Leaders in
particular are limited in how far they can operate on a straightforward in-
group/out-group dynamic since the social environment involves many
memberships and audiences.
Furthermore, the social identity approach has traditionally been based
on a hierarchical understanding of social groups, where one is more highly
valued than the rest. Yet this view does not really capture the intricacies of
the political environment and the necessity of simultaneously maintaining
different memberships (and thus identities). In the political sphere, bound-
aries are also less likely to be clearly dened.26
In light of these concerns, social identity scholars have increasingly en-
gaged with questions of management strategies as opposed to relying on
Norms and the Management of Identities 83

that of hierarchy across all circumstances.27 Scholars are recognizing more


and more that competing frames of reference (based on social group mem-
bership) can be simultaneously salient or overlap.28 Thus, how these mem-
berships are negotiated, how we understand social inuence in light of
overlapping and interconnected categories, and how we deal with compet-
ing normative pressures become matters of signicant interest. Indeed, this
area has often been neglected in certain strands of constructivism, where
the emphasis has been on the impact of or defection from singular inter-
national norms or shifts from one identity to another to explain change.29
An increasing number of social identity studies have demonstrated that
we do not simply switch among social identities, as simplistic interpreta-
tions of the social identity approach have suggested.30 Instead, we attempt
to render compatible our various social identities. One complicating or
constraining factor in this process is that of the various audiences to which
there is potential accountability. Audiences can both judge and contest an
actors claim to be part of or indeed representative of a particular social
identity as well the actors interpretation of what constitutes the social
identity.31 The multiplicity of accountability pressures, as characterized
by Klein, Spears, and Reicher, is certainly evident for leaders in the political
sphere.32 Indeed, as social identities are by denition shared, the individ-
ual cannot easily redene or adjust one social identity to better t with
other identities.33 This process depends on persuasion and acceptance by
the various audiences. In the United Kingdom, the human rights social
grouping was particularly resistant to the Blair governments attempts to
redene it in light of the war on terror, rejecting Blairs claims that tra-
ditional civil liberty arguments are . . . made for another age.34
Processes of persuasion have certainly been a topic of much interest in
constructivism.35 In the context of international politics, it is fair to say
that signicant pressures and strategic considerations exist regarding both
the selection and presentation of social identities. The capacity to be
strategic in relation to different social identities is certainly more limited
in some cases than in others, as the multiple social identities are by deni-
tion shared and dynamic, and each contributes in some measure to shap-
ing state interests. The management strategies employed in the interna-
tional sphere will undoubtedly be based on such deliberations.
One typology of such strategies provided by Roccas and Brewer focuses
on ways to reduce inconsistencies in memberships based on the need for
84 psychology and constructivism in international relations

cognitive consistency and compatibility between different beliefs and atti-


tudes.36 The authors suggest four different ways in which multiple mem-
berships may be organized. The rst strategy, dominance, involves the sub-
ordination of the relevant social identities to one superordinate group
identication. This could be used to mask or reconcile any divergence be-
tween subgroups or as a vehicle for social change in terms of identity for-
mation at a superordinate level and associated emergent norms.37 The
dominant subgroup within the superordinate category is seen as most
likely to impose its own characteristics on the group.38
The Blair government certainly placed a great deal of emphasis on the
superordinate group of the international community as well as contribut-
ing to and being receptive to emergent norms in this sphere.39 Many of
Blairs speeches contain elements focusing on the development of norms in
relation to the international community, with the United Kingdom seem-
ingly set up as a prototypical member with interests in line with this group.
In the period subsequent to the September 11, 2001, attacks, the new
rhetoric of a global war on terror, with the need for new alliances to
tackle the upsurge in threat and increased salience granted to relations with
the United States, came to dominate constructions in this sphere. A strong
identication with this group, where these norms are considered to be rel-
evant to identity, led to various tensions with subgroups, particularly the
human rights social grouping, where efforts to dene this group in terms of
the superordinate met much resistance.
The second strategy Roccas and Brewer suggest for reducing inconsis-
tencies involves the process of compartmentalization, where the various so-
cial identities are differentiated and seen as applicable in different circum-
stances or in relation to different issues.40 The diverse social identities are
kept separate, reconciliation is not attempted, and context plays an impor-
tant role in determining relevance. There are hints at compartmentaliza-
tion as a strategy in the discourse of the Blair government, particularly with
regard to the human rights grouping, with which much tension and dis-
agreement took place in 20016. Blair labeled some of the arguments pre-
sented by this group bizarre,41 incomprehensible, and detached from re-
ality.42 The idea that civil liberties arguments were made for another age
verges on compartmentalization based on context (in terms of time pe-
riod); however, this statement was accompanied by attempts to reframe
this social group, focusing on the elements of the right to life and the right
to live free from terror.43 Attempts at reconciliation therefore continued.
Norms and the Management of Identities 85

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

made to achieve compromise and reconciliation. Compartmentalization as


a strategy could either exacerbate or reduce conict but in certain circum-
stances may be the only strategy available.
Expression of these strategies can vary and may be explicit in the lan-
guage actors employ. Alternatively, actors may use more subtle implicit
suggestions. Overall, these strategies seek to draw together or differentiate
between multiple social identities, at times through the generation of new
categories of membership (e.g., international coalitions ghting terrorism)
or changes to existing categories (e.g., constructions of the international
community as superordinate).
The strategies serve various functions: rst, to assist individuals in cop-
ing with their multiple memberships and competing demands; second, as
a mechanism by which to perceive the multiple memberships of others;
and third, for strategic purposes such as mobilization or social change, par-
ticularly for those in leadership positions.48 The rst and the last of these
functions are most appropriate here. First, a strategy based on dominance,
where the United Kingdom is set up as a prototypical member, signicantly
reduces the competing demands of multiple memberships at the individual
level, making feasible policies that contest the liberal democratic interna-
tional norms governing detention. Constructions of the dominant iden-
tityin this case, an international community based on the right to life
and to live free from terrorinform interpretations of membership of the
group of liberal democratic states. Thus, the liberal democratic interna-
tional norms governing detention can be challenged.
There is also a more public aspect to management, aiming to mobilize
other social groups on this basis. Yet the contestations presented by the
Blair government were not automatically accepted either domestically in
relation to the legal49 and human rights groupings or internationally in re-
lation to the EU.50 The dominance strategy reduces the normative demands
of multiple memberships; however, this is an interactive process, and the
lack of acceptance has meant that the contestation of the liberal demo-
cratic international norms relating to detention does not appear to be sus-
tainable. Indeed, the backlash against such contestations and construc-
tions of the international community may have further strengthened the
liberal democratic international norms as well as the group itself. Thus, the
use of these management strategies does not mean that the normative con-
straints of the social identity are easily ignored and lack impact. Instead,
Norms and the Management of Identities 87

that impact is indirect and negotiated, situated in a dynamic context char-


acterized by multiplicity.
In relation to constructivism, there is much value to a consideration of
how political elites as representatives of states manage different social iden-
tities and what this process tells us about norm inuence as contextually
situated. Such a framework provides insights into the changing, con-
testable nature of norms and interactive processes of leadership that are of-
ten marginalized.

conclusion

Constructivists have gained a great deal from an increasing engagement


with psychology. This chapter shows some of the ways in which the social
identity approach can be utilized and on what terms. As research has tended
to function at the level of small groups and the social inuence experienced
by individuals, this area seems ripe for providing an assessment of the mi-
crofoundational processes of normative inuence. This is understood in re-
lation to the multiplicity of group memberships. As more recent studies fo-
cusing on these ideas in real-world settings have suggested, these identities
need not be hierarchical or isolated but may overlap and be simultaneously
salient, leading to assessments of their management both cognitively and
publicly. These foundational insights can be of benet in understanding the
processes of contestation regarding liberal democratic international norms.
In this approach, individuals are not separated from the social identities
context; instead, how this is negotiated is taken as an indication of con-
straint. That is, inuence is based on processes of interaction.
I believe that assessing the microfoundations of constructivist ideas
helps us be better placed to appreciate the functioning of norms and social
identities in the international sphere, an appreciation that is fundamental
to the study of international politics. The social identity approach offers
much support for constructivist insights at the individual level while pro-
viding greater specicity to such claims. Understanding variations in norm
inuence does not lead us to discount their impact or, indeed, to separate
norms from identity, as is apparent in rationalist approaches. Instead, we
are led to focus on the multiple social identities associated with the state
and on their interactions as managed by political elites.
88 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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

28. An interesting example of the overlap of identities across contexts is pro-


vided by the BBC prison study The Experiment. Membership in liberal organiza-
tions outside of the experiment was seen to retain inuence in the context of
the experiment. As the show was on TV, the authors deduced that those con-
cerned were still aware of these groups in which their behavior needed to vali-
date membership. See Reicher, Haslam, and Hopkins 2005, 553.
29. The multiplicity of identity has been more apparent in areas of construc-
tivism associated with scholars such as Maja Zehfuss (2001); however, this has
tended to be in terms of social roles and has not been based on the microfoun-
dations for multiplicity and the capacity for management.
30. E.g., Klein, Spears, and Reicher 2007. The traditional approach is largely
a consequence of laboratory-based study.
31. Klein, Spears, and Reicher 2007.
32. Klein, Spears, and Reicher 2007, 41.
33. Brewer 2001, 122.
34. Blair 2006b. For interactions prior to this statement, see Amnesty Inter-
national 2005, 2006; for continuing rejections of these arguments, see Amnesty
International 2007.
35. See, e.g., Checkel 2001; Finnemore 1996b, 2003; Payne 2001.
36. Roccas and Brewer 2002.
37. However, this form of social identity could lead to intolerance, especially
when the superordinate group is represented in a noncomplex way, focusing on
one set of prototypical dimensions (Amiot et al. 2007, 368). Studies are cited
that also suggest that the more we see our own in-group as prototypical of the
superordinate category, the more our attitudes toward out-groups will be
negative.
38. Amiot et al. 2007.
39. This identity is by no means given or static. Because it is shared and the
dynamic product of many members, with the denition of the group frequently
challenged and negotiated, any individual state leadership group will have lim-
ited control over an international superordinate identity, and impact rests on
acceptance by other members.
40. Roccas and Brewer 2002.
41. Blair 2002.
42. See, e.g., Blair 2004.
43. See Blair 2006a, 2006c.
44. Roccas and Brewer 2002, 88106.
45. Hutter and Crisp 2005, 64757.
46. The categories as presented by Roccas and Brewer (2002) are isolated. If
we take a more lenient approach, recognizing that strategies can appear to-
gether in the complex political sphere, then intersection representation can be
used to denote an emphasis on overlap in conjunction with other strategies,
such as dominance.
47. Roccas and Brewer 2002.
Norms and the Management of Identities 91

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

as with the rest of this volume, we seek a constructive dialogue be-


tween psychology and constructivism to open up venues for collaboration to
better understand state action. We suggest that state identity and the do-
mestic contestation over its meaning are key to understanding foreign policy
behavior. Despite the utilization of similar concepts such as identities, role
conceptions, and a shared belief in the importance of (inter)subjective fac-
tors in examining state action, the dialogue between foreign policy analysis
(FPA) and constructivist scholars has been limited.1 In both FPA and social
constructivism, identity is an important concept.2 FPA scholars trained in
psychology have discussed national role conceptions (NRCs) as intersubjec-
tive products of history, memory and socialization in international relations
that have had great inuence on state action.3 Constructivist studies have
given the concept of state identity renewed salience, showing that state iden-
tities are socially constructed and inuence state interests and action. But ty-
ing identity to state action represents a challenge to both FPA and construc-
tivism, requiring a blend of their respective insights.
The emphasis on the manner in which reality is constructed makes nat-
ural bedfellows of social constructivism and the psychological foreign pol-
icy decision-making (FPDM) approach to foreign policy analysis.4 We ex-
plore several questions to which the two literatures offer different
strengths, such as (1) how a state identity gets established, (2) what the con-
tent of state identity is, and (3) to what extent state identity is stable and is
shared by different domestic political actors. Under what conditions state
identity is challenged and contested by domestic political groups and with

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.

identity and decision making: toward a


collaborative approach to state action

By rejecting the individualism, materialism, and ontological primacy of ei-


ther structure or agency, constructivists emphasize the social and cultural
contexts that help situate and frame the decision-making options that lead-
ers confront. Foreign policy decision-making approaches likewise reacted
against prevailing realist and rationalist models that portrayed govern-
94 psychology and constructivism in international relations

ments as rational, unitary actors constrained by the international system.


In its stead, constructivist studies have broadly been interested in how
agency and structure are mutually constituted and how social reality is
constructed by the actors. Foreign policy decision-making studies have fo-
cused on how decisions are made as much as what decision makers
choose.9 We believe that constructivisms emphasis on identity as norma-
tive structure and FPDMs focus on how this structure is viewed and framed
by agency offer a fruitful way to synthesize these two literatures based on a
common conception of role.
In one of the earliest conceptualizations, Wendt denes (state) identity
as relatively stable, role-specic understandings and expectations about
Self constructed in relationship to Others.10 For Wendt, the interaction be-
tween states and the way signicant Others treat actors reinforces actors
identities; therefore, identity is a property of international actors that gen-
erates motivational and behavioral dispositions.11 Put simply, identities
inform state interests and thus state behavior. For Wendt, states are attrib-
uted role positions of enemies, rivals, or friends depending on the interna-
tional system in which they exist. These role positions do not derive from
states self-understanding or beliefs; rather, they are objective, collectively
constituted positions in the international system.12
Following this constructivist turn in international relations, some
FPDM scholars have started acknowledging the commonality of shared
norms underlying dominant ideas or knowledge13 in their emphasis on
the role conception in foreign policy. Aggestam, for example, sees role as a
concept initially developed in sociology and social psychology to denote
an actors characteristic patterns of behavior given a certain position.14 In
this view, the sources of roles are predominantly systemic and, as shared
meanings, they provide a grand causal map that leaders employ to make
sense of the world.15 By ruling out certain policy options as unacceptable,
national role conceptions (NRCs), like state identity, limit decision makers
considerationswhat is optional, feasible, or appropriate.
The differences between state identity and NRC relate to how they are
conceived by constructivists and FPDM scholars, respectively. Unlike
Wendts emphasis on similarities in state identity in the international sys-
tem, the concept of national role conceptions was constructed to explain
the reasons why states with similar situational roles in many respects often
acted differently in their foreign policies.16 NRCs as products of decision
makers image of the appropriate orientations or functions of their state to-
Identity and Decision Making 95

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

tempts to situate their articulation of identity within a broader historical


narrative, with Barnett and others suggesting that leaders strategically
frame events and problems by employing specic metaphors, symbolic
representations and cognitive cues to mobilize action and legitimate their
policies.26
This common emphasis on the denition and framing of a foreign pol-
icy issue and on the interpretation and depiction of foreign policy prob-
lems unites a number of state identity and FPDM scholars in analyzing
state action.27 Sylvan, for example, argues that people think in terms of
stories that simplify and focus their perceptions of foreign policy prob-
lems, and a particular representation of a problem can limit the range of
possibilities that are considered by imposing a structure on [the policy
problem that is] ill-structured in [its] raw form.28 Similarly, cognitive insti-
tutionalists focusing on how decision makers frame international problems
propose that problem setting and problem solving by individuals, groups,
or organizations are heavily inuenced by experiential and contextual fac-
tors.29 Problem denitions result not from objective calculations but
rather from cognitive and organizational processes that are both subjective
and conditional. Finally, recent experiment-based studies drawing from
image theory have established that representation and framing of a foreign
policy problem are heavily inuenced by images the policymakers previ-
ously held.30 These ndings suggest that policymakers tend to t incoming
information into their existing theories and images, which lead Others to
be viewed as, for example, allies or enemies, thereby inuencing policy-
makers interpretations of a problem.31
Contrary to the Wendtian tradition, all these approaches reject the idea
of a unitary state identity and reveal the importance of contentious do-
mestic identity discourses in forming and reshaping state identity. They do
not, however, elaborate as much on how these domestic identity discourses
are actually reproduced and reected in the foreign decision-making
process. For example, Hopfs implicit assumption that decision makers as a
part of the society automatically represent and reect these societal iden-
tity discourses does not provide a convincing account for how these soci-
etal identities are linked to state behavior.
Yet it is important to identify the links between societal discourses and
foreign policy making to talk about the impact of domestic identity dis-
courses on foreign policy. Larsens extensive empirical study of British and
French policies toward Europe in the 1980s presents a remarkable example
Identity and Decision Making 97

of the importance of domestic discourses in states foreign policy.32 By


identifying the dominant political discourse, which has the strongest grip
on the government,33 Larsen draws attention to the role of the discourse
in establishing the primary borders of identity mediating international
constraints.34 In another example of such research, Blum incorporates do-
mestic political ideas in foreign policy making during times of both conti-
nuity and change, integrating constructivist and FPDM insights. His inves-
tigation of change in Soviet foreign policy orientation illustrates how
policy failures resulted in change in worldviews. Such changes are made
possible by decision makers and help create, maintain, or challenge a state
identity or NRC in world politics. At such times, previously dominant ideas
commonly are challenged, and their grip on societies is shaken by newly
emerging or resurfacing old ideas. The result is an environment where ideas
are in conict with one another and a stable state identity therefore no
longer exists.35 State identity is especially challenged when authority re-
sides with multiple actors.36
Building from this discussion, we make four core arguments. (1) Identi-
ties provide normative structures in that cultural-ideational context shapes
actions. (2) However, state identities (a) get established only after a domi-
nant narrative emerges as a result of interactions between the state and
other actors at the international level and at the domestic level and (b) can
be interpreted differently by different decision makers, so there will be more
contestation and a greater role for individual actors and small groups. (3)
When a states identity is embedded in domestically shared fundamental
principles and not challenged at the international or domestic level, state
identity will be stable and foreign policy will be coherent. (4) However,
when a states identity is in ux (i.e., the established normative structure is
contested by competing domestic ideas), the link between state identity and
foreign policy becomes problematic because each new idea that challenges
a states identity from within (a) competes with others by identifying differ-
ent focal points, road maps, or cause-effect relations that would guide state
action37 and (b) is usually represented by different actors at the decision-
making level, and they deliberately package and strategically frame certain
(foreign) policy objectives by creating different narratives.38
We analyze two Turkish foreign policy cases to illustrate the implica-
tions of these arguments. We rst study the evolution and content of the
Kemalist state identity and examine its inuence on foreign policy since
the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923. This brief historical analy-
98 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.

turkish state identity and foreign policy


decision making

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

Formation of the Kemalist State and Its Principles

Kemalist identity, dened in terms of six principlesnationalism, republi-


canism, populism, secularism, statism, and reformismis named after
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. These six prin-
ciples, also called the Six Arrows, were rst ofcially articulated in CHP
documents in 1927 and 1935 and were then included in the 1937 Turkish
Constitution. Article 2 of the Constitution read, The State of Turkey is Re-
publican, Nationalist, Populist, State Socialist, Secular and Revolutionist.43
In this way, these fundamental principles have been formalized and legit-
imized by these state institutions and, more important, by the Constitu-
100 psychology and constructivism in international relations

tion as the foundation of the state.44 Hence, Kemalist identity dened in


these principles provided the road map for Turkish decision makers, espe-
cially during the single-party era prior to 1946.45
As an amalgamation of Western and Eastern orientations, the six prin-
ciples of Kemalist identity have mainly reected the thoughts and ideas of
Ataturk and his followers about the identity and character of the newly es-
tablished Turkish state and its future. The principle of republicanism un-
derlines that sovereignty is vested in the nation and that only a republi-
can regime can represent the wishes of the Turkish people. This principle
symbolizes the change from a multinational Ottoman Empire to the estab-
lishment of a new regime of modern Turkey. The principle of nationalism
emphasizes that the Turkish state is an indivisible entity comprising its ter-
ritory and people. All but the non-Muslim population living within the
Turkish borders were deemed constitutionally to be Turks. Indeed, this
broader political meaning was applied to the term Turk. This principle also
focuses on the reinvention of the Turkish language and the recasting of
Turkish history. The principle of populism was a reaction to the millet sys-
tem that had provided communal autonomy to other ethnic groups in the
Ottoman Empire. This principle denounces class privileges and class dis-
tinctions and emphasizes that no individual, family, class, or organization
can be above others. Hence, this idea encompassed the notion that all Turk-
ish citizens were equal. The principle of reformism means to legitimize the
means by which changes in Turkish political and social life were imple-
mented. It also means that Turkey is and should be opening up to moder-
nity and modern ideas and embracing progress so that it will reach a de-
sired development level. The principle of statism emphasized the central
role assigned to the state in directing the countrys economic activities and
engaging in areas where private enterprise was not willing to do so, or
where private enterprise had proved to be inadequate, or if national inter-
est required it. Secularism, though highly debated today, in a nutshell
meant that Islam should be excluded from an ofcial role in national life.
With reforms and endeavors such as the abolition of the caliphate, closing
of religious schools, secularization of public education, and so forth,
Ataturk and his followers aimed not only to end any connection between
state and religion but also to liberate/emancipate social and cultural life
from the dominant religious institutions and thinking.46 Among these six
principles, nationalism, secularism, and republicanism have been particu-
larly inuential in shaping the foreign policy orientations of Kemalist elites
in Turkeys foreign policy making circles.
Identity and Decision Making 101

implications of the kemalist identity for turkeys


foreign policy since the 1920s

In foreign policy issues, Turkeys new identity embraced Ataturks principle


of Peace at home, peace in the world. Kemalist identity emphasizes terri-
torial and political independence as the primary goal in Turkeys relations
with external entities. As a result, Kemalist identity is considerably conser-
vative and at times passive on foreign policy and national security matters,
though with a pragmatic overtone.47 When the Turkish republic rst
emerged, Ataturk made it very clear that the new Turkish state had no am-
bition for territorial conquest or expansion. According to the new leader-
ship, Turkey needed only a new, realistically sound foreign policy that
could respond to the challenges of the new international system without
endangering the states existence.48 Kemalist foreign policy objectives,
therefore, reected a departure from the militant expansionist ideology of
the Ottoman Empire and were primarily concerned with Turkeys complete
independence and sovereignty. For Ataturk, independence meant

complete economic, nancial, juridical, military and cultural indepen-


dence and freedom in all matters. Being deprived of independence in any
of these is equivalent to the nation and country being deprived of all its
independence.49

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

European powers are untrustworthy, ready to stab Turkey in the back


whenever an opportunity presents itself. The European intervention in do-
mestic Ottoman affairs in support of different ethnic and religious minori-
ties was and is regarded very suspiciously by Kemalists. In fact, Kemalists
saw the European powers and U.S. president Woodrow Wilson as the self-
appointed protectors of groups living in the Ottoman Empire. As a result,
Western interference in domestic affairs has contributed to the persistent
suspicion toward these powers. The Turkish leadership in the 1920s be-
lieved that it is important not to trust any state, to rest on nothing but
ones own strength, and to be ready to ght at any given time to safeguard
Turkish territorial integrity. The internalization of this sense of endanger-
ment still runs deep within Kemalist circles.
In spite of the untrustworthiness of the Western powers, one of the fun-
damental features of Kemalist foreign policy has been its Western, particu-
larly Europeanas opposed to Americanorientation.51 This orientation
results primarily from two factors. First is the belief that Turkey can be safe
and secure only when it is considered a member of the civilized (i.e.,
Western) world and able to deal with the European powers on an equal
level.52 This understanding is also revealed by Turkeys membership to
NATO and its aspirations for membership in the European Union. Put sim-
ply, as part of an in-group on equal terms (i.e., being a member of NATO or
the EU), Turkey can contain the inuence of other members of the group
and feel secure. Second, the orientation toward the West reects the delib-
erate choice to break away from the Muslim world as well as to break with
the Muslim Ottoman past as much as possible. Hence, the choice of a West-
ern orientation by Ataturk and his followers was a conscious one.
The suspicion of the West combined with the aim of becoming a
Western country has generated ambivalence regarding how to determine
Turkeys relationship to the West and to Westernization. This ambiguity
of Kemalist identity can best be characterized by great admiration for
Western modernity, on the one hand, and, on the other, a rejection of
Western cultural-ideological domination of non-Western societies as im-
perialistic.53 In fact, a closer examination of Ataturks speeches reveals
that the imperialistic or dominating image of the West constituted a
very signicant part of Kemalist nationalism insofar as it worked toward
creating a distinct understanding of being a Turk. To balance between op-
posing the imperialist West and becoming a modern state, the Kemalist
Identity and Decision Making 103

foreign policy orientation has had to be pragmatic, realistic, and based on


a new Turkish identity.54
The new Turkish identity and its impact on foreign policy were further
inuenced by the sense of greatness that is based on belonging to a nation
that had established a world empire that was brought down only by a
world war. Despite the overwhelming desire to break from the Ottoman
past, this feeling of greatness has been a major component of the Kemalist
identity.55 The outcome of the Turkish independence war, which resulted
in formation of the Turkish republic in 1923, further increased this feeling.
The total rejection of Islam as the state religion and Kemalists attempt
to minimize the role of Islam in Turkish society also inuenced foreign pol-
icy ideas. In a radical attempt, the Kemalist leadership abolished the
caliphate, which they saw as a formidable link with the past and with Islam
and as a major barrier to Turkish nation building and progress. In essence,
the new Turkish identity required the repudiation of the framework of Is-
lam. According to Ataturk,

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

Turkeys Kemalist Identity and Foreign Policy in the 1990s

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

With the coming to the power of the ANASOL-D government in 1997,


however, many observers believed that the PKK problem with Syria would
be resolved. These arguments were based on the ANASOL-D coalition pro-
tocol, which specically referred to the issue of terrorism and suggested
that

in addition to taking security measures against terrorism [within the Turk-


ish territory], [the ANASOL-D] will not only take measures against foreign
sources [referring mainly to the neighboring countries] but also reconsider
Turkeys relations with them. [Thus,] we will try to prevent terrorist activi-
ties [at different levels].

The coalition parties, Anavatan Partisi (Motherland Party, ANAP) and


Demokratik Sol Parti (Democratic Left Party, DSP) initially differed about
how to approach Syria. The ANAP believed that Turkey had a Kurdish
problem that could be solved with political dialogue and emphasized the
possibility of cooperation and interdependence between Syria and Turkey.
Thus, it advocated various diplomatic tools, such as bilateral and regional
agreements, senior-level diplomatic visits, and trade agreements, to be used
as incentives. The DSP, conversely, not only categorically rejected the exis-
tence of a Kurdish problem in Turkey but also favored an aggressive atti-
tude toward countries that played the Kurdish card in relations with
Turkey. The party took the position that Syria supported the PKK as lever-
age to induce Turkey to make concessions on the water issue, knowing that
the Kurdish separatism was Turkeys biggest domestic security problem.
Therefore, Syria was seen as a big threat to Turkeys security and territorial
integrity.
As the protector of Turkeys Kemalist identity and the defender of the
countrys territorial integrity against real and alleged internal and external
enemies, the military was also involved in foreign policy making vis--vis
Syria.61 Beginning in the late 1980s, the military viewed Syria negatively
and rejected any kind of compromise in Turkeys relations with its neigh-
bor. The military accused the Syrian leadership of seeking to undermine
Turkish territorial integrity by giving support to PKK terrorism. The mili-
tary saw Syria as an enemy that sought to divide Turkey and wanted to ex-
tend its territory by taking over the city of Hatay/Alexandretta. The mili-
tary wanted to show Syrian leaders that it would not tolerate any state that
harbored anti-Turkish organizations such as the PKK. The military became
106 psychology and constructivism in international relations

especially irritated when Syrian ofcials signed an alliance agreement


with Greece, Turkeys longtime enemy in the Aegean, giving Greece the
right to use Syrian bases just south of Turkish borders.
Despite the ANASOL-D governments various diplomatic initiatives be-
tween 1997 and 1998, such as the Good Neighborliness Forum, the tension
between the two countries continued to rise as Syria refused to respond to
Turkish initiatives or respect the principles of the joint agreements. By Oc-
tober 1998, Turkey mounted a strong diplomatic campaign against Syria
through the UN Security Council, the EU, and NATO, backed up by mili-
tary force, in a bid to force Syria to carry out its commitments under the
1987 and 1992 agreements. At the same time, the ANASOL-D government
reduced the level of diplomatic relations, minimized the volume of trade
cooperation between Turkey and Syria, and closed Turkish airspace to Syr-
ian aircraft. Simultaneously, the military started a buildup along the bor-
ders with Syria.62 Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz accused Syria of being the
headquarters of terrorism in the Middle East and reportedly warned that
the Turkish army was on standby, awaiting orders to attack.63
All these efforts resulted in the signing of the Adana Accord on October
20, 1998. Syria agreed to Turkeys main demands, including a serious crack-
down on PKK bases in Syria and the expulsion of PKK ghters and leaders.64
The accord also provided that Turkey and Syria would set up a direct phone
link between high-level security authorities, appoint special representatives
to their respective diplomatic missions (presumably for monitoring pur-
poses), and join Lebanon (contingent on Lebanons consent) in a tripar-
tite effort aimed at combating the PKK. With the signing of the accord, Syr-
ian leaders promised to prevent within Syrian borders (1) PKK propaganda
and commercial activities, (2) the supply of weapons and logistical and
nancial support to the PKK, (3) the establishment of PKK camps and
other facilities for training and shelter, (4) the entry of PKK members or
their transit to third countries, and (5) a safe haven for PKK leader Ocalan.
Hence, Turkish foreign policy toward Syria during the ANASOL-D coali-
tion government period was mainly shaped by Turkish decision makers
shared narrative of Turkeys identity as a territorially unied state.65 Yilmaz
summarized this understanding of a Syria pursuing an enemy-like attitude
toward Turkey in his infamous statement that if anyone has their eye on
our territory, it is our duty to get rid of that eye. . . . [W]e cant go on like
this. Enough is enough.66 Further, by insisting on keeping Syria on the
agenda of the Turkish National Security Council, Turkish decision makers
Identity and Decision Making 107

during the ANASOL-D government period continuously framed Turkish-


Syrian relations as a security issue.67
In essence, even though coalition partners initially had divergent inter-
ests and policy options with regard to Syria, Kemalist identity, with its em-
phasis on Turkeys unity and indivisibility, remained a determining factor
in the ANASOL-D governments representation of Syria as an enemy as well
as in the governments denition of the situation as a threat to Turkeys
unied status and in its framing of Turkish foreign policy vis--vis Syria as
a security issue. Following Bukovansky, we argue that Turkeys foreign pol-
icy toward Syria especially in relation to the PKK terrorism showed co-
herency and consistency as Turkish foreign policy decision makers diverse
interests converged on Kemalist principles that simultaneously constituted
a specic regional role for Turkey and possessed domestic legitimacy.68 Dur-
ing the ANASOL-D government period, Kemalist principles were domesti-
cally legitimate, as neither Turkish decision makers nor any other political
groups involved in the decision-making process challenged or tried to dele-
gitimize those principles.

Challenges to Turkeys Kemalist Identity from Within:


The REFAHYOL Coalition Government and the D-8 Project

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 RP openly denounced the secularist principle of Kemalist identity, con-


sidering it a policy of enmity toward Islam and a system of repression
against Muslims. In effect, this move provided the rst step toward the
rearticulation and reframing of Turkeys role in regional and international
politics. Erbakan deliberately broke with a Turkish foreign policy tradition.
The RP and its Islamist predecessors consistently denounced Turkeys
Westernization efforts and close relations with the Western world.70 The
party believed that European/Western values were not suitable for the
Turks; membership in the EU was not desired because the EU was only the
externalization of Christian values. According to the RP, the EU was a
union of Christian states that was formed upon the recommendation of
the Pope.71 Hence, the party argued, Turkeys EU vocation was mis-
judged and needed to be changed because imitated Westernization was
the single-most-important reason for Turkeys problems. In short, anti-
Westernism ran deep in the RP. In contrast, the RP considered itself to have
an Islamic mission, demanding more and qualitatively better interactions
with other Muslim countries and consistently blaming other Turkish polit-
ical actors for trying to promote good relations with Western countries at
the expense of better relations with the Muslim world.
After becoming prime minister, Erbakan made his rst foreign trip (af-
ter Northern Cyprus) to Iran in August 1996. During his visit, Erbakan
signed an economic agreement72 and announced a new initiative for de-
fense cooperation, despite criticisms in Turkey and warnings from the
United States. His visit to Iran was followed by highly controversial visits to
other Muslim states, among them Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, all
in August 1996. While Erbakan was in Asia, the minister of justice, the RPs
Sevket Kazan, was visiting Baghdad.73
Two months later, Erbakan traveled to Libya, Sudan, and Nigeria. Both
the opposing parties in parliament and the Dogru Yol Partisi (True Path
Party, DYP), the RPs coalition partner, criticized these visits for creating
questions in the minds of Turkeys Western allies. No deputies from any of
the other parties accompanied Erbakan. DYP leader Tansu Ciller, the min-
ister of foreign affairs, personally appealed to Erbakan not to make these
trips, to no avail.74 RP spokesperson Abdullah Gul, the minister of state for
foreign relations, told members of parliament that the elected government
determines the countrys foreign policy goals and that as the main coali-
tion party, RP was trying to mend Turkeys relations with the world of the
Muslim states, which Turkey had for years neglected.
Identity and Decision Making 109

Erbakan also contacted and visited a number of radical Islamic opposi-


tion groups and political parties, including Egypts Muslim Brotherhood;
Sheikh Osman, the religious leader of Islamic Kurdistan of Iraq; Gazi
Huseyin Ahmet, the leader of the Cemaat-ul-Islami Party in Pakistan; and
Rasit el-Gannusi of Tunisia. Erbakan did not visit Western capitals until
very late in February 1997.75 More tellingly, RP leaders publicly disregarded
an invitation to have dinner with EU leaders at their Dublin summit in De-
cember 1996.76
Probably the most concrete foreign policy decision that shows the im-
portance of the RPs ideational orientation and its challenge to Turkeys em-
bedded Kemalist identity was the unilateral initiation by the RP wing of the
REFAHYOL government of the creation of a Muslim common market, the
Developing-8 (D-8) project. By initiating and leading this Muslim common
market, the RP believed that Turkeys interactions with other Muslim coun-
tries would increase and the decision-making capacity of the Muslim states
in the world economy would rise. Leaders thought that such cooperation
would ultimately resemble the EU and would enrich the social relations of
its Muslim members.
A rapprochement between Turkey and the Muslim world had occurred
during the 1980s as part of Turkeys new liberal economic policy, which pro-
moted exports: Islamic countries constituted lucrative markets.77 Neverthe-
less, previous governments had never worked to unify Muslim countries.
The RP, however, was determined to contribute to the revival of Muslim
dominance if not to the full unication of the ummah (community of be-
lievers).78 Hence, whereas the earlier rapprochement had been driven more
by political and economic issues,79 the RPs policy vis--vis the Muslim
world was ideationally driven and contrasted directly with Turkeys Kemal-
ist state identity. The D-8 projects underlying motive was Islamic solidarity.
The D-8 project involved development cooperation among Bangladesh,
Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Turkey,80 and it rad-
ically challenged Turkeys long-standing foreign policy orientation. Follow-
ing the October 22, 1996, Conference on Cooperation for Development
and a series of preparatory meetings, the Istanbul Declaration, issued on
June 15, 1997, following the Summit of Heads of States and Governments in
Istanbul, ofcially announced the establishment of the D-8. Although
membership was open to other developing countries subscribing to the
D-8s goals, objectives, and principles, the founding membership reected
a global arrangement for Islamic cooperation.
110 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

identity. The RPs dominant narrative of Turkeys identity as a Muslim state


descended from the Ottoman Empire and RP decision makers perception
of Turkeys role as a potential leader in the Muslim world. This view con-
icted with those of both the military, which advocates a strict noninter-
vention policy toward Muslim states, and the DYP, which aims to continue
the Western-oriented Turkish foreign policy.
What is of particular importance for our purposes here is that the RP
was challenging the highly institutionalized Kemalist identity by taunting
and defying some of its fundamental principles and the foreign policy role
that it ascribed to Turkey. Unlike Bukovansky, who argues that foreign poli-
cies will be coherent if state identity is rooted in fundamental principles,
this case shows that challenges to these principles by people who are part
of the decision-making process might undermine foreign policy behavior
that the state has long pursued.87

conclusion

We have sought to explore how a productive conversation between social


constructivism and FPA is possible. By focusing on two particular strands of
scholarship that have been associated with these research programs, state
identity and decision making, we have mapped out some of their core in-
sights and examined their similarities and differences with regard to their
focus on a number of concepts such as identity, role conception, and
denition of situation.
In our empirical effort, the two cases from the Turkish foreign policy
context illustrate the need to analyze the formation and the evolution of
the basic principles of a state identity (or NRC) so that the link between
state identity and foreign policy can be established. How a states identity
is constructed helps us systematically to identify its particular articulations
and representations as well as rearticulation and re-representation by deci-
sion makers in particular foreign policy choices. Our second case study
demonstrates how the embedded principles that dene and strengthen
state identity can be challenged by domestic political actors that attempt to
articulate different narratives of the states past and to establish different
foreign policy orientations based on their perception of the states role in
the international or regional system. The new articulation of Turkish state
112 psychology and constructivism in international relations

identity by the Islamist-oriented RP was, in fact, rooted in fundamentally


different principles than those of the Kemalist state identity, with a dis-
tinctly reframed friend/enemy image of Turkeys Others.
As both state identity and decision-making scholars would agree, with-
out dening who is involved in the decision-making process or clarifying
whose representation we are analyzing, it is hard to pin down how state
identity is actually reected in foreign policy decisions or whether contes-
tation takes place among decision makers regarding the denition of the
states role and appropriate foreign policy behavior. Our chapter is an ini-
tial attempt to bring together the two strands of scholarship in a context
where we analyze the impact of an embedded state identity on actors for-
eign policies and how domestic political actors might challenge this iden-
tity. Further research will benet from a closer examination of what kind of
role international dynamics play in a state identitys resistance or its uc-
tuation in the face of domestic challenges from within. In addition, both
our understanding of Turkish foreign policy and the question of the iden-
tityforeign policy puzzle would benet from further comparative work.
Because the nature and dynamics of foreign policy making vary in different
political systems, this comparative perspective would enable us to explore
further how domestic ideational contestation and challenges to embedded
state identities inuence foreign policy.

Notes

1. Houghton (2007, 40) suggests an additional commonality between the


twoa theory of foreign policy is or can be a theory of IR.
2. A detailed discussion about how identity is understood and operational-
ized by the two scholarships appears later in the chapter.
3. See K. Holsti 1970; Krotz 2002; Walker 1987; Wish 1987. More recently, Hy-
mans (2006) has introduced the notion of national identity conceptions (NICs)
as psychological constructions that affect decisions to go nuclear.
4. Houghton 2007, 27. See also Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Goldgeier and
Tetlock 2001; Kaarbo 2003; Katzenstein 1996a; Kowert and Legro 1996;
Kubalkova 2001; Kubalkova, Onuf, and Kowert 1998; Onuf 1989; Shannon and
Keller 2007; Wendt 1999.
5. Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin 1962.
6. Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin 1962.
7. Barnett 1999, 7.
8. We acknowledge that while most constructivists share the basic tenets of
mutual constitution of structure and agency and of the socially constructed na-
ture of actors identities and interests, constructivism has different meanings to
Identity and Decision Making 113

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

32. Larsen 1997.


33. Larsen 1997, 3.
34. Larsen 1997, 199.
35. Finnemore 1996b; Kier 1997.
36. Ozkececi-Taner 2005.
37. J. Goldstein and Keohane 1993; Hopf 2002.
38. Barnett 1999, 8; Weldes 1999.
39. These two cases are among the twelve foreign policy cases elaborated in
Ozkececi-Taner 2009.
40. Ozkececi-Taner 2005. The single-party rule under CHP had dominated
the Turkish political landscape until 1946, when the formation of the Demo-
cratic Party opened the way to a two-party system between 1946 and 1960.
Since 1960, Turkish politics has been founded on a parliamentarian system,
with multiparty elections that resulted in the formation of two- or multiparty
coalition governments after almost every general election. Between 1991 and
2002, Turkey was governed by six different coalition governments.
41. Ozkececi-Taner 2005.
42. We do not argue that Turkeys Kemalist identity has been static or un-
challenged since the foundation of the republic. Indeed, various subdiscourses
and domestic disputes over Kemalist principles have caused Turkeys identity to
be in ux. But until 1990, these domestic competing discourses had more im-
plications for domestic politics, and Kemalist identity and principles were not
challenged in Turkeys foreign policy.
43. In the 1982 Constitution, this article has changed into The Republic of
Turkey is a democratic, secular and social State governed by the rule of law;
bearing in mind the concepts of public peace, national solidarity and justice; re-
specting human rights; loyal to the nationalism of Ataturk, and based on the
fundamental tenets set forth in the Preamble (http://www.anayasa.gov.tr/im
ages/loaded/kitap/1982ana.doc).
With the current debate on amendments of the Turkish Constitution, tension
and controversy arise as proponents of constitutional change argue that this ar-
ticle refers to a particular ideology (i.e., Ataturk or Kemalist ideology), which
should not be included in a democratic and liberal constitution. Opponents,
conversely, interpret this attempt as tampering with the legacy of Ataturk and
Turkeys Kemalist (i.e., secular and republican) identity.
44. Cecen 2007 divides these principles into two groups. The rst group, re-
publicanism, nationalism, and secularism, had been adopted from the West and
has roots that go back to the French Revolution. The second group, statism, pop-
ulism, and reformism, was embedded in the Eastern inuence, particularly in the
Russian Revolution.
45. Briey, Turkeys Kemalist identity rooted in these six principles was a
product of the relations between the newly established Turkish Republic and its
external, internal and historical Others (Hopf 2002, 153) in the rst quarter of
the twentieth century and was inspired by the processes of nation building and
Identity and Decision Making 115

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

beliefs and the


construction of choices
chapter 5
Re-Constructing Development Assistance:
Analogies, Ideas, and Norms at the Dawn
of the New Millennium
marijke breuning

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

vestigated the role played by key decision makers in determining if and


how international norms are adopted. This chapter modies earlier frame-
works to show that norm diffusion cannot be fully explained without ref-
erence to decision makers. In so doing, I borrow specically from the liter-
ature on national role conceptions (see also chapter 4), which suggests that
decision makers perceptions are rooted in their societys identity and cul-
tural heritage.6 National role conceptions are not a given: Decision makers
translate cultural symbols and/or emphasize certain aspects of national
heritage. Decision makers ability to shape their citizens perceptions is es-
pecially pronounced in novel foreign policy situations. But by what means
do political actors seek to spread new normative acceptance, and with what
success?
Cognitive studies have long suggested that in novel and uncertain sit-
uations, decision makers are predisposed to be inuenced by historical
analogies.7 The use of analogies by leaders in persuading the leaders of
other countries to subscribe to a (renewed) norm is the focus of this
chapter. I investigate whether the announcement of the George W. Bush
administrations Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) is consistent
with the emerging re-construction of development assistance as a re-
newed norm in the relations between North and South. Development
and its attendant norms had (in some form) been in existence for
decades when this debate emerged. However, this was the rst time a se-
rious debate on the Norths commitment to development took place in
the absence of Cold War and sphere-of-inuence considerations. These
unprecedented circumstances made this a novel policy-making situation
that required that the normative commitment to development be put on
a new foundation.
The international effort to build a persuasive case for the goals intro-
duced in the Millennium Declaration utilized the Marshall Plan analogy at
several critical junctures. Although this analogy had been used before, it
was reinterpreted to t a specic attempt at persuasion. The case illustrates
that the meaning of analogies is not constant but that analogies are repur-
posed to persuade other actors that (re)new(ed) norms are connected to
long-held values. The case also demonstrates that norm diffusion not only
depends on the invocation of analogies or on an abstract grafting of norms
to domestic values but ultimately requires that leaders accept and advocate
the value of the norm.
Re-Constructing Development Assistance 121

analogies, ideas, and development

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

what may be dened as a novel foreign policy making environment, char-


acterized by situations that appear largely unprecedented.19 Several stud-
ies suggest that in such an environment, the acceptability and persuasive-
ness of an analogy often depend on the degree to which it conforms to
decision makers shared goals and values.20 Although analogies and interna-
tional norms are different concepts, both depend on the ability to draw con-
nections to existing valuesa key component of analogical reasoning.21
For example, Price claims that the ban against chemical weapons was
instituted before any nation actually possessed chemical weapons and had
its roots in both an analogy (between poison and chemical weapons) and a
preexisting norm (against attacks on civilians).22 Both the analogy and the
preexisting norm suggest a grafting of a new idea onto an existing value. In
addition, Acharya concludes that norm diffusion entails actively borrow-
ing and modifying international norms to render them consistent with
preconstructed normative beliefs and practices, a process that he calls
localization.23 Rather than merely grafting the new idea onto an existing
value, it also involves pruning or modifying foreign ideas to nd a bet-
ter t with local beliefs and practices.24 In other words, international
norms are more readily accepted when they can be constructed (or re-con-
structed) as congruent with preexisting national values.
In addition, the persuasiveness of an analogyand its impact on pol-
icy-makingoften depends on the manner in which it connects positively
to national self-perceptions, at least insofar as this is interpreted by key de-
cision makers.25 Although less often stated explicitly, it appears that at the
international level, key individuals also often matter. For example,
Finnemore traces the emergence of poverty alleviation as a norm in inter-
national development to the efforts of Robert McNamara during his tenure
as president of the World Bank.26 Whether ideas become institutionalized,
however, depends not just on their adoption as a core value of a key inter-
national institution but also on their broader diffusion. The poverty-allevi-
ation norm certainly achieved that; the norm has been widely adopted by
both developing and developed countries.
Previous studies have largely focused on empirical description of cases
where new norms are adopted and diffused through the international sys-
tem or where analogies guide foreign policy decision making.27 Some of the
latter literature clearly intends to enable decision makers to use analogies
more productively, although the bulk of the literature in this area seeks to
understand why certain analogies are persuasive and how they structure
124 psychology and constructivism in international relations

foreign policy choice.28 In particular, work on the use of analogies in novel


foreign policy situations suggests an interconnection with research that
seeks to understand foreign policy change as well as work on the emer-
gence, adoption, and diffusion of new norms and ideas in international
politics.29

permissive conditions, gatekeepers, and change

Research on the impact of ideas in international politics is often concerned


with explaining changes in behavior that are justied by changes in norms
and beliefs, but this literature has developed largely in isolation from work
on foreign policy change.30 The two literatures share much, although it is
possible to study the normative underpinnings of policy without focusing
on change and, conversely, to hypothesize that foreign policy change oc-
curs for material rather than ideational reasons. Here, I sketch some of the
interconnections between these literatures.
Finnemore and Price trace changes in international norms, whereas
Busby and Hook emphasize national policy-making in the context of inter-
national norms.31 All of these authors imply that changes in norms and
values at the international and state levels of analysis are interrelated. All
four also imply the signicance of key individual actors. The importance of
decision makers is also recognized in the literature on foreign policy
change, which notes that decision makers do not initiate policy change in
a domestic or international vacuum.32 Some authors have privileged the
latter as a source of foreign policy change, whereas others stress that do-
mestic sources cannot be ignored.33
The degree to which international and domestic sources provide the
impetus for policy change is likely to vary across time and issue area. In ad-
dition, small states may face stronger incentives to adapt in response to in-
ternational pressures than do larger, more powerful states.34 With respect to
foreign aid and development cooperation, the international context likely
more often provides the impetus for change, whereas the domestic envi-
ronment is more likely to present constraints. International institutions
such as the World Bank and the United Nations have not only established
track records with regard to development initiatives but are also struc-
turally best positioned to evaluate existing strategies and to propose alter-
natives. Donor states, conversely, have rarely had signicant domestic con-
Re-Constructing Development Assistance 125

stituencies supporting development assistance, although this does not


mean that the public has no opinion on the matter.35 Donor states do,
however, have bureaucratic agencies that might initiate policy changes.
The likelihood that such agencies would do so without support from key
elected ofcials is not high. Hermann outlines each of these potential
change agentsleaders, the bureaucracy, the domestic polity, and the in-
ternational environment.36 Although each has the potential to inuence
the decision-making process, studies consistently nd that key decision
makers are important in foreign policy change.37
This does not mean that is it easy for decision makers to effect change:
Especially in democratic government structures, leaders are constrained by
bureaucratic webs.38 Hence, individual decision makers who advocate
change must overcome a tendency toward stability and status quo, a
process that is more likely to succeed under unusual circumstances.39 Both
Hook and Busby suggest this, drawing on Kingdons work, as Gustavsson
did almost a decade earlier.40 Gustavsson suggests that signicant change in
foreign policy is most likely when three factors coincide: (1) change in fun-
damental structural conditions; (2) strategic political leadership; and (3) a
crisis of some kind.41
Busby suggests six conditions that overlap partially with Gustavssons
three factors: (1) a permissive international context, which could be
dened as akin to Gustavssons change in fundamental structural condi-
tions; (2) focusing events, which could be taken to be akin to Gustavssons
crisis but suggest a broadening of that conception to include both sched-
uled events such as international conferences and crises that take leaders
by surprise;42 (3) credible information, which points to the potential role of
epistemic communities, a factor also mentioned by Hook;43 (4) low costs,
which suggest agreement with the constraining inuence of bureaucra-
cies;44 (5) a cultural match, which suggests the importance of framing the
policy change in terms that resonate with the domestic audience and ap-
peal to decision makers;45 and (6) supportive policy gatekeepers, which is
akin to Gustavssons strategic political leadership as well as to the ndings
of Holsti and Pickering.46 Busby suggests that the rst three are necessary
but not sufcient conditions for foreign policy change to occur and em-
phasizes the last three in this study.47 Ultimately, however, he suggests that
the role of gatekeepers is critical.48 In other words, only the decision mak-
ers in gatekeeping roles are both necessary and sufcient to ensure that an
idea translates into policy.
126 psychology and constructivism in international relations

This suggests a reformulation of Busbys framework to more clearly sep-


arate necessary and sufcient conditions (table 1). Rather than merely list-
ing the six factors, I have organized them into levels of analysis. Both the
international and state levels of analysis present opportunities and con-
straints.49 To the degree that the perception of opportunities outweighs the
constraints, favorable (or necessary) conditions exist. Ultimately, however,
decision makers in gatekeeping roles must nd the normative idea
sufciently attractive to support its translation into policy. Whether they
do so depends on their perspective. It is likely to make a difference whether
decision makers represent smaller or larger, more powerful states.
Although the distinction between small and large powers represents a
crude categorization, some expectations regarding behavioral differences
emerge from the literature. International constraints may be more
signicant for smaller states than for larger states.50 The most powerful ac-
tors may face a strong temptation to act unilaterally.51 This suggests that it
will be easier to convince the decision makers of smaller states to adopt
such international norms and much more difcult to convince the leaders
of the most powerful states to adopt them unless a powerful actor has ini-
tiated such a norm and chosen to build international consensus around
it.52 This mitigates against ready acceptance by the United States of a new
consensus on development.
In the area of international development, norms and ideaseven if they
originate in a specic countryoften transform the policies of states only
after they have rst been adopted and popularized by international institu-
tions. For example, the norm that donor states ought to devote 0.7 percent
of their national income to development cooperation originates with the
Pearson Report,53 which was the result of a commission that had been in-
vited by the president of the World Bank, McNamara, to evaluate past de-
velopment efforts and make recommendations for the future. The report
made a number of recommendations, but the specic aid target was reiter-
ated in 1974 by the United Nations in the Declaration on the Establishment
of a New International Economic Order as well as much more recently in
the Zedillo Commission.54 In addition, the Development Assistance Com-
mittee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Develop-
ment (OECD) has adopted this norm as well.55 Although few donors devote
at least 0.7 percent of their national income to development assistance, the
gure continues to play a role in both policy evaluation and recommenda-
tion. It is fair to say that it has the status of an international norm.
TABLE 1. States and the Adoption of International Norms
Level of Analysis Busbys Six Conditions Literature

International Permissive Context Busby (2007, 252) defines narrowly in


terms of absence of high security threat,
economic problems, or other high-
order political priorities. Gustavsson
(1999) defines broadly in terms of a
postCold War international
environment of uncertain structural
contours.
Focusing Events Gustavsson (1999) defines narrowly in
(crisis and noncrisis) terms of crisis. Busby (2007) concurs
but also suggests capacity of
international conferences to create
policy focus.
Epistemic Community Hook (2008) defines narrowly in terms
(credible information) of the expertise and consensus
epistemic communities. Busby (2007)
includes role of media and prominent
individuals, such as religious leaders.
State Feasibility (low cost) Busby (2007) focuses narrowly on costs,
whereas Goldmann (1988) and Volgy
and Schwarz (1991) suggest a broader
range of bureaucratic and institutional
impediments.
Cultural Match Busby (2007) suggests that framing the
normative idea in terms that resonate
with the domestic audience as well as
decision making elites (including the
crucial policy gatekeepers) enhance its
prospects. Houghton (1996) and
Peterson (1997) argue much the same
with respect to analogical reasoning
(see also Khong 1992; Reiter 1996).
Acharya (2004), Checkel (1999), and
Price (1995, 1997) suggest that grafting
and pruning make international norms
consistent with domestic values.
Individual Decision Makers A broad array of authors suggests that
(supportive policy without the active support of decision
gatekeepers) makers, specifically those in crucial
gatekeeping positions, the idea would
not have become policy (Busby 2007;
Holsti 1982; Hook 2008; Pickering
1998, 2002).
128 psychology and constructivism in international relations

Of the six factors enumerated by Busby, three have specic signicance


for understanding ideas and policies regarding development.56 Each of
these operates at a different level of analysis: epistemic communities at the
international level, cultural match (or resonance with the domestic audi-
ence) at the state level, and decision makers (acting as supportive gate-
keepers) at the individual level. This is not to deny the role played by per-
missive international contexts, focusing events, or political feasibility. Each
of these contextual factors clearly matters. However, political feasibility
may hinge less on cost in the economic sense than on the ability to make
the policy seem worthy. This, in turn, requires the ability to frame the idea
in ways that resonate with the values of the domestic audience as well as
those of decision makers (cultural match). A permissive context may make
the adoption of a normative idea possible, but it explains little beyond the
existence of an enabling environment. Focusing events, conversely, may
create the urgency to make a decision or at the very least provide a clear
normative statement of ideas. Focusing events, therefore, are important in
understanding the timing of normative change but not necessarily its con-
tent, which depends on the ideas percolating within the epistemic com-
munity relevant to the issue area.
In sum, Busbys six conditions can be grouped into three levels of analy-
sis. Focusing events are relevant for understanding when new ideas emerge,
but the interconnections among international epistemic communities,
state-level cultural matches, and individual decision makers help explain
what ideas emerge as normative standards and are ultimately translated
into policy.

the empirical puzzle

The Millennium Declaration of 2000 sought to forge a renewed commit-


ment to aid for development, whereas the Monterrey Consensus, which
was announced in 2002, sought to establish not only commitment to aid
but also agreements on the mechanisms for its delivery and its core target
audience. To institutionalize a new norm, it must not only be advocated
through international organizations but also be adopted by states. With
regard to funding for development, U.S. support is vital. Even though the
United States has never met the global norm of contributing 0.7 percent
of GNP for development aid, it is the largest single donor in absolute dol-
lars. Figure 1 shows the amount of ofcial development assistance (in
Re-Constructing Development Assistance 129

140000 __________________________________________________________________________

120000 __________________________________________________________________________

100000 __________________________________________________________________________

80000 __________________________________________________________________________

60000 __________________________________________________________________________

40000 __________________________________________________________________________

20000 __________________________________________________________________________

0 __________________________________________________________________________
1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008

US ODA in Millions of Constant Dollars

Combined OECD ODA in Millions of Constant Dollars

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

international norms, the leaders of large powers are expected to perceive


little incentive to do so.
Given the unilateralist turn in U.S. foreign policy during the Bush ad-
ministration,57 the United States should be unlikely to adopt the Millen-
nium Declarations development norms. Yet President Bush used the lead-
up to the Monterrey Conference to announce the MCA and subsequently
created the MCC to administer these funds. Is the MCA initiative indeed
out of step with the administrations unilateralist turn, as several authors
have suggested?58 And if so, what explains the absence of unilateralism in
this issue area? Conversely, does the MCA afrm the Bush administrations
unilateralist tendencies? After all, the U.S. status as superpower means it
has less incentive to go along with norms initiated by others.59 A third,
more nuanced view is possible as well: Several authors point to the possi-
bility that international norms are grafted onto domestic ideas, a process
that may require pruning.60 To what degree does the evidence point to
grafting and/or pruning by the Bush administration to arrive at the MCA?
How did the use of the Marshall Plan analogy inuence the re-construction
of development cooperation for the new millennium in the United States?

millennial norm negotiation

Here, I employ a modied version of Busbys framework to evaluate the re-


construction of development norms at the dawn of the new millennium.61
Busbys framework focuses on national policy-making in the context of in-
ternational norms. I focus on the renewed attention to development coop-
eration both internationally and in U.S. foreign policy making. Specically,
I investigate the re-construction of developmentas well as the role of de-
velopment assistancein a set of focusing events that both create renewed
energy in the epistemic community in this issue area and provide the con-
text for national decision making in the United States. I then ask whether
and to what degreePresident Bushs MCA initiative is congruent with the
international debate that surrounds (and largely precedes) this initiative.
Table 2 provides a time line.

Focusing Events and Timing

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 re-construction of international development norms starts within the


context of international organizations, which have long been instrumental
in creating and monitoring norms regarding development cooperation.
With regard to the re-construction of development cooperation at the turn
of the millennium, three organizations are particularly important: the
World Bank, the DAC, and the United Nations. The role of the World Bank
and the OECD will subsequently be addressed in greater detail.
The Millennium Declaration stresses the importance of development and
poverty eradication, whereas the Monterrey Conference focuses on the plan
of action to implement the vision set forth in the declaration. Although
other conferences have dealt (in part) with development cooperation before
and since the meeting in Monterrey, the latter conference is most immedi-
ately and directly linked to the core purposes of the Millennium Declaration.

TABLE 2. Time Line of Key Events


International United States

May 67, 1996 Development Assistance


Committee (DAC) of OECD
report Shaping the 21st Century
September 8, 2000 UN Millennium Declaration
December 2000 UN secretary general appoints
High Level Panel on Financing
for Development (Zedillo
Commission)
June 2001 UN Zedillo Commission
Report
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New
York and Washington,
DC
October 2, 2001 Tony Blair speech at Labour
Party meeting in Brighton,
England
December 2001 Gordon Brown speech at
Washington Press Club
(Marshall Plan for Africa)
March 14, 2002 President Bush speech at
Inter-American
Development Bank
(proposes Millennium
Challenge Account)
March 1822, 2002 UN Monterrey Conference on
Financing for Development
132 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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.

Ideas and Epistemic Communities

The normative ideas at the core of development have metamorphosed over


time. A detailed accounting of the ideas that have been inuential in devel-
opment cooperation is beyond the scope of this chapter.69 What does mat-
ter for our purposes is that the evolution of the normative underpinnings of
development has often been fostered by international organizations, most
notably the the World Bank, the OECD, and the United Nations.70
A series of studies, primarily by economists afliated with the World
Bank, established that although aid did not foster economic growth in all
countries, it did foster economic growth when recipient countries had im-
plemented political and economic reforms that resulted in greater ac-
countability and freer markets.71 The emerging evidence led the DAC to as-
sert that properly applied in propitious environments, aid works.72
The report in which this statement is found, Shaping the 21st Century:
The Contribution of Development Cooperation, has been described as provid-
ing the building blocks for the Millennium Declaration and the subse-
quently enumerated Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).73 Although
the DAC report provides important building blocks for the Millennium
Declaration and the MDGs, some noteworthy differences in emphasis ex-
ist.74 The DAC report more explicitly references the track record of previous
development efforts, concluding that both the successes and the failures
have taught us a lot about how best to achieve results.75 It also references
the process of dialogue and debate within the epistemic community, not-
ing that a rich process of dialogue and decisions is underwaywithin the
134 psychology and constructivism in international relations

OECD, in the Interim and Development Committees of the World Bank


and IMF, in the regional development banks, in the G7, and in the United
Nations system. This heightened international focus on development co-
operation reinforces our conviction that development matters.76
Although there is no explicit statement suggesting that demonstrable,
positive impacts will help to sustain donor commitments, the report
stresses the value of explicit indicators to help judge the success of devel-
opment efforts.77 In addition, the report suggests the existence of a need to
sustain and increase the volume of ofcial development assistance in or-
der to reverse the growing marginalisation of the poor and achieve progress
toward realistic goals of human development.78 In doing so, it reinforces
the continued relevance of the poverty-alleviation norm in development
cooperation.79
Measurable indicators of success will make it possible to evaluate
progress toward those goals, which the DAC report suggests are best
achieved through a global development partnership.80 Such a partner-
ship is dened by development cooperation that does not try to do things
for developing countries and their people, but with them. It must be seen
as a collaborative effort to help them increase their capacities to do things
for themselves. Paternalistic approaches have no place in this frame-
work.81 The report recognizes that this approach means that each partner-
ship will have its own contours but also spells out the joint, developing-
country (recipient), and external-partner (donor) responsibilities in such
partnerships.
The Millennium Declaration subscribes to this notion of a global part-
nership for development. However, there is no clear statement of joint re-
sponsibilities in the MDGs. All but one of the targets identied for Goal 8
(the development of a global partnership for development) focus on ac-
tions to be taken by donor countries. The remaining target mentions the
need for good governance but does not explicitly advocate accountable,
transparent, and participatory governance, as does the DAC report. In-
stead, the MDG targets for Goal 8 strongly emphasize actions to be taken
by donor states or international organizations (see targets 1318 in table 3).
The side-by-side comparison of the MDGs with the goals enumerated in
the DAC report in table 3 shows that many of the goals rst proposed in the
latter report were adopted as goals in the former without any change. A few
additional targets found their way into the MDGs, however. Most notably,
Goal 6 adds two specic targets that address HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other
Re-Constructing Development Assistance 135

major diseases. In addition, Goal 1 adds a target regarding the reduction in


the number of people suffering from hunger to the DAC target of halving
the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day, and Goal 7 adds
specic targets regarding access to safe drinking water and the conditions
of slum dwellers. Conversely, the DAC report addresses the need for uni-
versal access to reproductive health care services, and this goal is not found
among the MDG targets.
The comparison of the DAC report and the MDGs suggests that broad
agreement exists on the issues that need to be addressed (enumerated in
Goals 17). The differences among the DAC report, the Millennium Decla-
ration, and the MDGs regarding the nal goal suggest that no consensus
exists on the strategy through which to achieve the goals, a suggestion bol-
stered by other elements of the debate within the epistemic community.
In preparation for the Conference on Financing for Development
planned for March 2002 in Monterrey, the UN secretary-general appointed
a commission chaired by Ernesto Zedillo, a former president of Mexico. The
commissions June 2001 report reiterates the partnership approach advo-
cated by the DAC report and provides ideas for implementing such an ap-
proach to development. In so doing, the Zedillo Commission advocates a
common pool approach that would put relations between donors and
aid recipients on a new footing.82 The commission deems this proposal
best suited to partnerships with lower-income countries, which it insists
should be the focus of development partnerships. It advocates the norm
that the distribution of aid should be determined overwhelmingly by the
depth of poverty of the recipient country and the ability of its policy envi-
ronment to support an assault on poverty.83
To achieve this focus on recipient countries that both are the poorest
and have the political commitment to reduce poverty among their citi-
zenry, the Zedillo Commission perceives that the main challenge is to per-
suade the politicians and publics of industrial countries that aid expendi-
tures are both morally compelling and a vital investment in building a
more secure world.84 The commission argues that poverty alleviation not
only is a normative value but also serves the security interests of states in a
globalized world where someone elses poverty very soon becomes ones
own problem: of lack of markets for ones products, illegal immigration,
pollution, contagious disease, insecurity, fanaticism, terrorism.85
These words were published about three months before September 11,
2001. In the aftermath of those attacks, British prime minister Tony Blair
TABLE 3. Comparison of Millennium Development Goals and DAC Report
Recommendations
UNMillennium Development Goals DACShaping the 21st Century

Goal 1. Eradicate Target 1. Halve, between 1. Economic well-being: The


extreme poverty and 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people living in
hunger proportion of people extreme poverty in developing
whose income is less than countries should be reduced by
one dollar a day at least one-half by 2015.
Target 2. Halve, between
1990 and 2015, the
proportion of people who
suffer from hunger
Goal 2. Achieve Target 3. Ensure that, by 2. Social development: There should
universal primary 2015, children everywhere, be substantial progress in primary
education boys and girls alike, will education, gender equality, basic
be able to complete a full health care, and family planning,
course of primary schooling as follows:
(a) There should be universal primary
education in all countries by 2015.
Goal 3. Promote gender Target 4. Eliminate gender (b) Progress toward gender equality
equality and empower disparity in primary and and the empowerment of women
women secondary education, should be demonstrated by
preferably by 2005, and at eliminating gender disparity in
all levels of education no primary and secondary education
later than 2015 by 2005.
Goal 4. Reduce child Target 5. Reduce by two- (c) The death rate for infants and
mortality thirds, between 1990 and children under the age of five years
2015, the under-five should be reduced in each developing
mortality rate country by two-thirds the 1990 level
by 2015.
Goal 5. Improve Target 6. Reduce by three- The rate of maternal mortality should
maternal health quarters, between 1990 be reduced by three-fourths during
and 2015, the maternal this same period.
mortality ratio
Goal 6. Combat Target 7. Have halted by
HIV/AIDS, malaria, 2015 and begun to reverse
and other diseases the spread of HIV/AIDS
Target 8. Have halted by
2015 and begun to reverse
the incidence of malaria
and other major diseases
Goal 7. Ensure Target 9. Integrate the 3. Environmental sustainability and
environmental principles of sustainable regeneration: There should be a
sustainability development into country current national strategy for
policies and programs sustainable development, in the
and reverse the loss of process of implementation, in every
environmental resources country by 2005, so as to ensure that
TABLE 3.Continued
UNMillennium Development Goals DACShaping the 21st Century

current trends in the loss of


environmental resourcesforests,
fisheries, fresh water, climate, soils,
biodiversity, stratospheric ozone, the
accumulation of hazardous
substances, and other major
indicatorsare effectively reversed
at both global and national levels
by 2015.
Target 10. Halve by 2015
the proportion of people
without sustainable access
to safe drinking water
Target 11. By 2020 to have
achieved a significant
improvement in the lives
of at least 100 million
slum dwellers
Goal 8. Develop a Target 12. Develop further Investment of development resources
global partnership for an open, rule-based, in democratic governance will
development predictable, nondiscrimina- contribute to more accountable,
tory trading and financial transparent, and participatory
system. Includes a commit- societies conducive to development
ment to good governance, progress. While not themselves the
development and poverty subject of suggested numerical
reductionboth nationally indicators, we reaffirm our
and internationally. conviction that these qualitative aspects
of development are essential to the
attainment of the more measurable
goals we have suggested.
Target 13. Address the
special needs of the least
developed countries.
Includes tariff and quota
free access for the least
developed countries
exports; enhanced program
of debt relief for heavily
indebted poor countries
(HIPC) and cancellation of
official bilateral debt; and
more generous ODA for
countries committed to
poverty reduction.
(continues)
TABLE 3.Continued
UNMillennium Development Goals DACShaping the 21st Century

Target 14. Address the


special needs of landlocked
countries and small island
developing states (through
the Programme of Action
for the Sustainable
Development of Small
Island Developing States
and the outcome of the
twenty-second special
session of the General Assembly)
Target 15. Deal
comprehensively with
the debt problems of
developing countries
through national and
international measures
in order to make debt
sustainable in the long term
Target 16. In cooperation
with developing countries,
develop and implement
strategies for decent and
productive work for youth
Target 17. In cooperation
with pharmaceutical
companies, provide
access to affordable
essential drugs in
developing countries
Target 18. In cooperation
with the private sector,
make available the
benefits of new
technologies, especially
information and
communications
Not in MDGs (d) Access should be available through
the primary health-care system to
reproductive health services for all
individuals of appropriate ages,
including safe and reliable family
planning methods, as soon as
possible and no later than the
year 2015.
Re-Constructing Development Assistance 139

reiterated in a widely cited speech both that interdependence denes the


new world we live in and that building a more secure world requires that
the members of the global community address inequality.86 Blair emerged
as a champion of the developing world, with the oft-cited statement that
the state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world. But if the world
as a community focused on it, we could heal it. And if we dont, it will be-
come deeper and angrier.87
More important for the emerging re-construction of development, Blair
described the aid relationship as one in which the donor and recipient
states have mutual responsibilities, stated in terms rather similar to the lan-
guage of the Millennium Declaration and OECD Report. In December
2001, Britains Gordon Brown, then chancellor of the exchequer in Blairs
government, gave a speech at the Press Club in Washington, D.C., and
urged the international community to form a new global alliance for pros-
perity.88
Browns speech reiterated the mutual responsibilities of donor and re-
cipient countries in development cooperation. In so doing, he relied quite
heavily on the analogy with the Marshall Plan of the immediate post
World War II period. This analogy has been used frequently in the literature
on foreign aid, usually to underscore its ostensible purpose of achieving
economic development in the recipient state as well as the plans inherent
generosity.89 Browns usage of the Marshall Plan analogy differed. He
claimed that the Marshall Plan conceived of aid not as an act of charity,
but as a frank recognition that, like peace, prosperity was indivisible; that
to be sustained it had to be shared.90
Recognizing the limits of analogies, he also underscored the idea that
globalization makes it even more imperative to adopt such a point of view
in language reminiscent of the Zedillo Commission report:

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

Brown reinterpreted the meaning of the Marshall Plan analogy to empha-


size that it was an act of enlightened self-interest rather than simple gen-
erosity. He underscored the point that changed global circumstances make
such a vision all the more relevant for our time and that it must be a global
vision that will advance social justice on a global scale.92
140 psychology and constructivism in international relations

To reach this goal, Brown suggested the creation of a new interna-


tional development trust fund . . . to address the sheer lack of investment
from which the poorest countries suffer.93 He later developed this idea
into his proposal for an international nance facility that would enable the
poorest countries to create the conditions that would not only allow busi-
nesses to prosper but also help these societies to attract private invest-
ment.94 Browns proposals approximate the common pool approach advo-
cated in the Zedillo Commissions report.
In sum, the ideas around which the epistemic community converged
between the Millennium Declaration and the Monterrey Conference are (1)
a rededication to poverty reduction and an emphasis on the poorest coun-
tries and people; (2) the recognition that development cooperation re-
quires commitments from both the recipient and donor; and (3) better co-
ordination of aid, preferably through a common pool approach.

Domestic Politics and the Search for a Cultural Match

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

aid in religious terms was crucial in securing broad-based domestic support


for new aid initiatives among (religious-based groupings within) the U.S.
domestic audience, citing especially the use of the story of the Good Samar-
itan by several actors. Although Hook suggests a greater role for the vocal
public and Busby a larger role for decision makers in convincing the do-
mestic audience, both authors emphasize the role of religious groupings
and the relevance of moral values as the foundation for aid.101
Kull furthermore nds that a majority among the U.S. public would like
to see a revival of the postwar universalist vision . . . and promote economic
development.102 In other words, domestic values favor that the United
States act in collaboration with others in the international community, an
attitude that persists in the aftermath of the events of September 11.103 The
public appears to recognize that the world is increasingly interdependent
and that its problems increasingly require international solutions.104
These attitudes appear to be congruent with the ideas emerging in the
epistemic community that call for a global partnership. However, the
search for a cultural match is likely to be handicapped by the gap between
the attitudes and opinions of the domestic public and decision makers per-
ceptions of its attitudes and opinions.105

President Bush, Unilateralism, and the MCA

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

uments and speeches inuenced the participants. It is nevertheless possible


to make some assessments about the congruence between the international
norms expressed in these documents and the MCA proposal.
The rst public statement announcing the MCA was made just days be-
fore the Conference on Financing for Development convened in Monter-
rey. On March 14, President Bush gave a speech at the Inter-American De-
velopment Bank in Washington, D.C., in which he proposed the MCA.
Although the proposal shared surface similarities with the norms and ideas
present in the international epistemic community, some signicant differ-
ences existed.
After rst stating that America supports the international develop-
ment goals in the UN Millennium Declaration, the president proposed a
bilateral program guaranteeing that countries that meet certain criteria
would receive more aid from America.108 Using language that mirrored
the MDGs call for a global partnership, Bush called for a new compact for
global development, dened by new accountability for both rich and poor
nations alike. Greater contributions from developed nations must be
linked to greater responsibility from developing nations.109 Here, the pres-
ident used language that matched the ideas and norms that had emerged
in the epistemic community, as did the three standards Bush set out for re-
cipient countries: ruling justly, investing in their people, and encouraging
economic freedom.110
Despite the similarities, the MCA also radically revised some aspects of
the consensus that was then emerging internationally: Rather than work-
ing with other donor countries to create a common pool (as suggested in
the Zedillo Commission report) or some other framework to facilitate a
global partnership (such as the international development trust fund pro-
posed by Brown and his later proposal for an international nance facility),
the president favored a bilateral solution that the United States could de-
sign unilaterally as it saw t.111
From its inception, the MCA was designed to reward countries that had
already begun to establish a track record with regard to a set of desirable
values. As President Bush stated, The Millennium Challenge Account will
reward nations that root out corruption, respect human rights, and ad-
here to the rule of law; that invest in better health care, better schools
and broader immunization; and that have more open markets and sus-
tainable budget policies.112
Rather than devising a strategy that provided incentives for the poorest
Re-Constructing Development Assistance 143

countries to improve on these dimensions (as is the objective of the


MDGs), the MCA was designed to reward countries that had already met
certain minimum standards. Rather than encouraging improvements in
government accountability and fostering policies that tackle poverty, the
MCA was designed to provide resources to countries that have already
started to do so. In practice, this means that the poorest countries will have
great difculty qualifying for the MCA funds: These countries often lack
the resources to meet the minimum standards without outside assistance,
and because they do not meet the minimum standards, they will not re-
ceive outside assistance, at least not from the MCA.113 In short, the MCAs
foundational principles render it poorly positioned to address the rst
MDG, which enjoins UN members to work toward the eradication of ex-
treme poverty and hunger.
In addition, the announcement of the MCA just days before the Mon-
terey conference preempted a serious discussion there about a common
pool approach, international development trust fund, or other interna-
tional mechanism for making additional funds available to the poorest
countries. Predictably, the Monterrey Consensus proclaimed at the end of
that conference contained no reference to a serious effort to put develop-
ment cooperation on a new footing along these lines.
President Bush borrowed some of the language that dened the discus-
sion in the epistemic community in this time period. Although a cultural
match appeared to exist between the ideas in the international epistemic
community and the domestic public, there was no guarantee that decision
makers would perceive this congruence. In this case, evidence indicated a
disconnect between public opinion on foreign aid and decision makers
perceptions of public opinion.
The MCA proposal revised international norms and ideas to become
something quite at odds with the values expressed in both the interna-
tional epistemic community and domestic public opinion. Contrary to
Lancasters assertion that the MCA may reect President Bushs desire to
balance a tendency toward unilateralism,114 the initiative reects a con-
tinued commitment to unilateralism and a reluctance to embrace the no-
tion that interdependence requires a global partnership to confront global
problems. Hook may be correct in his suggestion that the Monterrey Con-
ference required a major policy statement such as the MCA.115
A closer examination of the MCA proposal in light of the concurrent re-
construction of development in the international epistemic community,
144 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.

conclusion: comparing ideas

This essay utilizes a modied version of Busbys framework to investigate


the re-construction of norms surrounding development cooperation in the
period between the Millennium Declaration and the Monterrey Confer-
ence. This period is marked by active debate in the international epistemic
community, based in large part on studies that established a connection be-
tween good governance and the effectiveness of aid for achieving eco-
nomic development. These studies provide the foundation for a re-con-
struction of the aid relationship into one that is best dened as
development cooperation. Eradicating poverty thus requires a restructur-
ing of international economic governance and acceptance of certain re-
sponsibilities by both donor and recipient states. Throughout this debate,
the use of the Marshall Plan analogy remained the province of non-U.S. de-
cision makers. It was not employed by the Bush administration. As used by
the Zedillo Commission report and Britains Gordon Brown, the analogy
underscored the Marshall Plans enlightened self-interest and the need for
such a perspective in an increasingly interdependent world. The interna-
tional community showed substantial convergence on the need for con-
certedand coordinatedaction. Public opinion in the United States also
appeared favorable. Yet the Bush administrations proposal differed in key
respects from both the emerging international consensus and domestic
public opinion.
Previous authors have suggested that international norms are reinter-
preted in light of domestic cultural values.116 This study suggests that such
an adaption is contingent on the accurate perceptions of (and interest in
responding to) those domestic values by decision makers in gatekeeping
Re-Constructing Development Assistance 145

positions. Absent such insight or interest, it is difcult to perceive grafting


and/or pruning to create a cultural match. In addition, evidence shows that
decision makers can rather easily convince domestic publics of their poli-
cies.117 Hence, grafting and pruning are not only the search for a match
with existing domestic cultural values. The processes of grafting and prun-
ing as used in previous work on norm diffusion and adaptation ignored the
fact that decision makers are politically motivated actors who may look not
merely for a cultural match but also to satisfy their political priorities.
This study of the proposal for the MCA suggests that this alternative ex-
planation deserves further study: President Bush announced his proposal us-
ing language that resonated with both the international epistemic commu-
nity and the domestic public. Yet his proposal differed in key respects from
the emerging re-construction of the development norm: It ignored the calls
for some form of common pool approach in favor of a solution that main-
tained strong U.S. control over the disbursement of resources. As such, the
proposal was in keeping with the Bush administrations unilateral tenden-
cies, which may be tempting for larger powers that face fewer international
constraints, especially in policy areas where the public may have opinions
but lacks accurate information, such as regarding development cooperation.
In sum, the MCA proposal utilizes language that shares much with the
Millennium Declaration but proposes something that ultimately reects
the values of the policy gatekeeper who resided in the White House rather
than either domestic or international norms and values. As a result, the
MCA looks far more like the product of an international norm grafted onto
and pruned by the values of the Bush administration than an international
norm modied by values held by the domestic public.
Although it is difcult to generalize on the basis of a single case, this
study suggests that grafting and pruning do not always involve an effort to
frame normative ideas in a way that resonates with the domestic audience.
Rather, the re-construction of an international norm may be guided by the
values of key decision makers who are in a position to act as gatekeepers.

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,

The logic of appropriateness is a perspective that sees human action as dri-


ven by rules of appropriate or exemplary behavior, organized into institu-
tions. Rules are followed because they are seen as natural, rightful, expected,
and legitimate. Actors seek to fulll the obligations encapsulated in a role,
an identity, a membership in a political community or group, and the
152 psychology and constructivism in international relations

ethos, practices and expectations of its institutions. Embedded in a social


collectivity, they do what they see as appropriate for themselves in a specic
type of situation.9

On the face of it, the psychological approach and social constructivism


come down on different sides of the fence on this issue. But the essence of
the argument presented in this chapter is that the LOA and the LOC can
(and, indeed, should) be combined into a single, two-step approach, since
both are critical to an understanding of the decision-making process. While
an LoA approach illustrates the ways in which certain options that fail to
comport with accepted social rules, norms, and conventions are never seri-
ously considered in the decision-making processand this chapter offers a
social constructivist account of the production of absence or unthinkabil-
ityan LoC focus further renes our understanding of the ways in which
policymakers decide. This approach is briey illustrated using the case
study of the Carter administrations decision making during the Iran
hostage crisis of 197981, where at the LoA stage, various options (such as
doing nothing about the hostages or dropping a nuclear weapon on
Tehran) were ruled unthinkable, while an examination of the LoC stage re-
veals how Jimmy Carter and his advisers selected from the remaining range
of thinkable options.

competing logics?

Are psychology and constructivism compatible if they operate at different


levels and according to different logics? Finnemore and Sikkink argue from
a social constructivist standpoint that the most important ideational fac-
tors are widely shared or intersubjective beliefs, which are not reducible to
individuals.10 Thus while both camps emphasize the importance of
ideational forces, for constructivists it is most often collective beliefsideas
held by large numbers of people as a wholethat are the focus of interest,
not the sometimes idiosyncratic beliefs held by particular decision makers.
This is one facet that makes Hymanss approach a psychological rather
than a constructivist one, for example. Those who focus on the individual
psychological level of analysis are interested in just this kind of variation
among leaders.
The logic of appropriateness ts rather neatly with a sociological view
Agent-Level and Social Constructivism 153

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,

Explanations for why-questions are incomplete in an important sense. They


generally take as unproblematic the possibility that a particular decision or
course of action could happen. They presuppose a particular subjectivity
(i.e., a mode of being), a background of social/discursive practices and
meanings which make possible the practices as well as the social actors
themselves. . . . I examine how meanings are produced and attached to var-
ious social subjects/objects, thus constituting particular interpretive dispo-
sitions which create certain possibilities and preclude others. What is ex-
plained is not why a particular outcome obtained, but rather how the
subjects, objects, and interpretive dispositions were socially constructed
such that certain practices were made possible.17

This kind of how-possible question lies at the heart of Richard Prices


classic constructivist account of how the norm or taboo against chemical
weapons came to be, contrasted with the way in which other deadly
weapons are not subject to the same widespread opprobrium within the in-
ternational community.18 Why, Price asks, among the many technological
advances that humanity has developed as a means to kill its own, have
Agent-Level and Social Constructivism 155

chemical weapons almost alone come to be stigmatized as morally illegit-


imate?19 He traces this in part to what he calls the poison taboothat is,
the broadly accepted stigma against the use of poison and general revulsion
against its useas something deceptive and charts the emergence of a so-
cial norm against their use.
Using the Iran hostage crisis as a case study, I show that conceptions of
choice in international relations need to take account of both individual
and collective beliefs as well as both logics of appropriateness and conse-
quences. The logic of appropriateness rules some things out and others in,
sometimes at a subconscious level. It species the often neglected factors
that shape behavior at a general level, rendering some things unthinkable
almost by default while causing others to seem natural or appropriate. So-
cial constructivism, as we have seen, operates at this level. The logic of con-
sequences is also essential, however, because it is far more specic in what
it can do; it deals with concrete choices between competing options, and
the factors that lead reasoning decision makers to select one alternative
over another. The psychological approach to international relations con-
ventionally operates here. As I suggest, a number of options were ruled out
without explicit discussion and perhaps even conscious thought during the
Carter administrations Iran hostage crisis decision making. Equally, we
cannot explain the specic options Carter and his advisers selected without
consideration of the logic of consequences. Both culturally shared norms
and idiosyncratic reasoning processes combined to shape the Carter ad-
ministrations actions.

the iran hostage crisis i: the logic


of appropriateness

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:

1. encourage the Shah to leave United States;


2. negotiate with Khomeini;
3. institute a naval blockade of Iran;
4. launch an air strike on the oil renery at Abadan;
5. mine Irans harbors;
6. seize the oil depots on Kharg Island;
7. launch a rescue mission.

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

practices going back several centuriesBritain granted immunity to for-


eign ambassadors as long ago as 1709though the principle of diplomatic
immunity was not formally enshrined in international law until the pas-
sage of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations in 1961. A wide-
spread social taboo in the United Statesunspoken at the time within the
Carter administration, as far as we can tellalso precludes leaving ones
countrymen stranded abroad under captivity. While it is hard empirically
to demonstrate the existence of this taboo, we know that ever since
Thomas Jefferson struggled with the issue of the Barbary pirates, no Amer-
ican president has failed to respondwith diplomatic measures, military
force, or bothto the seizure of U.S. citizens abroad.
Just as the option of doing nothing was never discussed, the use of nu-
clear weaponsor even the threat of their use against Tehranwas not se-
riously considered. In material terms, a realist would stress the fact that the
United States was vastly superior to Iran in terms of conventional and nu-
clear capabilities. This case, like others, illustrates the paucity of approaches
that conceive of international relations in nonideational terms. Given the
evolving nuclear taboo within international society, it is unlikely that any
president would have seriously considered simply wiping Iran off the face
of the earth, because of the broad cultural belief in the United States and
the West generally that such an action would be morally wrong.27 The use
of nuclear weapons apparently was suggested to Carter, but he considered
the idea preposterous.28 While there are few exact parallel instances in
American history, it seems unlikely that any U.S. president would have
used nuclear weapons in this instance; faced with comparable hostage
crises, Johnson, Ford, Carter, and Reagan all dismissed the nuclear option
out of hand when it was suggested.29
A third theoretical policy option that was off the table in the Iran
hostage case was any notion that would inevitably involve sacricing
Americas national honor. For example, Carter considered the idea of re-
turning the Shah, our longtime ally in the region, to Iran to face trial al-
most as absurd and unthinkable as the idea of dropping a nuclear weapon
on Tehran. The cultural taboo against sending an ally to certain death
seems to have rendered inappropriate any option that might lead to this
outcome. Again, it is difcult to prove that Carters refusal to send the Shah
back to Iran derived from cultural (as opposed to idiosyncratic) beliefs, but
we do know that debates within the administration centered almost en-
tirely on whether Irans former leader should be allowed to enter the
Agent-Level and Social Constructivism 159

United States, not on whether he should be sent back to Tehran. On the


former issue there were plenty of differences among Carters top advisers
Carter described himself as the lone holdout against admitting the Shah
in October 1979, while Brzezinski had consistently supported such a
move30but the more radical notion of sending a former ally to face trial
at the hands of Khomeinis regime appears to have had no advocates
among his key circle of advisers.
Although these points may seem obvious, it is worth pondering why
they are obvious: They are stated here to illustrate the fact that in decision
making, some choices are ruled out almost without much conscious
thought because they violate the logic of appropriateness. Some ideas
never make it to the table because they are viewed as unthinkable. The cul-
tural identity of the United States itself was critical here, regardless of who
sat in the White House. According to the logic of appropriateness, when
confronted with a situation, we ask ourselves, Who am I? On such occa-
sions, the kinds of people we think we are and the kind of actions we deem
appropriate in a given situation become critical. Widely shared cultural be-
liefs, in short, precluded more potential options than one would think in
Iran hostage crisis decision making.
Aside from the alternatives of doing nothing, using nuclear weapons,
and sacricing Americas honor, a nal option that was culturally unac-
ceptable was any punitive action that seemed highly likely to result in the
deaths of the hostages (or at least was not designed to free the hostages per
se). Faced with such a dilemma in 1949, Harry Truman decided not to risk
the death of Angus Ward, a consular ofcial being held hostage by the Chi-
nese, and his family. Similarly, in 1968, Lyndon Johnson decided not to risk
the lives of the crew of the USS Pueblo, which had been taken hostage by
the North Koreans. Rescue operations, which hold out at least the hope of
returning American hostages alive, have been resorted to on occasion. Most
notably, in 1975, Gerald Ford launched an attempt to rescue the crew of the
SS Mayaguez, an effort that turned to disaster when more American person-
nel died in the mission than there were hostages. Carters April 1980 effort
to rescue the Iranian hostages got no further than a refueling point in the
Iranian desert before ending in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen. There
appears to be a clear but unwritten social rule against purely punitive ac-
tions that are not designed to release hostages, however.
During the Vietnam War, Johnson was advised to use nuclear weapons
against Ho Chi Minhs North Vietnamese forces but reportedly rejected
160 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.

the iran hostage crisis ii: the logic of consequences

According to CIA director Stanseld Turner, there was almost no interest


expressed in the military options that Brzezinski had proposed at the No-
vember 6 SCC and NSC meetings. At the SCC meeting, secretary of defense
Harold Brown outlined various measures that could be taken to try to com-
pel the militants to release the hostages. Most of these options centered on
cutting off Irans supply of oil or ability to sell it overseas. Kharg Island,
whence most of Irans oil was shipped, could be captured by American
forces; the main Iranian oil renery at Abadan could be bombed; the Iran-
ian militarys ghter aircraft could be destroyed from the air; or the ports at
Abadan, Bushehr, and Bandar Abbas could be mined.31 Finally, a naval
blockade of these ports could be instituted.
The decision makers clearly felt that none of the military alternatives
was satisfactory. First, none of these optionswith the exception of a suc-
cessful but highly risky rescue operationwould lead directly to the release
of the hostages. Second, the hostage takers might retaliate for such punitive
actions by killing some of the hostages.32 The seizure of Kharg Island was
rejected because it might lead to signicant casualties on both sides of the
conict and because the Iranians might well turn to the Soviet Union for
help. The mining of Iranian harbors, it was reasoned, might lead to similar
effects and would be considered an act of war, as might a simple naval
blockade. Bombing the oil reneries, conversely, was seen as a purely puni-
tive action to be taken if all else failed.33
Agent-Level and Social Constructivism 161

Of the seven options, the most appealing alternatives were negotiation


and the rescue mission, both of which had been tried successfully in the
past as a means of resolving hostage crises. The decision makers were espe-
cially interested early on in what was then a rather recent and obvious
analogy, the 1976 Israeli raid on Entebbe. In June of that year, pro-Palestin-
ian terrorists had hijacked a Paris-bound Air France jet carrying 103 Israeli
nationals and 57 others. After the plane was denied entrance into the air-
space of a number of different countries, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin gave
his permission for the plane to land at Entebbe Airport.34 The hostages were
taken off the plane and held at gunpoint in the airport terminal. While pre-
tending to negotiate in good faith, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and
his colleagues were quietly planning a daring mission to rescue the
hostages. The Palestinian hostage takers demanded the release of various
terrorists being held in Israel and elsewhere in return for the lives of the
hostages, threatening to blow up the plane and the hostages if these de-
mands were not met. On July 3, less than a week after the plane had been
hijacked, Israeli commandoes carried out a daring rescue mission to release
the hostages in what is generally considered the most successful operation
of its kind since World War II. The rescuers dramatic exploits soon inspired
no less than three Hollywood movies and a number of hastily written
books, and the events at Entebbe were well known to most Americans in
the late 1970s.
Of all Carters advisers, Brzezinski was the earliest and strongest advo-
cate of a rescue mission along similar lines. I dont remember whether I
did specically mention Entebbe, Brzezinski wrote, but I do recall feeling
that we ought to start looking at the option of a rescue mission early on.
. . . [I]n all probability, I would have either thought of or referred to the Is-
raeli rescue mission as a point of reference.35 Vance also recalled that
Brzezinski felt quite strongly that one ought to think about the Entebbe
thing, because he thought it was similar to the kind of situation that we
were facing in Iran at that time.36 According to Destler, Gelb, and Lake,
Brzezinski promoted and nurtured this venture, feeling that the costs of
inaction were greater than those of being seen as weak on the international
stage.37 A well-planned operation would have a good chance of releasing
the hostages and preserving (and perhaps even enhancing) U.S. national
honor and integrity.
Early on, however, Brown and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
David Jones, noted that the situation in Tehran differed from Entebbe in
162 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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

Naturally predisposed by his tendency to resolve crises peacefully rather


than militarily, President Carter initially seemed impressed by these analo-
gies and tried the negotiation track for ve months before resorting to the
ill-fated Iran hostage rescue mission. Carter was aware of the Ward prece-
dent by December 13, 1979, when he mentioned the case in public. On that
occasion, well over a month after the crisis had begun, Carter stated, Ive
re-read the history on it and even the private memoranda that were ex-
changed within the White House. He pointed out that Truman did ask
the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others to analyze how he might, through phys-
ical action if necessary, cause the release of our Ambassador and his staff. It
was not done, and eventually the Ambassador was released.44
Why, then, did Carter eventually resort to a rescue mission that he must
have known held a high probability of failure? Different answers have been
given to this question in the literature over time, and of course we may
never be able to fully reconstruct his motivations for going ahead. One an-
swer is the analogical or cold cognitive one suggested earlier: Carter had or-
dered planning for a rescue operation to begin at the outset of the crisis,
and by March 1980 the military felt condent that they had found ways to
overcome the many hurdles. Perhaps Carter never managed to rid himself
of the dramatic cognitive image of pulling off another Entebbe in spite of
all the differences between the two situations. Other explanations would
stress the pressures of domestic politics, since Carter had entered an elec-
tion year and was under pressure from Senator Edward Kennedy in the pri-
maries. Still other analysts, including Rose McDermott, effectively combine
these two approaches. She offers a prospect theory explanation that high-
lights Carters increased propensity to take risks when operating in a losing
environment or domain of losses, while others have explained the decision
using Irving Janiss groupthink approach.45
It is not our place to adjudicate between these rival theories here, since
my central purpose is merely to show that the logics of appropriateness and
consequences can (and should) be combined in an empirical case study
rather than be treated as competing perspectives. The point I am making
therefore does not depend on the reader being convinced by the particular
cognitive explanation (or consequentialist account) being offered. One fac-
tor that cold cognitive approaches such as analogical reasoning tend to
downplay, however, is the role of emotion (or hot cognition) in interna-
tional politics. There is a growing recognition that political behavior in
general is as much a product of the passions as it is the consequence of cold
164 psychology and constructivism in international relations

reasoning processes.46 Established cognitive accounts tend to downplay the


frustration, helplessness, and anger that Carter felt at being unable to do
anything meaningful in response to what Khomeini and his followers had
wrought, for example. Such feelings seem to have played a major role in
convincing the president, against his better instincts, that a rescue opera-
tion that had all the odds stacked against it mightjust mightsucceed.
From the start, Carters responses were heavily laden with emotion (es-
pecially sympathy for the hostages themselves). When he learned that the
U.S. embassy in Iran had been overrun by Iranian militantsand especially
when he found out that the Ayatollah Khomeini had endorsed the seizure
and the holding of American hostages rather than expelling the intrud-
ersthe U.S. presidents rst (very understandable) emotions were anger
and outrage. Moreover, he felt a close identication with the hostages
themselves that seems to have been absolutely central to his decision mak-
ing:

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

Indeed, a good deal of evidence suggests that analogical reasoning is it-


self a fundamentally hot, emotional process, at least where decision makers
are drawing on analogies that have seem deep signicance for them. Draw-
ing implicitly on an analogy itselfthe comparison between human be-
ings and computersanalogical reasoning has usually been treated primar-
ily as a cold matching process in which a past case is paired with a current
case.48 As Khong noted in his pathbreaking Analogies at War, however, ana-
logical reasoning has an affective content as well as a purely cognitive one,
and Neta Crawford has suggested some ways in which emotion might af-
fect the use of particular analogies.49 We do not simply match the charac-
teristics of a situation with a previous one in a detached way; frequently, we
pick an analogy that has some strong emotional signicance to us, as Korea
Agent-Level and Social Constructivism 165

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

1. See Shannon and Keller 2007.


2. See Reus-Smit 2001, 220.
3. Kubalkova 2001, 19.
4. Houghton 2007.
5. Wendt 1999, 3. Wendt also acknowledges the potential utility of psycho-
analysis (276).
6. Ripley 1993, 4068.
7. See, e.g., Houghton 2009, 3033.
8. See, e.g., March and Olsen 1998.
9. March and Olsen 2004, 2.
10. Finnemore and Sikkink 2001, 393.
11. Shannon 2000.
12. Shannon 2000, 300303.
13. Shannon 2000, 302.
14. See also Goldmann 2005, which suggests that the two logics are often
hard to separate in practice.
15. Larson 1985, 5057.
16. See, e.g., Khong 1992. In analogical reasoning, the decision maker maps
a base situation (some problem faced in the past) onto a target situation (the is-
sue being confronted now), inferring that properties present in the base will
also be present in the target. This type of decision-making shortcuta form of
case-based reasoningmay be usefully contrasted with rule-based reasoning,
where standard responses or SOPs have been derived from confronting a large
number of similar situations into which the current problem seems to t.
17. Doty 1993, 298. See also Weldes 1996, 1999.
18. Price 1995.
19. Price 1995, 73.
20. This account draws on Houghton 2001.
21. Brzezinski 1983, 477; Gary Sick, interview by author, New York, December
14, 1994.
22. Jimmy Carter, interview, November 29, 1982, 38, Miller Center Inter-
views, Carter Presidency Project, Jimmy Carter Library, Atlanta.
23. Jordan 1983, 15.
24. This phrase is from Rosati 1993.
25. The SCC was a foreign policy crisis-management group used by Carter to
handle problems that cut across the interests and concerns of the individual de-
partments. Its members included the secretary of state, the national security ad-
viser, the secretary of defense, the vice president, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs and the CIA director, and other members were added as and when doing
so was deemed necessary. Its meetings were chaired by Brzezinski.
26. S. Turner 1991, 31.
27. Tannenwald 1999.
28. Carter 1982, 459.
Agent-Level and Social Constructivism 169

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

what are the fundamental determinants of security and insecurity in


international affairs? International relations (IR) theorists are remarkably
divided on this basic issue. Neorealists such as Ken Waltz have argued that
threat is perceived solely as a function of material factors such as the bal-
ance of military power.1 Many liberal and constructivist theorists have
countered that ideational, nonmaterial factors also drive threat perception.
Traditionally, the IR subeld of security studies focused solely on mili-
tary force: its maintenance, threat of use, and actual use. The core assump-
tion of mainstream scholarship in the subeld was that states are con-
cerned primarily with the protection of their territory. The initial
broadening of security studies to include topics such as economic, envi-
ronmental, and energy securities shared the assumption that security is
fundamentally about state survival or at least material well-being. What
Bill McSweeney variously calls objectivist or materialist security studies
parallels what John Ruggie has labeled neo-utilitarian IR theory: Main-
stream structuralist (both neorealist and neoliberal) approaches assume
that states are self-regarding, instrumental units that respond only to pre-
given material interests.2
In contrast to these materialist, objectivist, and rationalist conceptions
of security are ideational determinants of (in)security rooted in either psy-

170
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in IR 171

chology or various forms of constructivism. The last decade has witnessed


the proliferation of new types of securities (from societal security to hu-
man security to ontological security)3 and types of security studies
(from constructivist to poststructural to critical to feminist).4
While this new scholarship has pointed the subeld in very different direc-
tions, it has largely shared a desire to combat the mainstream view of secu-
rity as mere animal survival. Security is not synonymous with survival,
Ken Booth contends, noting that one can survive without being secure.5
Most in this camp are concerned with symbolic politics. For example, Jen-
nifer Mitzen denes ontological security as security not of the body but of
the self, the subjective sense of who one is.6
While there has been much theorizing and some debate between the
materialist and symbolic security studies camps, for the most part they op-
erate in separate worlds with little interaction. Even determined attempts
at dialogue have fallen at. For example, a 2003 Review of International Stud-
ies forum that sought to bring American realism and the English school
into dialogue produced excellent papers, but they largely failed to move be-
yond well-worn critiques of the other side. Dale Copeland complained that
the English school lacks a theory and even causal argumentation.7 Richard
Little lamented American realisms reduction of classical realism to mere
power politics, noting the failure of American realism to explain the
postCold War persistence of unipolarity.8 Theoretic debate, in short, has
become largely stagnant and stale.
Rather than plunge into the theoretic quagmire, this chapter ap-
proaches the debate from the bottom up, using experimental methods to
seek a better empirical understanding of when, whether, and how material
and symbolic politics matter for security and insecurity in international re-
lations. As such, we join David Rousseau in using empirical research rather
than pure theory to advance scholarly debate in this area.9 Providing ex-
perimental evidence rather than a new grand theory, this chapter lays an
empirical foundation for the reintegration of the two currently polarized
security studies camps.
In addition to addressing the material versus symbolic politics debate,
our attention to symbolic politics addresses concepts shared by construc-
tivism and political psychology. Each of these perspectives grants primacy
to subjectivist rather than objectivist approaches to threat perception and
affords an important place to ideational variables such as those that we ex-
amine in this study. Our empirical examination of feelings of anxiety and
172 psychology and constructivism in international relations

pride speaks to identity politics, the purview of constructivism and psy-


chology. We also explore the role of reputations and framing of domains of
gain/loss, both of which are traditional domains of political psychology. By
studying the role of anxiety and pride and highlighting the emotional
states that psychological IR has deemed important determinants of deci-
sion making, we join constructivists critical of rationalist approaches to in-
ternational relations.10
One goal of this study, then, is to show the complementary nature of
ideational or symbolic variables theoretically amenable to both psychology
and constructivism. This study also demonstrates the possibility and desir-
ability of employing experimental designs to study both material and sym-
bolic variables.
We also offer an underutilized research design of cross-national experi-
mentation for the study of ideational variables. Constructivist and social
psychological concern with the cultural dimension of IR begs for cross-cul-
tural study, yet it is rarely conducted. We demonstrate its utility within a
rigorous empirical framework, permitting scholars to see just how much
culture matters in affecting perceptions and behavior in the realm of inter-
national politics. We begin with study design and then turn to the results
and a discussion of their implications for material and ideational IR theory
alike.

method and design

This project employs both experimental (random assignment) and quasi-


experimental (natural groups) variables and between- and within-subject
designs. Our two (domain) by two (frame) by two (level) by two (nation) fac-
torial design is complex, with sixteen conditions (gure 1). It thus requires
a large sample size. But this complexity allows for the analysis of four key
issues (domain, frame, level, and nation) underlying the security studies de-
bate regarding the fundamental determinants of (in)security in interna-
tional affairs.
Rose McDermott has argued that experiments offer a unique opportu-
nity to make a clear causal argument . . . which is why [experiments have]
been differentially adopted by the hard sciences, psychology, and behav-
ioral economics as the gold standard method of choice.11 We concur and
believe that experiments should be more widely adopted in a political sci-
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in IR 173

NATION,ac
U.S. China
FRAME,a
Loss Gain

Symbolic Material
mat. mat. mat. mat.

DOMAIN a
Individual
loss gain loss gain

symb. symb. symb. symb.


loss gain loss gain
LEVEL b
International

mat. mat. mat. mat.


loss gain loss gain

symb. symb. symb. symb.


loss gain loss gain

Fig. 1. A 2 (domain) by 2 (frame) by 2 (level) by 2 (nation) 16 condition research


design. (Notes: a = between subjects variable; b = within subjects variable; c =
natural group, quasi-experimental variable.)

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.

Domain and Frame: Material and Symbolic Gains and Losses

The core of our design is an experimental two by two involving domain


(material/symbolic) and frame (gains/losses). This portion of the design is a
pure between-subjects experiment, with student participants randomly as-
signed to one of four conditions: (1) material gain, (2) material loss, (3)
symbolic gain, and (4) symbolic loss.
The polarized debate in security studies can be captured with a pair of
diametrically opposing hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1a. Materialist: Security and insecurity are a matter of


physical well-being.
174 psychology and constructivism in international relations

Hypothesis 1b. Symbolic: Security and insecurity are dependent on


feelings of belonging.

Each position relies on a different set of assumptions about human needs.


To integrate the two into a common framework, we utilize Abraham
Maslows hierarchy of needs. Maslow proposed a ve-level pyramid of
needs: (1) physiological; (2) safety; (3) love/belonging; (4) esteem; (5) self-
actualization (which will not be considered).12 Maslows core point was
that higher needs are addressed only when the lower needs in the pyramid
are satised. This aligns with the priority materialist scholars place on
physiological and safety needs, Maslows rst two levels. However, Maslow
also argued that as an individual moved up the pyramid, needs at lower lev-
els were no longer prioritized. This idea aligns with the symbolic camps
emphasis on belonging and esteem needs, Maslows third and fourth levels.
Without endorsing the questionable empirical validity of Maslows hierar-
chy of needs, we nd it a useful framework for operationalizing the materi-
alist versus symbolic security studies divide.
To capture domain (material/symbolic), we created two scenarios for
each of Maslows rst four levels. The physiological level was operationalized
with scenarios addressing shelter (Your house was completely destroyed
by a ood. Winter is approaching . . .) and food (You live with your fam-
ily in the countryside and live off of the vegetables that you grow on the
family farm . . .). The safety level addressed economic (You are consider-
ing investing all of your familys savings in a stock . . .) and physical (You
are walking through the downtown section of a major city and are con-
fronted by a large man with a knife . . .) security. Together, these four items
composed the material condition.
Maslows love/belonging level was operationalized with scenarios focus-
ing on 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 . . .) and belonging (Its the end of your
senior year in college, and you decide to throw a party to celebrate with
your friends . . .). The esteem level was operationalized with scenarios
about prestige (During your senior year at high school, you decide to ap-
ply to a very well-regarded university . . .) and reputation (During your
second year at university, you decide to pledge a popular social club . . .).
Together, these four items composed the symbolic condition.13
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in IR 175

The second dimension of the core experimental two by two is frame: Is


the scenario framed as one of gains or losses? Prospect theory is likely the
most widely applied psychological theory in the political psychology of in-
ternational relations.14 The issue of framing has thus been widely studied
in IR, and we hope that our experiments will contribute to this literature.
However, our core interest is not in prospect theorys focus on the asym-
metry of gains and lossesthat is, how losses hurt more than comparable
gains feel good. Instead, we are primarily interested in potential interac-
tions between frame and domain. Assuming that gains promote security and
losses promote insecurity, we instead ask whether symbolic and material
gains generate comparable amounts of security. Similarly, do material or
symbolic losses generate more insecurity? Given its exploratory nature, our
hypothesis is not directional:

Hypothesis 2. Material and symbolic gains and losses will produce


differing levels of (in)security.

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.

Level: Individual and International Securities

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

Hypothesis 3. The dynamics of security and insecurity are the same at


the individual and international levels.

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.

Nation: China and the United States

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

Hypothesis 4. The Chinese are more sensitive to symbolic gains and


losses than are Americans, and Americans are more sensitive to material
gains and losses than are Chinese.

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.

Dependent Measures: Anxiety and Pride

Each of the eight scenarios was followed by a battery of emotional re-


sponse items. Each was on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) Lik-
ert scale. At its most fundamental level, security means the absence of
concern or anxiety. We therefore constructed an anxiety score by averag-
ing the self-reported responses to the I feel worried and I feel afraid
items. This focus on the specic negative emotion of anxiety has the ad-
ditional benet of joining a growing literature in the study of the Ameri-
can politics that seeks to distinguish between the negative emotions of
anxiety and anger.18
Davis Bobrow has perceptively noted that threat centered work pro-
vides rich ground for security dilemma spirals of action and reaction, mea-
sure and countermeasure.19 He thus urges that the study of threats be bal-
anced with the study of opportunities. To balance our negative anxiety
measure with a more positive one, we decided to supplement it with a sin-
gle-item positive measure, I feel proud. Pride and honor, furthermore,
have been the subject of increasing theoretic and empirical attention in the
international relations literature.20
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in IR 179

Participants and Method

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

We will not attempt the dizzying task of analyzing a four-way interaction.


Instead, we begin with the U.S. data and a series of two-way domain-by-
180 psychology and constructivism in international relations

frame analyses of variance (ANOVAs), examining in sequence individual-


and international-level anxiety and then repeating the analysis with pride.
We then bring in the Chinese data to explore three-way domain by frame by
nation ANOVAs, again examining in sequence individual- and interna-
tional-level anxiety and repeating the analysis with pride. The individual-
and international-level scenarios are always treated separately because they
are a within- rather than between-subjects factor.

Anxiety and Pride as a Function of Level, Domain, and Frame

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

Individual level scenarios International level scenarios


5 7

Domain
6 material
symbolic
4
Anxiety levels

4
3

2 2
| | | |
gain loss gain loss
Frame Frame

Fig. 2. Individual and International level anxiety as a function of material/sym-


bolic and gain/loss among U.S. participants

TABLE 1. Means and Standard Deviations of Anxiety


Levels by Level, Domain, and Frame

Level Domain Frame Mean SD

Individual material gain 3.71 .14


loss 6.17 .14
symbolic gain 2.99 .13
loss 4.39 .13
International material gain 2.89 .15
loss 4.77 .16
symbolic gain 2.36 .14
loss 2.43 .15

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

SD = .13). Material/symbolic, F (1,221) = 15.44, p < .001, had a smaller but


still moderate effect size (hp2 = .07), with symbolic scenarios (M = 3.83, SD =
.12) generating signicantly more pride in American accomplishments
than did material scenarios (M = 3.12, SD = .13).
The individual- and international-level data on pride are thus strikingly
similar. At both levels, Americans reported greater pride in the symbolic
than the material scenarios and at comparable absolute levels.

Anxiety and Pride as a Function of Level, Domain, Frame, and Nation

Do these ndings travel across nations? To nd out, we added the Chinese


data to our database and ran a series of three-way ANOVAs. The rst, with
individual-level anxiety as our dependent measure, revealed the main ef-
fects of gain/loss and material/symbolic but not of nation. Losses (M =
5.173, SD = .075) again produced more anxiety than did gains (M = 3.35, SD
= .07), F (1,495) = 302.68, p < .001. And material scenarios (M = 4.84, SD =
.07) produced more anxiety than symbolic ones (M = 3.68, SD = .074), F
(1,495) = 121.88, p < .001. The effect size of gain/loss (hp2 = .38) was about
twice that of material/symbolic (hp2 = .20). The p value for nation (p = .49)
was not even close to statistical signicance, however. None of the two-
way interactions was statistically signicant. The three-way interaction of
nation, domain, and frame was statistically signicant, F (1,495) = 12.66, p
< .001, but not in any obviously meaningful way, and the effect size, hp2 =
.03, was on the small side. The mean overall levels of anxiety were also
very close for the United States (M = 4.27, SD = 1.54) and China (M = 4.18,
SD = 1.64), suggesting that no method effect impacted the results. In terms
of individual-level scenarios, in short, the evidence is overwhelming that
Chinese and American respondents self-reports of anxiety did not differ
signicantly.
When we ran a second three-way ANOVA on international anxiety,
however, moderate national differences did emerge. Overall, Chinese par-
ticipants (M = 3.54, SD = 1.63) reported higher levels of anxiety after read-
ing the international scenarios than the American students (M = 3.03, SD =
1.45) did. There were main effects of gain/loss, material/symbolic, and na-
tion (all ps < .001), with effect sizes of hp2 = .18, .15, and .03, respectively. All
the interactions were signicant as well, although the effect sizes were
small. The means and standard deviations are displayed in table 2. The
three way domain-by-frame-by-nation interaction was signicant, F (1,492) =
184 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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

United States China


7 5

Domain
International anxiety levels

6 material
symbolic
4
5

4
3

2
2
| | | |
gain loss gain loss
Frame Frame

Fig. 3. International anxiety as a function of nation, domain, and frame

TABLE 2. Means and Standard Deviations of


International Anxiety Levels by Nation, Domain,
and Frame
Nation Domain Frame Mean SD

United States material gain 2.89 .18


loss 4.77 .19
symbolic gain 2.36 .17
loss 2.43 .17
China material gain 3.19 .15
loss 4.70 .16
symbolic gain 2.54 .15
loss 3.87 .16
Determinants of Security and Insecurity in IR 185

Nation
5.00
U.S.

Levels of international pride


China

4.00

3.00

2.00

| |
gain loss
Frame

Fig. 4. International pride as a function of nation and 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

curity in international relations? Specically, are the Chinese more sensitive


to symbolic gains and losses than are Americans, and are Americans more
sensitive to material gains and losses than are the Chinese? Our evidence is
mixed but revealing. At the individual level, American and Chinese students
were virtually indistinguishable when it came to their self-reports of anxiety
and pride in response to symbolic and material gain and loss scenarios. This
suggests that scholars should be wary of Orientalist and Occidentalist no-
tions of deep cultural differences rooted in individual personality.
National differences did emerge, however, when we shifted from indi-
vidual to international scenarios. As gure 3 reveals, Americans reported
much lower levels of anxiety in response to national symbolic losses than
did the Chinese. And as gure 4 shows, Chinese were more than twice as
sensitive to gain/loss as Americans were with regard to national pride.
Two broad questions arise from these striking international ndings,
each with related subsidiary questions. First, were the Chinese levels high,
or were the American levels low? Are our experimental results evidence of
a Chinese oversensitivity to the plight of their nation, an excessive concern
with Chinas international face? Or are they evidence that Americans can
more easily disassociate themselves from the fate of their nation or can kid
themselves into believing that they dont care? Further experimental work
is needed to clarify these issues.
Second, what causes these differences? Are they a product of the dis-
tinction between individualist and collectivist cultures, such that the Chi-
nese have more of their psychological well-being invested in the good of
their national group? Or are they the product of the current balance of ma-
terial power, such that Americans have less to be anxious about or take
pride in at the international level, condent in U.S. global preeminence?
The Chinese, by contrast, may be anxious simply because they are con-
fronting the reality of an American hegemon that wavers in its view of
Chinas rise.

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

est motivation for human contact in general and international relations


in particular is not survival but self-knowledge.24
While these offensive realist and critical constructivist positions may
appear irreconcilable, we have demonstrated that each tells a vital part of
the story. Our experiment clearly demonstrates that the juxtaposition of
material and symbolic determinants of security and insecurity is a false di-
chotomy. By beginning to reveal when the material politics analysts are
right and when the symbolic politics scholars are correct, we hope to begin
a process of dialogue and perhaps even reintegration between these two po-
larized camps. There is simply too much at stake for security studies schol-
ars to continue talking past one another.
Theoretically, we also have demonstrated one way that constructivists
and political psychologists can be ideational allies. Both advocate attention
to the identities of national actors in world politics. And both oppose the
narrow rationalism of much mainstream structuralist IR, whether of the
neorealist or neoliberal variety. But as this experiment has shown, atten-
tion to symbolic politics does not necessitate the complete dismissal of ma-
terial politics. Indeed, experimental methods provide one way that con-
structivists and political psychologists can work together to overcome
traditional subdisciplinary divides.

Appendix A: Individual Level Scenarios


Note: gain/loss portions are underlined.

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.

3. Economic security. You are considering investing all of your familys


savings in a stock. You choose not to consider other investments
meaning that if you do not invest in this particular stock, your savings
will remain unchanged. You decide to invest in the stock for a year and
you double your money, enabling your family to live comfortably / lose
all of it and your family faces extreme financial difficulties for the fore-
seeable future.

4. Physical security. You are walking through the downtown section of a


major city and are confronted by a large man with a knife. You quickly
dial 911 on your cell phone, and a SWAT team shows up and captures
him. It turns out that you have helped the police to apprehend a vio-
lent fugitive who had been on the run since escaping prison a week ear-
lier / but he stabs you and you are paralyzed from the waist down.


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.

4. Face/reputation. During your second year at university, you decide to


pledge a popular fraternity/sorority, and you are pleasantly surprised to
find out that they had heard of you, liked you, and invited you to join
/ are shocked to discover that they had heard about you, did not like
you, and turned down your application.

Appendix B: International Level Scenarios


Note: gain/loss portions are underlined.

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.

2. Energy. A U.S./Chinese oil company has just purchased monopoly


rights to drill in the two largest oil fields 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

//

/

3. Economics. According to BBC, a group of prominent economists pre-


dicts that over the next ten years, the U.S. economy will continue to
grow while Chinas / Chinas economy will continue to grow while the
U.S. economy will slow down. Economists predict a dramatic
increase/decrease in U.S. economic security over the next ten years.

/
/
/

4. Military. The Pentagon announced that it has successfully developed a


new generation of Patriot missiles that will be able to intercept Chinas
newest. / PLA successfully tested its Dongfeng long-range interconti-
nental ballistic missile, which has a range capable of delivering nuclear
warheads to the East Coast of the U.S.

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

young Koreans are increasingly drawn to American/Chinese values and


love American/Chinese popular culture.

//
//

2. Belonging. According to Internet World Stats, the percentage of people


worldwide using English/Chinese on the Internet is increasing, while
the percentage using Chinese/English is declining. Many young people
increasingly feel that they are part of an ever expanding English/
Chinese speaking global community.

/
/
/

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/
//

4. Face/reputation. A UN spokesman has just announced that U.S. presi-


dent Bush and not Chinese president Hu Jintao / Chinese president Hu
Jintao and not U.S. president Bush will be the featured speaker at the
next UN General Assembly session. The decision was the result of an
overwhelming vote in the U.N. General Assembly last week.

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

5. Booth 2005, 22.


6. Mitzen 2006, 344.
7. Copeland 2003.
8. Little 2003.
9. Rousseau 2006.
10. Crawford 2000; McDermott 2004.
11. McDermott 2006, 356.
12. Maslow 1943, 1954.
13. We designed the scenarios to differ solely in their material or symbolic
character. We have attempted, for example, to equalize the magnitude or
weightiness of the scenarios.
14. E.g. Boettcher 2004; Jervis 2004; Levy 1997; McDermott 1998; Mercer
2005; ONeill 2001.
15. Wendt 1999, 215; Wendt 2004.
16. For an overview, see Nisbett 2003.
17. Goffman 1959; Ho 1976; Hu 1944.
18. Huddy, Feldman, and Casses 2007.
19. Bobrow 2001, 4.
20. Hymans 2006; Lebow 2006; ONeill 1999.
21. There was a translation error with one of the international symbolic
items, which was dropped.
22. Partial eta-square (hp2) provides a global index of the size of observed dif-
ferences in means. Small and medium effects are represented by values around
.01 and .06, respectively. Large effects are represented by values around .14 or
greater.
23. Mearsheimer 2001, 3.
24. Inayatullah and Blaney 1996, 81.
part iii

reflection, synthesis,
and assessment
chapter 8
Psychology and Constructivism:
Uneasy Bedfellows?
rose m c dermott and anthony lopez

integrating the individual insights of psychology with the socio-


logical perspectives of constructivism constitutes a laudable goal. Indeed, the
chapters in this volume go a far distance toward establishing the theoretical
and empirical basis for such a synthesis. Combining the microfoundational
aspects of individual psychology within a larger social, institutional, and po-
litical context offers an opportunity to explore the reciprocal and mutually
determinative relationships between people and their environments.
In providing a critical response to these chapters, several implicit as-
pects of the dominant arguments appear hidden in plain sight. First, one of
the unexamined yet problematic assumptions that undergirds much of the
discussion in this volume revolves around the suggested causal impact of
ideas on behavior. While constructivists often assert this link as self-evi-
dent, most psychologists more fully appreciate the frequent disconnect be-
tween these phenomena. Second, the assimilations presented here, while
not inaccurate, represent an unrealistically narrow theoretical conception
of identity in psychology while simultaneously eliding a profound onto-
logical difference between psychology and constructivist notions of hu-
man behavior. This means not that efforts to create a cohesive model re-
main quixotic in nature but rather that attempts to devise a unied theory
may require a broader conception of psychology than that found exclu-
sively or primarily in social identity theory. Moreover, incorporating other
psychological approaches allows for a clearer explanation of the origins of
preferences, a puzzle that currently limits both rationalist and construc-
tivist applications to international relations. Such a wider enterprise en-

197
198 psychology and constructivism in international relations

courages a paradigm built on a more extensive empirical and theoretical


foundation.
The rst part of this chapter briey addresses the empirical concerns
about the link between ideas and behavior. The second section describes an
alternative notion of identity development, drawn from a different area of
psychology, that illustrates another way in which individual identity can
interact with the social and political world without necessitating the in-
group favoritism and out-group denigration that remain part and parcel of
social identity models. The third section outlines the way in which con-
structivist and material models, such as rationalism, share a basic behav-
iorist conception of the human mind that, while shared in some areas of
psychology, appears outmoded. Replacing such models with an adapta-
tionist perspective, briey outlined in the nal section, highlights the pos-
sibility of locating a source for individual differences in preferences.

do ideas lead to behavior?

Most constructivist models trace variations in state behavior to the


ideational features of actors, including their identities. Changes in such
values are assumed to lead to changes in behavioral outcomes. While this
may happen at times, no guarantee exists that such changes occur within
individuals. To the extent that a unied model seeks an accurate empirical
psychology of attitude change and behavior, such assumptions remain
largely unwarranted.
It is a well-known nding in psychology that ideas such as attitudes do
not always predict relevant behavior.1 For example, it is possible to change
someones reported attitudes without affecting their subsequent behavior
in a manner consistent with that change.2 This results at least in part from
the likelihood that many factors other than ideas can inuence behavior in
a decisive manner, including conicting attitudes about related phenom-
ena, emotions that run contrary to established attitudes, environmental
forces such as physical coercion, and individual variance in the tendency to
have attitudes drive behavior.3
Moreover, social psychologists have long recognized that individuals
can be inuenced in their decisions and behavior by factors outside their
consciousness.4 More recent research using functional imaging technology
and implicit association tests similarly demonstrates how ideas can
Psychology and Constructivism 199

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

crofoundational mechanisms by which ideas may come to drive behavior.


If others do not react as expected, individuals are prompted to reevaluate
their beliefs, their behavior, and the linkage between the two.13 In an addi-
tional relevant nding from this perspective, the potential for behavior
change increases when relevant values associated with change become
salient.14 In other words, if a person values a particular outcome and wants
to help bring it about, behavior consistent with those values becomes more
likely. This appears to be particularly true when such values are central to
peoples self-conceptions.15
In another important nding from psychology, Millar and Tesser note
that the kind of behavior being contemplated inuences whether emotion
or thought will primarily guide action.16 Specically, behavior that is in-
trinsically rewarding (consummatory behavior such as eating, drinking,
and sex) is motivated by emotion, while instrumental behavior (actions
taken with strategic goals in mind) relies primarily on cognition. Thus, to
properly inuence behavior, attitude change would need to take place
within the proper domain, depending on whether the intended behavior
had emotional or instrumental purpose.
Thus, while it is not impossible for behavior to follow from ideas and
attitudes, such a direct effect is not inevitable. Rather, for a unied theory
merging psychological and constructivist perspectives to nd traction, it
must specify the conditions under which such congruency appears most
likely to occur. In addition, for such a comprehensive model to emerge, it
must rest on a broader conception of identity.

identity theory

Most approaches in political science that seek to integrate constructivist


and psychological notions (including the contributions of Larson and
Anstee in this volume) lean primarily on social identity theory as the most
appropriate and accessible basis for such reconciliation. However, a recent
and convincing series of experiments by a Japanese psychologist, Yama -
gishi, has begun to call into question the foundations for the minimal
group paradigm, the basis on which most experimental demonstrations of
social identity theory rest.17 In these experiments, Yamagishi and col-
leagues have demonstrated that in-group favoritism appears even where
the outcome results from unilateral control, suggesting additional devia-
tion from the expectations of rational-choice models. As with fairness, the
Psychology and Constructivism 201

norm toward in-group favoritism occurs even in the absence of external


constraints enforcing its compliance. Most social identity experiments take
place under a condition of mutual control of fate. More signicantly, sub-
jects allocated more reward to in-group members not to increase the ad-
vance of in-group members relative to out-group members or as a result of
their identication with the group at large but rather as a result of personal
liking and loyalty to particular in-group members.
Given that these experiments were conducted within a particular cul-
tural context, the extent to which the ndings might generalize to a wider
population remains unclear. However, these ndings do call into question
the extent to which social identity theory provides the most accurate
model on which to rest notions of identity development and manifestation
in seeking a microfoundational basis for an ideational model of interna-
tional politics. As a result, a brief description follows of broader psycholog-
ical models of identity and identity development, drawn from older areas
of psychological research. This discussion does not suggest that there is one
best alternative to social identity theory; rather it calls attention to the
multiplicity of theoretical models for conceptualizing identity outside of
social identity theory.
These models may be worth exploring for their utility in developing a
more comprehensive or accurate basis for integrating psychological and
constructivist models for state behavior. These theories rest on studies of
individual behavior, and the extent to which these behaviors and models
might map into broader aspects of international behavior and state iden-
tity remains unclear, except to the extent that people might espouse na-
tionalist identities that remain critical to their self-denition. Construc-
tivists may have a hard time admitting that psychological processes form
the foundation of individual identity; however, it is hard to imagine how
individuals come to learn from and assimilate their environment absent an
evolved psychology that allows them to process information from the en-
vironment from the outset. No alternative model of identity formation ab-
sent learning appears to exist.
The trouble appears to lie in anthropomorphizing the collective to sug-
gest that individual-level identity formation and consciousness can be scaled
up to form the foundation of collective identity without additional interac-
tive processes, yet this apparent conundrum fails to appreciate the inherent
process by which evolution works, building organized larger structures
through the uncoordinated interaction of millions of lower-level units. In-
deed, to the extent that human architecture represents nations as simply
202 psychology and constructivism in international relations

larger groups, aspects of group identity, including ethnic identity, might


transfer more easily than we might otherwise expect, inducing similar con-
sequences, including in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination.
For this purpose, it may prove useful to take a brief digression into the
history of identity research in psychology. In many ways, Erik Erikson is
the father of identity theory in its broader conceptualization and history.
As the rst and in many ways most prominent of the neo-Freudians, Erik-
son introduced the social element into models of identity development.
Unlike Freud, Erikson neither restricted his studies to manifestations of sex
and aggression nor limited his age of investigation to prepubescent activ-
ity. Erikson provides a fundamentally social denition and function of
identity from the outset. As a result, Erikson developed a life-span model of
social development that encompasses eight distinct stages.18 Each stage is
characterized by a central crisis in identity development that if not fully or
properly resolved will hinder an individuals further successful growth and
development. For example, the central crisis for a young adult revolves
around intimacy versus isolation. Individuals who fail to develop the ca-
pacity for complete emotional, moral, and sexual commitments to others
will end up pursuing freedom at the expense of human connection. Erik-
sons model offered an important starting point for further developments
in the denition and measurement of identity. Various subsequent at-
tempts to measure social identity have provided different empirical opera-
tionalizations of their constructs.
Yet as Schwartz writes in his comprehensive and careful review of Erik-
sonian identity theory and research,19 many measures of identity have
been developed using different criteria and assumptions about the process
and structure of identity. This has led to a great deal of difculty in obtain-
ing acceptable levels of convergent validity across measures in particular.
Such difculties in measurement obviously can compromise the quality of
theoretical denition and development.

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

ies in this tradition, Marcia manipulated self-esteem in seventy-two males


and found that those who were low in ego identity demonstrated a greater
change in the manipulated direction than those subjects who were high in
ego identity. Self-esteem provides a foundational basis for much of the mo-
tivation underlying in-group bias in social identity theory; this concept
provides an important theoretical link between individual and group be-
havior as discussed by both Larson (chap. 2) and Gries, Peng, and Crowson
(chap. 7).
Berzonsky created an identity style model designed to focus on the
process of identity development.21 Separating individuals according to how
they solve problems and make decisions, Berzonsky discussed three distinct
identity styles, which he called informational, normative, and diffuse-
avoidant.
Harold Grotevant worked on empirical extensions to Marcias work, in-
cluding the use of a Q-sort methodology to assess identity status in indi-
viduals.22 In particular, Grotevant sought to extend Marcias work into in-
terpersonal realms.23 Grotevants work remains largely consistent with
Eriksonian notions of identity formation in its developmental and life-
span approach.24 However, Grotevant departs from Eriksonian theory in
his emphasis on the adolescent process of identity exploration as the main
means by which people formulate their identities. His identity framework
incorporates four distinct elements: (1) individual characteristics, such as
cognitive ability; (2) context of development, which can include family is-
sues; (3) the identity process in specic domains, such as occupational or
relational; and (4) the level of interdependence among these different iden-
tity domains. He argues that identity exploration remained a function of
individual abilities and orientations. These characteristics could be affected
by ve additional factors: information seeking, satisfaction, willingness to
explore, expectations, and competing forces.
Kerpelman, Pittman, and Lamke extended Grotevants model of iden-
tity exploration into identity control theory, a revision that Grotevant ac-
cepted.25 This modication sought to examine the microprocesses that
spurred and supported identity exploration. This model emphasized the
ways in which identity exploration becomes mutually caused and rein-
forced by interaction with and feedback from signicant others, and it used
language quite reminiscent of constructivist discourse.
Waterman noticed that individuals responding to identity surveys
tended to differ between those who derived great personal meaning from
204 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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

Drawing on too narrow a conception of psychology represents one side of


the coin in critiquing attempts to integrate psychological and construc-
tivist models into an integrated ideational theory of international rela-
tions. The other side involves the divergent ontological foundations of
each model, which may prove more difcult to reconcile than ignore. Con-
structivism shares certain implicit tendencies with early behaviorist mod-
els; however, to the extent that observers invoke more modern cognitive or
evolutionary psychological models (i.e., those that offer the most leverage
on locating endogenous sources of preferences), shifts away from such be-
haviorist, universal, simple, cause-effect reactions become necessary.
Constructivism can be viewed as a modern-day political variant on the
psychological theme of behaviorism because it places the burden of human
information processing and behavior on the blank-slate model of cogni-
tion offered by the standard social science model (SSSM). Consequently,
constructivism, like behaviorism, is forced to explain behavior and identity
primarily as a function and consequence of stimuli presented by the envi-
ronment as well as by relying on processes of conditioned learning. Con-
structivists complicate the processes by adding a feedback mechanism em-
bedded within social interaction that renders, according to constructivists,
behavior and identities mutually constitutive.31 However, the complexity
that constructivists have added to the behaviorist model (i.e., by rendering
identities and interests endogenous) does not alter in any substantive way
the two basic pillars of similarity between constructivism and behaviorism:
206 psychology and constructivism in international relations

(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

and development of identity and interest is possible is social reinforce-


ment. Constructivists would contradict themselves if they admitted to any-
thing other than a general-purpose reinforcement mechanism as constitut-
ing the individual mind (innately, that is). Otherwise, alter and ego would
begin their interaction with implicit expectations and emotions toward
one another, not as a blank slate on which any possible pattern of interac-
tion may be written based on experience alone. Obviously, there must be
some way to distinguish between reward and punishment, but even the
most radical behaviorist would not deny this, and neither should construc-
tivists.
Constructivism is hardly a unitary paradigm. The reference here per-
tains to a mainstream variant of constructivism that Adler has referred to as
mediative and Palan has called subjectivist.32 Clearly, not all construc-
tivist approaches are vulnerable to the claims leveled against the subjec-
tivist variant. Instead, this variant of subjectivist constructivism, in con-
junction with rationalist models, illustrates the ways in which the SSSM is
manifest in models of political behavior.
In his explanation of constructivism in international relations, Adler
notes that constructivism supports the view that the material world does
not come classied, and that, therefore, the objects of our knowledge are
not independent of our interpretations and our language.33 Yet construc-
tivism has not directly investigated how the process of interpretation is en-
abled by human psychology and has had difculty explaining how indi-
viduals choose among the institutions and norms that guide behavior
beyond appealing to a practical rationality that incorporates appropri-
ateness instead of or in addition to classical rationality. Again, this is be-
cause constructivists relying on the SSSM have seen the relevant question
as how social processes determine mental organization. This query con-
trasts with the basic motivating question in psychology: What equipment
does the human brain possess that enables socialization, interpretation,
and learning, and how does this equipment structure these processes? This
question cannot be answered or asked under the SSSM, which views hu-
man psychology as fundamentally generalist in structure. Indeed, the ques-
tion does not even make sense.
Behaviorists are committed to the notion of equipotentiality, which as-
serts that any environmental stimulus can be paired with any individual
behavior to produce a desired outcome. In this view, any behavior (for the
constructivist, identity) can be shaped as easily as any other behavior
208 psychology and constructivism in international relations

merely by manipulating the contingencies of reinforcement. For example,


in an unbiased world, given a community of young blank-slate children, it
should be possible, given the correct socialization, to rear an entire genera-
tion of altruists who care exclusively for the welfare of others.34 A con-
structivist should easily accept the equipotentiality assumption: Where
there is no identity and interest prior to social interaction, it should follow
that any constellation of identities and interests is possible. Constructivism
most certainly does not contain any explicit rejection of or inconsistency
with the equipotentiality assumption, which depends onindeed, logi-
cally requiresa view of the mind as a general-purpose mechanism re-
sponsive to a variety of external stimuli, social or otherwise.
Nevertheless, a constructivist would argue that it is the potential to
change as well as respond to social incentives that sets constructivism apart
from behaviorism. When constructivists view society they see more than
just mice in a mazeand rightly so.
Thus enters the second challenge to a comparison of constructivism
and behaviorism. This one rests on Wendts notion of the personal deter-
mination of choice, which provides an avenue by which actors can
change their identity. This represents a potentially even more serious vio-
lation of behaviorism. The irony is that Wendt relies on somewhat of a ra-
tionalist criterion as to why and how actors might engage in character
planning. According to Wendt, this is possible when the expected costs
of intentional role change [are not] greater than its rewards.35
Wendt may assert that social constructivism offers a model not only of
reinforcement but also of voluntaristic change, but his discussion of the
personal determination of choice is really the only mechanism provided
for this purpose. Otherwise, the heavy inertia of mutually constituted in-
stitutions must prevail via strong reinforcement to perpetuate behavior
consistent with that institution. The only way out of this cycle of rein-
forcement is through the personal determination of choice, which is es-
sentially a rational cost-benet appraisal. This is a nonstarter at best and is
contradictory at worst.
Wendt offers process, interaction, and reinforcement as the key instru-
ments that, through intersubjectively constituted meanings, affect inter-
ests and thus behavior. Wendt is quite clear:

The mechanism here is reinforcement: interaction rewards actors for holding


certain ideas about each other and discourages them from holding others. If
Psychology and Constructivism 209

repeated long enough, these reciprocal typications will create relatively


stable concepts of self and other regarding the issue at stake in the interac-
tion.36

A discussion of behaviorism from a modern textbook differs substantially:

According to [operant conditioning,] the reinforcing consequences of be-


havior were the critical causes of subsequent behavior. Behavior followed by
reinforcement would be repeated in the future. Behavior not followed by re-
inforcement (or followed by punishment) would not be repeated in the fu-
ture. All behavior, except random behavior, could be explained by the con-
tingencies of reinforcement.37

Regardless of whether behavior comes from environmental stimuli of


an experimenters choosing or from socially constructed environmental
stimuli, we nd, ironically, that the point about actors being able to change
their interests lacks the critical dimension of motivated agency. If we accept
the criteria that the decision to engage in character planning is made only
when its benets exceed its costs, the currency here is still reinforcement
via punishment and reward. Wendt illustrates this point:

By themselves such practices cannot transform a competitive security sys-


tem, since if they are not reciprocated by alter, they will expose ego to a
sucker payoff and quickly wither on the vine. In order for critical strategic
practice to transform competitive identities, it must be rewarded by alter, which
will encourage more such practice by ego, and so on. Over time, this will
. . . provide a rm intersubjective basis for what were initially tentative com-
mitments to new identities and interests.38

Given a blank-slate mind that is responsive to social reinforcement,


constructivists have often asserted learning as an explanation for
changes in patterns of behavior. However, such an undertheorized and un-
derspecied process can hardly serve as an explanation for behavior. In the
constructivist model, learning serves as the conduit by which shared mean-
ings are internalized and reproduced through behavior. Learning is ex-
plained not by virtue of cognitive processes but by repetition and rein-
forcement in social practice. Constructivists make this assertion by relying
on a reinstantiation of operant conditioning processes that require the
210 psychology and constructivism in international relations

equipotential general-purpose model of cognition. This model, however,


has not been without its empirical difculties.
In 1938, B. F. Skinner published his seminal The Behavior of Organisms,
in which he outlined the behaviorist model. However, after several decades
of research, behaviorists began to discover that any species capable of com-
plex behavior comes endowed with a psychology that predisposes it to
learning certain processes more quickly and easily than others. Two of
Skinners students could ignore the inconsistencies no longer, and in their
highly inuential article, The Misbehavior of Organisms, cataloged a few ex-
amples of species systematically violating the general rules of reinforce-
ment in favor of what appeared to be biologically instantiated preferences
that were difcult if not impossible to overcome.39 In the most famous ex-
ample, Harry Harlow recognized that infant monkeys, despite the best ef-
forts to condition them to the contrary, could not be trained to prefer a
wire doll that fed them instead of a doll covered in terry cloth (to simulate
fur) that did not feed them.40 John Garcia discovered that rats could easily
learn to pair red light to shock and a particular taste to nausea, but these
same rats could not learn to pair red light to nausea and taste to shock.41
The connection of taste to nausea clearly had a survival advantage that
could not be overridden through behaviorist training principles.
As is evident in these studies, every species capable of complex behavior
possesses a psychology whose purpose is the adaptive processing of informa-
tion in that organisms environment. A direct consequence of the processes
by which natural selection builds the psychologies of organisms is that those
organisms are endowed with learning mechanisms that privilege certain
forms of learning over others. Our psychological architecture is designed to
expect certain environmental features that have been evolutionarily recur-
rent and reproductively important; as a consequence, we come into the
world bearing privileged hypotheses that guide thought, behavior, and
emotion. In other words, learning is not a blank-slate process; it is the re-
sult of an evolved psychology that is designed to expect adaptively relevant
regularities in its environment and to exploit them when making decisions
based on the privileged hypotheses of the mind. While learning certainly
represents a critical element of human decision making, as a catchall for ex-
planations of preference updating, it remains theoretically underspecied.42
Problematically, constructivism cannot specify it further because to do so
would require exploring the black box of human psychology, which, ironi-
cally, constructivism is ill suited to accomplish.
Psychology and Constructivism 211

Not all constructivists are naive behaviorists. Indeed, neorealists share


many concepts with classical realists, though they differ in important ways.
Yet conceptual similarity suggests that one is a reinvention of the other. By
conserving the basic causal mechanism of behaviorism and embedding it
within a reciprocal feedback system of intersubjectivity, constructivists
have simply reproduced a new variant of the standard social science model
of behavior.
Although constructivists pay much lip service to voluntaristic change,
the only mechanism they provide for achieving it is inadequate for the
task. Mutually constitutive behavior and shared meanings are a description
of social phenomenology, not an explanation of causality. The causal
mechanism asserted by constructivists is embedded within social interac-
tion and process, and this process is fundamentally dependent on and re-
quires the blank-slate, general-purpose model of the mind that behaviorists
posit as ready to respond to social reinforcement.
In this way, constructivism implicitly adheres to the SSSM of human be-
havior. The SSSM posits that whatever innate psychological properties hu-
mans possess are few in number and are basically limited to general learning
principles. This idea enabled behaviorists to argue that humans act according
to operant conditioning by virtue of a general ability to learn by the conse-
quences of reinforcement. The SSSM requires and behaviorists argue that
there were no predetermined associations in the human brain; instead, all
cognitive or emotional associations were the product of simple and few rein-
forcement processes. Similarly, most variants of subjectivist constructivism
rely on a domain-general model of learning to instigate and motivate emer-
gent and signicant state properties such as identity and interests.

an adaptationist alternative

One of the implicit assumptions inherent in the contrast between con-


structivist and psychological approaches to identity regards the working
denition of human nature. Constructivists, like behaviorists, tend to see
human nature as existing in fundamental counterdistinction to the
inuence of nurture, as represented by environment inuences. Indeed,
one of the fundamental theoretical notions these models share rests on the
belief that nurture inuences nature in critically foundational ways, serv-
ing as a basis for learning and reinforcement.
212 psychology and constructivism in international relations

A more adaptationist perspective suggests the false dichotomy in any


characterization that separates nature from nurture in any basic way. In-
stead, nature and nurture exist in a mutually reinforcing intertwined man-
ner, much the way that constructivists argue that individual identities in-
teract within the environments they create and sustain. Humans do not
come into the world tabula rasa; rather, they come with built-in psycho-
logical programs designed by natural selection to respond to those repeated
environmental challenges whose successful resolution produced reproduc-
tive advantages for their offspring.43 These psychological mechanisms do
not exist independent of the environment; rather, they remain exquisitely
sensitive to those environmental cues and triggers whose regular appear-
ance signaled predictable opportunities and threats for our ancestors. In
this way, preferences, as understood by expected utility models, nd expla-
nation and prediction within inherent aspects of motives built into a
broader notion of human nature that instantiates the learning from envi-
ronments that support development over evolutionary time. To the extent
that humans embody these programs, certain preferences and responses
will retain privilege over others; babies prefer sugar water to mothers milk,
and that preference clearly does not result from television advertising and
multinational agricultural conditioning. Most people remain more scared
at the sight of spiders and snakes than of guns, although the latter kill more
people every year in the United States.
Constructivism claims to provide an explanation for the origins of pref-
erences but merely transfers the source from one uncaused cause (exogenous
nature) to another (intersubjectivity that depends on an implicit model of
learning that remains uninterrogated). An adaptationist model can render
the origins of preferences more transparent by situating them within an
evolved history of psychological-environmental interaction that locates mo-
tives in those processes that led to reproductive advantage in the past.

conclusion

Attempts to develop a coherent ideational model of international politics


that unites psychological and constructivist ideas present an interesting
and complex challenge. On the surface, it seems that psychological models
could provide substantive responses to the lacunae that remain in con-
structivist models concerning the origins of preferences, the development
Psychology and Constructivism 213

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

1. S. Fiske and Taylor 1991.


2. Kahn and Crosby 1987.
3. Crosby, Bromley, and Saxe 1990.
4. Nisbett and Wilson 1977.
5. Phelps et al. 2000.
6. Phelps et al. 2001.
7. Aldrich, Sullivan, and Borgida 1989.
8. Davison et al. 1985.
9. Fazio and Zanna 1981.
10. Zanna and Fazio 1982.
11. Wilson et al. 1989.
12. Wilson, Kraft, and Lisle 1989.
214 psychology and constructivism in international relations

13. Wilson et al. 1989.


14. Homer and Kahle 1988.
15. Milburn 1987.
16. Millar and Tesser 1986.
17. Makimura and Yamagishi 2003.
18. Erikson 1950.
19. Schwartz 2001.
20. Marcia 1966.
21. Berzonsky 1990.
22. Grotevant 1986.
23. Grotevant, Thorbecke, and Meyer 1982.
24. Grotevant 1987.
25. Kerpelman, Pittman, and Lamke 1997.
26. Waterman 1990.
27. Schwartz 2001.
28. Kurtines, Azmitia, and Alvarez 1992.
29. Adams and Marshall 1996.
30. Ct 1997.
31. Wendt 1992, imagining a meeting of Alter and Ego, provides an example
of this notion.
32. Adler 1997; Palan 2000.
33. Adler 2002, 95.
34. The careful reader will recognize that this was the same delusion held by
B. F. Skinner (1948) in his compelling yet utterly infeasible utopia, Walden Two.
35. Wendt 1992, 419.
36. Wendt 1992, 405; emphasis added.
37. Buss 2004, 29.
38. Wendt 1992, 422; emphasis added.
39. Breland and Breland 1961.
40. Harlow 1959.
41. Garcia and Koelling 1966.
42. Perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of the issue of learning re-
mains Levys (1994) attempt to sweep this conceptual mineeld.
43. Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby 1992.
44. Tooby and Cosmides 1992.
Conclusion: Context and Contributions
of the Ideational Alliance

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

sponse to the theoretical hubris of those who privileged economic analysis


at the expense of geography, anthropology, and sociology. Such, at any
rate, is the view of several leading constructivist scholars. Yosef Lapid and
Friedrich Kratochwil herald the return of culture and identity to interna-
tional relations theory.2 And Peter Katzensteins sweeping analysis of the
American Imperium likewise explores the relevance of culture, geogra-
phy, and regional difference, even in the depths of the Cold War, when in-
ternational relations was presumably constrained so sharply and uniformly
by superpower competition.3
Despite Meads analogy to medieval piety, she presumably does not in-
tend for cultural, geographic, or some other form of relativism to become a
new orthodoxy, if for no other reason than that relativism can serve as an
impediment to theory building. And it is on this score that constructivism
represents the promise of historically, geographically, and sociologically
contextualized theory more than its realization. In general, it seeks to de-
velop theory while maintaining an awareness of the limits of generaliza-
tion. Since the early 1990s, contextualized international relations scholar-
ship has been in ascension, and this is just as well in a eld that for so long
mostly ignored Meads exemplary caution.
In practice, however, constructivism has not proven to be especially fer-
tile ground in which for theory to grow. It has encouraged a fair amount of
metatheoretical consideration of both epistemology and ontology.4 This
amounts to navel-gazing in the estimation of some, but it is important
work for those who take seriously the linguistic turn and the challenge of
postmodernism. Constructivism is also a convenient banner under which
to assemble various critiques of other theories, particularly the so-called
neoutilitarian synthesis.5 The brunt of these criticisms is directed precisely
at those who tend to see international relations as populated by unprob-
lematic and functionally isomorphic entities (states) pursuing unproblem-
atic and decontextualized goals (power). Constructivism instead accords
these states identities and, with these identities, lends regional and cultural
avor to their goals. Yet the closest thing to a theory of identityWendts
widely discussed distinction among enemies, rivals, and friendsis more
an illustration of possibilities than a comprehensive effort to theorize state
identity.6
Nor is the process of social construction theorized as much as it is sim-
ply invoked to account for divergent interpretations of social (and even
material) phenomena.7 Perhaps this is slightly unfair, for constructivists do
Conclusion 217

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

specically informed by an awareness of social, cultural, and historical con-


text. Onufs work is similarly broad in conception, drawing heavily on the
work of sociologists (Giddens), linguistic theorists (Austin, Searle), and
philosophers from Aristotle to Wittgenstein. Onuf paints in fairly broad
strokes an outline of the way rules in language are institutionalized socially
and expressed as distinctive forms of rule, shaping both agency and struc-
ture in the process. If anything, however, Onufs work is less directly pre-
occupied with the context of time, place, and culture than is Vertzbergers.
Constructivists nevertheless tend to dismiss political psychology as in-
dividualist rather than social, as lacking contextualization, and as inatten-
tive to the epistemological problem of human subjectivity. For their part,
political psychologists have tended to see constructivist research as vaguely
theorized and empirically weak. Constructivists would no doubt counter
that psychology is itself made vulnerable by an experimental research strat-
egy that looks overwhelmingly to a young, urban, university-educated, and
often North American subject pool. Between this well-known external va-
lidity problem in psychology and the internal validity problems arising
from constructivisms overwhelming reliance on case studies, it is probably
fair to say that neither approach can rest on its laurels empirically.13
Such evidentiary challenges, however, are not insurmountable. Political
psychologists have acquired considerable expertise in measuring psycho-
logical constructs at a distance, developing along the way powerful tools
for analyzing both the content and structure of text as a source of insight
into personality, worldview, and belief systems.14 Similarly, the best con-
structivist scholarship pays close attention to text to develop a nuanced ac-
count of agent identity, social construction, and normative inuence.
Hopfs exemplary study of Soviet/Russian identity and foreign policy, for
example, makes extensive use of Russian-language literary sources to
chronicle the development of competing identities and their foreign policy
consequences in 1955 and 1999.15 Constructivists and political psycholo-
gists might well benet from methodological cross-fertilization. And it is
no accident that the contributions to this book are methodologically di-
verse, ranging from plausibility probes (Houghtons analysis of the Iran
hostage crisis) and comparative case studies (Ilgit and Ozkececi-Taners ex-
ploration of the evolution of Turkish identity) to qualitative linguistic
analysis (Breunings careful parsing of the UN Millennium Development
Goals) to experimentation (Gries, Peng, and Crowsons study of symbolic
and material gains).
Conclusion 219

Fundamentally, however, the rationale for this book is theoretical


rather than methodological. Although constructivists and political psy-
chologists may well benet from trading notes on research strategies, par-
ticularly in their joint attention to text as an indication of social construc-
tion or perception, this book is intended primarily to illustrate the benets
of theoretical collaboration. Not only is their ideational alliance a natural
one, for reasons noted earlier, but constructivism and political psychology
also need each other. Each lls in crucial analytical gaps for the other, mak-
ing both more broadly relevant to international relations theory. In gen-
eral, the chapters speak, directly or indirectly, to three such arguments.
First, political psychology bridges two prominent strains of constructivist
analysis that have tended to operate more or less independently, giving
constructivism a confusing analytic status. Second, constructivism likewise
bridges political psychology and rationalism, helping foreign policy analy-
sis move beyond hoary debates over rational decision making. Finally, po-
litical psychology and constructivism offer mutually reinforcing accounts
of international relations, together making a strong case that international
relations is subject to social and cultural interpretation that qualies but
does not preclude explanatory theory.

a bridge among constructivists

As a simple organizing device, most constructivists can be placed in one of


two camps. This division was implicit in the subtitle of Peter Katzensteins
1996 edited volume on the Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in
World Politics.16 Simply put, some constructivists study norms, and others
study identities. Rarely do they do both, although they may dene the
terms in relation to each other. Katzenstein, for example, sees the two as
conceptually linked: In some situations norms operate like rules that
dene the identity of an actor, thus having constitutive effects that spec-
ify what actions will cause relevant others to recognize a particular identity.
In other situations norms operate as standards that specify the proper en-
actment of an already dened identity. In such instances norms have regu-
lative effects that specify standards of proper behavior. Norms thus either
dene (or constitute) identities or prescribe (or regulate) behavior, or they
do both.17 Similarly, Alexander Wendt denes identities as relatively sta-
ble, role-specic understandings and expectations about self.18 Identities
220 psychology and constructivism in international relations

might be seen, in other words, as a special case of norms: a set of expecta-


tions or social prescriptions for how to be a certain kind of agent or how to
behave as a certain kind of agent. These are the constitutive and regulative
effects to which Katzenstein refers.
Conversely, norms (as social prescriptions) might also be seen as both
constituted and regulated by identity. What it means to have an identity, in
other words, is to behave in a certain way. In one of the more thoughtful
recent accounts of identity as a variable, Abdelal, Herrera, Johnston, and
McDermott dene identity as a social category that varies along two di-
mensionscontent and contestation.19 The rst of these dimensions,
content, consists of constitutive norms, social purposes, relational com-
parisons, and cognitive models.20 In other words, norms are a part of iden-
tity as a construct. Similarly, Ted Hopf argues that both roles and norms
are subsumable under a theory of identity that concentrates on practice
and habit.21 Thus, although some disagreement appears to exist about
whether identity constitutes a subset of social norms or the reverse, con-
structivists have reached a broad consensus that the two constructs are
closely related. And yet, as a matter of applied focus, constructivists tend to
resolve themselves into two distinct camps to such a great degree that the
approach appears schizophrenic.
This schizophrenia is exacerbated by the tendency to dene norms and
identities in terms of each other. Doing so makes it clear that they are re-
lated but all too often has the purpose of sidestepping rather than initiating
a conversation about this relationship. Those who focus on identity, for ex-
ample, may well acknowledge that identities are socially regulated. Having
made this admission, however, they tend to stress the independent conse-
quences of identity rather than the regulation of identity. Often justifying
their research on identity as deepening our understanding of alternative
forms of agency, they tend to dismiss the few constructivist efforts to theo-
rize identity as socially constrained. This is one reason that Wendt is some-
times rather glibly labeled a structuralist despite his indebtedness to role
theory and his emphasis on the active interpretation of social identities.22
And while research on social norms often acknowledges a link to identity
multilateralism may be reinforced, for example, by democratic state identi-
tiesthe causal direction is more often reversed. Agent identity is typically
seen, in this body of work, as constrained by social norms. In Audie Klotzs
compelling discussion of international racial equality norms, for example,
South Africa nds itself unable to enact a democratic state identity.23
Conclusion 221

So although many constructivists consider norms and identities closely


linked conceptually, they are not usually theorized as related concepts in a
way that is germane to the development of integrated constructivist theory
uniting the concerns of both groups of scholars. This is one reason, perhaps
among several, why many observers see constructivism as an inadequately
woolly alternative to neoutilitarian international relations theory. It is prob-
ably not the most important reason: The more serious problem is that con-
structivism is mostly an orientation to a set of contested ontological and
epistemological predilections rather than a coherent theoretical alterna-
tive.24 In this view, constructivism is more complement (or distraction) than
alternative. Yet one impediment to the development of constructivist the-
ory is the uncertainty about its analytical target. It would be going too far to
say that the essays in this volume offer an integrated solution to this prob-
lem. They do, however, suggest some helpful ways to begin addressing it.
The potential for developing arguments about the relationship between
social norms and agent identities is clearly on display in Jodie Anstees ef-
forts to extend social identity theory (SIT). Often interpreted as a highly
pessimistic account of identity formation, SIT explores the bases for social
categorization and the evaluation of social categories. It rests on pioneering
research by Henri Tajfel, Serge Moscovici, and John Turner nding that
even trivial bases for social distinction and categorization often lead to in-
group favoritism.25 A related body of research, self-categorization theory
(SCT), explores the basis of the strong individual impetus toward group
membership.26 Anstee cleverly treats these arguments as a microfounda-
tion for constructivist accounts of international norms. Group member-
ship is frequently bound up with the observation of certain norms and con-
ventions, and the increasing salience of social identities thus enhances
normative constraint as well.27 Following recent and more sociologically
aware psychological research, Anstee sees an interactive process at work in
the ways identity and social conventions depend on each other.28 This
moves constructivist applications of SIT a long way from the presupposi-
tion that identities are generally antagonistic and that norms operate pri-
marily as constraints on mutually hostile agents.29
Perhaps the most interesting way Anstee uses psychological research to
bring together disparate strands of constructivist international relations
theory, however, is her articulation of the important role played by leaders
as agents who negotiate competing identities in political settings. To the
extent that identity is a politicized phenomenona claim that construc-
222 psychology and constructivism in international relations

tivists generally accept without hesitationthe emergence of identity en-


trepreneurs should come as no surprise. Effective leadership may depend
on the emergence of behavioral norms that sustain group loyalties and sup-
port for leaders.30 At the same time, leaders (and followers) are typically
presented with an array of competing identities from which to choose, and
in this respect the sort of identity problems confronted in international re-
lations differ greatly from the more arid options typical of SIT experiments.
The requirements of leadership and the variety of potential identities en-
courage an identity politics that is strategic, a point often overlooked by
both political psychologists indebted to SIT and constructivists indebted to
sociology.
Following Sonia Roccas and Marilyn Brewers innovative work on
identity complexity, Anstee sees four strategies of identity management
at work in the government of Tony Blair: (1) subordination of some rele-
vant social identities to another, superordinate identity; (2) compartmen-
talization of identities and their variable application to specic contexts;
(3) hybridization of identities (Roccas and Brewer call this intersection
representation) based on areas of content overlap; and (4) unication or
merger, combining identities by adding complementary elements (rather
than by subtracting divergent elements, as in intersection representa-
tion).31 Deborah Welch Larsons contribution to this volume also pays con-
siderable attention to the problem of identity management, proposing a
different trio of management strategies: (1) social mobility, emulating the
behavior and value of high-status groups; (2) social competition, challeng-
ing existing status hierarchies; and (3) social creativity, seeking to redene
in a positive way elements of existing identities that were previously inter-
preted as negative. Taken together, Larson and Anstee make a powerful case
that identity formation is both a strategic and normative process and,
moreover, that leaders can typically choose from among several alternative
strategies for identity management. These chapters go beyond the pro
forma recognition that norms and identity are related, theorizing their in-
teraction in ways that are of special relevance to the study of leadership and
foreign policy.
This interaction is also apparent in several of the more applied chapters.
The strategic management of identity in light of prevailing social norms is
a central theme in Asli Ilgit and Binnur Ozkececi-Taners discussion of Turk-
ish identity. Kemalist identity, they explain, was developed and strength-
ened by appeals to six prevailing norms: nationalism, republicanism, pop-
Conclusion 223

ulism, secularism, statism, and reformism. These norms represent an amal-


gam of Western and Eastern inuences and gave the Turkish political elite
considerable latitude for identity entrepreneurship of the sort Anstee de-
scribes. Their endeavors were characterized both by a suspicion of the West
and by a desire for the Turkish state to be seen as Western (European,
specically). The result was an ambivalent Western identity and highly
pragmatist foreign policies. Islamic critics of Kemalist identity later reori-
ented Turkish foreign policy eastward. Their efforts to do so, however, must
be understood in a domestic context that required them to pay careful at-
tention to the entrenched power of Kemalism within the Turkish military.
Forging a modied identity for Turkey was clearly a self-consciously strate-
gic and politically dangerous process.
The relationship among entrenched social norms, national identity,
and foreign policy is also at issue in the chapter by Marijke Breuning in-
vestigating the U.S. response to the development goals of the UN Millen-
nium Declaration. Like Anstee and Ilgit and Ozkececi-Taner, Breuning
identies leadership as a crucial intervening variable. And as in Ilgit and
Ozkececi-Taners discussion of Turkish political elites, Breuning nds that
U.S. elitesspecically, the George W. Bush administrationexercised a
certain independence in their application of relevant social norms to for-
eign policy. On one hand, she argues that the Bush administrations 2002
Millennium Challenge Account proposal represents a signicant policy
step (and one with the practical consequence of increasing U.S. overseas
development assistance in real terms). This step was taken in congruence
with a religious reframing of U.S. identity as a Good Samaritan and was
consistent with British appeals to the Marshall Plan. On the other hand,
she suggests, the Bush administration resisted international pressure to-
ward multilateralism and misread the extent to which domestic attitudes
were supportive of international partnership. In this case too, therefore,
strategic entrepreneurship was central to the reformulation of U.S. devel-
opment policy.32
Arguments such as those described here represent only a few tentative
steps toward the theoretical integration of research on norms and identities
in international relations. In particular, more remains to be done to bridge
the gap between the strategic mediation of norm-identity interactions at
the level of individual policymakers and the same sort of interactions at the
level of the state.33 How, in other words, are state interests reected in the
regulation of social identities? Michael Barnett has offered a detailed and
224 psychology and constructivism in international relations

highly relevant example of identity contestation among Arab states.34 More


broadly, Frank Schimmelfennig argues that states face a crucial strategic
problem of self-presentation within the normative context of international
society.35 And Jutta Weldes has explored in some detail the ways interna-
tional society and normative constraints are subject to multiple state-level
interpretations.36
It would be claiming too much to suggest that such scholarship itself
constitutes an integrated normative identity framework that can serve as
the core of constructivist theory in international relations. But recent con-
structivist scholarship at least holds out the possibility of ontological con-
vergence serving as the basis of an emergent theoretical core. Several of the
essays in this volume show that political psychology makes an important
contribution to that task. In so doing, moreover, they also highlight the po-
tential of cross-level theorizing by exploring the interaction of leadership,
social identity, and international norms. These chapters defy easy level-of-
analysis categorization, and that is probably a virtue.

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

inherent in choice approaches, whether they are rational or psychologi-


cal.37 Bridging this divide between individualism and social construction,
in their application to international relations, is an objective of many con-
tributions to this volume. Drawing on research in social psychology, these
authors suggest that political psychology is less purely individualist than
many constructivists imagine. At the same time, even an explicitly social
analysis may require (or implicitly assume) certain motivational micro-
foundations for claims about normativitya matter of great concern to
constructivists. In chapter 1, I develop one version of this argument, trac-
ing normativity to the intersection of motivation, cognition, and sociolin-
guistics. Increasingly, however, constructivists and political psychologists
seem to agree that debates regarding rationality are simply beside the
point. Blending insights from constructivism and political psychology can
generate helpful ways of getting beyond the rational-irrational antinomy.
Jon Elster observes that every choice situation has three elements: (1) a
feasible set, consisting of beliefs about alternative courses of action; (2) a
causal structure, consisting of beliefs about the relationship between action
and outcomes; and (3) a subjective ranking, consisting of preferences re-
garding each alternative-outcome set.38 One immediately apparent conse-
quence of this denition is to clarify that for any choice theorist (rational
or otherwise), a choice inevitably involves subjectivity in both beliefs and
evaluation of alternatives (that is, preferences). Rational-choice theorists
would nd nothing remarkable in this observation and are understandably
mystied by persistent complaints that they ignore the subjectivity of be-
liefs and preferences. On the contrary, they have invested enormous effort
in understanding the way choices and social equilibria depend on beliefs
and have developed models of belief change as well.39
At the heart of such complaints often lies frustration with applications
of rational-choice theory that treat beliefs about the world as depending
more or less unproblematically on objective characteristics of the world it-
self. Shannons distinction in this books introduction between rational-
ism, objectivism, and materialism is helpful.40 Rational choice, he indi-
cates, is neither inherently materialist or objectivist. That is, it neither
assumes that only material, as opposed to social or psychological, things
matter (materialism) nor assumes that interpretations of the world,
whether individual or social, ow ineluctably from inherent qualities of
the material world (objectivism).41 On the contrary, the world, social as
well as material, very much requires interpretation. To be sure, both politi-
226 psychology and constructivism in international relations

cal psychologists and constructivists embrace understandings of the way


such beliefs emerge and change at variance with the perspective of most ra-
tionalists.42 And it seems fair to say that rational-choice analysis has often
passed too lightly over these matters.
When rationalists, political psychologists, and constructivists apply
their models to political behavior, however, the differences among them
seem to be more a matter of degree than of kind. If the inconsistencies do
not entirely vanish, their reduced visibility certainly appears to open the
door to complementary rather than competing accounts of social choice.
This is precisely the conclusion of the few scholars who have made a sus-
tained effort to integrate their approaches to choice. Although there are
big and (possibly) unresolvable issues dividing proponents of choice-theo-
retic, rational choice, and economic approaches from scholars who favor
sociological and social constructivist perspectives, as Jeffrey Checkel puts
it, from a problem driven, empirical perspective, such divides rapidly be-
gin to melt away. The starting point of the analysis moves from either/or
to both/and. 43 Checkel is decidedly optimistic about the degree to which
an integrated account of choice is possible in practice:

This common-sense perspective is gaining adherents within both subelds


to which this volume speaks. In IR theory, one now sees a growing number
of calls for both/and theorizing. Much more importantly, these scholars
are beginning to develop arguments for how one can integrate the
ideational and the material, game theory and social constructivism, strate-
gic-choice and cognitive perspectives, other-regarding and self-interested
behavior, and the like.44

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

accounts of choice informed by economic assumptions and those depend-


ing instead on psychological assumptions. Some constructivists see multi-
ple logics at work in the evaluation of choices. Although this claim is likely
to trouble both rational-choice theorists and political psychologists, it of-
fers a way around the impasse that prevents them from building comple-
mentary models (or perhaps even integrated models) of choice.
Houghtons chapter in this volume develops the claim that construc-
tivism supplements a logic of consequences with a logic of appropriate-
ness.46 A logic of appropriateness predicates choice on institutionalized
rules that dene agent roles and prescribe appropriate behavior. This logic
is another expression of the synthesis between identity and normativity.
James March and Johan Olsen, who, as Houghton notes, popularized the
term, suggest that it constitutes an alternative to a logic of consequences
that predicates choice on the comparison of preferences regarding alterna-
tive outcomes.47 Yet constructivists are more likely to view the two logics as
complements rather than analytical competitors. There is no obvious rea-
son why constructivists should reject the claim that agents consider the
consequences of their action, after all. And there is no reason why ratio-
nalists should ignore social as well as material constraints on available
choices. In practice, constructivists and rational-choice theorists tend to
emphasize different parts of the choice process as Elster describes it. Con-
structivist accounts of identity may rule certain possible behaviors out of
the feasible set of alternatives considered by agents. Some actions represent
things, for example, that a democratic, liberal, or modern state simply does
not do. There is every reason, moreover, to expect agents to pay attention
to the consequences of behaviors that are feasible. And, in practice, not
only constructivists and rational-choice theorists but also political psy-
chologists nd common ground in the expectation that evaluating these
consequences is a subjective rather than objective process.
Constructivists thus tend to see themselves as providing a context for
theories of choice. By providing an account of agent identity, they theorize
not only preferences but also alternatives in ways rationalists do not.48 And
rational-choice theorists and political psychologists, for their part, theorize
choice more articulately than do most constructivists. To be sure, the latter
two groups of scholars embrace different understandings of the problem of
choice. Part of what constructivism brings to the table, however, is an ex-
panded sense of their common ground. Political psychologists might well
elaborate the microfoundations for subjectivity in rational choice, helping
228 psychology and constructivism in international relations

to provide an individual-level foundation for the normative obligations on


which constructivists focus.49 The rapid growth of the literature on subjec-
tive orientations toward riskclearly indebted to psychological experi-
mentation but highly inuential among rational-choice theoristsis a
good illustration of this point.50
This is precisely the terrain in which the chapter by Peter Hays Gries,
Kaiping Peng, and H. Michael Crowson operates, asking what kinds of
threats matter to us. Gries, Peng, and Crowson disaggregate threat (and op-
portunity) in three ways: materially and symbolically, individually and na-
tionally, and in the domains of gains and losses. They are made sensitive to
these questions by a theoretical awareness indebted to constructivism, neo-
utilitarianism, and prospect theory. One of their key ndings is a three-way
interaction effect among these various aspects of threat. Losses provoke
more anxiety when they are symbolic, whereas gains generate more pride
when they are symbolic. Moreover, whereas American and Chinese sub-
jects displayed similar reactions to individual loss (and gain), Americans
were far less disturbed by national symbolic losses than were the Chinese.51
This chapter highlights the potential payoff of research that spans the con-
cerns of constructivists, rationalists, and political psychologists.52 More-
over, it pursues theoretical generalizations while remaining sensitive to
contextboth the distinction between interpersonal and international re-
lations and that between the Chinese and American setting.
Houghtons analysis of the Carter administrations decision making
during the Iran hostage crisis also illustrates the complementarity of
these approaches in a very different empirical setting. Houghton devotes
considerable attention to the feasible set of options considered by
Carter, Brzezinski, and Vance as well as the options that they rejected
out of hand. A logic of appropriateness made some responsessuch as
doing nothing, using nuclear weapons, or returning the Shah to Iran
inconceivable. These possibilities were never subjected to the sort of de-
tailed analysis that a logic of consequences implies. To understand the
decision process that ultimately narrowed the remaining options down
to the ill-fated rescue attempt, Houghton makes thoughtful use of the
literature on analogical reasoning.53 Entebbe was foremost in Brzezin-
skis mind, and the power of this analogy may well have blinded him to
the differences between the two cases despite considerable deliberation
within the administration. In this case too, therefore, a constructivist
analysis of appropriateness, a psychological analysis of analogical rea-
Conclusion 229

soning, and a rationalist account of purposive choice combine to ac-


count for Carters decision.54
The chapters by Houghton and Gries, Peng, and Crowson are thus notable
for their eclecticism. Rather than rejecting rationalist accounts of purposive
choice out of hand, they work to ll in gaps that rational-choice theory does
not address. They tend to conrm Checkels expectation that addressing ap-
plied problems, whether experimental or historical, tends to reward analytical
borrowing rather than purity.55 In this vein, constructivists and political psy-
chologists have much to say to each other as well as to rationalists.

an ideational alliance

To speak of an ideational alliance between constructivists and political psy-


chologists suggests more, frankly, than that they address different ques-
tionswhich options are appropriate, for example, and which will be
chosen by foreign policy makersin a complementary fashion. It also pre-
sumably means more than that they share an interest in subjective inter-
pretations of the social (or physical) world and are, in theory, attuned to
contingency and context. It suggests that they speak to each other directly
and that each group of scholars has something to say of potential interest
to the other group. Ideally, this alliance is a synthesis that produces in-
sights neither constructivists nor political psychologists would have been
likely to achieve independently.
Such a synthesis lies at the heart of this book. Every chapter speaks to
the virtues of collaboration between political psychologists and construc-
tivists in one way or another. In some cases, the intention is mostly to il-
lustrate the potential interaction between constructs favored by each
group. Others (on which I will mainly focus here) explicitly theorize the in-
teraction or speak to the virtues of multimethod approaches inspired by
this collaboration.

Theorizing Social Identity

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

structivists in particular away from more complex questions about identity


and toward relatively simple in-group/out-group valent distinctions. It is
encouraging to see, therefore, that the contributors to this volume gener-
ally push beyond the simple verities of in-group favoritism and perceptions
of out-group homogeneity.
Anstees insistence on identity complexity is a welcome antidote to
more simplistic appropriations of SIT. She relies heavily on Roccas and
Brewer to theorize this complexity, but she also makes a strong case for ex-
ploring the ways leaders negotiate such identity complexity. This is an im-
portant contribution, and it is also the perfect point of entre for construc-
tivists concerned with agency to take up the strategic problem of identity
choice. It is fair to say, however, that Anstee raises even more questions
than she answers. Drawing attention to the various ways of diversifying
identities suggested by Roccas and Brewer leads to a research agenda ex-
ploring the circumstances that encourage various forms of identity com-
plexity. Similarly, leaders can presumably act as identity entrepreneurs
based on a variety of motives, using a variety of means, and with a variety
of effects. One of the particular virtues of Anstees chapter is that it points
to so many different avenues of research collaboration among construc-
tivists and political psychologists.
Whereas Anstee seeks to extend social identity theory in new direc-
tions, expanding its ability to address multiple and competing identities,
Larsons chapter focuses directly on the underpinnings of social identity
theorys core propositions about categorization and comparison. Although
one might interpret both as mental processes operating purely at the level
of individuals, they are social in at least three respects. First, identity is an
expression of both categories and comparisons involving traits that take on
meaning in a social context. To consider a trivial example, whether some-
one is kind or mean-spirited depends on action directed toward others.
Even extroversion, one of the most fundamental personality traits, can
only be understood as a social behavior.56 Categorization and comparison
not only refer to a social context, moreover, but also emerge within one.
SIT is, after all, a theory of the social behavior of individual agents. Finally,
as Wittgenstein famously argued, language is intrinsically a social rather
than individual phenomenon, and thus so are categorization and compar-
ison.57 Larson is surely correct that the way both categorization and com-
parison work as social processes deserves far greater attention from both
psychologists and constructivists.
Rose McDermott and Anthony Lopezs insightful review of the other
Conclusion 231

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

If interdisciplinary theoretical eclecticism can serve ideational research


well, this is surely no less true of methodological eclecticism. The chapters
in this book are an object lesson to this effect. And although constructivists
and political psychologists tend to walk different methodological paths,
considerable overlap nevertheless exists. Both make extensive use of case
Conclusion 233

studies and textual analysis. Conversely, the experimental method has


tended to divide more than to unify.
One of the virtues of the chapters by Anstee, Breuning, Houghton, Ilgit
and Ozkececi-Taner, and Larsonexploring the interaction of leadership,
group identity, and social normsis that putting groups in a social context
helps them to develop an argument that addresses external validity prob-
lems in psychology. Most experimental groups are college undergraduates
in highly abstract situations. Gries, Peng, and Crowsons experiment, to its
credit, provides some specic international context. But several of the
other chapters in this volume go further in asking about the practical nor-
mative contexts in which national leadership groups nd themselves. A di-
alogue on this point would serve experimentalists well, raising the ques-
tion of whether experiments can be devised to replicate these contexts. The
available subject pool for experimentation is also a well-known source of
concern. It is hard to know whether one could reasonably draw conclu-
sions, for example, from a study of development and poverty reduction
norms conducted using relatively privileged subjects in relatively privi-
leged parts (college campuses) of relatively privileged countries. This may
be a point where constructivists can steer political psychologists out of a
rut. But the best way to do so may be for constructivists themselves to take
on the task of carrying out experimental research on identity formation
and normative inuence in a wider variety of international, socioeco-
nomic, and other contexts. In this regard, Gries, Peng, and Crowsons work
clearly represents a step in the right direction.
While constructivists have displayed great interest in the interpretation
of text, political psychologists have probably developed more elaborate
ways of handling text empirically. These techniques mostly have been put
to use investigating individual-level phenomena such as personality and
belief systems.65 There is no obvious reason why text coding schemes and
techniques such as the key word in context system could not be applied
to research on text reecting the spread of social norms or the formulation
of social identities.66 This is not to suggest, of course, that the more infor-
mal, interpretive analysis of text typical in constructivist research is inca-
pable of yielding great insight.67 One of the themes of this volume, how-
ever, is that a multimethod approach pays dividends.
The virtues of a multimethod approach do not depend, moreover, on
assumptions about domain-general models of learning and knowledge
such as those criticized at length by McDermott and Lopez. In fact, the
234 psychology and constructivism in international relations

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

treatment of ideas, norms, and identities; and more committed empirically


to methodological pluralism. The contributors to this volume not only
seem to think so but in consequence have sketched out an extended re-
search agenda ranging from the microfoundations of shared beliefs, norms,
and identity to their macrosocial consequences. This should serve as a pow-
erful rejoinder to their critics allegations that political psychology is un-
able to produce generalizations at the level of international behavior and
that constructivism has been unable to produce theoretical generalizations
at all. On the contrary, an alliance of the two approaches generates a wealth
of interesting theoretical questions of direct relevance to international be-
havior. At the same time, it encourages us to resist the fetish of generaliza-
tion that pushes theory beyond the bounds of contextual propriety.

Notes

1. See, however, Glenn, Howlett, and Poore 2004; Johnston 1995.


2. Lapid and Kratochwil 1996.
3. Katzenstein 2005.
4. Larson makes the same point in her contribution to this volume.
5. Katzenstein, Keohane, and Krasner 1998 interpret constructivism as a cri-
tique of the rationalism at the heart of both neorealism and neoliberalism, a
shared assumption one might describe as neoutilitarianism. For an earlier ex-
tended discussion of neoutilitarianism and the state, see Evans 1995. See also
Barnett 2002.
6. Wendt 1999.
7. Material things have, in fact, been the object of many constructivist ef-
forts at interpretive analysis. For excellent discussions of nuclear weapons, see
Eden 2006; Tannenwald 1999, 2007; for a discussion of chemical weapons, see
Price 1997.
8. Risse-Kappen 1994.
9. See, e.g., Finnemore 1996a; Ruggie 1993, 1998b.
10. Leites 1951.
11. Jervis 1976. See also Jervis 1970.
12. Onuf 1989; Vertzberger 1990. Shannon briey discusses this juxtaposition
in the introduction to this volume.
13. The distinction between internal and external validity is more commonly
observed by psychologists than by political scientists. Internal validity refers to
whether a study measures what it purports to measure in an accurate, unbiased
fashion. External validity refers to whether the results of a study in one domain
(using one subject populatione.g., college students) can be extended to other
domains (e.g., political leaders or the general population).
236 psychology and constructivism in international relations

14. Overviews and discussions of the extensive literature on these methods


include Herrmann 1988; Larson 1988; Post 2003; Young and Shafer 1998.
15. Hopf 2002.
16. Katzenstein 1996a.
17. Katzenstein 1996a, 5. Kowert and Legro 1996 takes a similar approach,
dening identities as prescriptive representations of political actors (453).
18. Wendt 1992, 397. See also Wendt 1994.
19. Abdelal et al. 2006, 696. See also Abdelal et al. 2009.
20. Abdelal et al. 2006, 701.
21. Hopf 2002, 12.
22. Wendt 1999. Srvry writes that Wendts Social Theory of International
Politics is devoid of politics precisely because its structural bias fails to address
what actors do when they do not passively adapt to the structural logic of
change, but instead confront the dilemmas of change through doing politics
(2006, 169). Larsons contribution to this volume, however, also takes note of
Wendts indebtedness to symbolic interactionism, even worrying that it reveals
an excessively individualist focus rather than one that is particularly social or
structural.
23. Klotz 1995. Barnett 1996 makes a similar point about Israeli treatment of
Palestinians.
24. Fearon and Wendt 2002.
25. Tajfel 1978; Tajfel and Turner 1979; Moscovici 1984.
26. Tajfel 1981.
27. Anstee does not dwell, interestingly, on the microfoundations of identity
theory itself, though Larsons contribution to this volume has a good deal to say
about the complexity of SIT and its implications for identity in international re-
lations.
28. Klein, Spears, and Reicher 2007; Postmes, Haslam, and Swaab 2005.
29. Mercers (1995) well-known application of SIT to international relations
nicely illustrates this presumption of generalized hostility.
30. Haslam and Reicher 2007.
31. Roccas and Brewer 2002.
32. An interesting problem in Breunings chapter, as in Ilgit and Ozkececi-
Taners, is determining exactly who the relevant policy entrepreneurs were.
Scholars have naturally tended to focus on titular heads of government. It is not
implausible to argue, however, that the key policy (as well as norm and iden-
tity) entrepreneurs operated at one level below this pinnacle of power, shaping
options for the consideration of the U.S. president (or the Turkish prime
minister).
33. For another thoughtful account of leadership and international norms,
see Shannon and Keller 2007.
34. Barnett 1998.
35. Schimmelfennig 2001.
36. Weldes 1999.
Conclusion 237

37. Wendt 1999, 335.


38. Elster 1986.
39. A classic rational-choice treatment of incomplete information, learning,
and belief updating is Savage 1954. See also, e.g., Bernardo and Smith 1994;
Dawes 1988; Eells and Skyrms 1994; Kydd 2005.
40. For related discussions of objectivism and brute facts, see Houghton
2007; Searle 1995.
41. Similarly, Fearon and Wendt (2002) complain that construing the a de-
bate between rationalists and constructivists as hinging on differences in the
prominence they assign to material conditions versus ideas and norms is deeply
misleading. Rationalism relies on preferences, which are not material. By the
same token, few constructivists are committed to ignoring reality.
42. Larsons (1985) analysis of belief change is an exemplary point of
departure.
43. Checkel 2002, 18.
44. Checkel 2002, 19.
45. Fearon and Wendt 2002, 53.
46. Houghton also argues that constructivists can benet from the conse-
quentialist logic of political psychologists (and, presumably, rationalists).
47. March and Olsen 1998.
48. On the claim that constructivism supplements rationalism by developing
an account of preferences, see Katzenstein, Keohane, and Krasner 1998. The
contribution of constructivism to an account of alternatives is less widely ap-
preciated but is implicit in March and Olsens (1998) logic of appropriateness.
49. Houghton, chap. 6. On the microfoundations of normativity, see Kowert,
chap. 1.
50. See Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky 1982; Kahneman and Tversky 2000.
51. The nding that Chinese subjects were more disturbed by national sym-
bolic loss than were Americans is actually a four-way interaction effect involv-
ing Chinese/American nationality, individual/national level, material/sym-
bolic, and loss/gain.
52. Gries, Peng, and Crowson do not necessarily suggest that research span-
ning such varied concerns and perspectives will be easy. Their research design
required more than ve hundred subjects, and it only scratches the surface of
potential variation among nations in response to different kinds of threat, in
the context of different kinds of international problems or different normative
priming effects, and so on. It is as much a research agenda as a book chapter.
53. See Khong 1992.
54. In fact, although Houghton does not explore it, there is likely a further
interaction between identity politics and the sort of analogical reasoning at
work in narrowing the options down to the rescue mission. Entebbe is powerful
as an analogy partly, no doubt, because it was a relatively recent event familiar
to the policymakers involved. But it also works as an analogy because it em-
braces norms of daring and national self-sufciency that must have appealed to
238 psychology and constructivism in international relations

Brzezinskis and ultimately Carters sense of American identity and national


purpose.
55. See Katzenstein and Sil 2008.
56. Extroversion is one of the personality factors making up the well estab-
lished ve-factor personality model. See Costa and McCrae 1992; McCrae and
Costa 1984.
57. Wittgenstein 1953; Kripke 1982.
58. For an overview of neo-Eriksonian identity theory, see Schwartz 2001. See
also Adams and Marshall 1996; Berzonsky 1990; Ct 1997; Erikson 1950; Grote-
vant 1987; Kerpelman, Pittman, and Lamke 1997; Kurtines, Azmitia, and Alvarez
1992; Marcia 1967; Waterman 1990.
59. On the availability heuristic, see Tversky and Kahneman 1973.
60. On norm diffusion in international relations, see, e.g., Acharya 2004;
Keck and Sikkink 1998; Klotz 1995; Nadelmann 1990; Sikkink 1993.
61. In public opinion research, Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991 refers to
this as the principle-policy paradox. McDermott and Lopez cite S. Fiske and Tay-
lor 1991.
62. For another perspective stressing the social constraints on ideas and their
inuence, see Risse-Kappen 1994.
63. In his discussion of norm diffusion, Acharya (2004) acknowledges and
then proceeds to ignore this distinction: I use ideas and norms interchange-
ably, recognizing that ideas can be held privately, and may or may not have be-
havioral implications, while norms are always collective and behavioral (204
n. 4). J. Goldstein 1993 takes a similar approach.
64. Kratochwil 1989; Onuf 1989. For theoretical and empirical applications,
see C. Simon 1998; Weber and Kowert 2007.
65. The text analysis schemes for personality-at-a-distance assessment are a
case in point; see M. Hermann 1984; Post 2003; Schafer 2002.
66. See, e.g., Lowe 2004.
67. Hopfs (2002) study of Soviet/Russian identity is an exemplary illustra-
tion of the insights to be gained from informal, interpretive analysis of texts.
68. Both Larsons discussion of the microfoundations of social identity and
Kowerts discussion of the microfoundations of normativity suggest topics of
great potential relevance to psychologists. However, these arguments are devel-
oped in ways that emphasize their relevance to international relations
scholarship.
69. See, e.g., Harr 1986; Harr and Tissaw 2005; Wendt 1999.
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Contributors

Jodie Anstee is a PhD candidate in the Department of Politics at the Uni-


versity of Exeter, where she has taught on modules such as Order and Justice
in International Society and The Globalization of World Politics. Her research
interests focus on psychology in international relations, human rights, and
the contestation of international norms.

Marijke Breuning is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Univer-


sity of North Texas. Dr. Breuning holds a PhD from Ohio State University
and has published articles in American Political Science Review, International
Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Political Communication,
Women and Politics, International Studies Perspectives, and other journals. She
is the author of Foreign Policy Analysis: A Comparative Introduction (2007)
and Ethnopolitics in the New Europe (with John T. Ishiyama, 1998). She is cur-
rently an editor of Foreign Policy Analysis and the Journal of Political Science
Education.

H. Michael Crowson is Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at


the University of Oklahoma. He has written on authoritarianism, human
rights, and other issues of psychology in diverse journals including the
Journal of Social Psychology, Personality and Individual Differences, and the
Journal of Individual Differences. Crowson received his PhD at the University
of Alabama.

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.

David Patrick Houghton is Associate Professor of Political Science at the


University of Central Florida. His most recent books are U.S. Foreign Policy
and the Iran Hostage Crisis (2001), Controversies in American Politics and Soci-
ety (2002, coauthored with David McKay and Andrew Wroe), and Political
Psychology: Situations, Individuals, and Cases (2008). His area of expertise is
international relations, with a particular focus on American foreign policy
and foreign policy analysis. He has published articles in journals such as
the British Journal of Political Science, Political Psychology, Security Studies, Ter-
rorism and Political Violence, Policy Sciences, Foreign Policy Analysis, Peace and
Conict, and International Politics. He has also taught at the Universities of
Pittsburgh and Essex, and from 2001 to 2002 was a Visiting Scholar at the
Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University.

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.

Paul A. Kowert is Associate Professor of International Relations in the In-


ternational Relations Department at Florida International University; in
20089, he was a Fulbright Fellow at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan.
His research focuses on international relations theory and on the foreign
policy-making process in the United States and Japan, addressing such
questions as how do leaders differ in their use of information and advice;
how do leaders (and the general public) form perceptions of other coun-
contributors 273

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.

Deborah Welch Larson draws upon historical, psychological, and political


evidence to understand foreign policy decision-making. Her professorship
in the department is supported by the International Studies and Overseas
Programs administration at UCLA. Professor Larsons rst book, Origins of
Containment (1985), traces the development of Cold War belief systems by
studying postwar U.S. policymakers from a cognitive psychological per-
spective. Anatomy of Mistrust (1997) considers game theory, exchange the-
ory, and bargaining theory to explain how mistrust prevented the U.S. and
the USSR from reaching agreements in the early Cold War. She is currently
developing a framework for evaluating the quality of political judgments in
the profoundly uncertain international environment. Professor Larson
teaches a graduate seminar on the making of American foreign policy, and
offers undergraduates lectures on foreign policy and peace and war. She
serves on the editorial boards of International Studies Quarterly and Interna-
tional Interactions.

Anthony Lopez is a PhD candidate at Brown University in Political Sci-


ence. His research focuses on the application of evolutionary psychology to
models of coalitional behavior, especially in the context of international
relations.

Rose McDermott holds a PhD in Political Science and an MA in Experi-


mental Social Psychology, both from Stanford University. She held a Na-
tional Institute on Drug Abuse Postdoctoral Fellowship in Substance Abuse
Treatment Outcome Research at the San Francisco VA through the Univer-
sity of San Francisco Psychiatry Department. Professor McDermotts main
area of research revolves around political psychology in international rela-
tions. She is the author of Risk Taking in International Relations: Prospect The-
ory in American Foreign Policy (1998), Political Psychology in International Re-
lations (2004), and Presidential Illness, Leadership and Decision Making
(2007). She is coeditor of Measuring Identity: A Guide for Social Science Re-
274 contributors

search, with R. Abdelal, Y. Herrera, and A. I. Johnson (forthcoming). Profes-


sor McDermott has held fellowships at the John M. Olin Institute for Strate-
gic Studies and the Women and Public Policy Program, both at Harvard
University. She has written numerous articles and book chapters on exper-
imentation, the impact of emotion on decision making, and evolutionary
and neuroscientic models of political science.

Binnur Ozkececi-Taner is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ham-


line University. Binnur completed her PhD in Political Science at the
Maxwell School, Syracuse University, and holds an MA in Conict Resolu-
tion and Peace Studies from the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies, University
of Notre Dame. Her research focuses on the role of ideas in International
Relations and Comparative Politics. Her book, The Role of Ideas in Coalition
Government Foreign Policymaking: Turkey as an Example, 19912002, is forth-
coming. Binnurs publications have appeared in numerous outlets, includ-
ing Foreign Policy Analysis, International Studies Review, International Journal
of Middle East Studies, and British Journal of Middle East Affairs.

Kaiping Peng is a tenured faculty member at the Department of Psychol-


ogy of the University of California at Berkeley. He received his PhD in So-
cial Psychology from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1997. Be-
fore coming to the U.S. in 1989, he had been a faculty member at the
Psychology Department of Peking University of China for ve years. He is
currently the head of the social/personality psychology area in Berkeley. He
also directs the Culture and Cognition Lab at UC-Berkeley, has published 4
books and over 50 articles on culture and cognition, and the psychology of
Chinese people. Recently, Dr. Peng has been named the most cited social
psychologist among his cohorts (SPSP Dialogues, 2007).

Vaughn P. Shannon is Associate Professor of Political Science at Wright


State University. He has published widely on the interplay of norms and
perceptions, and his work has appeared in journals including International
Organization, International Studies Quarterly, European Journal of International
Relations, Security Studies, and Foreign Policy Analysis. Dr. Shannon received
his PhD from Ohio State University in 2001.
Index

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

Identity (continued) Neoliberalism, 5, 15, 25n21, 32, 71, 150,


23135; collective, 14, 61, 201; manage- 170, 188, 215, 235n5
ment, 6567, 8187; social identity, 11, Neorealism, 34, 6, 12, 32, 60, 150, 151,
3334, 6365, 7688, 19798, 201, 170, 188, 211, 215, 235n5
2045, 224, 22931, 238n68; state iden- Neoutilitarianism, 32, 36, 216, 221, 228,
tity, 4, 14, 23, 59, 73, 9298, 11012, 235n5
201, 216, 220 Normativity, 2122, 3338, 4244, 4751,
Image theory, 21, 96 225, 23132
India, 22, 58, 61, 6667 Norms, 1314, 17, 3438, 4849, 51, 59,
Individualism, 24, 1415, 1819, 63, 93, 62, 63, 67, 68, 70, 71, 7688, 94, 11927,
187, 218, 22425 12932, 14145, 153, 155, 160, 207,
Insecurity, 24, 17071, 17578; symbolic 21924, 23134; liberal democratic, 77,
sources of, 17178, 18088 79, 82, 8588; of nonrefoulement,
Iran, 16, 19, 10810, 150, 152, 15564, 89n19
228; hostage crisis, 23, 152, North Atlantic Treaty Organization
15565 (NATO), 71, 72, 79, 99, 102, 104, 106,
110
Japan, 68, 69, 200
Johnson, Lyndon, 158, 159, 165 Obama, Barack, 40, 72
Objectivism, 2, 56, 8, 31, 17071, 225
Kemalism, 16, 93, 97112 Obligation, 35, 37, 4250
Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruholla, 15657, Ontological security, 171
159, 164 Ontology, 3, 48, 15, 38, 45, 48, 51, 93,
Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), 98, 1047, 150, 175, 197, 205, 216, 221, 224
115n58 Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD), 126, 129,
Leadership trait analysis, 89 131, 133, 134, 139; Development Assis-
Logic of appropriateness (LOA), 5, 13, tance Committee (DAC), 126, 129, 131,
15155, 15960, 16667, 224, 22728 13338
Logic of consequences (LOC), 13, 15155,
16067, 206, 22728 Pakistan, 69, 109
Personality, 89, 76, 82, 187, 218, 230, 233
Marshall Plan, 18, 23, 11922, 130, 139, PKK. See Kurdish Workers Party
144, 223 Prospect theory, 10, 119, 163, 175, 228
Maslows hierarchy of needs, 174 Psychology, 37, 9, 14, 17, 36, 197202,
Materialism, 2, 4, 31, 93, 17078, 18088, 2067, 210, 234; cognitive psychology,
213, 22528 3, 8, 910, 1722, 3031, 34, 3638, 47,
Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), 51, 63, 78, 81, 84, 15354, 16364,
120, 130, 14045 16667, 2056, 20910, 23132; political
Millennium Challenge Corporation psychology, 812, 1422, 35, 50, 76, 82,
(MCC), 122, 129, 130, 141 153, 17172, 175, 219, 22425, 234; social
Millennium Declaration, 120, 121, 12835, psychology, 11, 1819, 3334, 57, 62, 76,
13945 78, 88, 94, 166, 204, 225, 234
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Putin, Vladimir, 65, 7072
13338, 14243
Minimal group paradigm, 64, 200, 213 Rational choice, 1, 2, 3, 6, 15, 32, 151, 153,
Monterrey Conference, 130, 131, 133, 140, 167, 200, 22529, 234
143, 144 Rationalism, 2, 45, 7, 10, 24, 32, 87, 93,
151, 153, 170, 172, 180, 188, 197, 2078,
National role conceptions (NRC). See 215, 219, 22429
under Role theory Reagan, Ronald, 40, 60, 158
index 277

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

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