“Some scholars argue that the main debate in international relations theory is between

constructivism and rationalism. Others argue that there are substantial areas of agreement

between the two approaches, and some would go so far as to say that constructivist

arguments in IR are simply rational-choice arguments with a broader conception of what

individuals and states are trying to maximize.” Discuss.

Rationalism v constructivism a skeptical view

52 rationalism seems to refer to a methodological approach that may imply a philosphical position on what social explanation is and how it out to work, the nature of which is debated and construcigivsm seems to refer to a set of arguments about social explanation that may imply preferences over specific questions and methods of social inquiry, the nature of which are debated.

These should be referred to as analytical tools rather than metaphyiscal positions or empirical descriptions of the world.

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Frame this debate as a disagreement about how often actors follow a logica of consequences or logic of appropriateness. (empirical terms) problem wherein analytical assumptions can be taken to accurately relfect reality, but should truly be only used as usefulness.

Treat them as analytical lenses through which we view the world 1) many of the same predictions 2) different aspects of political life

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Rationalism

1) Starts with an action or pattern of actions to be explained2) Posit set of actors and their capacities3) Context of interaction4) Preferences in the context or different actions5) What conditions the partterns of actions emerge if they were acting rationally

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Common misunderstandings

1) Scientism – formals models are just a tool2) Moving target – (56) more concerned with explaining the whole by the component parts.

Explore implications for social explanations, does not rule out a priori constructivism

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2 areas of disagreement in constructivism

1) Whether knowledge claims about social life can be given any warrant other the discursive power of the ptutative knower

2) Whether causal explanations are appropriate in social inquiry.

3 positions in constructivism

Positivist yes/yes

Interpretivist yes/no

Postmodern no/no

Constructivits though are: interested in how the objects and practices of social life are constructed and especially those that societies or research take for granted as given or natural.

1) Concern with the role of ideas in constructing social life2) Showing the socially constructed nature of agents/subjects3) Methodoloigcal holism 4) Constitutive theorizing

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Contentions

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© - ideas mediate material reality

Rationalism – 1) ideas are fundamental and not secondary 2) equilibria are patterns of social interaction.

3) Desires are not necessarily material

Have a lot in common because they both see the importance of actors making choices on the basis of their beliefs.

Materialism is what mediats rationalisms use of ideas

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Logic of consequences – explain robustness/ persistence of patterns of interaction

Logic of appropriateness – questions universality ofnorms

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Norms as useful vs right

Norms can be expressed as preferences

3 areas where there is little debate

1) Neither self interest or legitimacy are always right

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2) Many cases predict the same behavior3) 2 step – first act out of self interest and then act out of rightness

Preference formation

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Both take actors as exogenously given, constructivists attempt to explain variation within actor type.

Actors beliefs: both camps believe that beliefs change and are important.

But exogenous vs endogenous preferences

1) Can do step, explain preferences then bheaviour 2) Interests/beliefs are not that dissimilar3) Both sides can help explain behavior/interests

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Subject formation

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Rationalism can explain subject formation by looking at exogenous constrains and posing and equilibrium

Method as tacit ontology

Methodological pluralism

Useful fiction or miracle maker mcdonald

552 rational choice theory is a theory of social behavior whose distinctive theoretical assumption is that actors in theory behave according to the rationality assumption.

1) Purpose action – goal motivated actions2) Consistent preferences3) Utility maximization

Instrumentali bst empiricism –

553 – theoretical assumptions are tools that help generate predictions about the world that can subsequently be verified empirically.

Prediction is the ultimate goal of science. Deductive tools, useful fictions for understanding the objective world.

Theoretical concepts are not real.

Implications

1) Theoretical statements need to be generalizable to the largest number of cases. 2) Theory can never be valid or invalid that is never a true description of the world

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3) Theories are only useful if they generate hypotheses that are portable and are substantiated

Scientifc realism

Theoretical assumptions are statements about real entities and processes which affect natural and social phenomena.

1) Science can only progress if we use unobservables. 2) Sucessful science uses unobservables

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Theories reflect the very real properties of the phenomena under study

Progress is done by adjudicating between theoretical programs.

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“epistemological positions determine not only how and why theories should be constructed but also what standards should be used to evaluate them”

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Why epistemology matters

Clarify what is at stake in existing debates.

Illuminates inconsistencies in current defenses

The rational choice project.

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Rationality

Much literature shows that people do not behave rationally how RCT theorists respond?

Domain – in general human beings in most social situations behave in a manner that approaches rational action. Most social interactions take place in a clearly delinated situations with rules that are relatively well understood by those engagin in action. Interaction in social life are often repeated so that individuals can become accustomed to their strategic environment and will be punished if they fail to act rationally. Evidence of the irrationality of actors in a particular situation can be overlooked in the construction of a general theory of human action.

As if - rationality as a simplifying assumption – humans act as if they are rational.

Self interest

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1) Should rc theorsits posit that all of the acotrs in their models possess identical utility functions. Thick subjectivist

2) Should rc theorists assume that their actors value only thing that are external to them or also things are internal such as emotional responses or non material values. Thin subjectivist

Methodological individualism 558The perspective that aggregate social outcomes can be reduced to the action of individual actors. Aggregate social outcomes are not affected by the positions that individual actors stand in relation one anotherAggregate social outcomes do not recursively change characteristics of the individual actors.

Rc models incorporate structural effects but only at the price of being unable to generalize beyond pre-specified situations.

560 A theory cannot rely on two incompatible epistemological positions. A theory that is justified by contrary philosophical positions is not only difficult to assess, given that the two different epistemologies possess different conceptions of what constitutes valid knowledge but also impossible to criticize given the ability of theorists to defend their theory by appealing to various potentially discordant epistemological justifications. In order for RC theorists to present coherent and genuinely defensible results, they must clearly and explicitly choose a particular epistemological position.

Methodological individualism and rational choice kydd

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MIRC – actors that are entities that make choices, endowed with six attributes.

1) Rationality, imperfectly rational or automatic. 2) Identity – membership in social category that can explain some behavior

4273) Preferences over the domain of outcomes4) Positive beliefs about the state of the world and actors within it 5) Normative beliefs6) Set of possible actions that can be combined into strategies for dealing with other actors in the

situation under examination.

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Rct assumed to have preferences over the various possible outcomes in any situation and so can rankl them in terms of their desirability. They then choose whatever strategy or course of action that makes the better outcomes more likely, or maixmizes the actor’s utility or happiness. For the actor to qualify as rational the preferences must be transitive. Process information correctly they are assumed to update their preferences about the likelhood of uncertain events in response to new information according to the laws of probability.

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In the MIRC world one can alter one’s own behavior and strive to alter the constrains and oopportunies facing other actors and their beliefes but one cannot fundamentally alter their preferences and identities.

Primary normative criterion is efficiency

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Cronsturctivism embraces the idea that the individual cannot beu nderstoodf apart from the whole.

They argue that what it means to be a certain kind of actor dpeends on shared understandings of that actor’s in relation to other actors and that investigating these understandings enables one to identify the conditions of possibility for certain modes of subjectivity.

“constructivism” hurd

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Constructivism emphasizes the social and relational construction of what states are and what they want

Meaning is sociall constructed.

People act towards objects, including other actors on the basis of the menaings that the objects have for them.

In a sociall constructed world the existnece of patterns, cause and effect relationships, and even states themselves depends on webs of meaning and practices that constitute them, these meanings and practices might sometimes be relatively stable but they are never fixed and should not be mistaken for permanent object.s

Ideas are not so much mental symbolic and organizational, they are embedded not only in human brains but also in collective memroies, blah blah blah

Constructivism suggests that material forces must be understood through the social concepts that define their meaning for human life.

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Constructivism is concerned with the construction of state interests.

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What distinguishes social constructivists is that the influences on interest formation are social.

Actors acquire identities – relatively stable role specific understandings and expectations about self by participating in collective meanings . intersts are in part products of those identities. The social constitution of interests encompasses all the ways that actors’ interests and identities might be influenced by their interactions with others and their social environment.

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Structure – institutions and shared meanings that make up the context of international action and by agents I mean any entity that operates as an actor in that context.

The co-constitution of states and structures goes beyond recognizing that there are interaction effects between the unit and the system level. The recogni9tion of mutual constitution is an important contribution to the theory of internationa lrelations because many interesting empiricial phenomena in international relations are understandable only by a methodology that avoids assuming a neat separation between agents and structures.

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The social construction of actors may well create instrumental, goal seeking agents who pursue their goals in part by comparing cost and benefits and their behavior cnanot be understood apart from that process of construction. In other words, it is a mistake to separate the stuydy of the logic of consequences from the logic of appropriateness. The more stricly that separation is enforced the less insightful is the empirical research that can result. Constructivism generally agrees with rationalism that states perceive some needs and interests and they act in order to satisfy them. To this construcitivsm adds two things: an interest in explaining how states needs and interests come to be, and the possibiltiy that different constructions of states could lead to radically different ypes of states and patterns of state behavior. Constructivism problematizes states and their interests and identities, but is has no problem accepting that states generally pursue interests. It is with materialism that constructivism has the more fundamental disagreement, there is a clear distinction between the position that actors respond directly to material incentives and the view that meaning and interpretation necessarily mediate between material forces and social actors. Behavior is motivated and is studied only through the lenses acquired in and through social interaction.

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This view suggests a division of labor in which constructivism is suited to answering questions about how actors acquire their interests and identities and rationalism specifizlies in explaining the pursuit of interests by already constituted actors. This approach presumes that the real world contains separable realms that are amenable to each approach and that the two realms do not overlap. Conflicts between the two are therefore avoidable as long as the boundary between the two realms is respected. A second version sees the two as providing different views on the shared questions. The two are relevant to the same subject amtter bu their different emphases allow, when combined, for greater insight into a problem than is provided by each alone.

312 the relationship between rationalism and constructivism is ultimately an artefact of one’s definition of the two approaches. Defining either ones requires also defining the other, and so the relation

between them is epiphenomenal of these definitions. By categorizing constructivism as a research agenda concerned with the social construction of actors, structures, and practices in international relations, I presume from the start that there are some kinds of research that are inaccessible to rationalist methods and assumptions and this automatically brings up aspects of the complementary view. A theory of ontology is unavoidable, not optional, and siagreements about ontology area real profound and consequential. They might also, however, be best approached by setting against each other the research that follows from different ontological positions., rather than arguging for or against a theory ontology in the abstract it is the consequences, both ethical and analytical of different ontological assumptions that are worht arguing about. Therefore while there are indeed competing ontological positiosn between constructivists and others in international relations, the productive way forward would seem to be to assess the insights they generate when applied in research rather than compare them directly. This supports in practice the pluralism in research methods encouraged by the complementary views above, though it does not givee up on the possibility that there are underlying differences in ontology between rationalism and constructivism.

What makes the world hang together? Ruggie

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Social constructivism rests on an irreducibly intersubjective dimension of human action. We are cultural beings endowed with the capacity and the will to take a deliberate attitude towards the world and to lend it significance. This capacity gives rise to a class of facts that do not exist in the physical object world: social facts or facts that in the words of the linguistic philosophy john searle depend on human agreemnt that they exist and typically require human institutions for their existence.

In short, constructivism is about human consciousness and its role in international life. In contrast to neo-utilitarianism, constructivists contend that not only are identities and interests of actors socially constructed, but also that they must share the stage with a whole host of other ideational factors that emanate from the human capacity and the will of which weber wrote. What social constructivists reject, however, is the presumption or pretense that their study constitutes the totality or even the main part of the social scientific enterprise.

Constructivism remains more of a philosophically and theoretically informed perspective on and approach to the empirical study of international relations

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Social construcitivst have sought to understand the fully array of roles that ideas play in world politics, rather than specifying a priori roles based on theoretical presuppositions and then testing for those specified roles as neo-utilitarians do.

A core constructivist research concern is what happens before the neo-utilitarian model kicks in…civilizational constructs, cultural factors, state identities and the like. Together with how they shape states interests and patterns of international outcomes.

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The most important feature differentiating constructivists from othe readings of these and similar phenomena is that they make the case that principled beleifs are not simply theoretica fillers..employed to shore instrumentalist accounts, but that in certain circumstances they lead states to redefine their interests or even their sense of seslf.

871 neo utilitarianism does not acknolwedge the power of constitutive rules. Its universe of discourse consists entirely of antecedently existing actors and their behavior, and its project is to explain the character and efficacy of regulative rules in coordinating them.

873 the point to note is this: lacking a conceptiuon of constittuvie rules, nmakes it impossible to provide endogenously the noncausal explanations that constitutive rules embody and that are logically prior to the domain in which causal explanations take effect.

876 structure is time/space contingent

877 constructivism is interested as much in the making of circumstances…as in their being found – without however lapsing into subjectivism or idealism. It takes making to have at least two meanings: what do p[eople make of their circumstances in the sense of understanding they hold? Here, the actors engage in “an active process of interpretation and construction of reality”

878 – 9

As noted at the outset, constructivism concerns the issue of human conciousness in international life; the role it plays and the implications for the logic and methods of inquiry of taking it seriously. Constructivists hold the v iew that the building blocks of international reality are ideational as well as material; their ideational factors have normative as well as insturmental dimensionsl; that they express not only individual but also collective intentionality, and that the meaning and significance of ideational factors are not independent of time and place.

The most distinctive feature of constructivism, the, are in the realm of ontology, the real world phenomena that are posited by any theory and are invoked by its explanations.

At the level of individual actors constructivism seeks, first of all, to problematize the identities and interests of states and to show how they have been socially constructed. Constructivists argue are and have shown that even identities are generated in part by international interaction – both the generic identities of states qua states and their specific identities. Seeks to map the full array of additional ideatiopnal factors that shape actors outlooks and behavior, ranging from culture and ideology to aspirations and principled beliefs, onto cause-effect knowledge of specific policy problems.

At the level of the international polity, the concept of structure in social constructivism is suffused with ideational factors. There can be no mutually comprehensible conduct of international relations, without mutually recognized constitutive rules resting on collective intentionality.

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Constructivism is atheoretically informed approach to the study of international relations. Moreover constructivism does not aspire to the hypothetico deductive mode of theory construction. It is by necessity more realistic to use weber’s term or inductive in orietnation its concepts in the first instance are intended to tap into and help interpret the meaning and significane that actors ascribe to the collective situation in which they find themselves. It is unlikely that this function could be performed by concepts that represent a priori types derived from some universalizing theory-sketch or from purely nominal definitions.

881 three types of constructivism

Neo-classical typically includes pragmatism, a set of analytical tools necessary to make sense of intersubjective meanings, be it speech act theory, the theory of communicative action, their generalization as in the work of Searl,e or evolutionary epistemology and a commitment to the idea of social science.

Pomo – linguistic construction of subjects is stressed, as a result of which discursive practices constitute the ontological primitives or the foundational nits of reality and analysis.

No legit social science.

SYNTEHSIS

Grounded in the philosophical doctrine of scientific realism

Scientific realism according to wendt offers the possibility of a wholly new naturalistic social science. On its basis it is no longer necessary to choose between insider and outside accounts of social action (882) and order . much of the time even the intersubjective aspects of social life exist independently of the mental states of most individuals that constitute it. (naturalistic constructivism)

883 unification

1) Expand the anylitical foundations of of neo-utilitarianism to include more social factors. But cannot account for a social ideational and relational ontology

8842) Willing constructivist – don’t rock the boat, take the predominant epistemology as being the

most important but predominant modes of explanation ignore the fact that they cannot deal with endogenous interests. 885By pushing their respective limits in the direction of each other they can describe

Let’s argue! Risse

3Rather, it might be helpful to distinguish between the twometatheoretical approaches as emphasizing different logics or modes of social actionand interaction that are characterized by different rationalities as far as the goals ofaction are concerned

Rational choicefocuses on strategic interactions in which agents participate on the basis of theirgiven identities and interests and try to realize their preferences through strategicbehavior. This is the realm of instrumental rationality whereby the goal of action is tomaximize or optimize one’s own interests and preferences. To the extent that this isonly possible through cooperative behavior, egoistic utility maximizers are expectedto collaborate or coordinate their behavior with others. This is where rational choiceapproaches are at their best, since they analyze those modes of action and interactionwhere instrumental rationality prevails: ‘‘Rational choice is instrumental: it is guidedby the outcome of action. Actions are valued and chosen not for themselves, but asmore or less efficient means to a further end.’’5

Many ideationalaccounts are compatible with an instrumentally rational logic of action. Underconditions of uncertainty or incomplete information, for example, instrumentallyrational actors can use ideas as road maps or signposts indicating how they could bestrealize their interests under given circumstances.7 Moreover, principled and causalbeliefs can enter the utility functions of actors, affect cost-benefit calculations, andinfluence the strategic interactions themselves.

Most social constructivists in international relations and comparative politics emphasizea different rationality, the ‘‘logic of appropriateness’’: ‘‘Human actors areimagined to follow rules that associate particular identities to particular situations,approaching individual opportunities for action by assessing similarities betweencurrent identities and choice dilemmas and more general concepts of self and situations.’’8 Rule-guided behavior differs from instrumentally rational behavior in thatactors try to ‘‘do the right thing’’ rather than maximizing or optimizing their givenpreferences. Normative rationality implies constitutive effects of social norms andinstitutions, since these rules not only regulate behavior, that is, they have causal

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effects, but also define social identities (‘‘good people do X’’). This is where the‘‘value added’’ of constructivism comes in. Following Nicholas Onuf, Fritz Kratochwil,and AlexanderWendt, constructivism points to the constitutive role of ideationalfactors.9 Socially shared ideas—be it norms (‘‘collective expectations about proper

behavior for a given identity’’10) or social knowledge about cause-and-effect relationships—not only regulate behavior but also constitute the identity of actors. The normof sovereignty, for example, regulates the interactions of states in international affairsand also defines what a state is. Human rights norms not only protect citizens fromstate intervention but also (and increasingly) define a ‘‘civilized state’’ in the modernworld. Although it is difficult to develop valid empirical indicators for distinguishingthe regulative from the constitutive effects of socially shared ideas,11 social constructivism’scontribution to the study of ideas in international relations consists of emphasizingthat collective norms and understandings constitute the social identities ofactors and also define the basic ‘‘rules of the game’’ in which actors find themselvesin their interactions. This does not mean, however, that constitutive norms cannot beviolated or never change. The content of the norm of sovereignty has changed dramaticallyover time, becoming more circumscribed, particularly when it comes tohuman rights. But sovereignty still constitutes a state—as opposed to any other corporateactor (a multinational corporation, for example)—insofar as we cannot definewhat a state is without reference to the notion of sovereignty

The constitutive effects of social norms also point to a further difference betweensocial constructivism and rational choice. Proponents of the former emphasize againstthe latter the social aspect of ideational factors. They disagree with a methodologicallyindividualist view of human action according to which ‘‘the elementary unit ofsocial life is the individual human action.’’12 The fundamental insight of the structureagencydebate is not just that structures and agents are mutually codetermined in acausal way. The crucial point is that social constructivists insist on the mutual constitutivenessof (social) structures and agents. Constructivists claim against individualismthat human agents do not exist independently from their social environment andits collectively shared systems of meanings (‘‘culture’’ in a broad sense). At the sametime, social constructivists maintain that human agency creates, reproduces, andchanges culture by way of daily practices. In sum, social constructivism occupiesa—sometimes uneasy—ontological middle ground between individualism and structuralismby claiming that there are properties of structures and of agents that cannotbe reduced to or collapsed into each other.13 This means for the study of ideas thatone can continue to study ‘‘beliefs’’ in terms of what is inside people’s minds and

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simultaneously insist that these beliefs are representations and enactments of socialand intersubjective culture.14

So far, most of the controversy between rational choice and social constructivism,at least in American international relations, has focused on the relationship betweenthe ‘‘logic of consequentialism’’ and the ‘‘logic of appropriateness.’’ Thus, the debateis concentrated on the lower axis of the triangle in Figure 1.15 Rationalist institutionalism,for example, explains a great deal about the emergence of norms and institutions,about the norm of reciprocity as the result of and the condition for cooperativestrategic interaction, and about the behavior of ‘‘boundedly rational’’ actors whoseinformation-processing capacities are constrained by social norms.16 The extent towhich an imagery emphasizing the constraining effects of norms can account for andaccommodate their constitutive effects is the subject of the debate between rationalistand sociological institutionalism.

Beyond belief laffery and weldes

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Rationalism assumes a specific model of reasoning as its hard core of it research program. That model is substantive rationality, defined as “behaviour that can be aadjudged objectively to be optimally adapted to the situation.” Use only one mode of reasoning. Moreover because rationalism typically trakes the individual as its basica unity of analysis and focuss on individual rationality, these idas re conceptualized in individual terms, as characteristics or posessions of individuals. Ideas, in short function as inputs for a substantive and individualist model of rationality.

Critique of the inclusion of ideas into analysis 200 –

Realist constructivism barkin

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Constructivism is the easier of the two terms to define inclusively. Most (possiblyall) self-described constructivists would agree that the defining feature of thisapproach is a focus on the social construction of international politics. Constructivistssee the facts of international politics as not reflective of an objective,material reality but an intersubjective, or social, reality (Onuf 1989). In otherwords, what actors do in international relations, the interests they hold, and thestructures within which they operate are defined by social norms and ideas ratherthan by objective or material conditions

Within this broad definition, constructivists differ considerably. One plane onwhich they differ is the extent to which there is an empirically identifiable reality tobe identified and studied. Opinions tend to coalesce into one of two epistemologies:one argues that an identifiable reality exists out there and can be accessed throughempirical research; the other contends that we can never know for sure if what weobserve really exists independently of our observation of it and, therefore, no true reality exists for empirical research to find. These two epistemologies are knownvariously as ‘‘neoclassical’’ and ‘‘postmodernist’’ constructivism (see Ruggie 1998)as well as ‘‘thin’’ and ‘‘thick’’ constructivism (see Wendt 1999). The case for arealist constructivism will be made in this essay by focusing on the neoclassicalvariant of constructivism because it is the more difficult case to make. Postmodernconstructivism is generally more accepting of the centrality of power in politics, andpower, as is argued below, is the core concept of realism. The postmodernistresponse, that realism is

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A good example is Wendt. He claims to accept the role of power ininternational relations and, thus, the basic realist premise as defined here. But healso argues, with reference to Kant, that the endogenous dynamic of internationalanarchy is progressive. In other words, absent exogenous shock, the culture ofanarchy will tend to evolve from the Hobbesian world of enemies to the Lockeanworld of rivals and, ultimately, to the Kantian world of friends (Wendt 1999:308–312).

Whats at stake in the agent structure debate? Dessler

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It attempts to explain the various modes of enablement and constraint operative in given interactive settings, leaving aside considerations of the capacities and liabilities of the agents who respond to those conditions of action. Of course, any social action is the product of both structural and agential forces, and therefore a strictly structural explanation of action (like its agential counterpart) will necessarily be incomplete. Structural theory alone does not provide and is not capable of providing a complete explanation of action.

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I consider the distinction between theory and ontology and advance the scientific realist contention that ontology is the basis of a the-ory's explanatory power. I take "theory" to refer generally to testable ex-planations of observed behavior. Theory does not merely locate or describe associations between observable phenomena; it explains them. What is tested in testing a theory is not an association but the explanation of it. As Waltz notes, "Theories are qualitatively different from laws. Laws identify invar-iant or probable associations. Theories show why those associations ob-tain."

"Ontology" refers to the concrete referents of an explanatory discourse. '5 A theory's ontology consists of the real-world structures (things, entities) and processes posited by the theory and invoked in the theory's explanations. The ontology of a discourse constrains but does not determine correct ex-planations in that discourse.'6 In classical physics, the ontology consists of space, time, and matter, meaning that all the entities or processes to which a classical explanation refers are embodiments of our relations between space, time, and matter. Newton's laws, for example, refer to mass, force, and acceleration. It should be stressed that an ontology is a structured set of entities; it consists not only of certain designated kinds of things but also of connections or relations between them. In the physics example, as Stephen Gaukroger points out, "Matter is 'in' space and time, but space and time are not 'in' matter."17 In international relations theory, the statement "A system consists of a structure and interacting units" represents an ontolog-ical claim. According to scientific realism, theories explain by showing how phenom-ena are products or aspects of an underlying ontology.'8 For example, a

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fever is explained as a by-product of the biochemical processes induced by a virus in the body; the behavior of a gas is explained as the motion of a collection of atoms possessing kinetic energy. A theory's explanatory power comes from its ability to reduce independent phenomena-that is, to show how apparently unconnected phenomena are actually products of a common ontology.'9 Biochemical explanations of disease are powerful because they show how apparently independent symptoms and signs are co-products of a single underlying process. For example, a cough and fever (among other clinical signs) are shown to be common aspects of, say, influenza. In this case, reduction is achieved by showing how independent phenomena-symptoms and signs that could and do appear independently in other cir-cumstances, such as cough, fever, muscular aches, and so on-are features of a given ontological process (the workings of a virus). Reduction is achieved in other cases by ontologically linking the conditional existence of one type of entity (say, steam) with the conditional existence of

another (for example, ice). Kinetic theory reduces these independent manifestations of water by detailing an atomic ontology which reveals that what exists as steam under one set of conditions (high temperature) will exist as ice under another set of conditions (low temperature).20

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The scientificr ealists' agent-structures olution, as describedb y Roy Bhas-kar, starts from a simple premise-namely, that "all [social] activity pre-supposes the prior existence of social forms." Thus consider saying, making, and doing as characteristic modalities of human agency. People cannot communicate except by utilizing existing media, produce except by applying themselves to materials which are already formed, or act save in some or other context. Speech requires language; making materials; actions conditions; agency resources; activ-ity rules. . . . [Slociety is a necessary condition for any intentional hu-man act at all.44

"Structure" refers, in this ontology, to the social forms that preexist action, these forms being conceived as analogous to language. Social structure stands in relation to social action as language stands in relation to discourse (speech and writing). This model suggests, Bhaskar notes, an Aristotelian conception of social activity, which likens the social agent to "a sculptor at work, fashioning a product out of the material and with the tools available to him. "45 Structure is a set of materials that is "appropriated" and "instantiated" in action.

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The starting point of the scientific realist approach to international struc-tural theory is therefore the recognition that state action is possible and conceivable only if there exist the instruments through which that action can in fact be carried out. Two sorts of instruments or media of action are necessary.48 First, nations must have resources, the physical attributes that comprise "capability." A military strategy requires military forces; mone-tary policy, financial instruments; trade policy, the goods and physical in-frastructure of trade; and so on. Second, nations must have available rules, the media through which they communicate with one another and coordinate

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their actions. For policy not only relies upon physical capability, but it also requires a framework of meaning through which use of that capability be-comes recognizable as policy (as intended, meaningful behavior) and through which these intended meanings can form the basis for patterned state inter-action. The importance of resources is acknowledged in the positional model, which defines "arrangement" in terms of the distribution of capability. But the role of rules in state action remains untheorized in that approach, and therefore some initial remarks toward a theory of rules would be appropriate at this point.

Constructivism, a user’s manual

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Fundamental to constructivism is the proposition that human beings are social beings, and wewould not be human but for our social relations. In other words, social relations make or constructpeople--ourselves--into the kind of beings that we are. Conversely, we make the world what it is,from the raw materials that nature provides, by doing what we do with each other and saying whatwe say to each other. Indeed, saying is doing: talking is undoubtedly the most important way thatwe go about making the world what it is.\

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Constructivism holds that people make society, and society makes people. This is a continuous,two-way process. In order to study it, we must start in the middle, so to speak, because people andsociety, always having made each other, are already there and just about to change. To make avirtue of necessity, we will start in the middle, between people and society, by introducing a thirdelement, rules, that always links the other two elements together. Social rules (the term rulesincludes, but is not restricted to, legal rules) make the process by which people and societyconstitute each other continuous and reciprocal.

Rules tells people what we should do.

Agents – people are, but only to the extent that society permits them ot be agents.

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Agency is a social condition.

Rules give agents choices

Agents act in society to achieve goals. Every society has rules telling agents which goals are the appropriate ones for them pursue.

Acting to achieve goals is rational conduct.

61 structure is a stable pattern of rules, institutions and unintended consequences.

62 we are often affected by phenomena, natural and socia, that we do not or cannot see, but we then respond as agents by putting what has happened to us in an institutional context. When agents do this, they institutionalize structure by bringing rules to bear on their situations.

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The practical solution is to start with rules and show how rules make agents and institutions what they are in relation to each other.

Nuts and bolts elster

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People usually do what they believe is likely to have the best overall outcome.

Rational choice is instrumental; it is guided by the oucome of action. Actions are valued and chosen not for themselves, but as more or less efficient means to a further end.

23 we can then say that the person acts so as to maximize utility, as long as we keep in mind that this is nothing but a convenient way of saying that he does what he most prefers.