The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory Author(s): Ted Hopf Reviewed work(s): Source: International Security, Vol.

23, No. 1 (Summer, 1998), pp. 171-200 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2539267 . Accessed: 02/08/2012 11:57
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Hopf The Promiseof Ted in Constructivism International Relations Theory

challenger to the in continuing dominance of neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism the is relationsin the United States,constructivism regarded studyof international with a greatdeal of skepticism mainstreamscholars.1 While the reasons for by this receptionare many,threecentralones are the mainstream'smiscastingof constructivism's as constructivism necessarilypostmodern and antipositivist; own ambivalence about whether it can buy into mainstreamsocial science its distinctiveness; and, related to this methods withoutsacrificing theoretical failureto advance an alternativeresearchproambivalence, constructivism's claims, outline the differences gram. In this article,I clarifyconstructivism's and between "conventional" and "critical"constructivism, suggest a research agenda thatboth provides alternativeunderstandingsof mainstreaminternaTedHopfis Visiting The Ohio State University. is the He Professor Peace Research, MershonCenter, of author PeripheralVisions: DeterrenceTheory and American ForeignPolicy in the Third World, of Foreign 1965-1990 (Ann Arbor:University MichiganPress,1994) and is at workon Constructing of is a and relations developed Policyat Home: Moscow 1955-1999,in which theory identity international of and tested. can be reached e-mailat <<hopf.2@osu.edu>>. He by I am most grateful Matt Evangelista and Peter Katzensteinwho both read and commentedon to draftsof thiswork,and, more important, supported my overall research many less-than-inspiring to agenda. I am also thankful Peter Kowert and Nicholas Onuf forinvitingme to Miami in the winter of 1997 to a conferenceat Florida International Universityat which I was compelled to I come to grips with the difference between critical and conventional constructivisms. also benefitedfromespecially incisive and criticalcommentsfromHenrikkiHeikka, Badredine Arfi, RobertKeohane, JamesRichter, Maria Fanis, Ned Lebow, Pradeep Chhibber,Richard Herrmann, David Dessler, and one anonymous reviewer.I would also like to salute the members of my Irfan at of relationstheory the University Michigan,in particular, graduate seminarin international Canedo helped me figureout the relationNooruddin, Frank Penirian,Todd Allee, and Jonathan ship between the mainstreamand its critics. Politics(Readof 1. The canonical neorealistwork remainsKennethN. Waltz, Theory International 1979). The debate between neorealismand neoliberalinstitutionalism ing,Mass.: Addison-Wesley, (New York: and is presented and summarized in David A. Baldwin, ed., Neorealism Neoliberalism challenges can be found in Nicholas Greenwood Press, 1993). Constructivist Columbia University Relations(Columbia: and International Onuf, Worldof Our Making:Rules and Rule in Social Theory of ed., The Culture NationalSecurity: of University South Carolina Press, 1989); PeterJ.Katzenstein, Press, 1996); and Yosef Lapid in Politics(New York:Columbia University Normsand Identity World and in (Boulder,Colo.: and FriedrichV. Kratochwil,eds., The ReturnofCtulture Identity IR Theory Lynne Rienner,1996).
Ihnternational Security, 23, No. 1 (Summer 1998), pp. 171-200 Vol. ? 1998 by the Presidentand Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute Technology. of

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can a tional relationspuzzles and offers few examples of what constructivism uniquely bringto an understandingof world politics. Constructivism offers alternative understandingsof a numberof the central relationstheory, including:the meaningof anarchyand themesin international relationship between state identityand interest,an balance of power, the elaborationof power,and the prospectsforchange in world politics.Construcand variants,the tivismitselfshould be understood in its conventional critical latterbeing more closely tied to criticalsocial theory.The conventionalconinternational relations to structivist desire to presentan alternative mainstream theoryrequires a research program. Such a program includes constructivist theory, securitydilemma,neolibthe reconceptualizations balance-of-threat of and the democraticpeace. The constructivist research eral cooperationtheory, program has its own puzzles that concentrateon issues of identityin world politics and the theorizationof domestic politics and culturein international relationstheory.

and Conventional Constructivism Issuesin Mainstream Relations International Theory

is Since constructivism best defined in relation to the issues it claims to themes in apprehend, I presentits position on several of the most significant relationstheorytoday. international
ACTORS AND STRUCTURES ARE MUTUALLY CONSTITUTED

constrainand enable the actions of actors,and how How much do structures In of much can actorsdeviate fromthe constraints structure? world politics,a structureis a set of relativelyunchangeable constraintson the behavior of states.2Although these constraintscan take the formof systems of material dis/incentives,such as a balance of power or a market,as importantfroma constructivist perspective is how an action does or does not reproduce both For the actor and the structure.3 example, to the extentthatU.S. appeasement in Vietnam was unimaginable because of U.S. identityas a great power,
structure. thisis the neorealistconceptualizationof international 2. Most important thisarticle, for of Politics. Waltz,Theory International All references neorealism,unless otherwisenoted,are from to in is 3. FriedrichKratochwilsuggests thatthis difference the understandingof structure because structuralismentered internationalrelations theory not through sociolinguistics,but through microeconomics.FriedrichV. Kratochwil,"Is the Ship of Culture at Sea or Returning?"in Lapid and Identity, 211. p. and Kratochwil,The Return Culture of

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military intervention constituted United States as a greatpower. Appeasethe ment was an unimaginable act. By engaging in the "enabled" action of intervention,the United States reproduced its own identity greatpower, as well of as the structurethat gave meaning to its action. So, U.S. interventionin Vietnamperpetuated the international intersubjective understandingof great powers as those states thatuse military power against others. Meaningfulbehavior,or action,4is possible only within an intersubjective social context.Actors develop their relations with, and understandingsof, others throughthe media of norms and practices.In the absence of norms, exercises of power, or actions, would be devoid of meaning. Constitutive norms define an identityby specifying the actions that will cause Others to recognize that identityand respond to it appropriately.5 Since structureis set meaninglesswithoutsome intersubjective of normsand practices,anarchy, mainstream international relationstheory'smost crucialstructural component, is meaningless.Neitheranarchy, thatis, the absence of any authority above the of state,nor the distribution capabilities,can "socialize" statesto thedesiderata of the international absent some set of meaningfulnorms system'sstructure and practices.6 A storymany use in first-year international relationscourses to demonstrate the structuralextreme,that is, a situation where no agency is imaginable, illustratesthe point. The scenario is a firein a theaterwhere all run for the exits.7But absent knowledge of social practices or constitutive norms,strucin this seeminglyoverdeterminedcircumstance, still indetermiis ture,even nate. Even in a theaterwithjust one door,while all run forthatexit,who goes first? Are they the strongestor the disabled, the women or the children,the or aged or the infirm, is it just a mad dash? Determiningthe outcome will of require knowing more about the situationthan about the distribution material power or the structure authority. of One will need to know about the culture,norms,institutions, procedures,rules,and social practicesthatconstitute the actors and the structure alike.
4. The criticaldistinction between action and behavior is made by Charles Taylor,"Interpretation SocialScience: and the Sciences ofMan," in Paul Rabinow and WilliamM. Sullivan,eds., Interpretive A SecondLook(Berkeley:University CaliforniaPress, 1987), pp. 33-81. of and Culture 5. Ronald L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt,and PeterJ.Katzenstein, "Norms, Identity, in National Security," Katzenstein,The Culture NationalSecurity, 54. in of p. Vol. Organization, 6. David Dessler,"What's At Stake in theAgent-Structure Debate?" International 43, No. 3 (Summer 1989), pp. 459-460. 7. Arnold Wolfers,Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore,Md.: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1962).

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ANARCHY

AS AN IMAGINED

COMMUNITY

it Given that anarchy is structural, must be mutually constitutedby actors employingconstitutive rules and social practices,implyingthat anarchyis as as indeterminate Arnold Wolfers'sfire.Alexander Wendt has offereda constructivist critiqueof thisfundamentalstructural pillar of mainstreaminternaBut still more fundamentally, this move opens the tional relations theory.8 possibilityof thinkingof anarchy as having multiple meanings for different actorsbased on theirown communitiesof intersubjective understandingsand practices.And ifmultipleunderstandings anarchyare possible,thenone can of begin to theorize about different domains and issue areas of international politics thatare understood by actors as more, or less, anarchic. the thatall states should prefersecurity indeSelf-help, neorealistinference determinedbehavior of an actor pendence wheneverpossible, is a structurally only to the extentthata single particularunderstandingof anarchyprevails.9 If theimplicationsof anarchyare not constantacross all relationships and issue areas of international politics,thena continuumofanarchiesis possible. Where there are catastrophicconsequences for not being able to rely on one's own such as arms controlin a world of offensive capacityto enforcean agreement, military advantage, neorealistconceptualizationsof anarchyare most apt. But where actors do not worrymuch about the potential costs of ceding control of over outcomes to other states or institutions, such as in the enforcement trade agreements,this is a realm of world politics where neorealistideas of anarchyare just imaginary.
IDENTITIES AND INTERESTS IN WORLD POLITICS

in Identitiesare necessary, international politicsand domestic societyalike, in and order.'0 order to ensure at least some minimal level of predictability Durable expectationsbetween states require intersubjective identitiesthatare stable to ensure predictablepatternsof behavior.A world without sufficiently
8. Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Constructionof Power Politics,"International Organization, 46, No. 2 (Spring 1992), 391-425. Vol. 9. Elizabeth Kier,for example, shows how the same "objective" externalstructural arrangement of power cannotaccount forFrenchmilitary strategy between the two world wars. Elizabeth Kier, TheCulture National "Culture and FrenchMilitaryDoctrinebeforeWorldWar II," in Katzenstein, of Security, 186-215. pp. 10. The focus on identity does not reflect lack of appreciationforotherelementsin the construca tivistapproach, such as norms,culture,and institutions. Insofaras identitiesare the most proximate causes of choices,preferences, action,I concentrate them,but withthe fullrecognition and on that identitiescannot be understood withouta simultaneous account of normative,cultural,and institutional context.

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identitiesis a world of chaos, a world of pervasive and irremediableuncera tainty, world much more dangerous than anarchy.Identitiesperformthree necessaryfunctions a society:theytellyou and otherswho you are and they in In tell you who othersare.11 tellingyou who you are, identitiesstrongly imply a particularset of interests preferences or with respectto choices of action in particulardomains, and with respectto particularactors. The identityof a state implies its preferences and consequent actions.12 A it to state understandsothersaccording to the identity attributes them,while simultaneouslyreproducingits own identity throughdaily social practice.The crucial observationhere is thatthe producer of the identity not in controlof is what it ultimatelymeans to others; the intersubjective structureis the final arbiterof meaning. For example, during the Cold War,Yugoslavia and other East European countriesoftenunderstood the Soviet Union as Russia, despite the factthatthe Soviet Union was trying hard not to have thatidentity. Soviet control over its own identitywas structurally constrainednot only by East European understanding,but also by daily Soviet practice,which of course included conversingwith East Europeans in Russian. Whereas constructivism treatsidentity an empiricalquestion to be theoas rized within a historicalcontext,neorealism assumes that all units in global that of self-interested politics have only one meaningfulidentity, states.Constructivism stressesthat this propositionexempts fromtheorizationthe very
11. Henri Tajfel, Human Groupsand Social Categories: Studiesin SocialPsychology (Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1981), p. 255. Although there are many accounts of the origin of I identity, offer cognitiveexplanationbecause it has minimala prioriexpectations, a assuming only thatidentitiesare needed to reduce complexityto some manageable level. 12. Dana Eyre and Mark Suchman, forexample, findthat,controlling rationalstrategic for need, domestic coalition politics, and superpower manipulation,countries in the third world prefer certain weapons systems over others because of their understandingof what it means to be "modern" in the twentieth Dana P. Eyre and Mark C. Suchman, "Status,Norms, and the century. Proliferation Conventional Weapons: An Institutional of Theory Approach," in Katzenstein,The Cultureof National Security, pp. 73-113. Other examples of empirical research that have linked particularidentitiesto particularsets of preferencesare "civilized" identitiesdriving attitudes toward weapons of mass destruction; notions of what constitutes "humanitarian"shaping deciin of sions to intervene otherstates;the identity a "normal" stateimplyingparticular Soviet foreign identitiesin Japan and German shaping their post-World War II policies; and "antimilitarist" foreignpolicies. These argumentscan be found in Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald,"Norms and Deterrence:The Nuclear and Chemical Weapons Taboos," pp. 114-152; Martha Finnemore, "ConstructingNorms of Humanitarian Intervention," pp. 153-185; Robert Herman, "Identity, The Soviet ForeignPolicy Revolutionand the End of theCold War," Norms,and National Security: and National Securityin Germany and pp. 271-316; and Thomas U. Berger,"Norms, Identity, TheCulture NationalSecurity. identity Japan,"pp. 317-356. All of the above are in Katzenstein, On of and mutual intelligibility, Roxanne Lynn Doty, "The Bounds of 'Race' in International see Relations,"Millennium: Vol. 22, No. 3 (Winter1993), p. 454. Journal International of Studies,

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fundamentalsof internationalpolitical life,the nature and definitionof the presumes to know, a priori, actors. The neorealistassumption of self-interest In just what is the selfbeing identified. otherwords, the state in international politics,across time and space, is assumed to have a single eternalmeaning. Constructivism instead assumes that the selves, or identities,of states are a cultural, political,and social context. variable; theylikelydepend on historical, Constructivism and neorealism share the assumption that interestsimply assumes that states have the same a priori choices, but neorealism further Such a homogenizingassumption is possible only if one denies that interests. actors are interests the productsof the social practicesthatmutuallyconstitute that are and structures.13Given thatinterests the productof identity, is, having different from the identity"great power" implies a particularset of interests those implied by the identity"European Union member,"and that identities are multiple,constructivist logic precludes acceptance of pregiveninterests.14 a exploresnot only how By makinginterests centralvariable,constructivism particular interestscome to be, but also why many interestsdo not. The explanaalso true,most common,and unsatisfying tautological,and therefore tion is that interestsare absent where there is no reason for them, where instead, theorizes about the promised gains are too meager. Constructivism, meaning of absent interests.Just as identities and interestsare produced are as throughsocial practices,missinginterests understoodby constructivists produced absences, omissions that are the understandable product of social cannot an The social practicesthat constitute identity practicesand structure. that imply intereststhat are not consistentwith the practices and structure At an thatidentity. the extreme, actor would not be able to imagine constitute an absent interest, even if presentedwith it.15
13. Robert Keohane calls the failure to contextualizeinterestsone of the major weaknesses of Two mainstreaminternationalrelations theory.Robert 0. Keohane, "InternationalInstitutions: StudiesQuarterly, 32, No. 4 (December 1988), pp. 390-391. Vol. Approaches," International of 14. Jeffrey Legro, forexample, has shown how the preferences greatpowers beforeand during WorldWar II withrespectto theuse and nonuse ofstrategic bombing,and chemicaland submarine organizations withoutfirst understandingthe identitiesof the military warfare,are unfathomable W. responsible for shaping those preferences.Jeffrey Legro, "Culture and Preferencesin the ScienceReview, Vol. 90, No. 1 (March 1996), Political International Cooperation Two-Step,"American pp. 118-137. 15. See, for example, Tannenwald, "Norms and Deterrence," and Kier, "Culture and French MilitaryDoctrine before World War II," p. 203. For a brilliantaccount of how social structure and interest, JaneK. Cowan, "Going Out for see of enables and impedes the construction identity in Coffee?Contestingthe Grounds of Gendered Pleasures in Everyday Sociability," Peter Loizos Identities: Genderand Kinshipin Modern Greece and Evthymios Papataxiarchis, eds., Contested Press, 1991), pp. 196-197. (Princeton, N.J.:PrincetonUniversity

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The consequences of this treatment interestsand identitieswork in the of same directionas constructivism's account of structure, agency,and anarchy: states are expected to have (1) a farwider arrayof potentialchoices of action before them than is assumed by neorealism, and (2) these choices will be constrainedby social structures thatare mutuallycreatedby states and structures via social practices. In other words, states have more agency under but that agency is not in any sense unconstrained.To the constructivism, choices are rigorouslyconstrainedby the webs of understandingof contrary, the practices,identities, and interests otheractors thatprevail in particular of historicalcontexts.
THE POWER OF PRACTICE

Power is a centraltheoretical elementforboth mainstreamand constructivist but their conceptualizations of approaches to internationalrelations theory, Neorealism and neoliberalinstitutionalism assume power are vastlydifferent. thatmaterialpower, whethermilitary economic or both,is the single most or in important source of influence and authority global politics.16 Constructivism argues thatboth materialand discursive power are necessaryforany underI are standing of world affairs. emphasize both because oftenconstructivists dismissed as unRealistic for believing in the power of knowledge, ideas, culture,ideology,and language, thatis, discourse.17 The notion thatideas are a formof power, that power is more than brute force,and that materialand discursive power are related is not new. Michel Foucault's articulationof the power/knowledge nexus, Antonio Gramsci's theoryof ideological hegemony, and Max Weber's differentiation coercion fromauthority all precursors of are to constructivism's position on power in political life.18Empiricalwork exists
16. A rare effort the mainstreamliterature break away fromthis focus on materialpower is in to JudithGoldstein and Robert 0. Keohane, eds., Ideas and ForeignPolicy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993). 17. As R.B.J. Walkerhas clarified, suggest thatcultureand ideology are crucialforthe analysis "To it of world politicsis not necessarilyto take an idealist position.... On the contrary, is important to recognizethatideas, consciousness,culture,and ideology are bound up withmore immediately visible kinds of political,military, economic power." In R.B.J. and Walker, "East Wind,WestWind: and WorldOrder Civilizations,Hegemonies, and World Orders," in Walker,ed., Culture, Ideology, (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984), p. 3. See also Onuf, Worldof Our Making,p. 64. Joseph interpreNye's conceptualizationof "soft" power could be usefullyread througha constructivist tation.See JosephS. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing NatureofAmerican Power (New York: Basic Books, 1991), esp. pp. 173-201. 18. Colin Gordon,ed., Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews OtherWritinigs, aned 1972-1997,byMichel Foucault(Brighton, Sussex, U.K.: HarvesterPress,1980); AntonioGramsci,Selectionis thePrison from Notebooks, trans. and ed., Quinton Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International

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in both international relationstheoryand securitystudies that demonstrates the need to appreciateboth the materialand the discursiveaspects of power.19 Given that the operation of the material side of power is familiarfromthe mainstreamliterature, here I concentrate the discursive side, the power of on practicein constructivism. The power of social practiceslies in theircapacityto reproducethe intersubjective meanings that constitutesocial structuresand actors alike. The U.S. military intervention Vietnamwas consistent in with a numberof U.S. identities: great power, imperialist,enemy,ally, and so on. Others observing the United States not only inferred U.S. identityfromits actions in Vietnam,but web of meaning about what precisely also reproduced the intersubjective constituted thatidentity. the extent, example, thata group of countries To for an attributed imperialist to identity the United States,the meaning of being an In imperialist statewas reproducedby the U.S. military intervention. thisway, but social practicesnot only reproduceactorsthroughidentity, also reproduce an intersubjective social structure throughsocial practice.A most important and so, order.Social power of practiceis its capacityto produce predictability practicesgreatlyreduce uncertainty among actorswithina socially structured community, therebyincreasingconfidencethatwhat actions one takes will be followed by certainconsequences and responses fromothers.20 An actor is not even able to act as its identity until the relevantcommunity the of meaning,to paraphrase Karl Deutsch,21acknowledges legitimacyof that

Publishers,1992); and Max Weber,FromMax Weber, ed., Hans Gerthand C. WrightMills (New York:OxfordUniversity Press, 1946). 19. Price and Tannenwald show that even power as material as nuclear missiles and chemical artillery had to be understood and interpreted beforeit had any meaning. In Price and Tannenand wald, "Norms and Deterrence."RobertCox has provided an account of the rise,reproduction, and the rise and reproduction U.S. dominance demise of nineteenth-century British supremacy, of in the twentieth century througha close readingof the interaction between materialand discursive Relations power. RobertW. Cox, "Social Forces, States, and World Orders: Beyond International Theory,"Millennium: Journal International of Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring 1981), pp. 126-155. 20. Onuf sees these reproduciblepatternsof action as the product of "reflexiveself-regulation," wherebyagents refer theirown and other'spast and anticipatedactionsin deciding how to act. to Onuf,World OurMaking, 62. of p. 21. Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalismand Social Communication: Inquiryinto the Foundations An of Nationality (New York:MIT Press, 1953), pp. 60-80. Deutsch was a constructivist long ahead of his time to the extentthat he argued that individuals could not engage in meaningfulaction absent in some community-wide Anotherwork constructivist essence is RobertJervis's intersubjectivity. The Logic ofImages in International Relations(Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1970). Applying Erving Goffmann's self-presentation theoryto international politics,Jervispointed out that state actions, such as gunboat diplomacy, were meaningless unless situated in a larger intersubjective communityof diplomaticpractice.

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action,by thatactor,in thatsocial context.The power of practiceis the power to produce intersubjective It meaning withina social structure. is a shortstep fromthis authorizingpower of practiceto an understandingof practiceas a way of bounding, or disciplininginterpretation, making some interpretations of realityless likelyto occur or prevail withina particularcommunity.22 The meanings of actions of members of the community, well as the actions of as Others,become fixed throughpractice;boundaries of understandingbecome well known. In this way, the ultimatepower of practiceis to reproduce and police an intersubjective Social practices, the extentthattheyauthoto reality.23 rize, discipline,and police, have the power to reproduce entirecommunities, including the international community, well as the many communitiesof as identity found therein.24 State actions in the foreign policy realm are constrainedand empowered by prevailing social practicesat home and abroad. Richard Ashley,for example, writesof a foreignpolicy choice as being a kind of social practicethatat once constitutes and empowers the state,definesits sociallyrecognizedcompetence, and secures the boundaries that differentiate domestic and international the economic and political spheres of practice and, with them, the appropriate domains in which specificactors may secure recognition and act competently. Finally,Ashley concludes, foreignpolicy practicedepends on the existenceof intersubjective "precedentsand shared symbolicmaterials-in orderto impose structure interpretations upon events,silence alternative interpretations, practhe tices,and orchestrate collectivemaking of history."25 Although I have necessarily concentratedon articulatinghow discursive power works in this section, the power to control intersubjectiveunderstanding is not the only formof power relevantto a constructivist approach to world politics. Having resources that allow oneself to deploy discursive wherewithalto sustain institutions necespower-the economic and military

22. See Doty,"The Bounds of Race," p. 454; and Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the RationalWorld of Defense Intellectuals,"Signs:Journal Women Cultureand Society, in Vol. 12, No. 32 (Summer of 1987), pp. 687-718. 23. See Richard K. Ashley, "Untying the Sovereign State: A Double Reading of the Anarchy Problematique,"Millennium: Journal International of Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer 1988), p. 243, fora discussion of this process. 24. Richard K. Ashley,"The Geopolitics of GeopoliticalSpace: Toward a CriticalSocial Theoryof International Politics," Alternatives, 12, No. 4 (October-December1987), p. 409. Vol. 25. RichardK. Ashley,"ForeignPolicy as PoliticalPerformance," International StudiesNotes(1988), p. 53.

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of sary forthe formalizedreproduction social practices-is almost always part of the storyas well.
CHANGE IN WORLD POLITICS

Constructivism agnostic about change in world politics.26 restoresmuch is It varietyand difference world affairs to and points out the practicesby which intersubjective order is maintained,but it does not offerany more hope for change in world politicsthanneorealism.Constructivism's insightthatanarchy is what states make of it, for example, implies that there are many different understandingsof anarchyin the world, and so state actions should be more varied than only self-help. But thisis an observationof already-existing reality, a or,more precisely, set of hypothesesabout the same. These different undermaintained by the standings of anarchy are still rooted in social structures, does power of practice,and quite imperviousto change. What constructivism offer an account of how and where change may occur. is One aspect of constructivist power is thepower to reproduce,discipline,and police. When such power is realized, change in world politics is very hard indeed. These intersubjective structures, however, although difficult chalto lenge, are not impregnable.Alternative actorswith alternative identities, pracmaterial resources are theoretically tices, and sufficient capable of effecting and Americansupremacy, example, change. RobertCox's account of British for perhaps best illustratesthe extraordinary stayingpower of a well-articulated ideological hegemony,but also its possible demise. And Walker rightlyobserves that constructivism, the extentthat it surfacesdiversity, to difference, and particularity, to opens up at least potentialalternatives the current prevailing structures.27 Constructivism conceives of the politics of identityas a continual contestfor controlover the power necessary to produce meaning in a social group. So long as thereis difference, thereis a potentialforchange. Thus, contrary some critics28 to who assert thatconstructivism believes that need only be change in world politicsis easy, that"bad" neorealiststructures if thoughtaway, in factconstructivism appreciates the power of structure, for no other reason then it assumes that actors reproduce daily theirown constraintsthroughordinarypractice.Constructivism's conceptualizationof the
26. Criticalconstructivism denies this vigorously. 27. R.B.J. Walker, "Realism,Change, and International PoliticalTheory," International StudiesQuarterly, Vol. 31, No. 1 (March 1987), pp. 76-77. 28. See, for example, John J. Mearsheimer,"The False Promise of InternationalInstitutions," International Security, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter1994/1995),pp. 5-49, esp. 37-47.

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relationship between agency and structure grounds its view thatsocial change is both possible and difficult. Neorealism's positionthatall statesare meaningfullyidentical denies a fairamount of possible change to its theoretical structure. In sum, neorealismand constructivism share fundamental concernswiththe in role of structure world politics,the effects anarchyon statebehavior,the of definition stateinterests, natureof power,and the prospectsforchange. the of They disagree fundamentally, however, on each concern.Contra neorealism, constructivism assumes that actors and structuresmutually constituteeach to are other;anarchymust be interpreted have meaning; stateinterests part of the process of identity construction; power is both materialand discursive;and change in world politics is both possible and difficult.

Constructivisms: Conventional Critical and

To the degree that constructivism and epistemologicaldiscreates theoretical and its originsin critical tancebetween itself it theory, becomes "conventional" constructivism. Althoughconstructivism shares many of the foundationaleleit ments of criticaltheory, also resolves some issues by adopting defensible rules of thumb,or conventions, ratherthanfollowingcritical theory theway all in up the postmodern critical path.29I situate constructivism this way to highlight both its commonalitieswith traditional international relationstheory and its differences with the criticaltheorywith which it is sometimesmisleadingly conflated.30 Below I sketch out the relationshipbetween conventional and criticalsocial theoryby identifying constructivism both those aspects of critical theory that constructivism has retained and those it has chosen to conventionalize. The result, conventional constructivism, a collection of is principles distilled from critical social theorybut without the latter'smore theoretical epistemologicalfollow-through. consistent or Both criticaland conventionalconstructivism on the same side of thebarricadesin YosefLapid's are characterizationof the battle zone: the fixed, natural, unitary,stable, and

29. Jepperson, Wendt,and Katzensteindifferentiate kind of "sociological" analysis performed the in theirvolume from "radical constructivist the position"ofRichardAshley,David Campbell, R.B.J. Walker,and Cynthia Weber.See Jepperson, and CulWendt,and Katzenstein,"Norms, Identity, ture,"p. 46, notes 41 and 42. 30. As, for example, in Mearsheimer,"The False Promise of International Institutions," wherein constructivism, reflectivism, postmodernism,and poststructuralism all reduced to "critical are theory," 37, note 128. p.

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relationstheory)hand, and essence-like,on the one (mainstreaminternational and on the emergent, constructed, contested, interactive, process-like, theother (constructivist) one.31 Conventional and criticalconstructivism share theoretical do fundamentals. Both aim to "denaturalize" the social world, that is, to empiricallydiscover and practicesand identitiesthat people take and reveal how the institutions as natural,given, or matterof fact,are, in fact,the product of human agency, of social construction.32 Both believe thatintersubjective realityand meanings are criticaldata forunderstandingthe social world.33Both insistthatall data must be "contextualized,"thatis, theymust be relatedto, and situatedwithin, in the social environment which they were gathered,in order to understand theirmeaning.34Both accept the nexus between power and knowledge, the mode.35Both also power of practice in its disciplinary, meaning-producing, accept the restoration agency to human individuals. Finally, of both stressthe of reflexivity the self and society, thatis, the mutual constitution actor and of
structure.36

Perhaps where constructivism most conventionalis in the area of methis The authors of the theoretical introduction The to odology and epistemology. CultureofNationalSecurity, example, vigorously, for and perhaps defensively, deny that their authors use "any special interpretivist methodology."37 The authors are carefulto stressthattheydo not depart from"normal science" in this volume, and none of the contributors eitherdeviates fromthatground or whether it is appropriate.38 This position is anathema to critical questions theorywhich, as part of its constitutiveepistemology, has a lengthybill of particularsagainst positivism.
31. Yosef Lapid, "Culture's Ship: Returnsand Departures in International Relations Theory,"in Lapid and Kratochwil,The Return Culture and Identity, 3-20. of pp. 32. Mark Hoffman, "CriticalTheoryand the Inter-Paradigm Debate," Millennium: Journal Interof nationalStudies, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Summer 1987), pp. 233-236. 33. Ashley,"The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space," p. 403. 34. In this respect,both criticaland conventionalconstructivism be understood as sharingan can interpretivist epistemology, more generally. See Taylor, "Interpretation and the Sciences of Man." 35. James Der Derian, On Diplomacy. Genealogy Western A of Estrangement (Oxford,U.K.: Basil Blackwell, 1987), p. 4. 36. R.B.J.Walker,"World Politics and WesternReason: Universalism,Pluralism,Hegemony," in and WorldOrder,p. 195; and Ashley,"The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Walker,Culture, Ideology, Space," pp. 409-410. 37. Jepperson, Wendt,and Katzenstein,"Norms, Identity, and Culture,"p. 67. 38. The only,even partial,exceptions are Price and Tannenwald, "Norms and Deterrence,"and Michael N. Barnett,"Institutions, Roles, and Disorder: The Case of the Arab States System," International StudiesQuarterly, 37, No. 3 (September1993), pp. 271-296. Vol.

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Conventional constructivism, while expectingto uncover differences, identities,and multiple understandings,still assumes that it can specifya set of conditionsunder which one can expect to see one identityor another.This is what Mark Hoffmanhas called "minimal foundationalism, accepting that a contingent universalismis possible and may be necessary."In contrast, critical theoryrejectseitherthe possibilityor the desirability a minimal or continof gentfoundationalism.39 Ashley chides all noncritical approaches for"anticipating analysis coming to a close." In allowing for such prematureclosure, the analyst participatesin the normalization or naturalizationof what is being observed, and riskshiding the patternsof dominationthatmightbe revealed if closure could only be deferred.40 reach an intellectually To satisfying point of closure,constructivism adopts positivistconventionsabout sample characmethods of difference, teristics, process tracing,and spuriousness checks. In making this choice, criticaltheorists can an argue, constructivism offer understandingof social realitybut cannot criticizethe boundaries of its own understanding,and this is preciselywhat criticaltheoryis all about.41 So, forexample, Thomas Bergermakes claims about Japanese and German nationalidentities thatimplya certainoutcome foran indefinite period of time to come.42Such a claim requiresthe presumed nonexistenceof relevantunobservables,as well as the assumptionthatthe practices, institutions, norms,and power relationsthatunderlay the productionof those identitiesare somehow fixedor constant. Criticaltheorists would see thisas an illusion of control; none of these factorscan be so easily immobilized foreitheranalysis or prediction. This difference manifestsitself as well in how critical and conventional constructivism understand identity. Conventional constructivists wish to discover identitiesand their associated reproductivesocial practices,and then offeran account of how those identitiesimply certain actions. But critical theoristshave a different aim. They also wish to surface identities,not to but to elaborate on how people come to believe in a articulatetheireffects,
Four Voices in 39. Mark Hoffman,"Restructuring, Reconstruction, Reinscription, Rearticulation: Critical International Theory,"Millennium: Journal International of Studies,Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring 1991), p. 170. David Campbell argues that no identity(or any other theoreticalelement for that matter) may be allowed to be fixedor final.It mustbe critically deconstructed soon as it acquires as a meaning.David Campbell, "ViolentPerformances: in Identity, Sovereignty, Responsibility," Lapid and Kratochwil,The Returnof Cultureand Identity, 164-166. See also Stephen J.Rosow, "The pp. Forms of Internationalization: Representation WesternCulture on a Global Scale," Alternatives, of Vol. 15, No. 3 (July-September 1990), p. 289, fordifferences this issue. on 40. Ashley,"The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space," p. 408. 41. Hoffman, "Restructuring, Reconstruction, Reinscription, Rearticulation," 232. p. 42. Berger, "Norms, Identity, and National Securityin Germanyand Japan."

23:1 | 184 Security International

single version of a naturalized truth.In other words, criticaltheoryaims at whereas conventional formation, exploding the mythsassociated withidentity as wish to treatthose identities possible causes ofaction.Critical constructivists in theorythus claims an interest change, and a capacity to fosterchange, that could make. no conventionalconstructivist recognize theorists self-consciously In addition,and in a relatedvein, critical and fixingof the their own participationin the reproduction,constitution, They realize thattheactorand observercan never theyobserve.43 social entities while largely ignorethisinjunction, be separated. Conventionalconstructivists of understandingsof the connectivity subjects with adopting interpretivist meaning.The observerneverbecomes othersubjectsin a web ofintersubjective criticalinquiry. a subject of the same self-reflective also split over the originsof idenConventional and criticalconstructivists accommodate a cognitiveaccount Whereas conventionalconstructivists tity.44 are no foridentity, offer account at all, criticalconstructivists more likelyto or As see some formof alienationdrivingthe need foridentity. remarkedabove, accepts the existence of identitiesand wants to conventionalconstructivism use but understandtheirreproductionand effects, criticalconstructivists critical social theory to specify some understanding of the origin of identity. Tzvetan Todorov and Ashis Nandy, forexample, assume thatEuropean identitieswere incomplete(indeed, everyselfis incompletewithoutan other)until The theyencounteredpeoples in the Americas and India, respectively.45 necesto produce one's own identityis found in with an other sity of difference Hegel's bondsman's tale, where the more powerful slaveowner can neither nor know his own identity exercisehis superiorpower untilhis slave, his other, throughpractice.Perhaps conventionalconthatidentity helps him construct structivism could accept this assumption: the need for others to construct moves beyond thisposition with the aid of oneself,but criticalconstructivism to allows difference reign,whereas Nietzsche,Freud, and Lacan.46The former
between her approach to the 43. Cynthia Weber points this out as a very importantdistinction from separates conventionalconstructivists state and more modernistapproaches. Webersimilarly Exchange the Intervention, State,and Symbolic Sovereignty: Max Weber,Simulating criticaltheorists. Press, 1995), p. 3. (Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge University "Is Kratochwil, theShip of Cultureat Sea or Returning?" 44. For a review ofthisissue see Friedrich pp. 206-210. 45. The discussion of the work of Todorov and Nandy is in Naeem Inayatullah and David L. Relations Theory,"in Lapid Blaney,"Knowing Encounters:Beyond Parochialismin International pp. and Identity, 65-84. of and Kratochwil,The Return Culture on see Anne Norton, Reflections 46. For an account of identitybased on these three theorists, Press, 1988). Md.: JohnsHopkins University Identity (Baltimore, Political

The Promise Constructivism of | 185

the latterimplies eitherthe assimilationof the other,if deemed equal, or his oppression,if inferior.47 Critical theory'sapproach toward identityis rooted in assumptions about power.48 Criticaltheorists power being exercisedin every social exchange, see and thereis always a dominantactorin thatexchange.Unmaskingthesepower relationsis a large part of criticaltheory'ssubstantiveagenda; conventional on constructivism, the otherhand, remains "analyticallyneutral" on the issue of power relations.Although conventionalconstructivists share the idea that power is everywhere,because they believe that social practices reproduce underlying power relations, theyare not necessarilyinterested interrogating in those relations. Critical theory'sassumption that all social relations are instances of hierarchy, subordination,or domination ironicallyappears similar to the expectationsof realistsand neorealistsabout world politics.49 The different conceptualizations of power imply differenttheoretical agendas. Whereas conventional constructivismis aimed at the production of new knowledge and insightsbased on novel understandings, "criticaltheoryanalyzes social constraints and cultural understandingsfroma supreme human in interest enlightenment and emancipation."50 Although conventionaland criticalconstructivism share a number of positions-mutual constitution actors and structures, of anarchy as a social construct, power as both materialand discursive,and stateidentities and interests as variables-conventional constructivism does not accept critical theory's ideas about its own role in producing change and maintainsa fundamentally different understandingof power.51
47. Inayatullahand Blaney,"Knowing Encounters,"pp. 65-66. For a very useful analysis of how different accounts of identityhave made theirway throughfeminist theorizing, Allison Weir, see Sacrificial Logics:Feminist Theory and theCritique Identity of (New York:Routledge, 1996). 48. My views on the differences separatingcriticaland conventionalconstructivist positions on power were shaped in conversationwith JimRichter. 49. See ArturoEscobar,"Discourse and Power in Development:Michel Foucault and theRelevance of His Work to the Third World," Alternatives, Vol. 10, No. 4 (October-December 1984), esp. pp. 377-378. 50. This is takenfrom Andrew Linklater, "The Question oftheNext Stage in International Relations Point of View," Millennium: Theory: A Critical-Theoretical Journal International of Studies,Vol. 21, No. 1 (Spring 1992), p. 91, and is based on his interpretation Jurgen of Habermas. For a view on preciselythe point of the emancipatory power of criticaltheory, Chris Brown,"'TurtlesAll the see Way Down': Anti-Foundationalism, CriticalTheory, and International Relations,"Millennium: Journal ofInternational Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer 1994), p. 219. Studies, 51. For an alternativeaccount of international relationstheoryfroma criticaltheoryperspective in which conventional constructivism's positions can be found as well, see Richard K. Ashley, "Three Modes of Economism," International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 4 (December 1983), of pp. 477-491. On the construction anarchy,in particular,see Ashley,"Untying the Sovereign

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A Constructivist Research Agenda

This sectionaims at moving constructivism fromthe margins52 articulating by a loosely Lakatosian research program for a constructivist study of internaI tional relations.53 presentthisresearchagenda in threesections.The first step is to show that constructivism offers competingunderstandingsof some key puzzles frommainstream international relationstheory. The second move is to suggest what new and innovative puzzles constructivism promises to raise. The last step is forconstructivism point out its own weaknesses. to
MAINSTREAM PUZZLES, CONSTRUCTIVIST SOLUTIONS

Constructivism provide alternative can accounts of the balance of threat, securitydilemmas, neoliberal institutionalist accounts of cooperation under anarchy,and the liberal theoryof the democraticpeace. BALANCE OF THREAT. Neorealism tells us that states ally against power. Steven Walt rightlyobserved that this is empiricallywrong. He suggested, instead, that states ally against threats.The attemptedfix was to claim that states will balance, not against power, but against particularkinds of power. The latter is the power possessed by a relatively capable, geographically proximatestate with offensivemilitarycapabilities and perceived hostile intentions.54 Whereas geographicalproximity and offensive military capacitycan be established a priori,perceived intentionsthreatentautology.Several constructivist scholarshave pointed to balance of threatas one of the mainstream

State," p. 253. In addition, conventionalconstructivism more willing to accept the ontological is status of the state when theorizing, whereas criticaltheorydemands thatthe state remain a zone of contestation,and should be understood as such; its autonomous existence should not be accepted. For the formerconventionalview, see Alexander Wendt,"ConstructingInternational Politics," International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), p. 72. For the criticalview of the state,see Ashley,"Untyingthe Sovereign State," pp. 248-251. 52. For the challenge to constructivists develop a research program or be marginalized,see to Keohane, "InternationalInstitutions," 392. For criticism a similar vein, see Thomas J. p. in Biersteker,"Critical Reflectionson Post-Positivismin InternationalRelations," International Studies Quarterly, 33, No. 3 (September1989), p. 266. Vol. 53. It is a loose adaptation because, while I adopt Lakatosian criteriafor what constitutesa in progressiveand degenerativeshift a researchprogram,I do not adopt his standardsof falsificationismor theirassociated "protective belts" of auxiliaryhypotheses.See Imre Lakatos, "Falsification and the Methodology of ScientificResearch Programmes," in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, eds., Criticism and the Growth Knowledge of (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 91-196. 54. Stephen M. Waltz,TheOriginsofAlliances(Ithaca,N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1987,p. 5. By acknowledging that "one cannot determinea priori . . . which sources of threatwill be most importantin any given case; one can say only that all of them are likely to play a role," Waltz does not offer nontautologicalmeans forspecifying a threat.Quotation on p. 26.

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What is missinghere alternative.55 accountsmost susceptibleto a constructivist is a theory of threatperception,and this is precisely what a constructivist account of identity offers. thatemergedafter of Distribution power cannotexplain the alliance patterns World War II; otherwise,the United States would have been balanced against, Germany, not the Soviet Union. Instead,the issue mustbe how France,Britain, and the United States came to understand Soviet militarycapabilities and The neorealistaccount would be that as geographical proximity threatening. the Soviet Union demonstratedby its behavior thatit was an objectivethreat account would be thatthe state identities to WesternEurope. A constructivist of WesternEurope, the United States, and the Soviet Union, each rooted in of domesticsocioculturalmilieus,produced understandings one anotherbased in on differences identityand practice. The potential advantage of this apin proach is that it is more likelyto surfacedifferences how the Soviet threat sites than is the neorealistapproach, which acwas constructedin different cords objectivemeaning to Soviet conduct. Let us imagine, for example, that the United States balanced against the and what thatmeant Soviet Union because of the latter'scommunistidentity, such to the United States.If true,it means thatotherpossible Soviet identities, were not operative.So as an Asian, Stalinist, threat, Russian, or authoritarian as what? First, how the United StatesunderstoodtheSoviet threat, communist, directionof U.S. actions in the Cold War, not only explains the anticommunist as but it also tellsus thattheUnited Statesunderstooditself theanticommunist protector a particularset of values both at home and abroad. Second, how of the the United States constructed Soviet communistthreatneeds to be understood in relation to how WesternEuropeans understood that threat.If, for example, France understood the Soviet threatas a Russian threat,as an instance of superior Russian power in Europe, then France would not readily ventures against the Soviet Union. In particular, join in U.S. anticommunist whereas theUnited Statessaw the thirdworld duringtheCold War as an arena forbattlingcommunism,as in Vietnam,Europeans very rarelyunderstood it in those terms,instead regardingthirdworld states as economic actors or as former colonies.

55. See Thomas Risse-Kappen, "Collective Identityin a Democratic Community:The Case of "Identityand Allipp. NATO," in Katzenstein,The CultureofNationalSecurity, 361-368; Barnett, ances," pp. 401-404; Peter J. Katzenstein,"Introduction:AlternativePerspectives on National Wendt,and Katzenpp. of in TheCulture NationalSecurity, 27-28; Jepperson, Security," Katzenstein, Politics,"p. 78. International and Culture,p. 63; and Wendt,"Constructing stein,"Norms, Identity,

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SECURITY DILEMMAS. Securitydilemmas are the products of presumed uncertainty.56 They are assumed to be commonplace in world politics because states presumably cannot know, with sufficient certaintyor confidence,the intentionsof others. But as importantas the securitydilemma is to underrelationsamong states,we do not see much evidence of standing conflictual security dilemmas among many pairs or groups of states:membersof the same alliance, members of the same economic institution, perhaps two peaceful In the study of world politics,uncerstates or two neutral states,and so on. can taintymightbe best treatedas a variable, not a constant.Constructivism provide an understanding of what happens most of the time in relations between states, namely, nothing threateningat all. By providing meaning, identitiesreduce uncertainty.57 States understand different states differently. Soviet and French nuclear capabilitieshad different meanings forBritishdecision makers. But of course is certainty not always a source of security. Knowing that anotherstate is an aggressorresolves the securitydilemma,but only by replacingit with certain an insecurity, increased confidencethat the other state is in fact threatening. As Richard Ashley,bowing generouslyto Karl Deutsch, pointed out, politics itselfis impossible in the absence of "a backgroundof mutual understandings and habitual practices that orients and limits the mutual comprehensionof of Constructivism's practices,the signification social action."58 empiricalmission is to surface the "background" that makes uncertaintya variable to understand,ratherthan a constantto assume. NEOLIBERAL COOPERATION. Neoliberalism offers compelling arguments about how statescan achieve cooperationamong themselves.Simple iterative interaction among states,even when theypreferto exploit one another,may stilllead to cooperativeoutcomes.The conditionsminimally necessaryforsuch outcomes include transparency action,capacityto monitorany noncooperaof low tive behavior and punish the same in a predictablefashion,a sufficiently discount (high appreciation)rate forfuture and an gains fromthe relationship, expectationthatthe relationshipwill not end in the foreseeablefuture.59

56. RobertJervis, Vol. 30, No. 2 (March "Cooperation under the SecurityDilemma," World Politics, 1978), pp. 167-214. 57. I thankMaria Fanis forbringinghome to me the importanceof thinking about world politics in this way. 58. Ashley,"Three Modes," p. 478; see also Ashley,"The Geopoliticsof GeopoliticalSpace," p. 414. 59. Kenneth A. Oye, "Explaining Cooperation under Anarchy: Hypotheses and Strategies,"in KennethA. Oye, ed., Cooperation underAnarchy (Princeton, N.J.:Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 1-24.

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International institutions, whetherin the formof regimes,laws, treaties, or organizations,help provide these necessary conditions for cooperation. By having rules about what constitutes violation of a relationship, a institutions help increase the confidenceof each statethatit will not be exploited and that its own cooperative move will be reciprocated. establishingformalmechaBy nisms of surveillance,institutions enable states to see what other states are doing, again enhancing confidencethat a defectionwill be seen and a cooperativeaction will be followed by the same. By creatingrules and procedures for surveillance and sanction, all parties can have greater confidence that violations will be punished. By formalizingthese relationships,institutions help reduce each state's discount rate for futuregains while increasingeach state's expectationthatthe relationshipwill continueinto the future.60 Constructivism sharesneoliberalism's conclusionthatcooperationis possible under anarchy,but offersa very different account of how that outcome emerges. Robert Keohane presents as the heart of neoliberalismtwo fundamental assumptions:thereare potentially beneficialagreementsamong states that have not been reached, and they are hard to achieve.61A constructivist approach mightbegin by investigating how states understand theirinterests withina particularissue area. The distribution identities of and interests the of relevantstates would then help account forwhethercooperation is possible. The assumption of exogenous interests an obstacle to developing a theory is of cooperation. Sittingdown to negotiatea trade agreementamong friends(as opposed to adversaries or unknowns) affects state's willingnessto lead with a cooperaa tivemove. Perhaps it would no longerunderstandits interests theunilateral as exploitationof the otherstate.Instead it mightsee itselfas a partnerin pursuit of some value otherthan narrow strategic In interest. LogicofCollective Action, Mancur Olson bracketeda host of situationswhere cooperationwas relatively easy,despite large numbersof players,the absence of a group large enough to provide a public good, but sufficiently small to avert coordinationproblems no (a k-group), hegemonicleadership,and so on. These were situationswhere communitiesof identityexisted such thatthe players were not in a noncooperativegame in the first has been paid to thisinsight. place. Too littleattention
60. The regimes literatureis vast. For an early foundational volume that includes theoretical and specification, empiricalillustration, some self-critique, StephenD. Krasner, see ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983). Elaborationof the marketfailurelogic is in Robert0. Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton, N.J.:PrincetonUniversity Press, 1984). 61. Keohane, "International Institutions," 386. p.

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A constructivist such intersubjective account of cooperationwould reconstruct communitiesas a matterof course. in she usually When a neoliberalwritesof difficulty reachingan agreement, has one particular problem in mind: uncertainty. Many of the institutional mechanismsdescribed above are aimed at reducinguncertainty among states: provision of transparency; facilitation iteration; of enabling of decomposition; and of course the developmentof rules,monitoring capabilities,and adjudicawould agree thatthese are all veryimportant, tionprocedures.A constructivist but thata priorissue must be raised: Is it not likelythatthe level of certainty is a variable associated with identity and practice, and that,ceterisparibus,the less certainty one has, the more institutional devices are necessaryto produce cooperation,theharderthatcooperationwill be to achieve, and themore likely it will be to break down? Neoliberalismhas concluded thatan important part of ensuringcompliance with agreementsis the developmentof reputationsforreliability.62 of the One most importantcomponentsof discursivepower is the capacity to reproduce in order and predictability understandingsand expectations.In this respect, identitiesare a congealed reputation, that is, the closest one can get in social life to being able to confidently expect the same actions fromanother actor time aftertime. Identitiessubsume reputation;being a particularidentityis sufficient provide necessary diagnostic information to about a state's likely actions with respectto otherstates in particulardomains.63 On the other side of the life cycle, neoliberals argue that institutions die But when membersno longer"have incentivesto maintainthem."64 one of the more enduringpuzzles forneoliberalsis why theseinstitutions persistpast the
62. On the criticalimportanceof a theoryof reputationto account foreconomic transactions, such as contracts, David M. Kreps, "Corporate Culture and Economic Theory,"in JamesE. Alt and see Kenneth A. Shepsle, eds., Perspectives PositivePoliticalEconomy on (Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge work on reputation University Press,1990), pp. 90-143. Formal game-theoretic consistently shows thatit should matter, and it does, but onlywhen assumed to do so. Empiricalwork in international relationshas shown thatreputationsdo not work as hypothesizedby most international relations and theory. See JonathanMercer,Reputation International Politics(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996); Ted Hopf, Peripheral Visions:Deterrence Theory American and Foreign Policyin theThird 1965-1990 (Ann Arbor: Universityof Michigan Press, 1994); Richard Ned Lebow, Between World, Peace and War:The NatureofInternational Crisis(Baltimore, Md.: JohnsHopkins University Press, 1981); and Jervis, LogicofImagesin International Relations. 63. For a recognitionthat "shared focal points," a la Thomas Schelling,have much in common with intersubjective realityand its capacity to promote cooperative solutions to iterativegames, see Geoffrey Garrettand BarryR. Weingast,"Ideas, Interests, and Institutions: Constructing the European Community's Internal Market," in Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas and ForeignPolicy, pp. 173-206. 64. Keohane, "International Institutions," 387. p.

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point that great powers have an apparent interestin sustainingthem. Their answers include lags caused by domesticpoliticalresistanceto adjustment, the stickinessof institutional and the transactioncosts entailed in arrangements, the renegotiationof agreementsand the establishmentof a new order.65 An alternativeconstructivist hypothesiswould be that if the identitiesbeing reproduced by the social practicesconstituting thatinstitution have gone beyond the strategicgame-playing self-regarding units posited by neoliberals, and have developed an understandingof each otheras partnersin some common will persist,even if apparent underlying thenthe institution enterprise, power and interestshave shifted.66 Duncan Snidal, in his formalrepresentation of what is most likelyto happen as a hegemon falters, includes as an untheorized variable "interestin the regime," with the obvious positive relationshipbein tween interest the regime and willingnessto expend resourcesto maintain it afterhegemonic decline.67Constructivist research,through exploring the and identities natureof the norms,practices, constituting membershipin some can institution, provide some measurable substantivecontentforthatvariable. and neoliberals agree that anarchy does not preAlthough constructivists clude cooperation among states, how they understand the emergence and reproductionof such cooperation yields very different accounts and research agendas. THE DEMOCRATIC PEACE. The observation that democratic states have not fought each other is an empirical regularityin search of a theory.Neither structural normativeaccountsfareverywell.68The former nor requiresassuming a consistently bellicose executivebeing constrainedby a pacificpublic and its duly-electedrepresentative institutions-butonly when democraticadver65. On lags and stickiness, Stephen D. Krasner, see State Power and the Structure International of Trade," World Politics, Vol. 28, No. 3 (April 1976), pp. 317-343. On transaction costs,see Keohane, After Hegemony. 66. Anotherconstructivist hypothesisoffers itselfhere: institutionalized cooperationwill be more likelyto endure to the extentthatthe identitiesof the membersof thatinstitution understood are as common and they are reproduced by a thick array of social practices. This is meant as a with narrowself-interest continuum, being arrayedat one end of the spectrum,neoliberalinstitutionalizationof self-interested cooperationin the middle, community identity of toward the other end, and harmonyat the otherpole. 67. Duncan Snidal, "The Limitsof Hegemonic Stability International Vol. Theory," Organization, 39, No. 4 (Autumn 1985), esp. pp. 610-611. 68. For a comprehensivereview of the most recentliterature the democraticpeace, and an on with the status quo (a variable subject to constructivist empiricaltestthat shows thatsatisfaction interpretation) the single most important is factoraffecting use of force,by democracies and the authoritarian states alike, see David L. Rousseau, ChristopherGelpi, and Dan Reiter, "Assessing the Dyadic Nature of the DemocraticPeace, 1918-1988,"American PoliticalScienceReview, Vol. 90, No. 3 (September1996), p. 527.

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saries are about. The latterhas more promise,but its naturalizationof certain the aspects of liberalism-the market,nonviolent resolution of differences, franchise, FirstAmendment-and its crucial assumption thatthese norms the actually matterto decision makers in democraticstates when making choices about war and peace with other democracies, are untenable and untested, respectively. Constructivism perfectly is suited to the task of testingand fundamentally revisingthe democraticpeace.69Its approach aims at apprehending how the social practicesand normsof statesconstruct identitiesand interests the the of each other,then it must be because of same. Ergo, if democracies do not fight the way they understand each other,their intersubjective accounts of each other,and the socio-international practices that accompany those accounts.70 But constructivism a could offer more general account of zones of peace, one of not limitedto democracies.Different periods of the histories bothAfricaand Latin America have been marked by long stretchesof little or no warfare between states. These pacific periods are obviously not associated with any how Africanand Latin "objective" indicatorsof democracy.By investigating American states constructedthemselves and others,it might be possible to understandthese neglectedzones of "authoritarian peace."

Constructivist Puzzles
an It Constructivism offers account of the politicsof identity.71 proposes a way of understandinghow nationalism,ethnicity, race, gender,religion,and sexuand otherintersubjectively understoodcommunties, each involved in are ality, an account of global politics. Understandinghow identitiesare constructed, what norms and practicesaccompany theirreproduction, and how they constructeach otheris a major part of the constructivist researchprogram.

69. For a very well developed researchdesign to test constructivist versus mainstreamaccounts of the democratic a peace, see Colin Kahl, "Constructing Separate Peace: Constructivism, Collective Liberal Identity, and the Democratic Peace," Security Studies(forthcoming). 70. For accounts of the democraticpeace that focus on its contextualintersubjective characters, see Ido Oren, "The Subjectivity the 'Democratic' Peace: Changing U.S. Perceptionsof Imperial of Germany,"International Security, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Fall 1995), pp. 147-184; Thomas Risse-Kappen, Cooperation among Democracies, 30; and Risse-Kappen, "Collective Identityin a Democratic p. Community," pp. 366-367. 71. I do not tryto compile a comprehensiveset of questions forconstructivists, instead merely but elaborate general themesforresearch,themes thatdo not have a prominent place in mainstream international relationstheory.

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Although nationalism and ethnicity receivingmore attentionin mainare streaminternational relationstheory, attentionto gender,sexuality, race, and religionhave received much less, and certainly none of them is part of either neorealist or neoliberal accounts of how the world works.72Constructivism promises to deal with these issues, not merely because they are topical or heretofore undervalued,but because as varietiesof identity, theyare centralto how constructivism generatesunderstandings social phenomena. Construcof tivismassumes, a priori,thatidentitiesare potentially part of the constitutive practicesof the state,and so, productiveof its actions at home and abroad.73 One of the most important of by-products thisconcernwithidentity politics is the returnof differences among states. The same state is, in effect, many different actorsin world politics,and different statesbehave differently toward other states,based on the identitiesof each. If true, then we should expect different patternsof behavior across groups of states with different identities and interests.74 Although it is temptingto assert that similarity breeds cooperation,it is impossible to make such an a prioriclaim. Identitieshave much more meaning for each state than a mere label. Identitiesoffer each state an understandingof other states,its nature,motives,interests, probable actions, and role in any given political context. attitudes, Understandinganotherstate as one identity, ratherthan another, has consequences for the possible actions of both. For example, Michael Barnetthas speculated that the failure of deterrenceagainst Iraq in Kuwait in 1990 is because Saudi Arabia was seen as an "Arab," ratherthan a "sovereign,"state. Iraq's understandingof Saudi Arabia as an Arab state implied that Riyadh would never allow U.S. forcesto deploy on Arab territory. instead,Iraq had If,
72. For a criticalview of neorealism'sbelated efforts capture nationalism,see Yosef Lapid and to FriedrichKratochwil,"Revisitingthe 'National': Toward an IdentityAgenda in Neorealism?, in Lapid and Kratochwil,The Returnof Cultureand Identity, 105-126. For a most imaginative pp. criticalconstructivist treatment nationalism,see Daniel Deudney, "Ground Identity:Nature, of Place, and Space in Nationalism,"in ibid.,pp. 129-145; see also Roxanne Lynn Doty,"Sovereignty and the Nation: Constructing the Boundaries of National Identity," Thomas J. Biersteker in and as CynthiaWeber,eds., StateSovereignty Social Construct (Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1996) pp. 121-147. 73. For example,J.Ann Tickner observesthatcontemporary masculinizedWestern understandings of themselveslead to feminizedportrayals the South as "emotional and unpredictable.Tickner, of "Identityin International Relations Theory:FeministPerspectives,"in Lapid and Kratochwil,The

74. For example,Risse-Kappen,"Collective Identity a DemocraticCommunity," in findsa common identity withinthe NorthAtlanticTreatyOrganization;see also Iver B. Neumann and Jennifer M. Welsh, "The Other in European self-definition," Review of International Studies,Vol. 17, No. 4 (October 1991), pp. 327-348, for an exploration of "Christian" and "European" states versus "Islamic" "Asiatic" Turkey.

Return Culture Identity, 147-162. of and pp.

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understoodSaudi Arabia as a sovereignstate,in a realistworld,it would have perhaps expected Saudi balancing against Iraqi actions in Kuwait, including and would have been deterred.75 other words, In U.S. militaryintervention, neorealistpredictionsof balancing behavior,such as thatof Saudi Arabia, rely on a single particularidentitybeing ascribed to that countryby Iraq. But if alternativeidentitiesare possible, as constructivism suggests, the neorealist world is smaller than alleged. Or anotherstatemay not be seen as another"state" at all, but instead as an ally, friend,enemy,co-guarantor, threat,a democracy,and so on.76 Finally, constructivism's expectationof multiple identitiesforactors in world politics rests on an openness to local historicalcontext.This receptivity identities to being generated and reproduced empirically, ratherthan restingon pregiven units altoassumptions, opens up the study of world politics to different gether.77 Hypothesizingdifferences among statesallows formovementbeyond the typical binary characterizationsof mainstream internationalrelations: democratic-nondemocratic, great power-non-greatpower, North-South,and so forth. While these common axes of analysis are certainly relevant,constructivism promises to explain many other meaningfulcommunitiesof identity world politics. throughout A thirdconstructivist promise is to returncultureand domestic politics to relationstheory. the extentthatconstructivism ontologically international To is agnostic-that is, it does not include or exclude any particularvariables as relameaningful-it envisions no disciplinarydivides between international tions and comparativesubfields(or any fieldsforthatmatter).Constructivism has no inherentfocus on "second image" accounts of world politics. In fact, an appropriate criticismwould be that it has remained far too long at the level of analysis.78 constructivism systemic Nevertheless, provides a promising
75. Michael N. Barnett, "Institutions, Roles, and Disorder: The Case of the Arab States System," International StudiesQuarterly, 37, No. 3 (September1993), pp. 271-296. Vol. in and Michael N. Barnett, 76. See Risse-Kappen,"Collective Identity a DemocraticCommunity," "Sovereignty, Nationalism, and Regional Order in the Arab System,"International Organization, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Summer 1995), pp. 479-510, forexamples. 77. Yale Ferguson and Richard Mansbach, forexample, offer rich varietyof "polities," such as a city-states, civilizations,polis, empires, kingdoms, caliphates, each of which had and, in some cases, has and will have, meaningfulidentitiesin world politics.Ferguson and Mansbach, "Past as Prelude," pp. 22-28, and Sujata ChakrabartiPasic, "CulturingInternational RelationsTheory," both in Lapid and Kratochwil,The Return Culture of and Identity, 85-104. pp. 78. Keohane, in "International Institutions," 392, has made this observationabout "reflectivist" p. scholarship..For similarlaments,see Dessler,"What's At Stake," p. 471; and Barnett, "Institutions, Roles, and Disorder,"p. 276. Alexander Wendt acknowledges he has "systematically bracketed" domestic factorsin Wendt,"AnarchyIs What States Make of It," p. 423.

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approach foruncoveringthose featuresof domestic society, culture,and polito and stateactionin global politics.There ticsthatshould matter stateidentity are many different ways in which a constructivist account can operate at the domestic level. I mentiononly several here. Any state identityin world politics is partly the product of the social In practicesthatconstitute thatidentity home.79 thisway,identity at politicsat home constrainand enable state identity, and actions abroad. Ashis interests, Nandy has writtenabout the close connectionbetween VictorianBritishgenerationaland genderidentities home and the colonizationof India. Victorian at Britaindrew a verystrict line between the sexes and also between generations, differentiating latterinto young and old, productive and unproductive, the respectively. Britishcolonial dominance was understood as masculine in relationshipto Indian's femininesubmission,and Indian culturewas understood and archaic.In these ways Victorianunderstandings itselfmade as infantile of India comprehensibleto Britainin a particularway.80Whereas conventional accounts of colonialismand imperialismrelyon disparitiesin relativematerial power to explain relations of domination and subordination,constructivists would add thatno account of such hierarchical outcomes is completewithout exploring how imperial identities are constructedboth at home and with respectto the subordinatedOtherabroad.81 Even ifmaterialpower is necessary to produce imperialism, reproduction its cannotbe understoodwithoutinvestigatingthe social practices that accompanied it and the discursive power, especially in the formof related identities, theywielded. Within the state itself might exist areas of cultural practice, sufficiently and to empowered throughinstitutionalization authorization, exerta constitutive or causative influence on state policy.82The state's assumed need to a at construct nationalidentity home to legitimizethe state'sextractive authoron ity has effects state identityabroad. A more criticalconstructivist account
79. Two worksthatmake the connection at between domesticidentity construction home and state relations: struggle the identity Audie Klotz, Normsin international are againstapartheid (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1995); and Peter J.Katzenstein,CulturalNormsand National Security (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996). 80. Inayatullahand Blaney,"Knowing Encounters,"pp. 76-80. 81. Compare this,for example, to Richard Cottam's very interesting account of imperial British images of Egypt. The critical difference that Cottam does not see Britishconstructionsof is themselvesor theirsociety'sparts as relevantto an understandingof British images of Egyptians. RichardCottam,Foreign PolicyMotivation: GeneralTheory Case Study(Pittsburgh: A and University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977). 82. One mightsay thisabout the Frenchmilitary between World Wars I and II. See Kier,"Culture and FrenchMilitaryDoctrinebeforeWorld War II."

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mightbegin by positingthe state's need foran Other in world politics,so as to justify own rule at home.83 its A last promise of constructivism concerns not so much researchissues as offersa heterogamous research approach: research strategy. Constructivism fieldsand disciplines.Constructivism thatis, it readilycombineswithdifferent critilinguistics, postmodernpolitical theory, itselfis the product of structural culturaland media studies,literary criticism, and no doubt others. cal theory, politics,constructivism Far fromclaimingprimacyas a theoryof international to lends itself collaborationwithotherapproaches,both withinpoliticalscience in socialization,and and outside. Literatures decision making,politicalculture, experimental cognitiveand social psychologywould seem to be most promising partners.
CONSTRUCTIVIST PROBLEMS

A constructivist researchprogram,like all others,has unexplained anomalies, but theirexistenceneed not necessitatethe donning of protective belts of any has sort.Conventionalconstructivism one large problemthathas several parts. for FriedrichKratochwilhas observed thatno theoryof culturecan substitute have pointed out that a theoryof politics.84 Paul Kowert and Jeffrey Legro construction offered any of the authors by thereis no causal theoryof identity in the Katzensteinvolume.85Both criticisms as accurate as theyare differare remedies. ent,and imply different is Kratochwil's statementreinforcesthe point that constructivism an apAnd if it is a theory, is a theoryof process, not subit proach, not a theory. must adopt stantive outcome. In order to achieve the latter,constructivism some theoryof politics to make it work. Criticaltheoryis farmore advanced but in thisregardthan conventionalconstructivism, it comes at a price,a price thatone may or may notbe willingto pay,depending on empirical, theoretical, I criticaland conand/or aestheticinterests. have described how differently treatthe originsof identity and the nature of power. ventional constructivism

UnitedStatesForeign Policyand thePolitics 83. This is done by David Campbell, Writing Security: ofIdentity (Minneapolis: University Minnesota Press, 1992) and JimGeorge, DiscoursesofGlobal of Politics: Critical A (Re)Introduction International to Relations (Boulder,Colo.: Lynne Rienner,1994). 84. Kratochwil, the Ship of Culture at Sea or Returning?" 206. "Is p. 85. Paul Kowert and Jeffrey Legro, "Norms, Identity, and Their Limits:A TheoreticalReprise,"in reviews of constructivism and Katzenstein,TheCulture NationalSecurity, 469. For othercritical of p. T. Turnin International RelationsTheory," world politics,see Jeffrey Checkel, "The Constructivist World Politics, Vol. 50, No. 2 (January 1998), pp. 324-348, and Emanuel Adler,"Seizing the Middle Relations, Vol. 3, No. 3 Ground: Constructivism World Politics,"European in Journal International of (1997), pp. 319-363.

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It is here thatcritical theoryfindsits animatingtheoryof politics.By assuming that the identitiesof the Self and Other are inextricably bound up in a relationship of power, and that the state is a dominating instrument, critical theorists can offer theoretically informed accounts of the politicsof identity: at least along the dimensionsspecified,thatof hierarchy, subordination, domination,emancipation,and state-society struggle. The price paid for such theories of politics,however,is an ironic one that naturalizes certain "realities," privilegingsocial relations of dominance and hierarchy. course, criticaltheoryasserts its ultimateopenness to variation Of and change, but the point here is that its theoryof politics,a priori,is more closed thanthatofits conventionalversion,which stands accused of theoretical underspecification. The problem of underspecification existsbecause conventional constructivism, a theoryof process,does not specifythe existence,let as alone the precise nature or value, of its main causal/constitutiveelements: identities, norms,practices,and social structures. Instead, constructivism specifieshow these elements are theoretically situated vis-a-vis each other,providing an understanding of a process and an outcome, but no a priori predictionper se. The advantages of such an approach are in the nonpareil richness of its elaboration of causal/constitutivemechanisms in any given social contextand its openness (and not just in the last instance,as in critical elementsat work. The theory)to the discoveryof othersubstantivetheoretical cost here,however,is the absence of a causal theoryof identity. The dilemma is thatthe more conventionalconstructivism moves to furnish such a causal theory,the more it loses the possibility of maintaining the But the dilemma is methods afford. ontologicalopenness thatits interpretivist a continuum, not a binaryopposition.Conventionalconstructivists and do can specify their theoreticalelements in advance in practice. Just to take one example, not a single authorin the Katzensteinvolume assessed gender,class, is or race in any of theiranalyses. This observation(not criticism) intendedto underlinehow conventionalconstructivists already bound theira prioritheoreticaldomains according to empirical interestand theoreticalpriors. Moreif can over, conventionalconstructivists make predictions, they choose. Their to is only constraint just how durable theybelieve the social structures be that interthe theyhave demonstratedare constraining reproductionof identities, ests, norms,and practices,in some social context.For example, when RisseKappen argues that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members regardeach otheras liberalallies, ratherthan as realiststatesbalancing against a threat, is making a prediction: NATO memberssee each otheras liberal if he allies, NATO will persistbeyond the point where the threatdisappears.

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One obstacle to the development of a causal model of identityis convensilence on the issue of intentionality. Criticaltheorists tional constructivism's to confidently declare theirindifference the issue: establishingcausality is an illusory goal. Kowert and Legro point out the failure of any author in the Katzensteinvolume to establishmore than a correlative relationshipbetween an identityand an outcome. In fact,the authors do far more than that:they control for alternativeexplanations and they show the connectionbetween norms and interests and outcomes. But what is missing is the decision based on the identity. Here again, constructivist heterogamy allows foran attempted fix.The answer may lie in trying marryconstructivist to process to psychological process. Kowert and Legro discuss the possibilityin termsof the experimentalsocial psychologicalwork of MarilynBrewerand Jonathan Turner.86 To the extentit is possible to establisha causal link between a particularidentity, in such as Japanese antimilitarism, an interest opposing Japanesemilitary and expenditures(or between beliefin a norm,such as humanitarian interventionthatnorm),it mightbe attainablethroughongoing ism, and an action to fulfill and behavior in social psychology. work on the connectionbetween identity The last problem with constructivism really not so much a problem as it is is an advantage. Constructivism's to theoryof process and commitment interdemands on the researcherto pretivistthickdescriptionplace extraordinary the gathermountains of elaborate empiricaldata. To reconstruct operation of identitypolitics,even in a limited domain for a short period, requires thousands of pages of reading,monthsof interviewsand archival research,and a standhost of less conventionalactivities, such as ridingpublic transportation, ing in lines, and going to bars and caf6s to participatein local practices.(The latterneed not be so onerous.) The point here is that the evidence necessary to develop an understanding say,a nationalidentity, relationto domestic of, its of identities, practicesthatconstitute the both,implied interests each, and the overall social structureis necessarilyvast and varied. Constructivism no is shortcut.

TheConstructivist Promise
The assumptionsthatunderlay constructivism account forits different understanding of world politics. Since actors and structuresare mutually constructed,state behavior in the face of different distributionsof power or
86. Ibid., p. 479.

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meaning of anarchyis unknowable absent a reconstruction the intersubjective and actors.Since actors have multipleidentities, and these of these structures of interests, the a priori and exogenous attribution identitiesimply different identicalinterests statesis invalid. Since power is both materialand discurto sive, patterned behavior over timeshould be understoodas a resultofmaterial social pracor economic power workingin concertwithideological structures, webs of meaning. The greattices,institutionalized norms,and intersubjective est power of all is thatwhich disciplinesactorsto naturallyimagine only those of actions that reproduce the underlyingarrangements power-material and social structures both enduring and mutaare discursive.Since constructivist and possible. ble, change in world politicsis considered both difficult international relations A conventionalconstructivist recastingof mainstream puzzles is based on the implicationsof its assumptions.Since what constitutes a threatcan never be stated as an a priori,primordialconstant,it should be of approached as a social construction an Other,and theorized at that level. the Since identities,norms, and social practices reduce uncertainty, security point foranalyzing relationsamong states. dilemma should not be the starting Since states are already situated in multiple social contexts,any account of (non)cooperation among them should begin by exploring how their underSince communitiesof standingsof each othergeneratetheirrelevantinterests. identityare expected to exist,patternsof behavior that spur scholars to consider a liberalpeace should instead provokeus to considerzones of peace more generally. A conventional constructivist account of politics operates between mainstreaminternational relationsand criticaltheory. Conventional constructivism rejectsthe mainstreampresumptionthatworld politicsis so homogenous that universallyvalid generalizationscan be expected to come of theorizingabout it. It denies the criticalconstructivist position thatworld politics is so heterogeneous thatwe should presume to look foronly the unique and the differentiating.Contraryto both these two approaches, conventionalconstructivism in presumes we should be looking forcommunitiesof intersubjectivity world of politics,domains withinwhich actorsshare understandings themselvesand each other,yielding predictable and replicable patterns of action within a specificcontext. relations theorytreatsworld politics as an inteMainstream international Critical theoryreby grated whole, undifferentiated eithertime or territory. thatcan never add up to a whole, gards world politicsas an arrayof fragments to and regards efforts constructsuch a whole as a political move to impose

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some kind of rationalistic, naturalized order on irrepressible difference. Conventional constructivism, the other hand, regards the world as a complion cated and vast array of different domains, the apprehension of all of which could never yield a fullycoherentpictureof international politics.The failure to account forany one of them,however,will guarantee a theoretically unsatisfying understandingof the world. In effect, promise of constructivism the is to restore a kind of partial order and predictability world politics that to derives not fromimposed homogeneity, froman appreciationof difference. but

Corrections: In Alexei G. Arbatov,"MilitaryReformin Russia: Dilemmas, Obstacles, and Prospects,"Vol. 22, No. 4 (Spring 1998): p. 86 line 13 should read "The quantity of military personnel . .. must be sacrificed higherquality for arms"; p. 90 line 17 should read "Numerical Balance"; p. 92 line 3 should read "reinforcement advantages and interdictioncapabilities against Russian reinforcements"; p. 106 line 10 should read "has never been preprogrammedinto"; p. 109 line 11 should read "to findits forcelevels and structure a priority on basis"; p. 130 line 1 should read "down to a level of 1.2 millionby 1999"; and p. 130 line 25 should read "are not carriedout."