Summary: « Anarchy is what States make of it: the social construction of power politics. »
Ecrit par 015035 le 15 juillet 2010
At a time where the media are more and more present to describe the international events, like the Gaza Flotilla, I suggest a summary of the key fondation article of constructivism by Alexander Wendt, which enable us to understand the process of identity formation.
A. Wendt, "Anarchy is what States make of it", International organization, vol. 46, n°2, spring 1992. This article may be found at http://www.jstor.org/pss/2706858
This approach helps to clarify the question on the origin of the action’s State: is it influenced whether by structure or process? Realist or Liberal frameworks considered State’s interest as the origin of its foreign policy and it is exogenously given. The State defined its interest by its self, its self-interest. Theses approaches defined process as interaction between actors already constituted before they interact. On the contrary, the constructivist approach emphasizes the transformation of identity, so of interest, through the interactions’ process which lead to the shared-interest of actors. It focuses on the identity and interest formation. The constructivist assumption is that identity and interest are the result of intersubjective process concerning the group of actors. It induces a major change: identity and interest are the dependant variables. Indeed, the structural aspect of anarchy is not an efficient cause of shared practices and behaviours between actors. “Self-help and power politics are institutions, not essential features of anarchy: Anarchy is what states make of it.”
The stage of the Security Council where actors are sharing their identity, what about the spectators?
Anarchy structure of the world politics contains as much predatory behaviour from political actors as cooperative one. For neo-realist, the possibility of war is the efficient cause of power politics emergence. From a social point of view, power politics is an institution which results from interaction between actors. Anarchy is simply a necessary condition for the emergence of group behaviours.
The main argument in favour of this statement is the intersubjective nature of the concept of friends or foes. For example, few nuclear missiles from North Korea are perceived as a threat by the US but several nuclear missiles from Great Britain are not. Political actors based their behaviour on the perception and the meaning of other’s behaviour. It is based on the shared knowledge of each others.
In consequence, each actor will acquire a set of rules for duties and expectations from others. The continuous participation to the exchanges will reinforce this role which will become an identity role. Then, this identity is the starting point of the self-interest definition. It is also the criteria for the friend/foe evaluation within a specific situation. The collection of identities and interest through a forum define an institution in charge of the group dynamics of theses identities. It plays a socialisation and rule codification roles.The anarchical structure of the international stage constraints the identity formation process to focus on the security of the self, its duration through the eyes of other actors. As a result, there are several types of security systems which emerge:
- competitive security system
- individualistic security system
- cooperative security system
In each one a set of identity roles is shared between actors. These intersubjectives roles are first built from the material capabilities of the actor before they start to interact: territories, domestic rules and laws, and the will to secure these assets.
The identity process formation is explained by the symbolic interactionist process of the mirror reflection metaphor. An actor finds its identity in the eye of the other which reflect it like in a mirror.
The perception of the self trough the mirror effect may be misleading!
On a more practical side, the decisions are based not on objective probabilities but on subjective probabilities resulting from the perceptions of what other actors implement.
Social act on the international stage
Each actor perception is an interpretation about other intention. Two variables help to determine this intention, the material capabilities which are used. For example, the full mobilization of the Russian armies by the Tsar Nicholas II was an objective signal to the Germans. The second is the interpretation of this signal. For the chancellor T. Bethmann Hollweg it has the meaning that European countries were on the eve of the First World War. This process of signalling and interpreting and its repetition create the shared identities and interest between actors of the international community.