Does social constructivism really add anything new to debates about security?
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document in English
political science
presentation
published 12/07/2006
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SummaryDuring the late 1980s, when debates between neorealists and neoliberals seemed to exhaust themselves, so-called ‘constructivist’ researches made their appearance. By asserting themselves as an alternative to realism, they reinterpret its main concepts (power, national interest, sovereignty…). Moreover, it introduced issues then regarded as marginal in International Relations analysis: identity, culture…
Major features of international system were no longer seen as natural, inherent in or given by its structure, but as by-products of social context and the effect of actors’ subjectivity. A deconstruction work began in the discipline. In the particular area of security studies, constructivism will want to question the ‘unquestionable idol Security’.
By putting a little bit aside the realist military state-centred empirical focus on security to privilege security’s ontological and epistemological dimensions, constructivist scholars have tried to renew security studies.
Consequently, it is interesting to wonder if, by so doing, constructivism really adds anything new to debates about security.
After a presentation of constructivism applied to security studies (I), it will be easier to evaluate its ‘real’ contributions to theoretical debates (II)
Major features of international system were no longer seen as natural, inherent in or given by its structure, but as by-products of social context and the effect of actors’ subjectivity. A deconstruction work began in the discipline. In the particular area of security studies, constructivism will want to question the ‘unquestionable idol Security’.
By putting a little bit aside the realist military state-centred empirical focus on security to privilege security’s ontological and epistemological dimensions, constructivist scholars have tried to renew security studies.
Consequently, it is interesting to wonder if, by so doing, constructivism really adds anything new to debates about security.
After a presentation of constructivism applied to security studies (I), it will be easier to evaluate its ‘real’ contributions to theoretical debates (II)
Table of Contents
- A new framework for analysis
- A critical methodology to grasp security another way
- A contestation of the traditional conceptualisations to enrich security studies' research agenda
- A positive balance-sheet
- Some scientific limits
- Major theoretical advances
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