A critical analysis of wendt's social constructivism

Abstract EN

The principal concern of this paper is to analyse critically Wendt’s social constructivism.

The paper contends that Wendt’s aim to locate his approach as the via media or middle ground in international relations is always going to be unsuccessful.

The paper attempts to answer the following question: To what extend can Wendt’s thin constructivism be described as bridging the gap between the two poles, rationalism and reflectivism? In pursuing an answer, the paper considers Wendt’s main ontological and epistemological arguments.

For example, his understanding of interests and identities, his rump materialist theory of human nature, his view about states and sovereignty, and his arguments about ‘the agent-structure problem’ and ‘the level of analysis problem’.

The paper concludes that Wendt’s thin constructivism does not adequately distinguish constructivism from rationalist approaches.

Thus, the contribution of this paper is that it shows that Wendt is not sitting between the two positions because he is simply on one side.