"Subjectivist-Cultural" Theories 

Feminist Theory, Constructivist Theory & Post-Structuralism

 

General Comments on "Subjectivist-Cultural" Theories

 

Feminist Theories

 

There are also significant differences within Feminist Theory as well.  But we will start with the commonalities.

 

 

Common Threads in Feminist Theory

 

Gender Roles:

 

In all feminist theory gender roles are central.  Most (but not all) Feminist theorists believe that these gender roles are social constructions (i.e. learned) and therefore men can acquire some of the behavioral characteristics identified with the female gender (by the same token, some women can mimic some of the male gender roles).  There are some Feminist theorists (a minority) who believe the differences between men and women are not learned but "hard-wired" genetically in hormonal differences and even cognitive processes. (One can also envision a combination where some characteristics are learned, some are "hard-wired" into men and women).  But all feminists believe that the academic world of International Relations, the political world, and the business world are all dominated by males and the male gender perspective.

 

It is important then to understand some of these gender role differences.  According to Feminist Theory, the female gender perspective emphasizes cooperative-collective action which meets group needs while the male gender is more likely to view problems as competitions for power and vie for control of the decision-making.  Women are about the group and cooperation; men are about the individual. There are differences in policy priorities as well.  The female gender is more focused on basic human needs (shelter, food, health care, education) while the male gender is more martial in nature with a focus on military security and acquisition and conquest.  Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth (clearly imbued with more of the male gender perspective than her husband) taunts her husband into murdering King Duncan with the virility-challenging epithet, "are you not a man?"

 

Finally, there are differences in perception and decision-making.  The male gender perspective is more inclined to think in linear, rationalistic, Aristotelian fashion in solving a problem. Men are more inclined to seek a technological, institutional, or economic solution to the problem.  From the male perspective, often problem-solving can be translated into an algorithm. One can (and should) separate "facts" from "values".  The female cognitive processes operate differently. In the first place, it does not really view coping with world issues as "problem solving" (which has mathematical overtones) but about meeting needs. From the feminist perspective, intuitive "right-brain" thinking must be combined with more rational "left brain" processes.  It is impossible therefore to solve problems by translating them into an algorithm.  And facts can not be totally separated from values.  From the feminist perspective, issues must be viewed in a context.  In contrast, men believe that issues can viewed as discrete problems that can be solved in isolation.

 

"Gendering" International Relations Theory: 

As noted above, gender matters fundamentally in understanding how the world operates.  But all previous International Relations theory was written by men emphasizing the male gender perspective.  This has necessarily produced a distorted view of the world.  Therefore, International Relations Theory and International Research must be "gendered" i.e. viewed through a lens that takes into consideration the gender perspectives associated with women.  All other theories are distorted because they are written through the male lens and hence miss key features of world politics.  One of the things that change is the unit of analysis from looking at nation-states as rational, unitary actors (or even International Organizations) to a focus that looks at other forces such as the transnational women's movement and the treatment of women within a particular society. The same change in perspective must be applied to research.  The male gender perspective is closer to logical positivism and to quantitative methodologies for studying International Relations.   All Feminist theory is a little skeptical of logical positivism especially when it is coupled with a quantitative methodology.

 

Patriarchy:  The Matrix: There are some interesting parallels between Marxists and Feminists. Marxists view capitalism as a virus infecting all institutions and the broader political culture.  For Marxists, to move forward one must eradicate the capitalistic virus from government, economics, and culture.  For Feminists, the ubiquitous virus is patriarchy.  Patriarchy is the universal dominance of the male gender perspective in all important societal institutions and a system which keeps men in all positions of power.  Marxists believe that various cultural norms and societal institutions are used to keep the proletariat from seeing that they are being exploited.  Feminists believe that women are exploited (literally treated as "property" or "sexual objects") through patriarchy.  Feminists believe that religion, cultural institutions (the media), educational institutions, economic systems, and governmental rules are all designed to keep patriarchy in place.  For example, all monotheistic religions and many polytheistic religions grant men "God Ordained" positions of leadership. Because of the differences in gender roles, all feminists believe that more women should be included in politics, business, and the academic world.  There are glass ceilings in all perspectives that must be broken.  But it is much more than simply about placing women in positions of power; one must eliminate the underlying virus of patriarchy.  Women will not cease to be exploited until there are fundamental cultural and institutional changes that eliminate patriarchy and replace this power matrix with a matriarchal system guided by the female gender perspective.  Note: since most feminists believe that gender roles are learned then this does NOT mean that men could not exercise positions of power within this new, more egalitarian matriarchal system.

 

Actors in World Politics:  Feminist theory, as a whole, places a significantly lower reliance on importance of nation-state than either realist or liberal theory; indeed the focus on the nation-state is a product of a “male-gendered” approach to world politics.  International Organizations have the potential (over time) to play a large and important role in world politics, but for the immediate and intermediate future one must realize that IGO’s (UN, EU, NATO, WTO, IMF) themselves have been shaped by this male-gendered approach no less than nation-states and as such they reinforce the patriarchy themselves.  Feminist theory shifts the attention therefore to feminist NGO’s and most importantly to the growth of a non-structured global feminist trans-national social movement that will transform attitudes within nation-states and IGOs.

 

Debates Among Feminists

 

Like other IR theories, there are differences within Feminist Theory.

 

Nature v. Nurture: One of the most fundamental differences among Feminists is over the extent to which gender roles are socially-learned phenomena or structural genetic differences.  The vast majority of feminists emphasize that gender roles are learned but there are some Feminists ("Essentialists") who view the gender differences as biologically based.  To the extent that the differences are genetic and to the extent that the female gender perspective is more constructive, this would imply a need to reverse the current power structure and place exclusively women in positions of power.  The Essentialists have identified three possible explanations for War and conflict in a patriarchal world.

 

Degree of Skepticism toward Logical Positivism:  As noted, all Feminists have some degree of skepticism toward the epistemology of logical positivism since it is so closely associated with the male cognitive processes.  That having been said, many feminists, advocate a modified logical positivism - i.e. a scientific methodology stripped of its patriarchal biases.  Other Feminists, Post-Structural-Feminists, reject logical positivism all together.  Their research consists of an effort to "deconstruct" IR theory and research of its hidden patriarchal language and assumptions.  Helen Caldecott is a Post-Structural Feminist.

 

Attitude toward Liberal-Democracy and Capitalism: There are Liberal-Feminists and Marxist-Feminists.  The difference is over whether or not the status of women is better in a liberal, democratic capitalistic or a communistic world.

 

Universal Norms versus Cultural Relativism:  I believe that the most profound debate in feminist theories concerns the extent to which there are universal rights for women or those rights are, in part, culturally-defined.  First, all Feminists believe that all cultural systems are patriarchal and therefore all systems are exploiting women.  But are there universal rights for women and, if so what are they?  For example, do women have the right to drive a car or be a religious or political leader?  Most Feminists would say yes but there are Post-Colonial/Communitarian Feminists who believe that the "rights" of women should not be imposed by Western Capitalistic Christian States but determined by the women in a particular culture.  Take the issue of clothing.  Are women in a strict Muslim society in which they required to wear a Burka in public worse off than women in the Western world where semi-nude women are sexually objectified by the culture?

I. Ontological Assumptions about the Nature of World Politics:

A.    Epistemological Assumptions:   Feminists are skeptical of logical positivism.  Research and theory must be "gendered" before we can begin to understand the world properly.   Some Feminists (Post-Structural Feminists) reject it all together.

B. Agent-Structure Problem:  Feminism puts more emphasis on the agent (women across cultures) than it does on the structure.  There is a structure in place.  It is patriarchy.  But patriarchy is a social construction and it can be replaced.

C. Nature of Man:   Clearly, there are assumptions that men and women act and think differently.  Clearly, the assumption is that the female gender perspective is normatively preferable to the male gender perspective.  What remains a matter of dispute is how much is biologically based and how much is socially learned.

D. View of History  It is clearly linear.  There is the vision that patriarchy can be replaced and this would be an improvement.

E. Nature of World Order? 

1.      Key Actors: Transnational Social Movements - Women's Groups and NGOs (especially indigenous women's groups).

2.      Predominant form of Collective Identity? Gender.

3.      Key Level of Analysis and Key Causal Factors?  You may examine the operation of patriarchy and efforts of women to resist it at any level from globalization to an examination of domestic violence within a society.

4.      Tacit or Formal Rules that Regulate the Actions of Key Actors? To reinforce patriarchy.

E.    When produces cooperation? What produces conflict?  An elimination of patriarchy would produce more cooperation.

III. Values: Normative Theories.  Feminist theory tends toward a pacifist or at least "war as a last resort" perspective because it assumes that if the feminist gender perspective is adopted it will be possible to find many more common responses to global needs.

 

 

Constructivist Theories

 

I.  General Characteristics:

 

A.   All basic features of World Politics (anarchy, nation-states, national interest, national identity) are "social constructions" NOT objective phenomena.  This is the central feature of Constructivist Theory and it has important ramifications. For example, constructivists challenge the realist notion that a competition for power in anarchic world is an objective, fixed, structural reality.  Anarchy, national interest, and the degree of conflict of interests between states are all, to some extent, subjective phenomena that are a product of both intra-state and systemic cultural norms and values.  What this means for theories of conflict and conflict resolution is that wars can be a product of: commonly held perceptions of the world that exaggerate the dangers and the degree of real conflict of interest and force states to engage in “worst case analysis."

 

B. The features of World Politics can evolve as the social context and culture changes.  If the basic dynamics of world politics are social constructions then as cultural changes occur the global dynamics will necessarily change.  Take for example, the idea of the  nation-state as the primary unit of analysis.  Realists of course acknowledge that different political units of analysis existed in other historical eras but they argue that structural factors will determine the most efficient political unit to respond to anarchy in that particular historical era and, according to Realists, since 1648, nation-states have been the most efficient unit to act in an anarchic world..  Constructivists argue that it is not structural factors (security or economic ones) that have created nation-states but cultural phenomena in particular evolving conceptions of collective identity within particular cultures.  In the feudal ages, collective identity was more closely tied to local fiefdoms.  When people began to think of themselves as "French" or "Swedish" then nation-states emerge.  This is similar to the idea of Benedict Anderson that nation-states (and all other forms of collective identity) are "imagined communities." 

 

Anther example concerns the emergence of the notion of sovereignty that is so ingrained in much IR theory and International Law.  But the notion of sovereignty, specifically the norm of  non-interference in the internal affairs of another states, is a norm that evolved in reaction to the brutal Thirty Years War in which Catholics or Protestants from one country invaded another country and slaughtered men, women, and children in the name of religious conversion.  That norm of non-interference was ratified in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 and then later became the central organizing principle as International Law evolved.  But as Constructivist Martha Finnemore has pointed out, now the notion of sovereignty is changing and the norm of non-interference is being replaced by a norm in favor of international humanitarian interventions to stop genocide.  Just recently, the International Criminal Court indicted Sudan's sitting President for War Crimes. So concepts such as sovereignty are not fixed, they evolve.

 

Finally, anarchy itself can evolve as perceptions of the degree of anarchy change. Anarchy is, in the famous words of Alexander Wendt, “what states make of it.”  In other words, the degree of cooperation or conflict that exists in particular world system is not primarily a product of polarities of power, or the distribution of democratic v. non-democratic states but broader cultural conceptions about the degree of cooperation that is possible.  Wendt, in effect, sees a progression of different conceptions of anarchy to more and more cooperative systems  from Hobbessian conceptions of anarchy,  to Lockean conceptions of anarchy and then finally to what he calls Kantian conceptions of anarchy.

 

C. Focus on Cultural Norms on Two Levels: Intra-State and International.:  Constructivists place a heavy focus on cultural norms.  Indeed, cultural norms are the primary ontological focus of their theory and research..  While this is not always clear in Constructivist Literature is that there are two different levels of cultural norms:  (1) Systemic or Global Cultural Norms.  (2) Intra-State/Civilization Cultural Norms,  Systemic/Global norms apply universally on all states and thus tend to produce more consistent behavior.  Intra-State/Civilization Cultural Norms are products of given states and thus can produce more differences in behavior.

II. Ontological Assumptions about the Nature of World Politics:

A.    Epistemological Assumptions:   Constructivism is clearly skeptical of logical positivism.   One idea shared by all Constructivists is the notion of how language shapes policy. Indeed, Constructivism is heavily influenced by the notion of Benjamin Whorf that language can shape perceptions of reality.  The degree of the skepticism varies among different Constructivist Theorists. Alexander Wendt, for example, keeps the basic notion of the scientific method.  Others, go farther, but in general constructivists do not go as far as Post-Structuralists in rejecting logical positivism all together.

B. Agent-Structure Problem:  Constructivists have some of the most interesting ideas about the agent-structure problem because they show the interaction between the two.  Structure (such as perceptions of anarchy and international norms) are shaped by the agents (states); these structures did not exist independent of their perception by the agents.  However, once constructed, international norms (collective perceptions of anarchy) can alter the behavior of states. 

C. Nature of Man  Malleable.  Self-perceptions of individuals and states are the world are shaped by "inter-subjective" perceptions.

D. View of History  Their view of history is interesting.  Clearly, historical realities are NOT constant across time, they are context dependent, and thus will change across eras.  The interesting question is whether that change will be more progressive as Liberals suggest or more entropic as the Apocalyptic Theories suggest.  There is nothing internal to the logic of Constructivist Theory to suggest that the change necessarily has to be positive.  In fact, it could just as easily be negative. Yet you find many (most) Constructivists who take a linear-progressive view of history (Wendt is the best example).  For this reason, I argue that most Constructivists are closet liberals.  Their disagreement especially with neo-liberal institutionalists is over the mechanism of positive change.  Constructivists believe that states act in response to norms of what is appropriate while neo-liberal institutionalists see it as a calculation of consequences and self-interested utility.  All Liberals and many Constructivists favor a linear, positive progression toward liberal, democracy.

E. Nature of World Order? 

1.      Key Actors? There is some difference among Constructivists here. Wendt keeps the nation-state as a unit of analysis but focuses on the global political culture as key.  Other Constructivists look at internal cultural factors that differentiate states.

2.      Predominant form of Collective Identity? The key notion here is that all forms of collective identity are, to some extent, "imagined communities."  These can and will shift across historical eras.  It is possible, for example, that members of the European Union will come to see themselves first as European and only secondly as French.

3.      Key Level of Analysis and Key Causal Factors? The single most important factor is culture - both at the system and intra-state levels.

4.      Tacit or Formal Rules that Regulate the Actions of Key Actors?  These norms can and will shift.  But they are important.

E.    When produces cooperation? What produces conflict?  "Inter-subjective" perceptions of the various global phenomena such as anarchy and also contrasting "national roles."

 

III. Values: It is my argument that most Constructivists are closet liberals.  They tend to believe in liberal, democracy and human rights though they are much more skeptical about the positive effects of globalization and capitalism.  There are Cosmopolitan-Constructivists who allow for more social relativism.

 

Post-Structuralism

 

I will handle post structuralism much more briefly than the previous two theories because it is not really a theory at all - it is an approach to critiquing IR theory, IR research, and real world policy.  Some have claimed that the same can be said of Constructivist Theory but I would argue that is not the case. A theory is a proposed explanation for world politics.  At least some Constructivist Theorists do attempt to offer a proposed explanation for world politics.  Not so the post-Structuralists.  However, the value of the post structural approach is that it forces all the theories to address important meta-theoretical questions.

 

Huntington

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Apocalyptic Theory