Hopf, Ted. "The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory". International Security, Vol.23, No.1 (1998): 171-200.

Hopf, Ted. "The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory". International Security, Vol.23, No.1 (1998): 171-200.

• The Constructivist school of IR theory has faced a large amount of criticism on the basis that it is postmodern, anti-positivist, not reconcilable with social scientific methods of research, and that it has not generated its own types of recognizable methodology (171).
• Constructivism views actor behavior and structures as mutually reinforcing, so that the agency of actors affects international structures and structural constraints affect actor behavior. Importantly, these structures are not only material incentives, but also include ideological structures that encourage certain kinds of behavior (172-173).
• Interaction between states is the basis for national identities and the formation of norms of international behavior. These norms and practices of international politics are created by specific actors, but then come to define the international system as other actors become socialized to mimic these practices (173).
• The existence of international anarchy does not automatically lead to a certain kind of state behavior, contrary to the claims of the Neorealist school. Rather, actors each adopt certain behaviors within an anarchic system based on their perceptions and expectations of the international system -- in other words, anarchy is not the same for everyone (174).
• National identities and interests are very important for determining international politics, as they inform states about their relationship with other actors and visa-versa (175).
• Ultimately, identity is not determined primarily by the actor, but by other states that interact with it. This is demonstrated by gaps between a state's self-perception and its perception by others. How states choose to present their identities is important, but ultimately it is how other states perceive it that affect international politics (175).
• Identities are socially constructed and the selection of national interests is driven by political processes to support certain viewpoints. Constructivism seeks to understand why some interests shape state action and some do not, and why specific identities have become nationally cemented over others (176).
• The Neorealist school assumes that all states are driven by self-interest alone, and do not have other identities or interests. This view is clearly flawed and fails to account for the importance of identity in shaping state action (175-176).
• The Neorealist and Neoliberal schools of IR theory define power in solely material terms. Constructivists agree that military and economic power are important, but also argue that ideology, culture, and prestige are important markers of power (177-178). Having military and economic power gives states the ability to effectively exercise these other types of power (178-179).
• Constructivism argues that actually, since both power and state control are socially constructed concepts, the ability to dictate narratives and control interpretations of events are the greatest expressions of power that can be exercised by states since they reinforce actors' understandings of the international system and thus affect their behavior (178-179).
• Despite understanding the contemporary international system as contingent and socially constructed, Constructivism does not see change in that international system as likely. The current interpretations of international politics are strongly held and frequently reinforced, so the current system will likely remain -- this is because of human action, not scientific law, as the Neorealist school holds (180-181). 
• Constructivism comes in two basic varieties based on how far its positions are separated from critical theory: conventional constructivism and critical constructivism (181). Both types agree on the social construction of national interests and identity, the nexus of knowledge and power, the impact of theory on real-world politics, human agency in politics, and the mutual influence of actors and structures (182).
• Conventional constructivism is essentially positivist, believing that certain identities and interests will emerge under certain circumstances, and that states will behave certain ways depending on national identities and interests that can be categorized and used as variables in IR theory (182-183). 
• Conventional constructivists look at national identities as factors that can explain state action, and be used in theories that claim certain identities lead to certain kinds of actions (183-184).
• They are not concerned with reflexivity like critical constructivists are (184), and does not focus on the power dynamics within certain national identities or understandings of politics (185).
• Critical constructivism differs firstly in terms of epistemology and ontology, as it denies that national identities can be used as variables to predict state action. They hold that this compresses the unknowable diversity of human action into certain expectations that will usually be wrong (183).
• Critical constructivists are interested in how those identities are constructed and why they become dominant over their rival conceptions (183-184).
• They are reflexive and recognize that their theories reflect their social perspectives (184). This is part of critical constructivism's focus on power relations and how those dynamics are reflected by theories of politics and social relations (185).
• The author recommends that going forward the constructivist school should apply itself to some the main topics of discussion in mainstream IR theory, look at new areas of inquiry specific to constructivism, and to find the weakness of current approaches to constructivism (186).
• In terms of addressing issues central to mainstream IR theory, the author recommends the application of constructivism to the balance of threat, security dilemmas, cooperation under anarchy, and democratic peace theory (186).
• The notion that states balance according to threats, first advanced by Steven Walt, is absolutely in line with constructivist notion because the concept of threat is based entirely on socially constructed national identities, not objective or material factors (186-187).
• Constructivism explains why security dilemmas do not occur between certain pairs of countries that are members of the same political groupings. States view the military power of different states differently, based on socially constructed notions of their relationship, which is why Britain views French nuclear weapons differently than Soviet nuclear weapons (188).
• Neoliberal conclusions about the success of international organizations in enabling cooperation under anarchy are supported by constructivism. Constructivism, however, asserts that reiterative interaction with these institutions not only change the material incentives for state action, but change national identities and state perception of other countries to be more open to continued cooperation (188-191).
• Democratic peace theory can be explained by constructivist, as the reason that democracies do not attack each other is ultimate because of how they perceive each other's national identity. It can also provide insight into other periods of sustained peace, as occurred during large parts of Latin American history (192).
• One of the major areas of exploration within the constructivist research agenda should be how identities are formed and how they influence state action (192).
• Constructivism should seek to delve into how state actions are influenced by gender, racial, sexual, and religious identity, as these factors are usually excluded in mainstream IR theory (193).
• Since states have multiple identities simultaneously, more research should go into what identities are prioritized in different situations. This is especially important in which national identities are prioritized by other states (193-194).
• Domestic politics and other national factors, like popular culture, affect state perceptions of identity and national interests. Constructivism should look at how domestic cultural norms influence perception of geopolitical scenarios (194-195).
• The two major criticisms of constructivism are that it has not developed any predictive rules of politics and that it cannot explain how identities are constructed. Constructivism should create new theory to address both of these problems (196).
• Contemporary constructivist work has focused on explanations of certain situations with reference to socially constructed identities and interests. It has not developed patterns connecting certain identities to certain political outcomes. Most constructivist can make these sorts of predictions, they just don't because they don't feel confident in the future of socially constructed relationships (197).
• "The assumptions that underlay constructivism account for its different understanding of world politics. Since actors and structures are mutually constructed, state behavior in the face of different distributions of power or anarchy is unknowable absent a reconstruction of the intersubjective meaning of these structures and actors. Since actors have multiple identities, and these identities imply different interests, the a priori and exogenous attribution of identical interests to states is invalid. Since power is both material and discursive, patterned behavior over time should be understood as a result of material or economic power working in concert with ideological structures, social practices, institutionalized norms, and intersubjective webs of meaning. The greatest power of all is that which disciplines actors to naturally imagine only those actions that reproduce the underlying arrangements of power-material and discursive. Since constructivist social structures are both enduring and mutable, change in world politics is considered both difficult and possible" (198-199).