International Relations theory made easy (6): Constructivism
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- čas přidán 23. 07. 2024
- Introductory lecture to the discipline of International Relations by Dr Patrick Theiner, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Recorded in late 2020.
== Timestamps ==
00:00 - Intro
00:53 - Theories so far
02:22 - Open questions
04:06 - What's new about constructivism
07:00 - Origins of constructivism
08:53 - Constructivism as a social theory
16:28 - Alexander Wendt's constructivism
21:10 - Which world do you believe in?
25:24 - Core assumptions of constructivism
32:46 - Models of decision-making
35:17 - Elevator etiquette
38:12 - Logic of appropriateness and social norms
42:53 - What is a norm
45:29 - Constructivists and nuclear weapons
49:43 - The Tsar Bomba
51:47 - Theories and nuclear proliferation
55:24 - Constructivism and change
56:46 - Is constructivism a good theory?
You have a great teaching skill, clear delivery with all the examples to logic the theory. Excellent presentation!
At the first I thought this constructivism lesson would be boring like in my IR theory class, but this one is superb!
Clear and concise, very insightful for me given the fact that positivist theory such as liberalism and realism dominate the academic here, they become a dogma, and sometimes students that are trying to transcend those two labelled as metaphysics, biased, quasi-scientific. Excellent lecture!
Greeting from Indonesia :)
Honestly, is so an informative lecture. Looking forward to more episodes
Thanks for uploading the lectures, very helpful. More universities and scholars should use open source, especially for lectures.
THIS IS SUCH A GOOD VIDEO, THANK YOU SO MUCH
Thanks Mr. Patrick for your lecturing 🌐🇬🇧❤️
Excellent lecture! Great explanation of Constructivism.
Great material! Thanks!
Thanks for this amazing session
Thank you for these videos, I really like them!
Happy to hear that!
Thank you very much! Very clear and interesting explanation👍👍👍 helps a lot
thank you sir, informative lecture!
Well explained
great video! plus I love your squishmallow
thank you :)
thank you! this was so helpful. especially the case study at the end was quite enlightening. greetings from Istanbul ^-^
Thanks, glad to hear it was helpful!
Arab spring would probably be one of the discourse analyses example
Hi, loved this video. What do constructivists say about international cooperation? I can’t find anything on it 😭
Interesting. A subject and theory I'm struggling with- this helps a lot. (Was the Finnish queue taken during Covid? :))
Hey, loving the series.
I have a question though, im from a heterodox economics bcakground, and I would say mainstream or neoclassical and Austrian economists are pretty "realist" in some senses:
Though they argue against states say going to war, (but not on their own citizens eg Hayek and friedman in south america - i have some interesting papers on this if interested) they do have that view of human nature as self interested and spend a lot of time arguing that everything (excluding their own activities of course) are self interested - yet why this is also a good thing (everyone acting in their self interest maximises the social good)) - now, what they would probably argue about the lifeboat example, is not that people would be scrambling hand over foot to get out, but see that this doesn't always occur and wrap the theory to the reality in some way - that this "women and children first" behaviour is actually undercover self interest (everything is to them, its just finding out how) - so perhaps they would argue that by allowing others to go first makes you more trustworthy (enabling backstabbing options later), builds up a form of social debt, or perhaps the individual has a "strong preference" for being remembered in a certain way, which outweighs the "utility" that individual could have gotten by continuing to live and risk not dying heroically, for example.
Would a realist really have to argue that in a fire it would be "anarchy"? I find that economists are far more devious in their "detection" of self interest than this.
what the diference between R2P and humanitarian intervention . libya example IN 2011
Good question. I go into much more detail on that in lecture 10, which will come out on 11 February - that's all about the UN and peacekeeping.
shout-out to the cat! :D
Postmodernism at the epistemological levels I guess reassert constructivism, in that it always makes us question our assumptions...
No?!
8:10 - I'm not sure if that is entirely true that USSR disintegrated without a war. Didn't that happen after they lost the Afghan war?
The Soviet-Afghan War was definitely a contributing factor to the USSR's downfall, but in this context I meant that most theorists - especially realists - thought a great power could not fall without being essentially defeated in a war, most likely with another great power or powers.
Are you gonna lecture on Political systems of different states like Uk, Us,France,Germany, turkey,India?
Not in this series of lectures since they're all about international relations. But some of my videos on comparative politics do talk about specific political systems.
Here in Pakistan we have political science and IR as separate college programmes. I am a student of political science but aspects IR are mixed in my syllabus. As I was saying, political science lectures are not available on CZcams by anyone, the quality ones like yours. It would be a great help if you could steer me in the right direction for lectures strictly about political science.
Any online resource I mean
@@samiullahkhan2391 They're separate programs here too, but in reality there tends to be quite a bit of overlap between political science and IR. Unfortunately I don't know of many other channels that make university-level lectures available on CZcams, but I will let you know if I come across any.
@@PatrickTheiner thanks for this amazing session
Excellent lecture! Love from Pakistan!
things that have aged poorly: distancing at the bus stop :o
Every human is Selfish. Self Interest is always top interest. So, politicians lie all the time. There can be no Altruism
Congratulations, you're a classical realist!
@@PatrickTheiner why, Thanks!
Time tested realism is the way to go I think. Imagining a world of "ET" like encounters is a fools errand. Just ask Ukraine.
32:00 Here's how realists would deal with Greta Thunberg: she was useful to someone who had actual power to create and push a narrative, and that/those actor(s) used her for their own ends as long as she was useful.
That's an interesting observation, but also a misunderstanding of the theory: a stereotypical realist a) doesn't care about individuals, since it's structures determining actions; b) doesn't care about narratives, since these are immaterial and have no bearing on the balance of power; c) doesn't really care about climate change beyond its possible influence on hard power capabilities. It's always tempting to use a theory to confirm what we think about how the world works, but in this case realism doesn't really work too well. Now constructivists on the other hand, or critical theorists (see my other lectures in this series) might well agree with you.
Apparently, my long-held position that there never was a "unipolar moment" is associated with Constructivist IR theorists from the 1990s. To me it is a rather simple, example-rich, obvious notion that there were valences of influence and obvious boundaries of reach of the US all throughout the "unipolar" period. That is why the US began easing its interventionist grip on Latin America starting in the 90s and doubling down on the mid-east, central asia, and expanding NATO in Europe. All 3 of these shifts were directed at Russia & China: to hem in the world island, all while steering China in a more capitalist direction. At no time since WW2 has the US ever been willing to directly compromise the territory of a nuclear state, except in Pakistan where the security apparatus was secretly in league with the US in contrast to the official stance of the govt. vis-a-vis drone strikes, etc. At every point in the "unipolar moment," where the herding operations into the neoliberal multilateral economic/trade groups were at their strongest, giant exceptions had to be carved out to accomodate the power realities of different collaborators, foes, or allies of the US. For example, China was given a free pass on its joint venture laws, currency manipulation, SOEs, industrial policy, etc., because the gains for financial elites in the rest of the developed world (Europe, Japan, S.Korea, etc.) would allow the US to gain maximum influence over their economic futures and developments, as the actor with the greatest scale in the OECD. Effectively, there has never been a unipolar moment and there are too many examples in support of this truth to enumerate.