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Constructivism and International Relations
| A new book unites some of the most prominent critiques of Alexander Wendt's constructivist theory of international relations and includes the first comprehensive reply by Wendt.
This new volume from Taylor & Francis is edited by Associate Professor, PhD Anna Leander (Dept. of Intercultural Communication and Management) and Professor Stefano Guzzini (Dept. of Government at Uppsala University and Danish Institute of Int. Studies).
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The chapters are informed by a wide array of contending theories ranging from realism to poststructuralism. The collected leading theorists critique Wendt's seminal book Social Theory of International Politics and his subsequent revisions. They take issue with the full panoply of Wendt's approach, such as his alleged positivism, his critique of the realist school, the conceptualism of identity, and his teleological theory of history.
Questions: Anna Leander, tel. +45 3815 3119
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Anna Leander's research centres on the role of private authority in global politics. She is interested in different approaches to the study of authority and primarily in constructivist ones (particularly those with roots in Bourdieu's work) as well as in how private authority is integrated into theoretical thinking about International Relations and International Political Economy.
Empirically, her
research has had a two-fold focus. Her interest in private authority originally stemmed from an interest in the role of private business and private authority in economic development. More recently Anna Leander has worked extensively on the private authority over the use of force and in particular in the authority exercised by the private security industry.
From reviews:
"Wendts' Social Theory is beginning to serve as a Rorschach test for contemporary IR theorist in ways similar to Waltz's earlier theory book.
Guzzini and Leander have assembled an unusually balanced, yet wide ranging set of high quality criticisms of this work, both constructive and
deconstructive in their intent. Their book belongs in every course seriously attempting to cover the state of contemporary IR theory."
Hayward R. Alker, University of Southern California
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"This excellent collection brings together new, and mostly European voices to the constructivist turn in US international relations theory that
was brought about largely by the work of Alexander Wendt. The book prepares the ground for further dialogue as the Old World reacts to the adaptation of
a social theory of international relations in the different intellectual and political context of the New."
Peter J. Katzenstein, Cornell University
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"The varied contributions to 'Constructivism and International Relations' have succeeded in prompting Alexander Wendt to write, not a defence of 'Social Theory of International Politics',
but a brilliant and innovative reconsideration of its metaphysical foundations, and those of social science more generally. Wendt's conjecture
about a quantum social science, admittedly sketchy and highly speculative, should stimulate rethinking and debate."
Robert O. Keohane, Princeton University
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Sidst opdateret af Insights@CBS 13.3.2006 | marts - 2006, nr. 19
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