Towards a Critical Constructivist Approach to

Sovereignty









Paulo Rigueira
University of Bath
pr241@bath.ac.uk




December 2, 2009




DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION
Comments welcome



















International relations theory regularly embraces sovereignty as the primary
constitutive rule of international organization. Theoretical traditions that agree on
little else all seem to concur that the defining feature of the modern international
system is the division of the world into sovereign states. Despite differences over the
role of the state in international affairs, most scholars would accept John Ruggies
definition of sovereignty as the institutionalization of public authority within
mutually exclusive jurisdictional domains (1998:54).
Despite generally agreeing on what it means to be sovereign, there are different ways
to assess this concept. The chapter will access the development of this institution
associating it with development in International Relations (IR) theory itself. With the
end of the inter-paradigmatic debate (Banks 1984), a new axis between positivism and
post-positivism emerged in IR literature and theory (Smith and Hollis 1991). This was
subsequently redefined and constructivism and rationalism subsequently took the
place of the previous mutually exclusive debate (Katzenstein et al 1998).
These evolving ways of theorizing about IR also had an impact on the concept of
sovereignty. From the classical theoretical distinction between sovereignty as a fact
and sovereignty as a norm, (Hinsley 1986, Jackson 1990, Walker 1990) the theoretical
debate focuses nowadays on static and social constructed versions of sovereignty
(Barkin and Cronin 1994, Biersteker and Weber 1996). The new theoretical divide
therefore places at the centre of the discussion debates about versions that view
sovereignty essentially as being pre-determined and those that aim to understand
sovereignty as socially constructed moving beyond the distinction between fact and
norm. In this chapter, static approaches will be divided between those that emphasize
sovereignty as a fact and those that emphasize sovereignty as a norm. Social
constructed approaches to sovereignty will address how a new version of sovereignty
as a norm emerged dividing this discussion along three main constructivist
perspectives: conventional (Hopf 1998, Checkel 1998), consistent (Fierke 2006) and
radical constructivism (Diez 2001). The chapter will end by locating a particular
critical constructivist approach in this debate.


1- Theories of Sovereignty:
Static Approaches

According to static versions of sovereignty, this concept is merely conceived as the
location of supreme power within a particular territorial unit. For an international
society to exist at all, members just need to demonstrate internal cohesion.
Demonstrated capacity for self-government creates credibility and respect which
warrants recognition. Static approaches follow the reasoning that a state can exist
because it satisfies certain basic criteria translated by the Montevideo Convention.
Static versions can be distinguished between those that emphasize sovereignty as a
fact realism and liberalism and those that emphasize sovereignty as a norm
English School and normative theory.

1.1- Sovereignty as a Fact

The main dividing line between those that understand sovereignty as a fact and those
that understand sovereignty as a norm lies in the space for independence given for the
society of states and the rule of law. In order to understand this distinction it is
important to have in mind that international law lies at the centre of the creation of
International Relations. Different attitudes towards the possibility of government or
constitutional order in international relations characterized this sub-discipline.
The distinctive characteristic of those that emphasize sovereignty as a fact lies in the
view that the creation of a society of states, should derive from the particular interests
or demonstration of power by the nation-state. In other words, an international society
if it is to exist as no independent power of its own. Those that conceive
sovereignty as a fact draw on the belief that international law emanates from an act of
self-limitation a case of state willingness to do something or lack of it and that
states have the liberty to withdraw from international regimes if their interest does not
provide reasons for compliance. Government effectiveness is a central ground of
sovereign statehood.

Realism

The state for the realists is the central point of departure in characterizing the essential
problem of international relations as that of war and the maintenance of peace, played
out against a background of the organized violence of military power and its potential
employment. Security and order are thus the principal preoccupations. Despite
different categorizations of what realism is (Mearsheimer 2003, Legro and Moravcski
1999), a distinction will be made here between classical realism and neo-realism.
For classical realists such as Hans Morgenthau sovereignty is defined in legal terms as
the appearance of a centralized power that exercised its lawmaking and law-
enforcing authority within a certain territory (1968:267). This essential unit of
analysis the sovereign and unitary nation-state is essentially being conditioned by
a diplomatic-strategic environment. More specifically classical realists tend to analyse
the exercise of sovereignty in terms of the will to power (Morgenthau 1968). States
vary only according to their power capabilities. Power preserves the system, with each
state striving to assure its own existence, while simultaneously maintaining the system
of states. From this perspective, a sovereign state is an independent actor in exchange,
competition and conflict with other states conditioned by a particular dangerous and
strategic outside. Hence the emphasis on the distinctive power that each state has to
dictate the rules of the world. There is no such thing as an international society
independent from the will to power that create permanent security dilemmas in
international politics for classical realists. This international sphere is locked in a fight
of all against all because human nature is essentially conceived to be bad. Conceiving
a part of his chapter dedicated to sovereignty to the potential emancipation of an
international society and of international law, Morgenthau analyses law as the power
of the weak to impose their will. He, nevertheless, does not dismiss the question of
ethics altogether however. This side of Morgenthaus thought has been explored by
current revisions that aim to reconcile his realist framework with an ethical
understanding of international politics (Bain ). He dismissed the question by arguing
that sovereignty is only incompatible with a strong, effective, and centralized system
of international law, a system that did not exist and was difficult to create.
If classical realists analyse international politics in terms of the will to power, neo-
realists aim to reconceptualise the debate and move from human nature to science
(Waltz 1979). Following the traditional classical assumption, they combine
population, territory, authority, and recognition the principal constitutive elements
of sovereignty into a single actor: the sovereign state. Furthermore, Waltz further
developed this notion of sovereign states: these sovereign states are essentially
billard-balls with no inside crashing against one another on the outside. This static
designation for the international system is consolidated by the idea that sovereign
states are not only the primary actors but the only actors that characterize and
influence this system. What is more substantial is how Waltz associated this view of
the only actor in the system with the forces that guide them. Kenneth Waltz more
specifically defines sovereignty in terms of his conception of anarchy To say that a
state is sovereign means that it decides for itself how it will cope with its internal and
external problems (1979:128). Therefore, neo-realists are concerned with
sovereignty principally as it manifests itself as one possible institution for managing
anarchy, which is defined as the absence of formal governmental authority in the
international system. That is, states are sovereign because there is no overarching
governmental authority in the international system. Once the system of sovereign
states is established, competition and socialization are said to produce similar units.
Power balancing preserves the system, with each state striving to assure its own
existence, while simultaneously maintaining the system of states. Sovereignty and its
exercise are therefore characterized by the absence of a extra-territorial power that can
somehow regulate the relations between actors.
Recent work within what can be broadly called neo-realism has been developed to
consolidate the idea that international society and its regimes can have some
influence in the regulation of the behaviour of states (Krasner 1983). This strand of
neo-realism therefore acknowledges some power to international society and its rules
and, therefore, move beyond the zero-sum logic provided by previous versions of
realism. But if moves beyond the rejection of international society altogether, the
concession is merely allowing for a conceptualization of international society through
power-based terms (Grieco 1988). But this moves as some consequences on the way
sovereignty is conceptualized. The work of Stephen Krasner (1991, 1999) and David
Lake (2003) aim to move beyond the classical views on sovereignty provided by
previous work. In their view, international regimes have an impact on state behaviour
and the changing conditions of these regimes influence the way international politics
evolves. In other words, international politics changes. With the end of the Cold War
a new international regime emerged characterized by a new distribution of power.
Sovereignty, as an institution, also changed. Following the traditional reasoning,
Waltz concluded that domestic systems are centralized and hierarchic. The parts of
international political-systems stand in relations of coordination. Formally, each is the
equal of all the others. International systems are decentralized and anarchic (Waltz
1979) But what the recent neo-realist reconsideration take into account is how Waltz
himself acknowledged that all societies are organized segmentally or hierarchically
in greater or lesser degree. One might conceive of some societies approaching the
purely anarchic, of others approaching the purely hierarchic, and of still others
reflecting specified mixes of the two organizational types (1979:114-115, quoted
from Lake 2003:38). This important concession implies that variations in sovereignty
and anarchy can, and possibly do, exist within the international system. It is precisely
this dimension of reconciliation between anarchy and hierarchy that both Krasner and
Lake aim to bring to neo-realist thought on sovereignty.
Despite their differences all the above approaches to sovereignty share the view that
there is no such thing as an international society that exists independently of the will
of the uniform state. Sovereignty is defined differently but in all realist versions it is
dependent upon a strategic-diplomatic game that characterized international politics
and that limits the possibilities for the creation of common bounds since actors are
constantly and rationally fighting for survival and independence.

Liberalism

Liberals also tend to adopt a static view of sovereignty but conceptualize it differently
from realists. They furthermore move beyond the mere concern with balances of
power and security threaths and focus instead on the issue of transcendence and
control whether sovereign states are being undermined by a stronger international
authority structure.
For Liberals states are described as unified rational autonomous entities striving to
maximize their utility in the face of constraints and opportunities that emanate from
an anarchic although interdependent international environment. What distinguishes
liberalism and particularly neoliberal institutionalism (Keohane 1984) from
realism is its different understanding of the characteristic problem for Westphalia
states therefore: for neoliberal institutionalism the problem is the resolution of market
failures; for realism it is security and distributional conflict. If realists tend to
emphasize strategic zero sum games, liberals emphasize welfare and the aspirations of
a common life together. Sovereignty is being conditioned by these aspirations but
they are driven by rational and unitary actors (Baldwin 1993).
Liberals accept the existence of an international society and of the distinctiveness of
the institution of sovereignty and its rules in this society. But they tend to
conceptualize it as being dependent upon a aprioristic definition of state interests
hence conceptualizing sovereignty as a fact. As Robert Keohane concludes I will
argue that sovereign statehood is an institution a set of persistent and connected
rules prescribing behavioural roles, constraining activity, and shaping expectations
We can understand this institution in terms of the rational interests of the elites that
run powerful states, in view of the institutional constraints that they face (1995:65).
On the other hand, following the view that internal sovereignty is penetrated and as to
give space to the proliferation of individual forces, at the international level
sovereignty is less a territorially defined barrier than a bargaining resource for a
politics characterized by complex transnational networks (Keohane 1995:74). In this
sense, under conditions of complex interdependence (Keohane and Nye 1977) or high
intensity of economic exchanges (Cooper 1972, Rosecrance 1986, Strange 1996),
sovereignty is transformed in the sense that it no longer enables states to exert
effective supremacy over what occurs within their territories. The assumption is that
there will be a plurality of rule-making structures and institutions that can be
described as a polyarchy (Rosenau 1990) and that an international community will
therefore be formed to alter the form of the nation-state. Institutions at the
international level will condition the way sovereignty is conceptualized. An
international government will eventually emerge to regulate and create the aspired
Kantian dream of peace and commerce.
But what still drives these aspirations are unitary sovereign states clashing with a
prioristic self-interested definitions of what it means to be a member in international
politics. There is no independent power of rules by themselves to constitute the way
states relate to one another. Rules are concessions. Rules are nothing outside the will
of states pursuit absolute gains in a strategic environment of competition with each
another (Powell 1993).

1.2- Moving Beyond Sovereignty as a Fact:
Sovereignty as a Norm

In addressing the classical distinction between sovereignty as a fact and sovereignty
as a norm RBJ Walker succinctly concludes that [A]t one extreme, one can argue
that the states mechanisms respond to the assertions of autonomous states, as with
attempts to apply mechanistic or utilitarian metaphors to international relations and
with positivistic conceptions of international law. At the other extreme, one can
suggest that states system constitutes a kind of society to which states are somehow
obligated, so that the principle of sovereignty is understood to be compatible with
emerging norms of international law (1990:217).
Those that conceive sovereignty as a norm depart from the assumption that a society
of states has independent power to rule. This means that it is more than an expression
of power or self-interest. Sovereignty is viewed here as a social status that enables
states as participants within a community of mutual recognition. From this
perspective, a focus on the state misleads when it treats political actors as natural or
exogenous, while directing attention away from the larger community. While the
world appears to be comprised of separate, discrete and self-generating states, as
reflected in the formal position that sovereignty comes from within, beyond this
appearance is a tissue of shared perceptions and indeed it is only on this basis that the
social institution of statehood and sovereignty can arise and be stabilized. Thus, the
international society of states should be seen, not as mechanism for upholding rights
that are anterior and the rights which accompany it are forged. States reciprocally
constitute one another through mutual recognition and by subjecting themselves to a
common norm of state sovereignty and non-intervention.

1.2.1- Sovereignty as a Norm

As was emphasized above, against those that just observe sovereignty as government
efficiency, sovereignty conceived as a norm departs from the assumption that the very
foundation of the nation-state system its diplomatic procedures, treaties,
international laws, wars, and all other institutions that provide for communication and
interaction among states rests on the mutual recognition among government leaders
that they each represent a specific society within an exclusive jurisdictional domain.
Diplomatic recognition and legitimation are prerequisites for participation in the
system as a full member. Following Robert Jackson, sovereignty as a norm can be
conceived as a game (Jackson 1990). Departing from the assumption that
sovereignty is essentially a legal order defined by rules, Jackson characterizes this
game as being a rule-articulated political order constituted and regulated by rules. In
his words Constitutive rules define the game: number of players, size and shape of
playing field, time of play, prohibited actions, and so on. Instrumental rules, on the
other hand, are precepts, maxims, stratagems, and tactics which are derived from
experience and contribute to winning play. They are prudential or opportunistic
considerations put into practice by players or teams (Jackson 1990:20). The classical
sovereign game is constituted by various practices, laws, customs, conventions, and
prescriptions which promote international civility and are generally acknowledged by
sovereign states. Traditional public international law belongs to the constitutive part
of the game in that it is significantly concerned with moderating and civilizing the
relations of independent governments. Diplomacy also belongs insofar as it aims at
reconciling and harmonising divergent national interests through international
dialogue. On the other hand, foreign policy is among the major instruments used by
statesmen in playing the sovereign game: that is, pursuing their interests.
Two positions emerge in the debate of sovereignty as norm: English School and
Normative Theory on the one hand, and Marxism/Dependency Theory on the other.
The differences deal with how far one can say that international law regulates the
relations of states. If both versions assume that sovereign states should not be
conceived as self-standing realities but, instead, by an international community same
conclude that the world is a framework of jurisdictions defined according to common
principles of international law and others that these common principles are of limited
extension. The next section will start with the latter.

English School/Normative Theory

English School and Normative Theory take into consideration the fact that states
operate in a shared context of rules. Sovereign governments are therefore not only
recognized as international legal persons but the above theories claim that
international relations should be conceived as a society consisting of independent
governments under common rules which apply equally and impartially to all.
Sovereignty is seen as an historical constitutional arrangement of political life. A
sovereign state is a territorial jurisdiction: i.e., the territorial limits within which state
authority may be exercised on an exclusive basis. Sovereignty is a legal institution
that authenticates a political order based on independent states whose governments
are the principle authorities both domestically and internationally. In sum, sovereignty
entails constitutional independence (James 1986, 1999).
If these theories converge on the accessment of the basic constitutive elements of
sovereignty as, on the one hand, being a juridical institution rooted in constitutional
independence the main dividing line within them emerges on how to conceptualize
the impact that an evolving international order has upon sovereignty. Departing from
the assumption that sovereignty is a norm and, therefore, concluding that an evolving
international legal order has an impact on the way states relate to one another, the
question becomes on how to access the impact of an evolving order. Here two
distinctions are normally raised in the literature: that between those who aspire to
maintain order on international society the pluralists and those that aspire to
recreate conditions for a more just international society the solidarists. This debate
goes to the heart of how to conceptualize the international legal order.
On the one hand there are those who conclude that a societas of sovereign states is
based on the value of co-existence (Jackson 1999). Sovereignty according to this
perspective gives expression to the value of international legal equality i.e., equal
status between independent states. The societas of states underwrites the value of
political freedom on an international scale. Sovereignty is an institutional expression
of the freedom of groups politically organized as states. The core values of
sovereignty are therefore: international order among states, co-existence of political
systems; legal equality of states; political freedom of states; and pluralism or respect
for diversity of ways of life of different groups of people around the world.
Sovereignty and the societas of states provides that connecting juridical framework. It
is a norm that prohibits one state from acting authoritatively within another state
(James 1999, Jackson 1999). In a recent rearticulation of this idea, Robert Jackson
traces the development of the Idea of Sovereignty (Jackson 2005). After describing
the historical development of the institution, he concludes succintly concludes [T]he
institutional arrangements have changed over time but the core notion of sovereignty
as political independence as remained the same (Jackson 2005:241).
On the other hand, there are those who understanding the changes in international
legal order differently. For solidarists, sovereignty is more than just the right to be
independent founded on the core idea of non-intervention. The conceptualization of
sovereignty is in this case approaching the spectrum aspired by the natural law
writers. States have some sense of common interest and communitarian aspirations
and sovereignty represents an attempt to acquired and re-define international society
in the process of aiming to acquire them (Taylor 1999). In the present era, this is
represented by the clash between norms of non-intervention and the new humanitarian
agenda that aims to condition the way sovereignty is perceived (Mayall 1991, 2007).

2- Reconceptualizing Sovereignty as a Norm:
The Social Construction of Sovereignty

In order to understand the macro processes that characterize socially constructed
versions of sovereignty there is a need to start by addressing constructivism itself and
its nature within IR literature. Constructivism emerged after the 1990s as the main
contender to suppress the dominance of realism in IR theory. The literature at the time
was mainly characterized by the dispute between realists, liberals and marxists (Little
and Smith 1991) and was mainly focused on issues of hard politics due to the state of
international relations at the time (Doyle 1997). With the emergence of constructivism
a theoretical axis emerged in IR theory between positivists and post-positivists
(Waever 1996). This Third Debate (Lapid 1989) was subsequently reconceptualized
as constructivism came to be recognized with itsa social scientific research logic
(Jorgensen and Fierke 2001; Jorgensen et al. 1999). But, overall, constructivists share
the critique made towards the positivist camp. All post-positivists claim that
mainstream international relations theorists are locked into a problematic way of
understanding theory and reality which inhibits their ability or even desire to widen or
change their existing agendas for international relations theory. In short, paradigms
such as realism, pluralism and structuralism/globalism are ontologically and
ideologically committed to seeing a particular picture of the international, as a result
of which they are also theoretically and epistemologically constrained. In fact it is
their theoretical and epistemological limitations which fundamentally structure what
they see and think of as important in international relations. Briefly put, the simple
structures they describe in IR are no more than reflections of simple theoretical
structures in their heads (George 1994; Neufield 1994). Thinking in terms of what
ideationally constitutes IR becomes important.

This theoretical turn implied re-conceptualizing sovereignty and, for some, the two
ideas came connected: in order to give predominance to intersubjectivity in IR, a
critique towards its foundational institutions should be developed (Walker 1989,
1990). In a sense, social constructed versions of sovereignty share some of the
assumptions of those who conceptualize sovereignty as a norm (Philpott 2001, Strang
1991). The main difference is how to interpret the role of recognition in the society of
states. As David Strang concludes, having a more socially constructed reading on the
relation between declaratory and constitutive theory, A declaratory theory holds that
states exist independent of recognition and that recognition signals that other states
have become aware of a new state (formal device); a constitutive theory holds that
states have no standing in the absence of recognition, which can be said to construct
them as international persons (1996:189, text added). Along with those that perceive
sovereignty as a norm, constructivist also place an important role for recognition and
the social power that this process implies the respect for certain common interests
and rules of conduct. Therefore, social constructed versions of sovereignty also
assume the existence of a society of states and the importance of it, However, they
move beyond the merely legalistic and formal device assumed by static versions
(James 1999) and instead conceptualize sovereignty as an institution made up of
intersubjective meanings. Rights are not intrinsic, naturally given attributes; they are
conferred upon actors through a process of social recognition that constitutes
particular kinds of identities. In other words, constructivists share the assumption that
the very foundation of the nation-state system its diplomatic procedures, treaties,
international laws, wars, and all other institutions that provide for communication and
interaction among states rests on the mutual recognition among government leaders
that they each represent a specific society within an exclusive jurisdictional domain.
Diplomatic recognition and legitimation are prerequisites for participation in the
system as a full member. However the type of legitimacy is essentially a political
rather than a legal or moral function. It is what international society ideationally
recognizes it is and not the granting of sovereignty due to a formal procedure. To
study the social construction of sovereignty is to study these intersubjective meanings.
More profoundly, social construction versions of sovereignty provide a more general
critique of theories of sovereignty. Here the distinction between static and socially
construction version can be more broadly built (Biersteker and Weber 1996, Barkin
and Cronin 1994). It is hence that social construction not only aims to reconceptualise
particular views of already existent theories that share the idea that sovereignty should
be seen as a norm, but also to draw a more broader distinction between static and
socially constructed.
One can therefore conclude that those that analyse sovereignty as a norm do not do so
fully because they tend to unite the view of the state with that of sovereignty. Hence
the idea put forward for all those that work from a constructivist perspective that
states need to be separated from sovereignty (Biersteker and Weber 1996). Static
conceptions of sovereignty - the bulk of the international relations literature do not
account for any variation in the legitimation of sovereignty. It is often not appreciated
fully that sovereignty is a social construct, and like all social institutions its location is
subject to changing interpretations. There is no timeless principle of sovereignty.
What characterizes all the static versions of sovereignty is their view of sovereignty
constructed outside interaction. These versions depart from the assumption that there
is a link between state and sovereignty. Conventionally, national politics was the
realm of hierarchical structures, whereas, in the international arena, anarchy rules.
Sovereignty, according to static versions, is what links the international arena to the
domestic by combining independence from outside interference (external sovereignty)
with authority over jurisdiction (internal sovereignty). In terms of domestic versus
foreign politics, this means that the former is organized through supremacy of the
government (hierarchy), whereas the latter is based on formal equality among
governments (a lack of supremacy anarchy). The modern state system can hence be
conceived as having a double significance: fostering a distinction between domestic
and international politics, on the one hand, while providing the exclusive terms of
reference to bridge the divide on the other (Carporaso 1996, Bartelson 1995). As such,
from Westphalia world politics is seen as being based on the doctrine of jurisdictional
exclusivity. And this institution of sovereignty simultaneously provides the
parameters for interaction between independent states.
By separating state from sovereignty, socially constructed versions of sovereignty aim
to assess how the meaning of sovereignty is negotiated out of interactions within
intersubjectively identifiable communities; and the variety of ways in which practices
construct, the state and sovereignty. Constructivists understand sovereignty to be an
international institution of mutual recognition of governmental authority over a
particular territory or territories. Sovereignty is not an analytic assumption but reflects
instead intersubjective shared understandings about territoriality, autonomy, and
recognition.
If this set of ideas unites all socially constructed versions of sovereignty, there is a
debate going on within different versions of constructivism on how to read this
process of social construction and recognition. Two main debates should be
emphasized: a macro debate and a micro debate. Within the macro debate two issues
are raised: first, the debate of whether social interaction exists prior or in process. This
will lead to discussions of whether we can fully overcome the distinction between an
inside and an outside and, therefore, think about a world not just of sovereign states
but instead opening the possibility for the existence of different layers of authority;
secondly, whether sovereignty itself should be considered a constitutive institution of
international society defining rules for membership or whether these are just a result
of demonstration of argumentative power. On the other hand, the micro debate is
concerned with the nature and emergence the intersubjective meanings. In other
words, whereas the macro-debate emphasizes broader meta-theoretical discussions as
they refer to different conceptions of sovereignty, the micro-debate aims to address
processes of institutionalization and socialization. Three versions of constructivism
will be distinguished: conventional, consistent and radical.

2.1- Sovereignty, Constructivism and Intersubjectivity:
Macro Processes

In the analyses of the macro-processes that characterized many varieties of
constructivist work on sovereignty, it is necessary to stress that constructivism can be
seen as an inteplay between two core concepts culture and identity upon which
other three relevant ideas rest interests, identities and institutions. It is therefore
important to stress that issues of sovereignty as a concept deal directly with questions
of the interplay between interests, identity and collective identity formation. As was
emphasized above, through a constructivist perspective we cannot just exclude
thinking about identities without thinking about the culture environment that
surrounds these identities in the first place. But sovereignty deals mainly with identity
issues. Therefore, we can conclude that the institution of sovereignty is dependent
upon some intersubjective meanings that define who can count as a member of
international society. These intersubjective meanings differ from a particular
historical stage to another but they are all produced and reproduced by state actors
recognizing each other as sovereign, and to that extent they exists only by virtue of
social process. This reflects a mechanism of appraisals at work. Actors learn to see
themselves and thereby acquire social identities as a function of how others treat them
rooted as this process is in broader ideational structures. They then engage in practices
of mutual recognition designed to confirm their identities since it is through these that
they give meaning to their existence and define who they are. This interaction and
formation of distinct identities will in turn generate actorss interests. How this is
particularly understood by conventional, consistent and radical constructivists will be
analysed next.

Conventional Constructivists

Following constructivism assumptions, the institution of sovereignty is conceived to
be produced and reproduced by state actors recognizing each other as sovereign, and
to that extent it exists only by virtue of social process. Conventional constructivist
theories (Checkel 2006, Hopf 1998) provide a particular understanding of this
process. More particularly the work of Alexander Wendt will be analysed here as an
example of this theory.
Wendt dedicated a number of works to the issue of state sovereignty and its
conceptualization (Wendt 1994, Wendt and Friedheim 1996, Wendt and Barnett
1994). In the work developed with Daniel Friedheim (1996) and Barnett (1994)
Wendt explores the nature of what underpins the construction of contemporary
sovereign states. This emphasizes how sovereignty is being socially constructed by a
particular institutional framework of meanings. More particularly, sovereignty seems
to be dominated by two games of sovereignty one that characterized the conflict
between Great Powers rooted in anarchical competititon between relatively equal
states possessing domestic legitimacy, which meant that militarization could be
understood primarily in terms of the political realist focus on security dillemmas and
action-reaction dynamics (Wendt and Barnett 1994); and another between the
dominant Great Power of our time the United States and the Third World
characterized by weak regimes that are dependent on the world economy that lead to
capital-intensive militarization (Wendt and Barnett 1994). The predominance of the
last regime is creating structures of informal empire throughout the world making a
world state (Wendt 2005). If these issues were already stressed in the first chapter,
this chapter is more concerned with how sovereignty is being conceptualized in this
process.
Wendt attempt is to create a social theory of international politics (Went 1999) and in
this process he is mainly interested in the formation of different intersubjective
cultures and the collective processes that lead to them. According to Wendt it is the
intersubjective, rather than the material aspect of structures which influences
behaviour. Intersubjective structures are constituted by collective meanings. Actors
acquire identities, which Wendt defines as relatively stable, role-specific
understandings and expectations about self, by participating in collective meanings.
Identity is a property of international actors that generates motivational and
behavioral dispositions. Thus identities are significant because they provide the basis
for interests. Interests, in turn, develop in the process of defining situations. Identities
are the basis for interests and therefore more fundamental. Wendt discusses how
different kinds of anarchy are constructed in interaction between states. What kind of
anarchy prevails depends, according to his argument, on what kind of conceptions of
security actors have, on how they construe their identity in relation to others. Notions
of security differ in the extent to which and the manner in which the self is identified
cognitively with the other, and ... it is upon this cognitive variation that the meaning
of anarchy and the distribution of power depends. Accordingly, positive
identification with other states will lead to perceiving security threats not as a private
matter for each state but as a responsibility to all. If the collective self is well
developed, security practices will be to some degree altruistic or prosocial. Wendt
therefore discusses whether which conditions identities are more collective or more
egoistic (Wendt 1994; Wendt 1999:336-69). Depending on where state fall on the
continuum from positive to negative identification with other states, they will be more
or less willing to engage in collective security practices. Crucially, conceptions of self
and other, and consequently security interests, develop only in interaction. Therefore
identity is the key to the development of different security environments and cultures
of anarchy.
If Wendt is mainly concerned with cultures of international politics, his conception of
identity conditions the development of his argument. The key question to understand
how Wendt conceptualizes state sovereignty becomes his view on how identities are
constructed. Two concepts are important to retain in Wendts conceptualization of
state sovereignty: corporate identity and social identity. According to Wendt,
sovereignty only deals with what is denominated as social identity. Corporate identity
is only part of the state's overall identity. Social identity is defined as sets of
meanings that an actor attributes to itself while taking the perspective of others, that
is, as a social object (Wendt 1994:356). Wendt argues that conceptions of self and
other come out of interaction between states. State actors, which always have an
international legal order, the claim to a monopoly on the legitimate use of organized
violence, sovereignty, a society and territory (Wendt 1999:202-14), exist prior to
interaction. Independent of social context, states have four national interests to
preserve and further they physical security, autonomy, economic well-being and
collective self-esteem. On the other hand, social identity is defined as sets of
meanings that an actor attributes to itself while taking the perspective of others, that
is, as a social object (1994: ).
A states's social identity is what is being produced through interaction with other
states. Collective identity formation is conceptualized by Wendt as developing from a
strict division between a corporate and a social identity. According to conventional
constructivism, neither the corporate identities of states nor the interests derived from
them are either altered or defined through interaction. Corporate identity is exogenous
to international politics. It represents only one aspect of a states identity. It is the
site or platform for other identities (Wendt 1999:225). In Social Theory Wendt
distinguishes three other such identities types, role, and collective. What is
important to the argument is the distinction between one pre-given corporate identity
and other aspects of identity, made through the process of relating to other actors,
which can take multiple forms simultaneously within the same actor. Briefly, the
process whereby a state defines its interests and goes about satisfying them depends
partially on its notion of self in relation to others, that is, social identities or roles.
Actors have several social identities but only one corporate identity. Social identities
can exist only in relation to others and thus provide a crucial connection for the
mutually constitutive relationship between agents and structures. As Wendt concludes
when defining social identity [I]n contrast to the singular quality of corporate
identity ... social identities have both individual and social structural properties,
being at once cognitive schemas that enable an actor to determine who I am/we are
in a situation and positions in a social role structure of shared understandings and
expectations (1994: emphasis added). Being both individual and structures, social
identities define the terms of what it means to be a sovereignty state in world politics.
There is another dimension to Wendts conceptualization of social identity that needs
to be stresses. For Wendt, identities and interests are not only created in such
interactions, they are also sustained that way (Wendt 1999:331). Through repeated
interactive processes stable identities and expectations about each other are
developed. Thereby actors create and maintain social structures (Wendt 1992:405)
which subsequently constrain choices. One structure of identity and interests have
been created they are not easy to transform because the social system becomes an
objective social fact to the actors. Actors may have a stake in maintaining stable
identities, due to external factors such as the incentives induced by established
institutions and internal constraints such as commitment to established identities. In
Social Theory Wendt speaks of the logic of the self-fulfilling prophecy which sustains
identities and interests created in interaction.
More specifically, Wendt creates a weak constructivism through his use of symbolic
interactionism and the distinction developed between the I and the we. The pre-
social nature of state corporate identity is particularly evident in Wendt's involved
discussion of states in the state of nature before their first encounter and the exchange
between the ideal agents ego and alter encountering each other for the first time. Ego
and alter exist prior to interaction with a particular corporate identity (Wendt 1992).
Furthermore, Ego presents alter with a new identity which alter either takes or
refuses. There is no contestation over the process of acquiring the identity and in the
terms of social relationship.
This understanding of state sovereignty is furthermore consolidated by an opaque
view of the state itself. Identity change is merely about shifting from one relative
stable identity to another. States are unitary actors with minds, desires and intentions.
Wendts therefore conceptualizes the state with typical and static Weberian unitary
assumptions as the absolute monopoly over violence.
In arguing that the identities of states cannot be considered independently of context,
Wendt points out that there is no agency independent of socialization; anarchy cannot
presuppose actors that somehow exist prior to the system. The interactions on world
politics only exist between state actors. Wendt asks us to assume two actors, ego and
alter, who then come to interact only after we have imagined them on their own. This
starting point, he tell us, is an interactionist convention (1999:328). Analogously, we
have to imagine states as prior to and independent from social context in order to
follow his argument. The exclusion of the process of the construction of the state as a
bearer of identity and of domestic processes of articulation of state identity are part of
the problem. This reduces identity to something negotiable between states. It is not
surprising, that Wendt is mainly concerned with the boundaries rather than the
content of theories about the self. Wendt addresses identity as the question of who is
considered part of the self. If other states are considered part of the notion of self, in
other words, if the boundary of the self gets pushed outward beyond the boundary of
the state, Wendt argue that there exists a collective rather than egoistic notion of
identity
Wendts argument therefore, despite bringing the possibility to conceptualize
sovereignty ideationally, does not move beyond static assumptions. For Wendt states
are opaque and have pre-determined interests. It is precisely the attempt to open
interaction to agency that consistent and radical constructivist approaches bring to the
debate.

Consistent Constructivists

Consistent constructivists (Fierke 2006) stress how analysis should not be wedded to
existing legal structures or political organizations as units of analysis per se. Rather
they focus on human practice, the contingency of practice and the mutual relationship
between agents and structures. The international system is understood as an
interacting collection of human-made institutions. Institutions are settled or routinised
practices constituted and regulated by norms (Kratochwil 1988). Departing from this
assumption, sovereignty is conceptualized as an institution whose existence is
dependent upon the reproduction of particular sets of human-based practices.
Consistent constructivists hence re-conceptualize the interplay between institutions,
identities and interests in a way that brings agency back into play.
For consistent constructivism, cultures play a constitutive role in determining the
nature of world politics. Cultures structure the nature of politics by determining what
an appropriate action is in a certain moment and what particular kinds of actors are
suppose to do in a particular situation (Lapid 1996). However, this process is not
conceptualized as if actors acquire a particular identity by structurally assimilating the
roles implied in social structures. Instead, this process is contested. Culture
assimilation derive from a number of practices involved in the processes of identity
and collective identity construction. To view international politics as distinct from
domestic politics, and thus to argue for an autonomous discipline, is based on
mistaking the historically brief period of the balance of power for a paradigm of
international politics in overcomed by consistent constructivists (Kratochwil 1993,
Kratochwil and Lapid 1996). Cultures and patterns of interaction on the system
level result from various domains of institutionalization. As Kratochwil develops
One, there is the issue of the individuals link to relevant others, including co-
patriots. This is the realm of self-identification and membership in a community.
Two, there is the problem of allocating rights and duties, and thus delineating the
status of the individual within that community, as well as the circumstances in which
public concerns can override individual interests The third domain concerns the
autonomy of certain spheres which become organized as separate systems of action
(Kratochwil 1993:24). Therefore, for consistent constructivists, actors are not suppose
to interact with pre-determined interests in a process where only their social identity is
changed with a pre-determined culture that conditions the process of interaction itself.
In other words, social interaction does not function in a zero-sum game of role
acquisition or rejection and punishment. Instead, institutions are essentially human-
made practices developed and produced by different practices and by different actors
and based on a process of mutual acceptance and dialogue (Onuf 1989, Kratochwil
1989, Fierke 1998). This has implications for how to understand state sovereignty.
Starting with institutions, for consistent constructivists sovereignty still has the
function to serve as the mechanism upon which rules of diplomacy and international
law serve as regulators of interactions and the creation of membership in a society of
states. This approach agrees with conventional versions therefore and the idea that
there is a core meaning of sovereignty that regulates the society of states. Sovereignty
should be seen as a constitutive principle and its regimes should be analysed in
themselves and by the values they promote. Human subjectivity assumes various
forms, but it cannot just take any form at any given moment it is socially
determined. Illuminating these historical social determinations should open up the
way for the particular understanding consistent constructivists produce of sovereignty
and, therefore, should open the way for the manner in which agency exists (Onuf
1991). Hence, the idea promoted by conventional constructivists and the Wendtian
theory that sovereign states are being socialized to an evolving understanding of
what it means to be member of international society. What changes is the way in
which collective identity formation and the relationship between identities and these
intersubjective meanings are conceptualized.
The strict border between an inside and an outside developed by Wendt and all the
static versions is questioned by consistent constructivists. This means that they admit
changes in the scope of application of state sovereignty and in the range of activities
allowed within its domain. The state is not an opaque entity and, therefore, states are
permanently reconstituting one another in the interaction process. As Rey Koslowski
concludes Not simply a legal entity or formal organization, the constitution of state
soveriegnty is an assemble of normatively constituted practices by which a group of
individuals forms a special type of political association. This political association is
perpetuated by reproduction of the constituent individuals into successive generations
of members of the association as well as by the reproduction of the normatively
constituted practices of individual members (Koslowski 1999:566). If one
understands both the international system and the state sovereignty in terms of the
reproduction of a given set of normatively constituted practices, international and
domestic politics are not hermetically sealed within their own spheres. Political
practice is divided into these two realms only by the historical fact of the state as the
institutional set-up that organizes politics. Therefore, politics need not be understood
as only taking place either inside or outside of the state and world politics
encompasses more than the interactions between states. With regards to the first
debate that of whether state sovereignty is to be conceptualized as unity or
fragmented thereofore, consistent constructivists adopt the later perspective.
In a analysis of consistent constructivist posture both towards sovereignty as an
institution and the place of sovereignty in international society, Rey Koslowski
succinctly concludes the mutual recognition of those boundaries through the
conventions of sovereignty and the institutionalization of boundaries through the
reproduction of practices of societies constitute sovereign states, whose diplomacy
and foreign policy actions are recognized as legitimate statecraft by the rest of
international society (1999:567).
In bringing the reconceptualization of the domestic space beyond the opaque view of
the state promoted by conventional constructivists and in particular by Wendt,
consistent constructivists move the debate in interesting dimensions. State sovereignty
should not be seen as the clash between opaque states ruled by the structural power of
a dominant culture. Instead, multiple actors contribute to the production of a
sovereign state as they contribute to the constitution of international society itself.
This thesis will adopt their critique but, as will be seen bellow, modifying not this
macro-argument but, instead, the micro-foundations upon which it can rest and how it
was theorized in the past.

Radical Constructivism

A distinction is normally made between radical versions of constructivism and post-
structuralism. This distinction is mainly rooted in the committment to social scientific
research developed by radical constructivists (Diez 1999) against a radicalization of
the theoretical work in IR between an extreme version of explanation and an extreme
version of understanding (Smith 1999, Smith and Hollis 1989). In their commitment
to the social construction of reality project, radical constructivists have a particular
understanding of the interaction between interests, identities and institutions.
For radical constructivists, identities are essentially narratives. As Erik Ringmar has
put it, narrative conceptions focus on the ways in which identities are constructed,
maintained, and transformed through the telling of constitutive stories (Ringmar
1996). These narratives provide a context of meaning within which an actors identity,
the situation within which they are located, and the actions deemed reasonable or
appropriate to both, are joined together within a coherent whole. Second, narratives of
identity are by no means merely private constructions, In other words, as Michael
Williams et al. conclude it is not enough merely to claim an identity: for that identity
to have a degree of internal stability (not being subject constantly to challenge) and
for it to have a degree of social effectiveness (enabling the actor to act socially in
accordance with the identity), the identity itself must be acknowledged as legitimate
by others, and the adoption of the identity by a particular actor must be recognised by
other actors (2000:363). Thirdly, if on the one hand, the self-perceived identity of the
actors is central to their understanding of what is appropriate action in a given
situation and, on the other, the logic of appropriateness is intrinsically social and
relational what counts as appropriate action is determined in the context of a social
structure within which the actor is located and on the judgement of others ; a
particular kind of action is viewed as appropriate for a given kind of actor in a specific
situation. Following other versions of constructivism in their understanding of culure,
for radical constructivists to be recognized as a certain kind of actor is to adhere to
recognised behaviour deemed appropriate to the situation, and thus to be a legitimate
actor within it. However, this approach stresses the structures of power that underpin
this socialization process. The linking of certain kinds of identity to specific set of
roles and its analogous forms of action is a fundamental structure of social power.
More particularly it is stressed how different actors with different identities possess
unequal capacities to engage in these struggles and to influence the structures of
social knowledge through which practices are articulated. A central element in this
process is the way in which organizations provide a locus for the accreditation of
authoritative identities and for the articulation of claims (Neumann 1996; 1999).
Following from the reasoning that state sovereignty questions deal essentially with the
interplay between identities and collective identity formation, radical constructivists
developed work stressing how this can be more precisely accessed.
Against consistent constructivists, radical versions however analyse state sovereignty
as a concept without foundations (Walker 1989, 1990, Bartelson 1995). Sovereignty
and recognition are always dependent on power and the analysis of the language
behind it. In other words, departing from a linguistic meta-theoretical understanding
of the relation between agent and structure (Doty 1997), radical constructivists
analyse sovereignty as permeable constantly subjected to the mobile effects of
practice. In an essay that would serve as a guide for future work, Richard Ashley
(1988) developed the main guiding lines for radical constructivists. According to him,
the anarchic problematique was essentially a discourse and one should read it with an
eye on two questions First, I want to ask how it works, how it gains significance in
our culture, how it comes to be recognized as a powerful representation. Second, I
want to ask how this discourse has exposed its own rhetorical strategies and
undermined the very foundations of the perspective it asserts, thereby opening up
potentially productive avenues of inquiry closed off by it (1988: ). What underpins
the analysis is the development of a non-foundational approach to sovereignty in both
the dimension of what it means as an ideational institution and, on the other hand, its
operative functions with regards to identity formation.
Therefore, on the one hand, sovereignty is seen as an ideal descriptive of modern
political authority relations that most probably will never take practical political form.
Its volatile, unstable, dependent. As Roxanne Doty concludes [S]cepticism must be
brought to the possibility of speaking of sovereignty and statehood without imposing
an answer onto the question of state sovereignty (1996:27). For radical
constructivists, the cultures of anarchy that contribute to make sovereignty a socially
constructed process therefore are cannot be conceptualized as an end in themselves. In
other words, whereas other versions of constructivism view the process of state
formation in itself as the emergence of a society of states and, more particularly, as
the development of certain notions of what being modern means that find expression
in particular sovereignty normative structures, radical constructivists adopt a non-
foundational perspective on these matters. There is never an international society and
a project of modernization independent from structures of power hence, there are
never foundations to think about the system of states. What this means in more
practical terms is that there are no common narratives that can guide a certain process
of modernization in the contemporary sovereignty normative structure represented
by the Kantian strategy of democratization that can be independent by themselves
and have a value in itself. The question for radical constructivism becomes not one of
having different views on how this Kantian project is being promoted and, therefore,
promote different versions of the project, but, instead, stress its oppressive origins
rooted as they are in discourses of domination and power. In her work on the
historical development of sovereignty, Cynthia Weber illustrates this position.
On the other hand, radical constructivists share with consistent constructivists the
view of the development of the state system is one that aims to redefine the state in a
manner able to incorporate multiple scales. In other words, the boundaries between an
inside and an outside should be questioned. But whereas consistent constructivists aim
to reconstruct the nature of sovereignty and hence aim to incorporate the critique
towards statist version with an eye in theory construction, radical constructivists
mainly aim to stress how hegemonic conceptions of sovereignty led to oppression of
voices at the national level. As RJB Walker concludes We may aspire to be a good
citizen and an exemplary expression of the species. Alternatively, we may resist
claims about species that are issued as the conceits of hegemonic powers by
privileging the particular struggles of national citizenship or liberation. ... Dislodged
from the Great Chain of Being and pitched into the empty spaces of modernity, we
claim autonomy and identity as particulars individuals and nations ever in search
of reconciliation with the universal, or even resigned to the unhappy condition in
which reconciliation is known to be impossible. (1990: ).
Summing up radical constructivist assumptions, Cynthia Weber concludes Not only
must boundaries, competencies, and legitimacies of states be regarded as permeable,
mobile effects of practice and sovereignty as an ideal descriptive of modern political
authority relations that most probably will never take practical political form, but also
a scepticism must be brought to the possibility of speaking of sovereignty and
statehood without imposing an answer onto the question of state sovereignty
(1995:29).
The non-foundational assumptions of radical constructivists should therefore be seen
as its worst weakness. When everything is a random succession of events we are
unable to isolate any key moment, and to delineate the form that human agency takes
in a particular time and place. Why, for example, is sovereignty a definitive form of
collective subjectivity in modernity? Because, it is the form politics takes under the
specific historical conditions of capitalism. Human subjectivity assumes various
forms, but it cannot just take any form at any given moment it is socially determined
(Onuf 1989). Illuminating these social determinations should open up the ways in
which agency exists, is limited by existing forms, and can potentially transcend these
contraints through politics. Post-structuralist theories cannot, therefore, grasp
subjectivity, because subjectivity emerges consciously, and not randomly, in response
to concrete historical circumstances. The theory of sovereignty as the basis for
international politics is grounded in real historical experience: the modern state
system developed as political communities actively pressed their own claims, from
revolutionary France right through the struggle of colonized peoples for national
liberation, who forcibly proved their colonial overlords what they had been insistently
denied, namely a political existence as collective subjects. In this sense, the right of
self-determination and the sovereign rights of independence are therefore the legal
registration of a political fact. This fact of sovereignty exists not in the sense of a
timeless given, but as a historical product, emerging through specific struggles. But it
is no less real for being historical. We need no further than the transformation of
states system through decolonization to see that sovereignty really is a constitutive
factor of international politics.


2.2- Sovereignty, Constructivism and Intersubjectivity:
Micro Processes

If the macro-distinction leads this piece to emphasize the nature of social interaction,
the micro-distinction aims to address how different versions of constructivism address
the nature of these intersubjective meanings. In other words, the micro-foundations
that allow for particular identities to be constructed. They therefore aim to understand
more particularly how processes of institutionalization take place. As Daniel Philpott
argues, there has not been a huge dedication in work on sovereignty to address the
micro processes that underpin broader discussion on the social construction of
sovereignty. In his words, referring to constructivist work, Philpott argues though
they recognize the importance of sovereignty as a constitutive norm, typically treat it
as a determinant and context, not a product, of state identities and behaviour
(2001:27). This section will address how particular works assess the development of
sovereignty with an eye on this dimension of how to conceptualize its social micro-
processes.
Weak constructivists propose mainly two forms on how to analyse the micro-
dynamics of social construction rooted in both a logic of appropriateness (Wiener
2006). Tanja Aalberts (1995) adopts a top-down approach to reading this process
whereas Daniel Philpot (2001) and Michael Barnett (1996) prefer to understand the
social construction process has deriving from a bottom-up perspective. The difference
between these two views is whether to understand norms as being the result of a
process of social learning at a particular organizational level (Checkel 2001) or,
instead, as resulting from particular conceptions of identities that in gaining social
power within the leading structure of the state and thus creating roles emerge as
the main cognitive scripts upon which statesmen draw their future decisions. In
either of these versions the state is conceived as being an opaque entity. Rooted in
structural conceptions of sociological institutionalism (), the creation of roles
implies a structural fixation of meaning. Against this view, both radical constructivists
and consistent constructivists aim to bring agency back in.

Following a similar crique as radical constructivists but aiming to maintain some
foundations, consistent constructivists share the assumption that one cannot see the
state and the nature of recognition derived strictly from the clash of opaque entities.
As Nicholas Onuf concludes, [I]n principle the state is the land, its people, and a
regime of laws. In practice the state is indistinguishable from the agents authorized to
act for the state, and respect invested in the state as sovereign falls to its chief agents.
They give life to the state even as they become larger than life themselves (Onuf
1995:49). The version of consistent constructivists stressed here is the one developed
by Onuf and Kurt Burch (1998). They use a particular view of conceptual history to
give content to a consistent constructivist approach. The idea is that as Burch
emphasizes Property was a central element a constitutive principle around which
actors organized their worldviews and, more particularly I investigate how legal
thinkers, policymakers, bankers, and financiers more than three hundred years ago
used changing conceptions of property rights and consequent property rule to help
construct a novel, modern world and worldview (1998:23). This view is therefore
different from a static version or from a weak constructivist version. These later
approaches Dealing as they do with ensembles of concepts, they search for general
statements, or theories, that fix meaning for the ensemble until the next such
statement is forthcoming (Onuf 1991:276). Sovereignty is conceived as volatile,
constructed by many actors but still considered a constitutive principle. This is lost
in the version proposed by radical constructivists.

For radical constructivists it is not possible to talk about the state as an ontological
being as a political identity without engaging in the political practice of
constituting the state. Put differently, to speak of the sovereign state at all requires to
engage in the political practice of stabilizing this concepts meaning. The work of
Cynthia Weber (1995) addresses more particularly a way of how to understand this
fixation of meaning. For Weber sovereignty marks not the location of the
foundational entity of international relations theory but a site of political struggle.
This struggle is the struggle to fix the meaning of sovereignty in such a way as to
constitute a particular state to write the state with particular boundaries,
competencies and legitimacies available to it (1995:22). More particularly,
emphasizing the micro-processes that lead to the stabilization of meaning, Weber
emphasizes how there is the need to have a view of what the link between the state
and the society is. The first meaning of representation is political representation
which refers to an exchange that is supposed to occur between the state and its
domestic community (1995:6) , the second is symbolic representation where
language is always tied to some empirical referent, foundation or ground that is
always the basis for speech (1995:7). But at the same time that is concluded that For
a logic of representation to work, a signified or ground must exist it is also said that
Finding answers concerning who foundational authorities are may not be enough to
make a logic of representation work; a more successful strategy is to prevent such
questions from ever being raised (1995:8). In the end this rejects the existence of a
stable relation between a state and its representatives. Everything is about the sites of
political struggle rooted as they are in practices and changing forms of language.
There isnt a possibility of having rules governing the agents that speak for the state.
Even at the level of micro-processes, the analysis of sovereignty is rooted in non-
foundational assumptions.

3- Towards a Critical Constructivist Approach to Sovereignty

In order to promote a critical constructivist approach to sovereignty the next section
will revise both the macro processes and the micro processes that characterize socially
constructed versions of sovereignty. In order to do so, the first part of this section will
start by re-conceptualizing the macro-processes. In doing so it will focus on the
contribution that critical constructivism can given to International Relations theory.
Second, a particular critical constructivist approach to sovereignty will be developed.
This second section will address a reconceptualization of the micro-processes.

3.1- On Critical Constructivist: Giving Meaning to Social Practices

This section will start from the difference in approaching the sub-discipline of
International Relations and move on to stress what this implies for the a view on the
function of norms in international society.
The overall emphasis given by consistent constructivists (Fierke 2006) to speech acts
and the rules that derive from them, produces a view of institutionalization that stress
how language constitutes meaning. The context of this process are not assumed as
fixed as in conventional forms of constructivism, they change and are specific, but the
idea is that speech acts socialize actors with a particular meaning and this leads to
rule-following. The relation between rules and a particular understanding of language
and this interplay in specific social context presents itself as the main type of work
developed by consistent constructivists (Onuf 1989, Kratochwil 1989, Fierke 1998,
Buzan et al 1998). Supplementing this view one needs to stress the role played by
critical constructivism. As Reus-Smit stresses, Constructivism is divided, however,
between those who remain cognizant of the critical origins and potentiality of their
sociological explorations, and those who have embraced constructivism simply as an
explanatory or interpretative tool (Reus-Smit 2003:234). What distinguished the
work developed by critical constructivists is the way they would emphasize the role
of intersubjectivity and the implications of contingent and contextual interaction for
both societal change and the advancement of theory (Schwellnus 2006, Niessen and
Herborth 2007). They focus on theorising interaction with regard to the normative
structure and its institutionalised principles and procedures in world politics as the
core of any debates about fair and democratic governance beyond the state
(Koskeniemi 2002) (Wiener 2006b:13). More substantively, [I]f interaction
constructs meaning, the interpretation of norms is conditioned by those who
participate in the norm-setting debate. It follows that the meaning of norms will differ
pending on which actors contributed to discuss the rule in practice. That is, normative
meaning stems from interactive international relations that are both carried out in the
legal and in the political realms of world politics, respectively, with both spheres
increasingly overlapping under conditions of transnationalisation (Wiener 2006b:23).
The second issue this section needs to address is what this position specifically
implies for a view on the function of norms in international society. Following the
division made above between the empirical and the normative aspects of studying the
influence of law in international relations, these two dimensions will be analysed here
as well.
Critical constructivist main goal is to understand the link between the social and the
legal aspect of norms. This dimension is often neglected because scholars of
International Relations tend to diminish the role of process in their understanding of
order (Kratochwil 1989, Onuf 1989). It therefore, and broadly speaking, aims to trace
the empirically observable process of norm construction and change (Shaw and
Wiener 1999:8). Wiener, drawing on the distinctions made by Jurgen Habermas but
not following his universalism, further explores the aims of critical constructivism in
the distinction established between the facticity and validity of norms. As she
concludes [B]y bringing sociology in the behaviouralist perspective has introduced
two action theoretic logics i.e. the logics of appropriateness and arguing. Both do,
however, ultimately consider the stable quality of norms or the facticity dimension as
the make or break point for the power of norms, establishing whether norms are
followed by a group of actors who consider them as either appropriate or legitimate
Overall, the separation between norms and values came at the cost of eliminating
agency from the process of norm origin and change (2006:15). Bringing agency
means studying the logic of contestedness, it requires a perception of the contexts in
which norms work and the social practices that are constitutive for their meanings
(2006:17). From the latter one can understand how this can be analysed in two ways:
tracing the emergence of norms (empirical), and understanding norm compliance
(normative).
Studying the emergence of norms means conceptualizing the formal resources, that is,
the shared legal and procedural aspects, as embedded in a social environment.
Informal resources such as ideas and social norms emerge in this environment through
practices and routinization. These social norms potentially contribute to the
formulation of legal stipulations, or the emergence of legal norms, if they materialize.
In sum, the formation of informal resources, such as social norms, and the stipulation
of formal resources, such as legal stipulations, do not develop in a linear way. They
are interrelated through practices. Analytically, this implies identifying informal
resources, routinized practices, and formal resources based on analysis of public
discourse. This approach shares the assumption that socialization matters to analyses
of political-decision making. Taking norms as the starting point, it follows the
observation that social meanings are discursively constructed. As such discourse
reflects institutional structures and helps to construct them in the process. As
Josephine Shaw and Wiener conclude, Public discourse hence offers a crucial
medium to assess the link between social and legal norms, or for that matter, the
materialization of social norms in the legal sphere (1999:8). That is, communication
about norms establishes their meaning and subsequently their impact.
The normative side of the study aims to move beyond the mere study of emergence of
norms and focuses on the nature of compliance. The understanding of the process of
socialization and institutionalization therefore needs to be broadened to include
further processes. In Wieners words [W]ith a view to assessing the political
consequences of compliance situations students of global politics then need to
incorporate two factors, first, the meaning which norms develop through
communicative action in negotiation situation in transnational arenas, and secondly,
the contexts into which the meaning created through norm validation spills back into
domestic arenas (2006:28, see also Wiener 2008). In other words, against the view
that claim that actors comply based on logic of appropriateness or arguing where
actors are socialized to fit particular norms or debate the presumed and established
validity of a certain norm, integrating contestation means viewing this process as a
result of different social practices that carry difference and that are potentially
disruptive of cohesion. Norms are not generated without the understanding of the
meaning that is implied in the social practices.

3.2- A Critical Constructivist Approach to Sovereignty:
Reconceptualizing the Micro Process

Following from the distinctions made above within the debates on constructivism it
has to be concluded that a critical constructivist approach to sovereignty follows
consistent constructivist views on the major macro debate. In this sense it emphasizes
how sovereignty can be thought of in a multi-perspective manner and how one should
not go all the way and conclude that sovereignty is just a discourse.
Viewing sovereignty as an institutional arrangement for organizing international
politics helps scholars to conceive of ways in which sovereignty is comprised of
distinct and interrelated features. Undoubtedly, sovereignty has a norm-generative
effect, but it is likewise shaped by changing norms. Norms isolate single standards of
behaviour and can obscure the distinct and interrelated elements of social practices.
Such a conceptualization facilitates the study of how sovereignty has transformed
over time, and draws attention to the way in which the addition and contestation of
norms in international relations discourse create new patterns of politics.
This understanding follows from the view already put forward by Kathleen Claussen
and Timothy Nichol that stress how [T]he institution of sovereignty is embedded in a
broader matrix of socio-political and legal practices. These practices generate
categories of meaning through which we conceive and explain applications of
sovereignty (2008:2). The goal is to understand how social practices help to capture
the conditions in which sovereignty norms are generated, legitimated, exemplified,
contested and modified. They further develop a model that illustrates in a very
succinct manner the argument that is also going to me followed here
1
.

(from Claussen and Nichol 2007)

The horizontal plane represents the normative dimension of sovereignty and can be
divided into two groups of norms. First, sovereignty is premised on a collection of
underlying assumptions that have gained wide acceptance in the course of history.
These are referred to in the diagram as the normative consensus, which is the
reasonably stable set of norms that underpins the institution. This represents the
dominant background conditions that are prevalent at a certain point in history. After
1945 this normative consensus has been rooted in a particular juridical understanding
of sovereignty that triumphed mainly after the decolonization process. This normative

1
The model needs to be modified not only substantively - generally corresponds to a reconfiguration
of the work developed by Robert Keohane on sovereignty translated into critical constructivist terms
but also theoretically.
consensus roots sovereignty in a number of premises. They include: the shared value
of international order among states; the shared importance of a system of membership
in a society of states; acceptance of the co-existence of the political freedom of states;
and, finally, respect for diversity of political systems. Thus, the normative consensus
comprises the strongest constitutive elements of sovereignty. The norms of this set are
less susceptible to change and contestation as a result of their widespread
acknowledgment within international relations.
Other sovereignty norms, placed on the opposite end of the normative plane, reflect
and build upon the preceding set of foundational norms. This second set of norms is
referred to as contested norms; we find ample evidence both in support of and
against them. Some of the most prominent contested norms today are: non-
intervention (territorial integrity); equality among states; and mutual recognition that
creates the boundaries between nominally independent states. The strength and
relevance of these norms are constantly debated; they enjoy less consensus in political
and scholarly discourse, though their importance should not be underestimated. The
contested nature of these norms allows for the evolution and reconstruction of the
institution of sovereignty. In more precise terms, what we see today is the
reconstruction of sovereignty from a juridical regime to an empirical regime. This
empirical understanding stresses how important it is to reconceptualize the view of
sovereignty internally to give more importance to the nature of internal sovereignty.
The question is how to understand, from a critical constructivist approach, the
transformation from an emphasis on juridical sovereignty to the contested
transformation of the present day that stresses empirical sovereignty.
Sovereignty norms are debated, modified and validated or discarded on the vertical
plane. This plane represents the actions, practices and rhetoric of states as well as non-
governmental organizations, intergovernmental actors and international relations
scholars. Both legal and political manifestations of sovereignty norms are located on
this plane.
Multiple feedback processes challenge and redefine the meaning of sovereignty, as
identified by the overlapping arrows in Figure 1. Norms on the horizontal plane are
generated and validated through manifestations on the vertical plane. In the same
manner, the normative dimension has an influence on the political and legal
expressions. This relationship between planes denotes the dual quality of norms.
Norms both structure and construct, such that the properties of the institution are the
medium and the outcome of practices that constitute it (Wiener 2007). Thus, the
validity of sovereignty is dependent on both the normative consensus and the
contestation of the norms within political and legal spheres.
Therefore the goal of this approach is to study the nature of changing beliefs. A
critical constructivist approach leads one to study the nature of these changing beliefs
on two fronts. These are the two realms in which sovereignty is contested. The first
can be identified in public discourse, such that the term itself acquires a nuanced
subtext of understandings. The second refers to the evolving institution in academic
and political discussions, as represented in the previous diagram. This take on critical
constructivism provides a departure to assess the nature of changing meanings of the
institution of sovereignty. This framework is therefore important in order to assess
empirical access the development of a certain normative framework.

4- Conclusion

A structural distinction was established in this chapter: that between static versions of
sovereignty and socially constructed version. Static versions were further
distinguished between sovereignty as a fact and sovereignty as a norm.
With the advent of the Third Debate, sovereignty suffered further re-
conceptualization.
How more precisely to analyse country ownership as a function of different theories
of sovereignty? Alongside the distinction made in the essay, what will also be argued
in the piece is that in order to more clearly view the construction of liberal
sovereignty states in processes of country ownership, a distinction needs to be made
between those approaches that view this process has essentially impling the
construction of a bureaucratic and state-centric view, and all those that aim to bring
process and agency to the debate. Marxism in the pre-Third Debate phase was the
only approach to emphasize the power of agency. Conventional Constructivism is the
post-Third Debate phase is the only to emphasize the power of structure.



Bibliography

Adler, E. (1997) Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Politics.
European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 31963.

Adler, Emanuel (2002), Constructivism in International Relations, in Walter
Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse and Beth A. Simmons, eds. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 95-118.

Adler, Emanuel and Michael Barnett (1998), A Framework for the Study of Security
Communities, in Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, eds., Security Communities.
New York: Cambridge UP, 29-65.

Ashley, Richard K. (1988) Untying the Sovereign State: A Double Reading of the
Anarchy Problematique. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 17(2):227262.

Bartelson, J. (1995) A Genealogy of Sovereignty. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Biersteker, Thomas J., and Cynthia Weber. 1996. State Sovereignty as Social
Construct. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brubaker, Rogers and Frederic Cooper (2000), Beyond Identity, Theory and
Society 29 (1), 1-47.

Bukovansky, Mlada (1997), American Identity and Neutral Rights from
Independence to the War of 1812, International Organization 51 (2), 209-243.

Claussen, Kathleen and Timothy Nichol 2008. Reconstructing Sovereignty:
The Impact of Norms, Practices and Rhetoric, Bologna Center Journal of
International Affairs, Vol. 12.

Claussen, Kathleen (2007) Building sovereignty without a blueprint: The Normative
architecture of international territorial administrations. MA Dissertation, University of
Belfast.

DiMaggio, Paul (1997), Culture and Cognition, American Review of Sociology 23
(3), 263-287

Doyle, Michael (1997) Ways of War and Peace

Fierke, K M (2006) Consistent Constructivism, in Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki and
Steve Smith (eds) International Relations Theory: Discipline and Diversity, Oxford
University Press.

Fierke, Karin and Jorgensen, Knud Erik (eds.) (2001) Constructing International
Relations: the Next Generation. Sharpe.

Finnemore, Martha (1996) Norms, Culture and World Politics: Insights from
Sociology's Institutionalism, International Organization 50, 2:325-347.

Geertz, Clifford (1973), Thick Description: Toward and Interpretive Theory of
Culture, The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 3-30.

George, Jim (1994), Discourses of Global Politics: A Critical (Re)Introduction to
International Relations. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.

Guzzini, Stefano (2000) . European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 6, No.
2, pp. 14782.

Hinsley, F. H. (1986) Sovereignty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jackson, Robert (ed.) (1999) Sovereignty at the Millennium. Oxford: Blackwell.

James, Alan (1986) Sovereign Statehood: The Basis of International Society. London:
Allen & Unwin.

James, Alan (1999) The Practice of Sovereign Statehood in Contemporary
International Society, in Jackson, Robert (ed.) (1999) Sovereignty at the Millennium.
Oxford: Blackwell.

Jepperson, Ronald L. et al. (1996), Norms, Identity, and Culture in National
Security, in Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security. New York:
Columbia UP, 33-52.

Keohane, Robert O. (1993). Sovereignty, Interdependence and International
Institutions. In L. Miller & M. Smith (Eds.), Ideas and ideals: Essays on politics in
honor of Stanley Hoffman (91-107). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Keohane, Robert O. 1995. Hobbess dilemma and institutional change in world
politics: sovereignty in international society. In Whose world order? edited by H.
Holm and G. Sorensen. Boulder: Westview Press.

Krasner, Stephen (1988). Sovereignty: An Institutional Perspective. Comparative
Political Studies 21:6694.

Krasner, Stephen D. (1999) Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton, New
Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Kratochwil, F. V. 1989. Rules, Norms and Decisions. On the Conditions of Practical
and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Kratochwil, Friedrich (1995) Sovereignty as Dominium: Is There a Right of
Humanitarian Intervention, in Lyons, G.M. and Mastanduno, M. (eds) (1995)
Beyond Westphalia: State Sovereignty and International Intervention. Baltimore MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press.

Kratochwil, Friedrich V. and Yosef Lapid, eds. (1996), The Return of Culture and
Identity in IR Theory. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 3-20.

Lapid, Yosef (1996), Cultures Ship: Returns and Departure in International
Relations Theory, in Friedrich V. Kratochwil and Yosef Lapid, eds., The Return of
Culture and Identity in IR Theory. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 3-20.

Legro, Jeffrey (1996), Culture and Preferences in the International Cooperation Two-
Step, American Political Science Review 90 (1).

Little, Richard and Michael Smith (1991) Perspectives on World Politics

Mattern, Janice Bially (2001), The Power Politics of Identity, European Journal of
International Relations 7 (3), 349-397.

McSweeney, Bill (1999), Security, Identity and Interests: A Sociology of International
Relations New York: Cambridge UP.

Mearsheimer, John (2003) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. W. W. Norton &
Company

Morgenthau, Hans (2005) Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and
Peace. McGraw-Hill

Neumann, Iver B. (1996), Russia and the Idea of Europe: A Study in Identity and
International Relations. London: Routledge

Neumann, Iver B. (1999), Uses of the Other: The East in European Identity
Formation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Onuf, Nicholas. (1991) Sovereignty: Outline of a Conceptual History. Alternatives
16(4):425 446.

Onuf, Nicholas (1995) Intervention for the Common Good, Lyons, G.M. and
Mastanduno, M. (eds) (1995) Beyond Westphalia: State Sovereignty and International
Intervention. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Onuf, Nicholas (1998) The Republican Legacy in International Thought. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Paul, D.E. (1999) Sovereignty, Survival and the Westphalian Blind Alley in
International Relations. Review of International Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 21731.

Philpott, Daniel (2001) Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern
International Relations. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.

Ringmar, Eric (1996)

Ross, Marc Howard (1997), Culture and Identity in Comparative Political Analysis,
in Mark Lichbach and Alan Zuckerman, eds., Comparative Politics: Rationality,
Culture, and Structure. New York: Cambridge UP, 42-80.

Strange, Susan (1996) The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World
Economy. Cambridge University Press

Walker, R. B. J. (1993) Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Waltz, Kenneth (1979) Theory of International Politics. McGraw-Hill

Weber, Cynthia. 1995. Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State, and Symbolic
Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Wendt, Alexander (1992) Anarchy is What State Make of It

Alexander Wendt (1994), Collective Identity Formation and the International State,
American Political Science Review 88 (2), 384-396.

Wendt, Alexander (1999), Social Theory of International Politics. New York:
Cambridge UP.

Zalewski, Marysia and Cynthia Enloe (1995), Questions about Identity in
International Relations, in Ken Booth and Steve Smith, eds., International Relations
Theory Today. Cambridge: Polity, 279-305.

Zehfuss, Maja (2002), Constructivism in International Relations: The Politics of
Reality. New York: Cambridge UP.