GOVT-060 Chapter Notes - Chapter A&J Reading: Symbolic Interactionism
6 Dec 2016
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Alexander wendt, anarchy is what states make of it, (a&j, pp. The goal of wendt"s article is to build a bridge by developing a constructivist argument, drawn from structurationist and symbolic interactionist sociology , on behalf of the liberal claim that international institutions can transform state identities and interests (394). He begins his critique by arguing that neoliberals have essentially bought into the neorealist paradigm by accepting that states are the dominant actors in the system, and [] define security in self-interested" terms (392). For wendt, that makes neoliberals something closer to weak realists, since their theory only differs from neorealists because it states that international institutions can influence power and interest. As a consequence, both sides fail to interrogate how the international system was constructed to be in the form that it currently is in, which is the basis of the constructivist paradigm: a [shared] concern with the basic.
