social constructivism

• Social Constructivism


  Social Constructivism as a general meta-theory about the social world and also Social Constructivism as a substantive theory in International Relations
• Constructivism


  • Focuses on the "social construction of reality"
  • The social world is not an objective given and is unlike the external reality of the material world
• Everything in the social world is made by us – humans
• Intersubjective beliefs


  Ideas, concepts, assumptions, interpretations are widely shared orientations or mental constructs
• Constructivism


  Asserts that subjective understanding is a specific characteristic of sociological knowledge
• Constructivists


  Use interpretive understanding in order to analyse social behavior
• Social science cannot discover final truths or laws like the physical and material sciences
• Truth claims in social science (and IR) are always contingent and partial interpretations of a complex social world
• The most important aspect of international relations is social, not material
• Social reality is not objective, or external to the observer