By Boudinar Imene

Boudinar, Imen. Social Constructivism in Explaining British Policy Towards the European Union. Doctoral thesis, University of Algiers 3, Faculty of Political Science and International Relations, Specialty: Regional Studies, 2023–2024.

To begin with, Social Constructivism is a recent import into European Union studies, yet as Chris Brown states, it is the “fastest growing oppositional movement within IR theory. Traditionally, International Relations theories can be classified in two categories; ‘Rationalist’ and ‘Reflectivist,’ with theories such as Liberalism and Realism typically being seen as Rationalist while progressive theories such as post-modernism, feminism and Critical Theory form the basis of Reflectivism. Ipso facto, Rationalism is the belief that the world can be understood and explained through the exercise of human reason, based on assumptions about its rational structure .Whereas Reflectivism focuses on the interpretation of events rather than empirical data.
Broadly, Social Constructivism arises out of the view that neither of these two categories produces a complete comprehensive instrument for understanding the International System .Furthermore , Social Constructivism sought to be distinct by not only finding a middle way between Reflectivism and Rationalism, but as Rosamond states, by being more of an ontology than a theory. In this way it seeks to give a position of the nature of social reality, and as Rosamond continues, it follows that there are many Constructivism with Rationalist theories.
Moreover, anarchy and power, according to Social Constructivism, are insufficient explanations for state behavior. According to this viewpoint, studying the social construction of state identities can help to widen one’s knowledge of state interests, as norms and culture influence how states think and act in international relations.

Indeed, many works on foreign policy analysis have used Social Constructivism’s ideas. It claims that the existence of cooperation or conflict in state behavior is contingent on rational cost-benefit calculations of the social identities of the relevant actors, implying that state identity is a major component in explaining a state’s external behavior, including anarchy, conflict, interest and cooperation.Mainly, without a thorough examination of British identity, it is impossible to comprehend British policy. The application of the Social Constructivism approach and all of its components is also used to explain the real reasons why the UK joined the EU in 1973 and then decided to leave in March 2016.Thus, because interstate relations are dependent on how identity is built, and states interests are determined by identity and national character, supporters of Social Constructivism see the social construction of the state as a significant determinant in the foreign policy process. As a result, British policy has been influenced by national identity, culture, traditions, and social structure, as well as the topic of European identity. Many other drivers of the Brexit process include a sense of belonging to the European Union and being European rather than British. As a result, the European Union, as the most powerful and successful international integration organization, has demonstrated both positive and negative aspects of integration; we mean that, while the EU is a powerful organization with all of its infrastructures and institutions, its members have not yet abandoned the national state concept . The function of human awareness in social life is the subject of Social Constructivism, a method of social analysis. Furthermore, it maintains that ideational elements, not just material ones, affect human interaction; that the most important ideational factors are widely held or “intersubjective” beliefs, which are not reducible to individuals; and that these common beliefs generate purposeful actors’ desires. Furthermore, constructivist research in international relations has blossomed in the last decade, forming new and possibly profitable links with long-standing interest in similar topics in comparative politics. The challenge to neorealist and neoliberal ontologies propelled Social Constructivism to prominence. Yet, despite the importance of social variables, its critique never solidified into explicit assumptions, assertions, and hypotheses pertaining to an alternative IR theory of the dynamic impacts of ideational, not merely material, structures on state identities, interests, and conduct. The fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the bipolar Cold War world were clearly historical events that aided the appearance of social constructivism. The main IR theories of realism were criticized for failing to foresee this epoch-altering event.As a result, not only were the ideas of the rationalist paradigm’s forecasting capacity, but also their explanatory power, called into question. It turned out that theories based on an essentialist, static view of social reality were insufficient for describing and explaining a fluid, constantly changing, globalizing world, as well as its transition to a largely multi-polar, unstable world order.In one hand, Social Constructivism has an ontology that is open for both hard and softer evidence, material and social facts. Its epistemology does not reject the possibility of testing theories against evidence, but also puts emphasis on the more qualitative and interpretative methods of inquiry. Social Constructivism is less interested in causal explanations and more interested in interpreting and examining how structures and agents interact and are mutually constitutive. It is also stated that Realism failed to predict the end of the Cold war and then the appearance of Social Constructivism theory.In the other hand, Social constructivists have a different view on multilateral cooperation and political integration. They view cooperation as a result of social interaction and collective identity formation, not inter-state or intergovernmental bargaining. They do not accept the idea that the interests of states are fixed and independent of social structures. It is this basic assumption that makes room for the introduction of other mechanisms for understanding international cooperationThe focus of Social Constructivism is on the importance of relationship between identities, norms, social construction, states’ interest and foreign policy. Also, the state behavior with organizations, this is why the social constructivism is the most appropriate approach to explain the British relationship with the European Union , dealing with the British, and European identities.The main argument of Social constructivists concerns the social rather than material nature of the structures of international politics and the importance of those structures in shaping identities and interests. Ted Hopf shows that a state’s collection of identities affect the ways in which its decision-makers understand other states and interact with them in international politics .He believes that it is impossible for foreign policy decision-makers to escape the social cognitive structure of their society. In addition, interest and threat are not shaped by materialists factors but by non-materialists factors such as norms, and identities.In this chapter the major aim is to explain the British policy towards the European Union, by clarifying the social and cultural structures of the British state, and how the social constructivism has emerged in International Relations theories, by listing the main academic contributions of it. Moreover we add the Social Constructivism against the realistic interpretation of IRS, which means the major arguments of each theory towards the social construction of identities and states in international politics, and the major intellectual and theoretical foundations of the Social Constructivism, by highlighting the importance of the social norms according to this approach.The thesis focuses on a collection of definitions and concepts that will be referred to as key words in the etymology conceptual context:

Social constructivism:
Arguably, in the late 1980s, after the end of the Cold War, constructivism developed as a theory in international relations. In addition to Alexander Wendt’s 1992 article “Chaos is what states create of it: The social construction of power politics,” Nicholas Onuf was the first to introduce the word constructivism in the realm of international relations in his book (World of Our Making) in 1989.In Addition, he is known as the father of Constructivism for his contributions to the establishment of the social constructivist stance, and his writings served as a reference for international politics research. Thus, realism and liberalism failed to predict this event and found it extremely difficult to explain, the end of the cold war helped to give legitimacy and credibility to constructivist theory.
Regional integration

It appears that Regional integration is the process by which two or more nation-states agree to co-operate and work closely together to achieve peace, stability and wealth. Usually integration involves one or more written agreements that describe the areas of cooperation in detail, as well as some coordinating bodies representing the countries involved. This co-operation usually begins with economic integration and as it continues, comes to include political integration.Certainly, we can describe integration as a scale, with 0 representing no integration at all between two or more countries. Ten would represent complete integration between two or more countries. This means that the integrating states would actually become a new country, in other words, total integration.

Euro-Zone:
It is assumed that the Euro Zone also known as the Economic and Monetary Union EMU) is a geographical grouping of the 19 European Union that have adopted the Euro as their national currency. The Maastricht Treaty’s convergence criteria are among the requirements for joining the Euro Zone. In 1999, 11 of the 15 nations that made up the EU at the time formed the Euro Zone, which was later joined by Greece in 2001, Slovenia in 2007, Cyprus and Malta in 2008, Slovakia in 2009, Estonia in 2011, Latvia in 2014, and Lithuania in 2015. Sweden and Denmark have elected not to embrace the Euro yet the UK was not a member of the single currency.

Schengen area:

It is believed that the Schengen Agreement is a treaty that led to the founding of Europe’s Schengen Area, which has largely eliminates internal border checks. It was sogned on June 14, 1985, by five of the ten member states of the European Economic Community, and it went into effect a decade later, with all nations in the EU except UK and Ireland joining over the next several years. Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland are among the European countries that have joined but are not members of the EU.

Euroscepticsm:

It might be suggested that is a person who is opposed to increasing the powers of the European Union, a more detailed definition is given by Michael Ray: “European political doctrine that advocates disengagement from the European Union (EU). Political parties that espouse a Eurosceptic viewpoint tend to be broadly populist and generally support tighter immigration controls in addition to the dismantling or streamlining of the EU bureaucratic structure”.

The Brexit:

As of 11pm on 31 January 2020, the UK is no longer a member of the European Union. But what challenges does leaving that Union pose for the Unions of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? The Brexit process has already created strains in the relationships between the constituent territories that make up the UK. In part, these strains emerged from the divergent preferences that were evident in the 2016 referendum, and that have remained evident since then. The UK as a whole has left the EU, but without the consent of the majority in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Brexit also poses some big challenges for the UK’s system of devolution, and relationships between the four governing administrations will be tested. Difficult questions bubbling below the surface since 2016 will demand a response.

European Integration:

The term “integration” describes a process in which the quality of relationships among autonomous social units (kinship groups, tribes, cities, trade unions, trade organizations, and political parties) deteriorates to the point where each loses its autonomy and becomes a part of a larger aggregate. Ipso facto, the process of industrial, economic, political, legal, social, and cultural integration of states located entirely of partially in Europe or adjacent is known as European integration.

The Intergovernmentalism

Actually, Intergovernmentalim is a theoretical ‘school with no disciples and single teacher: Andrew Moracsik. It must be said in all fairness, however, that LI is an application of rationalist institutionalism, a larger class of International Relations theories; with numerous teachers and disciplines; to the field of European Integration. Moreover, LI has quickly acquired the status of a baseline theory against which new theoretical conjectures are tested and which is used as a ‘first cut’ to explain new developments in European integration. First, it builds on intergovernmentalism, a traditional school of thought in European integration studies, but gives it a much more sophisticated and rigorous theoretical underpinning in addition to substantive refinement. Second, it is grand theory seeking to explain the major steps towards the European integration, LI does explain much of state behavior in the EU.

Section One: The Emergence of Social Constructivism in International Relations theory

To be valid, Social Constructivism’s arrival in IR is often associated with the end of the Cold War, an event that the traditional theories such as realism and liberalism failed to account for. This failure can be linked to some of their core tenets, such as the conviction that states are self-interested actors who compete for power and the unequal power distribution among states which defines the balance of power between them.First, by having a dominant focus on the state, traditional theories have not opened much space to observe the agency of individuals. After all, it was the actions of ordinary people that ensured the end of the Cold War, not those of states or international organizations. That is to say that Constructivism accounts for this issue by arguing that the social world is of our making. Second, actors usually powerful ones, like leaders and influential citizens continually shape, and sometimes reshape, the very nature of international relations through their actions and interactions. Third, Social Constructivism has focused on the importance of the relationship between identity and foreign policy, and how states behave according to their identity or affected by it. Fourth, states’ interests, and consequently their behaviours, are influenced by social and intersubjective factors such as norms, culture, ideas and identity.Definitely, Social constructivism reached the study of the European Union (EU) in the late 1990s. The publication of a journal of European Public Policy special issue in 1999 marks a turning point. Research inspired by social constructivism contributes substantially to European integration studies, both theoretically and substantially.Social Constructivism was used to explain the fall of Soviet Bloc and the demise of Socialism; it was due to the change in social –cultural structures in the Eastern Bloc states and societies as well as Middle Eastern Foreign Policy; especially in terms of relations towards Israel, Iran and Turkey.

1-The definition of Social Constructivism:
To start with, there is considerable confusion in the field on what precisely constitutes social constructivism and what distinguishes it from other approaches to international relations. As a result, it has become fairly common to introduce constructivism as yet another substantive theory of international relations, such as realism, liberalism, or institutionalism. Whilst, it should be emphasized at the outset that social constructivism as such does not make any particular claims about international politics.

So, social constructivism is a truism that social reality does not descend from heaven, but is constructed and reproduced by human agents through their daily behaviors. This was dubbed “the social production of reality” by Berger and Luckmann. While this is a central argument of social constructivism, as a truism, it does not give us with a sufficiently defined definition. As a result, it is perhaps most useful to explain constructivism as founded on a social ontology that maintains that human agents do not exist independently of their social environment and its collectively shared systems of meaning referred to as “culture in a wide sense.”. The core discovery of the structure-agent debate, which underpins many social constructivist works, is not merely that social structures and agents are mutually determined. The key aspect here is that constructivists insist on the mutual constitutiveness of social systems and agents. The social milieu in which we find ourselves defines and shapes who we are as social beings. We are social beings who are part of a variety of significant social communities. Human agency, on the other hand, generates, reproduces, and modifies culture through our daily behaviors. Thus, social constructivism claims that there are features of structures and actors that cannot be collapsed into each other, occupying an unstable ontological middle ground between individualism and structuralism.Furthermore, social constructivism is based on the assumption that humans are not independent from their contextual context structure, and that the ideas and beliefs that comprise the ideational environment in which an actor finds themselves inform the actions of individuals. Individuals, according to social constructivism, collectively recreate or ‘reconstruct’ their environment by their behavior and activities. Risse contends that constructivism is built on a social ontology that holds that human actors do not exist independently of their social environment and its collectively accepted systems of meaning.For social constructivists, the social environment defines who we are and what we think, and in turn we collectively reproduce this social environment through our actions.Crucially, unlike Neo-functionalism and intergovernmentalism, constructivism is not ontologically rationalist or materialist. That is to say it does not see actors as acting rationally on the basis of the maximization of their material benefits and the minimization of costs. Rather, constructivism sees actors as profoundly impacted by ideas, beliefs and their identity.Indeed, constructivists assert that to study actors effectively one needs to understand how their beliefs about themselves and about what the correct or right thing to do impact on what they do. In turn, one needs to study how these actions themselves reinforce these beliefs and come to further create the broader ideational, social and cultural environment for other actors.Besides, Social Constructivism is a current approach to analysis the process of European integration, with its relationship with British, as matter of the remaining UK from the EU. Moreover, the understanding of the place of ideas would be used to explain how the UK and the EU handled Brexit, and how the identities are formed and their role

in policy.

The set was staged for the rise to significance of the social constructivism in International Relations theory, which caused a profound revision of discussions within the principal discourse of international relations theory. But why has constructivism emerged as a main force in the field of international relations and politics in the end of the 20th century?Why constructivism and not any other theoretical approach? Not since the introduction of the theory of complex interdependence back in the 1970s by Nye and Keohane, has the interest of political scientists matched the one that has emerged as a result of the increasing application of the constructivist approach in trying to explain the subtleties of international relations. While early constructivist ideas can be traced back to Max Weber and the symbolic interactionist school of the 1920s, it was an American scholar by the name of Nicholas Onuf, who first introduced the term “constructivism” in International Relations theory in 1989 through his work “World of Our Making”. Onuf was primarily contending that states much the same as individuals are living in a world of our making.All in all, they look at the state as culturally made unit and also as social identity unit in contrast to realist who look at state as geo-political unit.Clearly, ‘Constructivists’ insist on the mutual constitutiveness of (social) structures and agents. The social environment in which we find ourselves defines (constitutes) who we are, our identities as social beings. At the same time, human agency creates, reproduces, and changes culture through our daily practices.Theories of European integration are firmly mitted to a rationalist ontology which is agent-centred. A constructivist perspective will emphasize that the interests of actors cannot be treated as exogenously given or inferred from a given material structure. Rather, political culture, discourse and the social construction’ of interests and identities matter.‘Soft rationalism’, which takes ideas seriously, should be able to accommodate some of these concerns. Yet such an emphasis on ideational, cultural, and discursive origins of national preferences complements rather than substitutes an agency-based rationalist account. The more we insist that institutions including the EU are never created from scratch, the further we move away from rational approaches.Social Constructivism is a liberal intergovernmentalist approach to European integration. It differs from neofunctionalism, which takes actors’ preferences as given. If European integration is supposed to transform collective identities, we have moved beyond a narrow rational choice approach and toward a much ‘thicker’ understanding of institutions.When considering state behavior from a constructivist angle, the socio-cultural influence on states at the domestic level is both obvious and substantial. While proponents of the classical worldview may believe that states’ actions are influenced by their ability to wield power. When seeking to determine whether the universe is a social construction, the constructivist idea to go beyond the strictly material factors to what else may affect states behavior is also rather illuminating.

2-The beginning of Social Constructivism Theory:
Nicholas Onuf is one of the major Constructivists. He believed that the world in which we live is a “world of our making,” that things are a certain way because that is how we perceive them, we do not live in world that has been predetermined in advance by non-human forces.
Alexander Wendt another major Constructivist echoes this view. He developed the ‘thin approach’ of Social Constructivism. His key belief is that ‘anarchy is what states make of it’, and that in fact states are actively involved in constructing anarchy. He believes that anarchy cannot be treated as given; it is not something that can condition state action without itself, being conditioned by state action. Wendt further argues that the possibility exists that within an anarchic framework norms can emerge.
Moreover, Jeffrey Checkel developed the ‘thick approach’ of Social Constructivism. He argues that power is created by everyday actions. He further argues that Constructivism questions the materialism and methodological individualism on which much contemporary scholarship has been built.
Despite their criticisms of rationalist theories, Wendt and Checkel do see the use of rational research methods as essential with regards to the study of the EU. Checkel states that ‘constructing European institutions is a multi-faceted process, with both Rationalist and Sociological toolkits needed to unpack and understand it.
Social Constructivists argue that they are best placed to study European Integration as a process. This is because they are predisposed to think about how humans interact in way that produce structures .They also believe that as Constructivism takes the middle ground, they are able to “engage in meaningful conversations” with both Rationalists and Reflectivists .
Social Constructivists such as Wendt believe that interests are socially constructed rather than pre-given. As Chris Brown states:
“The central insight of constructivist thought can perhaps best be conveyed by the notion that there is a fundamental distinction to be made between ‘brute facts’ about that world, which remain true, independent of human action, and ‘social facts’ which depend for their existence on socially established conventions.”
Moreover, Social Constructivists are interested in how collective understandings and identities emerge; they argue that we must investigate the ways in which identities such as ‘European Citizenship’ are constructed through the use of language, the development of ideas and the establishment of norms, in this way, identities are never fixed, they are simply constructed. The view that the EU develops through the establishment of norms rather than changing as a result of external factors such as the Cold War and increasing globalization is the core of Social Constructivism and clearly contrasts with Rationalist views which place great emphasis on these external factors.
Following on from this, Social Constructivists believe that it is through the internalization of these norms that actors acquire their identities and establish what their interests are. Rosamond refers to this as the “constitutive effect of norms,” this is the way in which European-level norms, ideas and discourses penetrate into the various national polities which make up the EU.
In a nutshell, Social Constructivism examines the way in which institutions such as the European Union act as arenas for communication and persuasion. Constructivists emphasize a process of interaction between agents and structures.
3-The Roots of Social Constructivism

First, it should be mentioned that constructivism has been regarded both as a social theory and a theory of IR. Therefore, the developments in sociology and philosophy have also had their imprints on constructivism. For instance, Anthony Giddens analyzed the link between structures and actors in his concept of “structuration”.Accordingly, unlike the neo-realist assumption about the limitation of state actors by the structure of anarchy, there is no mechanical determination of the actors by the structures. “The relationship between structures and actors involves intersubjective understanding and meaning. Structures do constrain actors, but actors can also transform structures by thinking about them and acting on them in new ways. The notion of structuration therefore leads to a less rigid and more dynamic view of the relationship between structure and actors.” Richard Jackson .This new understanding is used by constructivists to propose a less rigid understanding of anarchy in IR theory.Some analysts also suggested that constructivism is not a totally new approach. Richard Jackson et al. suggest that the roots of constructivism can be found as late as in the 18th century. For instance, Giambattista Vico, an Italian philosopher in the 18th century, suggested that the natural world is created by God whereas the historical one is created by human beings.According to Vico history is not some kind of unfolding or evolving process that is external to human affairs. Men and women make their own history. They also make states which are historical constructs. States are artificial creations and the state system is artificial too; it is made by men and women and if they want to, they can change it and develop it in new ways. Additionally constructivists have also referred to the Weberian concept of “verstehen”, which indicates that action always must be understood from within and thus that social meaning is a function of what is in people’s heads.Max Weber highlighted the difference between the social world and the natural world of physical phenomena. “Human beings rely on ‘understanding’ of each other’s actions and assigning ‘meaning’ to them. In order to comprehend human interaction, we cannot merely describe it in the way we describe physical phenomena, such as a boulder falling off a cliff; we need a different kind of interpretive understanding, or verstehen.Weber concluded that subjective understanding is the specific characteristic of sociological knowledge. The concepts outlined above were used by constructivist theory to highlight the significance of meaning and understanding in International Relations. To summarize, social constructivism leads to a better understanding of the European Union in at least three ways. For starters, acknowledging the mutual constitutiveness of agency and structure allows for a more in-depth understanding of Europeanization, particularly its impact on European sovereignty. Second, and relatedly, stressing the constitutive consequences of European law, regulations, and policies allows us to investigate how European integration influences actors’ social identities and interests. Third, concentrating on communicative practices allows us to look more closely at how Europe and the EU are produced discursively, how actors grapple with the meaning of European integration, and how they create a European public sphere. Therefore, a constructivist view would say that the EU is an actor that is socially constituted; the interests of the EU and its member states are moulded by their conceptions of their identities as well as the dominant norms and values of European and worldwide society. The EU is therefore, in accordance with a constructivist perspective, a socially constructed actor; the interests of the EU and its member states are influenced by their ideas of their identities as well as the prevailing norms and values of European and international society.

4- The Impact of Social Constructivism in IRs
As a relatively new theory, the impact of Social Constructivism on International Relations studies has yet to be clearly defined, however in European Union Studies; it has become more influential following the signing of the Amsterdam Treaty. It can also be argued that its modern approach and situation in the middle ground between Rationalism and Reflectivism makes it ideal for studying the complex nature of the EU. As Rey Koslowski states, “a Constructivist approach is useful because Constructivist analysis is not wedded to existing legal structures or political organizations as ‘units of analysis’.
Additionally, it is important to see the benefits offered by the wider range of models within Social Constructivism, especially thin and thick theories. This variety, as well as Social Constructivism beliefs that it can meet half-way and so work with both Rationalists and Reflectivists makes it, as Rosamond, Checkel , Risse, and Wiener have all identified, a useful tool for studying European Integration , and this help us to study the relationship between the UK and the EU, also explaining the British policy towards the European union, by using the Social Constructivism’s tools joining them to the social and cultural structures of the British policy.
In a nutshell, Social Constructivism is a social theory that contends that ideational factors which are historically and socially constructed—rather than merely material ones shape important aspects of international relations. Also, Social Constructivism is advantageous to the field of international relations because it addresses topics and ideas that are ignored by popular theories, particularly realism. Constructivists do this by providing additional justifications and insights for things that happen in the social environment.

5-Social constructivism and the study of the EU Policy:

To begin with, social constructivism is a meta-theory or ontology, not a new substantive theory of European integration. The fundamental contribution of social constructivism to various theories of European integration is the emphasis on meaning production, discourse, and language, as well as the mutual composition of agency and structure. Furthermore, social constructivism emphasizes the critical characteristics of social institutions such as the EU, such as how they modify actors’ identities, interests, and preferences while also limiting conduct.Therefore, Social constructivism shines light on a number of important areas of study in the European Union. Whilst it has said above, that the main core of Social Constructivism is globalization, and the European integration seen from a social construction perspective.To begin, constructivism contends that identity is an important factor in states’ decisions to join the European Union. States that feel more “European” are more likely to work with the EU. The latter presents issues such as the extent to which European identity, or lack thereof, influences UK attitudes to the EU. Similarly, states’ ideas of what is regarded the correct thing to do are assumed to influence their decision-making at the European Union. Ipso facto, states are more likely to cooperate on issues where EU action is seen as the right thing to do appropriate or where the values imbued in EU action are seen to be right.Finally, social constructivism is useful in the context of European politics because it emphasizes how the normative, ideational context in which players find themselves at the European level influences their behavior and decisions. This is a valuable counter-argument to materialist-rationalist views that regard politics as driven by actors’ rational decisions based on how much they stand to earn or lose from their actions in a given situation.Over all else, social constructivism is now a well-established paradigm in European Integration Studies, asserting that actors’ preferences and identities are molded, as shared meanings, via frequent interaction and communication.As a result, the Social Constructivists oppose the Rationalist position on EU security policy. Their thesis is built on three distinct components. First, the EU has already achieved some degree of autonomy. Second, the EU is a significant global security actor. Third, the EU already has enormous military capability, which is likely to be expanded. In a Social Constructivist perspective, the EU is frequently viewed as a post-national actor, implying that states’ sovereignty has been lost, or that the content of sovereignty has been redefined and reinterpreted. This point of view is shared by more policy-oriented intellectuals, such as British scholar diplomat Robert Cooper. In his new book The Breaking of Nations, he argues that the EU must be viewed as a post-modern actor in which the distinction between foreign and domestic policy is blurring, states are relinquishing their historic monopoly on violence, and internal borders are becoming increasingly meaningless.The fact that the EU has evolved institutional aspects beyond the initial plan and certainly beyond the objective of managing economic interdependence should show that it is more than just a successful intergovernmental arrangement.

6- Social Constructivism and the study of British Policy
As a result of the British people’s decision to exit the European Union in a national referendum on June 23, 2016, Britain, Europe, and the rest of the world are currently in a state of flux (EU). Brexit is now the most divisive issue in British politics, and how it is handled, as well as the outcome, will have far-reaching ramifications for British political, social, economic, cultural, and international life for many years to come. Given the UK’s size and centrality in the European project, how it exits the EU and the settlement that follows are critical.
Social Constructivism encourages a better understanding of the UK leaving the EU by focusing on identity, authority and legitimacy, and norms as key factors driving the Brexit process. Understanding the following concepts and their relationship to the Brexit-related issues, including the British identity and national interest in contrast to the concept of a European identity, the internal legitimacy dispute in the British parliament during the Brexit deal negotiations, and the normative structure upon which the procedure is based, is necessary in order to apply this theory.

Section two: The Major Theorists and Academic Contributions of Social Constructivism

To be valid, the practicality of Social Constructivism in foreign policy analysis remains unsettled due to the ongoing debate between Realism and Social Constructivism; Realists claim that identity is determined by interests, whereas Social Constructivists claim that identity shapes interests, a debate that sounds like the chicken-egg paradox on which came first: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

1-Social Constructivism’s relationship with other theories

Two controversies dominated International Relations studies in the 1980s, particularly within the American mainstream. The first was a debate between neo-realists and neo-liberals, which both attempted to apply the logic of rationalist economic theory to international relations but came to vastly divergent conclusions regarding the possibilities for international cooperation. The second was a debate between rationalists and critical theorists, with the latter questioning the epistemological, methodological, ontological, and normative assumptions of neo-realism and neo-liberalism, and the former accusing critical theorists of having little to say about ‘real-world’ international relations.Since the Cold War’s end, two new disputes have taken their place: those between rationalists and constructivists, and those between constructivists and critical theorists. The rise of a new constructivist approach to international theory, which challenged the rationalism and positivism of neo-realism and neo-liberalism while simultaneously pushing critical theorists away from meta theoretical critique and toward empirical analysis of world politics, was the catalyst for this shift.This argument describes the nature and rise of Social Constructivism in international thought, putting it alongside rationalist and critical views. The postmodern movement can be credited as having its roots in social constructivism, which has also had an impact on the discipline of cultural studies. It stressed the significance of history as social structures changes according to historical milestones.Indeed, Social Constructivism emphasizes the importance of normative as well as material structures, the role of identity in influencing political behavior, and the mutually constitutive link between actors and structures. When we use the terms rationalism or rationalist theory, we do not mean the ‘English’ School of international theory, but rather theories that are expressly guided by rational choice theory assumptions, most notably neo-realism and neo-liberalism.Furthermore, the word “critical theory” is used widely to describe all post-positivist thought of the Third Debate and after, encompassing both the Frankfurt School’s narrowly defined critical theory and postmodern international theory.After revisiting the rationalist foundations of neo-realism and neo-liberalism, as well as analyzing the broad-based critique of those premises mounted by critical theorists during the 1980s, proponents look at the beginnings of constructivism and its main theoretical principles. They then differentiate three types of constructivist scholarship in international relations: systemic, unit-level, and holistic.This is followed by some reflections on the emergent discontents that characterize constructivism as a theoretical approach, a discussion of constructivism’s contribution to international relations theory, and a brief look at developments in constructivism over the last five years, particularly since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. .

A-Rationalist theory:

Following World War II, realism emerged as the dominant theory of international affairs. This dominance, however, was not unquestioned, as other theoretical viewpoints emerged, prompting adjustments in realist theory. In the 1970s, liberals such as Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye criticized Morgenthau’s and others’ classical realism by emphasizing interdependence between states, transnational interactions, and non-state entities, particularly multinational businesses (MNCs). International relations were to be seen of as a network of political, economic, and social ties connecting sub-national, national, transnational, international, and supranational actors, rather than as a system of ‘colliding billiard balls’.This viewpoint was later changed to emphasize the role and significance of sovereign states, with Keohane and Nye redefining state authority in light of “complex interdependence”.States were acknowledged to be the primary actors in global politics, but widespread interdependence was thought to change the nature and effectiveness of state power, with the balance of military power, long emphasized by realists, no longer determining political outcomes as sensitivity and vulnerability to interdependence produced new power relations between states.This challenge to realism was not ignored. According to Jack Donnelly, Kenneth Waltz released Theory of International Politics 1979, in which he offered a fundamentally altered realist theory, afterwards dubbed ‘neo-realism’ or ‘structural realism.’ Waltz took intellectual inspiration from two sources: Imre Lakatos’ model of theory creation and microeconomic theory.As a result, the first prompted him to develop a theory with few assumptions, a lean collection of heuristically powerful propositions capable of producing empirically verifiable hypotheses about international relations; the second prompted him to highlight the structural determinants of state behavior.

The resulting neo-realist theory is based on two assumptions: that the international system is anarchical, in the sense that it lacks a central authority to impose order, and that nations are primarily concerned with their own survival in such a system.

Alexander Waltz went on to suggest that states must maximize their power, particularly their military strength, in order to ensure their survival. Waltz maintained that states are ‘defensive positionalists’ since such power is zero sum, with an increase in one state’s military power unavoidably resulting in a decline in the relative power of another..Furthermore, they are aware of their place within the power hierarchy of states, and at the very least aim to maintain it, if not grow it to the point of dominance. As a result, Waltz asserted that the battle for power is a permanent feature of international relations and that conflict is endemic.Cooperation between states, he maintained, is at best unstable, at worst non-existent in such a world. Theory of International Politics resurrected realism, giving realists a new identity as neo or structural realists, as well as a newfound confidence to the point of arrogance. However, not everyone was convinced, and critiques were leveled on multiple fronts. The most moderate comes from a new school of neoliberal institutionalists led by the professor Robert Keohane. Keohane shifted his focus from international interactions and interdependence to the issue of understanding cooperation under anarchy.Along with, Realists had long argued that if international cooperation was possible at all, it was only under conditions of hegemony, when a dominant state was able to use its power to create and enforce the institutional rules necessary to sustain cooperation between states. By the end of the 1970s, however, America’s relative power was clearly on the wane, yet the framework of institutions it had sponsored after the Second World War to facilitate international economic cooperation was not collapsing. How could this be explained?Keohane proposed a neo-liberal theory of international cooperation in his 1984 book, After Hegemony, a theory that embraced three elements of neo-realism: the importance of international anarchy in shaping state behavior, the state as the most important actor in world politics, and the assumption that states are essentially self-interested. He also supported the Lakatosian model of theory creation, which was influential in the development of neo-realism.Despite this shared ground with neo-realism, neo-liberalism arrives to radically divergent conclusions about the prospects for long-term international collaboration. As previously stated, neoliberals recognize that states must pursue their interests in anarchy.Anarchy, in the words of Alexander and Keohane, “remains a constant.” However, anarchy does not dictate the scope or character of international structural determinants of state behavior.The resulting neo-realist theory is based on two assumptions: that the international system is anarchical, in the sense that it lacks a central authority to impose order, and that nations are primarily concerned with their own survival in such a system.Waltz went on to suggest that states must maximize their power, particularly their military strength, in order to ensure their survival. Waltz maintained that states are ‘defensive positionalists’ since such power is zero sum, with an increase in one state’s military power unavoidably resulting in a decline in the relative power of another. With the rise of Social Constructivism, there has been a return to a more sociological, historical, and practice-oriented type of International Relations studies.Whereas rationalists reduced the social to strategic interaction, denied history by positing disembodied, universal forms of rationality, and reduced the practical art of politics to utility maximization calculation, constructivists re-imagined the social as a constitutive domain, reintroduced history as a realm of empirical inquiry, and emphasized the variability of political practice. Constructivism, in many ways, embodies features typically associated with the ‘English School’.Furthermore, Social Constructivists have taken up the idea that states are more than just a system; they are a society, and they have carried this theory to new theoretical and conceptual heights. Their interest in international history, as well as their emphasis on the cultural heterogeneity of different societies of nations, constitutes a major point of convergence with the English School. So, states are socially constructed units.Finally, their initial emphasis on interpretive methods of analysis reflects Hedley Bull’s plea for a classical approach, “marked above all by explicit dependence on the exercise of judgment,” rather than neo-positivist norms of “verification and evidence.”These parallels, along with Social Constructivism’s roots in critical international theory, appeared to call into question established understandings of the discipline. An ‘Atlantic split’ has long shaped understandings of international relations sociology as a discipline, with the field perceived as divided between North American’scientists’ and European, primarily British, ‘classicists’.Social Constructivism shifted IR debate from ‘the idea of power’ to ‘the power of idea’ and opened the path to a new scientific community or scholars in IR theory. Along with, Social constructivism succeeded in reviving the issue of social values which was considered as an ideal thesis. Two of the discipline’s defining “great debates,” between realists and idealists and positivists and traditionalists, has been mapped onto this split, lending philosophical divides a cultural overtone. At first appearance, constructivism appears to be confounding this method of organizing the discipline. Despite the fact that it has adopted many of the intellectual commitments traditionally associated with the English School, constructivism has its roots in the United States. Its main proponents were either trained at or currently teach at the top American institutions, and their groundbreaking work has been published in the top journals and by the top university presses.Certainly, the United States was the birthplace of most of the earlier wave of critical international theory, particularly of the postmodern sort, but that work was never as influential within the American sector of the discipline.One of the reasons for constructivism’s popularity in the United States has been its concentration on empirically informed theorizing rather than meta-theoretical critique, a considerably less confrontational orientation to the mainstream. However, with success has come normalcy, which has resulted in the careless forgetfulness, or active abandonment, of theoretical commitments that were important to constructivism in its early years.The foundational ideas that constructivism rests on a social ontology radically different from rationalism’s, that studying norms as social facts necessitates an interpretive methodology, and that constructivism was inextricably linked to the emancipator project of critical theory have all vanished in the American discipline. The persistence of these commitments to non-American constructivism suggests that a new expression of the “Atlantic divide” may be on the horizon.To begin with, Nicholas Onuf (1989), who originated the phrase, introduced Social Constructivism to IR. It grew in popularity among academics as a result of a series of prominent essays and a book by Alexander Wendt (“Social Theory of International Politics,” 1999). Wendt’s contribution kicks off this restricted survey of constructivist IR-theory.Another point is that the heart of Wendt’s argument is a rejection of the neorealist perspective, which holds that anarchy must necessarily lead to self-help. Whether it does or cannot be determined a priori; it is determined by the interaction of states. States’ identities and interests are formed as a result of these interactions. More importantly for neo-realists, identities and interests are established; states understand who they are and what they want before engaging in interactions with other states. According to Wendt, “interaction creates and instantiates one structure of identities and interests rather than another; structure has no existence or causal powers apart from process.” States desire to be secure and survive; neo-realists and constructivists agree on this. But what kind of security policy does this imply? Do states want to be as powerful as possible, or are they satisfied with what they have? Wendt contends that the only way to find out is to investigate identities and interests as they emerge from the interaction of states.In concrete words, “the cold war is gone” if the United States and the Soviet Union determine they are no longer enemies. The systems that organize our behaviors are made up of communal meanings. By partaking in such collective meaning, actors build identities that are generally stable, role specific understanding expectancies about self. Because the Cold War is gone, West European governments do not need to start power balancing against each other; four decades of cooperation may have resulted in a new ‘European identity’ of cooperation and friendliness between them. Different facets of Brexit can be addressed using theory. Theories could be used to explain why the British people voted the way they did. Historians will employ theories to interpret Brexit in a broader context. Generations of students, particularly PhD students, will utilize Brexit as a case study in their many theoretical discussions of European integration or disintegration in the near future. We could use theories to focus on the UK, but this ignores the fact that Brexit is a two-way street involving 27 other member states, not to mention the myriad EU institutions and international entities who will shape it. We may utilize theories to try to forecast what will happen during the Brexit process, providing us hints on what to watch for. The thesis might begin its analysis of Brexit with two theoretical approaches: neoclassical realism and constructivism for the purpose of explaining the Brexit phenomenon since its emergence till the excision of the Brexit referendum’s result in 2016.These two theories have a history of being used to describe British foreign policy, most notably in David Sanders and David Houghton’s recently revised a book ‘Losing an Empire, Finding a Role: British Foreign Policy since 1945. Each of these ideas can be developed to become more complex theoretical approaches. In this section, we will take a broad look at them. International relations, according to realists, are defined by the distribution of power within the international system. The role of decision-makers’ outlooks and thinking is acknowledged in Neoclassical realism, but a crucial component of the theory is that decision-makers, and hence their states, act in calculated, logical ways to maximize national interest. One fact is that the influence that Britain or the EU has in Brexit is shaped by structural elements such as material capabilities, wealth, or military force, as well as how decision-makers employ them. However, relying solely on capacities will only carry us so far, given that overstretch is a common enough development for even the strongest states. As a result, neoclassical realism can assist us understand how the UK or the EU deal with the limits imposed by Brexit. Another fact is that the UK risks overstretching itself because the remaining EU’s $13.8 trillion GDP exceeds the UK’s $2.4 trillion. Other structural considerations, on the other hand, may provide Britain more leeway. Britain has military force on the table in the shape of its NATO commitment, a significant trade deficit with the remaining EU, and Donald Trump’s victory and Russia’s behavior toward Eastern Europe create a European political and security system in flux. The most difficult problem for the surviving EU may be achieving the requisite unity in decision-making. Because the EU is not a typical state, it may struggle to use its capabilities in a measured and logical manner.

B-Liberal Theory
The first significant international relations debate pitted liberals against realists. The realists completely prevailed in this debate. The United States of America engaged in the brutal war that broke out in Europe, siding with Britain and France against Germany, Austria, and Turkey in order to establish liberal democratic regimes around the world.
The Great Illusion, written by Norman Angell and published in 1909, was the precursor to Woodrow Wilson’s liberal idealism. The latter had claimed that, in contrast to the widely held belief that States might achieve political and economic aggrandisement through the loot and conquests of war, wars actually slowed down progress and modernization.
His opinion was based, among other things, on the willful destruction of property, barbarism, and genocide that had occurred in previous conflicts, such as the European Continental 30 Years War (1618–1648), and the ongoing First World War (1914-1918).
The essence of Wilsonian idealism is summed up as follows. It is the belief that it should be feasible to put an end to conflict and attain more or less lasting peace through a rational and intelligently structured worldwide organization. The assertion is not that by submitting states and state-people to the proper international organizations, institutions, and rules, states and state-people will be rendered obsolete. Liberal idealists contend that conventional power politics. So-called Realpolitik is, in a sense, a jungle where ferocious monsters prowl and the strong and crafty rule, as opposed to the League of Nations, which confines the beasts and fortifies them with its might.
The lofty ideals of the Liberals that liberal democracies do not and shall not engage in hostilities with other liberal democracies and that the world must be made safe for democracy through the creation of a super State (a global organization for checks and balances) that would take the beast in the Actors worked in the 1920s with the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference and the founding of the League of Nations.

Even the Democratic Peace Theory, which asserts that democratic nations won’t go to war with one another on the grounds that democracies export their norms and plant the seeds of shared identity, mutual trust, and respect, loses its tenacity in light of the requirement that even in the event that they have to wage war on one another, there must be a just cause and the rule of war had to apply. It is anticipated that recurrent socio-political conundrums could be resolved through the employment of norms in regimes and international organizations as a problem-solving strategy. It is assumed that the parties involved in this situation do not have a shared history or culture, and it is very possible that there is a standstill among interest groups. As a result, it is vital to go past this. Because of the inclination to break the law that is ingrained in human habits, norms, whether implicit or explicit, have been seen in realistic situations as being inapplicable. Politically, the idea of the identity of interests has typically taken the form of the presumption that every nation has the same interest in maintaining peace and that any nation that wishes to do so is irrational and immoral.

C- Intergovermentalism
Intergovernmentalism is existing or taking place between two or more levels of government, it describes systems “wherein nation governments interact with one another on subjects of common interest, in situations and conditions they can control.” States have the freedom to cooperate or not and the power to determine the degree of collaboration in such situations. The European Union (EU), an international economic and political organization with 27 member states, all in Europe, is the best-known example of regional integration. The EU is run by a system of autonomous supranational organizations and intergovernmental agreements reached by the member states.
1- The Definition of Intergovernmentalism
A framework for decision-making in international organizations that permits governments to collaborate in particular areas while still preserving their independence, where states do not share power with other participants in intergovernmental organizations, unlike supranational organizations where authority is legally allocated, and decisions are made unanimously. While the Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Court of Justice exemplify the supranational method of decision-making in the European Union, the Council of Ministers is an example of a fully intergovernmental organization. Nearly all other integration efforts, especially those among developing nations, are intergovernmental in nature.
Intergovernmentalism was created in the middle of the 1960s as a theoretical framework for the study of European integration. The convergence of national interests and the willingness of states to cooperate were highlighted as being fundamental to the understanding of regional integration by writers like Stanley Hoffmann, who built on realist tenets. In more recent times, Andrew Moravcsik’s theory of “liberal intergovernmentalism” has included the importance of domestic interests in defining national state preferences while maintaining the claim that states retain ultimate authority over the method and course of integration.
By the end of the 1960s, it had supplanted the earlier neo-functionalist orthodoxy as the main paradigm used to explain European integration, reflecting, it seemed, more exactly the practise of European integration at the time. Following General Charles de Gaulle’s “boycott” of the European institutions in the middle of 1965, his infamous “empty chair policy,” and the signature of the agreement that became known as the Luxembourg Compromise in the early months of 1966
Both the realist and more liberal intergovernmentalist schools of thought have prioritized major interstate agreements (especially those reached at intergovernmental conferences) and the Council of Ministers’ decision-making processes when studying European integration, as opposed to the Commission, the European Parliament, or other institutions.
In the dispute over European integration, (neo)functionalism stands in for IR liberalism, and (liberal) intergovernmentalism is unquestionably its realist counterpoint. However, given their almost sole focus on the relative positions of states in the global balance of power, it would be incorrect to assume that proponents of European Integration intergovernmentalism were ever as frank as genuine realists. It did, in fact, always take domestic forces into account in their calculations. Their goal was never to view European integration as only a transitory alliance focused on military security; rather, they wanted to put the nation-state back in the centre of their analysis.

Intergovernmentalism for European Integration emerged from a critique of neo-functionalism. Stanley Hoffmann argued that integration might work very well in the area of low politics (i.e., economic integration), but ran into impermeable barriers if it tried to bleed over to issues affecting important national interests. Hoffmann primarily focused on the positions taken by French President Charles De Gaulle in the 1960s. For supranational institutions, the same held true. Some (high policy) sectors, such as foreign policy, were still viewed as belonging to the member states. If those were perceived to be violated by supranational institutions, they would not hesitate to limit their authority. All in all, the main argument put forward by intergovernmentalists was that European Integration tended to advance where favourable outcomes for all parties could be ensured (the Common Market serves as the prime illustration in this regard), but would sputter once one or more countries’ national interests directly conflicted with those of others. Intergovernmentalism was at its height during the so-called “doldrum years” of European integration in the 1970s, when the failure to advance political union appeared to support the majority of its tenets. Intergovernmentalism, however, dealt with occurrences right away that did not conform to its theoretical underpinnings, just like neo-functionalism did. The Maastricht Treaty (1991) and the Single European Act (1986) were signed after the Maastricht divide between low and high politics was seriously questioned. How, for instance, was it feasible that nations “willingly lost control over issues of essential importance to national sovereignty” with the establishment of the European Monetary Union and the European Common Foreign and Security Policy?

The key points are that, Realist and neo-realist presuppositions that emphasize the importance of the state and national interest in explaining European integration have impacted intergovernmental theory. And, Although it may be in states’ interests to share, pool, and transfer sovereignty to European-Ievel institutions, intergovernmentalists hold that sovereignty belongs to the member states of the EU.

           To sum up, Intergovernmentalism, as a theory of European integration, originated in the middle of the 1960s in response to federalist expectations that the European Community (EC) would eventually become a fully functional state and a critique of neo-functionalist theory. In the middle of the 1960s, Stanley Hoffmann was the leading advocate of intergovernmentalism. His research into French, European, and global politics prompted him to criticize the neo-functionalists’ work. He made a distinction between high and low politics, contending that while functional integration may be feasible in less contentious sectors (such as the economic sphere), governments will retaliate against any intrusion into high politics (the political sphere). Hoffmann’s use of the high/low politics divide has drawn criticism for being focused solely on empirical facts (such as recent steps toward integrating foreign policy) and for failing to take into account the novelty and complexity of the European integration endeavor. However, his method has had a huge impact.

2-Social Constructivism Vs Intergovernmenalism

         Thus, it is obvious how Social constructivism differs from a liberal intergovernmentalist approach to European integration, which is typically founded on a rationalist ontology that assumes actors’ desires as given. How constructivism differs from neofunctionalism, however, is less obvious.

          Neofunctionalism, on the one hand, is an actor-centered approach to European integration. It begins with egoistic, utility-maximizing actors working together to address various problems involving collective action. The functional logic eventually takes over (spillover), which leads to increased integration. However, normative integration, the “upgrading of shared interests,” and the transfer of allegiances (identities) from the national to the supranational levels are also discussed in neofunctionalism.[1]

           This last phrase implies that European integration has certain defining consequences on the various society and political players. We have gone past a limited rational choice approach and toward a much “thicker” conception of institutions if European integration is meant to reshape collective identities, as Ernst Haas himself has acknowledged.

        The bottom line is that there are elements of neofunctionalist theories that integrate well with a constructivist emphasis on the constitutive rather than the solely regulative impact of norms.

        Social Constructivism is crucially neither ontologically rationalist nor materialist, in contrast to Neo functionalism and Intergovernmentalism. It does not consider actors to be acting rationally based on maximization of their material rewards and minimization of costs, in other words. Instead, Social constructivism regards actors as being significantly influenced by their identity, ideas, and beliefs (i.e., how they perceive themselves). In fact, constructivists contend that in order to examine actors successfully, one must comprehend how their self-perceptions and ideas of what is good or “just” to do influence what they do. Then, one need to investigate how these behaviors further “produce” the larger ideational social and cultural environment for other actors by serving to support these ideas.[2]

2-  Social constructivist approach to the European Integration

          In the late 1990s, social constructivism made its way into the study of the European Union, and research inspired by it has made a significant contribution to European integration studies, both theoretically and practically. Constructivism is “based on a social ontology that maintains that human agents do not exist independently of their social environment and its collectively shared systems of meanings (culture in a wide sense),” according to Risse. Constructivists focus on the significance of ideas, norms, knowledge, culture, and arguments in politics, emphasizing the importance of commonly held concepts and understanding of social life.[3]

         Social Constructivism is concerned with what are referred to as “social facts,” which are things that have no actual reality but exist due to a widespread perception that they do. Money, sovereignty, and rights are examples of social truths. Constructivist analysis is primarily concerned with determining how politics are changed when social facts change.

          Within Social constructivism, it is the social environment around us that define who we are and the emphasis is on institutional effects on social identities. Explaining the history of the EU through a constructivist lens would mean to look at what institutional decisions have had on the identities and interests of member states.[4]

         There are at least three ways in which social constructivism can contribute to a better understanding of the European Union. It allows for a deeper understanding of Europeanization and its impact on statehood in Europe. EU membership matters because it influences how actors see themselves and how they are seen by others.

        A review of constructivism and its application to the study of European integration, status theory can contribute to the understanding of the reasons given for and against integration. In relations to UK’s integration process with the EU, the status theory approach can help us understand the reasons in favour and against.[5]

       Four important characteristics of European integration have been highlighted by constructivist approach.

         1- The importance of domestic politics, for starters. Studies of European integration have frequently focused on the supranational and intergovernmental aspects of integration, encapsulating national domestic politics within each member state’s black box. Examining the contents of these black boxes highlights the importance of internal issues such as national identity and the applicability of rules such as sovereignty. While many constructivist studies have focused on international issues, domestic arguments and norms can be more important determinants of a country’s identity and interests than systemic forces.

         2- The second part is the idea of sovereignty’s continuous relevance as an idea and a standard, as well as how to comprehend it. Constructivist techniques, according to Dunne, illuminate the centrality of sovereignty as “the constitutive basis of the society of states.”

         3- Third, the EU’s involvement is significant in shaping politics, ideas, and expectations. The European Commission, the Council of Ministers, and the European Parliament are important because they can influence not only member states’ incentives, but also their preferences and identities

          As a result, both the European system and the states themselves are transformed by European integration.

         Spillover from European integration was meant to produce not only new policy sectors, but also new norms of European politics by transforming attitudes and identities. But when do these views become the norm, or when do they reach a critical mass, as they call it? And how does this play out on the domestic and European levels? ‘Norm shifts are to the ideational theorist what changes in the balance of power are to the realist,’ they point out.

       4- The influence of a state’s external image on how a state or an organization like the EU defines itself as a political actor is significant but often neglected.[6]

         As previously stated, constructivist approaches to European integration have been heavily criticized for failing to contribute to empirical understandings of the process.

A-Theories of European Integration

          Neo-functionalism, intergovernmentalism and postfunctionalism are among the theories of European integration that have emerged in recent years. It is useful to briefly introduce them before proceeding with further analysis. Some of them exist in more detailed configurations.

         According to the neo-functionalist theory, the European integration proceeds due to positive spillovers. Once the integration process has entered a specific path, the costs of leaving it are high. Also, various pressure groups find it easier to deal with one central political actor in turn gains more legitimacy and recognition.[7] Neo-functionalism is a deterministic view, which assumes that the spillovers and search for political efficiency will eventually lead to the creation of new political entities. Even though some crises or retardation may appear on the path to even deeper integration, they are important factors in the whole process.[8]

           In the post-structuralist theory of integration, nation states are there to stay and the future of the EU lies in their hands. Delegation of selected sovereignty dimension is not an act of submission, yet rather a rational calculation that made nation states even stronger.

           Theory of inter-governmentalism has become increasingly less useful in explaining the progress of European integration. Postfunctionalism puts more emphasis on influence of national politics based on identities and territorial communities. Main actors of the European drama are no longer only governments but also citizens and political parties.[9]

           Integration is defined as a deliberate, orderly, and consensual process between components. Politics by proposing to establish a new political reality and institutions characterized by mutual adoption of its constituents with the goal of elevating their common interests to a level that makes them feel lonely, strong, and secure, as well as a common destiny.

          It may be claimed that the new task attempted to construct hypotheses based on the integrative experiment’s success. Europe, on the other hand, cannot be extended to the rest of the integrative trials because each one has its own unique characteristics. However, because it does not, the functional notion remains the most crucial thesis in comprehending the integrative process. There is only one theory that can explain or predict the dynamics of regional integration.

B Social Constructivism and EU Integration Studies

             Following previous overviews of academic literature on European integration from social constructivist, three main areas of application for scholarly inquiry are highlighted: a) EU governance laws, rules, and norms; b) polity and governance ideas, public debate on the EU and its policy; and finally, c) social identity and citizens’ identification with the EU. “The mutual constitutiveness of agency and structure provides for a richer understanding of Europeanization, particularly its impact on statehood in Europe,” Risse says, referring to normative frameworks. Second, especially in relation to public debates, an emphasis on communication practices allows for an examination of “how Europe and the EU are constituted.”

1- Rules and Norms In EU Governance

        The initial point of view on European Integration Studies was primarily advanced by EU law specialists. From this perspective, integration is viewed as a process that takes place primarily through the application of legislation, and rules and norms are given top priority.

         Such standards and norms are not restricted to treaties, secondary legislation, or European Court of Justice case law. They also include unwritten policy process administrative procedures, common understandings, and inter-institutional agreements, as well as more informal modes of behavior developed and replicated on a daily basis in EU political and administrative practice.

The ‘juridification of the EU,’ for example, has been the subject of some early research on the legal dynamics of integration.[10]

2- Mutual constitution of institutions and actors

        Neo-institutional theory, particularly Political Science and Organization Studies, provides major conceptual contribution to this field of study. The concept of a “logic of appropriateness” is frequently mentioned. In contrast to a logic of consequentiality, in which supposedly boundedly rational actors evaluate and choose between possible courses of action, “activities are matched to situations by means of rules structured into identities” in the logic of appropriateness.[11]

            Actors then connect specific identities to specific situations, judging “individual chances for action by assessing parallels between current identities and decision difficulties, as well as more generic ideas of self and surroundings.”

            In contrast to strategic and instrumental behavior, rule-guided behavior involves actors attempting to ‘do the right thing’ rather than maximizing or optimizing their preferences. Actors must figure out the appropriate rule in a given social situation, according to the logic of appropriateness.[12]

           As a result, social institutions, such as the EU, may no longer be considered ‘external’ to actors. Rather, corporate actors, such as national governments, businesses, and interest groups, are profoundly immersed in their social and institutional surroundings; in fact, actors and institutional contexts are inextricably linked co-create one another.[13]

           EU integration scholars repeat this focus on the constitutive nature of social norms and institutions. They emphasize that social norms not only regulate behavior, but also define actors’ identities as members of a social community. Note that “these rules define valid participants and agendas, dictate game rules, and set punishments for deviations, as well as establishing parameters for how the institution may be reformed” in this context. Institutions erect a shaky and imprecise order.[14]

         They impact and simplify the way we think and act, as well as what we observe, how we interpret what we observe, our evaluation criteria, and how we deal with problems.” The principle of sovereignty, for example, not only governs state interactions in international affairs, but also defines what a state is.

         As a result, in order to account for their interests, study focuses on the social construction of actorhood and the social identities of actors.

        Collective norms and understandings, according to scholars in this tradition, not only create the basic ‘rules of the game’ in which actors find themselves in their interactions, but also form actors as ontological categories. This is not to say that norms cannot be violated or changed in a constitutive perspective; rather, the argument argues that we cannot characterize the qualities of social actors without considering the social structure in which they are placed.[15]

Section three: The Main Conceptual and Theoretical Foundations of Social Constructivism

          It considers international relations to be socially constructed and focuses on the awareness and consciousness of the human being and its place in international relations. Constructivism claims that identity plays a substantial role in the definition of states’ interests, which in return shape their policies. Finally, it emphasizes the importance and role of norms, material structures and identity in the formation of political decisions. It also points out the mutual construction of agents and structures at the same time

1-The bases of Social Constructivism:

         Certainly, Social Constructivism sees the world, and what we can know about the world, as socially constructed. This view refers to the nature of reality and the nature of knowledge that are also called ontology and epistemology in research language. Alexander Wendt (1995) offers an excellent example that illustrates the social construction of reality when he explains that 500 British nuclear weapons are less threatening to the United States than five North Korean

nuclear weapons. These identifications are not caused by the nuclear weapons (the material structure) but rather by the meaning given to the material structure (the ideational structure).[16]

          Also, it is important to understand that the social relationship between the United States and Britain and North Korea is perceived in a similar way by these states, as this shared understanding or intersubjectivity forms the basis of their interactions. The example also shows that nuclear weapons by themselves do not have any meaning unless we understand the social context. [17]

          It further demonstrates that constructivists go beyond the material reality by including the effect of ideas and beliefs on world politics. This also entails that reality is always under construction, which opens the prospect for change. In other words, meanings are not fixed but can change over time depending on the ideas and beliefs that actors hold.[18]

            Above all, Constructivists argue that agent and structure are mutually constituted, which implies that structures influence agency and that agency influences structures. Agency can be understood as the ability of someone to act, whereas structure refers to the international system that consists of material and ideational elements.

            Returning to Wendt’s example discussed above, this means that the social relation of enmity between the United States and North Korea represents the intersubjective structure that is, the shared ideas and beliefs among both states, whereas the United States and North Korea are the actors who have the capacity (that is, agency) to change or reinforce the existing structure or social relationship of enmity. [19]

           Besides, this change or reinforcement ultimately depends on the beliefs and ideas held by both states. If these beliefs and ideas change, the social relationship can change to one of friendship.  

         Also, this stance differs considerably from that of realists, who argue that the anarchic structure of the international system determines the behaviour of states. Constructivists, on the other hand, argue that ‘anarchy is what states make of it’.[20]

         Above all, this means that anarchy can be interpreted in different ways depending on the meaning that actors assign to it. Another central issue to constructivism is identities and interests. Constructivists argue that states can have multiple identities the case of the United Kingdom that are socially constructed through interaction with other actors. Identities are representations of an actor’s understanding of whom they are, which in turn signals their interests.

         More, they are important to constructivists as they argue that identities constitute interests and actions. For example, the identity of a small state implies a set of interests that are different from those implied by the identity of a large state. The small state is arguably more focused on its survival, whereas the large state is concerned with dominating global political, economic and military affairs.

        Additionally, it should be noted, though, that the actions of a state should be aligned with its identity. A state can thus not act contrary to its identity because this will call into question the validity of the identity, including its preferences. This issue might explain why Germany, despite being a great power with a leading global economy, did not become a military power in the second half of the twentieth century. Following the atrocities of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime during the Second World War, German political identity shifted from one of militarism to pacifism due to unique historical circumstances.[21]

          Social norms are also central to constructivism. These are generally defined as ‘a standard of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity. States that conform to a certain identity are expected to comply with the norms that are associated with that identity. This idea comes with an expectation that some kinds of behavior and action are more acceptable than others. This process is also known as ‘the logic of appropriateness, where actors behave in certain ways because they believe that this behavior is appropriate.

          To better understand norms, we can identify three types: regulative norms, constitutive norms and prescriptive norms. Regulative norms order and constrain behavior; constitutive norms create new actors, interests or categories of action; and prescriptive norms prescribe certain norms, meaning there are no bad norms from the perspective of those who promote them.

        It is also important to note that norms go through a ‘lifecycle of norms’ before they can get accepted. A norm only becomes an expected behavior when a critical mass of relevant state actors adopts it and internalizes it in their own practices. For example, constructivists would argue that the bulk of states have come together to develop climate change mitigation policies because it is the right thing to do for the survival of humanity. [22]

        This has over decades of diplomacy and advocacy, become an appropriate behavior that the bulk of citizens expect their leaders to adhere to. Liberals, on the other hand, might reject the notion of climate change politics in favour of continued economic growth and pursuing innovative scientific solutions, while realists might reject it due to the damage that climate policies may do to shorter-term national interests[23].

          Although all constructivists share the above mentioned views and concepts, there is considerable variety within constructivism; Conventional constructivists ask ‘what’ type questions such as what causes an actor to act. They believe that it is possible to explain the world in causal terms and are interested in discovering the relationships between actors, social norms, interests and identities.

          Conventional constructivists assume, for instance, that actors act according to their identity and that it is possible to predict when this identity becomes visible or not. When an identity is seen to be under- going changes, conventional constructivists investigate what factors caused which aspects of a state’s identity to change.

          Too, Critical constructivists, on the other hand, ask ‘how’ type questions such as how do actors come to believe in a certain identity. Contrary to conventional constructivists, they are not interested in the effect that this identity has. Instead, critical constructivists want to reconstruct an identity, that is, find out what are its component parts – which they believe are created through written or spoken communication among and between peoples. Language plays a key role for critical constructivists because it constructs, and has the ability to change social reality.[24]

          Moreover, Constructivism is often said to simply state the obvious – that actions, interactions and perceptions shape reality. Indeed, that idea is the source of the name of this theory family. Our thoughts and actions literally construct international relations. Yet, this seemingly simple idea, when applied theoretically, has significant implications for how we can understand the world. The discipline of International Relations benefits from constructivism as it addresses issues and concepts that are neglected by mainstream theories – especially realism.

         Doing so, constructivists offer alternative explanations and insights for events occurring in the social world. They show, for instance, that it is not only the distribution of material power, wealth and geographical conditions that can explain state behavior but also ideas, identities and norms. Furthermore, their focus on ideational factors shows that reality is not fixed, but rather subject to change.[25]

          Due to Constructivism’s social ontology and focus on the actor-agency structure the constitution and role of identity in international relations is a central concept for the theory. In an interconnected social world, identities are mutually constituted through a deeper understanding and differentiation between self and other, thus allowing for the identity to exist only within a specific “socially constructed world”.[26]

          This social identity provides a base for the actions taken on a domestic but mostly international level as well as the actor’s interests, relations and interactions with other actors.   Therefore, the social-beings cannot be separated from their “context of normative meaning” as individuals, states and other actors simultaneously influence and get influenced by their environment. Like relations, identities are hence subject to change as they are a product of   historical processes and interaction, and shaped by cultural, political, and material circumstances.[27]

         Thus, identities of communities are constructed through the unification of a common perception of culture, history, and politics are often linked to certain community symbols. Within a community identity a distinction between civic, ethnic and cultural identity provides a useful distinction as civic and cultural identities allow the people to have multiple identities as their community membership is norm based, whilst an ethnic identity is based on “common language, tradition and religion but also stresses the importance of being a member of the nation’s dominant ethnic or racial group”.[28]

        Social structures, characters and identities are shaped by political discourse.  In a socially constructed world, recognition as an actor and legitimacy for all the actions taken are centrally linked to the power of the actor, which contrary to Realism, is defined in mostly ideational and not material terms.

         The actor’s power is thus perceived as the ability to influence and affect norms as well as to establish a meaning or an interpretation, whilst this power and the actions taken are constraint by the international system . Since the actor’s identity centrally influences the national interest and thus provides a base for the actor’s further actions, a main goal in international politics is to acquire recognition and legitimacy.

            This legitimacy is gained through mutual recognition of the states as such and the formal acceptance other international organizations active in specific policy areas.[29]

            Following the logic of appropriateness, the actors are not merely striving to meet their initial interests through their action as stated by the logic of consequences, but also that their rule-following action is recognized and legitimized in the international context through the logic of appropriateness. Thus, actors conduct a cost-benefit analysis with the legitimacy consideration in order to act in their possible best interest in a situation, making the two logics not mutually exclusive but allowing them to be combined.

           For both the construction of identity, legitimacy and power, the normative international structure is of central importance by providing a socially developed framework of collective ideas, norms, knowledge and rules to constrain and construct the actor, develop standards of action and meaning. [30]

         Since the construction and linguistic expression of material reality is dependent on the normative structure, the international system is dependent, influenced and consists of the reality- based social construction of history and culture. Hence social facts are a sub-concept used to describe a broadly accepted socially constructed reality found in a underlying structure of language, categories and meaning promoting human agreement of these fact.

         Best of all, the actors in international politics are faced with either regulative rules governing existing behavior or constitutive rules to set a standardized framework allowing the occurrence of certain actions. These regulations and norms are institutionalized on varying levels as the norms-based international system evolved over time and is subject to change due to social construction and ongoing interpretations of norms within the existing framework. [31]

         Since these norms present a central part international politics, actors also attempt to actively influence them to better fit their constructed interests and actions, the actor’s success is largely dependent on legitimacy and power.

        To sum up,  Social Constructivist theory or as some call it The Bridge Gap Theory is a theory that came to bridge the still vast divide separating the majority of IR theorists from postmodernists. But now there is no matter theorizing crisis within the fifth IR debate or complexity theory.

         The need for this bridge gape theory so called constructivism was promoted by three (3) factors which are:

         First, the Cold War`s peaceful conclusion undermined the explanatory pretensions of neo-realists which couldn`t predict nor could adequately comprehend the systemic transformations reshaping the global order.

         Second, while the threat of great power war appears to be in abeyance, the international community now confronts in transnational jihadist terrorism threat that differs fundamentally from the powerful revisionist states that threatened international peace and security in the 20th century, this was emphasized by the attacks of 9/11.[32]

         Third, the traditionally state-centric focus of IR has been problematized by both globalization as well as the increasing prevalence of state failure across large swathes of the developing world.

         Therefore; beginning in the 1980s constructivism has become an increasingly significant approach in North America IR, however; it has deeper roots, and it can be traced back to the 18th century writings of the Italian philosopher GiambattistaVico who said: “The natural world is made by God, but the historical world is made by men.”

          Social Constructivism was firstly appeared in sociology when Anthony Giddens (1984) proposed the concept of structuration as a way of analyzing the relationship between structures and actors. According to Giddens, structures (i.e. the rules and conditions that guide social action) do not determine what actors do in any mechanical way. Structures do constrain actors, but actors can also transform structures by thinking about them and act about them in a different ways.[33]

          Therefore; the notion of structuration leads to a less ridge and more dynamic view of the relationship between structure and actor, IR constructivists use this as a starting point.

          Social Constructivism was introduced to IR by Nicholas Onuf ‘The World of our Making : Rules and Rule in Social theory’  (1989) who coined the term, but Alexander Wendt was the one that give the major contribution with his article published in 1992  “Anarchy is what States Make of it: the social construction of power politics”

           Social Constructivism runs from the criticism of other theories, their critique for other theories concern not what this scholars do and say but what they ignore: the content and source of states interests and the social fabric of world politics. Thus; constructivists do not reject science or causal explanations; their quarrel with mainstream theories is ontological not epistemological.[34]

           Social Constructivism claims to occupy the middle ground, as Risse & Wiener state, “Constructivism shares with Rational choice an epistemological commitment to truth seeking, and the belief that causal generalisation in the form of middle range theories is possible”.[35]

         However, it is criticized for its failure to occupy this middle ground without staying to one side. For example, Steve Smith sees Constructivism to be “far more ‘Rationalist’ than ‘Reflectivist’. Indeed, Smith believes that Constructivism will split into two main camps, one more Rationalist, the other more Reflectivist, this he states, is due to “fundamentally different epistemological assumptions.

        This difficulty in clearly defining the ‘middle way’ offered by Social Constructivism leads to a situation where it is difficult to see clearly what Social Constructivism might offer to the European discourse, despite each individual model offering sometimes challenging ontologies.

         Moravcsik clearly identifies this weakness; he states that Social Constructivism has “contributed far less to our empirical and theoretical understanding of European studies …certainly far less than existing alternatives’.[36]     

         Social Constructivism has an ontology that is open for both hard and softer evidence, material and social facts. Its epistemology does not reject the possibility of testing theories against evidence, but also puts emphasis on the more qualitative and interpretative methods of inquiry. It is less interested in causal explanations and more interested in interpreting and examining how structures and agents interact and are mutually constitutive

           The constructivist critique of neo-realism and neo-liberalism reaches well beyond the level of analysis argument of either Image I (individual) or Image II (domestic politics) theorists.

          Social Constructivism is concerned not with levels per se but with underlying conceptions of how the social and political world works. It is not a theory but an approach to social inquiry based on two assumptions:  first the environment in which agents/states take action is social as well as material; and second this setting can provide agents-states with understandings of their interests, it can constitute them.  Put differently, these scholars question the materialism and methodological individualism upon which much contemporary IR scholarship has been built. [37]

        The first assumption reflects a view that material structures, beyond certain biological necessities, are given meaning only by the social con text through which they are interpreted. Consider nuclear weapons? the ultimate material capability. Constructivists argue that it is not such weapons themselves that matter. After all, the United States worries very little about the large quantity of nuclear weapons held by the British; however, the possibility that North Korea might come into possession of even one or two generates tremendous concern.

         The second assumption addresses the basic nature of human agents and states, in particular, their relation to broader structural environments.  Moreover, Constructivists emphasize a process of interaction between agents and structures; the ontology is one of mutual constitution, where neither unit of analysis agents or structures is reduced to the other and made ontologically primitive.  [38]

          In one hand, this opens up what for most theorists is the black box of interest and identity formation; state interests emerge from and are endogenous to interaction with structures. In addition, Constructivists thus question the methodological individualism that underpins both neoliberalism and neorealism.

         In other hand, this agent-centered view asserts that all social phenomena are explicable in ways that involve only individual agents and their goals and actions; the starting point of the analysis is actors (states) with given properties. Ontologically, the result is to reduce one unit of analysis structures to the other agents.[39]

       Also implicit in many Social constructivist accounts is a model of human and state behavior where rule-governed action and logics of appropriateness prevail. Such logics involve reasoning by analogy and metaphor and are not about ends and means. Under them, agents ask “What kind of situation is this?” and with norms helping to supply the answers. Norms therefore constitute states agents, providing them with understandings of their interests.[40]

        Likewise, it is important to note that constructivists do not reject science or causal explanation; their quarrel with mainstream theories is ontological, not epistemological. The last point is a key for it suggests that constructivism has the potential to bridge the still vast divide separating the majority of IR theorists from postmodernists.

       With the latter, Social constructivists share many substantive concerns (role of identity and discourse, say) and a similar ontological stance; with the former, they share a largely common epistemology. Constructivists thus occupy a middle ground between rational choice theorists and postmodern scholars. To illuminate these differences between constructivists and other schools, it is helpful to explore their understanding of central terms.

         Along with, to consider “norms,” a concept that has gained much currency in IR scholarship over the past decade. While realists see norms as lacking causal force, neoliberal regime theory argues that they play an influential rule in certain issue-areas. However, even for neoliberals, norms are still a superstructure built on a material base: they serve a regulative function, helping actors with given interests maximize utility. Agents (states) create structures (norms and institutions).[41]

          For constructivists, by contrast, norms are collective understandings that make behavioral claims on actors. Their effects reach deeper: they constitute actor identities and interests and do not simply regulate behavior. As explanatory variables, their status moves from intervening to independent.

          Norms are no longer a superstructure on a material base; rather, they help to create and define that base. For constructivists, agents (states) and structures (global norms) are inter acting; they are mutually constituted.

        Taken together, these moves by constructivists their questioning of methodological individualism and materialism, along with a continuing commitment to the scientific enterprise have brought a breath of fresh air to thinking about world politics, in ways accessible to nearly all scholars. A key issue, however, is whether such new perspectives allow these researchers to explain important international puzzles and phenomena[42]

2- The Use of Social Constructivism in Explaining the fall of the Soviet Union

        However, social constructivism helps explain how the US and USSR perceived themselves and one another between 1945 and 1955, as well as the events that followed these perceptions and appeared to support neorealism’s “bipolarity.” Social constructivists contend that the war between the USSR and the US during this time, which was claimed to be bipolar, was actually a binarized struggle between two distinct state identities, whose acts mutually reinforced one another’s identities.[43]

             The New Soviet Man (NSM), a supranational, ultra-modern, and secular conveyor of working class consciousness and the vanguard of socialism that would lead pre-modern, underdeveloped peripheral states into modernity, replaced the dominant discursive elements of identity shared by Soviet society and elites prior to 1947. This identity established a strict dichotomy between the Soviets and the perilous deviant Western Other.

         It brought about the great intolerance and dread of difference between communist Eastern European nations and the NSM model under the Stalin government. However, the American public and elites had understood Western Europe as crucial to their security interests because two world wars had been fought over it, and it was also seen as the cornerstone of the liberal world order that Roosevelt and Truman had envisioned, so its potential economic collapse after being weakened by WWII and the subsequent rise of Communism there constituting a serious threat to American interests.[44]

        Since the Soviet NSM identity was threatened by the US Marshall Plan, which provided financial aid to Western Europe, this American insecurity drove the Soviet Union to consolidate its power in Eastern Europe through the establishment of oppressive institutions and a military buildup, as well as the creation of communist Czechoslovakia to protect socialism from Western democratic-capitalist incursions. Following Soviet consolidation, a series of events between the USSR and the West were precipitated by worsening perceptions of each other as ideological or military threats; these events included the formation of the democratic-capitalist West German state by the U.S. and its allies, the Pact of Brussels by West European states, a defensive alliance against the USSR, and the Berlin Blockade by the Soviets in response to the U.S.[45]

       Social constructivism contends that Stalin’s inner circle perceived China as the USSR’s “revolutionary comrade-in-arms” and “oldest little brother,” which led to the external projection of the Soviet hierarchy that included the vanguard centre and its periphery, modernity and pre-modernity. This explanation not only explains why the Korean War occurred, but also why China and not the USSR was involved in it.

           Stalin’s administration therefore viewed communist China as the “surrogate vanguard” defender of its NSM model in Asia and allocated to her the responsibility of providing military support for communist North Korea in the Korean War that was fought against democratic-capitalist South Korea. [46]

          However, the social constructivists’ claim that identity shapes interests can explain this ambiguity with regard to neorealism. During the Cold War, the West European powers balanced with the United States rather than against her because they saw themselves as democratic-capitalist states closer to the American identity than to the authoritarian-communist identity upheld by the USSR. Racial identifications between the United States and European nations immediately following World War II preceded this and led to the U.S. seeking a multilateral system of alliances with Europe and only bilateral connections with the then-emerging Southeast Asian region.[47]

     To sum up, Social Constructivists argue that Moscow under Gorbachev viewed the USSR as a “regular social democratic great power” rather than a “communist superpower,” which led to the end of the long-standing competition between the two countries.

       The conceptual underpinnings of this new identity had existed since Khrushchev’s rule, but they were further solidified by the initial success and subsequent disenchanting failure of the U.S.-Soviet rapprochement in the 1970s. And, USSR, where liberal opponents of Brezhnev’s détente policy rejected ideas of peaceful coexistence with the U.S. as a form of class struggle; ideas that Western accommodating policies were forced in favour of socialism; opinions that capitalist states were inherently aggressive and that there existed irreconcilable interests between the two superpowers’ ideological systems; and convictions that there were no prospects of removing the risks of armed conflict between both ideological blocs via rapprochement.[48]

         Together with this, anti-totalitarian movements in Eastern Europe in the late 1970s persuaded the people of the Soviet Socialist states to see the USSR not as the global forerunner of socialism but rather as a socialist suzerain they were still bound to.

        To conclude, with its concept of state identity as a variable formed through discursive and material factors within societies and in interstate interactions, social constructivism better captures this agency that states have and hence offers more persuasive interpretations of the Cold War.

conclusion

          International Relations theory benefits from Social Constructivism because it covers topics and concepts that are overlooked by conventional theories, particularly realism. As a result, constructivists provide alternate explanations and insights for phenomena in the social environment. Additionally, Constructivism is a social theory in international relations that holds that substantial features of international relations are determined by ideational factors (which are historically and socially produced), not just material factors. Moreover, Constructivism asserts that important parts of international relations are historically and socially contingent (changeable), rather than unavoidable outcomes of human nature or other inherent qualities of world politics.

          Social constructivism is based on the assumption that humans are not independent from their environmental context (structure), and that the ideas and beliefs that comprise the ideational environment in which an actor finds themselves inform the actions of individuals. Also, Constructivists contend that the same may be said of the actors inside the European Union. While member nations helped to build the EU, they are now impacted by its conventions, values, and shared ways of behaving. And, Intergovernmentalism refers to agreements “through which nation governments interact with one another on subjects of common interest in contexts and conditions over which they have control.” Under such conditions, states are free to cooperate (or not) and have the ability to set the level of collaboration.

         Since 1957, European integration has been a long and complex, at times difficult process that has seen the formation of new institutions and actors. Despite the importance of such institutions and players in the daily lives of all Europeans, the European project remains weak and vulnerable to eroding pressures from variables such as macroeconomic cycles and anti-EU political groups, among others. Other important causes include a general lack of understanding about the EU among European residents, as well as a low level of identification with the EU.

           European studies are increasingly recognizing the value of social constructivism as a lens through which to better understand various aspects of European integration, a process in which new supranational institutions and social identities emerge as well as existing local institutions and identities transform. Institutions, as well as the identities of social actors, matter in a certain way, according to social constructivism. That is, they are not provided or easily manipulated by any political class.

          Social Constructivism is a relatively new theoretical addition to the study of the European Union, but it has profound implications for how the EU is studied, and perhaps more importantly, what is studied when the EU is studied. Social constructivism is a vast field of study in the social sciences, and it is impossible to include everything here as a result this extract there are four primary, but limited, goals. To begin with, it attempts to define social constructivism and what it includes as a theory. Second, it explains constructivism’s viewpoint on the relative importance of actors and structures. Finally, it aims to contrast constructivism’s logical conclusion, namely, that actors behave according to the appropriateness of their actions rather than the appropriateness of their actions.

          That is, actors act in accordance with the appropriateness of their activities rather than the rational cost/benefit consequences of their actions. Finally, it draws attention to social constructivism’s highlights of interesting aspects of European integration.

          Social constructivism is based on the assumption that people are not independent from their environment (structure), and that the ideas and beliefs that make up an actor’s ideational environment influence their behaviors. Individuals collectively recreate or ‘reconstruct’ this environment through their behavior and activities, according to social constructivism. “Constructivism is based on a social ontology that emphasizes that human beings do not exist independently of their social environment and its collectively shared systems of meanings ‘culture’ in a wide sense,” says Thomas Risse.

       The social environment defines who we are and what we think, according to social constructivists, and we collectively repeat this social environment by our activities.

        The two pillars of European Integration Theory are still (neo)functionalism and (liberal) intergovernmentalism, despite all of its undeniable flaws. Despite the fact that both theories have adopted various aspects of one another throughout time, they offer opposing explanations for how European Integration develops and functions. The key distinctions between those two ideas are summarized in the following table.

[1] Vivien  Schmidt, ‘Politicization in the EU: Between National Politics and EU Political Dynamics’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol26, n°7,(2019) p36

[2]Puetter Uwe , The European Council and the Council: New Intergovernmentalism and Institutional Change , (Oxford: Oxford University Press,2014),p44

[3] Isabel Dineen, Brexit: A Historical Case Study of UK’s Integration with the EU, Master disseration , The Faculty of Landscape and Society, Norwegian University, 2019,p19

[4] عبد الناصر جندلي، التنظير في العالقات الدّولية بين الاتجاهات التفسيرية والنظريات) االكونية: دار االخلدونية، 2007 ،( ص.287

[5] إكرام عبد الرحيم، التحديات المستقبلية للتكتّل الاقتصادي العربي للعولمة و التكتلات الإقليمية البديلة ، (القاهرة: مكتبة مدبولي،2002) ،45ص

[6] Tim Oliver, Peter Wilson, ‘The English School, Constructivism and Brexit: Theoretical Investigations’, Paper prepared for the 11th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, European International Studies Association, Barcelona, 13-16 September 2017 ,p14

[7] علي القزويني، التكامل الاقتصادي الدولي والإقليمي في ظل العولمة، (طرابلس: أكاديمية الدراسات العليا، 2004 ،)ص. 15

[8]مارتن غريفيتش، تيري أوكالهان، المفاهيم الأساسية في العالقات الدّولية (الإمارات العربية المتحدة: مركز الخليج للأبحاث، 2008) ، ص 194

[9]  صبيحة بخوش، اتحاد المغرب العربي: دوافع التكامل الاقتصادي والمعوقات السياسية ، ط.1 ، (عمان: دار الحامد للنشر والتوزيع، 2010)، ص ص 40-39. .

[10] Vitaliano Barberio, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, ‘Short contribution (report) to be used in dissemination events about the empirical relevance of a social constructivist and discursive approach to EU identity emergence and integration’,European Union Founding For Research and Innovation,  (2017),p22.

[11] Vitaliano Barberio, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Ibid,p24.

[12] Joffrey Checkel, International institutions and socialization in Europe: Introduction and framework. International Organization,Vol 59,N°4,(2005),pp 801-826.

[13] Bogdanor Vernon , Beyond Brexit Towards a British Constitution, (London: I.BTAURIS,2019), 1^st ed,p87

[14] Joffrey Checkel, Why Comply? Social Learning and European identity change, International Organization, Vol55, n°3,pp 553-588.

[15] Joffrey Checkel, Why Comply? Social Learning and European identity change, Opcit.

[16]  Ronen Palan, ‘Constructivism and Globalization: from Units to Encounters in International Affairs’ Cambridge Review of International Affairs, N17, (2004),  pp11-23.

[17] Tsvetko  Karkalanov, ‘THE INTRINSIC EXPLANATORY VALUE OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM

IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY’ , MGIMO University, Moscow, Russia,N°4, (2016), p14.

[18] Sirinq Theys , ‘Inrtoducing Constructivism in International Relations Theory’,E-International Relation info, (2018),p4.

[19] Sirinq Theys, Ibid,p8.

[20]Samuel Barkin, ‘Realist Constructivism’,  International Studies Review , Vol5, No3 ,(Sep 2003), (visited on 29^th September 2019),  http://www.jstor.org/stable/3186573.

[21] Thomas Risse, ‘Regionalism and Collective Identities: The European Experience’, El estado del debate contemporáneo en Relaciones Internacionales, Buenos Aires, Argentina, (July2000),p30.

[22] Thomas Risse, ibid, p31

[23] Matthew Hoffmann, Norms and Social Constructivism in International Relations , (Danmark: print publication, Martch2010),p97.

[24] Samuel Barkin , ‘Realist Constructivism’, Opcit.

[25] Thomas Risse, ‘Regionalism and Collective Identities: The European Experience’,  Ibid,p 37

[26] Karol Chwedczuk Szulc, ‘SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM IN IR A SHORT SUCCESS STORY?’, Polish Political Science Review , University of Wrocław, (2019),pp15-19.

[27] Karol Chwedczuk Szulc, Ibid, p20.

[28] Matthew Hoffmann,Opcit,p99

[29] Michael Williams, ‘Why Ideas Matter in International Relations: Hans Morgenthau, Classical Realism, and theMoral Construction of Power Politics’ , International Organization Foundation ,  International Organization, Vol58, N° 4 (Autumn, 2004), p57.

[30]  Alexander Wendt, Op.cit,p 383

[31]  Tim Oliver , Peter Wilson ‘The English School, Constructivism and Brexit: Theoretical Investigations’, (11th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, European International Studies Association, Barcelona, 13-16 September 2017),visited on: 13/08/2020

[32] Thomas Risse, ‘Regionalism and Collective Identities: The European Experience’, opcit,p32.

[33] Michel Williams , Ibid, p65.

[34] Alexander Wendt, ‘Anarchy is what States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics’,Ibid,p393.

[35] Nicholas Onuf,  ‘ ON THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM, TURNS IN IR, AND A DISCIPLINE OF OUR MAKING’,theory talk,(2015),p7.

[36]  Anne Moravcski, ‘Is Something Rotten in the state of Danmark, Constructivism and European Integration’, Journal of European Poblic Policy,(1999),p81.

[37] Thomas Christiansen, ‘The social construction of Europe’, Journal of European Public Policy , (January 1999), p18.

[38] Palan Ronen, A world of their making: an evaluation of the constructivist critique in international relations, Review of International Studies, (2001),p22.

[39] Andrea Teti, ‘Saving identity from postmodernism? The normalization of constructivism in International Relations’ , Contemporary Political Theory,(2010),p12.

[40]Jeffrey Tcheckel, ‘The Constructivist turn in International  Relations Theory’, Cambridge University Press,World Politics, Vol50, No 2, (1998), pp. 324-348.

[41] David Rousseau, ‘Identity, Power, and Threat Perception A Cross-National Experimental Study’, Journal of Conflict Resolution  , vol50, n°5, (2007),p24.

[42]Jeffrey Tcheckel, ‘The Constructivist turn in International  Relations Theory’ibid,p350.

[43]Ted Hopf, Ben Allan, Making Identity Count” Beyond IR. Towards a National Identity Database, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p201

[44] Ted Hopf, Ben Allan,ibid, p204

[45] Ted Hopf, Moscow’s Foreign Policy, 1945-2000: Identities, Institutions and Interests,  ed Ronald  Giorg Sunnt,The Cambridge History of Russia, Vol 3: The Twentieth Century, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2016) , p 662

3 Ted, Hopf,  Social Construction of International Politics: Identities & Foreign Policies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,2002),p142

1Chan June Hao, ‘Social Constructivism Vs Neorealism in  Analyzing the Cold War’, E-International Relation, (2019), accessed on 03/11/2021,at  https://www.e-ir.info/pdf/79624

[48] 1Chan June Hao,ibid.