Introduction
This paper develops a discussion of how social constructivism, as a theory in international relation, can be applied to the European Union. Since its inception in the 50, the EU has continued to grow and increase in member states. This expansion and unity can be explained using various approaches, however, the primary focus of the paper is application of social constructivism to the European Union.
Theoretical framework of social constructivism
The initial point of social constructivism into the international relations was through a clarification of epistemology and ontology of the earlier schools of thoughts. Through epistemology, social constructivists have managed to gain considerable legitimacy including explanation, causality, and hypothesis testing. Other schools of thoughts that emphasize on the role of external factors in uniting Europe experienced a downfall especially with the end of the Cold War. As a result this opened new opportunities and grounds to develop a different perspective of explaining the unity of Europe. Subsequently, the turn took a sociological angle. According to the theory of social constructivism, foreign policy interests are based on identities. Europe as a region is considered a norm according to sociologists, and therefore the basic characteristic of social constructivist explains European Union foreign and security policies using behavior, roles, and identity factors.
Social constructivist theory thinkers
One of the early thinkers of social constructivism into the study of Europe is Nicholas Onuf. He believed that the surrounding environment is a direct result of the making of human beings. The things around people appear they way they are because that is the way they are perceived by the people. Another key thinker into the application of the theory is Jeffery Checkel. His perspective into social constructivism is based on the thick approach which argues that power in the society is resulting from everyday activities. These two thinkers and others believe that constructivists are best positioned to create an understanding of the integration process in Europe. The underlying reason is that social constructivists are more exposed to thinking about the way human beings interact in the society to form various social structures. Constructivists are also perfectly positioned to engage in discussions with reflectivists and rationalists due to the nature of their school of thought. The interest of social constructivists is to develop an understanding of how people come together to have a common value and identity through various means such as the establishment of norms, development of common ideas, and the use of language. European citizenship is among the identities that have been constructed through the use of various social actors.
Identities are always constructed and are never fixed. Social constructivism argues that European Union has developed as a result of establishment of norms and not because of other factors such as increasing globalization and the Cold War. The contrast between constructivists and rationalists is that fact that the latter lays too much emphasis on the external factors to explain the solidarity of EU member states. As the norms and values are internalized by social actors, they acquire social identities. This constitutive effect can only be attributed to norms. The norms and ideas eventually begin to penetrate into the policies of members and parties involved in the union.
Explanation of theory
Social constructivism is a theory that is based on the philosophy of constructivism being applied in social settings. According to this theory, groups are responsible for constructing knowledge on behalf of their own. As a result, the group is characterized by a common culture and common meaning. When an individual forms part of a culture based on this theory, the individual will always be learning about the culture and how to be part of it in various ways. The theory therefore focuses mainly on the learning that takes place in every individual who interacts with other members of the group. According to learning is affected or impacted by social interactions. The elements of social relationships include language, signs, and symbols. The authors further contend that there are other things within the learning environment of an individual that affect their learning process. However, in the context of European Union, the factors could include the beliefs of leaders and materials such as newspapers printed during the time that the union was being incepted, and the prior knowledge that individuals owned before making the decision to form a union.
Analysis of how it applies in the EU
The use of constructivism theory in studying the European Union has become trendy. Most debates and discussion use terms and concept mostly related to the theory of social constructivism. For instance, norms and cultural identity have been described to shape international political decisions and outcomes . Most scholars have applied the idea of conventional constructivism to explore how different institutions in Europe and other places do interact. The mechanism of persuasion for instance has a causal effect in bringing together different leaders and people from various nations in order to work together . The concept of language has also been discussed by several scholars to have played a role in the formation of European Union. Through interpretation of language, aspects such as constructing social reality and mediating have been made possible .
Dreiling (2007) looks at how theory of social constructivism has been used to build free trade in the European Union and NAFTA. The author builds his ideas on the historical approach to markets as products of society. He argues that the use of the term regionalism is more suitable than globalization when describing the world economic trends. The institutional and political approach that the author uses relies mainly on the fact that actors within the society are responsible for creating trade institutions such as markets. However these actors have to be in a particular historical and social context in order to develop specific trade institutions. Through social conventions, the social actors help to construct markets. Basically, the free market created in the EU, is a result of the roles played by powerful social actors. The development of the market in EU has been described by the author to have been directly impacted by the cultural background and political realities of the region. While comparing EU market to NAFTA, the author notices that that there is a big role played by guided books of social and political realities in formation of the two markets.
Schieder, Folz, and Musekamp (2011) sought to compare the policies of two different European countries in relation to the EU and other regional associations. Three major assumptions are made by the authors to play a role in international solidarity. The first assumption is that nations and regional bodies such as the EU are institutionalized solidarity community. This is because the idea of solidarity was found in smaller social settings such as the family, clans, and kinship groups . The institutionalized forms of solidarity have for a long time now been regarded as an expression of social togetherness. The construction of the EU is therefore a representation of common solidarity among member states. The nature of formation has been described to include administrative and territorial components in addition to ensuring the social and individual welfare of everyone living within the boundaries of EU .
The second assumption that has been described in the paper is the domestic foundation of international solidarity. The democratic values in various European states are argued to provide a basis for the engagement between people within the region. The authors also say that a sense of responsibility and obligation has played a role in the solidarity of members within the EU community. The authors actually note that the boarders of individual nations no longer influence the ability of people to come together and form one solid institution . Essentially, the authors argue that the border lines have been broken and it goes beyond individual states to mark boundaries of communities and human societies. The other aspect that has been identified to contribute to solidarity is the diffusion of human rights and democratic values. This has helped individuals to realize their part in the union and has provided mechanisms for building institutions that include the right of all within the society .
The third assumption made in the paper is the legitimacy and structure of solidarity in impacting foreign policies. According to , it is the social construction of solidarity that shapes it on different ways. During formation of foreign policies, there are usually different expectations and solidarity is a just among the various expectations from the parties involved. Other expectation might include economic wealth and security. Therefore the authors note that the acts of solidarity relies on the legitimacy of the parties involved in the political decision making process .
The European Union has been described by social constructivists to be a platform for persuasion and communication. The platform is used to spread ideas of unity and solidarity to members who eventually get persuaded and begin to internalize the norms and ideas . The various agents and structures of society interact through such platforms to influence and unify the thoughts and perception of individual members .
Social constructivism impacts on international relations especially when it comes to European studies. Constructivists have managed to develop a realistic explanation into the security policy of EU. This is based on tenets of social ideas and culture. For instance, the issue of Islam religion and terrorism can best be explained using concepts and principles that are based on the theory of social constructivism. Terrorism is mainly perpetrated by al-qaeda which is a religious group associated with Islamist ideology. The members of the group are so radical into the ideology that they are willing to die for it.
Conclusion
Social constructivism is parallel to shaping the behaviors of individual member states of the EU. The main focus however is shaping their interest. Unlike other theoretical approaches, non material elements such as behaviors, values, identity, and shared norms can also be used to shape the formation and solidarity of European Union. The formation of EU alone has been described to provide evidence and clue into the thinking of social constructivists. The process of enlargement of European Union can also be explained suing the perspective of social constructivism. Actors that came together to call for the formation of European Union were basically influenced by social norms and ideas. The structures within which these actors operated and the kind of interest they had were primarily influenced by the social norms that existed in their surrounding environment. In addition, when member states continue to have an interaction amongst themselves, they begin to transform and to develop common ideas, interests and cultural values. As the actors continue to interact, there is development of identities which basically increase the solidarity of member states. As a result, the EU continues to become strong and unified. Presently, the EU has a total of 27 member states and its origin can be traced from the European Economic Community which started with six countries during the 50s. Over the past years, the EU has continued to increase in numbers to reach the present figure of 27. New member states have joined while some of the existing members have ascended into powerful positions within the union.
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