Title

Agent-Level And Social Constructivism: The Case Of The Iran Hostage Crisis

Abstract

The theme of this volume is the status of social constructivism and the psychological approach to international relations as "ideational allies."1 A natural place to begin, then, is to examine in what sense this claim is true. The question can be answered, of course, in a rather negative fashion: In other words, we may usefully delineate what both are opposed to. If an opposition to neorealism and neoliberalism were all they held in common, for example, social constructivism would share little more with the psychological approach than Saddam Hussein had in common with the United States during the early 1980s vis-à-vis Iran. This chapter proposes, however, that the familial linkages between the two constitute more than just marriages of convenience. In a more positive sense, both agree on a number of things in substantive or ontological respects, commonalities that make them in some ways natural bedfellows. This is particularly true of what Christian Reus-Smit terms "unit-level constructivism," an approach used to complement more structure-oriented versions that lack an account of agency.2 This unit-level approach, like psychological perspectives, eschews overly structural conceptions of state behavior in favor of a focus on individuals' preferences and actions. Vendulka Kubalkova has suggested that while social constructivists typically find fault with the way in which foreign policy analysis often downplays the importance of structural or systemic factors, they nevertheless "applaud the tendency of [foreign policy analysis] to look for the agent- the foreign-policy decision maker-wherever he/she might be found. The active mode of foreign policy expressed even in the term 'making' also resonates with the constructivists' stress on processes of social construction."3 Similarly, Houghton argues for the basic compatibility of the two camps and for the formation of a closer academic relationship between them. Tracing the historical roots of constructivism, he suggests that the psychological approach to international relations provided one stream that led to the formulation of the more recent body of theory,4 and, as Wendt freely concedes, "constructivist assumptions underlie the phenomenological tradition in the study of foreign policy, starting with the work of Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin, and continuing on with Robert Jervis and Ned Lebow."5 A commonality pertinent to this essay is psychology and constructivism's inhospitability to rational-choice approaches. As Brian Ripley notes, neorealists in general see a world of states acting on the basis of the rational calculation of self-interests, while in the psychology of international relations, decision makers act on the basis of their definition of the situation.6 While the two approaches may appear to be saying the same thing-even the calculation of self-interests must often be subjective-the first is often premised on a model comprehensive rationality, perfect information and exhaustive information searches (Homo economicus), while the second draws on the assumptions of bounded rationality, satisficing, and cognitive shortcuts (Homo psychologicus).7 Constructivism, like psychology, challenges the origins of preferences in rational models. But constructivism also challenges the notion of strategic and calculating choice in pursuit of preferences. In contrast to rationalist (and psychological) focus on the logic of consequences (LOC), constructivist and sociological approaches offer a competing logic of appropriateness (LOA) governing political behavior.8 In the former logic, actors choose actions for their perceived utility in reaching some goals; in the latter logic, actors' choices are directed toward notions of societal expectations of right and wrong, regardless of efficiencies of outcome. As March and Olsen put it, The logic of appropriateness is a perspective that sees human action as driven by rules of appropriate or exemplary behavior, organized into institutions. Rules are followed because they are seen as natural, rightful, expected, and legitimate. Actors seek to fulfill the obligations encapsulated in a role, an identity, a membership in a political community or group, and the ethos, practices and expectations of its institutions. Embedded in a social collectivity, they do what they see as appropriate for themselves in a specific type of situation.9 On the face of it, the psychological approach and social constructivism come down on different sides of the fence on this issue. But the essence of the argument presented in this chapter is that the LOA and the LOC can (and, indeed, should) be combined into a single, two-step approach, since both are critical to an understanding of the decision-making process. While an LoA approach illustrates the ways in which certain options that fail to comport with accepted social rules, norms, and conventions are never seriously considered in the decision-making process-and this chapter offers a social constructivist account of the production of absence or unthinkability- an LoC focus further refines our understanding of the ways in which policymakers decide. This approach is briefly illustrated using the case study of the Carter administration's decision making during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-81, where at the LoA stage, various options (such as doing nothing about the hostages or dropping a nuclear weapon on Tehran) were ruled unthinkable, while an examination of the LoC stage reveals how Jimmy Carter and his advisers selected from the remaining range of "thinkable" options. © 2012 by University of Michigan Press. All rights reserved.

Publication Date

12-1-2012

Publication Title

Psychology and Constructivism in International Relations

Number of Pages

150-169

Document Type

Article; Book Chapter

Personal Identifier

scopus

Socpus ID

84903494310 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84903494310

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