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 by Brian Milstein
 Submitted originally for the course, "The U.S. and the World," Fall 2003, at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, David Plotke and Aristide Zolberg, Instructors Cite as: Milstein, Brian. "Michael Doyle's Closet Constructivism." Unpublished paper, New School for Social Research, New York (accessed on [DATE] at http://magictheatre.panopticweb.com/aesthetics/writings/polth-doyle.html). In his essay, "Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs," Michael Doyle (1996) offers little beyond raw empirical evidence to justify the strong normative claims he wants to make regarding the implications of the "democratic peace" for the foreign policies of liberal states. His argument presupposes a basic makeup of the international system that both accommodates his version of a democratic peace and that can proceed according to the guidelines he provides at the end of his article (on the tasks of the pacific union [see 49-54]). It is, however, the question of this basic makeup that is at stake in this notion of a peace in the eyes of many who debate the subject. Realists, for example, are loath to acknowledge that the correlation of democracy and instances of military restraint is in any way significant, and critics point out that the statistical evidence for a democratic peace is by itself weak: "empiricists have done surprisingly little to show that elements of liberalism and democracy are causal influences on peace" (Spiro 1996, 206). I am wondering if a more analytic or holistic approach might not be more useful for Doyle's purposes than merely counting the not-wars between supposedly democratic regimes. (1) Andreas Hasenclever et al (1997) outline three major perspectives on the international system: realists, neoliberals, and cognitivists. The first two of these perspectives are what may be called the rationalist perspectives, and they share a notion that states have an essential identity, that is, whatever states are and do (and on this they disagree), it is what they always have been and have done and it is what they always will be and will do. The cognitivists are generally more flexible on this point, or at least are willing to debate it, and there are stronger versions of cognitivist theory, such as constructivism, that challenge it directly. Constructivist IR theorists such as Alexander Wendt (1998) argue that the essence of states are not given, but have changed over time, can change again, and, most importantly, can be changed. Whether or not democratic peace proves to be a useful theory in Doyle's sense depends in part on whether the essentialist (rationalist) or non-essentialist (constructivist) view of the international system shows itself to be more cogent. From the perspective of international realism, the "fact" of democratic peace should not exist at all. From this point of view, the states system is an arena of intense antagonism and states must behave according to a specified logic to survive. Whether a state is democratic, or autocratic, or oligarchic, or theocratic should make no difference with regard to the state's functioning in the international arena, which in all cases defined by the competitive accumulation of power. The fact that states are competitive by nature -- they seek relative advantage as opposed to a delimited end-state -- means that peace is among the most tentative and unnatural of conditions among them. What peace there is is maintained either by direct force (hegemony) or a balance of power between relative equals. Realism is in a sense doubly challenged by the democratic peace assertion, on the side of "democratic" and on the side of "peace." The notion of any kind of permanently mitigating force in international relations such that would create "peace" as a long-term condition seems to contradict the logic of the realist perspective. Moreover, the idea that such a force depends on variable within the internal makeup of states contradicts the essentialist presuppositions of rationalist IR theory. The neoliberalist point of view is also troubled by how significant an impact the internal constitution of a state can have on its external relations, yet it adheres to a political ontology that could be stretched at least to explain the appearance of a democratic peace, if not democratic peace itself. The neoliberalist view shares with realism the premise that states have an essential, rationalist character. Unlike realism, neoliberalism plots states as having absolute instead of relative goals, and it is not necessary for them to be in perpetual competition -- states can "live and let live," granted that their interests are not in conflict. From this point of view, the international system is actually "more anarchic," as states have varying interests and are less uniformly predictable as they are in the realist paradigm. At the same time, cooperation emerges as a genuine possibility. This "interest-" as opposed to "power-based" perspective can envision convergencies of interest among democratic states given more incidental characteristics that democracies often share, such as wealth or stability (Hasenclever 1997, 84). Democratic countries, after all, are often also wealthy countries, free-trade countries, industrial countries, politically stable countries, etc., and have a correlation of common interests (see Russett 1996, 87-90). Such countries can form a peace out of gradual "tit-for-tat" strategies that seek to maximize material interests (Hasenclever et al 1997, 33ff). Insofar as one can relate characteristics of free trade, economic liberalism, general wealth or stability to democracy, one could make an argument for a democracy-peace correlation from the neoliberalist perspective. Because this democratic peace would result from the motivation to maximize utility between rational actors, we can call this a strategic democratic peace. In contrast to the rationalist perspectives, constructivism contends that states' identities and interests are not given but construed within the international system. Wendt posits a "role structure" in the international arena that sets the terms of what kind of anarchy prevails in it: The choice between Realism and Liberalism is often seen as one between "top-down" vs. "bottom-up" theorizing, between the view that international politics contains a single logic which depends in no way on its elements, and the view that the logic of anarchy is reducible entirely to its elements. In effect, we can either study structure or study agents; either anarchic structure has one logic or none at all. I defend a third possibility: (1) anarchic structures do construct their elements, but (2) these structures vary at the macro-level and can therefore have multiple logics. Anarchy as such is an empty vessel and has no intrinsic logic; anarchies only acquire logics as a function of the structure that we put inside them. (Wendt 1998, 248-9)I do not want to discuss the full dynamics of Wendt's theory (such as degrees of internalization, although they are important), but I only want to briefly characterize Wendt's position of three basic "cultures" of anarchy that may characterize the international system. A Hobbesian anarchy comes about when the role structure of the international system reinforces a view of states toward one another as enemies. In this system, states behave much as the realists would predict them to -- each striving to subdue the others -- and states adhering to this perspective have little hope of settling into a pacific union. On the other hand, the structure of the international system can operate according to a Lockean anarchy, in which states are predisposed to recognize each other's rights to "life, liberty, and property," although how much right can still be a point of contention (279ff). Wendt does describe the neoliberalist stance as a version of a Lockean anarchy, and it is only via a subtle distinction that he distinguishes his own view. In any case, the Lockean anarchy, being similar to neoliberalism's anarchy, allows for the possibility of a strategic democratic peace. Such a strategic peace can also come to characterize certain realizations of a Kantian culture of anarchy, one defined by "friendship," that is, where states are predisposed toward cooperation. Yet while this strategic peace we have described can arise in several versions of international anarchy, only the Kantian culture allows the possibility of a normative democratic peace, in which states adopt democratic and pacifist values as guides to their foreign policies, and this is clearly what Doyle has in mind: "Above all, liberal policy should strive to preserve the pacific union of similarly liberal societies. It is not only currently of immense strategic value...; it is also the single best hope for the evolution of a peaceful world" (Doyle 1996, 53). The rationalist perspectives do not allow for anything analogous to a Kantian anarchy, which plainly does not exist today and would thus require a caliber of change in the world system that rationalist theories of IR do not generally accommodate. If Doyle wants to propound a normative democratic peace, therefore, he would be at least tacitly endorsing a constructivist perspective of the international system -- one that allows for the achievement of a Kantian culture of anarchy (see Figure 1).  (2) Doyle's argument is not as simple as the claim that we live in one system or another, but rather a hybrid. Doyle's pacific union is more of a Kantian oasis in a generally Lockean terrain with Hobbesian patches, and this complicates matters more than even he appreciates. Still, a coherent constructivist approach would allow him to tie together structurally disparate empirical elements presented in his essay -- for example, the differences in relations of liberal with other liberal versus nonliberal states -- and, in doing so, paint a better picture of the place and role of the pacific union in the world system. While not even all cognitivist or constructivist IR theorists take full advantage of its implications, constructivism offers opportunities to get beyond the atomistic or "monological" characterization of state actors propounded by rationalist paradigms and instead develop more dialogical or interactive models of relations between actors (cf. Hasenclever et al 1997, 158ff). Doyle refers to Kant's characterization of "cosmopolitanism" in terms of "commerce" (1996, 26-7, 55). Doyle does not seem to grasp, however, that the terms Kant uses -- Weschelwirkung in German and Commercium in Latin -- refer not merely to "commerce" in the specified sense of economic trade but to interaction generally (Kant 1996, 489). "Cosmopolitan right" involves not simply the right to free trade, as Doyle implies, but to "universal hospitality," "the right to visit," and generally the right "to present oneself to society" (328-9). In an alternate interpretation, James Bohman (1997) sees Kant's cosmopolitan peace as pointing toward a full-fledged international civil society with a global public sphere. The democratic peace, if extended to predict the full range of interactions connoted by Kant's original meaning of "commerce," implies the full extension of sociological dynamics across borders of friendly countries. It becomes unavoidable to consider how the identities of states might be affected "from the bottom-up" through inter-domestic relations. Finally, Doyle dedicated a significant portion of his article to the often erratic approaches that liberal states take with regard to nonliberal states (see 1996, 30-44). From his description, it seems that the clarity of relations that liberal states have with nonliberal states become increasingly strained in proportion with their increasing commerce with other liberal states. We can imagine, and borders "thin" between liberal states, a corresponding "thickening" of borders between the forming pacific union and its (virtual, if not geographic) exterior (see Figure 2). Perhaps the most pronounced example of such phenomena lie in the paradoxes of European integration -- so-called "Fortress Europe" -- which is described by Jurgen Habermas (2001) in terms of xenophobic reaction to sharp spikes in pluralization of democratic societies (72-4). The point here is, on one hand, the distinctly "sociological" turn that transnational relations take within relations of high cooperation. On the other hand, the "thickening" of borders between pacific union countries and nonliberal states (whether aligned with a rival bloc or not) does not signify a simple curtailment of interaction. Separate political entities to not stand statically in relation to one another; rather, the existence of "borders" establishes and facilitates terms of interaction, and political entities on both sides form their identities around such relationships. Complex dynamics of convergence and polarization come into play across different kinds of interstate relations, and these are what need to be examined to appreciate the full implications of democratic peace theory for the makeup of international politics.  Barth, Fredrik (2000) "Boundaries and Connections" in Signifying Identities: Anthropological Perspectives on Boundaries and Contested Values, edited by Anthony P. Cohen. Routledge. Bohman, James (1997) "The Public Spheres of the World Citizen" in Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant's Cosmopolitan Ideal, edited by James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann. MIT Press. Brown, Michael E., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, editors (1996) Debating the Democratic Peace. MIT Press. Cohen, Anthony P. (2000) Signifying Identities: Anthropological Perspectives on Boundaries and Contested Values. Routledge. Doyle, Michael W. (1996) "Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs" in Debating the Democratic Peace, edited by Michael E. Brown, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller. MIT Press. Habermas, Jurgen (2001) The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays, translated and edited by Max Pensky. MIT Press. Hasenclever, Andreas, Peter Mayer, and Volker Rittberger (1997) Theories of International Regimes. Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel (1991) Political Writings, translated by H.B. Nisbet and edited by Hans Reiss. Cambridge University Press. (1996) Practical Philosophy, translated and edited by Mary J. Gregor, Cambridge University Press. Russett, Bruce (1996) "Why Democratic Peace?" in Debating the Democratic Peace, edited by Michael E. Brown, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller. MIT Press. Spiro, David E. (1996) "The Insignificance of the Liberal Peace" in Debating the Democratic Peace, edited by Michael E. Brown, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller. MIT Press. Wendt, Alexander (1998) Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge University Press.
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