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Degree course: Politics and International Relations
Module: Politics: International Relations and Strategic
Studies
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Part 1)

Title of assignment: What is the agent-structure problem? How
does constructivism address it in ways that
neo-realism and neo-liberalism cannot? Is
the constructivist treatment convincing in
this regard?

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Date: 06/12/2013

What would happen if slavery was still considered? Or if the women's right to vote was not
recognized in all Countries in the world, except Saudi Arabia? These statements were abso-
lutely valid over a century ago, but since then, the world has transformed. We all think now
that slavery is a crime against humanity, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
adopted by the United Nations in 1948, can only prove this significant change in the interna-
tional society. But what caused these alterations? There are several ways to approach this
question: one is to look at the States' behaviours, and how these have changed the world we
live in. For example, we could hypothesize that Iceland's decision to abolish slavery in 1117
was taken autonomously, without any international pressure. A second approach to this query
is the one that looks priorly on the system we live in: some can in fact argues that Maurita-
nia's abolishment of slavery in 1981 was strongly influenced by the international norms, or by
the other States' common thoughts. However, there is a third theory, more convincing than
the previous ones, because its not focused on one entity or another (States' behaviour or in-
ternational structure), but rather it recognizes that agents and structure are never totally inde-
pendent of one another, and they cant be separated. With regard to this last example, some
others can argue that Mauritania's decision to abrogate slavery was certainly persuaded by the
international structure, but at the same time all the international norms are the product of
States' own decisions. While the first theory is the one of realists and liberals, and the second
theory is the one of neorealists and neoliberals, the last theory is called Constructivism. In
showing which of these theories better explain the relationship between agents (States,
NGOs, IGOs) and structure, I will focus on the last two theories, since classical realist' and
classical liberals' theories were both reformulated into the neoclassical theories after the Sec-
ond World War by the behaviouralist movement.

(Jackson & Srensen, 2007)
Neorealism and neoliberalism, despite their divergences over many specific topics, such as
priority of States' goals (with neoliberalists more concerned on economy and wealth, and ne-
orealists more concerned on security), and despite their different view on international rela-
tions (neoliberals are much more optimistic than the neorealists are), they share some basic
ideas of the same approach: the rationalism. Both are materialist, and think that the reality is
constituted of tangible things. They reduce the world to matter and to what is observable.
Both of them see the world as anarchical, as there is not any inter-State government with a
powerful authority in condition to organize units and actors under its control. Both of the the-
ories think that the international structure influences our actions. For the neorealist Kenneth
Waltz (1979), the international structure in which we live in is a set of constraining condi-
tions. States, which are the main actors for both neorealists and neoliberals, are constrained
by the structure within which they act. The world, as we know it today, presents a lack of a
central superpower: this brings Waltz to the conclusion that the structure is given by the way
power (and in particular the military power) is distributed among the States, and this power
demarcates the differences between each State, and their distinctive choices in international
relations. According to Waltz (1988), a bipolar world such as that before the First World
War, with two alliances (the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente) with similar amount of
power, could break down when one of the two parties decides to change the status quo. So
that
if Austria-Hungary marched, Germany had to follow; the dissolution of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire would have left Germany alone in the middle of Eu-
rope. If France marched, Russia had to follow; a German victory over France
would be a defeat for Russia. And so the vicious circle continued.
Thus, States have to follow the signals from the structure: during the Cold War, both the USA
and the USSR were compelled to live with each other. An outbreak from one of these two su-
perpowers would have broken the balance, potentially leading to the collapse of one or the
other.
I have said that neoliberals and neorealists share many aspects from the same basic approach,
which is rationalism. Neoliberals indeed see the world as anarchical, and think that the struc-
ture influences the actors' behaviours in international relations. Nevertheless, unlike neoreal-
ists, they have a more optimistic view concerning the history of the world. The presence of an
anarchical structure does not mean that a war is inevitable. States can instead cooperate in or-
der to achieve absolute gains, and international institutions acquire a great value in helping to
transform the international system from a jungle of chaotic power politics to a zoo of regu-
lated and peaceful intercourse (Jackson & Srensen). Despite these differences, these two
theories can be considered together, since besides their view of a compelling structure over
actors, they both think the world as made up of tangible matter.
Indeed, there are some weaknesses and contradictions in the neoliberal and neorealist theo-
ries, especially in the way Kenneth Waltz considered the agent-structure problem. Consider-
ing the structure as an independent variable is a way to simplify the reality of international
relations, and Waltz is aware of it. As a matter of fact, it is no coincidence that Waltz himself
(1990) states: In reality, everything is related to everything else, and one domain cannot be
separated from all others. Theory isolates one realm from all others in order to deal with it in-
tellectually. Therefore, there is a dichotomy in Waltz's thought: it seems that for Waltz, the
structure really comes before agents, and that structure really shapes our actions and creates
the agents, an assumption which Waltz actually refuses. If reality will be congruent neither
with a theory nor with a model that may represent it (1990), how can we accept a theory that
is not representative of the world in which we live in? Another imperfection of the neos theo-
ries is that both of them concentrate too much on facts and they discard the importance of
ideas and values.
In 1987, a German scholar named Alexander Wendt suggested in his article The agent-
structure problem in international relations theory, the important solutions to this dilemma.
Wendt is one the major representatives of the Constructivist theory. Constructivism goes be-
yond the neos theories, as it rejects the assumption that the world is based on brute facts,
which are totally independent from the human control. Certainly, it cannot be denied that
matter has its importance, but for constructivists, social facts are more essential (Brown &
Ainley, 2009). We all live in a world of our making (Onuf, 1989), since we all have differ-
ent ideas: even a brute fact as a State's military power, can be seen in different ways, so that
we are more afraid of 10 nuclear weapons from North Korea, instead of 290 from France.
What is crucial in the constructivist theory is the idea behind a fact: in this example, even if
we are much closer to France than to North Korea, we are not threatened by France's military
power, since we consider it our ally. At the same time, some other Countries in the world
may find France's military power more threatening. Therefore, according to Wendt (1992),
the international system is not anarchical, because anarchy is what States makes of it. This
is also why the international system is in continuous evolution: the structure changes as our
ideas about it changes. Moreover, Wendt argues that we cannot separate agents and structure
from each other, and this is one of the big weak point in Waltz's theory. While both the clas-
sic realism and liberalism focused their attention on the agents, and the neos theory gave too
strong attention on the structure, Constructivism recognises that agents and structure are nev-
er totally independent of one another, and it keeps both in consideration. In using Wendt's
words (1987), agents and structure are co-determined or mutually constituted entities. The
structure certainly influences the agents' actions, but it does not dictate them. In turn, agents
create the structure in which their actions take place. This assumption helps to explain why
under certain conditions some Governments act in an unexpected way. For constructivists,
the reason why States have not yet started to seek a new balance of power after the collapse
of USSR, is because the ideas have probably changed over time.

(Jackson, Srensen)
Wendt's approach to international relations can therefore explain better the transformation of
the world and the relation between structure and agents. Waltz was right when he said that in-
ternational relations are a complex system: his failure was not being able to formulate a theo-
ry closer to the reality. In addition, isolating the structure as an independent variable present-
ed him with several difficulties when explaining why that structure actually has changed and
why it continues to change. Wendt, on the other hand, understood that the best way to address
this dilemma was to consider structure and agents as a single entity, or in other words, two
entities which cannot be separated. In doing so, Wendt's Constructivism can help to explain
various issues and changes in international political history: nowadays we consider women's
right to vote absolutely normal because 100 years of social actions such as debates, feminist
marches, and political actions have created the actual international structure. This constantly
evolving structure, now nearing completion with only one Country left to answer the call, has
influenced States' policies in the course of the last century. States have gradually adapted
their policies to the majority of those who had already granted the right to vote for women.
This is a transformation that neos theories can hardly clarify, without encountering contradic-
tions.
Bibliography:

R. Jackson, G. Srensen, Introduction to International Relations Theories and Ap-
proaches, Oxford, 2007
K. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 1979, p. 73
K. Waltz, The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory, in The Journal of Interdisci-
plinary History, vol. 18, no. 4, Spring, 1988
K. Waltz, Realist thought and neorealist theory, in Journal of International Affairs,
44 (1) Spring/Summer
C. Brown and K. Ainley, Understanding International Relations, 2009
N. Onuf, The world of Our Making, 1989
A. Wendt, Anarchy is what States makes of it:the social construction of power
politics, 1992
A. Wendt, The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory, in In-
ternational Organization, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Summer, 1987)