这是社会建构主义的代表者亚历山大。温特（明尼苏达大学教授）的成名之作，发表在《国际组织》上。在这篇文章中温特对主流国际关系理论关无政府状态的论述，尤其是主流国际关系理论将无政府状态作为国际政治的第一推动，做了不同的理解。温特认为，无政府状态不是别人，正是国家自己在互动的过程中建构的。同时，国家所建构的这种无政府状态不只有一种逻辑。它包括霍布斯文化，洛克文化，康德文化三种。我们现在所处的国际社会实际上处于洛克文化的状态，在朝着康德文化的方向发展。
温特的著作：《国际政治的社会理论》，秦亚青译，上海人民出版社。
Anarchy Is What States Make of It
ALEXANDER WENDT
Classical realists such as Thomas Hobbes, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hans J. Mor- genthau attributed egoism and power politics primarily to human nature, whereas structural realists or neorealists emphasize anarchy. The difference stems in part from different interpretations of anarchy's causal powers. Kenneth Waltz's work is important for both. In M
an, the State, and War, he defines anarchy as a condition of possibility for or "permissive" cau of war, arguing that "wars occur becau there is nothing to prevent them."1 It is the human nature or domestic politics of predator states, however, that provide the initial impetus or "efficient" cau of conflict which forces other states to respond In Waltz's Theory of the logic of anarchy ems by itlf to constitute lf-help and power politics as necessary features of world politics.2 . . .
Waltz defines political structure in three dimensions: ordering principles (in this ca, anarchy), principles of differentiation (which here drop out), and the distribution of capabilities.3 By itlf, this definition predicts little about state behavior. It does not predict whether two states will be friends or foes, will recognize each other's sovereignty, will have dynastic ties, will be revisionist or status quo powers, and so on. The factors, which are fundamentally intersubjective, affect states' curity interests and thus the character of their interaction under anarchy.
…Put more generally, without assumptions about the structure of identities and interests i
n the system, Waltz's definition of structure cannot predict the content or dynamics of anarchy. Self-help is one such intersubjective structure and, as such, does the decisive explanatory work in the theory. The question is whether lf-help is a logical or contingent feature of anarchy. In this ction, I develop the concept of a "structure of identity and interest" and show that no particular one follows logically from anarchy.
A fundamental principle of constructivist social theory is that people act toward objects, including other actors, on the basis of the meanings that the objects have for them. States act differently toward enemies than they do toward friends becau enemies are threatening and friends are not. Anarchy and the distribution of power are insufficient to tell us which is which. U.S. military power has a different significance for Canada than for Cuba, despite their similar "structural"
Excerpted/abridged from "Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Polities," by Alexander Wendt from International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Spri
ng 1992), pp. 395-410.Copyright ~ 1992 by the World Peace Foundation and the Massachutts Institute of Technology. Portions of the text and some footnotes have been omitted.
positions, just as British missiles have a different significance for the United States than do Soviet missiles. The distribution of power may always affect states" calculations, but how it does so depends on the intersubjective understandings and expectations, on the "distribution of knowledge," that constitute their conceptions of lf and other.4 If society "forgets" what a university is, the powers and practices of professor and student cea to exist; ff the United States and Soviet Union decide that they are no longer enemies, "the Cold War is over." It is collective meanings that constitute the structures which organize our actions.
Actors acquire identities--relatively stable, role-specific understandings and expectations about lf--by participating in such collective meanings. Identities are inherently relational: "Identity, with its appropriate attachments of psychological reality, is
always identity within a specific, socially constructed world," Peter Berger argues.5 Each person has many identities linked to institutional roles, such as brother, son, teacher, and citizen. Similarly, a state may have multiple identities as "sovereign," "leader of the free world," "imperial power," and so on. The commitment to and the salience of particular identities vary, but each identity is an inherently social definition of the actor grounded in the theories which actors collectively hold about themlves and one another and which constitute the structure of the social world.
Identities are the basis of interests. Actors do not have a "portfolio" of interests that they carry around independent of social context; instead, they define their interests on the process of defining situations Sometimes situations are unprecedented in our experience, and in the cas we have to construct their meaning, and thus our interests, by analogy or invent them de novo. More often they have routine qualities in which we assign meanings on the basis of institution-ally defined roles. When we say that professors have an "interest" in teaching, rearch, or going on leave, we are saying that to function in the role identity of "professor," they have to define certain situations as calli
ng for certain actions. This does not mean that they will necessarily do so (expectations and competence do not equal performance), but if they do not, they will not get tenure. The abnce or failure of roles makes defining situations and interests more difficult, and identity confusion may result. This ems to be happening today in the United States and the former Soviet Union: Without the cold war's mutual attributions of threat and hostility to define their identities, the states em unsure of what their "interests" should be.
