Imperialism and the relevance of constructivist approach to the analysis of international relations

Abstract

In international relations analysis, rationalism has remained the dominant approach for a long time. In recent years, however, new approaches have challenged the hegemony of rationalist empiricism in the analysis of international relations. One of these alternative approaches is the constructivist approach. Constructivism argues for the importance of ideational units of analysis such as history, knowledge, and identity in the making of individual and state interests which lead to actions and policy. This paper applies discourse analysis in reviewing two major texts on how the history of capitalist imperialism shaped the relations between the North and the South. The paper shows the weakness of rationalist approaches to international relations research. Rationalism presents states as atomistic actors pursuing their military and economic power interests in a historically given space without regard for the ideational and historical factors deciding the nature of this space. The paper concludes that the relevance of the constructivist approach to international relations research, which is sometimes vehemently criticized, is seen in its ability to identify and apply important historical units of analysis that are normally overlooked and even deliberately discarded in rationalist international relations analysis.