We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Constructivism: The Political Economy of Political Correctness in a Constructivist IR Zoo.
- Authors
Elsenhans, Hartmut
- Abstract
Constructivism reformulates long-standing results of the philosophy of knowledge and traditional historiography. All reality is mediated by our categories of understanding. Our mediated reality is in constant interaction with the real reality in order to be practical. Many areas, such as religion, are not corrected by the test of praxis. Their trajectories can be interpreted as intellectual processes of transmission of norms. Not so the domain of political conflicts. Political science has to analyse under which conditions reality checks are imposed. Here also interpretation becomes crucial for strategy formulation: the conflict between reformists and bolshewiki was on the causation of labour not opting for a revolutionary consciousness as expected. It led to a variety of adaptations, including the Frankfurt School, which formulated the then state of the art as Constructivism. In its permanent interaction with the real world, the constructed reality is continuously adapted learning. Norms and interpretations are important, but rarely fundamentally change real realities. They can, however, do so in case of a temporary openness of history. All the literature about agent and structure and path dependence of history has made contributions which constructivists do not consider sufficiently.
- Subjects
SOCIAL constructivism; POLITICAL correctness; FRANKFURT school of sociology; INTERNATIONAL relations; REALISM; POLITICAL philosophy
- Publication
Pakistan Horizon, 2019, Vol 72, Issue 2, p19
- ISSN
0030-980X
- Publication type
Article