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Realism Vs Constructivism

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The failure of realists and liberals to predict the end of the Cold War has sharply increased the recognition of constructivists. Constructivists begin to participate in the main international relations theoretical debates from 1989 when a book of Nicholas Onuf «World of Our Making» was published and a term «constructivism» was used for the first time. Constructivism is criticising realists and liberals traditional statistical approach to the analysis of international relations focusing on the fact that international relations is a social construction (Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, 1999 p. xiii). Whilst realism is dealing with security issues and material forces and liberalism refers to economic interdependance and internal policies factors, constructivism is mainly focused on the analysis of the ideas role in the system of intenational relations. Constructivist ment that ideas are those of targets, threats, fears, identities and other elements of perceived reality that affect the state and non-state objects of international relations. Constructivists believe ideological factors often have long-term goals and outcomes, and this is an advantage over the materialist theory (realism, liberalism). Therefore, the perception of the same phenomenon in international relations may vary depending on the conditions in which states are. Moreover, constructivists do not consider anarchy constant consistency in the international system, arguing extreme

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