Der Verfasser würdigt die Bedeutung des Buchs "The Social Construction of Reality" von Berger und Luckmann anlässlich des 25. Jahrestags seines Erscheinens. Er betont vor allem die Bedeutung, die das Buch als Wegbereiter des symbolischen Interaktionismus, der Soziolinguistik, der Ethnomethodologie und des "interpretativen Paradigmas" generell hatte. Alfred Schütz' phänomenologische Analyse der Lebenswelt aufgreifend thematisierten Berger und Luckmann die Tatsache, dass Realität sozial konstruiert ist, und wiesen der Soziologie die Aufgabe zu zu untersuchen, wie dies geschieht. (ICE)
In thisReviewin June 1993 Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram argued that the social construction of target populations is an important political and policy phenomenon. Robert Lieberman criticizes Schneider and Ingram's "circular" conceptualization of public policy and social construction. He proposes a "historical-institutional" framework for understanding the role of group identities in political change. Lieberman analyzes the dual experience of African-Americans in the American welfare state as an example of political institutions and policy changes' affecting changing group constructions. Ingram and Schneider respond that their purpose is to understand how social constructions shape policy designs, which in turn affect citizen perceptions and participation, and argue that Lieberman's ideas of institutions and history yield no analytic improvement. They provide their own analysis of the case of welfare to illustrate the advantages for future research of their conception of policy targets.
Abstract In the social constructionist literature, little has been said about what it means for social factors to cause X in such a way that X would count as causally socially constructed. In this paper, I argue that being caused by social factors – and thus being causally socially constructed – is best defined in terms of a contrastive counterfactual notion of causation. Unlike some plausible alternatives, this definition captures what is at stake in actual social constructionist debates. It makes transparent which factors the truth of a causal constructionist claim may depend on. By doing so, it sheds light on what the disagreements over whether X is causally socially constructed may turn on. It also helps us to see under which condition the claim that X is socially causally constructed is compatible with the claim that X is caused by biological factors.
This article presents social construction as a research framework, rather than an explanatory theory in constructivism, to outline different research strategies. Varieties of constructivism thus far conceived in international relations prefer cleavages where scholars are regarded as thin/thick, conventional/critical, or mainstream/radical. In contrast, I introduce a new landscape of social construction to show unique mechanisms for socially constructing international politics. The new landscape varies on two dimensions. The first, source of socialization, asks whether scholars treat social context as fixed in discrete, observable forms or as fluid in indiscrete, shifting arrangements. The second dimension, focus of analysis, asks whether scholars primarily study social structures, social subjects, or some interaction of the two. The dimensions make visible a multitude of research strategies with implications for the stability of social processes and the potential for causal analysis. Moreover, within this landscape, the article focuses on four processes of social construction—aggregating, assembling, internalizing, and performing—as seen inductively through examining prominent constructivist projects. Disaggregating the many processes avoids the misuse of social construction as a catchall mechanism. Finally, the article applies the select processes to the social construction of international norms to better grasp the relative payoffs of constructivist IR scholarship for research and teaching.
AbstractThis article presents social construction as a research framework, rather than an explanatory theory in constructivism, to outline different research strategies. Varieties of constructivism thus far conceived in international relations prefer cleavages where scholars are regarded as thin/thick, conventional/critical, or mainstream/radical. In contrast, I introduce a new landscape of social construction to show unique mechanisms for socially constructing international politics. The new landscape varies on two dimensions. The first, source of socialization, asks whether scholars treat social context as fixed in discrete, observable forms or as fluid in indiscrete, shifting arrangements. The second dimension, focus of analysis, asks whether scholars primarily study social structures, social subjects, or some interaction of the two. The dimensions make visible a multitude of research strategies with implications for the stability of social processes and the potential for causal analysis. Moreover, within this landscape, the article focuses on four processes of social construction—aggregating, assembling, internalizing, and performing—as seen inductively through examining prominent constructivist projects. Disaggregating the many processes avoids the misuse of social construction as a catchall mechanism. Finally, the article applies the select processes to the social construction of international norms to better grasp the relative payoffs of constructivist IR scholarship for research and teaching.
Argues that too much debate on European integration has focused on which institutions matter in the integration process & not on how they have effects. It is contended that a sociological & social constructivist understanding of institutions as constitutive can significantly broaden the methodological tools available to the study of integration. The approach will also help in exploring how, or indeed, whether, integration is affecting fundamental actor identities, & not simply constraining strategy or behavior. Adapted from the source document.
THE ARTICLE ARGUES THAT A SOCIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST UNDERSTANDING OF INSTITUTIONS AS CONSTITUTIVE CAN SIGNIFICANTLY BROADEN THE METHODOLOGICAL TOOLS THAT ARE BROUGHT TO THE STUDY OF INTEGRATION. IT EXPLORES HOW OR WHETHER INTEGRATION IS AFFECTING FUNDAMENTAL ACTOR IDENTITIES AND NOT SIMPLY CONSTRAINING STRATEGY OR BEHAVIOR.
