I. Introduction

II. Weak cognitivism

A. Interests are not unproblematic and exogenous givens – they arise from somewhere and we need to think about why states "want" some things and don’t want other things

B. Requires only relatively minor modifications to existing theories, allowing for interests to be examined as to where they come from and to determine how they form and vary over time rather than simply accepted as fixed. Modify existing theory

C. Knowledge as intervening between structural constraints and behavioral outcomes (Hasenclever et al., 138).

D. Major assumptions

1. Knowledge and beliefs influence behavior and expectations (Hasenclever et al., 140)

2. Decision makers seek information to reduce uncertainty – reducing uncertainty helps regimes form (in contrast to contrary view of Young)

3. Intersubjective understandings of problems and solutions – need to agree on what is "war" or "economic growth" or "environmental protection" or "human rights" before can have regime - regime formation often serves to foster the creation of intersubjective understandings

III. Strong cognitivists

A. Want to replace existing theory

B. Knowledge constitutes states – what is a state is not a "brute objective fact" about the world but reflects an agreement among people about what constitutes a state or not, and therefore is something that can change. E.g., why is Palestine treated differently than Israel and why is the Mafia treated differently than the government of Italy?

C. Basic model

1. Actions driven by "logic of appropriateness", not rationalists’ "logic of consequences"

2. What kind of situation + who am I/what identity do I have/want + what are "appropriate" roles for the type of actor I want to be in this situation?

D. What constitutes a treaty, and hence must be obeyed, is contingent on intersubjective sense. A policy statement by Bush to do X is not considered by himself or others as committing the US to follow through on that in anything like the ways it would be if he signed a treaty. Look at current US and Russian attempts at arms control where whether there is a treaty matters, but it matters because there are expectations that are raised if it’s a "treaty" that are not there if its not.

E. Interested in "how is cooperation among states possible" in sense of what has to preexist before states can cooperate.

F. Consider what constitutes "terrorism" as dependent not on behaviors but on who performs them and on how those actors are seen by other actors as to their role

G. Positivism as an epistemology – there are objective "laws" that govern behavior of actors and these can be known by scholars. Constructivists (strong version) argue that there are only interpretations of the world, but no truths.

H. Regulative vs. constitutive rules

1. Regulative rules – what you should or should not do

2. Constitutive rules – rules that govern how different acts are interpreted – analogy of chess: a pawn that moves up three spaces and over two is not meaningful. Rule on movement of pawns is constitutive not regulative. You can move pawn three up and two over but if you do so it has no meaning in game of chess. Terrorism is defined by who does it – if not by members of government and on behalf of government than its not war, its terrorism.

I. Example: Alter’s argument about ECJ – what constitutes legal argument is precedent, etc. and so standard political arguments based on interests don’t influence outcomes in ECJ as much as legal and precedential ones (if they influence at all)

J. Political critique of positivism: theories of IR are influential – they are not objective but change (or reinforce) existing reality by their promulgation

IV. Issues of ideas and identity are important to constructivists

A. Ideas matter to regime formation

1. Free trade regimes rely on idea that free trade is good rather than bad for an economy but that is a relatively new idea – previously all countries had "beggar thy neighbor" policies

2. End of colonialism – previously, being a civilized state meant having colonies but then switched to being a civilized state meant NOT having colonies. Not simply how states behave but what category they fit into, i.e., their identity. You can be a state and still have colonies but you can’t be a "civilized" state

B. Types of ideas

1. Principled ideas – what is good and bad – colonialism case

2. Causal ideas – what causes what – free trade case

C. How ideas matter

1. Road maps

2. Focal points – what to do that is considered acceptable by others

3. Embodied in institutions that make them last longer than would otherwise

D. Changes in beliefs may lead to changes in behavior – if do, its learning

1. Not interested in changes in causal beliefs

2. More interested in changes in goals and objectives

E. Regimes result from development of consensual knowledge (147)

V. Epistemic communities

A. Definition:

B. Help create regimes when

1. High uncertainty among policy makers

2. High consensus among scientists

3. High institutionalization of scientific advise in policy process

4. Influence regimes via innovation, diffusion, selection, and persistence

a) Frame issues

b) Provide integrative formulas and focal points and delegitimize certain arguments

c) Consensus support for existing institutions and regimes

VI. Discourse

A. Communicative action as attempts to motivate others internally actors to fit their behavior to socially normative rules. They attempt to coordinate behavior by "first try to bring about agreement concerning the relevant features of a social situation and then advance reasons why a certain behavior has to be avoided" (176).

1. Contrast with strategic action which is an effort to "control, in an efficient way, the social environment of actors so that they are induced to respect a normative arrangement" (176).

B. Persuasion rather than coercion or compulsion as determinant of influence of one actor over another.

1. States may not sanction in response to violation but they often "jawbone" and "shame" in response and that can be important and influential in behavior of other party

2. Intersubjective appraisal of an act as compliant or not, rather than an objective description

3. What constitutes a legitimate reason for not following the rules is decided through communication among actors involved rather than as an objective fact or by reference to some higher authority.

C. Goal of communicative action is to alter perceptions others have of the world they inhabit and thereby get better outcomes for oneself or others

D. Regimes place a burden of proof on governments – they must explain their behavior in certain terms and not in others. Regimes define what an act is – at simplest level they define a behavior that, prior to the regime was simply a behavior that needed no justification to others, as deviant behavior and therefore requires justification to others. This is often dynamic in human rights cases, according to Keck and Sikkink.

VII. Identity matters too, and identity is relational, not objective

A. Behaviors are a consequence of knowledge and a modifier of knowledge

B. What a behavior means depends on existing structure and system when act takes place but act itself can transform structure and system

C. Mutually constitutive nature of agents and structure according to Wendt – structure defines identities of agents but behavior of agents defines structure. NOT simultaneously however, but rather iteratively.

D. Identities and conceptualizations of self – American hegemony differs from British hegemony

VIII. Finnemore on UNESCO

A. Is this a regime formation or regime effects article?

B. DV: "In the last fifty years, science policymaking organizations have sprung up in virtually all developed countries and in most developing ones" (65). Explicitly measures DV and shows change in DV that she tries to explain on page 67: "Before 1955 only a handful of countries (fourteen) had such entities; by 1975 eighty-nine countries did" (67).

C. Structure of argument

1. Demand driven explanations don’t work and she provides alternative

2. UNESCO taught states the value of having science policy organizations

3. UNESCO taught that to be a "modern state" requires having a science policy bureaucracy

4. States didn’t seek this out as a solution to a problem they faced but rather they were taught that this was appropriate behavior for a modern state

D. Theory development

1. Three traditional explanations of why science policy organizations arise

a) Issue-specific conditions: science policy organizations develop in response to growing scientific establishment

b) Development or modernization: more tech driven economy requires more science/tech and economic actors demand that government provide it

c) Security: warfare requires tech and forces government to supply. Implication – science policy organizations should occur during wartime.

d) Note problem in this development of theory – no citations of people from whom she got these arguments ("it is argued…" – don’t imitate this aspect, but do imitate summary of literature)

E. Excellent empirical work but not mathematically complex

1. Proxies for each variable are shown NOT to correspond to science policy organizations in states

a) For Issue-specific, two proxies: R&D spending and scientists and engineers per 1,000

b) For Development/modermization: GDP

c) For Security: GNP % spent on defense

2. Simply looks at correlation based on expected histograms: "none of the patterns corresponds to the expected patterns" (71).

a) Essentially, all graphs should have lots of sci-pol organizations at right of graphs and few at left, but not true for any of them:

3. Correlation shows other theories are wrong

4. Correlation also shows her theory is plausible – science policy organizations develop NOT right after UNESCO forms but after it changes policy toward a more activist approach in mid-50s

F. Causal narrative

1. Also shows causal narrative of how UNESCO influenced governments to adopt science policy organizations

2. Language of "logic of appropriateness" explicitly developed and contrasted with language of "logic of consequences" – UNESCO said "the development of science policy should be the responsibility of an organization at the highest level of government in the country" (83). Confirming that her theory (a cognitivist/constructivist theory) worked as predicted.

3. Shows the "how" of UNESCO influence, discussing the meetings and conferences by which states were convinced to adopt science policy organizations as part of their government

4. Then provides very explicit and good examples of the process.

5. Shows that science policy organizations were developed in East African countries where one would not generally expect them to arise and demonstrates how they nonetheless did

G. Conclusion regarding constructivism: "Actions by UNESCO and examples of a few prominent developed states persuaded states that making science policy was an appropriate and necessary task of states, regardless of objective science, developmental, or security conditions. Thus, the empirical anomaly identified at the beginning of this research – that states have coordinated science bureaucracies regardless of whether they have any science to coordinate – is the result of a behavioral norm (that states should direct science) making similar claims on dissimilar state actors" (93). In short, states were following a logic of appropriateness ("this is what modern states do") rather than a logic of consequences ("this is in our state’s interest")

H. Good idea to imitate this article in your own research.

IX. Barnett and Finnemore, Politics, Power and Pathologies

A. Puzzle: Why do institutions created to promote certain goals actually promote their opposite?

B. IOs are bureaucracies that are efficient but often unresponsive to their environments and the actors they are created to serve

1. IOs are actors in their own right, not simply tools of states

2. Other scholars confuse the belief that states form regimes for good (from the states’ perspectives) purposes with the assumption that they actually only have those influences – B and F argue that they can have bad influences that even run counter to goals of states that form them – states do not always pull the plug on IOs when they "misbehave"

3. How is it possible that IOs are created by states but do not always serve those states’ purposes?

C. IOs are not just passive mechanisms or throughput machines for state preferences but actually have and promote preferences of their own.

1. Once again, this is a principle-agent kind of argument with states as the principles and IOs as the agents who have different goals and objectives than the states that created them – IOs have their own "utility functions" and preferences

D. Sources of power: IOs become autonomous because gain power from:

1. "Legitimacy of the rational-legal authority they embody" (411)

a) Different types of authority: "those are the rules" vs. "it’s the right thing to do" vs. "I’m the parent" vs. "it’s God’s will"

b) Former is most legitimate source of authority for government in modernity (last was most common in earlier times)

2. "Control over technical expertise and information" (411)

a) Creates appearance of impartiality and depoliticization

E. Uses of power:

1. Classify information and their frame and structure thinking and ideas

2. Fixing of meaning – lead certain things and actions to be defined as certain things

a) Who is developing and who is developed state

b) What constitutes security? And therefore where should IOs intervene

c) Assessment of compliance

3. Diffusion of norms

a) Decolonization

b) Science example

c) IMF and WB norms of economic structure for government-economy relations

F. Pathologies of IOs. Dysfunction due to:

1. IO decisions are not result of rational calculation but the result of bureaucratic politics with different actors bargaining to protect their turf

2. State preferences cause dysfunction

3. Cultural norms – structure IOs in particular way because that is the way its done rather than because that is a good way to do things. E.g., there may be better ways to achieve cooperation than multilateralism but much action is multilateral rather than bilateral or minilateral.

4. Organizational norms – IO develops own pathological norms pursuing its own behavior out of bad and dysfunctional habits rather than out of any form of rationality – SOPs and ritualized behavior that are nonresponsive to environment and setting and reflect bureaucracy’s solution more than problem needing resolution

G. Five pathologies

1. Irrationality of rationalization: Process drive goals rather than goals driving processes

2. Bureaucratic universalism – treat different problems as if they were the same – opposite of being sensitive to environment and context. Respond to Rwanda same way responded to Bosnia same way responded to Cambodia

3. Normalization of deviance – problems become normal over time

4. Insulation – receive and process feedback from environment less and less over time. All actors in bureaucracy of particular type - IMF and WB filled with economists rather than farmers or lawyers or politicians or whatever.

5. Cultural contestation: competition between sectors within organization that value different goals or have different subcultures within organization

H. Conclusion

1. IOs are purposive actors in own right

2. IOs have influence on the world

3. Influence IOs have may not all be good as it is often made out to be.