Identity" problematique in international relations theory
Author
Gürbüz, Mustafa
Advisor
Güner, Serdar
Date
2004Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
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Show full item recordAbstract
This study aims to provide an assessment of ‘identity’ conceptualizations in
International Relations theory generally, and in constructivism particularly.
The underlying argument is that ‘identity’ takes different meanings and
refers to divergent categorical realms in the IR theory literature. The notion
of ‘identity’ has been taken in different senses among constructivists as well.
Ironically, the same term, identity, is employed sometimes to defend two
opposing views in the discipline of IR. Therefore, ‘identity’ is an ambiguous
term in constructivism and in IR theory. Moreover, ‘identity’ is a vague term
even in the literature of conventional constructivists, who are most frequent
users of the term in the field. Although the conventional constructivists
produce the same notion of ‘identity’ among themselves, their works suffer
from the problem of ‘obscurity’ and ‘vagueness’. Thus, ‘identity’ among
conventional constructivists is not ambiguous, because they refer to the same
category. Yet, the term is left unexplained and vague. All these intellectual
failures in the studies of ‘identity’ are troublesome for some IR theorists but
fatal for constructivist scholars. Therefore, this work offers an alternative
way to conceptualize identity by bringing in ‘identification’ theory and the
Jürgen Habermas’ approaches. While identification theory can eliminate the
‘ambiguity’ problem in identity studies in the field, Habermasian theorizing
may help to study ‘identity’ in constructivism in an analytically clear respect.
Keywords
IdentityConstructivism
Conventional Constructivism
Critical Constructivism
Identification theory
Legitimation Crisis