Nuclear Weapons, I.R. Paradigms, and Russia-Ukraine

In one of my class discussions, a friend was arguing the following:

“Nuclear weapons in North Korea constitute a different threat to the United States than nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom.”

Here in this essay I want to demonstrate what does this mean (through the dominant International Relations paradigms), and how might the underlying principles help explain the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

Constructivism is a social theory that makes claims about the changes in sociological values– things like money, sovereignty, and rights. Social facts have no material reality, and exist only because everyone agrees they exist and behaves accordingly. Unlike realism or liberalism, constructivism is a framework for thinking about social change. It is not a substantive theory of politics. For instance, human rights can be perceived differently all around Europe even though there is cultural unity due to Christianity. Continental philosophers theorized that social facts transcend the individual and constrain the individual. To extrapolate to international politics, one can ask how do social facts change, and how do they influence politics? (Finnemore and Sikkink) I believe that both material and ideational factors play an important role in the social construction of knowledge in politics. As the essay will demonstrate, I see international politics as historically and socially constructed. Since the constructivist perspective developed as a result of the synthesis of utilitarianism and materialism perspective (394), it makes sense that it is more widely applicable, be it in nuclear issues or humanitarian interventions.

The proliferation of nuclear weapons has been a longly contested topic in international politics. As of August 2016, 191 states have become parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In the realm of international law of arms race, the treaty has historically been the most effective agreement (Ruff, 115). In order to critically analyze the debates around the implementation and enforcement of international treaties, one can focus on different aspects of I.R.: cultural politics, coercive diplomacy, collective disarmament efforts, and human rights projection. Neither liberalism nor the realist framework does justice in explaining how ideas and state identities interact in international politics. Some political scientists, including constructivist theorists such as Finnemore and Waltz, advocated for creating a scholarly tension between these relatively outdated frameworks. By synthesizing the way realism and liberalism explain the nuclear proliferation issue, I will try to investigate the potential applications of the constructivist framework on the issue. The essay argues that the projection of Human Rights values and power politics are mutually constitutive.

A realist international relations scholar would argue that one needs to consider the magnitude of the nuclear threat to the countries in order to assess its importance in international politics. This paradigm argues that states pursue power and dominance (regional or global hegemony) to achieve security. States can never be sure of changes to the power structure in the future, so states seek to expand. Realists argue that United States should take an active role in global nuclear proliferation, because it has the strongest military capacity. They would claim that a global hegemon for peacekeeping should be more considerate about a nuclear threat from the United Kingdom. Since the UK has a stronger military and technology capacity than North Korea, their production of nuclear weapons could be much more harmful to the international stability^1. North Korea has a lower economic and technological power, which means they have less coercive power in nuclear diplomacy. Therefore, the nuclear weapons in the UK should be the utmost threat to the role of the United States in the international realm.

On the other hand, a liberal international politics scholar focuses on states incentives to cooperate while explaining the motives behind nuclear proliferation. States seek absolute gains without concern for relative sovereignty. States choose to act in accordance with the customary international human rights norms in order to secure their interest in the international system. The reason for the high number of state ratification of the NPT is that developing countries believe that they will be better off if they comply with the human rights norms that are imposed by the European countries (Risse and Ropp). In that logic, liberalist scholars claim that nuclear weapons in North Korea are much more dangerous compared to those in Western countries. In the foreign policies of the UK and the US, human rights and liberal values in a relatively important role. Thus, they are less likely to use nuclear diplomacy in a manner to threat the global stability and peacekeeping.

A constructivist scholar would have a much more nuanced understanding of the success of the nuclear weapon treaty, as well as the key role of the United States in its implementation. States choose to abide by human rights norms for both material and ideational considerations. Anarchy in the international system establishes a self-help system in which states seek power to survive. When the social construction of this power balance is analyzed in world politics, it is important to assume that “agents and structures are mutually constituted.” (Finnemore and Sikkink, 394) In that sense, the constructivist paradigm would focus on the interaction between power politics and ideational characteristics of the state identities.

This framework can also enlighten the underlying principles of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. When Russia’s president Vladimir Putin’s statements are examined, one can scrutinize (Slavic) cultural rights concerns in the state ideology, as well as Russia’s strong stance against the expansionism of the NATO. Both material and ideological factors influence Russia’s foreign policy decision-making. Mearsheimer proposes to analyze the” individual leaders and their ideologies” (Foreign Affairs) in order to have a more nuanced understanding of the world politics. In other frameworks such as liberalism and realism, states –as a homogenous and unitary entity– are considered as the main unit of analysis. I believe that it is only through the constructivist framework, where structures and agents are analyzed together, one can understand the nuances in global diplomacy of human rights and regime stability.

Footnote [1] Nuclear weapons do not necessarily have to be used to harm the stability. States can use the nuclear weapons for leverage in diplomacy

Works Cited

Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “Taking Stock: The Constructivist Research Program in International Relations and Comparative Politics,” Annual Review of Political Science 4 (2001): 391-416.

Ruff, Tilman. "Negotiating the UN treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons and the role of ICAN." The 2017 Nuclear Ban Treaty. Routledge, 2020. 114-122.

Risse, Thomas, and Stephen C. Ropp. "International human rights norms and domestic change: conclusions." Cambridge Studies in International Relations 66 (1999): 234-278.

Stephen Sestanovich; John J. Mearsheimer, “Faulty Powers: Who Started the Ukraine Crisis?” Foreign Affairs, Nov./Dec. 2014