the-evolution-of-international-security-studies

constructivisms: norms, identities and narratives 191capabilities which should be included in the study of state security, butremains within a military optic.The chapter begins with the least radical perspective, where Constructivismin both its Conventional and Critical forms is presented and discussed;second, we look at those approaches that picked up the developmenttheme and ‘structural violence’ from the 1970s and which arguedin favour of ‘human’, ‘gendered’ or ‘individual’ security, namely Postcolonialism,Human Security, Critical Security Studies and Feminism;third, the discussion turns to the two main discursive approaches to security,the Copenhagen School and Poststructuralism. Each section lays outhow these perspectives challenged traditional conceptions of security aswell as what were the most common criticisms raised against them fromother wideners (the response from the traditionalists is covered in thesection ‘Internal academic debates: state-centrism and epistemology’ inchapter 6). This chapter deviates slightly from the chronological divisionof labour that we have used so far in that it moves into the post-9/11period as far as general theory building and criticism that does not raisespecific questions related to 9/11 and the ‘War on Terror’ is concerned.This avoids artificially cutting our presentation of theoretical debates inhalf and foreshadows the conclusion in chapter 8 that not everything inISS post-2001 was driven by the Global War on Terrorism.Constructivisms: norms, identities and narrativesThe introduction of Constructivism as a self-identified perspective intoISS was largely a consequence of the general IR debate in the early 1990sbetween so-called rationalist and reflectivist approaches (Keohane, 1988).As this distinction reflected American social science traditions more thanEuropean ones (where rationalist epistemologies had never had the sameprivileged position), there was a distinct US–Europe flavour to the map ofthe 1990s security debates: European approaches (Critical Security Studiesand the Copenhagen School in particular) were more strongly linkedwith the political, critical and normative concerns of Peace Research, whilemost of US Constructivism developed from the rationalism–reflectivismdebate with no similar connection to past normative approaches. Poststructuralismstarted out most strongly as a North American perspectivebut gradually gained more ground in Europe, while Feminism provideda counterpoint to traditional approaches in both Europe and the UnitedStates. As the 1990s went on, Constructivism branched off into a Conventionaland a Critical branch, where the latter had some interesting