Commonsense Constructivism, or the Making of World Affairs: Or the making of world affairs (International Relations in a Constructed World)

Fully accessible to students and scholars alike, this engaging book introduces the constructivist approach to understanding world affairs. In a highly readable and witty way, it shows how people and their social relations are the basis for everything around us -- International Relations included. The author describes his path from first encountering International Relations (IR) as an Australian undergraduate to his discovery of International Political Economy (IPE), whose teaching as part of IR allegedly cost him an academic position. Now that postmodernism have swept him back into the mainstream and Australia has renamed its ministry of foreign affairs Foreign Affairs , Pettman (Victoria U. of Wellington) defines three main categories of constructivism (conservative, social theory, and commonsense); and presents his non-rationalist conceptual framework for constructing the state, social collectives, markets, and the sovereign self. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR This engaging book introduces the constructivist approach to understanding world affairs. In a highly readable and witty way it shows how everything around us -- international relations included -- is constructed by people. Pettman shows in the process how narrow the standard approaches are, and how much we miss as a consequence. His conceptual framework of state making, wealth making, self making, and mind making allows us to see such notions as globalization, and indeed the whole of "international relations", in a refreshingly new light. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 6 Acknowledgments 8 Introduction. Commonsense Constructivism 12 Chapter 1. Making World Affairs 40 Part I. The Neglected Aspects of the Discipline 78 Chapter 2. Making Modernity 80 Chapter 3. Making Sovereign Selves, Social Collectives, and Nations 119 Part II. The Dominant Aspects of the Discipline 158 Chapter 4. Making States and Making Markets 160 Conclusion. A Constructed World 219 References 240 Index 250