International Relations. A self-Study Guide to Theory

Self-study (3) 
Learn more about the type “explanation by concept”, that is, explanation 
by classifying and unifying complex phenomena under a concept, based 
on the example of the EU in the text of Wendt (1998). What is the EU? 
Make use of the concepts of “federation”, “international state”, “postmod-
ern state”, “confederation”, “international regime”, “governance without 
government”, “neo-medievalism”.
Summary 
In line with scientific realism, a constitutive explanation is usually the identifi-
cation and description of the underlying causal mechanisms of the structure 
that generated the social phenomenon. Underlying causal mechanisms make 
an event naturally necessary (ontology before epistemology). There is a need 
for abductive inference from (observable) phenomena to the existence of un-
derlying naturally necessary relations between cause and effect (unobservable 
structures and their effects). Explanation thus is showing how the unobserva-
ble causal mechanism (which makes observable regularities possible) works 

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(Wendt 1987: 354). Explanation is a process of abduction based on the ques-
tion “what must exist for these events to happen?” It is about abstracting from 
the observable phenomena to the social and internal organizational structures 
which make the phenomena and events possible (Wendt 1987: 363). 
A hint: These statements of explanation are easier to understand if you 
always bring them back to their ontological positions (remember the posi-
tions on agency and structure of structuration theory, and that ontology is be-
fore epistemology). For example, structures do NOT CAUSE the properties 
of social kinds (as being antecedent conditions for a subsequent effect); in-
stead, they constitute these properties, they make those properties possible. 
Social kinds are constituted in a holistic way by the external structures in 
which they are embedded. What these kinds are (what) or how they come in-
to being (how possible) is dependent on the specific social structure (Wendt 
1999: 84). This is exactly the line that a constitutive explanation takes (be-
cause ontology before epistemology: epistemology reflects ontology). 
In sum: Wendt holds that “ideas or social structures have constitutive ef-
fects when they create phenomena – properties, powers, dispositions, mean-
ings, etc. – that are conceptually or logically dependent on those ideas or 
structures, that exist only ‘in virtue of’ them” (Wendt 1999: 88). A constitu-
tive explanation describes causal mechanisms and inference ranging from 
(observable) phenomena to underlying causal mechanisms (unobservable 
structures and their constitutive effects), not subsuming events under laws 
and regularities (Wendt 1999: 82). 
To ask constitutive questions is usually the domain of interpretivists, crit-
ical theorists and postmodernists, and requires interpretive methods (Wendt 
1999: 85). Constitutive theories thus have a large descriptive dimension, but 
there is also an explanatory function for this type of theory. 
In fact, what Wendt offers is epistemologically quite a “relaxed” position: 
“In my view the real lesson of realism in the realm of causal explanation is to 
encourage a pragmatic approach, with the methodological criterion being 
whatever helps us understand how the world works. Methods appropriate to 
answer one question may differ from those for another. Scientific realism 
corrects philosophies of science which say that all explanations must conform 
to a single model, but otherwise leaves science to scientists” (Wendt 1999: 
83; my italics). 

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4.3. Epistemological interdependence: explaining by “structural-
historical analysis” 
For Wendt, there is a need for an explicit epistemological and methodological 
distinction between the two “logics” of the questions: structural (constitutive) 
analysis explains the “possible” (how-possible and what-questions), while 
“historical analysis” explains the “actual” (why-question). However, explain-
ing the “possible” and “what” by constitutive theory is only the first step. If 
the relevant activating conditions are not there, then they will not be actual-