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Reference profile · Thinker

Alexander Wendt

Constructivist international relations theory

Public posture

This profile codes rivalry as socially contingent and gives identity its greatest explanatory weight.

Canonical texts on identity formation and cultures of anarchy in the coded source record.

This reading covers 1992–1999. It does not attribute a present-day position from older works.

The argument

Wendt questions a starting assumption shared by many debates about cooperation: that states arrive with fixed, self-interested identities. His 1994 argument asks whether interaction can change who states understand themselves to be, and therefore what they want.

How it works

If repeated interaction produces a collective identity, another state's interests can become part of how an actor defines its own. The proposed mechanism is a change in interests, beyond bargaining more efficiently over interests that stay fixed.

Coding record
Scope: FoundationReviewed 13 Jul 2026Version 2

Position in the field

This profile appears as a reading card. A map position requires all seven Foundation dimensions, linked evidence, and a completed second-person review.

Evidence

Support by dimension

Each dimension shows its interpretation and a supporting note. Open the source detail for the full evidence. Raw coding coefficients stay in the Methods record.

Security rivalry partial

Rivalry is contingent, not inherent in anarchy.

Establishes the contingency of rivalry and the social formation of interests.

Sources and full evidence
Institutions and rules partial

Rules matter as part of social structure, though regime design is not the main concern.

Establishes the contingency of rivalry and the social formation of interests.

Sources and full evidence
Domestic politics sparse

The main framework is systemic, not domestic.

Develops the systemic framework through distinct cultures of anarchy.

Sources and full evidence
Identity and legitimacy strong

Identities and interests are socially produced and reproduced in interaction.

Establishes the contingency of rivalry and the social formation of interests.

Sources and full evidence
Markets and dependenceNo coded position
Restraint and advantage sparse

The score depends on which culture of anarchy is in view.

Establishes the contingency of rivalry and the social formation of interests.

Sources and full evidence
Order and justice partial

The work allows movement toward friendship, mutual aid and more solidaristic order forms.

Establishes the contingency of rivalry and the social formation of interests.

Sources and full evidence

Sources

Works behind this reading

  1. Canonical work · Tier 3Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics — Alexander WendtInternational Organization; archive PDF, 1992
  2. Canonical work · Tier 3Social Theory of International Politics — Alexander WendtCambridge University Press; archive PDF, 1999
  3. Canonical work · Tier 3Collective Identity Formation and the International State — Alexander WendtAmerican Political Science Review; Cambridge Core, 1994

Disputed readings

  • The political-economy dimension remains uncoded because the source base is too thin for reliable coding.
  • Wendt leaves room for rivalry and enmity as well as friendship.
  • The framework is contingent rather than normatively linear.

Revisions

  1. v112 Jul 2026Imported as a reading-card research draft with one uncoded dimension.
  2. v213 Jul 2026Published after second-person evidence review against the approved source pack.

See an error in this coding? Send the public source and disputed dimension through the corrections page. Accepted corrections appear under Revisions.

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