Feminism and Constructivism: A Comparison

The discipline of international relations (IR) is one that has witnessed a multitude of variations and shifts. It has produced a fair amount of debate between academics within the international relations scholarship. Due to a plethora of circumstances scholars have subjected the traditional rationalist theories of neorealism and neoliberalism to critical re-evaluations. As a result, constructivism is a concept that has emerged as an alternative approach to dominant IR theories. It focuses on the importance …

…incentives of states. There exists the conviction that due to their shared ontological basis, feminist theories can proverbially 'fill in the blanks' for the holes in constructivism and vice versa. As this paper illustrates, there are inherent differences in both theories, each with its fair share of strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, their similar commitments to an ontology of 'becoming' and social construction have allowed international theory discussion to move beyond the traditional and dominant ideologies.