Engaging the primary-secondary distinction with constructivism

Despite Buzan’s advances, thus, the relation between primary and secondary institutions remains an open question in English School theorizing. I contend that a more thorough engagement with constructivist and institutionalist ideas offers the key to remedying this shortcoming. Several constructivist authors have called to acknowledge the constitutive effects of more specific rules, which are often only seen as regulative or functional (Kratochwil and Ruggie 1986; Onuf 1989). In a contribution to a volume on

13 The methodological implications of this understanding are criticized by Navari (2009c: 45–46).

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regime theory, Hurrell (1993: 59) writes: “The functional benefits of specific rules are, therefore, only one part of the picture. An essential element is the legitimacy of rules which derives from the common sense of being part of a legal community [...].” The constitutive character of specific rules – or secondary institutions – is rooted in the acknowledgement by the actors that their identity as a member of the international community is dependent on their acceptance of the rules, and visible in their efforts to justify their actions. Similarly, Adler (1997: 345) notices that “international organizations can be a site of interest and identity formation”, granting or denying recognition as a member of the global ‘community of nations’, as in the case of the United Nations (UN), or of a region, as in the case of regional organizations such as the EU.

In a response to two critical reactions to ‘From International to World Society’, Buzan (2005: 190–191) is quite accommodating towards such arguments about the constitutive effects of secondary institutions and admits: “one of the unresolved questions left hanging in the book is where, if anywhere, the constitutive power of institutions of any sort stops.” However, his individualist approach and his conception of institutions seem to distract him from a potential solution. Locating structure in unit properties, he defines institutions as “durable and recognized patterns of shared practices rooted in values held commonly by the members of interstate societies, [and]

embodying a mix of norms, rules and principles” (Buzan 2004: 181, emphasis added).¹⁴ This definition, which conflates norms, rules and practice, ties in with Bull’s (1977: 74) definition of institutions in ‘The Anarchical Society’ as “a set of habits and practices shaped towards the realization of common goals”. Both conceptions are rooted in a behaviouralist understanding of institutions, represented among others by March and Olsen (March and Olsen 1998: 948; Raymond 1997), who see institutions as “a relatively stable collection of practices and rules defining appropriate behaviour for specific groups of actors in specific situations”. The most striking characteristic of this definition is the identification of behaviour or practice as an element of institutions. As Duffield (2007: 4) notes, “the primary emphasis is on the actions and activities of the

14 To be exact, this definition refers to primary institutions, but there is nothing to indicate that the centrality of practice should not pertain to his definition of secondary institutions as well. More on the primary-secondary distinction below.

43 actors concerned rather than other institutional features.” If interactions are permanent and rule-bound, then they are institutional.

The habit of conflating practice and norms has been criticized by a range of authors. The reasons for this critique include that practice must not necessarily be informed by underlying norms or rules, that norms and rules can exist despite their disregard in practice (Onuf 1989: 71, 78; Raymond 1997: 217), different practices can uphold the same norms (Knudsen 2015b: 17) and that, from a methodological standpoint, the conceptual integration of norms and behaviour precludes the use of the former to explain the latter (Duffield 2007: 4; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 892). From the point of view of this thesis, the main disadvantage of merging institutions and practice is that it obscures the ways by which the former emerge out of the latter and the latter are constitutive of the former (Wendt 1999: 26–27). The approach is also inept to account for cases when different institutions formulate contradictory expectations – a likely scenario, as I have pointed out above. Without an account of these mechanisms, it is hard to clarify the relation between regional organizations and regional normative deep structures.

By contrast, if one adopts an intersubjective ontology, institutions are seen as sets of intersubjectively held meanings, which are analytically separated from the practice of international actors. Behaviour which is inconsistent with prevailing norms does not invalidate those norms, as long as it is perceived as a transgression of the boundaries of acceptable behaviour by the perpetrator or by others. It thus opposes approaches which ascribe an inherent normative quality to practices as such (Bull 1977;

Navari 2011) and sees practice instead as guided by norms – an idea that is also prominent in sociological institutionalism (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). While institutions are analytically separate from practice, they are intricately linked to it in a structurationist process: they emerge from interaction and at the same time inform interaction by defining who can count as a legitimate actor and what is perceived as legitimate practice (Giddens 1984; Kratochwil and Ruggie 1986; Onuf 1989; Reus-Smit 1999).¹⁵ In the English School, such a structurationist interpretation of international institutions is also suggested by Knudsen (2015b). The intersubjectivist approach draws

15 The social-theoretical concept of structuration was famously introduced into IR theory by Wendt (1987; see also 1999: 139–190; Wendt and Duvall 1989). Other appropriations include Kratochwil and Ruggie (1986), and Onuf (1989).

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attention to two kinds of mechanisms that link institutions and practice: on the one hand, the processes of institutionalization by which collectively held meanings emerge, and on the other, the processes of constitution by which these meanings are informative of practice. In this sense, I take international institutions to be sets of discursively formulated expectations about legitimate actorness and rightful conduct in international relations.

To sum these thoughts up, Buzan’s distinction between primary and secondary institutions promises to clarify the relation between different institutional levels, but so far this promise remains unfulfilled. I propose that adopting an intersubjectivist conception of international society offers a way of answering open questions because it draws attention to the mechanisms by which different kinds of institutions emerge from the practice of regional actors and in turn shape this very practice. Applying this idea not only, as Knudsen (2015b) does, to primary but also to secondary institutions opens up ways of including the latter more firmly as elements of English School theory and analysis in their own right, because it allows us to distinguish between primary and secondary institutions within a single ontology. In the following section, I expand on this point by developing a model of change and continuity in primary and secondary institutions.