2011/07/20 by Felix Berenskoetter, Felix Berensköetter · 108 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Constructivism (international relations) #Critical Realism in Sociology #Epistemology #Geist #International relations #Law #Management and Organizational Studies #Philosophy #Political science #Politics #Psychology #Reflexivity #Social Representations and Identity #Social science #Sociology #Vision
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1468-2478.2011.00669.x
published in International Studies Quarterly 55(3), 647-668 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2011/07/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
This article argues that constructivists committed to reflexivity should be students of the future. It notes that both conventional and critical approaches do not sufficiently engage with the problem of future uncertainty in the process of identity formation and neglect its behavioural implications. Against this backdrop, the article regrounds constructivism in a temporal ontology and the argument that humans, in the face of contingency, seek to establish visions of a meaningful future. It discusses how visions, as utopias and/or dystopias, define possibilities of being and thereby provide actors with a sense of direction, and it differentiates between “robust” and “creative” visions to highlight two ways in which such possibilities are manifested. In doing so, the article encourages constructivists to become more attentive in identifying the visions which enable and bind creative agents in the process of realization.