The cultural basis of states' interests and actions. On the recent debate concerning the concept of "culture" in international relations

The recent past has witnessed an impressive upswing of cultural analyses in international relations (IR). In this article we especially concentrate on social constructivist studies emphasizing that state interests are shaped and influenced by culture and which demonstrate this claim empirically The results of these studies invariably challenge traditional IR approaches. But how do these approaches fare compared to approaches to culture in other disciplines? Cultural approaches in IR conceive of culture as a subjective factor that is internalized, homogeneous and consistent; the focus of study is on individual actors. As a reaction to such an understanding students of cultural theory and sociology developed an objective approach to culture. Such an understanding is also prevalent in neo-institutionalist approaches to IR. Both positions have major advantages and disadvantages: Subjective approaches neglect structure, while objective ones underestimate the impact of agency. We argue that approaches to culture should concentrate more on the interactive level between cultural structures and actors. We discuss two empirical approaches to such a concept that might be able to provide crucial insights into cultural dynamics, cultural change and non-compliance. By analysing cultural change, students of culture need to arrive at a theory about the conditions under which actors are able to change cultural practices. The study of non-compliant behaviour; on the other hand, leads to insights about what kind of cultural scripts are available in the international system in the first place. It might also discover the conditions under which actors are able to use cultural norms in an instrumental way to legitimize their actions and when they conform to cultural prescriptions. We call for a more thorough dialogue, e.g. between cognitive regime analysis and cultural approaches, as there are obviously overlapping research interests.