2
is then a process by which each subject is animated by a running narrative and commits
actions toward other narrating subjects. By specifying the impact of narratives upon
actions and actions upon narratives, I shall trace the processes of reproduction of
structures in international society.
The main premise of constructivism in macrosocial analyses is that structures of
meaning circulated in discourses record and shape the perceptions and decisions of group
actors. The discourses of interest here are practical, they concern what has happened to
the subject and what should be done. I shall develop a dynamic constructivist model that
offers a solution to the agent structure problem as identified by IR structurationists
(Wendt 1987; Dessler 1989; Carlsnaes 1992), and escapes some of the limitations that
Roxanne Doty (1997) observes in previous solution efforts. This paper will address the
hard challenge that Doty (1997) throws toward those like myself who would model
historical structures.
Richard Ashley (1989) and Doty (1997) argue that history is undecidable. Actions
are impossible without structure, and cannot be coherently described without a
description of preexisting structures. But such a description of structures is impossible
since structures only exist within actions. Doty observes in effect that people are forced
into a series of deceptions in any attempt to describe history. I will not argue that Ashley
(1989) and Doty (1997) are entirely wrong, only that it is possible to push back the veil of
undecidability.
Doty finds that the IR structurationist account of agents and structures are
ultimately incompatible. This incompatibility is elaborated in two major points. First
there is the paradox of free will and determinism.
These two ideas, that (1) agents could have acted otherwise and that (2) structures
are an ever present condition for agency, are arguable at odds with one another …
(Doty 1997:373).
In the presence of this paradox, the attempt of structurationists to preserve some
autonomy for agents forces this approach to “take human agents, at least in their capacity
to do otherwise, as a priori entities having interests, motivations and powers that are
neither enabled nor constrained by structures” and thereby to fail in its project of
reconciling agency and structure (Doty 1997: 373). Given this impasse, structurationists
Convention