Rules, agency, and international structuration

ANALYTICAL ESSAY

Rules, Agency, and InternationalStructuration1

Sanjoy Banerjee

San Francisco State University

This article advances a unified explanation of intersubjective rules,international agents, and historical structures. It also ties in nationalidentity narratives and international practices. It shows that rules, suit-ably defined, instantiate and assemble themselves to form national-auto-biographical narratives that become the identities of states, motivatingtheir actions and practices. Agents here do not follow rules, rather self-activating rules constitute agents. Rules are distributed across states andother agents, some shared widely and others held narrowly. A rule cangain or lose credibility among the agents it constitutes. Rules dependon the operation of other agents’ rules for their credibility. An interna-tional historical structure is a collection of rules distributed among dif-ferent states that operate to vindicate each other. The rules, shared anddivided across agents, motivate practices that vindicate the rules. Thisprocess of structuration gives rise to enduring social networks of agentsconnected by interdependent practices. This process also yields the his-torical dynamics of the rise, fall, and succession of structures. Structuresrise, unevenly, as new rules and practices join into the reproductionprocess and some old ones drop out. Structures break down when somerules are discredited, leading to a disruption of established practices,causing the discredit of yet more rules. Agents can be transformedradically. This model has strong empirical reference as the rules definecategories, norms, and causal beliefs visible in discourse. The case ofUS-Russian relations is used for illustration.

This article proposes a theory that ties together two important threads of theconstructivist International Relations (IR) literature. First, the agent–structureproblem in IR theory is now long recognized (Wendt 1987, 1999; Dessler 1989).An explanation is problematic if it gives ontological priority either to purposiveagents or to enabling and constraining structures. Second, constructivist IR the-ory has recognized the importance of intersubjective rules (Dessler 1989; Krat-ochwil 1989; Onuf 1989; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Duffy and Frederking2009). An intersubjective rule is one communicated among persons and collec-tive actors and comes to be known in common in a community. Intersubjectiverules enable members of the community to communicate further, to negotiate,

1Author’s note: An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2012 International Studies Association-WestConference in Pasadena, CA. I wish to thank Kristin Fabbe and Brent Steele for helpful comments. Anonymousreferees also made helpful comments. Responsibility for all errors is mine alone.

Banerjee, Sanjoy. (2015) Rules, Agency, and International Structuration. International Studies Review, doi: 10.1111/misr.12221© 2015 International Studies Association

International Studies Review (2015) 0, 1–24

info:doi/10.1111/misr.12221

to commit actions intended to elicit particular responses, and to recognize inten-tions of others’ actions. Shared rules make international interaction possible.The literatures in IR on agent–structure relations and on intersubjective rules

are weakly integrated. In social theory, Giddens (1979) has famously argued thatsocial structures are composed of rules, as well as resources. He and othersdefine structuration as a dynamic process by which rules and practices organizethemselves into structures. Dessler (1989) examines both the agent–structureproblem and rules in IR, exploring how agents can act upon shared rules tochange or preserve structure. Little further, however, has been done in this vein.Wendt (1999), who has the most prominent reconstruction of constructivist the-ory in IR today, relies little on the concept of rules as established in the litera-ture. He prefers the broader term “ideas.”I will develop a model of structuration based on rules and narratives. The

argument advanced here is that rules, some held widely in the global communityand others within only one or a few states, combine dynamically to form bothagents and structure. These self-activating rules are of constitutive, regulative,and causal types. Rules are ontologically primitive here, and I will show how lar-ger objects arise from the activity of rules. Rules have some key features andoperations that enable them to function as I propose. Each rule is intersubjec-tively or commonly known within a particular community of persons at any onetime. Rules instantiate themselves upon particular events and objects. Rules con-nect in networks to each other, the context of one rule being formed byinstances of other rules. And, rules vindicate or discredit themselves uponencountering various sequences of actions. Over a historical sequence, rulesoperate and combine to form agents and their practices, as well as structuresthat rise and fall.I will show that, within a community, shared rules of the three types and their

instances accumulate and connect to form an autobiographical narrative of thatcommunity, which serves as an action-guiding identity. Situations are con-structed, and the narrative is updated as events instantiate rules held by thatcommunity. The identity narrative then motivates action. In this way, sharedrules turn the human community that shares them into collective agents. Thismodel of structure and its reproduction are rooted in the requirement that rulesbe vindicated for their continued instantiation. The vindication of a rule held byan agent requires the occurrence of certain sequences of actions and not others.These actions are enacted by other agents constituted and motivated by theirown rules. In this way, rules (distributed across agents) are interdependent. Themodel traces how disparate and discordant rules are interdependent for theirvindication. Yet if some rules are discredited, the altered pattern of action coulddiscredit more rules. By such a process, a structure breaks down and a new struc-ture can begin reproducing itself.This article will rectify important lacunae in some leading constructivist theo-

ries. First, Wendt’s (1999) understanding of identity does not provide us anontology or method to trace the processes by which (i) identities generateactions, (ii) identities are updated, and (iii) structures reproduce themselves orbreak down. Second, identity is represented here as a narrative, which contrastswith the representation preferred by Rumelili (2004) and Hopf (2009), amongothers, who portray identity through opposed pairs of categories separating selffrom other. I will argue in the section about agents and their identities that thenarrative representation is necessary to explain actions situated in historicalsequence. And third, this article differs in its treatment of rules from those byKratochwil (1989), Onuf (1989), and Duffy and Frederking (2009) in how itrelates rules to actions and how it accounts for the persistence or demise ofsocial rules. In addition, as I will show in my account of practices below, thetreatment of practices here satisfies criteria for good empirical theorizing of

2 Rules, Agency, and International Structuration

practices put forward by Adler and Pouliot (2011) and Kratochwil (2011) intheir discussion of the “practice turn.”After the dissolution of the USSR, there was a brief period when the Russian

leadership narrated their country as on a journey to “join the club” of democra-cies and market economies in Europe (Kozyrev 1993). It expected acknowledg-ment from the West. Under this Russian identity, a structure of cooperative butasymmetric interaction between the West and Russia persisted for a few yearsbefore NATO expansion and other Western policies alarmed the Russian public.Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev (1995), the prime advocate of the Europhileidentity, himself constructed Western actions as denying acknowledgment of Rus-sia’s democratic initiative. The expectations of the Russian identity were con-tradicted by the new episode. In 1996, Kozyrev lost his job and the structure ofasymmetrical cooperation collapsed. A new government with an identity of a Eur-asian Russia took office (Tsygankov 2007) and initiated a new line of foreign pol-icy. We can observe situation construction, identity updating, the breakdown ofa structure of interaction, and the sprouting of a new one. Wendt (1999) doesnot capture these phenomena adequately.Wendt’s (1999) model of action involves identity and also a concept of inter-

ests that lacks clear empirical reference. He does not offer a model of situationconstruction. In this article, agents’ identities generate their actions through situ-ation construction. No additional concept of interests is required. The processof rule instantiation here drives agents’ construction of situations, which in turnlead to actions. Kozyrev’s construction of the situation was important because itcontradicted the Russian identity he advocated.Identities require updating. Wendt (1999:163, 219) does acknowledge that

identities of collective agents are constituted by shared memory narratives. Butas new events occur, they can be remembered only by updating memory narra-tives. The model of narratives must allow this to happen. However, most repre-sentations of international narratives, including Wendt (1999), render them asfixed and static, like finished fictional narratives. Logically, a finished narrativecannot be changed and thus cannot be updated. A model of updating requiresthe identification of the types of components comprising the narrative andallows for new instances of those types to appear. In this article, the instantiationof rules updates identity narratives. This article will show that Kozyrev’s updates(by 1995) yielded a Russian Europhile identity narrative fraught with contradic-tions.Finally, the reproduction and breakdown of structure should be traced, onto-

logically and empirically. Wendt (1999:146) acknowledges that internationalstructures are reproduced by interactive practices. He also acknowledges thatinternational political cultures are collectively self-fulfilling prophecies (Wendt1999:184–189), but his (1999) ontology does not enable us to trace these pro-cesses. Wendt (1999) also acknowledges the importance of structural changeand even breakdown, but does not explain how structures break down. Themodel here traces the process of reproduction (or of breakdown) of a structureof interaction as well as of the internationally distributed culture from whichidentities of different states are drawn. I shall illustrate the historical dynamic ofidentities and structures through the case of the relationship between the Westand Russia.In my model, rules will impart historical dynamics to identities and structures.

But, to do so, rules will have to be treated carefully. The treatment of rules heredeparts from that of Onuf (1989) and Kratochwil (1989), as well as from Duffyand Frederking (2009), whose formal linguistic model builds on Onuf (1989).The two main differences appear in describing how rules relate to action and infeedback into rules. These authors connect rules directly to actions, treatingmaterial actions as having, like speech acts, meanings defined by rules. They do

Sanjoy Banerjee 3

not elaborate how rules generate situated intentions of action. Here too, rulesenable actions to have meanings, but in addition agents’ rule instances assembleinto their autobiographical narratives and generate action intentions in historicalsequence. These narratives enable agents to represent time and sequence, whichis necessary for situated action, while rules in themselves do not. In addition, theaforementioned authors treat rules as persisting unproblematically, like solidobjects. In our model, fresh applications of rules are contingent on the successof earlier applications. This model of rules accounts for their rise and fall.In this article, a process of structuration with four recurring steps (sketched in

Figure 1) will be traced. First, the latest actions instantiate some rules sharedand divided among the agents. These rule instances form the agents’ situationconstructions. Recent memory—earlier rule instances—serves to vindicate somerules and discredit others. Second, instances of vindicated rules are assembled intheir temporal order into corporate-autobiographical narratives from past topresent, and a future is projected. Updates occur in the present, which can alterprojected futures. Third, these narratives form identities with particular futuresvalued as destinies. As updated narratives project futures diverging from the des-tinies, identities motivate their agents to act with the intentions of restoring pro-gress toward their destinies. Fourth, agents commit the intended actions,proposing rules to other agents that would elicit desired actions from them inresponse. The actions themselves are responses to earlier proposals by otheragents. These actions return us to the first step, and the cycle repeats, now withupdated narrative memories. This process can form a self-reproducing historicalstructure with some enduring rules and with a dynamic of the accumulation ofvindicated rules. Reproduction can also break down if the discredit of some rulesleads to the discredit of others.I shall propose a theory that starts with nothing but constitutive, regulative,

and causal rules and shows how these give rise to agents and structuration. I willthen show that my theory does rectify the lacunae mentioned above. The sectionbelow gives a detailed account of rules. The third section will show how rulesapplied to objects and events can assemble themselves into narratives. Thefourth shows that rule-based narratives can generate corporate international

FIG 1. Structuration as Activity of Rules Among International Agents


agents with identities, intentions, and practices. The fifth section will show how aself-reproducing historical structure can arise from rule-based processes. Thesixth section explores two emergent properties of this agent–structure recursion.Social networks emerge from the process. Also, historical dynamics of the riseand fall of structures emerge. In the seventh and concluding section, I will arguethat the theory does indeed enable tracing processes of action generation, narra-tive updating, and of the reproduction and breakdown of structures. The theo-retical discussion below will be illustrated by examining the structuration of US–Russia interaction during the period 1991–2007. I will show the interdependenceof rules and practices between the two states.

Rules

This section turns to a careful account of rules, detailing their features and activ-ity. In succeeding sections, I will show how rules give rise to agents and struc-tures. Rules are divided into three kinds here—constitutive, regulative, andcausal. The literature on rules in IR and social theory has embraced constitutiveand regulative rules. Giddens (1979:82–83) interprets these as meanings andnorms, respectively. I will argue for the necessity of a third-type, causal rules.Onuf (1989) has developed a sophisticated theory of international rules, posit-

ing three types. In addition to types similar to constitutive and regulative rules,he posits a third type: commitment rules, by which agents can make promises.For Onuf (1989), rules are not inert. Rather, rules themselves are actual orpotential speech acts. He holds, for example, that instructional rules (which likeconstitutive rules create categories applicable to objects) are assertive speechacts. These rules assert that a category does apply to a particular object or canapply to a class of objects. Onuf (1989:84) holds that speech acts become sharedrules when they receive recurring assent from interlocutors. This conversationalmodel of rules is valuable because it tells us how to find shared rules empirically.We would need to examine international dialogues and look for speech acts andassenting speech acts that respond to them.The treatment of rules here will differ somewhat from that in Onuf (1989)

and in Duffy and Frederking (2009), who build on Onuf’s treatment. I followtheir lead toward active rules and recognize constitutive and regulative rules,which correspond closely to Onuf (1989) instruction rules and directive rules. Ishall proceed without Onuf’s commitment rules. I will treat promises, which willfigure in my model, as regulative rules applied to the self and to future action. Ishall introduce causal rules as a third class of rules, because they play major rolesin the vindication of constitutive rules and in narratives.Some IR scholars have followed John Searle and assigned constitutive rules the

format “X counts as Y in context C,” and regulative rules “Do X in context C”(Dessler 1989:455). When “context C” is in effect, the rules assert “X is a Y” ordirect an agent to “do X.” Within this convention, the Xs and Ys refer to differ-ent kinds of things in the two kinds of rules. In constitutive rules, the X is a par-ticular event or object to which the category of Y applies. Constitutive rules, tobe represented here as “X is a Y in context C,” are rules for recognizing the occur-rences of categories. We can call “X is a Y” the head of the rule and the rest ofit the context. In regulative rules, which will be represented as “Agent A shoulddo X in context C,” X is a category of action that can be committed by A.Constitutive rules can emerge historically as analogies or metaphors. These

two tropes proclaim similarity among distinct objects, which then become exam-ples of a category and instances of the category’s constitutive rule. The Munichanalogy in Western security discourse gave rise to the category of Western

Sanjoy Banerjee 5

appeasement of aggressive tyrants. Khong’s (1992) theory of historical analogiesshows that policymakers match features of current and past situations. Flanik(2011) and Blanchard (2013) demonstrate that important categories in foreignpolicy discourse are rooted in conceptual metaphors. Analogies and metaphorsproclaim that certain objects have features similar to the objects from which theanalogies or metaphors are sourced. These features then form the context of aconstitutive rule defining the category all these objects fit.Constitutive rules can enter discourse either semantically or pragmatically.

Implicit pragmatic categories are employed especially when it is politically costlyto speak more explicitly. The semantic explication of a rule involves key wordsor phrases that are widely repeated and recognized. An example of a semanti-cally explicated rule is the Russian constitutive rule of “European” and “civi-lized.” During 1992–1994, pro-Western liberals would use these words todescribe Russia and its direction (Tsygankov 2007; Clunan 2009). The “Euro-pean” rule circulated both in the Russian domestic discourse and in thediplomatic discourse between Russia and the West during this period. A moreself-confident version of the rule made a brief comeback after Putin’s election in1999. He made the category of “European” explicit in his speech to the Bundes-tag in German in 2001:

People in Russia have always had special feelings for Germany, and have seenyour country as one of the most important centers of European culture—a cul-ture, to whose development Russia has also made no small contribution. A cul-ture that knew no borders, and which always belonged to us in common, andunited our peoples . . . (POR 2001).

In the American discourse in the 1990s, there was a semantically explicitinstantiation, albeit by the use of diverse terms and phases, of the United Statesas the leader and primary custodian of Western modern institutions. The ruledeemed the United States responsible for the worldwide propagation of theseinstitutions as necessary foundations of modernity. There was also an implicitpragmatic treatment of Russia as a pupil—as an instance of a rule for pupil. Thelatter was not said explicitly; quite to the contrary, the term “equal partner” wasrepeated. Nonetheless, the American mode of address toward Russia was astoward a pupil. In President Clinton’s telecast speech in Moscow in January1994, for example, his advice on how the host country should reform its econ-omy and political system was quite detailed by the standards of diplomatic proto-col (C-SPAN 1994).Regulative rules can apply themselves to actions in the past as moral judg-

ments, in the present as mandates for action, and in the future as promises or asobligations upon another. Causal rules have not been discussed in IR as rules,but still have roots in that literature. There is extensive discussion of causalbeliefs in IR in the literature on cognitive maps (see Bonham, Sergeev, and Par-shin 1997). A causal belief can be represented as an intersubjective causal rule as“X causes Y in context C.” The cause X and effect Y are categories of events orphenomena. Causal rules can project into the future by linking a current causeto a future effect.Constitutive, regulative, and causal rules are intertwined. The category of

action in a regulative rule must also be defined by a constitutive rule. The prohi-bition against aggression requires a definition of aggression—a constitutive rule.Similarly, the cause and effect categories of causal rules must have their ownconstitutive rules. Regulative rules are often if not always based on causal rules.The obligation to commit an action is frequently tied to the belief that theaction will cause beneficial effects.


My model will attend to the contexts of rules in some detail. While Searle’s(2010) formula “X counts as Y in context C” has been deployed frequently in IRand social theory, there has been virtually no elaboration or clarification of “con-text C” in those literatures. The further understanding of rules requires an elab-oration of their contexts. The context of one rule refers to other rules—thecontext is fulfilled when specified other rules are instantiated.The explicit representation of rules’ contexts as current and past instances of

other rules has explanatory advantages. First, representation of contexts clarifieshow rules activate themselves. Second, representation of contexts lends greaterempirical reference to rules. If we can specify the context in which a rule shouldactivate in its community, we can check whether members of the communityinvoke the rule when its context is realized—when the other rules required bythe context have also been invoked in the same community. Third, the represen-tation of its context specifies how the rule gains and loses credibility. The con-text of a rule may refer not only to current conditions that instantiate the rule,but also to past events that would vindicate it. If the community’s memory is asthe rule’s context requires, the rule is vindicated within the community.Examples of constitutive, regulative, and causal rules at work can be seen in

Russian President Putin’s speech to the 2007 Munich Security Conference. Thatspeech was then one of the most explicit statements yet given of Russia’s risingopposition to the norms of military intervention advocated by the United Statesand some other Western states. After criticizing the Italian Defense Minister forsuggesting the European Union and NATO, along with the UN, could authorizelegitimate force, he said: “The use of force can only be considered legitimate ifthe decision is sanctioned by the UN. And we do not need to substitute NATOor the European Union for the UN” (POR 2007). Assuming that Putin assentedto the UN Charter’s sanction of self-defense, his constitutive rule for “legitimateuse of force” can be represented as:

X is legitimate use of force in the context

X is self-defense orX is authorized by the UN

Putin elaborated his criticism of Western doctrines of intervention (POR2007):

Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems.Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centers of ten-sion. . .And no less people perish in these conflicts—even more are dying thanbefore. Significantly more, significantly more!

He implicates both a regulative and a causal rule in this passage. The regula-tive rule is semantically implicated by the word “illegitimate.” The rule is as fol-lows:

Agent A should not do X in the context

X is a use of force andnot (X is legitimate use of force).

The causal rule can be represented as follows:

X causes more deaths in the context

Sanjoy Banerjee 7

X is a use of force andnot (X is legitimate use of force) andRecent instances of X have been followed by more deaths.

The last clause of the causal rule is a way of checking that recent illegitimatemilitary interventions into violent situations at least correlate with increases inviolence. This last clause is critical for vindication or discredit of the rule.We can now elaborate upon four features of rules. First, intersubjective rules

have communities. As Wendt (1999) shows, an ontology in IR benefits from clarify-ing how knowledge held by states relates to knowledge held by persons. A rule isintersubjective within a particular community of persons. The rule is communi-cated among the human individuals in the community and becomes their com-mon knowledge or common belief. A rule is known in common among certainpersons if each knows the rule, each knows that the others know the rule, andeach knows that (Wendt 1999:159–160). Common knowledge of a rule amonginterlocutors is necessary for its recurring and reliable communication. Finne-more and Sikkink (1998) can be understood to demonstrate how the communi-ties of common belief in certain regulative rules can grow over time.A community here is a set of people with one or more common rules. Com-

munities with appropriate repertoires of common rules form agents, and weshall see below what repertoire an agent needs. A community accumulates rulesfrom a recursive process where first the community has some common rules thatenable the communication of more rules, and then, the community gains com-mon knowledge of those additional rules. Two or more agents can form a com-munity through shared rules of interaction. As we shall see later, communities oftwo agents, with each pair sharing rules and instances through their interaction,can connect to form social networks.Second, rules have instances. When the contextual conditions of a rule are met

by the instantiation of the other rules, the rule instantiates itself. The generalrule attaches itself to a particular object. A rule, once in circulation in the dis-course of a community, instantiates itself somewhat automatically within thatcommunity. Such instantiation may require deliberate or even courageous actionby individuals within the community, but does not require a collective action bythe community as a whole. Rule instantiation is prior to collective action. For acommunity to share a rule, it should also share some instances of the rule. Inaddition to knowing its rules, the community knows in common particular eventsand objects to which the rules have applied. A community perceives events col-lectively through the instantiation of its rules. For Putin and those who sharedhis rules, the US intervention in Iraq and the NATO intervention in Kosovowere negative instances of “legitimate use of force” rules as they were neitherself-defense nor authorized by the UN Security Council. In politically diversecommunities in America and the West, these same events were instances of dif-ferent rules.For a rule to be instantiated and its instance believed in its community as a

true description, the rule must retain credibility. We shall see below how rulescan keep or lose credibility. It is possible for two or more incompatible rules tocompete for instantiation. The contest between the two will depend on their rel-ative credibility. A rule with declining credibility within a community will instanti-ate itself in the discourse of that community with declining frequency. Around2004, the American discourse about Russia witnessed a contest between an estab-lished set of rules in which Russia was a pupil of America, sometimes errant, andanother set in which Russia was an instance of “authoritarian” and “imperialist”(Tsygankov 2009). We shall see that the latter set of rules was vindicated andwon the contest of instantiation subsequently.


Third, rules are networked. Each rule is defined in terms of other rules. Constit-utive, regulative, and causal rules are networked with each other. The context ofa constitutive rule includes the heads of other constitutive rules. In the exampleabove, the constitutive rule for “legitimate use of force” contains in its context aclause about “self-defense,” and there would be a separate constitutive rule for“self-defense.” Those two constitutive rules are linked. Constitutive rules for mor-ally judgmental categories, such as for “tyrant” or “responsible,” are linked toregulative rules. Further, the heads of constitutive rules form parts of the con-texts of causal and regulative rules. The networking of rules governs their instan-tiation. One rule can instantiate itself only after the other rules that define itscontext have. The networking of rules allows individually simple rules to beapplied with subtlety, and with elaborate political implications. Two communitiesmay have two rules for “aggression” that are quite similar, but due to differencesin networking, an event may instantiate one of those rules and not the other.One important type of rule networking is the logical linking of regulative rules

as contracts. The regulative rules of a contract would say “Agent A should do X inthe context Agent B is doing Y,” and “Agent B should do Y in the context Agent A isdoing X.” An agent can offer a contract to another by invoking such a combina-tion of regulative rules. In a contract offer, an agent tries to induce the patientto uphold one end of the contract by actually upholding its own end, or promis-ing to do so. Offers of such contracts are, as we shall see, necessary componentsof action in an international arena saturated by rules and witnessing repetitiveinteraction between the same agents. The repetitive acceptance of repetitiveoffers of a contract gives rise to a durable if possibly informal contract betweenagent and patient who then form a link in a social network.Fourth, rules have contingent credibility within a community. The credibility

of a rule can rise or fall. A rule can vindicate or discredit itself in its community.An example of a discredited rule is the post-Soviet Russian causal rule of that“European” states are recognized as such by other European states. The rule canbe represented as:

X is European and Y is European causes Y to recognize that X is European

That causal rule stood discredited in Russian discourse by the middle 1990s.Even Andrei Kozyrev (1995:12), the most prominent exponent of the rule,lamented “it does not matter” in prevailing Western attitudes “who is sitting inthe Kremlin—advocates of partnership with the West or champions of imperialpolicy.” The failure of this causal rule diminished the import of the “European”constitutive rule in the Russian political discourse, and a “Eurasian” categoriza-tion of Russia emerged subsequently (Tsygankov 2007).An example of a vindicated rule is the American causal rule that Western insti-

tutions produce freedom, prosperity, and stability. This vindication wasexpressed in Richard Holbrooke’s non-controversial Senate testimony aboutNATO expansion: “The West owes much of its success to the great institutionscreated in the 1940s and 1950s. These structures offer a usable foundation for anew era. There is no desire and no reason to dismantle these structures—on thecontrary” (FDCH 1995).A discredited rule gradually or suddenly ceases to instantiate itself. History is

replete with categories no longer considered to describe anything real, withnorms superseded, and with causal beliefs that come to be viewed as erroneous.Only the recurring vindication of a rule enables it to avoid this fate. The opera-tion of vindication and discredit of rules is central to the conception of historicalstructure in this theory.The literature on rules in IR and in social theory has largely overlooked the

question of their contingent credibility. There is very little discussion of how

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rules lose their credibility and disappear from the discourses and action inten-tions of communities in which they previously held sway. An adequate theory ofinternational rules should account for the way in which rules can be discreditedamong those who previously subscribed to them, and for how they can be vindi-cated. This involves specifying the logic and semantics by which the rule receivesfeedback. This means the rule must keep track of some of its own past instancesand subsequent events. These subsequent events would be recorded as instancesof other rules held by the same community as the rule in question. The consid-eration of feedback does make the representation of rules more complicated.However, to represent rules as insensitive to feedback is to fail to explain theirrise and fall.Constitutive, regulative, and causal rules are vindicated or discredited in their

own ways. A constitutive rule predicts it will have instances—the objects andevents it defines will occasionally occur. Only then will the rule’s communityconsider it to define something real. A regulative rule anticipates its own consis-tency with other regulative rules. If two regulative rules are instantiated simulta-neously and one prohibits what the other mandates, at least one must losecredibility. Florini (1996) holds that the contest between two incompatible inter-national norms is swayed by their comparative coherence with other norms, aswell as the relative prominence of the two, and by how they fit with the extra-normative environment. A causal rule anticipates a sequence—an instance of theeffect should succeed an instance of the cause. The vindication or discredit ofone rule can promote the vindication or discredit of a linked rule. A constitutiverule is further vindicated if its category is a cause or an effect in a causal rulethat is vindicated. The constitutive rule is found in the community to define anobject having causal import. The constitutive rules defining objects in vindicatedregulative rules also gain increased credibility.Once rules are recognized to have the four features elaborated above, it

becomes possible to build a theory of international narratives, practices, agents,and structures using self-activating rules. This theory will enable us to trace theprocesses of action generation, identity updating, and the reproduction andbreakdown of structures.

Rules and Narratives

The importance of narratives in the constitution of states as international agentshas been widely recognized in the IR literature (Alker 1996; Ringmar 1996;Banerjee 1998; Bially Mattern 2005; Steele 2008). These narratives take the first-person plural perspective of the nation. The collective national self is the hero.These narratives begin in the past and form a shared historical memory. Theyend not in the present but in possible futures, some more desired than others.These narratives are held to guide the actions of states. I will argue in this sec-tion that national autobiographies are formed by instances of constitutive, regu-lative, and causal rules. Networked rules and their instances can join insequences to form narratives with plots.The narratives of interest here are ongoing and temporally situated. We are

considering a historical sequence of actions and how narratives have been main-tained and updated over the course of the sequence. International narrativeshave at every point a past, a present, and a future, as Ringmar (1996:76–77)argues, and these periods are updated. The future is the effect of the presentprojected by the narrative’s causal rules. Narratives are updated by the instantia-tion of rules by current events and objects, and the new episodes formed therebyjoin the present. A fresh and possibly altered future is then projected by causalrules.


Constitutive rules provide the categories of the corporate-autobiographical nar-rative (Banerjee 1998). The particular objects to which a narrative’s constitutiverules apply are the objects of the narrative, such as the characters and theiractions. The constitutive rules describe these objects adequately so they can fitinto regulative and causal rules. Regulative rules are crucial to the constitutionof national autobiographies. Cruz (2000:277) recognizes the role of norms andnormative judgments in national narratives. Hayden White (1987:14), the semi-nal theorist of historiographical narrative, has argued that “every fully realizedstory . . . is a kind of allegory” in that it “points to a moral,” and “every historicalnarrative has as its latent or manifest purpose the desire to moralize the eventswhich it treats.” National autobiographies are, if anything, more overtly allegori-cal than most academic historiography.Causal rules are also crucial to narrative plots. The causal emplotment of

national identity narratives is recognized by Ringmar (1996:74). Steele (2008:72)also observes that causal beliefs order events in state biographical narratives.Causal rules establish later episodes as effects of earlier ones. Causal rules aboutcharacter types also establish actions as effects of the actor’s character and theactions of other actors. In narrative emplotment, causal rules also project thefuture consequences of upholding or violating regulative rules. Right actionyields good fortune and wrong action leads, ultimately, to downfall. Causal rulesare the only sources of episodes set in the future. The plots of stories, includingongoing stories, cohere through casual and moral rules consistently invoked andinstantiated in the story, and through the consistency of constitutive rulesthroughout the story.There are constitutive rules defining particular types of character on the basis

of how the characters uphold or violate regulative rules in various contexts. Therelationship between norm following and reputation is recognized in constructiv-ism (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998:902–904). A state’s reputation can be under-stood as its characterization in the autobiographies of other states andinternational agents. There are causal rules saying that an agent having a partic-ular type of character causes it to uphold or violate particular regulative rules.The plot of an international narrative gets its coherence from the network link-ing together the rules whose instances provide the events and characterizationsof the narrative.Putin’s speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference contains a narrative

about Russia and its relations with other countries in the past and into the pres-ent and the future. This narrative can be represented as a sequence of ruleinstances. It had four main episodes. First, as we saw in Putin’s comments on thelegitimate uses of force, America and some Western countries had in the pastbecome aggressive and had been exacerbating violence through intervention.The constitutive rule for legitimate use of force is instantiated negatively. Theassociated causal and regulative rules are also instantiated.Second, still in the past, through NATO expansion the alliance had been

threatening Russia itself and spoiling a chance of democratic communitybetween Russia and the rest of Europe. Putin said:

“I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with themodernization of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On thecontrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutualtrust. . .But we should not forget that the fall of the Berlin Wall was possiblethanks to a historic choice—one that was also made by our people, the people ofRussia—a choice in favor of democracy, freedom, openness and a sincere part-nership with all the members of the big European family. And now they aretrying to impose new dividing lines and walls on us” (POR 2007).

Sanjoy Banerjee 11

Putin narrates a negative instance of a collective security rule for Europe andinstances of associated regulative and causal rules.Third, Putin argued that in his present, the world was becoming multipolar,

and Russia was pursuing an independent foreign policy. Regarding multipolarity,he highlighted economic growth in Brazil, Russia, India, and China andremarked: “There is no reason to doubt that the economic potential of the newcenters of global economic growth will inevitably be converted into politicalinfluence and will strengthen multipolarity.” Putin referenced an independentforeign policy, saying: “Russia is a country with a history that spans more than a1,000 years and has practically always used the privilege to carry out an indepen-dent foreign policy. We are not going to change this tradition today.” He nar-rates Russian policy as an instance of the rule for independent foreign policyand instantiates associated regulative and causal rules.Fourth, Putin offered an achievable future of a fair and democratic world

order. “We would like to interact with responsible and independent partners

TABLE 1. Putin’s Narrative as Rule Instances

Episode Rule Instance

The United States hasbeen committingaggression, causingconflict [past]

Constitutive rule 1: X is a legitimate use offorce in the context that X is authorized bythe UN

[negative] X = USinterventions in Kosovo,Iraq

Causal rule 1: X causes intensified conflictin the context not (X is legitimate use offorce)

X = US interventions inKosovo, Iraq

Regulative rule 1: Agent A should not commitX in the context not (X is legitimate use offorce)

Violating: A = UnitedStates; X = interventionsin Kosovo, Iraq

World conflict has increasedThe United Stateshas beenthreatening Russiaand Europeandemocraticcommunity [past]

Constitutive rule 2: X is a strategy ofcollective security in the context X is asecurity agreement near S and X includesS

[negative] X = NATOexpansion; S = Russia

Causal rule 2: X causes degradation ofdemocratic community in the context not(X is a strategy of collective security), andX excludes S and S is a democracy

X = NATO expansion;S = Russia

Regulative rule 2: Agent A should not commitX in the context not (X is a strategy ofcollective security), and X excludes S andS is a democracy

Violating: A = UnitedStates; X = NATOexpansion; S = Russia

Democratic community in Europe has deterioratedMultipolarity is emerging

Russia is pursuingan independentforeign policy[present]

Constitutive rule 3: X is an independentforeign policy in the context X is notdictated by Western powers

X = Russian policy

Causal rule 3: X causes a fair world order toarise in the context X is an independentforeign policy and Western countries arecausing degradation of democraticcommunity

X = Russian policy

Regulative rule 3: Russia should do X in thecontext X is an independent foreign policyand Western countries are causingdegradation of democratic community

Upholding: X = Russianpolicy

A fair world order would arise [future]


with whom we could work together in constructing a fair and democratic worldorder that would ensure security and prosperity not only for a select few, but forall.”Putin’s narrative is represented in Table 1 as a sequence of rule instances.Ongoing autobiographical narratives entail the addition of new episodes into

the present—the middle of the story—and the ending takes place in the futureby causal projection. The update can substantially alter the plot of the overallnarrative. As new episodes are added to the present, the future can keep chang-ing because causal rules project altered futures as effects of the new present epi-sodes. It is possible that a particular future is projected at one point and thatfuture is altered by a new episode and then restored by another new episode.This narrative dynamic, as we shall see below, is central to the generation ofaction in this theory. The restorative episode can be an action by the agent, theself of the autobiographical narrative. President Putin’s speech is an example ofa rule-based narration that mandates a course of action—an independent for-eign policy for Russia. I shall argue below that such rule-based narrations formthe logic of international corporate agency and thus constitute internationalagents.

Rules and Agency

Actions, practices, and corporate agents can emerge from self-activating rules.The previous section showed how rules assemble into and update autobiographi-cal narratives of states, starting with the past and ending in the future. This sec-tion will show how these updating narratives constitute national identities thatmotivate state action. A number of scholars have held national identity and inter-national agency to be constituted by narrative (Ringmar 1996; Banerjee 1997;Bially Mattern 2005; Steele 2008). I will show that along a historical sequence ofactions, narratives assembled from rule instances based on previous actions formnational identities that generate subsequent actions.To build a rule-based account of international agency, we must start by exam-

ining actions and practices. In committing an action, the agent’s intentionincludes its current goal and also memory—parts of its past narrative relevant tothe action. Following Abell’s (1987:36) account of social action, I shall arguethat in an international action, the goal is to get another agent to do or forbearto do something. That patient must come to know what the agent seeks from it.In the norm-saturated international environment, demands are communicatedin normative terms. While acting, the agent proposes a contract combining regu-lative rules to the patient. This contract may be communicated at the time oralready be known to both. The agent’s action fulfills its own end of the contract—the regulative rule defining the agent’s obligation—and the patient is asked tofulfill the other regulative rule in the contract. The agent’s action is also anacceptance or rejection of contracts offered in earlier action by the patient.Memory enters intention by giving the agent a basis for expecting the patient toaccept the offered contract. The narrative memory includes previous offers ofthe same contract, acceptances or rejections by the patient, and causal attribu-tions linking the agent’s actions to the patient’s responses.A sequence of actions with a recurring intention is a practice. Actions cannot

be repeated identically, but intentions can remember earlier instances of them-selves and thereby repeat themselves. A practice can be performed by a singleagent or by multiple agents, with each knowing the intentions of others’ preced-ing actions within the practice. International practices are necessarily interdepen-dent. This interdependence arises from the material needs of practices, but also

Sanjoy Banerjee 13

from the logic of their intentions. The intention of an action refers to narrativememory including earlier iterations of itself. The reiteration of an intentionrequires that the rules forming its intention remain credible to the agent. Earlieractions with similar intention and patients’ responses should have vindicated therules in the intention. After action, the agent must monitor the responses ofother agents to see whether its rules are vindicated or discredited—to seewhether things worked as expected. This feature of intention, the recall of pastiterations of itself and the contingency of its reiteration, recapitulates what Gid-dens (1979:56–58) calls “the reflexive monitoring of action.” And because reflex-ive monitoring attends to the actions and practices of other agents, reiterationof a practice is contingent on other agents’ practices. The practices of interact-ing agents are thus interdependent.Adler and Pouliot (2011) bring welcome attention to international practices.

They define practices as repetitive performances mutually recognizable betweenthe agent and others. Here also, intentions include contract offers recognizableto the patient and that make a practice mutually recognizable between agentand patient. Adler and Pouliot (2011:14–19) offer a strong meta-theory of prac-tices. They hold that a good empirical theory of practices should recognize bothreflexive and background knowledge in practices, allow for language to providethe intersubjectivity necessary for meaningful practices as well as the medium fordiscursive practices, allow for practices to be both agential and structural, andallow practices to evolve. All these criteria are satisfied in the logico-semantictreatment of practices here. Knowledge is reflexive in that practices animated byrules are reflexively monitored. Language enters practices through constitutiverules, which form meanings. Shared rules provide the intersubjectivity for therecurring contract offers in practices to be meaningful to both agents andpatients. Discursive practices are enabled by shared rules. Practices here areagential in that agents intentionally enact them. Practices are also structural, andthey evolve. We have seen that practices are interdependent. We will see belowthat there is a broader interdependence between rules and practices, whichforms historical structures that reproduce themselves unevenly and therebyevolve.Kratochwil’s (2011) multidisciplinary review of the literature on practices also

establishes criteria of good empirical theory satisfied here. His main argument isthat practices are more than habits, having necessarily a reflexive dimension.Because practices are responses to multiple other actors, practitioners cannot be“normative dopes” reenacting fixed roles. Rather practitioners must fashion prac-tices meaningful to self and multiple others to resolve tensions among the mutu-ally incompatible expectations of others, and between others’ expectations andthe self (Kratochwil 2011:49–50). In criticizing another writer, Kratochwil(2011:51–55) holds that an individualist epistemology should be avoided andshared knowledge and social facts recognized. In my model, we have seen thatpractices are reflexive. We shall see below that practices endure within social net-works of practices and contracts, linking agents with multiple others, with theever-present possibility of contradictions among rules and the breakdown ofpractices and larger social entities. And, the epistemology employed here doesrecognize the intersubjective sharing of rules.The intentions of international actions and practices can be generated logi-

cally by national identity narratives. We have seen that states and other interna-tional agents maintain narratives about their collective and corporate selves andupdate them by the instantiation of a sizable but still limited repertoire of rules.A state’s autobiography is a national identity for the community that considersthe narrative and its rules credible. I will argue that identity narratives have dis-tinctive plots that are subject to disruption by new episodes. An action is then


committed to add another episode that would restore the plot of the agent’sidentity narrative.A variety of treatments of national identity have appeared in the IR literature.

Some consider national identities to be formed by states’ narratives about theircorporate selves, and others reconstruct identities from smaller units of mean-ing. Ringmar (1996) argues that national identities are formed by narratives thatconstitute the states as agents. Banerjee (1997) defines national identity as a run-ning autobiographical narrative that divides self from other through semanticoppositions and that starts in the past and ends in alternative futures of destinyor danger, contingent on action in the present. Cruz (2000) examines hownational identities are formed by narratives of historical memory and how theseshape persuasive political rhetoric and economic development. She argues thatthe version of collective memory in an identity shapes the deepest politicalnorms and also defines the nation’s practical competence in the present (Cruz2000:310). Bially Mattern’s (2005) post-constructivist account treats state identityas a narrative by which states represent events in relationships with other states.States can re-produce their own identity narrative during crises by exploiting thedependence of other states’ identities on broader supranational narrativesshared with the state in question. Steele (2008:11–12) holds that state biographi-cal narratives constitute state identity. Such a narrative “organizes the past forthe context of the present,” “gives a priori meaning to our actions,” and “moti-vates and stimulates agents” (Steele 2008:56).Some theories about national identity do not emphasize narratives and focus

instead on categories or oppositions. Wendt (1999) defines state identity in fourdifferent ways, including types and role categories of the state-self as well as nar-ratives. Rumelili (2004:37–39) distinguishes different configurations of self andother within identities. She emphasizes oppositions differentiating self fromother in constituting identities. Hopf (2009:302) examines identities circulatingin society in terms of categories that clash with counterparts in official discourseas well as internally opposed elements shared in state and societal identity dis-course. These representations of identity do not attend to how agents under-stand sequences of events. Banerjee’s (1997) and Cruz’s (2000) representationsof identity incorporate both a temporal-narrative dimension and an oppositionaldimension. Agents’ understandings of sequences are important for the explana-tion of action (Ringmar 1996:73). Agents must know not only what to do and towhom, but also when. The narrative representation of identity provides a clearerexplanation of actions situated in historical sequences than representationsbased on role categories or self–other oppositions.National identities are ongoing state autobiographies with distinctive plots. We

are familiar with the plots of completed fictional stories. Because the fictionalstory is fixed, the plot is too. The national identity narrative keeps gettingupdated, and this makes the plot unstable. Because the present is located in themiddle of the temporally situated narrative, the updates occur in the middle andnot in the future ending. The available causal rules provide a continuous chainof causality from the past through the present and into a desirable future. A newepisode can disconnect this chain. The agent can generate an action intentionfrom the current narrative that if successful would reconnect the causal chain ofthe plot.The plot of a national identity narrative includes historical memory as well as

destiny—a desired future achievable with right action. Anderson (1983) observesthat the rise of nationalism required the abandonment of the cyclical conceptionof time and the embrace of the linear. Geertz (1973:240–249) contrasted “essen-tial” and “epochal” meanings in nationalist ideologies. Essentialist meanings arethose that refer to the origins of the nation; epochal meanings refer to theneeds of the present day. Anthony Smith (1999) writes about nationalism in a

Sanjoy Banerjee 15

primordialist vein, but has elaborated upon myths of ethno-national origin anddestiny. There is strong scholarly support for a representation of national iden-tity that proceeds from the past into the future.We have seen that agentic narratives project different futures at different

times. Only some of these futures qualify as the destiny in which the self’s heroicmoral character, nascent in the narrative’s historical memory, is preserved andmore fully realized. As a new episode yields a future diverting the agent from itsdestiny, the agent forms the intention to commit an action, which according toits narrative memory and causal rules would restore its destiny. The agent formu-lates a contract under which future actions of patients would conform to theagent’s destiny path. The narrative memory gives the basis for confidence thatthe contract offer will yield the desired result. In this way, action intentions aregenerated and corporate agents are constituted by rules.An example of the generation of intention and action follows. After 1994, the

United States pursued NATO expansion vigorously. The identity narrative thatgenerated this practice is visible in the Senate testimony of Richard Holbrooke,who then oversaw the Europe desk at the State Department (FDCH 1995). Hesaid:

Bedrock American interests in Europe endure: a continent free from dominationby any power or combination of powers hostile to the United States; prosperouspartners open to our ideas, our goods and our investments; a community ofshared values, extending across as much of Europe as possible, that can facilitatecooperation with the United States on a growing range of global issues; a conti-nent that is not so wracked by strife that it drains inordinate resources from theUnited States or the rest of the world. These interests require active US engage-ment in Europe.

Several semantic features of theoretical interest are visible here. The presentmoment is held to afford two possible futures—the danger of a Europe of strife,dominated by hostile powers, or the destiny of a community of shared values.The course of action to restore the destiny path is active US engagement. Hol-brook highlighted the indispensability of the American custodial role in light ofpreceding dangerous events: “But after . . . the disastrous results of our early non-involvement in the Yugoslav tragedy—it is time to recognize that Europe cannotmaintain stability on its own.” The American destiny in Europe befitted its pastand present role.

Rules and Historical Structures

The preceding sections demonstrate how self-activating rules give rise to state-autobiographical narratives, which in turn give rise to actions, practices, andidentity-bearing agents. The preceding sections cover three of the four arrows inFigure 1—all but the upper left arrow. It remains to be shown how the rules ofone agent can be vindicated or discredited by the actions and practices of otheragents. That would complete the feedback loop and the recursive cycle dia-grammed in Figure 1. We will then have a model of structuration.A historical structure is a sequence of actions by different agents in which the

intersubjective rules constituting the agents are repeatedly vindicated and theagents’ intentions are reiterated. Some of these rules are widely shared and oth-ers narrowly held among these agents. Each agent updates its identity narrativewith new instances of its rules, and intermittently, its causal rules project upcom-ing diversions from its destiny through the predicted actions of other agents.Two consequences follow from the update. First, at this point, the rules in the


identity narrative are subject to vindication or discredit, depending on the move-ment of the narrative. Second, the agent formulates an intention in the form ofa contract offer to others aiming to restore its destiny. The agent then enacts itsintention through a historically unique action. It is possible for the same rules tobe vindicated and the same intentions reiterated over the course of a sequenceof actions. As an agent reiterates its intentions based on repeated vindication ofits rules, it performs a practice. The agent’s rules can be vindicated only byappropriate actions in response from other agents. Each practice is dependenton the other practices for its reiteration; thus, practices are interdependent in ahistorical structure. Some combinations of socially distributed rules serve to vin-dicate themselves in historical structures and yield interdependent practices; oth-ers do not. A historical structure reproduces itself over the course of a sequenceof actions as long as these actions vindicate the rules that generate them.This formulation of structuration is consistent with Wendt’s (1999) observa-

tions that structures reproduce themselves and that cultures are self-fulfillingprophecies. Here, rules together form a culture, and the need for theirvindication produces a self-fulfilling prophecy. This formulation also preservesBanerjee’s (2002) account of historical structures as the interplay of practices inhistorical action sequences.We can now turn to the details of how one agent’s rules can be vindicated or

discredited by others’ actions. For a rule to be vindicated, other agents shouldact as the rule leads the agent to expect. We have seen that, for an agent’s ruleto be vindicated, its instantiation should be succeeded by instances of other rulesof that agent according to the predictions of the rule in question. But, theseother rules are instantiated by actions by other agents. Actions of other agentsthen instantiate rules for one international agent, and these instances then vindi-cate or discredit the rules of that agent. And, those actions are generated by therules of those other agents through their own agentic processes. Thus, the rulesof different agents trigger each other and can cause each other to be vindicatedor discredited. In this way, both cooperation and rivalry can be reproduced orcan break down.We can illustrate how one agent’s rules can generate actions that vindicate the

rules of another agent. In 2004, there were two different sets of rules about Rus-sia circulating in American politics and media. The prevalent rules were aboutthe United States as the custodian of liberal institutions and Russia as a pupil.There was also a nascent discourse among some politicians and public intellectu-als branding Russia as authoritarian and imperialist (Tsygankov 2009). We shallexamine how the custodian/pupil rules, applied to both Russia and Ukraine,generated American actions in Ukraine that led to the Orange Revolution inDecember 2004, and how that led to Russian responses that vindicated theauthoritarian–imperialist rules in America. In multiple hearings of the SenateForeign Relations Committee in 2004, Russia was discussed—by senators, admin-istration witnesses, and the invited non-governmental witnesses—in terms oftutor and pupil. For example, Secretary Powell testified that the State Depart-ment was organizing seminars in Russia in which American journalists wouldteach Russian journalists and NGOs how they could “fight for their indepen-dence” (GPO 2004). Senator Biden, who was a strong critic of Russia whilespeaking outside the Foreign Relations Committee, made from his Committeeseat in 2004 only one passing reference to the flaws in Russian democracy in thehearings.During 2004, there was substantial assistance from American governmental

and non-governmental sources to various Ukrainian groups and institutions. Thisaid was given mainly to governmental and non-governmental critics of the Ukrai-nian leadership. This aid and its recipients played a key role in the Orange Revo-lution of 2004 (McFaul 2007). Direct US government aid to pro-Western

Sanjoy Banerjee 17

political parties was avoided, but organizations linked to the Republican andDemocratic parties did provide such aid. These practices were consistent withthe America-as-custodian rules, and with Ukraine-as-pupil rules as well. The Rus-sia-as-authoritarian-imperialist rules were in circulation but not prevalent as yet.The Russian political establishment, excluding pro-Western political figures

and activists, interpreted the color revolutions as Western predation against Rus-sian interests (Wilson 2010). Putin said, at a press conference in December 2004(in the midst of Ukrainian protests against an election in which the Presidenthad claimed victory), that “permanent revolution” might plunge “post-Sovietspace into endless conflict.” He pointedly added that he hoped the United Stateswas not trying to isolate Russia—and that if it was, then a policy to “destabilizethe Russian Federation” was being pursued (BBC 2004). Russia undertook a ser-ies of domestic reforms aimed at restricting ties between American and Westerngovernmental and civic actors and segments of Russian society friendly to them.This included tightened regulation of foreign funding of NGOs, increasing thevote share threshold for a party to be seated in parliament from 5% to 7%, andrestricting foreign election monitors (Wilson 2010).These Russian actions vindicated the authoritarian–imperialist rules about Rus-

sia in the American political discourse. In 2005 Senate hearings, an official fromthe State Department’s Europe desk cited approvingly Freedom House’s newdesignation of Russia as, like Egypt, “Not Free” (GPO 2005). By 2006, criticismin Senate hearings (affirming authoritarian–imperialist rules) was much harsher,from invited non-governmental witnesses and from Senator Biden (GPO 2006).These critics spoke of a range of growing restrictions on political activity, as wellas on journalistic activity. Vindicated, the authoritarian–imperialist rules aboutRussia emerged ascendant in the American discourse.

Emergent Properties

Historical structures as described above yield two important emergent properties.First, social networks emerge, in which agents form enduring relationships withother agents. Second, historical dynamics emerge with the rise and fall of struc-tures and the succession of new structures. A historical structure rises when a col-lection of rules distributed across agents generates practices that vindicate therules, while new rules join in. The structure falls as the discredit of some rulesleads to the termination of some practices, which leads to the discredit of otherrules, leading ultimately to widespread breakdown. A new structure with newrules can then arise without competition or contradiction from the old struc-ture.Networks of practices (and common knowledge between international agents)

emerge from historical structures. The agents here enact practices toward eachother, reiterating contract offers. Some contract offers are accepted repeatedlyand form a contractual relationship between pairs of agents. The repeated rejec-tion of contract offers (as in a hostile interaction) also defines a normative rela-tionship. The relationship between two agents includes common knowledge of avariety of rules and of instances from their past interaction. A network of bilat-eral communities among agents emerges. Bially Mattern (2005) highlightsshared narratives within such bilateral communities and shows how, through“representational force,” the agents’ identities are permeable to each other.The second emergent property is the dynamics of historical structures. Struc-

tures rise unevenly and eventually decline and disintegrate, to be replaced bynew structures. As self-vindicating collections of socially distributed rules, histori-cal structures can grow unevenly. Over time, some new rules are created and


repeatedly vindicated, and some rules are discredited and drop out. Repeatedlyvindicated rules gain credibility and are repeatedly instantiated in agentic dis-courses, while discredited rules are not. Structures have some flexibility. Theimpact of discredited rules can be limited as new rules arise to replace them andenable the structure as a whole to go on reproducing itself. In Wendt’s(1999:152–165) terms, a historical structure can be said to supervene over itscorporate agents and their rules.In a historical structure, vindication of one rule is dependent on the particular

other rules in the structure. Which new rules are vindicated depends on whichother rules are already in the structure. Particular rules can emerge only in a cer-tain historical order. In that way, historical structures are path dependent. As newrules join the self-vindicating collection, they need not accumulate evenly through-out the structure. Uneven social reproduction over time leads to uneven growth—of practices, of agents and their resources, and of contractual networks of agents.While evolving structures do have a capacity to repair themselves after the dis-

credit of some rules, they can also break down if the discredit spreads to depen-dent rules. If agents are not able to create new vindicated rules to replacediscredited ones, discredit can spread to other rules. The actions and communi-cations those other rules require do not happen due to the earlier discredits.This breakdown can play out in different social patterns. Agents may persist, butlose some rules and practices. Whole agents may also bifurcate or disintegrate,causing changes in or disintegrations of other agents. Transnational social move-ments, empires, alliances, states, and nations that once acted cohesively havebeen known to break down and lose agency.The widespread discredit of rules in a structure creates the opening for the

rise of a new structure. While the rules of an old structure were being vindicated,alternative rules could not be instantiated and form intentions due to inferiorcredibility. The breakdown of the structure allows rules of lower credibility tocompete successfully for instantiation and form intentions. These rules thenhave the chance to vindicate themselves in a new self-reproducing structure. Inthis historical dynamic, structures rise and fall and are then succeeded by newstructures.We can trace processes of structural reproduction and breakdown in US–Rus-

sian relations during 1992–2007. We shall examine four periods. During 1992–1994, there was reproduced cooperation. Russia agreed to accept substantialWestern advice, to focus its foreign cooperation upon the West, and to acceptWestern opposition to Serbian nationalists. The West, for its part, abjured hostil-ity toward Russia, gave modest aid, and agreed to institutional links betweenNATO and Russia. NATO also began considering expansion in Eastern Europe.The next phase was 1995–1999, when the Europhile Russian identity brokedown. The United States pressed ahead with NATO expansion and intensifiedintervention in Yugoslavia. Russia complained about NATO actions in Europeand began to diversify its international engagements. During 2000–2004, Russiarenewed its efforts to build ties with the West, notably through Russian assistancefor US intervention in Afghanistan. In 2003, a disagreement with the UnitedStates developed over its Iraq intervention. The United States in this period wascritical of Russia’s Chechnya policy, supported competing pipeline projects, butdid not act against Russian interests in states that were not NATO members orcandidates. During 2004–2007, a decisive new phase of reproduction emerged—Russian criticism of US power and American use of soft power to undermineRussian influence among its neighbors.During 1992–1994, the Russian constitutive rule of “European” and associated

regulative and causal rules was vindicated by the preliminary cooperationreceived from the West. Kozyrev’s (1993) article in the NATO Review pointed tomultiple recent events as evidence of Western acceptance of the “new Russia.” In

Sanjoy Banerjee 19

American discourse of the period, the constitutive rules for its custodian rolewere thoroughly vindicated by changes in Russia and other events, and Russia’spupil categorization also gained preliminary credibility. Clinton’s 1994 State ofthe Union Address and his telecast in Moscow articulated and implicated suchrules. The Russian identity narrative of this time yearned for a “transition to acivilized condition” and acceptance into civilized Europe, fearing that “if . . . webegan to be seen in Western capitals as something ‘unnecessary’ or ‘dangerous’,this would only encourage our ‘national patriots’” (Kozyrev 1993). The resultingRussian contract offer was a “strategy for partnership” in which the West wouldbe asked for “political solidarity,” “stable financial, technical, and organizationalsupport,” and market access, and Russia would offer economic liberalization andcooperation in nuclear weapons and arms exports policies (Kozyrev 1993). TheAmerican identity narrative at this stage was a confident one, but there was fearof Russian reversion to authoritarianism and expansionism. The moment wasseen as an opportunity for long-term stability through NATO expansion. Thecontract offer to Russia was that the United States would assist the developmentof new institutions in Russia and post-Communist Europe, Russia would acqui-esce in the new American role and build Western-type institutions at home, andin recognition, Russia would be offered a partnership with NATO. The 1992–1994 period permitted a brief reproduction of Russian and American rules.These rules received preliminary vindication from the practices these rules gen-erated. The reproduction process is diagrammatically summarized in Figure 2.After 1994, the Russian category of “European” suffered discredit. The United

States accepted Eastern European demands and NATO expansion proceeded,belying Russian expectations. By 1996, Kozyrev was out as foreign minister, andthe Eurasianist Primakov was in. By this time, economic growth in China andIndia had gained momentum and both were willing to purchase Russian arms,giving a lifeline to the arms industry. Russia could not stop NATO’s expansionor intervention against Serbs, but otherwise Moscow could build cooperative rela-tions with the West (Tsygankov 2012:172–192). These interactions gave some vin-dication to the “Eurasian” constitutive rule, and to linked rules. Nonetheless,Russia’s interaction with Asia remained thin and, in the case of China, fraughtwith suspicion.

Russian rules: Russia as

European, transitioning to a civilized condition

US as accepting partner

Russian practices: liberalize; accept

Western advice and Yugoslavia policy

American rules: US as custodian of

liberal institutions, Russia as pupil

American practices: give advice and

some aid to Russia; institutional

inclusion of Russia

generate

vindicate

vindicate

generate

FIG 2. Reproduction of American and Russian Rules and Practices 1992–1994


Putin’s election in 2000 marked the start of a new and brief phase. Putin waselected months after the Kosovo intervention, which had unified NATO support.Nonetheless, Putin attempted another assertion of Russia’s European identity,but in conjunction with statist reforms (Tsygankov 2012:118–135). Unexpectedevents conspired to vindicate the modified constitutive rule for “European.”Another rule that had been circulating but gained ascendancy after Putin’s elec-tion was that of “great power.” Oil prices began to rise in 1999, and the Russianeconomy began to grow. The 9/11 attacks made Washington partially dependenton Russia for access to Afghanistan and tolerant of its suppression of Chechenmilitancy.The vindication of Putin’s “European” rule was short lived. Color revolutions

in Georgia and Ukraine in 2003 and 2004, with strong American and Europeansupport, were met (as we have seen) with alarm in Russia. These events discred-ited Putin’s “European” rule by violating its clause of mutual recognition amongEuropeans. In the West, Bush was reelected in 2004, and more conservative gov-ernments took office in Germany in 2005 and France in 2007. These changesconsolidated the Western alliance and further marginalized Russia in Euro-Atlan-tic diplomacy.In the period after 2004, Russian and American rules and the practices they

generated were reproduced. Russia’s “great-power” rules continued to receivevindication with movement toward global multipolarity, as Putin observed in hisMunich speech. America’s war in Iraq and aid to Ukrainian nationalists vindi-cated the Russian characterization of the United States as predatory toward Rus-sia, a view that came to be shared between the Russian public and leadership.Reiterating the “United States as predator” rule instance he had invoked in hisDecember 24, 2004, press conference, Putin in 2006 alluded to the United Statesas “the wolf” who “knows who to eat and is not about to listen to anyone” (POR2006). After 2000, public opinion in Russia strongly embraced Putin and his“great-power” policies, in close correlation with its perception of an improvingeconomy (Treisman 2011), and turned against US foreign policy (Levada Analyt-ical Center 2012). Putin also began to regulate financial ties between Westerndonors and Russian NGOs, citing fears of Western promotion of color revolutionin Russia, and raised the electoral threshold for parliamentary seats. The last

Russian rules: Russia as great

power,sovereign,

US as predator

Russian practices: regulate foreign dontations; build military; oppose US interventions

American rules: US as custodian,

Russia as authoritarian and

imperialist

American practices: support

anti-Russian parties; disregard Russian objections

to interventions

generate

vindicategenerate

vindicate

FIG 3. Reproduction of American and Russian Rules and Practices 2004–2007

Sanjoy Banerjee 21

move disproportionately harmed pro-Western parties in Russia (Wilson 2010).The slogan in 2006 was that Russia should be a “sovereign democracy.” Russiaalso began to rebuild its military, after a steep post-Soviet decline.Within America, the period after 2004 did witness the intensification of parti-

san rivalry, but a consensus on Russia remained. Russian moves toward “sover-eign democracy” vindicated the authoritarian–imperialist rules about Russia anddiscredited the pupil rules. After 2004, Russia came to be characterized as fullyauthoritarian, designated by Freedom House after 2005 as “Not Free.” US Senatehearings on Russia in 2005 and 2006 revealed a bipartisan consensus on thepropositions that Putin was increasingly dictatorial and that this made it appro-priate for the United States to repose less trust in Russia (GPO 2005, 2006).There was also agreement on the view that Russia threatened democracy inneighboring countries and that it was appropriate for the United States to perse-vere in assisting democracy in these countries (GPO 2005).During 2004–2007, the United States and Russia repeatedly rejected each

other’s contract offers. And, these acts of rejection vindicated the critical catego-rizations each had of the other. The reproduction process during 2004–2007 issummarized in Figure 3.

Conclusion

We have a logico-semantic model of international structuration that traces threeimportant processes in the formation of structures not traced by Wendt (1999)or other IR theories. The model can do so because it proceeds from a treatmentof rules that builds upon but modifies the treatments of Onuf (1989) and Krat-ochwil (1989). And, the model proceeds through an analysis of practices that ful-fills the meta-theoretical criteria of Adler and Pouliot (2011) and Kratochwil(2011).First, the model traces the process of situation construction by which identities

generate action. New rule instances become new episodes in the present, causalrules project alternative futures, and these unequally desirable futures entailalternative courses of action. Contract offers and attendant actions are chosen toattain the destined future. This model enables us to trace the generation of prac-tices from running identity narratives without positing an additional concept ofinterests. Through attention to temporally sensitive identity narratives, thismodel shows how rules generate situated practices reflexively, and not justactions as speech acts.Second, this model traces the updating of identity narratives. Such tracing is

impossible with a fixed and static representation of narrative. Only a representa-tion of a narrative as a sequence of rule instances, with new instances comingup, can account for narrative updating. This recognition of identity dynamicsenhances the explanatory power of the concept of identity. Third, this modeltraces the process of social reproduction or the failure thereof. The process isdiagrammed in Figure 1. Rule instances assemble into narratives, which formidentities that generate actions, and actions by other agents vindicate or discreditthe rules of each agent. When a collection of rules results in the rules’ joint vin-dication, a self-reproducing historical structure emerges. As the process of repro-duction becomes empirically traceable, the concept of reproduction gainsempirical reference.

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Rules, agency, and international structuration

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