TEHRAN – Political theoretician Bruce Bueno de Mesquita believes there is no “division between rationalist theories and constructivism.”

In an e-mail interview with the Mehr News Agency on Monday, Bueno de Mesquita said, “Constructivism and rationalist theories complement each other.”
Following is the text of the interview:
Q: There are four major intellectual discussions in international relations theories: realism versus liberalism; behaviorism versus traditionalism; neo-realism versus neo-liberalism; and rationalism versus constructivism. What is the main debate?
A: These debates, in my view, are uninteresting and misguided. The “isms” have become articles of faith for too many scholars. For me, the issue is, what hypotheses follow logically from the assumptions of the particular theory or theories and, for those that follow logically, what is the evidence of their accuracy. In my judgment, rationalist arguments produce logically consistent and coherent propositions that are more consistent with the actions and outcomes we observe than is true for other approaches. Further, I do not see a division between rationalist theories and constructivism. Constructivism is a theory of preference formation; rationalist theories do not have a theory of preference formation. Constructivism lacks a logically consistent, empirical theory of action; rationalist theories, especially game theoretic ones, provide a clear theory of action (through equilibrium solutions). This, as I see it, constructivism and rationalist theories complement each other. I have written extensively on this point in my introductory international relations textbook.
Q: Some scholars assert that international relations science is an Anglo-American discipline, but others claim that it has some roots in continental countries. What is your viewpoint about this division? To what extent do developing countries contribute to international relations science?
A: Science is not culturally or geographically bound. The explanation of how hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water is not geographically determined. The same is true for logically-derived propositions about international affairs. The problem in the field is that, as I said above, the “isms” have become articles of faith argued on normative grounds rather than argued in terms of logical consistency and empirical consistency with observed behavior. Even the idea that the state is the unit of analysis is rooted in this sort of metaphoric faith since people, not states, have interests and choose actions. I view these debates as irrelevant to progress in the field. They are an effort to promote opinion masquerading as science rather than apply the scientific method to see what does and does not provide consistent explanations of what we observe.
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a political scientist, professor at New York University, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He specializes in international relations, foreign policy, and nation building. He is also one of the authors of the selectorate theory. He is also the director of New York University's Alexander Hamilton Center for Political Economy. He has founded a company, Mesquita & Roundell, that specializes in making political and foreign-policy forecasts using a computer model based on game theory and rational choice theory