Contribution to Book
Social Constructivism and the Social Construction of World Economic Reality
Research Handbook on the Sociology of International Law
(2018)
Abstract
In making sense of the world trading system represented by the World Trade Organization (WTO), conventional rationalism aims attention at individual trading nations and their fixed preferences on material benefits, such as expanded access to foreign markets. In contrast with a rationalist optic, this chapter offers a social (constructivist) optic that centres on an emergent normative structure that constitutes WTO members’ identities and guides their actions. The chapter also discusses norm internalization (compliance) as a process in which the WTO reality qua symbolic universe is recognized and maintained in a domestic legal reality. Finally, the chapter addresses various limits of such internalization.
Keywords
- social constructivism,
- norm internalization,
- WTO,
- international law,
- international trade law
Disciplines
Publication Date
November 30, 2018
Editor
Moshe Hirsch and Andrew Lang
Publisher
Edward Elgar Publishing
Series
Research Handbooks in International Law
ISBN
978 1 78347 448 6
Citation Information
Sungjoon Cho. "Social Constructivism and the Social Construction of World Economic Reality" Northampton, MAResearch Handbook on the Sociology of International Law (2018) p. 369 - 388 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/sungjoon_cho/121/