Social constructivism, a research school found largely in international relations, should also aid identity politics research. No doubt it may seem malapropos to import a research agenda used largely to investigate questions of inter-state behavior, international security, and the like. However, the methods employed by the social theorists are simply those: social science methods. As such, when applicable, researchers should borrow and adapt whatever methods helps them investigate the questions driving their research. Consider, for example, the agent-struture debate. In simple terms, IR scholars have long debated over the question of whether agents (individuals, states, NGOs, etc.) or structure (the international system) shapes the other. At its core, the agent-structure problem reveals two axioms about social life: first, “human beings and their organizations are purposeful actors whose actions help reproduce or transform the society in which they live,” and second, that “society is made up of social relationships, which structure the interactions between these purposeful actors” (Wendt 1987 337-338). Restated another way, structure is the collection of the non-material factors like political systems, religion, and group identity that individuals experience as a kind of social fact (Wendt 1999 75).

Structure in these terms are neither physical buildings nor formal rules of regimes (though both may be included). Often, structure refers to the ideational make-up of international politics. What I find useful in the agent-structure problem is a way to understand the intangible “interests” of Latinos and preference formation. The reason Preuhs and Hero, for example, discover a qualitative difference among descriptively representative minorities is that those agents (Latino politicians) have identities that are shaped long before they enter politics. And yet, by entering politics they begin to contribute to the very structure shaping the identity of future political engaged Latinos. The causal process here is cyclical rather than linear; a deeper appreciation for the process should, like group identity formation, strengthen political science research into these and related questions.

[Nb: Selection from a response paper that I’m posting more for my own future reference.]