The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics

The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics. Edited by Peter J. Katzenstein. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. 562p. $49.50 cloth, $17.50 paper.

The end of the Cold War prompted scholars of international security to reevaluate their field for two reasons. Most failed to foresee the end of the Cold War and also did not, according to some, appear to have the analytical tools to help navigate a new world order. This edited volume is part of the rethinking, and its major claim is that national security is a social practice. Staking out and partially mapping the contours of a sociological approach to security studies and world politics, the book contains contributions by Michael Barnett, Thomas Berger, Dana Eyre, Martha Finnemore, Robert Herman, Ron Jepperson, Alastair lain Johnston, Paul Kowert, Jeffrey Legro, Peter Katzenstein, Elizabeth Kier, Thomas Risse-Kappen, Mark Suchman, Nina Tannenwald, and Alexander Wendt.

The introduction and conclusion by Katzenstein and two overview chapters, "Norms, Identity and Security" by Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein and "Norms, Identity and their Limits: A Theoretical Reprise" by Kowert and Legro, contextualize the book within the fields of international relations and security studies. The authors are primarily interested in challenging the realist and neorealist hegemony in security studies, which gives, in their view, pride of place to material factors and treats states' identities and interests as given. Their basic argument is that the "interests" of states are not determined by material factors alone, as realists would have us believe (or by "economic rationalism," as liberals suppose); rather, international and domestic "cultural environments" influence the behavior and identity of states (p. 461).

The case studies, in parts one and two of the book, engage realist and neorealist scholars of security in their own terms...