3.4 Analysis
159
states and their governing apparatuses, and they define their interests. Norms have
an important function in that interests change, and as norms reconstruct identities,
it leads to changes in policy. In short, norms channel actors along certain socially
dictated conduits of appropriate behaviour, and they are therefore autonomous. On the
contrary, positivism sees norms as the intervening variables that are situated between
the basic causal variable (power actors) and the political consequences (Smith 1997;
Price 1998; Du Plessis 2000; Hobson 2000).
Social constructivism, like liberal institutionalism, treats the domestic and international spheres as two facets of a single social and political order (Reus-Smit 2001).
The theory is concerned with the dynamics of political change (Reus-Smit 2001).
For instance, interest groups exist as a political engagement community in politics.
They have a meaningful impact through networks that teach governments what is
appropriate to pursue in politics (Price 1998; Meissner 2005).
Norms create agents out of individuals by giving them an opportunity to act
upon the world. To be sure, agents use all the means at their disposal to achieve
their goals, including norms. On this, Onuf (1998: 4) commented by saying that:
‘These means include material features of the world. Because the world is a social
place…rules make the world’s material features into resources available for agents’
use’. According to Wendt (1995: 73), ‘…social structures include material resources,
like gold and tanks… [C]onstructivists argue that material resources only acquire
meaning for human action through the structure of shared knowledge in which they
are embedded… Material capabilities, as such, explain nothing; their effects presuppose structures of shared knowledge, which vary and which are not reducible to capabilities’. All in all, the medium of norms and practices develops the actors’ relations
and understanding. If norms were absent, power and action would be meaningless.
Actors specify their actions through norms that will lead other actors to realise their
identity and respond to it appropriately (Hopf 2000).
Green and ecological Infrastructures through the social constructivist lens
Respondent 4’s ‘sex doll’ analogy (p. 90) is an epistemological construction of
these infrastructure types. He is critical of the construction of these terms in that
natural scientists invented the concepts to change power relationships. Green and
ecological infrastructures provide economists and engineers with a stake in this
constructed knowledge system. Without economists and engineers, the implementation of green and ecological infrastructure initiatives would be perceivably impossible, since local governments require financial resources, as well as an engineered
solution, to carry out such projects. This means that green and ecological infrastructures have become widely shared ideational elements so that we can involve those
disciplines that will enable the seemingly successful implementation of green and
ecological infrastructure projects.
For Respondent 4, the notion of nature, and nature-based solutions, is more encompassing because both scholars and the public share a common understanding of
what they mean. It is not impossible that South African natural scientists observed
European and American (p. 143) green and ecological infrastructure projects and
159
states and their governing apparatuses, and they define their interests. Norms have
an important function in that interests change, and as norms reconstruct identities,
it leads to changes in policy. In short, norms channel actors along certain socially
dictated conduits of appropriate behaviour, and they are therefore autonomous. On the
contrary, positivism sees norms as the intervening variables that are situated between
the basic causal variable (power actors) and the political consequences (Smith 1997;
Price 1998; Du Plessis 2000; Hobson 2000).
Social constructivism, like liberal institutionalism, treats the domestic and international spheres as two facets of a single social and political order (Reus-Smit 2001).
The theory is concerned with the dynamics of political change (Reus-Smit 2001).
For instance, interest groups exist as a political engagement community in politics.
They have a meaningful impact through networks that teach governments what is
appropriate to pursue in politics (Price 1998; Meissner 2005).
Norms create agents out of individuals by giving them an opportunity to act
upon the world. To be sure, agents use all the means at their disposal to achieve
their goals, including norms. On this, Onuf (1998: 4) commented by saying that:
‘These means include material features of the world. Because the world is a social
place…rules make the world’s material features into resources available for agents’
use’. According to Wendt (1995: 73), ‘…social structures include material resources,
like gold and tanks… [C]onstructivists argue that material resources only acquire
meaning for human action through the structure of shared knowledge in which they
are embedded… Material capabilities, as such, explain nothing; their effects presuppose structures of shared knowledge, which vary and which are not reducible to capabilities’. All in all, the medium of norms and practices develops the actors’ relations
and understanding. If norms were absent, power and action would be meaningless.
Actors specify their actions through norms that will lead other actors to realise their
identity and respond to it appropriately (Hopf 2000).
Green and ecological Infrastructures through the social constructivist lens
Respondent 4’s ‘sex doll’ analogy (p. 90) is an epistemological construction of
these infrastructure types. He is critical of the construction of these terms in that
natural scientists invented the concepts to change power relationships. Green and
ecological infrastructures provide economists and engineers with a stake in this
constructed knowledge system. Without economists and engineers, the implementation of green and ecological infrastructure initiatives would be perceivably impossible, since local governments require financial resources, as well as an engineered
solution, to carry out such projects. This means that green and ecological infrastructures have become widely shared ideational elements so that we can involve those
disciplines that will enable the seemingly successful implementation of green and
ecological infrastructure projects.
For Respondent 4, the notion of nature, and nature-based solutions, is more encompassing because both scholars and the public share a common understanding of
what they mean. It is not impossible that South African natural scientists observed
European and American (p. 143) green and ecological infrastructure projects and