Abstract
Before the 1980s, the focus of the international scholarship relations was on two main debates: on the one hand, opposing the neo-realists to the neo-liberal institutionalists; and on the other rationalism to critical theory. Whereas the former is a debate in which the two mainstream theories, both described as rationalist, accept common assumptions (among which the logic of anarchy and the self-interest of the states, principal actors of international relations); the latter involves the challenging of the critical theory of the core epistemological and ontological beliefs of rationalism. However, in the incidents of that decade, these debates, especially the first one, seems to be languish. It is in that period that a certain number of researchers appeared, describing themselves as belonging to a "constructivist" approach to international relations. This approach is derived from other forms of social sciences, including philosophy, anthropology, sociology and history, which explain the multiplicity of its influences, and the different degrees of assimilation of other sciences.
