From Variables to Processes: The Theoretical Development of Non-Material Factors in International Relations

This article examines the theoretical development of non-material factors in international relations, with the aim of clarifying changes in the ways in which their position, functions, and mechanisms of influence have been conceptualized. The study employs an integrative literature review combined with comparative conceptual analysis of representative theoretical and empirical scholarship from the late 1980s to the present. Based on the selected literature, the article broadly conceptualizes this theoretical development as comprising three analytical stages. The first stage marks the recognition of factors such as ideas, beliefs, rules, and norms as variables that contribute to explaining international behavior. The second stage is associated with the constructivist turn, in which non-material factors are understood as constitutive forces shaping identities, interests, and social structures. The third stage reflects an expansion toward culture, values, knowledge, memory, and attraction, while emphasizing their transformative, relational, contestable, and reconstructive capacities. The article argues that this development can be interpreted as a shift from variables, through structures, to processes, thereby expanding the explanatory capacity of international relations theory.