Other approaches are more sharply contradictory to rational approaches. In
part, this is because many constructivists reject the typically positivistic
premises of rational regime theory, but fundamentally it is because they reject
its individualism. They want to explain international arrangements from a
‘top-down’ perspective that examines the broader normative structures that
constitute international ordering principles (Kratochwil, 1989; Wendt and Duvall, 1989; Finnemore 1996a; Arend, 1998). The broadness of regime theory
will allow it to incorporate some of these ideas; the rationalist stream of the
theory will rework some of them in terms of its own conceptions of beliefs and
information, though surely not to the full satisfaction of constructivist critics.
While no agreed synthesis will emerge, the tension between the two approaches
is likely to be mutually improving (Hasenclever, Mayer and Rittberger, 1997).