ABSTRACT

Role Theory in International Relations provides a comprehensive, up-to-date survey of recent theoretical scholarship on foreign policy roles and extensive empirical analysis of role behaviour of a variety of states in the current era of eroding American hegemony.

Taking stock of the evolution of role theory within foreign policy analysis, international relations and social science theory, the authors probe role approaches in combination with IR concepts such as socialization, learning and communicative action. They draw upon comparative case studies of foreign policy roles of states (the United States, Japan, PR China, Germany, France, UK, Poland, Sweden, and Norway) and international institutions (NATO, EU) to assess NATO’s transformation, the EU as a normative power as well as the impact of China’s rise on U.S. hegemony under the Bush and Obama administrations. The chapters also offer compelling theoretical arguments about the nexus between foreign policy role change and the evolution of the international society.

This important new volume advances current role theory scholarship, offering concrete theoretical suggestions of how foreign policy analysis and IR theory could benefit from a closer integration of role theory. It will be of great interest to all scholars and students of international relations, foreign policy and international politics.

part |88 pages

Theories

chapter |9 pages

Role theory

Operationalization of key concepts

chapter |20 pages

Role theory research in international relations

State of the art and blind spots

chapter |19 pages

“Dialogue and emergence”

George Herbert Mead's contribution to role theory and his reconstruction of international politics

chapter |19 pages

Habermas meets role theory

Communicative action as role playing?

part |72 pages

Roles and institutions

chapter |18 pages

NATO and the (re)constitution of roles

“Self,” “we,” and “other”?

chapter |18 pages

Reconsidering the European Union's roles in international relations

Self-conceptions, expectations, and performance

chapter |16 pages

Comparing Germany's and Poland's ESDPs

Roles, path dependencies, learning, and socialization1

chapter |18 pages

Does membership matter?

Convergence of Sweden's and Norway's role conceptions by interaction with the European Union

part |97 pages

US hegemony

chapter |27 pages

Hegemony reconstructed?

America's role conception and its “leadership” within its core alliances

chapter |19 pages

Terrorized America?

9/11 and its impact on US foreign policy

chapter |21 pages

Discord and collaboration in Franco-American relations

What can role theory tell us?

chapter |18 pages

Hesitant adaptation

China's new role in global policies

chapter |10 pages

Conclusion

Role theory, role change, and the international social order