Harnisch, Sebastian. (2011) Conceptualizing in the Minefield: Role Theory and Foreign Policy Learning. Foreign Policy Analysis, doi: 10.1111/j.1743‐8594.2011.00155.x The paper suggests a dialogue between role theory and foreign policy learning literature. I argue that role theory, when conceptualized in the interactionist tradition of George Herbert Mead, can contribute analytical clarity to the literature on policy learning. By specifying role theory to account for various modes of “role taking,” the constitutive social effects of individual or organizational learning for a given community become apparent. Furthermore, an interactionist reading of role theory advances the concept of “role taking” by complementing it with “role making.” While the former connects societal expectations and individual or collective self‐expectations and behavior, the later conceives learning as the interaction between individual creativity and societal expectation in the process of “as‐if role taking.” The illustrative cases of role making and taking reveal the creative effects of role making while accounting for the constraining impact of institutions and communal expectations. I conclude that role theory and (foreign policy) learning are powerful explanatory tools, but only if they are integrated to bridge the gap between agent and structure.

The literature on norm socialization and Europeanization has largely focused on successful norm diffusion, but thus far it has hardly addressed the norm backlash from the respective societies. To more fully grasp the interaction between member states' roles and their institutional preferences we provide a conceptual model for the de-composition of national role conceptions. This model is applied in case studies on German and Czech European policies in the constitutionalization process of the European Union. The paper illustrates how the composition of Czech and German roles has changed over time and how these national role conceptions shape the countries' respective institutional preferences. We conclude that historical role experience is considered as a powerful explanatory tool for the policies of today's European Union member states.Role theory has recently attracted attention as an interdisciplinary approach for understanding foreign policy decisions. Sociology, psychology and political science scholars have identified common characteristics of roles in diverse social domestic and international settings (Thies, 2010;Turner, 2006). Despite considerable interest in role theory,

Internet based technology constitutes one of the most important policy innovations in the last decades. Its diffusion has been rapid, widespread and sustained. The increase has raised questions about its drivers. The article focuses on an aspect of this dynamic that has been neglected so far: the variance between and among democracies and autocracies and their respective subtypes. Moreover, the majority of studies tackles the diffusion of e‐government techniques, excluding the important array of e‐participation. Our analysis thus offers a broader and more differentiated account of the adoption of online tools by governments. The findings indicate that the adoption of e‐government and e‐participation techniques varies substantially between and among democratic and autocratic regime types as well as over time and in kind.

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