Role Theory and Foreign Policy

Abstract

Role theory is an approach to the study of foreign policy that developed in the interdisciplinary field of social psychology and can be appropriately applied at the individual, state, and system level analyses. Role theory, which first attracted attention in the foreign policy literature after the publication of K. J. Holsti’s 1970 study of national role conception, does not refer to a single theory, but rather a family of theories, an approach, or perspective that begins with the concept of role as central to social life. The major independent variables in the study of roles include role expectations, role demands, role location, and audience effects (including cues). In addition, role theory contains its own model of social identity based on three crucial dimensions: status, value, and involvement. The 1987 publication of Stephen G. Walker’s edited volume, Role Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis, set the stage for further advances in the use of role theory in both the fields of foreign policy and international relations. According to Walker, role theory has a rich language of descriptive concepts, the organizational potential to bridge levels of analyses, and numerous explanatory advantages. This makes role theory an extremely valuable approach to foreign policy analysis. Role theory also offers a way of bringing greater integration between foreign policy analysis and international relations, especially through constructivist meta-theory.

Personality or Role? Comparisons of Turkish Leaders Across Different Institutional Positions

“…2 A similar interactionist perspective can be found in recent work on role theory in international relations and other research that has made strong claims about the co-constitutive nature of structural and institutional constraints and the characteristics of agents (e.g., Barnett & Duvall, 2005;Bueno de Mesquita, Smith, Siverson, & Morrow, 2003;Carlsnaes, 1992;Chiozza & Goemans, 2011;Giddens, 1984;Shannon & Kowert, 2012;Thies, 2010). Studies on national role conceptions, for example, see egos interacting with others and with normative structures to identify appropriate patterns of behavior (e.g., Harnisch, Frank, & Maull, 2011;McCourt, 2011).…”

Inter‐Role Conflict, Role Strain and Role Play in Chile's Relationship with Brazil

“…Symbolic interactionist role theory, which has been imported into foreign policy analysis from the disciplines of social psychology and sociology provides a rich conceptual apparatus for the study of a state's foreign policy (Thies, ; Breuning, ). Scholars working with this approach agree that it gives more agency to actors than its structural variant as it focuses on the social construction of roles and counter‐roles.…”

“…The descriptive value is based on the capacity of this approach's rich conceptual apparatus to describe events, whereas its organisational dimension lies in the ability of role theory to work across and bring together different levels of analysis: people, states and system. The explanatory value of role theory is based on the way it can easily supplement other theoretical approaches or import aspects from them (see Thies, ).…”

“…In other words, whether or not Brazil claims to be a leader, mediator, security provider or a regional group integrationist state depends on whether other states such as Chile attribute (or not) such a condition. In addition, this approach focuses on the mutual constitution of roles between the self (ego) and the other (alter) as any role needs a counter‐role (Thies, ). Roles are both a social position in an organised group and the type of actor that it is possible to be; these are constituted by ego's self‐definition and alter's expectations (Harnisch, : 8).…”

“…Thus, states always get involved in social interactions by following social cues of the surrounding environment or by approaching another state that communicates its expectations. This article positions itself within the research tradition on social identity, acknowledging that roles are a means to link identity and action (see Thies, ; Breuning, ; McCourt, ; Wehner and Thies, ). It also relies on interpretativism as a methodology and the use of content and narrative analysis as the method to recreate Chile's role set and identify the way it relates to Brazil in South America.…”