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.

Despite the increase in the number of studies in international relations using concepts from a role theory perspective, scholarship continues to assume that a state’s own expectations of what role it should play on the world stage is shared among domestic political actors. Cristian Cantir and Juliet Kaarbo have gathered a leading team of internationally distinguished international relations scholars to draw on decades of research in foreign policy analysis to explore points of internal contestation of national role conceptions (NRCs) and the effects and outcomes of contestation between domestic political actors. Nine detailed comparative case studies have been selected for the purpose of theoretical exploration, with an eye to illustrating the relevance of role contestation in a diversity of settings, including variation in period, geographic area, unit of analysis, and aspects of the domestic political process. This edited book includes a number of pioneering insights into how the domestic political process can have a crucial effect on how a country behaves at the global level.

U.S.-Iran relations continue to be an international security problem in the Middle East. These two countries could have been friends, but instead they have become enemies. Stating this thesis raises the following questions: Why are the United States and Iran enemies? How and when did this relationship come to be? When the relationship began to deteriorate, could it have been reversed? What lessons can be learned from an analysis of past U.S.-Iranian relations and what are the implications for their present and future relations? Akan Malici and Stephen G. Walker argue that the dynamics of U.S.-Iran relations are based on role conflicts. Iran has long desired to enact roles of active independence and national sovereignty in world politics. However, it continued to be cast by others into client or rebel roles of national inferiority. In this book the authors examine these role conflicts during three crucial episodes in U.S.-Iran relations: the oil nationalization crisis and the ensuing clandestine coup aided by the CIA to overthrow the Iranian regime in 1950 to 1953; the Iranian revolution followed by the hostage crisis in 1979 to 1981; the reformist years pre- and post- 9/11 under Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2002. Their application of role theory is theoretically and methodologically progressive and innovative in illuminating aspects of U.S.-Iran relations. It allows for a better understanding of the past, navigating the present, and anticipating the future in order to avoid foreign policy mistakes. Role Theory and Role Conflict in U.S.-Iran Relations is a useful resource for international relations and foreign policy scholars who want to learn more about progress in international relations theory and U.S. relations with Iran.

Since December 2010, a series of uprisings, revolutions, coups and civil wars have shaken up the Middle East and North Africa region. In this chaotic political environment, several countries have been trying to influence this regional transformation. The implications of this transformation are of great importance for the region, its people and global politics. Using a rich combination of primary and secondary sources, elite interviews and content analysis, Yasemin Akbaba and Özgür Özdamar apply role theory to analyze ideational (e.g. identity, religion) and material (e.g. security, economy) sources of national role conceptions in Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The authors take a closer look at the transformation of these four powers’ foreign policies since the beginning of Arab uprisings, with a specific focus on religion. Each case study is written to a common template allowing for clear comparative analyses. Written in a clear and accessible style, Role Theory in the Middle East and North Africa offers a thought provoking and pioneering insight into the usefulness of role theory in foreign policy making in the developing world. The perfect combination of theoretically oriented and empirically rich analysis make this volume an ideal resource for scholars and researchers of International Relations, Foreign Policy, Middle East Politics and International Security.

In this book, senior scholars and a new generation of analysts present different applications of recent advances linking beliefs and decision-making, in the area of foreign policy analysis with strategic interactions in world politics. Divided into five parts, Part 1 identifies how the beliefs in the cognitive operational codes of individual leaders explain the political decisions of states. In Part 2, five chapters illustrate progress in comparing the operational codes of individual leaders, including Vladimir Putin of Russia, three US presidents, Bolivian president Evo Morales, Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunga, and various leaders of terrorist organizations operating in the Middle East and North Africa. Part 3 introduces a new Psychological Characteristics of Leaders (PsyCL) data set containing the operational codes of US presidents from the early 1800s to the present. In Part 4, the focus is on strategic interactions among dyads and evolutionary patterns among states in different regional and world systems. Part 5 revisits whether the contents of the preceding chapters support the claims about the links between beliefs and foreign policy roles in world politics. Richly illustrated and with comprehensive analysis Operational Code Analysis and Foreign Policy Roles will be of interest to specialists in foreign policy analysis, international relations theorists, graduate students, and national security analysts in the policy-making and intelligence communities.

Aimed at advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students, this book covers the theory of foreign policy analysis. Beginning with an overview, it then tackles theory and research at multiple levels of analysis, ending with an examination of the areas in which the next generation of foreign policy analysts can make important contributions.