No abstract

Constructivist scholars have largely limited their view of how state action is socially constructed to the concepts of norms and identity. As for individuals, however, roleplaying is also a core aspect of state activity. I demonstrate the potential of this concept for constructivists on the basis of a reconsideration of the roles states play in international politics -drawing on symbolic interactionism and in particular the thought of G.H. Mead. From a Meadian perspective, roles are sets of appropriate behaviours, not bundles of fixed duties; they emerge in interaction and give the actor a sense of its structure and the scope of possible action. Roles are thus the necessary social vehicle for action in its meaning-creating, identityaffirming sense. Using the illustration of the Suez Crisis of 1956, I develop a 'Meadian interactionist' conceptual approach that builds on previous attempts to harness the potential of the role concept in International Relations (IR) and sharpens constructivist understandings of the links between role, identity, norms, and action in IR.

Did Britain reinvade the Falklands because of its ‘identity’? Or was reinvasion instead required by its ‘role’ in international politics? In this article I show that a complete constructivist explanation of Britain's response must consider both its identity affirmation, which constructivist International Relations (IR) theory would certainly draw attention to, but also the role it played on the world stage at the beginning of the 1980s, which would very likely be overlooked. I show that a solely identity-based explanation is incomplete and ultimately unpersuasive since identities are affirmed by playing social roles, which give identity meaning. In 1982, a number of roles could have fulfilled this function for Britain; it is important then that Britain chose and was able to play the role of astatus quooriented power rather than that of a colonial power. Beyond offering a more complete interpretation of the events, the article clarifies the links between roles, identity, and action in international politics, and the type of theory appropriate to such analysis.

No abstract

Pluralism has become a buzzword in International Relations. It has emerged in a number of linked literatures and has drawn the support of an unusual coalition of scholars: advocates of greater methodological diversity; those who feel that IR has degenerated into a clash of paradigmatic “-isms”; those who favor a closer relationship between academics and policy-makers; and those who wish to see greater reflexivity within the field. Perhaps unsurprisingly, no single vision of pluralism unites these scholars; they appear to be using the term in divergent ways. Accordingly, our aim is threefold. First, we wish to highlight this odd state of affairs, by placing it in disciplinary and intellectual context. Second, we distinguish between plurality—the de facto recognition that IR has become a more diverse field—and pluralism—a normative position which values that diversity, given the public vocation of social science. Finally, we lay out a more consistent understanding and defense of pluralism in those latter terms. We argue that, properly understood, pluralism entails a position of epistemological skepticism: the straightforward claim that no single knowledge system, discipline, theory, or method can claim singular access to truth.