In this book, Sandra Engstrand uses role theory to study learning processes in environmental policy negotiations in the Arctic Council. Owing to rapid ice-melting in the Arctic region, and more accessible commercial opportunities, there is a greater need for environmental protection. However, large sections of the Arctic fall under state jurisdiction, often causing tensions to arise that prevent any cooperation from achieving fully efficient environmental protection. To enhance our understanding on how states learn about environmental norms, Engstrand examines negotiation processes on environmental protection for the prevention of Arctic marine oil spills and the reduction of short-lived climate pollutants. Through interviews with state representatives and through text analyses of nearly twenty years of meetings between Senior Arctic Officials from each of the eight Arctic states, Engstrand suggests that learning on environmental norms runs firstly through a learning of roles in international relations. She demonstrates how member states develop through self-reflection and by considering the expectation of others, concluding that states’ wishes to preserve their social role in a group and to be perceived as Arctic ‘cooperators’ are drivers for a social education on environmental norms. A timely and unmatched volume Role Theory, Environmental Politics, and Learning in International Relations will engage students and academic researchers in international relations, environmental governance, and Arctic politics.

Despite the increased interest in Russia and its international behaviour, current analyses leave much unexplained. Damian Strycharz fills this gap in the literature by analysing leaders’ perceptions and the interactions between internal and external factors shaping foreign policy decisions. Challenging existing interpretations of Russian foreign policy and advancing our understanding on how role dynamics occur in non-democracies, Strycharz examines Russia’s reactions to the 2003–4 colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, the Five-Day War in Georgia, and the Euromaidan Revolution. He argues that divergent reactions to these upheavals result from a profound change in the leadership perceptions of Russia’s international responsibilities. Consequently, a shift in the understanding of Russia’s international duties and departure from the Western partner role resulted in more assertive foreign policy behaviour exemplified by the intervention in Georgia and the annexation of Crimea. The book demonstrates that processes of foreign policy formation in Russia are more complex and include more actors than commonly assumed. Role Theory and Russian Foreign Policy is an ideal resource for scholars and researchers of international relations, foreign policy, and post-Soviet politics.

In Role Compatibility as Socialization, Dorothée Vandamme examines Pakistan’s socialization process in terms of role compatibility in the 2008-2018 period. Adopting an Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) method of analysis, Vandamme builds on role theory to develop a theory of socialization as role compatibility to explain the dynamics of Pakistan’s (dys)functioning position and its status-seeking process as a fully functioning member of the international system. Specifically, she focuses on how Pakistani civilian and military leaders define their country’s positioning towards India, the United States and China. In doing so, she traces the link between domestic role contestation at the country’s inception and the resulting domination of the military’s conception of their country, state identity, how it projects itself externally and how it is received by others. Departing from strictly structural or agent-oriented explanations, Vandamme expertly demonstrates Pakistan’s perceived role compatibility with significant others and underlines the causality between state identity, foreign policy behavior and socialization. Role Compatibility as Socialization will be of interest to graduate students and researchers who work on and with role theory and socialization theory, and for those with a research interest on South Asia.

National Role Conceptions in a New Millennium examines the transformation of the international system through an examination of the role conceptions adopted by the different global actors. Advancing current role theory scholarship in International Relations, the contributors take as their starting point the question of how international actors are responding to the reordering of the global system. They reflect on the rise of new actors and the reemergence of old rivalries, the decline of established norms, and the unleashing of internal political forces such as nationalism and parochialism. They argue that changes in the international system can impact how states define their roles and act as a variable in both domestic and international role contestations. Further, they examine the redefinition of roles of countries and the international organizations that have been central to the US and western dominated world order, including major powers in the world (the US, Russia, China, Britain etc.) as well as the European Union, NATO, and ASEAN. By looking at international organizations, this text moves beyond the traditional subjects of role theory in the study of international relations, to examine how roles are contested in non-state actors. National Role Conceptions in a New Millennium is the first attempt to delve into the individual motivations of states to seek role transition. As such, it is ideal for those teaching and studying both theory and method in international relations and foreign policy analysis.

In Brazil’s International Activism Monika Sawicka questions how Brazil’s deep-rooted craving for greatness has led to the quest for status in the twenty-first century and contends that the categorization of Brazil as an “emerging middle power” enriches the understanding of modern Brazilian foreign policy. Drawing on the rich vocabulary of role theory, Sawicka sets out to establish an original theoretical framework that comprises the structural (status), the behavioral (role), and the cognitive-ideational (identity) to assess whether Brazil has performed roles distinguishing a middle power and how the state has reconceptualized them. The model is applied to scrutinize how ideational and material drivers impacted Brazil’s engagement as an integrator in Latin America, donor in Africa, mediator in the Middle East, and coalition-builder of developing states in global fora. Despite recent criticism of the concept of “emerging middle powers”, Sawicka argues that Brazil’s international activism stands as a precise embodiment of such a power. With an aim of theory development and contributing to the debate on Brazil’s international standing, Brazil’s International Activism provides a much-required reinterpretation of Brazilian foreign policy which will be of interest to scholars and students of Foreign Policy Analysis, International Relations and Latin-American Studies.

Although the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to address global climate change, has been regarded by many as an unsuccessful treaty both politically and environmentally, it stands as one of the world’s few truly global agreements. Why did such a diverse group of countries decide to sign and/or ratify the treaty? Why did they choose to do so at different times and in different ways? What explains their foreign policy behavior? Amy Below’s book builds off the increasing significance of climate change and uses the Kyoto Protocol as a case study to analyze foreign policy decision making in Latin America. Below’s study takes a regional perspective in order to examine why countries in Latin America made disparate foreign policy choices when they were faced with the same decision. The book looks at the decisions in Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela via a process-tracing method. Below uses information obtained from primary and secondary documents and elite interviews to help reconstruct the processes, and augments her reconstruction with a content analysis of Conference of the Parties speeches by presidents and country delegates. The book complies with convention in the field by arguing that systemic, national and individual-level factors simultaneously impact foreign policy decisions, but makes the additional claim that role theory most accurately accounts for relationships between variables. Environmental Politics and Foreign Policy Decision Making in Latin America considers a variety of factors on individual, national, and international levels of analysis, and show that the foreign policy decisions are best viewed through the prism of role theory. The book also draws conclusions about the value of role theory in general and about environmental foreign policy decisions in developing countries, which will be of value to both policy-makers and academics.

Faced with worsening environmental indicators, cooperation hurdles, and the limited effectiveness of current institutions, reforming international environmental governance has proven elusive, despite various diplomatic initiatives at the United Nations level over the last two decades. Overcoming the current dead end, however, may rest less in devising new arrangements than in challenging how the problem has been approached. Presenting a multifaceted exploration of some of the key issues and questions in global ecopolitics, this book brings together recent advances in research on global environmental governance in order to identify new avenues of inquiry and action. Each chapter questions elements of the current wisdom and covers a topic that lies at the heart of global environmental governance, including the reasons for engagement, the evolving relationship between science and policy, the potential and limits of the European Union as a key actor, the role of developing and emergent countries, and the contours of a complex governance of international environmental issues. Laying the foundation for rethinking at a time of great transformation in global ecopolitics, this book will be important reading for students of environmental politics and governance. It will also be of relevance to policy makers with an interest in going beyond the prevailing discourse on this crucial topic.

An introduction to the ways in which the tools and theories of international relations can be used to analyse global environmental problems.

Epistemic Communities, Constructivism and International Environmental Politics brings together 25 years of publications by Peter M. Haas. The book examines how the world has changed significantly over the last 100 years, discusses the need for new, constructivist scholarship to understand the dynamics of world politics, and highlights the role played by transnational networks of professional experts in global governance. Combining an intellectual history of epistemic communities with theoretical arguments and empirical studies of global environmental conferences, as well as international organizations and comparative studies of international environmental regimes, this book presents a broad picture of social learning on the global scale. In addition to detailing the changes in the international system since the Industrial Revolution, Haas discusses the technical nature of global environmental threats. Providing a critical reading of discourses about environmental security, this book explores governance efforts to deal with global climate change, international pollution control, stratospheric ozone, and European acid rain. With a new general introduction and the addition of introductory pieces for each section, this collection offers a retrospective overview of the author’s work and is essential reading for students and scholars of environmental politics, international relations and global politics.

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.