The roles states play: a Meadian interactionist approach

• Published in: Journal of international relations and development Vol. 15; no. 3; pp. 370 - 392
• Main Author: McCourt, David M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Palgrave Macmillan UK 01-07-2012; Palgrave Macmillan
• Subjects: Area Studies; Constructivism; Development Studies; Identity; Interaction; Interactionism; International politics; International Relations; Norms; Political action; Political Science and International Relations; Political Science and International Studies; Role; Studies; Theory; action; G.H. Mead; symbolic interactionism; constructivism; identity; roles
• ISSN: 1408-6980; 1581-1980
• DOI: 10.1057/jird.2011.26

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,
role
-playing 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, identity-affirming 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.