ABSTRACT
Role theory has provided a theoretical lens in this book for understanding British appeasement decisions during the 1930s by focusing on the structural, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions of appeasement as a grand strategy in world politics. Can binary role theory also entail and specify other grand strategies, such as hegemony, balancing, and bandwagoning? Is it really a general theory of world politics that offers a coherent description and explanation of the patterns of cooperation and conflict among states? The application of role theory in this book to Britain’s foreign policy decisions implies affirmative answers to these questions. The goal in this final chapter is to make these answers more explicit by summarizing here the case for role theory as a general theory of world politics.
