Binary Role Theory and the Uncertainty Problem in International Relations Theory

Role theory has recently attracted renewed interest and attention in the field of international relations (IR). While it has resided as a social theory since at least the 1930s within the sociological tradition of symbolic interactionism and other branches of social science, its contributions to understanding problems of international relations and foreign policy have been somewhat sporadic and only intermittently popular. ¹ It sparked some attention in North America during the 1970s and 1980s regarding the study of national role conceptions as a source for the explanation of foreign policy decisions. ² As relations between states became more tightly coupled in the late twentieth century, James Rosenau employed role concepts and dynamics to describe patterns of global turbulence and stability among states in an emerging world of complex interdependence. ³