ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the main theoretical contribution of the book: the international identity of the state actor is grasped through focusing on practices of self-identification, which are defined as specific links between role conceptions and self-images by different domestic political actors. In the approach developed here, there are two observable layers of the international self-identity of state actors: the layer of concretely manifested role identities in a given social context, and the more basic layer of self-images that have been employed for the legitimation of specific role conception and related actions. An inductive, textual analysis of role contestation in these respective foreign policy discourses can account for the different self-identifications at play in different foreign policy decisions, while the focus lies on the domestic contestation and stability of these self-understandings over time. The comparison of these retrieved self-images in these self-identifications in the two analyzed policy fields, international peacekeeping and climate diplomacy, over time allows inference of larger patterns of international self-identity narratives. As snapshots of an international, collective sense of self, these self-images enable insights into the larger international identity dynamics behind Korea’s global foreign policy.
