ABSTRACT
The chapter investigates countries' relations and international socialization processes in terms of role compatibility. It explains the creation and formation of social patterns as arising from the interaction of social agents and proposes an analytical model to investigate the compatibility of roles. Grounded in symbolic interactionism, the framework argues that roles are structuring normative features of the international environment and as such are better understood in a dynamic, bi-directional process that determines how countries perceive each other's roles. Because of the normative nature of role, role compatibility is explained in terms of normative boundaries and role expectations. Additionally, roles are dynamic social processes that are better understood in relation with state identity. The model localizes state identity as a relational process at the beginning of the socialization process, as resulting from domestic socialization. The chapter explains the model and details its six variables, thereby proposing a systematic method of investigating national role conceptions and socialization processes of countries that have traditionally been considered too opaque of difficult to analyze and/or that do not have canon literature for foreign policy or strategic interests.
