ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 applies the socialization-as-role-compatibility model to the India-Pakistan relationship. Building on social psychology, it highlights that this rivalry is the consequence of 70+ years of bellicose rhetoric, identity, and role formation as rivals, and explains how the process of memorization of the past has led to incompatibility. Yet, the analysis shows that among the 42 inter-role relations, the large majority are neutral. This result makes this study all the more relevant. The chapter thus demonstrates that the socialization process is fueled by perceptions of incompatibility, which in turn become the ground for attempting to influence the international socialization process of the other by portraying the other's self-role conception as incompatible with the international system's rules and norms. The analysis demonstrates the intricacy of Pakistan's identity construction with its conflict with India. Because of the social-psychological features of this foundational relationship, Pakistan's sense of identity and self-conception is founded on an external locus of control. Hence, while the conflict threatens its physical identity, role incompatibility reinforces its identity because of the social construction and embeddedness of oppositional perceptions and role definitions.
