Role conceptions, crises, and Georgia’s foreign policy
| Author | Niklas Nilsson |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0010836718808332 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836718808332
Cooperation and Conflict
2019, Vol. 54(4) 445 –465
© The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0010836718808332
journals.sagepub.com/home/cac
Role conceptions, crises, and
Georgia’s foreign policy
Niklas Nilsson
Abstract
This article explores the scope conditions of national role conceptions as reference points for
foreign policy decision making during crises. It aims to contribute to a refined perspective of
the agency of new states undergoing socialization processes in relations with significant others.
Drawing on a primary material consisting of interviews with Georgian and US officials, the
article analyzes the significance of Georgia’s role conceptions in the country’s relations with
the USA in relation to two major crises: the 2007 riots in Tbilisi and the 2008 war with Russia.
The article posits that crises provide situational circumstances where the requirements of
appropriate behavior associated with role expectations may enter into conflict with the demands
of the immediate situation. In order to resolve ensuing role conflicts, actors face the need to
both rationalize role expectations, and to compensate for departures from them. In turn, these
strategies relate to the possibility for change and stability in role conceptions, and by extension
their enactment in foreign policy. The analysis of the Georgian government’s management of the
two crises demonstrates actions that implied both rationalization and compensation, aiming to
retain the credibility of its existing role conceptions in the eyes of its US counterparts.
Keywords
Crisis, foreign policy, Georgia, role conflict, role theory, socialization
Introduction
This article aims to contribute to the development of a decision-making perspective in
role theoretical approaches to foreign policy analysis. The article theorizes the impact of
crises on the actor’s conception and enactment of roles, and options available for manag-
ing role conflicts emerging as a result thereof. I suggest that crisis situations incentiviz-
ing actions that depart from the expectations for ‘appropriate’ behavior inherent in
existing role conceptions present actors with the need to both rationalize these expecta-
tions, and compensate for departures from them. In turn, these strategies relate to the
Corresponding author:
Niklas Nilsson, Swedish Defence University, Box 278 05, 11593 Stockholm, Sweden.
Email: niklas.nilsson@fhs.se
808332CAC0010.1177/0010836718808332Cooperation and ConflictNilsson
research-article2018
Article
446 Cooperation and Conflict 54(4)
possibility for change and stability in role conceptions, and by extension their enactment
in foreign policy.
I demonstrate the analytical utility of these strategies for resolving role conflict
through a case study on foreign policy decision making in connection with two major
crises occurring in the Republic of Georgia: the November 2007 riots in Tbilisi and the
2008 war with Russia, both presenting considerable challenges to the role conceptions of
Georgia’s ruling elite. The selection of Georgia as a case study primarily aims to illus-
trate the article’s theoretical argument, which can potentially find a wide application in
analyses of role conflict management in foreign policy. Yet the case also provides impor-
tant insights into the interactive nature of international socialization processes. Whereas
much of the literature in this field has tended to focus on how great powers can impose
roles and behaviors on new states in the system, the agency of these novice states in the
socialization process is far less explored (Wehner and Thies, 2014: 415). Indeed, the case
of Georgia is helpful in refining our understanding of how novice states navigate and
respond to external socialization pressures, while simultaneously shaping the dynamic of
interaction.
The article first reviews role theoretical approaches to international socialization and
role conflict. It then elaborates on the potential impact of crises on the actor’s role con-
ception, and proposes rationalization and compensation as potential strategies for man-
aging ensuing role conflicts. Finally, these conceptual points of departure are applied to
Georgia’s foreign policy and its interaction with counterparts in the USA, particularly in
relation to the aforementioned crises.
Roles, socialization and role conflict
Since Kalevi Holsti’s introduction of role theory to Foreign Policy Analysis (Holsti,
1970), the approach has been lauded by its proponents for its ability to bridge the agent-
structure divide; its descriptive, organizational and explanatory value for Foreign Policy
Analysis; and its ability to accommodate and integrate other theoretical perspectives
(Thies and Breuning, 2012; Walker, 1987). The most recent works employing role theory
in this field have developed perspectives that fruitfully theorize social interaction in
international politics (Breuning, 2011; Harnish et al., 2011).
A role can be defined as a ‘social position constituted by ego and alter expectations
regarding the purpose of an actor in an organized group’ (Harnish, 2011: 8). Thus, roles
are shared, social concepts that, aside from providing a backdrop for the actor’s own
conceptualization of interests and actions, also derive from existing norms in the actor’s
social environment, conveyed by other actors through role expectations for appropriate
behavior. Roles therefore draw on the actor’s own conceptualization of capabilities and
interests as well as on the role expectations of significant or generalized others, and come
about through social interaction between them (Aggestam, 2006; Benes and Harnish,
2015; Thies, 2012).
Role conceptions favor certain types of behaviors over others; they prescribe the
appropriate enactment of a role (Harnish, 2011: 9) and provide a social purpose for
actions (Benes and Harnish, 2015: 148). Although we cannot expect a one-to-one rela-
tionship between roles and decisions (Wish, 1980), role conceptions provide consistency
To continue reading
Request your trial