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The narration of roles in foreign policy analysis

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Abstract

Starting from the recurrent criticism that role theory is conceptually rich but methodologically poor, this article assesses the potential of interpretive narrative analysis for the methodological development of role theory within foreign policy analysis. It focuses on the methodological side of narratives from an interpretive perspective, so as to detect role conceptions and role change. The symbolic-interactionist role theory framework is already set up to incorporate the elements of doing interpretive narrative analysis from this perspective, because, as Mead (The philosophy of the present, Open Court, La Salle, IL, 1932) argued, agents constantly reinterpret their past as they face an emergent present. This is akin to Bevir and Rhodes’ (Interpreting British Governance, Routledge, Abingdon, 2003) interpretive notions of ‘traditions’ and ‘dilemmas’. The potential of narratives is demonstrated by focusing specifically on ruling narrations as advanced by the then President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (1999–2013), to conceive and cement a new role as a revolutionary state.

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Notes

  1. Exceptions are the works of McCourt (2014) and Walker (2017).

  2. This article does not discuss or analyse the process of democratic erosion in Venezuela.

  3. Only the basic features of interpretive narrative analysis are presented, as the purpose is only to illustrate how to use this method in an introductory way. For a detailed view on interpretive narrative analysis, see, for instance, Bal (1997), Czarniawska (2004), Hajer (2005), Hendriks (2005), Polkinghorne (1988) and Yanow (2000). For a more general introduction to interpretive approaches on research design, see Schwartz-Shea and Yanow (2012).

  4. The case of Venezuela relies on primary written sources from the Bolivarian government, which summarise the views of Chávez as well as include his different speeches. In addition, this article relies on different Spanish- and English-language secondary literature sources that focus on Chávez’s foreign policy. Interviews are used as background information, and to validate written materials (see footnote 8).

  5. For a detailed account of the vocabulary of role theory, see Walker (1987), Thies (2010) and Harnisch (2011).

  6. On the difference between identity and roles, see McCourt (2014) and Wehner and Thies (2014).

  7. The author conducted interviews with key actors of the government and legislative body in Venezuela in 2010 for a different research project. The total number of interviews was 30. For this article, these interviews were used as background information and to compare with written materials. As the written sources do not diverge from the interviews conducted, the former are used here to rebuild Venezuela’s ruling narrations drawn on to conceive and cement a revolutionary role.

  8. Depending on the type of research questions, some forms of narrative analysis will prioritise the public discourse and actors’ public justifications present in such a narration. In these cases the use of interviews may not be necessary, or they may be only used as background information. However, if the purpose is to study different understandings of a predominant narrative, as well as its contestation and other possible narrations that were dismissed by foreign policy elites, then the use of interviews can be valid in interpretive narrative analysis. On interviews in narrative analysis, see Klotz and Lynch (2015, pp. 48–64), Yanow (2000) and Schwartz-Shea and Yanow (2012).

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ryan Beasley, Detlef Nolte, Víctor Mijares and Cameron Thies for their comments on early versions of this article. I would also like to thank the journal’s anonymous reviewers and the managing editor for their very helpful feedback.

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  1. Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK

    Leslie E. Wehner

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Correspondence to Leslie E. Wehner.

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Wehner, L.E. The narration of roles in foreign policy analysis. J Int Relat Dev 23, 359–384 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-018-0148-y

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