Britain’s Role on the International Stage:

The Basis of Its Future Foreign Policy

Dr. David M. McCourt
European University Institute, Florence

Prepared for the BISA Workshop What is the Future for British Foreign Policy?,
University of Plymouth, 16-17 April 2009

Draft Only. Please Do Not Cite Without Author’s Permission.

Comments Welcome.

Word count: 11 487 (notes inc.)

Department of Social and Political Sciences

European University Institute
Badia Fiesolana
Via Dei Roccettini 9
San Domenico di Fiesole (FI)
I-50014
Italy
david.mccourt@eui.eu
Abstract

No matter what challenges Britain will face in the future, the parameters within which
foreign policy-makers will consider their options in any given instance will be
constituted by a finite universe of discourses and meanings associated with Britain in
the world. This paper refers to this universe of expectations about Britain in world
politics as Britain’s role in international affairs, and shows how it links to foreign
policy behaviour. In short, if we want to understand foreign policies, we should
interpret what decision-makers saw as thinkable for their state to do on the basis of
the role it plays on the world stage. What practices and options did it prioritize or
make seem plausible or necessary? What options did it completely close-off? How
do important Others—in the case of Britain particularly the United States—help shape
this role? Although it is impossible to determine what Britain’s future foreign policy
will be with any certainty, the paper shows therefore that it is possible and sensible to
predict future foreign policy by assessing changes in Britain’s role in the world, from
which policies are derived. In conclusion, the paper draws a number of implications
of this discussion for how we should consider the future of British foreign policy. It
suggests that while radical new departures are unlikely, change will occur, and that
the most meaningful developments will be in those areas where strong resonances
exist from the past—as demonstrated by recent decisions to take a ‘lead’ in
international responses to global financial instability. Rather than conclude that
Britain’s policy-makers in the future either do not matter, or will be able to do as they
please, this paper urges the need to consider Britain’s role in the world as the starting
point for meaningful analysis about its future foreign policy.

2
Introduction
As usual, we are often being told these days that the world around is us is changing in
dramatic ways: globalization—which spawned so much academic attention during the
1990s—may no longer be the topic on everyone’s lips, but the notion that the world is
becoming smaller and that this is having profound affects on all our lives remains a
common theme in international affairs.1 The rise of new powers, primarily China, is
another feature of our world predicted to have a deep, if usually underspecified,
impact.2 As is climate change and the myriad environmental problems it portends.3
Finally, the hegemony and global leadership of the United States is again being
seriously questioned.4 In these circumstances, the predicament of a state such as
Britain—a power ‘of the second rank,’ if indeed a ‘power’ at all—is placed in sharp
relief. What can Britain alone do in the face of any of these issues? The very
existence of something unique called British foreign policy is, in this situation,
brought into doubt.
Yet, we also know that predictions of profound change in world politics
usually turn out to be overstated. China’s emergence as a genuine great power, for
example, has been predicted for many years: Roosevelt included it as one of the ‘four
policemen’ that would police the post-war world. America’s supposed decline also
has a long heritage: US hegemony was frequently written off after the 1973 oil crisis,5
then again in the late 1980s in the face of Japan’s economic success,6 and today in
light of a number of challenges. Climate change, most seem to agree, is likely to have
a profound impact, but, perhaps paradoxically, it is also seems beyond the bounds of
what we can meaningfully think about. Consider Hollywood’s effort, The Day After
Tomorrow, in which most of the United States moves south into Mexico, but where
apparently order exists in the usual state-centric manner. As ever, therefore, it is
worthwhile being cautious before predicting the ‘end of history’—or of British
foreign policy for that matter. Plus ça change…
But if we can dispense, for the time being at least, with the unhelpful question
of whether British foreign policy has a future, we must still grapple with that of the
best way to understand and explain what Britain does in international affairs, and
what it is likely to do over the coming years—the central theme of this forum. By
way of a contribution to it, in this paper I put forward an approach to the study of
British foreign policy that has those twin aims in mind, and, I hope, one that achieves
them, an approach based broadly on constructivist IR theory.

3
 I argue that no matter what challenges Britain will face in the future, the
parameters within which foreign policy-makers will consider their options in any
instance will be given by a finite universe of discourses and meanings associated with
Britain in the world. Elements of this discourse include the ‘special relationship,’ the
UK’s awkward relations with Europe, and its lingering great power pretensions. But
these are only three of its most prominent tropes. Along with other commonplace
reference points, they make up what can often seem like a remarkably limited array of
ways of talking about what Britain does and should do in the world, such that thinking
‘outside the box’ for likely new directions is rendered difficult. Not surprisingly,
therefore, British foreign policy seems to be unchanging: just one damned thing after
another. In this paper, I show that this discourse and set of meanings is reflective of
the dominant expectations attached to Britain in the world that constitute its role in
international affairs, and how the ‘roles nations play’ underpin the actions of states in
world politics. In short, I argue that if we want to comprehend what a state does in
the international sphere, and what it is likely to do in the future, part of our task
should be to interpret its changing role on the international stage.
Roles, in the international context are sets of expectations attached to the
behaviour of nations on the ‘world stage’, and the expectations sustained about those
expectations. In the theatre, where the metaphor originates, such expectations are
sustained and fixed down in the form of the script. International and domestic life,
however, is unscripted, and although we commonly use the term to refer to social
positions such as jobs and offices, what ‘roles’ are and how they work has thus been a
source of debate and division amongst sociologists and social psychologists. Without
wading too deeply into this debate, I show that roles should not be considered fixed
entities in the social world; they are not sets of rights and duties that must be carried
out by a certain individual in a certain position. Roles are instead guides to action,
which follows from a symbolic interactionist account as opposed to one borrowed
from role theory within sociology; they are enaced, and, as such, form part of the
accepted ways in which individuals cope with their worlds. Consequently, in this
paper I show that the universe of discourses and images about states in world politics
act as guides to action for them too. They give inference warrants to decision-makers
in particular situations, leading to, and in turn being reinforced by, certain practices
undertaken by the state in question. In this sense, we can consider what practices the
role authorizes or make seem plausible or necessary. What practices does it

4
completely close off? How do important Others—in the case of Britain particularly
the United States—help shape this role?
Accepting the central place of roles in social life helps us to see the links
between the tropics of the discourse and historical understanding of British foreign
policy, and what Britain actually does in world politics. Although it is impossible to
determine what Britain’s future foreign policy will be with any certainty, the paper
therefore contends that it is possible to consider its future foreign policy by assessing
changes in Britain’s role in the world, from which policies are derived. Importantly,
rather than conclude that Britain’s policy-makers in the future either will not matter,
or will be able to do as they please, this paper demonstrates how considering Britain’s
role in the world can be the starting point for meaningful analysis and discussion.
The argument proceeds in the following steps. I first defend the use of a
theoretical approach, and an IR theoretical approach in particular. Although
scientific-style prediction is impossible, regularities in British foreign policy
represents strong evidence that there is something more ‘going on’ than can be
captured by considering particular contexts and personalities alone. In the second
section, I suggest that the prominence of the concept of ‘role’ in the discourse of
British foreign policy and international politics in general highlights its potential
usefulness as a mode of understanding state action. In part three, consequently, I put
forward an approach to roles that makes it clear what they are and how they work in
social, and, by extension, international political life. Section four then illustrates this
theoretical approach in the case of Britain’s response to the recent financial crisis.
‘Leading the world’ out of economic meltdown, I argue, followed directly from one
of the tropes at the heart of Britain’s role in the world: leading, in other words, is what
Britain does. Section five is a more extended discussion of Britain’s role in the world
since 1945, and the discursive structures and historical tropes that have supported it.
In conclusion, the paper draws a number of implications of this discussion for how we
should might think about the future of British foreign policy on the basis of the
foregoing.

The need for theory in the study of British foreign policy

Before outlining the theoretical approach I put forward in this paper, I would like first
to defend the need to consider ‘theory’ at all. Theory often has a bad reputation when
practical issues are involved—‘theory’ is used in everyday speech as the opposite of

5
‘practice’—and IR theory is no different in this regard. Theoretical ‘debates’ in IR
have, it is true, been remarkably shallow in the past; the pseudo-debate between the
neorealists and the neoliberalists is the obvious case in point.7 But the explosion of
different types of IR theory—constructivist, feminist, green, post-structuralist, etc.8—
which was in many ways caused by this disciplinary narrowing during the 1980s, is
now often thought to have gone to the other extreme: complex theorizing within these
traditions represent either pointless navel gazing, or overly and needlessly
philosophical rumination—betraying nothing other than ‘commitments to some exotic
(presumably Parisian) social theory.’9 It is thus worthwhile justifying, however
briefly, what an unapologetically IR theoretical take has to offer this forum.
The first point to be made is that theory is unavoidable. For one thing,
theories—we could also call them ‘philosophies’ or ‘worldviews’—are used by
decision-makers themselves, and if we try to merely describe what they do then we
are not escaping theories, but reproducing them. But a second and more important
reason is that academia cannot offer an objective viewpoint on world politics.
Consequently, as Robert Cox noted, [IR] ‘theory is always for someone, and for some
purpose.’10 Even if our theorizing is explicitly normative, the opinions we advance
will be based on theoretical pre-suppositions. They will also have practical effects
since theorizing is a social practice.11 For these reasons, making explicit what theory
focuses on, what it deliberately leaves aside, and what it is for, is better than
pretending that the language and events we are studying can be accessed objectively
and a-theoretically.
Who, then, is my theory for, and for what purpose? My theory is for the
foreign policy community—which extends beyond policy-makers alone into the wider
community with an interest in and influence over the making of overseas policy. Like
early realism, my intention is to say assess the limits and possibilities of foreign
policy agency.12 However, unlike early realism, these limits are not concerned with
what can be done within the ‘realities’ of international power politics, but are set by
the boundaries of meaning of particular states on the ‘world stage.’ The theoretical
approach I put forward is located within and amongst the discourses and practices of
foreign policy-making, here of Britain, and of its context. This runs some of the risks
associated with all interpretive, phenomenological, and context-dependent analysis:
that it is merely descriptive rather than analytical, and, by extension, that it is
inherently conservative rather than critical.13 However, the approach I put forward

6
matches an interpretive and historical approach with a pragmatic underpinning. This
means that it does not search for truth, but rather usefulness.14 Part of that usefulness
is to be able to say something critical—if with a small rather than large ‘c’—about
what Britain is all about in the world, if by doing nothing more than rendering
unnatural what has come to be accepted as natural.
Finally, the theory I present falls broadly within the constructivist approach to
international relations.15 Of course, constructivism is already a broad school, and I do
not ally myself with its most prominent theoretical form—that of Alexander Wendt.
Instead, the approach I present follows a more commonsense understanding, which is
to consider how the manifold ways in which world is constructed, or how it ‘hangs
together’ in Ruggie’s terms.16 One of these ways, I suggest, is through the metaphor
of roles and the ‘world stage,’ the consideration of which allows us to see the
continuities in what states are all about international affairs, despite all the manifest
changes that are always taking place in this sphere of political life, including of a state
like Britain. The following section discusses why I place roles at the centre of this
theory.

Roles in international affairs

‘Great Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role,’ Dean Acheson bluntly told
the West Point Military Academy in December 1962. Her attempt to play a world
power role, ‘a role based on the Commonwealth and the ‘special relationship’ with the
United States,’ he continued, was ‘about played out.’17 Since then, Acheson’s
comment has become a staple part of the lexicon of Britain’s international relations,
and one of its most common historical tropes18—certainly no discussion of Britain’s
post-war foreign policy would be complete without it.
But whether Acheson’s was correct or not, and whether Thatcher and Blair
had truly ‘found’ roles for Britain, is beside the point here. These were not factual
statements in search of verification, but assertions in search of acceptance. What is
interesting is that the assertion that Britain ‘has at long last found a role’ has also been
a recurring theme in Britain’s foreign policy discourse:19 Margaret Thatcher thought
she had found it with Britain as a Middle Power;20 Tony Blair thought he had
vanquished Acheson ghost with his vision of a transatlantic bridge;21 but for most
commentators the search for a post-imperial role in the world goes on.22 In this sense,
Acheson’s comment is a powerful illustration of two neglected elements of

7
international relations: the notion of states playing ‘roles’ on the ‘world stage’, and
the creation of historical tropes that describe and help to recreate those roles.
In the first case, it should be uncontroversial to note that the concept of role is
frequently invoked in international affairs. Not surprisingly, this has been marked in
reference to Britain—the decision to relinquish the ‘East of Suez role’ being the best
example.23 But its use has not lessened over time.24 Nor is it confined to the UK; this
is not just a ‘British thing.’ The past or future ‘role’ of a state is often used as the
medium for argumentation over issues of foreign policy and grand strategy: can the
United States preserve its role at the top of the global hierarchy?25 How is that role
best characterized: as an ‘empire,’ an ‘hegemony’ or a ‘unipolarity?’26 What role can
the EU take on the world stage?27 Will China and Russia gain the respect that goes
along with ‘great power’ roles?28 Consideration of the role, or lack of one, has also
been prominent in the history of Italy’s post-War foreign policy.29 Even a brief
survey of both scholarly and more journalistic studies reveals that decision-makers
and commentators frequently think and talk about world politics in terms of the role
nations play on the international stage.
The existence of historical tropes should be no more controversial. The
‘lessons of Munich’ is the most famous trope in the international sphere, but every
country has a number of them unique to their own experience: France, for instance, is
the vanguard of moral virtue, with a mission civilisatrice; the United States is
‘exceptional,’ the ‘city on the hill’ that should avoid ‘foreign entanglements;’ while
Britain is ‘this sceptred isle,’ ‘set in a silver sea.’ These are but a few of the tropes
that pepper the scholarship on international history, in this case of these particular
states. Such tropes form part of popular and scholarly debates, seemingly offering the
‘lessons of history.’30 Acheson’s comment is thus typical in having a profound impact
on subsequent understandings of Britain in world politics by coming a staple part of
the imageries, historical tropes and discourses that frame discussion and debate about
its foreign policy31—in other words, that Britain is still in search of that role has
become one of the defining features of its role in the world.
But despite the prominence of these twin aspects of international politics, the
prominence of ‘role’ in the language of international affairs has not been marked by
an equivalent importance of the concept in IR. A few theorists have used it,32 and one
research agenda has been developed within Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) focused on
national role conceptions,33 but it has not taken centre stage in IR.34 Perhaps this is

8
because ‘role’ is used in numerous ways, often without theoretical investment made in
it: sometimes it refers to policy, the EU’s role in the Balkan region,35 for example; at
others, it is a state in international affairs: e.g. America’s role in the world;36 and at
others it signifies a normative standpoint: what should states X’s role be, as
Acheson’s comments shows.37 Another reason might be the multiplicity of definitions
of in IR that vary significantly: from the role sovereign state, to that of egoistic state
actor of structural realism,38 and from Great Power and regional power, to particular
‘national role conceptions’ such as regional leader.39
Yet, the fact that the concept includes different meanings and is based on a
metaphor—that of the stage—does not constitute a problem in everyday international
life, and it should not be for IR scholars either. The importance of metaphor in
international politics has been remarked upon by a number of scholars.40 As Karin
Fierke notes, ‘Metaphor involves understanding one kind of experience in terms of
another,’41 and, in so doing, they ‘provide boundaries and meaning to otherwise
unwieldy and abstract experience of international relations.’42 By regarding the
metaphor of states playing roles on the international ‘stage’ as ‘mere rhetoric’ IR has
on the whole ignored its importance to international politics. In the following section
of the paper, therefore, I describe briefly a symbolic interactionist re-consideration of
what roles are and how they work in social life, and thereby make the link between
international roles and state action. This approach, I argue, opens up a fruitful
perspective on the actions of states in international politics, with the focus here on the
future of British in the world.

The roles nations play

Roles are made up of expectations about the behaviour of an individual in a certain
social position.43 The roles nations play, therefore, are the sets of expectations
concerning the behaviour of a states on the ‘world stage.’ Expectations, however, do
not ‘float freely’;44 they must be fixed somewhere and in some way, at least to the
degree that they can impart expectations about proper behaviour to actors in particular
situations. As noted above, however, there is no script to the play World Politics; IR
scholars who have wanted to employ the concept have thus hypothesized where these
expectations might be considered fixed. For Kal Holsti and the foreign policy role
theorists, they are fixed at the cognitive level of decision-makers, and can be accessed
directly through what is said in speeches on a regular basis;45 for Michael Barnett,

9
instead, it is international institutions, which like domestic ones, that impart roles to
states;46 and for structural theorists like Kenneth Waltz and Alexander Wendt, the
structure of the international system has certain roles built into it, like that of the
‘egoistical state’ in anarchy.
Here, however, I consider the ‘roles nations play’ to be fixed in the form of
sets of discourses about a state’s proper place in the world, and as certain historical
tropes that form the core of these discourses. I use the term ‘discourse’ not to signal
commitment to a Foucauldian analysis, but because discourse analysis has become a
staple part of foreign policy analysis in recent years,47 and the term should be
comprehensible. The idea is in fact relatively simple: there is a finite universe of
ways of talking and thinking about a state’s foreign policy; leaders think and talk
about their state in international affairs using these roles because they cannot do
otherwise; and these roles constitute the universe of meanings of given situations from
which states act in international politics. A number of other terms could therefore
also be used: as Hopf makes clear, this ‘intersubjective social structure’ is referred to
as a ‘stock of social knowledge’ by Berger and Luckmann,48 ‘but it could be called,
without great conceptual violence, Michel Foucault’s discursive formation,
Bourdieu’s habitus, Clifford Geertz’s web of meaning, or Edmund Husserl’s life-
world.’49 No matter the name chosen, the notion that webs of meaning and
expectations exist, and that these webs have a strong impact on the behaviour of those
within the web, is well-established. Following from this, I consider the roles nations
play to constitute the universe of expectations and meanings attached to states in
international affairs.
The crucial question, however, concerns how these roles relate to action.
Traditionally, role theorists in sociology have conceptualized roles as sets of rights
and duties.50 When these rights and duties match observed behaviour, that behaviour
is thereby explained. Yet this is not, in fact, how roles relate to action in everyday
life—nor indeed in the theatre. This view has been criticized for being overly fixed;
for the most part, the role an individual plays does not completely condition what he
or she does in any given situation,51 and this would not fit with the inter-subjective
nature of roles as discourses in use here. Roles, in fact, act more like guides to
behaviour than determinants.52 They are enacted and not occupied. In contrast to
role theory in sociology, symbolic interactionist social psychology views roles in a

10
way that is more flexible in nature. Consequently the approach put forward here
borrows from this tradition, as have other constructivists.53
For symbolic interactionists, roles are expectations about appropriate
behaviour that take the form of a perspective from which to view the proper conduct
of the Self in social interaction.54 Assuming the perspective of the Other, or ‘role-
taking,’ is the basis upon which meaningful action—as opposed to a-social stimulus-
reaction type behaviour—is constituted.55 The typical example used to illustrate is
that of the baseball game: the batter does not follow certain fixed rules when playing,
but assumes the perspective of Others in order to assess what options there are,
including hitting, leaving, bunting, etc. The rights and duties of the batter are not at
issue. Instead, the role gives certain inference warrants that distinguish good
responses from bad ones, and even better ones from the ordinary, such that a good
player and a bad player are each taking the same role. Good practices that work are
imitated, while bad ones are avoided.
Taking these insights to the international level, states do not occupy roles that
exist beyond their actions—be these in the form of role conceptions, institutional
roles, ‘social identities,’ or systemic roles. Instead, they enact or write their own roles
in the ongoing play of world politics. In their interactions with other states,
international institutions, and other actors, foreign policy-makers assess their options
using their state’s role. That role forms a set of appropriate behaviours that states can
use as guides as to courses of action that are requisite, likely to be successful, and
better than alternatives put forward, which themselves will be drawn from the role.
The role, once again, is made up of meanings, interpretations, and understandings,
about what it does, should do, and what they have done in the past, many of which
have become staple tropes of a state’s foreign relations. It is thus on the basis of this
role that states act in international politics.
Before moving on to the case of Britain’s role on the international stage,
several points can be raised in support of this conceptualization of the roles nations
play. First, the influence of others on state behaviour is here placed front and centre,
and not merely in terms of coercion or power. A symbolic interactionist-inspired
role-based approach accords well with Philippe Le Prestre’s observation that ‘defining
a role and having it accepted by other actors remain basic objectives of states.’56
Roles are meaningless if not for the acceptance of others to play counter-roles. The
familiar examples are that of student to teacher, patient to doctor, or fielder to batter

11
to continue the ballgame illustration. It is in the day-to-day conduct of international
relations that states define and redefine their roles, and, thereby, the roles of Others.
This is particularly prescient to Britain because of the ever-present influence of the
US, and the lack—by and large—of coercion in the relationship.
Secondly, a role-based approach emphasizes the performative element of
political life, which has gained attention in IR predominantly from post-structuralist
and feminist scholars.57 As Mark Laffey notes, this approach maintains that ‘Subjects
do not exist somehow behind or outside discourse but are constituted in a through
it.’58 Because the roles nations play are not fixed a priori, they are constantly being
written—in part literally, in terms of historical tropes—and re-written as they are
negotiated with prominent Others in international affairs, and as the play itself
changes. To cite Laffey again, ‘The possibility that a particular form of subjectivity
will not be produced is built into the very notion of subjectivity.’59 As I show, this
provides a useful lens on the broad continuity evident in Britain’s foreign relations.
Thirdly, this take on roles has the advantage of not viewing them as
determinative of action. Roles should not be considered ‘causes,’ or elements of
efficient causal explanation.60 Instead, practical knowledge—knowing what to do in a
given situation—and hermeneutical understanding are privileged. Both are part of the
very formation of action in the form of roles as emphasized by symbolic
interactionism. A role-based account of action also embraces the ‘double
hermeneutic’ by offering an interpretation of the practical inference warrants gained
by national leaders from the role their state plays in international politics, in the face
of a particular situation. These interpretations, however, themselves interpret
interpretations. The approach to roles presented here, therefore, does not pretend to
offer a close interpretation of observed events, but rather one that should remain
provisional, and therefore open to ongoing discussion and debate.
In the following sections, I bring this approach to state action in international
affairs to the case of Britain. I do this in two steps. The first is an initial example
illustrating the usefulness of this approach using the recent global financial crisis; the
second a wider discussion of Britain’s changing role on the world stage.

‘Leading the world,’ as usual: Britain’s Response to the Global Financial Crisis
‘We are leading the world in saying we need fiscal and monetary policy working
together and that should happen in all countries.’61 These words, spoken on 11

12
November 2008 as the scale of the global economic meltdown was becoming
apparent, came from a seemingly unlikely source. They were spoken not by U.S.
President George W. Bush, nor the Chinese leader Wen Jiabao, nor by an EU political
or financial chief, but by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, after announcing a
far-reaching initiative to underpin the country’s banks and financial institutions,
buckling under the strain of global economic turmoil.
What is interesting about this statement, and the reaction of the British
government to the financial crisis as a whole, is not that Britain was put in a position
where a massive bailout of its banks was required. This was surely a matter of
economic expediency. What is interesting, rather—at least from an International
Relations perspective—is that the British government set up its measures as the first
brave salvo in a coordinated global attack on the financial crisis—an attack in which
Britain was to be in the vanguard. Britain was to ‘lead the world.’ Why?
At first, this seems somewhat counter-intuitive; wasn’t this action not better
suited to the United States or the European Union, as global financial powers, or
indeed China? Wasn’t Brown a century too late to be proposing British leadership in
the global economy?62 Equally puzzling, however, is that Brown’s measures were in
fact taken up by other leaders around the globe: the US Congress passed a bailout of
some $700 billion dollars on 3 October, China followed suit with a $600bn package
shortly after Britain, and as recently as 10 April 2009 the Japanese injected $150bn
into their economy. Brown’s success has not been confined to triumphal UK press
announcements, as Britain’s response to the crisis has won plaudits around the globe.
Even French President Nicolas Sarkozy honored him with membership of the
Eurozone for the day at a summit in Paris. It was as if the twentieth century had never
happened: the Royal Navy was anchored off Washington; a gunboat was up the
Yangtze.
Assuming therefore that the government believed that ‘No country alone can
solve this global problem,’ as Darling told the House early in the crisis, the question
remains why Britain attempted to lead on this issue, and why others allowed it.
Following the logic of roles outlined so far in this paper, I argue that the actions of the
Brown government followed from Britain’s role in the world: Brown’s actions
derived from a long tradition in Britain’s foreign relations that can be traced, without
doubt, to post-imperial anxieties. Leading is a crucial part of Britain’s role, and is one

13
of the central expectations attached to Britain on the international stage—leading, in
short, is what Britain does.
Consider Britain’s actions during the crisis in Kosovo during 1998 and 1999,
where Britain again attempted to place itself central to the evolving international
response. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the Commons the day after NATO
bombing began in March 1999: ‘No nation has done more to seek a peaceful
resolution for Kosovo than Britain. It was Britain that convened and chaired the
Heathrow meeting of the Contact Group…It was Britain which then made a leading
contribution to the verification mission to monitor the supposed ceasefire. It was
Britain and France that jointly chaired the peace talks at Rambouillet and in Paris.’63
The line was the same after Milosevic had capitulated. Cook told the House, ‘Britain
played a leading part within the international community in putting pressure on
President Milosevic that made these agreements possible…President Milosevic would
not have made such a commitment in the diplomatic efforts backed by the contact
group had not also been backed by credible threats of military action by NATO.’64
Neither during the recent crisis, nor during the conflict in Kosovo, moreover,
were British attempts at leadership questioned. The small British dog wagging the
global tail over the financial crisis has not appeared out of the ordinary in the UK. As
Alistair Darling told the House on 13 October, ‘At the weekend, at both the G7
Finance Ministers meeting and the International Monetary Fund, it was clear that the
three elements of last week’s proposals will be essential parts of a global recovery
plan. Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister had discussions with
European Union leaders, and they too agreed that this was the right way to stabilise
and rebuild the banking system. Today—indeed, in the last hour or so—many
European Union Governments have announced how they plan to support their
financial systems. It is increasingly clear that the measures that I am announcing
today form the basis of an international consensus on the right response to events.’65
Compare this to Opposition Leader William Hague’s questioning of the Prime
Minister on 29 March 1999, ‘what is being done to try to involve Russia in our
diplomatic efforts? Will the Prime Minister tell the House what contact he or the
Foreign Secretary have [sic] had with the Russian Government in recent days?’66
Despite Britain’s involvement in the dispute being largely multilateral in nature,
extensive activity though traditional means was still clearly expected of the
government. Indeed, Blair replied that he and his government had indeed been in

14
contact with Russian Prime Minister Primakov on a number of occasions prior to this
exchange.67 Leadership, or at the very least prominence, were fully taken for granted.
But how can it be proven that leadership in these instances followed Britain’s
role in the world? In short, it cannot: the proper criteria is not proof of the theory, but
persuasiveness of the interpretation it provides. What is important is that we cannot
understand what Britain thought it was doing in either instance without considering
the way in which leading links to its role in the world. To that extent, possible
counter-arguments are useful. One might be that, accepting that Britain’s claims to
leadership of the global economic response is typical of wider trends in its foreign
relations, what is the difference between this and a foreign policy tradition? The
answer is the influence of Others at the centre of the role concept. Britain’s attempt to
lead the world in fighting the economic downturn has been accepted by many
prominent authorities as having succeeded, because those states were happy with what
that role means for their own roles in international affairs. Neither America nor China
were threatened by Britain’s initiative, as the former can follow the lead set by
another, and the latter can assume the position of responsible stakeholder in the global
economy, and challenge the primacy of the US. Again, the example of Kosovo is
prescient here. Although Tony Blair’s hawkishness went a little too far for President
Clinton’s liking, the British Government’s preference for a strong response for the
most part helped rather than hindered the formulation of the US’s own position. A
foreign policy tradition, or an ‘identity’, would not be similarly focused.
Finally, whether Britain is or is not really ‘leading’ is not at issue—although
one is lead to skepticism by the importance of other states in sanctioning Britain’s
attempts to play the leader. Although ‘leading’ may not be a trope of Britain’s foreign
relations to the same degree as the ‘special relationship,’ it is a staple part of the
understandings about what Britain is all about in world politics. It is also therefore a
staple part of the historiography on Britain’s recent foreign policy. The idea that
Britain led the international response to the crisis in Kosovo has been a prominent
feature of various interpretations of Britain’s involvement.68 I wonder how long we
will have to wait for books extolling Brown’s, or Britain’s, ‘leadership’ during these
dark economic times?

15
Britain’s changing role on the world stage
Leadership, therefore, may be seen as a central practice of Britain’s role on the world
stage. Unfortunately for our purposes here, however, it does not follow from a role-
based approach to foreign policy that all that must be done to understand the actions
of states is to have an inventory of the universe of expectations and corresponding
discourses that constitute the roles nations play on the world stage at any one time.
The link between expectations, their manifestation in discourses, images, and
historical tropes, and action, is too fluid for that; roles guide action, they do not
determine it, and they are not structural attributes that deny the agency of political
actors. We also cannot predict what form they will take in the future. In many ways,
moreover, the most important elements of the roles nations play are not obvious, and
not written down: they are the tacit knowledge that guide states beyond questioning,
very much like the notion of British ‘leadership’ in the recent financial crisis, which
has largely passed below the radar.
Nonetheless, it is possible to assess what other practices are sanctioned or
suggested by Britain’s role, how these practices have changed as Britain’s
international situation has changed, and how the dominant representations and tropes
of this role have evolved over time. To this end, in this section I discuss—again
necessarily briefly—three such practices: Britain’s attempt to be a prominent player in
the world, the ongoing practice of ‘special’ friendship with the US, and the ongoing
thorny relations with Europe. This brings me to a perhaps surprising conclusion,
although this may not come as a surprise to all: Britain’s role in the world has not
changed significantly since 1945.
Britain’s presence at the ‘top table’ of world politics, and its attempts to stay
there, has been a prominent practice in its post-war foreign policy, and has duly been
a central theme in the historiography of its post-war experience. In many ways this
has already been hinted upon in the previous section, where the notion of ‘leadership’
has been discussed. At least until the late 1960s, Britain’s attempts to be at the
forefront of international events was based on the maintenance of what was known as
the ‘World Role.’69 The more this ‘role’—not really a role at all in the definition put
forward here70—which became another name for the East of Suez role relinquished by
the Wilson Government in January 1968. But although pretensions to a specific
World Role had died by the beginning of the 1970s at the latest—British decision-
making over the Falklands crisis does not include references to a worldwide role; and

16
by the time of the conflict in Kosovo, the notion of a ‘World Role’ was purely
historical—many of the practices that had followed from it and thereby reaffirmed its
significance remained. In the nuclear sphere, for example, Macmillan’s desire to
ensure for Britain top-quality military hardware through ‘interdependence,’ even if
this meant the knock in prestige taken as a result of ‘buying off the shelf’ in the
United States, remains a prominent aspect of British defence policy.71 At the time of
writing, the British government is still on course to purchase from the United States
the yet-to-be developed successor to the Polaris-Trident nuclear missile system.72
During the Falklands conflict, it was the combination of American Sidewinder 9-L
missiles and Sea Harrier jets—British built but used by the US Navy—that proved so
effective against the Argentine air force. Although the term ‘World Role’ had ceased
being used, many of the practices it had underpinned had not.
Britain still believes itself to have a prominent part to play in the world,
despite the ongoing anxiety over Acheson’s famous phrase. Experience has taught
foreign policy-makers that Britain does have a degree of freedom of action in
international politics—largely confirmed in 1982 and again during the 1990s. But it
would also appear that that freedom is defined in very narrow terms, terms that have
narrowed consistently from the end of the Second World War to the present day. As
the Kosovo conflict demonstrated, Britain’s agency is clearest in interactions in which
it is positioned closely with the United States, over military matters, and where
Washington seeks legitimacy for its preferred course of action. When these
conditions are absent, Britain as an independent player becomes much less prominent
on the international stage. Nonetheless, this is a role that Britain has tried to play over
the past six decades, and has consistently been cast into by relevant Others—again,
notably the United States. It is likely, therefore, that Britain will continue to display
vestiges of an ex-protagonist on the world stage well into the future. 73
Another prominent practice, and, duly, perhaps the most common historical
trope connected to Britain in the world, is the so-called ‘special relationship’ with the
United States. According to the ‘special relationship’ thesis of Britain’s post-war
experience, since 1945 London has attempted to tie itself to Washington’s fortunes
through the development of a unique ‘friendship,’ qualitatively different from the
types of diplomatic relationship normally found in international affairs. The contours
of this narrative are well known, as the numbers of books and articles dedicated to
explaining it, debunking it, or providing a history of various aspects of it continue to

17
multiply.74 The maintenance of close Anglo-US cooperation during the war years,
especially in the economic and intelligence spheres, was a key element of the
‘Bevinite consensus’ which was at the heart of the Attlee government’s foreign
policy. The relationship was also accorded high priority by the Churchill doctrine of
the ‘three circles.’ The Suez and Skybolt ‘crises’ are created as crises in large part
because of the success of this British policy, once again, especially until the later
1960s. According to the special relationship thesis, the late 1960s and early 1970s are
seen as a decisive break in Britain’s international relations, because this is when the
almost familial links between the Macmillan governments and its Eisenhower and
Kennedy counterparts in the United States gives way to more strained relations
between Wilson and Johnson, and in particular between Heath and Nixon.75 As Watt
notes, ‘the special relationship really died with Kennedy.’76 However, the ability of
Margaret Thatcher and later Tony Blair to reinvigorate the Anglo-American
relationship allowed it to remain pertinent beyond the ‘crucial decade’77 of the 1960s.
At the outset of the twenty-first century, therefore, the special relationship
remains a prominent narrative for Britain’s past role and a strong prescription for its
future engagement with the changing international landscape.78 But while attention
has normally been paid to explaining it—either in terms of ‘sentimental’, cultural and
political links and affinities between the two countries,79 on the one hand, or the
interests of both parties, but especially the British, in retaining close relations,80 on the
other—few have acknowledged that it is essentially an ongoing practice, reinforced
and even created by historical writing rather than genuinely described and analysed by
it. The theory I put forward here, therefore, not only reaffirms the centrality of the
transatlantic relationship to Britain’s role on the international stage—this is difficult
to deny—but has also provides it with a theoretical underpinning. The relationship
has been maintained through consistent reaffirmation of its centrality to Britain’s role:
foreign policy-makers have time and again privileged the United States as an
important Other when considering British policy. Even during the Suez crisis British
policy-makers factored in possible US responses—they just factored wrongly, Ike did
not ‘lie doggo.’81 Moreover, while the Americans have been much less inclined to use
the language of ‘specialness,’ they can be seen to have time and again reinforced
Britain’s role as their most dependable ally in international relations.
The final practice under consideration here concerns Britain’s often-troubled
relationship with the European Communities/Union, and the project of European

18
integration in general. Since the early 1960s, Britain has consistently attempted to
play a role that includes membership of the European project as a leading member
state, but that retains extra-European interests and a strong bilateral transatlantic
relationship.82 Although certain members of the State Department, notably George
Ball, were aware of the problems of this position, the United States consistently
supported this role, despite also being aware that it had little leverage to gain Britain
membership in the face of de Gaulle’s opposition to enlargement. Because the French
leader held the key to Britain’s aspirations, and had correctly assessed that British
membership would dilute French influence, he managed to turn Britain’s own role
definition into one insufficiently ‘European’ to gain entry. Since 1973, when the
British acceded to the European Communities, however, Britain has retained much of
this role. During the Falklands conflict, Britain expected support from her European
partners, but did not believe much was required of it in return; during the conflict in
Kosovo, Britain’s view was that the Union should offer support to the NATO action
but be little involved militarily itself.
Again, this has become a dominant trope in the understanding of Britain on the
world stage. It is in many ways the flip side of the special relationship coin.’83
Because Britain emerged from the war victorious, this narrative recounts, officials in
London did not feel the need to join ‘the Six’ in their efforts to build the EEC. As
David Reynolds notes, ‘Ernest Bevin summed up the mood well in 1950 when he
exploded to American advocates of European integration that ‘Great Britain was not
part of Europe; she was not simply a Luxembourg.’84 However, with the failure of the
European Free Trade Area, or ‘the Seven’, together with the end of empire and the
downgrading of the importance of the Commonwealth area, it slowly dawned on them
that Britain’s future lay in Europe after all. Moreover, as has been seen, Britain’s
accession to the Communities was a central pillar of successive US Presidents’ desires
for Europe,85 and it is unsurprising that Britain was persuaded, not long after the
signature of the Treaty of Rome, to apply for membership. Macmillan’s decision to
seek entry in 1959 thus began what has been ever since a divisive political issue at
home, and a cause of significant hostility to Britain’s European partners. Through
allegations of negotiating in bad faith during the first attempt, to disagreements over
Britain’s budget contributions during Thatcher’s first term, to the decision to opt-out
of monetary union, London has been seen as the ‘awkward partner’.86 Once again,
this thesis retains contemporary pertinence, as Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s

19
missing of the signing ceremony for the revised Constitutional Treaty would seem to
suggest.87
Crucially, therefore, these practices have been underpinned by predominant
historical representations of Britain’s postwar experience. Consider the following
from Kenneth O. Morgan’s A People’s Peace, in which the author nicely places them
all in one short statement on Britain’s international history since the Second World
War:

Finally, there was the constant angst about Britain’s world role. The direction of Britain’s
post-imperial policy was unclear after 1945. There was a general belief that the nation should
remain ‘strong’ and have that strength publicly acknowledged…Not until the early sixties did
it seem to be generally acknowledged that Britain was no longer a great power as previously
understood. Until then, its leaders continued to reflect the ascendancy they enjoyed at the
time of the 1945 Potsdam conference. In the Middle East especially, British power was still a
decisive factor down to 1956, however illusory its basis. But in which direction its strength
and influence should be pointed thereafter, once the Suez crisis and subsequent Bermuda
conference of 1956-7 showed up Britain’s basic weakness in the Atlantic relationship, was not
apparent. Only during the 1960s did it become generally appreciated that the cosy ‘special
relationship’ of the war years…had changed, and to Britain’s disadvantage. In response,
Britain made a series of half-hearted, and finally somewhat desperate, attempts to become
‘European’ instead. In the end, Britain entered the Common Market in 1975, but with weary
reluctance. Even at the end of the 1980s, while the British left was now largely reconciled to
membership of the Community, the British remained hesitant Europeans…Britain’s role in
the world, which had generated a series of late-imperial crises between 1956 to 1982,
remained decidedly obscure, as Dean Acheson...and others had long forecast.88

Morgan’s sentiment and choice of reference points is unsurprising, as he echoes those

made by innumerable commentators on Britain’s post-war international experience:
firstly, there is Britain’s long search for a post-imperial role; secondly, the ebbing and
flowing of the ‘special relationship’; and, finally, the story of Britain’s uneasy
relations with ‘Europe.’ But from a role-based perspective, these are not neutral
descriptions, but also part of the role Britain has enacted and re-enacted over time on
the international stage.
Before concluding, it is worthwhile noting that this discussion seems to have
arrived at an unexpected conclusion: namely that, although Britain’s international
predicament has clearly changed significantly since 1945, from being one of the

20
central players to a stubbornly prominent, but clearly also less important, actor—
‘Never, surely, except under the impact of overwhelming military defeat…has a great
country gone so rapidly from world power to extreme helplessness,’89 was how
George Kennan described it—Britain’s role in the world has not changed nearlyso
much. There have been no fundamental upheavals in the nexus between the
expectations, discourses, and practices associated with Britain’s role, and no ‘gestalt
switch’ in the way foreign policy-makers view Britain in the world: despite the loss of
empire, and the acceptance of the necessity of membership of the European project,
British elites still consider their state uniquely suited to exercising a prominent role in
the world—with the usual proviso of ‘in junior partnership with the United States, and
as a leader of the European nations.’
This assertion runs directly counter to most interpretations of Britain’s recent
international history, the majority of which would at the very least place the Suez
crisis in such a category.90 This was the moment, it has been argued, at which British
foreign policy-makers realized that they had fallen from the highest rung of the
international political ladder: they would no longer enjoy the freedom of action in
world affairs they had done hitherto. The withdrawal from East of Suez and the
accession to the EEC in 1973 have also both been considered fundamental changes to
Britain’s role.91 However, notwithstanding these indeed important events, British
elites and policy-makers have held a highly consistent view of Britain’s proper role in
the world. As a result, Britain’s what Britain has done in world politics has been
driven to a significant extent by the changing expectations place upon the country
from Others: notably the United States’s willingness to countenance the ‘special
relationship,’ and the continued difficulty the European project has encountered in
channeling the national roles of its member states…Plus c’est la même chose.

Conclusion: Britain’s role in the world and the future of British foreign policy
This paper has put forward a theoretical approach to British foreign policy based on
the notion of ‘roles’ link to behaviour. It has also illustrated this approach using the
case of the recent financial crisis and a more general discussion of Britain’s postwar
experience. Finally, in this concluding section of the paper, I want to lay out the chief
conclusions that can be drawn about the future of British foreign policy from this
discussion.

21
 In theoretical terms, I have tried to demonstrate that it is worthwhile
considering there to be something more ‘going on’ in foreign policy-making than can
be grasped either by looking at what leaders and decision-makers say, or by positing
that state behaviour is governed by certain regularities that arise from the nature of the
international ‘system.’ The former method merely re-describes practices, rather than
viewing them analytically; while the latter strives for analytical ‘distance’ to the
extent that any link with our experience of foreign policy is removed. Suggestions as
to how things could and should have been done differently, therefore, are lost as either
the unstoppable force of agency comes up against the immovable object of structure.
The notion of ‘role’, I suggest, has something to offer both IR theorists and historians
and commentators in this regard—although I will refrain from invoking roles as the
‘missing link’ between agents and structures. But roles are close enough to the actual
language of foreign policy to be plausible to those without theoretical propensities,
while it offers a more sophisticated version of the increasingly popular ‘identity’
agenda in IR theory.92 In short, although the proposition that ‘what people do is
conditioned by who they are’ would seem commonsensical, the links between identity
and behaviour are far from clear. The notion of roles, however, as shown here, is
more suitable: not only are roles, conceptually, a precondition of state action, but they
also allow a strong link to be made between discourses and ongoing practices.
In empirical terms, the paper has suggested that Britain’s role in the world has
remained remarkably constant over the last few decades, even while the world around
it has changed markedly. This raises the question, therefore, of how likely significant
changes in British foreign policy based on this reading. It is tempting to say ‘not
very.’ Certainly, the much hoped for—until the recent election of Barack Obama—
‘Love Actually moment,’ in which a British PM publicly distances the UK from the
US, is most unlikely. The practice of ‘hugging them close’93 is far too well engrained
for that, to the extent that what Britain does in international affairs is heavily
dependent on what the United States itself chooses to do; this has also been given a
theoretical underpinning here. This goes against certain recent arguments put forward
concerning the war in Iraq, namely that Prime Minister’s other than Blair would not
have taken Britain in alongside the Americans.94 Other Prime Ministers would have
been operating within the same British role in the world, and would have therefore
been likely to take the same decisions Blair did.

22
 Yet nothing in the foregoing has been meant to suggest that change is
impossible. Indeed, quite the opposite. As noted above, the notion of change is built
into the very idea of enacting rather than occupying roles. France’s foreign policy is
an interesting case in point here, as it is in general when considering British foreign
policy—as a country of very similar population, GDP, and military structure, the fact
that France and Britain have trodden such different paths since WWII is puzzling.
For many years the central feature of France on the world stage, in direct contrast to
Britain, has been its focus on the European project and its intense distrust of the
United States. A centrepiece of this ‘Gaullist’ foreign policy was France’s stance on
NATO—being a member of the alliance, but not of the integrated command structure.
Until, that is, recently, when President Nicolas Sarkozy took France back into the
inner circle of the organization.95 No doubt many explanations and interpretations
will be put forward of this in future years, but what the theoretical approach under
discussion here would suggest is that Sarkozy took a different guide to appropriate
action from the predominant understandings of France’s international role: the
practice of taking part in NATO efforts but remaining separate from the integrated
command no longer naturally followed one another. To Sarkozy at least, France’s
role in the world allowed, or even required withdrawal, if other elements—like in
Britain, for ‘influence’ in the world—were to retain meaning.
Developments in Britain’s foreign policy, in conclusion, are likely to continue
along the same path in broad terms. With Britain offering ‘leads’ on international
issues where leaders feel the UK uniquely suited to do so—like economic matters, aid
and debt relief for Africa, and perhaps even climate change, but only so long as
relevant Others acquiesce. Movements away from the US will likely be only affected
if Washington initiates it; movements toward Europe seem as unlikely as ever. This
does not rule out serious internal British political developments either from forcing
change, as Andrew Gamble has recently noted.96 None of these conclusions, however,
should be considered definitive, but considering the roles nations play allows us to
understand more deeply why changes in foreign policy are often very rare, on the one
hand, while helping to open the spaces for such change on more secure and
meaningful ground on the other.97

23
Notes
1
See, for example, Colin Hay, ‘International Relations Theory and Globalization’, in International
Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity, ed. Timothy Dunne, Milja Kurki and Anthony D. Smith
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
2
G. John Ikenberry, ‘The Rise of China and the Future of the West’, Foreign Affairs 87, no. 1 (2008);
Will Hutton, The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century (London: Abacus,
2008); Michael T. Klare, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: How Scarce Energy is Creating a New
World Order (Richmond: Oneworld, 2008); Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (2008).
3
See Robyn Eckersley, ‘Green theory’, in International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity,
ed. Dunne, Kurki and Smith.
4
For a good discussion, see Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, World Out of Balance:
International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton
University Press, 2008).
5
Which was the inspiration for works such as Robert O. Keohane, After hegemony: cooperation and
discord in the world political economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984).
6
Which, again, was the inspiration for Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (London:
Fontana Press, 1988).
7
See David Baldwin, ed., Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1993).
8
For a good overview of the state of contemporary IR theory, see Timothy Dunne, Milja Kurki and
Steve Smith, eds., International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007).
9
Ronald L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt and Peter J. Katzenstein, ‘Norms, Identity, and Culture in
National Security’, in The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, ed. Peter
J. Katzenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), p. 34.
10
Robert W. Cox, ‘Social forces, states, and world order: beyond international relations theory’, in
Approaches to world order, ed. Robert W. Cox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 87.
11
See Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers 2: Philosophy and the Human Sciences (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 91-115.
12
See E.H. Carr, The twenty years’ crisis, 1919-1939 (London: Macmillan, 1946); Hans J.
Morgenthau, Scientific Man versus Power Politics (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago
Press, 1946); Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Charles Schribner’s
Sons, 1932). For a discussion, see Michael C. Williams, The Realist Tradition and the Limits of
International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
13
On a debate between Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jürgen Habermas on these issues, see Richard
Shapcott, Justice, Community, and Dialogue in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001), pp. 181-8.
14
See Taylor, ‘Social Theory as Practice’ in his Philosophical Papers 2.
15
The key works here are Peter J. Katzenstein, The culture of national security : norms and identity in
world politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Friedrich V. Kratochwil, Rules, norms,
and decisions: on the conditions of practical and legal reasoning in international relations and
domestic affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Nicholas Greenwood Onuf, World of
our making: rules and rule in social theory and international relations (Columbia, S.C.: University of
South Carolina Press, 1989); Alexander Wendt, Social theory of international politics (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1999). For an overview see Karin M. Fierke, ‘Constructivism’, in Dunne,
Kurki and Smith.
16
John Gerard Ruggie, ‘What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social
Constructivist Challenge’, International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998).
17
Acheson, Dean. 1963. ‘Our Atlantic Alliance: the Political and Economic Strands. Vital Speeches
XXIX (6): 163-4. See also Douglas Brinkley, ‘Dean Acheson and the ‘Special Relationship’: the West
Point Speech of December 1962’, The Historical journal 33, no. 3 (1990).
18
Robert. F. Holland, The pursuit of greatness: Britain and the world role, 1900-1970 (Hammersmith,
London: Fontana Press, 1991), p. 311.
19
Brian Harrison, Seeking a Role: Britain 1951-1970 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
20
Paul Sharp, Thatcher’s Diplomacy: The Revival of British Foreign Policy (Houndmills: Macmillan,
1997). (xiv).
21
Lisbeth Aggestam, ‘Role conceptions and the politics of identity in foreign policy’, (Oslo: ARENA,
1999).

24
22
Brian Barder, ‘Britain: Still looking for that Role?’ The Political Quarterly 72, no. 3 (2001);
Christopher Hill, ‘Britain’s elusive role in world politics’, British Journal of International Studies 5
(1979); Avi Shlaim, ‘Britain’s Quest for a World Role’, International Relations (1975); William
Wallace, ‘Foreign Policy and National Identity in the United Kingdom’, International Affairs 67, 1
(1991).
23
Phillip Darby, British Defence Policy East of Suez 1947-1968 (London: Oxford University Press,
1973); Saki Dockrill, Britain’s Retreat from East of Suez: The Choice between Europe and the World?
(Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); Jeffrey Pickering, Britain’s Withdrawal from East of Suez:
The Politics Politics of Retrenchment (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1998).
24
See, for example, Gregory F. Treverton, ‘Britain’s Role in the 1990s: An American View’,
International Affairs 72 (1990); Paul Williams, British foreign policy under New Labour, 1997-2005
(Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 5.
25
Anatol Lieven and John Hulsmam, Ethical Realism: A Vision for America’s Role in the World (New
York: Vintage, 2007); Zakaria, The Post-American World.
26
See Brooks and Wohlforth, World Out of Balance.
27
Christopher Hill, ‘The capability-expectations gap, or conceptualizing Europe’s International Role’,
Journal of Common Market Studies 31, 3 (1993).
28
Iver B. Neumann, ‘Russia as a Great Power’, Journal of International Relations and Development 11
(2008), 128-151.
29
Gianni Bonvicini, ‘Regional reassertion: the dilemmas of Italy’, in The Actor’s in Europe’s Foreign
Policy, ed. Christopher Hill (London: Routledge, 1996).
30
Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-
Makers (New York: The Free Press, 1986).
31
David Sanders, Losing an empire, finding a role: British foreign policy since 1945 (Houndmills:
Macmillan, 1990).
32
Michael N. Barnett, ‘Institutions, Roles, and Disorder: The Case of the Arab States System’,
International Studies Quarterly 37, 3 (1993); Martin Hollis and Steve Smith, ‘Roles and Reasons in
Foreign Policy Decision Making’, British Journal of Political Science 16, 3 (1986); James N. Rosenau,
Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1990).
33
Philippe G. Le Prestre, ed., Role Quests in the Post-Cold War Era (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-
Queen’s University Press, 1997); Alvin Magid, ‘“Role Theory,” Political Science, and African
Studies’, World Politics 32, 2 (1980); Chih-yu Shih, ‘National Role Conceptions as Foreign Policy
Motivation: The Psychocultural Bases of Chinese Diplomacy’, Political Psychology 9, 4 (1988);
Stephen B. Walker, ed., Role Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis (Durham: Duke University Press,
1987), Naomi Bailin Wish, ‘Foreign Policy Makers and Their National Role Conceptions’,
International Studies Quarterly 24, 4 (1980).
34
Wendt, Social theory of international politics, p. 227.
35
Ole Elgstrom and Michael Smith, eds., The European Union’s Roles in International Politics
(London: Routledge, 2006).
36
Robert A. Pastor, ed., A Century’s Journey: How the Great Powers Shape the World (New York
Basic Books: 1999); Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World
Role (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
37
Mark Curtis, Web of Deceit: Britain’s Real Role in the World (London: Vintage, 2003).
38
See Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979); see also
Stacie E. Goddard and Daniel H. Nexon, ‘Paradigm Lost? Reassessing Theory of International
Politics’, European Journal of International Relations 11, no. 1 (2005).
39
K.J. Holsti, ‘National Role Conceptions in the Study of Foreign Policy’, International Studies
Quarterly 14, 3 (1970).
40
P. Chilton, Security Metaphors: Cold War Discourse from Containment to Common European
House (New York: Peter Lang, 1996); Karin M. Fierke, Changing Games, Changing Strategies:
Critical Investigations in Security (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998); Richard Little,
The Balance of Power in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
41
Fierke, Changing Games, Changing Strategies, p. 33.
42
Ibid. p. 44.
43
Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity, p. 212.
44
Thomas Risse-Kappen, ‘Ideas do not float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures and
the End of the Cold War’, International Organization 48, 2 (1994).

25
45
Holsti, ‘National Role Conceptions in the Study of Foreign Policy’; Walker, ed., Role Theory and
Foreign Policy Analysis.
46
Barnett, ‘Institutions, Roles, and Disorder: The Case of the Arab States System’.
47
Henrik Larsen, Foreign Policy and Discourse Analysis: France, Britain and Europe (London:
Routledge, 1997)..
48
Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The social construction of reality: a treatise in the sociology
of knowledge (London: Penguin Books, 1967).
49
Ted Hopf, Social construction of international politics: identities & foreign policies, Moscow, 1955
and 1999 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 5.
50
See Michael Banton, Roles, an introduction to the study of social relations (London: Tavistock,
1965); Bruce J. Biddle and Edwin J. Thomas, eds., Role theory: concepts and research (New York:
Wiley, 1966); Ralph Linton, The Study of Man (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1936).
51
See John P. Hewitt, Self and Society: A Symbolic Interactionist Social Psychology, Seven ed.
(Needham Heights, Mass.: Allyn and Bacon, 1997), p. 59; see also J. A. Jackson, Role (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1972).
52
Anne Swidler, ‘Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies’, American Sociological Review 51, 2
(1986).
53
Hopf, Social construction of international politics; Alexander Wendt, ‘Anarchy is What States Make
of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics’, International Organization 46, 2 (1992); Wendt,
Social theory of international politics.
54
Herbert Blumer, Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1986); Joel M. Charon, Symbolic Interactionism: An Introduction, an Interpretation,
an Integration Sixth ed. (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1998); Hewitt, Self and Society; George
Herbert Mead, Mind, self and society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934); Jonathan H.
Turner, A theory of social interaction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988).
55
Mead, Mind, self and society, pp. 150-2. The distinction between acting and behaving here is
significant. In the study of politics, focusing on action, and therefore the possibility of different action,
is something of a moral imperative for the scholar. Normally, however, attempts to understand foreign
policy focus on recognising and explaining regularities in repeated behavior.
56
Le Prestre, ed., Role Quests in the Post-Cold War Era, p. 5.
57
See David Campbell, Writing security: United States foreign policy and the politics of identity
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992); Cynthia Weber, ‘Performative States’,
Millennium: Journal of International Studies 27 (1998), 77-95.
58
Mark Laffey, ‘Locating identity: performativity, foreign policy, and state action’, Review of
International Studies 26 (2000), 451.
59
Ibid.
60
For a reconsideration of causation in IR, see Milja Kurki, Causation in International Relations
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
61
‘Brown Leading World Out of Crisis’, Financial Times, 11 November 2008.
62
Although see Bryan Coutain, ‘The Unconditional Most-Favored-Nation Clause and the Maintenance
of the Liberal Trade Regime in the Postwar 1870s’, International Organization, 1 (2009), for a
counter-argument to this orthodoxy.
63
25 March 1999, Hansard, col. 537, emphasis added.
64
Will Bartlett, ‘‘Simply the right thing to do’: Labour goes to war’, in New Labour’s Foreign Policy:
A New Moral Crusade?, ed. Richard Little and Mark Wickham-Jones (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2000), p. 135, emphasis added.
65
13 October 2008, Hansard, col. 543.
66
29 March 1999, Hansard, col. 734.
67
29 March 1999, Hansard, col. 735.
68
See Louise Richardson, ‘A Force for Good in the World? Britain’s Role in the Kosovo Crisis’, in
Alliance Politics, Kosovo, and NATO’s War: Allied Force or Forced Allies?, ed. Pierre Martin and
Mark R. Brawley (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2000).
69
Holland, The pursuit of greatness.
70
See David M. McCourt, ‘What Was the ‘East of Suez Role?’: Reassessing the Withdrawal, 1964-
1968’, forthcoming.
71
Nigel John Ashton, Kennedy, Macmillan, and the Cold War: the irony of interdependence
(Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).
72
See ‘Brown backs Trident replacement’, 21 June 2006, at http://news.bbc.co.uk, last accessed 6
February 2008.

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73
This argument supports Reynolds’ interpretation of Britain’s changing foreign policy since 1945. See
Reynolds, Britannia Overruled: British policy and world power in the twentieth century (London:
Longman, 1991).
74
This is not confined to Britain alone, see Walter Russell Mead, God and Gold: Britain, America, and
the Making of the Modern World (New York: Vintage, 2007).
75
See John Dumbrell, A Special Relationship: Anglo-American in the Cold War and After
(Houndmills: Macmillan, 2001), pp. 73-8.
76
Donald Cameron Watt, Succeeding John Bull: America in Britain’s place, 1900-1975 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 144.
77
Diane Kunz, ed., The Diplomacy of the Crucial Decade: American Foreign Relations during the
1960s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).
78
See, for example, the invocation of the concept in relation to the war in Iraq, Alex Danchev, ‘Tony
Blair’s Vietnam: The Iraq and the ‘special relationship’ in historical perspective’, Review of
International Studies 33 (2007).
79
See, for example, Christopher Hitchens, Blood, Class and Empire (London: Nation, 2004).
80
Dumbrell, A Special Relationship: Anglo-American in the Cold War and After.
81
See Keith Kyle, Suez (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991), p. 258.
82
For a similar thesis, see Alan S. Milward, The UK and the European Community: Vol 1. The Rise
and Fall of a National Strategy, 1945-63 (London: Frank Cass, 2002).
83
Stephen George, An Awkward Partner: Britain in the European Community, third ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998).
84
Reynolds, Britannia Overruled, p. 198.
85
See in particular Pascaline Winand, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the united states of Europe (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).
86
In addition to George, see also Wolfram Kaiser, Using Europe, Abusing the Europeans: Britain and
European Integration, 1945-63 (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1999); Hugo Young, This blessed plot:
Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair (London: Macmillan, 1998).
87
See ‘Brown belatedly signs EU treaty’, 13 December 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk, last accessed 6
February 2008.
88
Kenneth O. Morgan, The People’s Peace: British History, 1945-1989 (London: Oxford University
Press, 1990), p. 512-3.
89
Quoted in Reynolds, Britannia Overruled, p. 293.
90
See, for example, ibid., pp. 203-6.
91
See, respectively, Dockrill, Britain’s Retreat from East of Suez: The Choice between Europe and the
World?; and Reynolds, Britannia Overruled, p. 238.
92
See, as only a small selection of this burgeoning literature, Amy Gurowitz, ‘The Diffusion of
International Norms: Why Identity Matters’, International Politics 43 (2006); Katzenstein, The culture
of national security: norms and identity in world politics; Jeffrey W. Legro, ‘The Plasticity of Identity
under Anarchy’, European Journal of International Relations 15, 1 (2009); Erik Ringmar, Identity,
Interest and Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Brent J. Steele, ‘Ontological
security and the power of self-identity: British neutrality and the American Civil War’, Review of
International Studies 31 (2005).
93
Peter Riddell, Hug Them Close: Blair, Clinton, Bush and the ‘Special Relationship’ (London:
Politico’s, 2003).
94
Stephen B. Tyson, ‘What Difference Did He Make? Tony Blair and British Foreign Policy from
1997-2007’, in Terence Casey, eds. The Blair Legacy: Politics, Policy, Governance, and Foreign
Affairs (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 235-46.
95
‘France ends four-decade Nato rift’, http://news.bbc.co.uk, last accessed 14/4/09.
96
Andrew Gamble, Between Europe and America: The Future of British Politics (Houndmills:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
97
I am thinking here specifically of David Held and David Mepham, eds., Progressive Foreign Policy
(Cambridge Polity, 2007). Like its ‘Third Way’ predecessors in domestic political thought, what this
forum lacks is a coherent intellectual position, ‘progressivism,’ in my opinion at least, does not offer
one. I do not consider it to have achieved its stated aim, therefore, of transcending the usual parameters
of thought on Britain’s international relations, instead, it merely cements many of its central themes.

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