As scholarly interest in the concept of identity continues to grow, social identities are proving to be crucially important for understanding contemporary life. Despite - or perhaps because of - the sprawl of different treatments of identity in the social sciences, the concept has remained too analytically loose to be as useful a tool as the literature's early promise had suggested. We propose to solve this longstanding problem by developing the analytical rigor and methodological imagination that will make identity a more useful variable for the social sciences. This article offers more precision by defining collective identity as a social category that varies along two dimensions - content and contestation. Content describes the meaning of a collective identity. The content of social identities may take the form of four non-mutually exclusive types: constitutive norms; social purposes; relational comparisons with other social categories; and cognitive models. Contestation refers to the degree of agreement within a group over the content of the shared category. Our conceptualization thus enables collective identities to be compared according to the agreement and disagreement about their meanings by the members of the group. The final section of the article looks at the methodology of identity scholarship. Addressing the wide array of methodological options on identity - including discourse analysis, surveys, and content analysis, as well as promising newer methods like experiments, agent-based modeling, and cognitive mapping - we hope to provide the kind of brush clearing that will enable the field to move forward methodologically as well.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1100064_code339517.pdf?abstractid=1100064&mirid=1

Identity as a Variable

IR theory is dominated by the logics of consequentialism and appropriateness. But Max Weber offered four logics of choice, not just two. Beyond the instrumental rationality of Zweckrationalitat and the normative rationality of Wertrationalitat are affect and habit. Drawing on Weber, James, Dewey, and Bourdieu, and habit’s microfoundations in neurocognitive psychology, I explore the logic of habit and its consequences for several fundamental puzzles in IR theory. The logic of habit necessarily precludes rationality, agency, and uncertainty, and so offers a different interpretation of cooperation, security dilemmas, enduring rivalries, and security communities in international politics. The logic of habit also fills a gap in mainstream constructivism’s theorization of intersubjective structures, returning the taken-for-granted lifeworld to the center of attention.

The logic of habit in International Relations

Digital Soviet Union : the Russian national segment of the Internet as a closed national network shaped by strategic cultural ideas

What is soft power, and how can we analyse it empirically? The article proposes a social constructivist take on soft power by anchoring it to the concept of collective identity, and by suggesting a...

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Soft power and identity: Russia, Ukraine and the ‘Russian world(s)’:

Providing a comprehensive overview of Russia’s foreign policy directions, this handbook brings together an international team of scholars to develop a complex treatment of Russia’s foreign policy. The chapters draw from numerous theoretical traditions by incorporating ideas of domestic institutions, considerations of national security and international recognition as sources of the nation’s foreign policy. Covering critically important subjects such as Russia’s military interventions in Ukraine and Syria, the handbook is divided into four key parts: Part I explores the social and material conditions in which Russia’s foreign policy is formed and implemented. Part II investigates tools and actors that participate in policy making including diplomacy, military, media, and others. Part III provides an overview of Russia’s directions towards the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Eurasia, and the Arctic. Part IV addresses the issue of Russia’s participation in global governance and multiple international organizations, as well as the Kremlin’s efforts to build new organizations and formats that suit Russia’s objectives. The Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy is an invaluable resource to students and scholars of Russian Politics and International Relations, as well as World Politics more generally.

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P Duncan

Papers

Review of Ted Hopf Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign Policies