Role theory in symbolic interactionism: Czech Republic,Germany and the EU

Abstract

The literature on norm socialization and Europeanization has largely focused on successful norm diffusion, but thus far it has hardly addressed the norm backlash from the respective societies. To more fully grasp the interaction between member states’ roles and their institutional preferences we provide a conceptual model for the de-composition of national role conceptions. This model is applied in case studies on German and Czech European policies in the constitutionalization process of the European Union. The paper illustrates how the composition of Czech and German roles has changed over time and how these national role conceptions shape the countries’ respective institutional preferences. We conclude that historical role experience is considered as a powerful explanatory tool for the policies of today’s European Union member states.

Keywords

Czech Republic European integration foreign policy analysis Germany national role conception role theory

Role theory has recently attracted attention as an interdisciplinary approach for understanding foreign policy decisions. Sociology, psychology and political science scholars have identified common characteristics of roles in diverse social domestic and international settings (Thies, 2010; Turner, 2006). Despite considerable interest in role theory, especially in changes in national role conceptions, and despite its obvious nexus with institutionalism, foreign policy scholars have only recently started to explore the interaction between role (change) behaviour and the stability of international institutions (see Aggestam, 2004, 2006; Harnisch and Maull, 2001; Harnisch et al., 2011b).

This paper has both theoretical and empirical–analytical ambitions. Firstly, on the theoretical level, we formulate a three-dimensional model of national role composition. The de-composition of national roles along these three dimensions allows us to explore the nexus between national role conceptions and institutional preferences within the European Union (EU).

On the empirical–analytical level, we proceed by addressing two interrelated questions: 1. How have Czech and German national roles changed over time? 2. How do these national role conceptions shape the countries’ respective foreign policies towards the EU? Our three-dimensional model of national roles allows us to compare Czech and German national roles systematically.

Our analysis of Czech and German national roles allows us to make two general arguments focusing on the process of role taking in international institutions based on the history of the two nations in and outside the EU: first of all, historical experience, conceptualized as a ‘significant other’ in current national role conceptions, is considered as a powerful explanatory tool for the policies of today’s EU member states. Thus, national role conceptions should be viewed as patterns of role taking vis-a-vis current and historical others, thereby shaping the ends towards which the roles and counter-roles collectively move. Historical role experiences, which do not ‘dissolve’ easily, are prone to reproduce historical patterns of cooperation and conflict and thus may lead to considerable role conflict as ‘historical animosities’ become self-fulfilling prophecies in current policy making.

This first hypothesis is based on the classical interactionist argument that the more roles of significant others an individual or group can take up, the greater the capacity of the individual or group is to create and maintain lasting patterns of social organization. Accordingly, our conception of roles considers the differences in composition between national role conceptions along three dimensions: self composition (ego vs. alter), the numeral dimension (significant vs. generalized other) and temporal dimension (historical vs. current others). We take into account the characteristics of the domestic processes of role taking and making and thereby linking foreign policy roles as social positions of an agent in the international realm to roles as structures of many political agents in the domestic realm.

Secondly, roles are considered as emergent properties of institutions. In this domain, we suggest that in the early phase of membership, acquired national role conceptions oftentimes compete with newly assigned institutional roles. Thus, at this stage, institutional membership is associated with a loss in autonomy, i.e. choosing specific significant others rather than taking over the role of several organized or generalized others. Again, we take cues from symbolic interactionism; we hold that the higher and more contradictory the expectations of various organized others are, the higher the likelihood is that ‘self-restraint’ is lost and the ‘I-’part is superimposed upon the ‘Me-’part to stabilize the self (Harnisch, 2012: 54).

This paper is not a test of coherent propositions from either role theory or sociological institutionalism. Rather, it is more of an exploratory hypothesis-generating study based on a role theorist’s reading of institutionalism. The first part briefly surveys role theory and provides a conceptual model for the de-composition of national role conceptions. The second part examines the importance of Germany’s and the Czech Republic’s ego–alter composition, the importance of significant others and role-taking of the generalized other as well as the salience of the historical self in today’s national role conceptions. The final part analyses the respective EU policies of Germany and the Czech Republic in the development of the Lisbon treaty (LT).

Role theory and European integration

Role theory has its origins in sociology, more specifically in symbolical interactionism, which has its philosophical roots in the American pragmatism of George Herbert Mead, John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce (Stryker, 2006; Stryker and Statham, 1985). With the rise of interdependence as a real world phenomenon in the late 1960s, international roles (Holsti, 1970) such as superpower roles (Jönsson, 1984) gained prominence (Walker, 1987). Unfortunately, role theory has thus far not systematically explored the nexus between national role conceptions and institutional preferences within the EU.

Roles are social positions which are constituted by ego and alter expectations regarding the purpose of an actor in an organized group (Harnisch, 2011b: 8). The position’s function in the group is limited in time and scope and it is dependent upon the group’s structure and purpose. As conceptions of social purpose in groups, roles provide reasons for action in a justificatory sense. In terms of purpose, through arguments in discourse, roles provide goals for action, i.e. to save a ‘nation’ from dominance, to end war in Europe proper, etc. In terms of justification, roles include reasoning as to which policy action can be rationalized, i.e. ‘as Czechs, as Germans, as Europeans, we must do this…’, etc. In both senses, roles exist prior to interests, as national roles define ‘who the actor actually is’ and ‘what he or she may/should do “in and for the group”’. Roles are thus relational entities, because they always define a ‘self’ vis-a-vis an ‘other’ in a given group (Wendt, 1992: 398).

Empirical research shows that national role conceptions do vary considerably across time, policy realms and institutional settings. In his seminal paper, Kalevi Holsti identified variations in the behavioural components of roles and inductively established a set of categories (national role conceptions) which were subsequently implemented in large-scale comparative research of roles during the Cold War (Holsti, 1970; Le Prestre, 1997; Walker, 1987). Christer Jönsson and Hanns Maull analysed the interactions between super powers and semi-sovereign US allies during the Cold War and established two categories: the super power and civilian power ideal-types (Jönsson, 1984; Maull, 1990/91). Despite all these inductively build typologies of role conceptions, we still lack a coherent theoretical model to explain those variations in role conceptions.

Implicit in many role typologies are assumptions that some roles (such as civilian powers) fit into highly institutionalized role settings much better than others (great powers or novices) (Harnisch and Maull, 2001; Maull, 1990/91, 2010). Also Lisbeth Aggestam (1999) has argued that the higher the degree of ‘Europeanization’ is – meaning in her interpretation the extent to which a nation state has taken on a ‘position role’ – the more predictable the respective role behaviour and the stronger the EU actorness in foreign affairs is. Despite these early attempts to marry role theory and institutionalism, role theory as it is developed today has not systematically addressed the issue of compatibility between institutionalized roles and national role conceptions.

We propose a theoretical model which tries to explain. both the variance in national role conceptions and the institutional preferences by looking at the variation in the composition of the self along three dimensions: ego vs. alter (self composition), significant vs. generalized other (numeral dimension) and historical vs. current others (temporal dimension). A robust shift along two or more of these dimensions is identified as ‘role learning’ (see Harnisch, 2012).

Ego vs. alter (self composition)

In role theory, roles are typically treated as consisting of two parts:

An ego-part, representing the impulsive, irreducible part of the self (in the Meadian conception the ‘I’).

An alter-part, representing the internalized expectations of the ‘other’ that the self envisioned when it was taking the role of the other (in the Meadian conception the ‘Me’). The ‘Me’ thus pertains to our self-image when we import into our conduct the ‘perceived’ attitudes of the other. (Harnisch, 2011a: 39–40).

Each role is then likely to possess a unique pattern of ego-alter composition that, as a dynamic social structure in itself, constantly changes and evolves over time. How do we identify ego-parts and alter-parts in actual political discourse? Ego-dominated political discourse is self-referential. Political actors construct national roles by referring to the self-organizing (usually material) qualities of society. In terms of justification, the reasoning focuses on internal principles of political legitimacy that organize state–society relations. In contrast, alter-dominated political discourse constructs national roles by taking into account the expectations of others, by taking their perspective. These (perceived) expectations of others are reproduced and reinterpreted in the domestic political discourse and can be identified empirically. In the case of an alter-dominated national role, the political actors construct the purpose (goals for action) and justification (reasons to act) by taking into account the expectations of the others.

How does the self composition shape institutional preferences? Mead purported that the ‘self-understanding’ of an actor depends on the ability to distance him- or herself from his or her self by taking the perspective of the other. I–Me compositions shape states’ interests as to how far external cues may legitimately delimit national autonomy and competences.

Ego-dominated role conceptualizations are characterized by the rejection of social obligations altogether: the actor constructs itself as prior or above the obligations of society. Correspondingly, Mead reasoned that the more roles of others an individual or group can take on, the greater the capacity of that individual or group is to create and maintain lasting patterns of social organization (Mead, 1934: 264). Practising norms and rules within an organization is thus not only consonant with social order, but is also ‘civilizing’ its members by teaching them self-restraint through continuous role-taking (see Adler, 2008; Williams, 2001: 538f).

Significant vs. generalized other (numeral dimension)

As Wendt notes in Social Theory of International Relations, ‘not all others are equally significant, so power and dependency relations play an important role in the story’ (Wendt, 1999: 327). To address this problem, George Herbert Mead introduced the concepts of the ‘significant and generalized other’ into the symbolic interactionist framework of role theory. The significant other describes a primary socializing agent, such as parents or siblings, or a specific actor who holds sway over another actor through their material or immaterial resources. Significant others can easily be identified in the political discourse. A significant other is another state (or another actor) most frequently represented in the domestic political discourse. A significant other is the main socializing agent in role learning, attracting the attention of politicians of different stripes. The nation’s self emerges as its politicians constantly compare and relate their nation vis-a-vis the significant other. Such comparing and relating can range from negative differentiation against the other to positive identification with the other. The emergence of significant other, i.e. former colonial or occupation power, is often tied to crisis or (external) shock situations in which given role conceptions are challenged, either materially or immaterially or both (Folz, 2008: 14). Role learning can be constructed as a variation of the numeral scope of role-taking experiences. A single significant other refers to a single socializing agent, often a former colonial or occupying power or powerful and influential neighbour. In this situation, the political elite constructs the national role against the image of the significant other (negative othering). Alternatively, the single significant other represents a role model to be emulated. The national role can be constituted in relationship to several significant others. The other can also take the form of organized other – a socially functional group of individuals (groups organized, respectively, for various special social ends and purposes) (Mead, 1934: 322). The organized other is represented by a discernible actor – usually an alliance of powers (several significant others) or an international organization.

In contrast to the significant and organized other, the generalized other is an abstract social category, such as ‘human being’, through which the role holder relates to a certain group and takes up the ‘common identity’ of the members of that group (Mead, 1934: 164). The generalized other materializes in political discourse through references to abstract entities such as humanity or Europe.

According to Mead’s logic, an actor’s role-taking capacity and thus that of a social organization depends upon three factors; first, the degree to which actors can hold a common generalized other; second, the degree of consistency among multiple generalized others; and third, the degree of integration among types and layers of generalized others (Turner, 1981: 144).

Mead further specifies that an actor’s role-taking capacity corresponds to a certain socialization pattern, i.e. the interaction type between the role holder and the significant, generalized or organized others (see Figure 1). A complex social structure such as the EU thus requires a constant role-taking behavioural pattern to be practised by its member states. This behavioural pattern must be directed towards a ‘generalized other’, i.e. an abstract norm, rather than a significant other.

Figure 1.

Symbolic interactionism: role-taking capacity and socialization patterns.

Against this background, roles can then be defined as social positions which are differentiated by their composition of ego- and alter expectations as well as the number and type of ‘others’.

Historical vs. current others (temporal dimension)

In addition, we suggest that both role sets are constituted by different sets of historical and current ‘others’, thus leaving ample room for role conflict and role learning within each role set and between them. Role can be constructed through identification vis-a-vis one or few historical ‘significant others’ or towards a historical ‘generalized other’. At the same time, the historical self may play the role of the significant other.

The relative importance of historical others vs. current others can be empirically analysed by looking at the salience of historical references in the political debate. Typically, politicians can refer to the historical memory, past deeds by their own nation or by others, traumatic and formative historical experience. On one side, one can argue that historical references are widely used in any political discourse. Yet we assume that the relative salience of historical others vs. current others can vary and such variation can affect the role-taking capacity and socialization patterns of that particular state.

If, for example, the ego-part of a national role is based on a historical understanding of the nation as a ‘victim of great power politics’ an external expectation to assume a great power role may pose intra-role conflicts. Secondly, if roles enable or curtail common identification and/or action with a specific ‘significant other’, this sends strong signals as to what the likely behaviour of that role holder will be in the future, thus affecting whether and to what extent external actors are willing to cooperate in common. Our three-dimensional model of national role composition is summarized in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Dimensions of role learning.

Germany: European dilemmas of a civilian power

Germany’s national role conception shifted dramatically during the 20th century. After three expansionist wars in the 19th and 20th centuries (1870–1871; 1914–1918; 1939–1945), all of its neighbours harboured serious reservations about a unified Germany, resulting in different strategies to address the so-called ‘German question’.

After World War Two, West Germany pursued a foreign policy role concept premised on self-restraint and its own history as the negative significant other. The primary objective of the founding fathers and mothers was to build a polity that was both bound internally to a strict set of checks-and-balances (including federalism) and externally by embedding the young democracy in Western institutions. Given the intense mistrust among its neighbours, this foreign policy role concept – often referred to as that of a ‘civilian power’ (Harnisch and Maull, 2001; Maull, 1990/91, 2010) – supported strong international institutionalization as a means of restricting power to specific, legitimate purposes.

The ‘virtuous others’ and ‘the negative self’

Despite its many variants, the basic characteristics of the German civilian power role concept remained relatively constant along the three proposed dimensions until 1989: (a) a clear negative demarcation vis-a-vis the country’s own history – the Hitler period in particular. This, in turn, resulted in a strong anti-nationalist sentiment in German society which considered significant parts of its own national history as the negative significant other (Langenbacher, 2010); (b) a strong positive attribution of civility vis-a-vis the new significant others in Western institutions, most notably the United States (Doering-Manteuffel, 1999); and (c) a strong preference for institutionalization as a means for self-restraint and cooperative problem-solving (Hellmann, 1996).

Consequently, under the first chancellor Adenauer, the civilian power role developed into a symbiotic relationship with the United States. Conservative West German elites accepted tight restrictions on any autonomous action, including overtures to unify with communist East Germany, while the United States and its Western European allies in turn accepted West Germany’s political and economic ascension (Lake, 1999: 128–197).

Until 1989, absolute defeat and negative self-demarcation went hand in hand with a legitimating narrative of liberation and a (very) positive alter attribution vis-a-vis the West. Given this role reorientation and the internal denazification, the new German democracy held a peculiar form of national interest which stressed the nexus between the negative self, the positive alter and the willingness to accept semi-sovereignty in both internal and external affairs (Genscher, 1989a, 1989b; Green and Paterson, 2005).

During the Cold War, German membership in several Western institutions was the single most important source of legitimacy for the Federal Republic. The evolution of ‘special relationships’ with France, the State of Israel and Poland both stabilized the negative self-demarcation and the positive alter attribution as these societies came to accept most Germans as partners rather than ‘eternal perpetrators’.

Domestication: The European dilemma of a civilian power

Historically, Germany has thus been more willing than other large Western European democracies to grant authority to international institutions by empowering them to act on its behalf (Bulmer et al., 2010). But this strong commitment to delegating sovereign powers has recently come to haunt the political system that has made self-restraint a virtue. The transfer of both national and federal competences to the European level has tilted the Federal Republic’s intricate system of domestic checks and balances in favour of the executive branch and triggered a forceful response by the legislative and judicial branches (Harnisch, 2006).

Following a period of strong European integration dynamics in the 1990s, the ego-alter composition of Germany’s role has changed. In what has been dubbed the domestication of Germany’s EU Policy – i.e. ‘the limitation of executive prerogatives by legislative and judicial actors to clip and tie international delegation of competences to domestic core norms through procedural and normative rules’ (Harnisch, 2009) – the ego part of Germany’s EU role has become so prevalent that it has lost some of its traditional self-restraint.

Domestication has transformed the role-taking process and content of Germany’s European policy in two profound ways. First of all, the ego part in Germany’s European role has placed a new emphasis on a structural resemblance between core norms of the German political and economic systems, i.e. the Bundesbank model for the European Central Bank (ECB), the subsidiarity principle for local autonomy or the ‘Schuldenbremse’ (debt brake) in the current Euro crisis, and those on the European level. From an interactionist perspective, this lessening of self-restraint could well be interpreted as an attempt to superimpose one’s own self-conception onto the organized other in order to reduce conflicting domestic and external role expectations. This shift was reflected in the prominent role of the German parliament (both chambers) and the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) in the EU reform treaties in the 1990s which featured a new ‘contingent Europeanism’ rather than the ‘unlimited pro-federalist’ position of earlier decades (Harnisch and Schieder, 2006).

Secondly, Germany’s traditional strong commitment to international institutions has become weaker and leaner, because the reconciliation of ego- and alter expectations is often postponed until either the Bundestag/Bundesrat or the FCC challenge the government’s role-taking. By raising the spectre of ‘involuntary defection’ from the executive’s role-taking, the social structure of EU institutions and counter-role taking by its partners has become more volatile.

We hold that these two innovations have already set in motion a process of structural change in counter- or complementary roles, such as the French–German axis or Germany’s traditionally close relations with smaller EU member states. Instead of being viewed as pursuing common European interests, a chiffre for the German elite’s earlier evocation of interdependent interests, the Federal Republic is now perceived as pursuing more national or parochial interests (Guérot and Leonard, 2011).

German European policy: The Lisbon treaty experience

Germany’s new positive self-identification

To establish an initial plausibility of our three-dimensional role typology, we compare the arguments used by supporters and opponents of the Lisbon treaty ratification in the German Bundestag (and the Czech parliament) (for an overview of the German debate see also Bulmer, 2009). Using a narrative-based qualitative analysis, we provide a reasoned assessment of the changes in the internal composition of the respective role taking and the resulting treaty reform. This is not a test of the new typology or of symbolic interactionist role theory, but more an explorative study about the nexus between role composition and integration policy.

Underlying Germany’s EU treaty reform policy was a strong commitment towards the EU, but one that promoted the Union as an instrument for shaping Germany’s and Europe’s future rather than its past (Wimmel, 2009: 757). During one of the first debates on the Lisbon treaty, the Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Kurt Beck, stressed the importance of the Western elite’s decision to give guilt-stricken Germany the chance to integrate into the (Western) community of nations (Beck, 2008: 16458).

However, it is the nexus between the preservation of a positive self – Germany – and the contingent evolution of the organized other – the EU – that is most distinctive in the new role conception. Hence, several speakers highlighted that the German experience – some of its core values and norms – could and should be a model for the EU.

In the debates, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) focused on the social dimension of the Union, describing the EU as a shield against the (nasty) forces of globalization. Also Chancellor Angela Merkel pointed out the Union’s new functions in safeguarding human rights, economic prosperity and social policy, thereby indicating how far the ‘social-democratization’ of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) had come (Merkel, 2008: 16452).

But it is important to note that speakers of all other parties, except for those from the radical left, stressed the functional and future-oriented attributes of the EU when arguing that the treaty should be ratified in parliament. In contrast to Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s earlier attribution of Western institutions as a central component of Germany’s self-conception (see above),¹ the EU is thus now referred to as an organized other with the primary function of preserving and strengthening the German self (Sarrazin (Greens), 2009: 26353; Westerwelle (Free Democrats), 2008: 16456).

Safeguarding and exporting ‘Germany’s core values’

The new positive self-identification bears to consequences with regard to the treaty reform policy: first of all, there is a new and widely shared claim that European integration has gone far enough in many policy areas and that Germany should actively seek to set clear limits for any further integration. While this domestication has grown more prominent in German EU policy making over the past 30 years (Harnisch, 2006, 2009), it is noticeable that the chancellor herself, for the first time, stressed during the ratification debates that the Lisbon treaty enabled member states ‘the transfer of powers from the European level to the nation states, if they can be better implemented there’ (Merkel, 2008: 16452). Whilst the chancellor did not propagate a ‘roll back’ of competences from Brussels to Berlin, the Christian Social Union (CSU), the CDU’s sister party, which is the centre of EU-scepticism within the ruling coalition, actively sought a debate on ‘whether and how powers from Brussels could be transferred back to the member states’ (Alexander Dobrindt in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2009).

Secondly, safeguarding the German self – being constructed as the ‘German nation’ by a few or ‘German core values, including the social model’ by many – has thus become part and parcel of the supra-partisan discourse on European integration. Conservatives do focus on the so-called ‘principle of subsidiarity’ when checking against European transgressions. As Norbert Röttgen, Environmental Minister in the Merkel government put it: ‘We should push integration where it is essential and restrict it where the “principle of subsidiarity” is undermined’ (Röttgen, 2009: 26256). In a similar vein, Rainders Steenblock, member of the traditionally pro-integrationist Green Party assisted: ‘Our experience shows us that we have to think about Europe in more ambivalent terms. Just as much as we need the nation states, we also need European structures’ (Steenblock, 2009: 29260).

Thirdly, exporting the German model has become the primary strategy of the government when balancing conflicting domestic and external role expectations. To safeguard the German self while enabling the European organized other, the Merkel government has left traditional self-restraint behind and started to export – if not superimpose – various components of the ‘German model’ (Merkel, 2008: 16454).

The change in the dynamics of the role composition did not go unnoticed. Rather it sometimes drew harsh criticism from the oppositional Social Democratic and Green parties (Steenblock, 2009: 26262). Some parliamentarians went as far as speaking out against a ‘new nationalism’.² While this new nationalism had nothing to do with past German excesses, it shifted the goalposts in the debate on Europe (Schäfer, 2009: 26263).

These changes in the German role composition vis-a-vis the EU – from a negative towards a positive self-identification – fit together in an intra-role conflict between ever more diverse domestic and external role expectations. Drawing on our tri-partite role typology, we were able to ‘reconstruct’ this role change. Whilst this change has been noticed and criticized by some of Germany’s European partners, it has hardly ignited any divisive counter-role taking. However, when the Merkel government openly and ultimatively demanded the transfer of German budget and financial rules onto the EU level during the ongoing Euro crisis, adversarial counter-role taking within the EU took place, not only in Greece but also elsewhere in Europe.

The Czech Republic: European dilemmas of a heretic

Historically, the Czech nation’s self-understanding was characterized by ego-dominated national role conception, centring on self-determination vis-a-vis the other (the German element in Austria–Hungary). But after the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the alter part gained much salience through Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and his ‘philosophy of Czech history’. In his formulation of Czech national role conception, Masaryk propagated the idea that the Czech nation has a specific task ‘on behalf of humanity as a whole’, i.e. a mission beyond mere self-determination (Drulák, 2006: 424; see also Holý, 1996: 81). By internalizing this universal humanistic mission, Czechoslovakia was able to take on the role and expectations of significant others (the progressive, liberal democracies like the US and France) and the generalized other (Masaryk et al., 1918: 6; see also Long, 1991: 408). The alter-dominated self composition allowed interwar Czechoslovakia to develop a pro-integrationist foreign policy – the country strongly supported international institutions (such as the League of Nations).

The 1938 Munich agreement between the liberal democratic allies of Czechoslovakia (France and Britain) and its ‘revisionist’ others (the Third Reich) fundamentally deepened the Czechoslovak / Czech anti-great-power sentiments and substantially altered Czech self-composition. The Munich agreement (‘Munich betrayal’) thus represents a significant shift towards negative demarcation vis-a-vis significant and organized others (perfidious great powers in general).

Therefore, the narrative of the ‘Munich betrayal’/‘Munich dictate’ flourished after World War Two (during the communist period). We may argue that the communists simply generalized the representation originally constructed specifically for Germany and directed it towards the larger set of Western powers in general (Holý, 1996: 81). Accordingly, the early communist Czechoslovakia accepted the social obligations stemming from its membership in the group of countries led by the Soviet Union. For a short time, the alter-expectations (‘Me’) played an important, but steadily decreasing, role.

The Prague Spring of the late 1960s represents another significant shift in the ego/alter composition of the Czech role in favour of ego-expectations (‘I’). Czechoslovakian ‘socialism with a human face’ was presented as the solution to stifle Soviet socialism and the original Czech contribution to humanity (Esparza, 2010: 58). Ideologically, the Prague Spring movement embraced and combined Masaryk’s democratic universalistic mission and communism’s socialist universalistic mission. But whereas Masaryk formulated his mission in line with alter-expectations, the Prague Spring diverted from alter-expectations (both Soviet, but also Western expectations) by promoting its own, unique, endogenous program.

In hindsight, the general public became largely indifferent to alter-expectations after the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968. It gradually accepted the dissidents’ political thinking. When interpreted against the background of our role typology its political ideas were characterized by the complete rejection of alter-expectations (great power expectations).

This deep Czech disillusionment with great powers is generally best exposed in the work of Milan Kundera. Kundera not only rejects the expectations of the Soviet Union vis-a-vis Czechoslovakia, but he also fiercely criticizes the West’s (Western European ‘great powers’) expectations and perceptions vis-a-vis Czechoslovakia and ‘Central Europe’. According to Kundera, the tragedy of Central Europe (including Czechoslovakia) lies not only in the Soviet/Russian invasion but also in the West’s negligence (Kundera, 1984).

In this regard, Kundera’s essay ‘Czech destiny’ (1968) provides one of the most powerful and influential reformulations of Czech self-representation. His image of the Czech nation (and its mission) revolves around the distinction between ‘the mentality of great powers’ and ‘the mentality of small nations’. Great nations (great powers) are associated with permanence, ‘arrogance of the multitude’, grandness and the tendency to mistake itself for the world. ‘Alas, wretched large nation! The gateway to humanity is narrow and so difficult for you to pass through…’ (Kundera, 1968).

At the same time, Kundera provides an appealing call for action. He imagines the Czech lands (or Central Europe) as the moral (cultural/civilizational) heart of Europe. Such representation induces a strong sense of external commitment, ‘the great historical calling of small nations in a world that is at the mercy of great powers yearning to smooth its edges and readjust its dimensions’ (Kundera, 1968).

In turn, this Czech role conception resonates strongly with the story of Jan Hus in the Czech collective memory. Hus stood up against the powerful in the name of universal values, in an attempt to offer remedy to European ills. But he was betrayed by the powers, burnt at the stake and the powers unleashed a crusade onto Czech lands.

After 1989, the ‘I–Me’ composition of the Czech role changed again. The Czechs took on the expectations of significant others even though they were not yet ready take on the role of the organized and generalized other. But in contrast to the interwar Czechoslovakia, today the Czech Republic seems to be rather disinterested in contemporary European and world politics (Drulák, 2010).

To sum up, Czech role learning was not linear; periods of alter-dominated Czech roles were often followed by the strengthening of self-expectations (ego part). The Czechs show a strong tendency towards negative demarcation vis-a-vis great powers as the significant (or even organized) other. Paradoxically, the expectations of the other constituted an important part of the Czech self during the first 20 years of the Czechoslovakian statehood and then in the 1950s (the Soviet other) and the 1990s (the Western other). The 1960s and the period following the 1968 invasion were characterized by positive self-identification (ego) at the expense of alter-expectations. The negative othering vis-a-vis great powers gained salience after 1938 (and after 1948) (Western powers as the other) and after 1968 (great powers generally as the other).

The Czech Republic’s European policy: The victim of great power politics on a mission to reform Europe?

The Czech Republic’s old positive self-identification

In contrast to the 1990s, the Czech parliamentary debate about the Lisbon treaty (for more details on the Lisbon treaty ratification see Beneš and Braun, 2011) illustrates a substantial shift in Czech role composition in favour of the ego part (‘I’). The role of an ‘apprentice’ in the EU, which was salient in the process of the Czech transition towards ‘normal’ European democracy and market economy, has been rejected by the contemporary Czech political mainstream (Vondra, 2008: 131; see also Vondra in Buchert, 2008).

The arguments in the Czech ratification debate show the importance of the ego part and the salience of the positively assessed historical self in the Czech role composition. Czech deputies often referred to a supposedly ‘exceptional ability to see all the dangers and risks which others do not see’ (Pithart, 2008: 117) and the hard and soft Eurosceptics frequently legitimized their opposition or reluctance towards the LT by referring to ‘experiences as a Central European country which was always at the crossroads of history’ (Sefzig, 2008: 126–127).

The ‘perfidious others’ and the Kunderian turn

The anti-great power sentiments which were typical for post-1968 dissident discourse (see Kundera, 1968) are clearly present in the arguments of Czech parliamentarians and government officials today. Our content analysis shows that the stereotypical interpretation of great powers as treacherous and dangerous significant others is widely shared not only by Czech Eurosceptics but also by some supporters of the institutional reform treaty. Great powers are viewed as (potential) perpetrators and oppressors of other (smaller) states while the Czech Republic is presented as a (potential) victim of these great powers.

Within this anti-great power discourse, the EU is increasingly understood either as an emerging great power per se (‘Brussels’ as a new ‘power centre’, the EU as emerging ‘superstate’) or as an institutionalized great power with domination over Europe. The (growing) influence of the great powers (negative significant others) is seen by most of the Czech parliamentarians as harmful and detrimental to the Czech national interests and national sovereignty: the Czech self. Contemporary Czech politicians share negative alter-expectations vis-a-vis great powers in general; they only differ in their assessment of which great power is more dangerous. These differences can lead to disparate (or even contradictory) foreign policy preferences on the side of individual parliamentarians.

The hard Eurosceptics from the Civic Democratic Party (Občanská demokratická strana - ODS) and the Communist Party deem West European powers as simply too dangerous, too arrogant, too dominating and too perfidious to accept the ‘Lisbon dictate’. Here, the EU is understood as an institutionalized (collective) form of great power domination over Europe; a deeper involvement in the EU is therefore interpreted as a direct threat to the Czech self (Oberfalzer, 2009: 33; Pospíšil, 2008: 112). Importantly, they do not differentiate and discriminate between individual West European powers anymore. The three European powers (Germany, France and Great Britain) are usually put on the same normative footing.³

The pragmatics/soft Eurosceptics (government officials, part of the ODS) only very reluctantly supported the LT ratification. They share some of the arguments of the hard sceptics – they singled out the strengthening of the great (most populous) states through the Lisbon treaty as the first and most important deficiency of the reform treaty (Topolánek, 2009: 14). While they do not deny the perfidiousness of West European great powers, they still see the EU as a bulwark against one even more perfidious and dominating great power – Russia. This line of reasoning (Brussels/the West European powers are bad but Russia is even worse) was most clearly articulated by the then prime minister Mirek Topolánek. He argued that ‘the rejection of the Lisbon treaty […] would drive us into the arms of Moscow’ (Topolánek, 2009: 17; see also Topolánek in Radio Prague, 2008).

The Social Democrats (Česká strana sociálně demokratická – ČSSD), the Greens and the Christian Democrats (Křesťanská a demokratická unie – Československá strana lidová - KDU-ČSL) supported the Lisbon treaty. They justified the LT ratification by applying the discourse which was typical for the post-1989 period of the ‘return to Europe’. They uphold the alter-expectations by arguing that the Czech delay of the LT threatens the ‘credibility of our country on the European scene’ (Paroubek, 2009; see also Zaorálek, 2009). At the same time, many traditionally pro-European politicians like Karel Schwarzenberg and Václav Havel (see Gazeta Wyborcza, 2009), analysts and media commentators share the above-mentioned fear of the ‘authoritarian and increasingly assertive’ Russia.

Neither Czech Eurosceptics, nor the pro-European politicians are able to take on the role of the generalized other. The Czech Eurosceptics portray the Czech Republic as a victim of significant if perfidious others (a victim of history) which prevent them taking the role of generalized other. The Czech Eurooptimists conceptualize the country as a novice (a person seeking recognition from others and who is subject to socialization pressure) which means that the Czech Republic is not yet in a position to take on the role of the generalized other.

Conclusion

Our paper started to explore the scope conditions when and how specific roles shape institutions, the so-called organized other. Equally, if not more importantly, our tripartite role typology allowed us to compare the two national roles systematically along the three dimensions outlined above. Our results suggest few universal patterns thus far. Rather our findings show that even small changes in the composition of a role – e.g. the mix of ‘I’- and ‘Me-’ parts in the process of self-identification – can affect the prospects for (European) integration substantially. Also, after exploring the nexus between roles and organized others, we suspect that European states have established ‘organized others’, which help to stabilize expectations and respective cooperation, to compensate for the fragility of their self-identification.

Furthermore, the typology enabled us to identify some scope conditions for successful interaction between some specified role types, some significant others and various organized others. It allowed us, for the first time, to track down the effects of the ‘historical self’ on role-taking and role-making behaviour. We now know, or at least suspect with some confidence, that roles which are focused on a specific, i.e. victimized, historical self are prone to hinder deeper integration because self-identification with a positive ‘organized other’ is precarious. We also surmise that a strong alter-identification, as in the case of post-World War Two Germany, has a high potential for breeding intra-role conflicts as growing positive self-identification limits or at least directs further alter-identification.

More deeply, we found the following nexus between role types and integration/organized other: at the broadest level, we hold that we must rethink role theory as a distinct area of foreign policy analysis. The distinction between ego-dominated roles and negligible alter expectations (Holsti, 1970), which probably did not make much sense during the Cold War (Jönsson, 1984), has become untenable. If role theory wants to explore its integrative potential as a bridge between foreign policy analysis and international relations proper (Breuning, 2011), then it will have to take alter expectations and the question of who is the ‘significant other’ much more seriously.

More immediately and methodologically, we found that our tripartite role typology helped us to better understand and track the respective role changes in the Czech Republic and Germany. Key to understanding the respective EU reform policies was the nexus between historical self-identification and current role composition. In the Czech case the ‘Kunderian turn’ stands for an important two-fold shift in role composition: first, whilst the Czech establishment and public differentiated between treacherous Western great powers and the more benevolent Soviet great power until 1968, the Prague Spring changed that alter-identification pattern. Czechs came to mistrust great powers per se, applying the lessons of Munich to great powers generally. Second, Milan Kundera infused a certain national pride, a positive self-identification, as the Czech nation became the reincarnation of a small power standing up to bigger powers, thereby righting the wrongs of European (and World) history. The ‘Kunderian turn’ of positive self-identification implied that the Czech Republic will not subject itself to an organized other, if it is established, by supporting institutional mechanisms that threaten national selfhood, i.e. autonomy vis-a-vis great powers.

In the German case, there is no evidence of a ‘Kunderian turn’. Rather, as German traditional role composition featured negative self-identification and a very positive alter-identification, recent changes in German role composition arise from an intra-role conflict between the self and the ‘organized other’. This conflict results from a collision between the domestic system of institutional checks and balances and the external checks through Western institutions which were put in place after World War Two. Thus, in the case of Germany, growing alter-commitments in the EU impacted upon domestic institutions which grew ever more self-confident as they served the German people well.

Our results thus also suggest empirically that the Czech and German role conceptions converge in a ‘contingent Europeanism’. Given the challenges ahead, most notably the current management of the Euro crisis, we surmise that this role convergence may not continue as Germany is expected to lead but is ever less willing to exert self-restraint when doing so.

Footnotes

Funding

This work was supported by a Czech Science Foundation grant, Czech EU Policy in the Light of the Role Theory’ [grant number GPP408/12/P905].

Notes

Author biography

Vít Beneš is research fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague and editor in chief of the journal Mezinárodní vztahy. He holds a PhD from the University of Economics, Prague and has teaching experience from various universities in Prague. He is the author of several book chapters and journal articles on the theory and methodology of international relations, the EU enlargement and the European dimension of Czech foreign policy.

Sebastian Harnisch is Professor in the Institute of Political Science, Heidelberg University. He teaches International Relations and Comparative Foreign and Security Policy. His current research interests focus upon role theory; German, EU and PR China foreign policy behavior.

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