The emergence and evolution of an external actor’s regional role: An interactionist role theory perspective

Abstract

The regional roles external actors play, such as ‘China’s role in Africa’ or ‘the US role in East Asia’, have long been popular subjects of analysis in the international relations literature. Yet, the emergence and evolution of these roles remains remarkably under-theorized. While some ‘new regionalist’ scholars have discussed the dynamics of an external actor’s regional involvement by referring to the concepts of ‘penetration’ and ‘socialization’, neither concept, this article argues, is sufficiently equipped to capture how external actors come to aspire and realize their regional roles. To address this shortcoming, the article employs an interactionist role theory perspective, which draws on the work of social psychologist George Herbert Mead. In following this perspective, the article argues that external actors develop regional role aspirations as they draw on their creativity and reflexivity to overcome experienced uncertainties. To realize these aspirations, the article suggests, external actors seek to cast significant others into corresponding roles. Alter-casting, the article argues in this context, is critical for understanding the (re)constitution of an external actor’s regional role, and thus a region’s social structure.

Keywords

Creative action European Union–East Asia relations external actors interactionist role theory regions role theory

Introduction

The roles external actors play in specific world regions, such as ‘China’s role in Africa’ or the ‘US role in East Asia’, have long been popular subjects of analysis in international relations (IR). Yet, at the theoretical level, the emergence and evolution of these roles has remained surprisingly under-explored. Arguably, the most notable steps towards theorizing these processes have so far been taken by ‘new regionalist’ scholars, who have referred to the concepts of penetration and socialization to describe the dynamics of an external actor’s regional involvement. Following Buzan and Wæver (2003: 46), penetration occurs when an external actor engages in – and shapes – a region’s (security) structure through the making of alignments with regional actors. This process, as suggested by Acharya (2007: 648), must be understood as evolving in an external actor’s interaction with regional actors, who may seek to socialize the external actor into a role that conforms to regional expectations.

While penetration and socialization dynamics provide useful starting points for theorizing the regional involvement of external actors, their capacity to capture the social dynamics of this process is, however, limited. The concept of penetration, while emphasizing the significance of alignment making, offers few insights into how or why external actors come to aspire or realize certain regional roles (and by extension regional alignments) in the interaction with others. While this interaction, as suggested by Acharya, may at times resemble a process of socialization, in which external actors adapt to – and internalize – the shared role expectations of regional actors, socialization does not account for all that is going on in the emergence and evolution of an external actor’s regional role. In particular, this article argues that the concept of socialization is neither sufficiently equipped to capture an external actor’s coping with conflicting (regional) role expectations nor the external actor’s capacity to respond to (regional) role expectations creatively.

In order to address these shortcomings, this article theorizes about the emergence and evolution of an external actor’s regional role by drawing on interactionist role theory (IRT) (see Harnisch, 2011a; 2011b; 2012; Herborth, 2004; McCourt, 2010; 2012). This perspective, the article suggests, promises to shed light on the interactive process that underlies an external actor’s (re-)imagination and realization of regional roles. Concretely, by drawing on IRT, the article argues that an external actor (re)imagines regional roles in reaction to experienced uncertainties (so-called problematic situations), which trigger its creativity and reflexivity. These two capacities, IRT suggests, together enable an external actor to (re)imagine its ‘self’, and the roles its ‘self’ plays in specific regional structures. Following this perspective, it is through the use of its creativity and reflexivity that an external actor develops a regional role aspiration.

In order to realize that aspiration, IRT suggests, an external actor seeks to convince significant others to take up corresponding roles (a process termed alter-casting). An actor’s capacity to succeed in doing so, the article argues, depends on its (creative use of) available resources as well as the role expectations of significant others. It is through alter-casting, IRT suggests in this context, that an external actor connects its ‘self’ to – and embeds its ‘self’ in – a region’s social structure. Following IRT, alter-casting, which is triggered by reactions to problematic situations, is thus critical for the emergence and evolution of an external actor’s regional role.

To provide a detailed understanding of this IRT perspective and its potential to contribute to the ‘new regionalist’ literature, this article will proceed in four stages. In the first section, the article will briefly outline – and discuss – ‘new regionalist’ views on the regional involvement of external actors. The second section, in turn, will introduce an IRT perspective and discuss its potential to address the outlined gap in the literature. To illustrate this potential, the article’s third section will employ IRT to analyse the European Union’s (EU’s) ambition to realize its ‘self’ as a security actor in the region of East Asia. Finally, in its concluding section, the article will identify avenues for future research.

Theorizing the relations between world regions and external actors: A ‘new regionalist’ perspective

Since the late 1980s, scholars of various intellectual traditions, often referred to as ‘new regionalists’, have engaged in theorizing about the evolution and significance of regions in an international system, which is simultaneously shaped by the end of Cold War bipolarity and globalization dynamics (Hettne, 2005; Söderbaum, 2015; Söderbaum and Shaw, 2003).Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver (2003: 16–17, 66–67), for instance, suggested that regions would constitute more significant venues of cooperation and conflict in the post-Cold War order (see also Lake and Morgan, 1997: 5–7). This order, they noted, has given greater salience to so-called regional security complexes (RSCs): the structures that emanate from the security interdependence of geographically close international actors (Buzan and Wæver, 2003: 45–50). Following Buzan and Wæver, these RSCs – though more autonomous in a post-Cold War order – remain however, if to varying degrees, penetrated by powerful external actors. Penetration, they noted in this context, describes the process of alignment-making through which an external actor engages in – and shapes – a region’s (security) structure (Buzan and Wæver, 2003: 46–47). (Powerful) external actors, they stressed in this context, (have the capacity to) play a significant role in the (re)constitution of regional structures.

This capacity, as emphasized by Peter Katzenstein (2005), is perhaps best reflected in the critical role that the United States have played in creating today’s world of regions. As Katzenstein noted, the United States have significantly shaped the evolution of regional structures (especially in Europe and East Asia) through the creation and maintenance of security alliances as well as the parallel promotion of economic regionalism and global free trade (Katzenstein, 2005: 23). US foreign policy, he suggested in this context, has shaped regional patterns of cooperation and conflict as well as the emergence of regional norms, identities and organizations, such as the EU (Katzenstein, 2005; see also Acharya, 2007; 2012; Hettne, 2005; Hurrel, 2007).

The EU, as other scholars have noted, has in turn itself emerged as an actor capable of shaping the evolution of regional structures across the globe, especially through its promotion of intra- and inter-regional cooperation (Acharya, 2012; Börzel and Risse, 2009; Gardini and Malamud, 2014; Hettne and Söderbaum, 2005; Jetschke and Murray, 2012; Lenz, 2012; Söderbaum and Van Langenhove, 2005). New regionalist scholars, in this context, have emphasized the significance of the roles external actors play in (the constitution of) particular world regions. Despite that emphasis, the emergence and evolution of these roles has, however, remained surprisingly under-theorized. In particular, the new regionalist literature continues to lack a clear understanding of the social dynamics, which lead an external actor to aspire and realize specific regional roles. Buzan and Wæver’s concept of penetration, for instance, pays surprisingly little attention to how an external actor’s regional involvement is shaped by its interaction with regional actors. Penetration, Acharya (2007) stressed in this context, neither accounts for the capacity of regional actors to resist an external actor’s regional engagement nor their ability to socialize external actors into the adoption of roles, which conform to regional norms and institutions.

Following Acharya (2007), the concept of penetration has thus so far failed to sufficiently capture the interactive processes that underlie the evolution of an external actor’s regional role, and by extension the (re)constitution of a region’s social structure. While Acharya emphasized the significance of social interaction for the emergence and evolution of an external actor’s regional role (and by extension the region’s social structure), the dynamics of this interaction have, however, remained remarkably under-explored. To address this shortcoming, this article draws on IRT, which promises to shed light on the social dynamics, which lead an external actor to aspire and realize regional roles. As the following section will outline in greater detail, this perspective has the potential to complement new regionalist ideas about the emergence and evolution of an external actor’s regional role, and thus a region’s social structure.

The emergence and evolution of an external actor’s regional role: An interactionist role theory perspective

In the past decade, IRT, which draws on the social psychology of George Herbert Mead, has made significant inroads into theorizing the social constitution of IR (Aggestam, 2006; Beneš and Harnisch, 2015; Harnisch, 2011a; 2011b; 2012; 2016; Herborth, 2004; McCourt, 2010; 2012). At its core is the suggestion that an international actor experiences and expresses its ‘self’ in society by drawing on two intertwined aspects of its agency: its ‘me’ and its ‘I’ (Harnisch, 2011a, 2012; Herborth, 2004). While an international actor’s ‘me’ denotes its capacity to see its ‘self’ through the eyes of others (a process termed ‘role taking’), its ‘I’ signifies its ability to generate spontaneous and creative impulses in reaction to the ‘me’ (Harnisch, 2011a: 39–42; see also Mead, 1934: 173–178). Together, IRT suggests, these two aspects of agency enable an international actor to realize its ‘self’ (its identity) in society.

Critical to this process of ‘self’-realization, IRT stresses, are so-called problematic situations: moments of uncertainty, which inhibit routinized action (Harnisch, 2012: 42; Herborth, 2004: 80). These situations, following IRT, serve as the trigger for a dialogue between an international actor’s ‘I’ and ‘me’, which enables the actor to grow conscious of its ‘self’, and the roles its ‘self’ plays in society. ‘Self’-realization, IRT suggests, thus begins with a problematic situation, which Mead considered the source of conscious action (De Waal, 2008: 147). For an international actor a problematic situation may emerge, for instance, when changes in available resources or shifts in (domestic or external) expectations challenge the feasibility or appropriateness of the roles its ‘self’ plays in society. To cope with the uncertainty such a situation generates, an international actor, following IRT, reverts to its reflective and creative capacity (its ‘me’ and ‘I’), which together enable it to decide on a course of action (Harnisch, 2011a: 39–41).

Concretely, by reverting to its reflective capacity (its ‘me’), an international actor brings to mind expectations of its ‘self’, including the internalized expectations of specific others (so-called significant others) and society at large (the so-called generalized other) (Harnisch, 2011a; see also Mead, 1934: 175–179). In reaction to these expectations, the actor’s ‘I’ (its creative capacity) generates impulses for a certain course of action, which its ‘me’, in turn, evaluates as it anticipates the reactions of others (Harnisch, 2011a; see also Mead, 1934: 175–179). This ‘I’–‘me’ dynamic, IRT suggests, enables an international actor to develop a response to a problematic situation, whereby it grows conscious of ‘who it is’ and ‘what it wants’ in (a certain context of) international affairs (Harnisch, 2012: 54). Following this perspective, the ‘I’–‘me’ dialogue is thus central for understanding the emergence of an international actor’s ‘self’ (its identity) and the roles this ‘self’ plays in society.

Roles, IRT suggests in this context, constitute the connecting element between an international actor’s ‘self’ and (the social structures of) international society (McCourt, 2012: 371). Concretely, IRT holds that an international actor expresses and affirms its ‘self’ in society through the adoption and performance of roles, which are constitutive to society’s social structures (Harnisch, 2011a; 2012; McCourt, 2010; 2012). From an IRT perspective, it is thus through the (re)imagination and realization of roles (a process termed role-making) that an international actor (re)constitutes (specific structures in) international society. By the same token, an international actor stabilizes society’s social structures (and its own ‘self’) through (more or less routinized) role play (Harnisch, 2011a; 2012; McCourt, 2010; 2012). Role-making and role-playing, IRT suggests, are thus critical for the social constitution of both an international actor’s ‘self’ and (the social structures of) international society.

Role-making, IRT further stresses, constitutes a process of two stages: a (re)imagination and a realization (Harnisch, 2012: 54; McCourt, 2012: 379). The first stage denotes the phase in which an international actor (re)imagines a role in reaction to a problematic situation by drawing on its interacting ‘I’ and ‘me’. This ‘I’–‘me’ dialogue, IRT suggests, is most notably reflected in the interaction between an international actor’s constituent units (government agencies, political parties, citizens, etc.) who, in response to a problematic situation, generate, assert and assess their expectations of an international actor’s ‘self’ in society. To realize their expectations, IRT suggests, constituent units seek to cast one another into roles, which are commensurate with their vision of the international actor’s ‘self’ (and the roles this ‘self’ plays in society). From an IRT perspective, it is through this dynamic, termed alter-casting, that constituent units (re)constitute (the role aspirations of) an international actor’s ‘self’ (on alter-casting, see Harnisch, 2016: 6; McCourt, 2012: 380; Wendt, 1999: 329–331).

The alter-casting capacity of certain constituent units, IRT further suggests, hinges on three elements: their (material and social) resources, their creativity and the role expectations of others. Following this perspective, constituent units, on the one hand, draw on both their material resources (e.g. their financial resources) and social resources (e.g. their knowledge, experience or status) to cast others into commensurate roles. Alter-casting, as noted by Alexander Wendt (1999: 331) thus ‘[…] tends to evolve in the direction favoured by the more powerful’. On the other hand, IRT asserts that resources are not all that matters for the process of alter-casting. What matters too, IRT holds, is the creativity of constituent units (and thus their way of using available resources) as well as the role expectations (and thus the potential resistance) of others (Joas, 1993: 222; McCourt, 2012: 378). The (re)imagination of an external actor’s regional role, IRT emphasizes in this context, constitutes an interactive and creative process. Following IRT, it is thus through the creative interaction of constituent units that an international actor develops a regional role aspiration. This aspiration, in turn, constitutes a social structure, which consists of the reconciled expectations of constituent units.

While this view may suggest that an international actor’s (re)imagination of its international role constitutes a primarily domestic affair, it is important to note that IRT does not consider external actors irrelevant in this process. In keeping with the ‘I’–‘me’ logic, constituent units generate ideas in part as they reflect on the expectations of significant others, which also include actors outside the domestic context. When the US State Department or the Republican Party generate ideas for a US role in the Middle East, for instance, then they do not only reflect on the expectations of domestic actors, but also on the expectations of external actors, such as regional allies. External actors, moreover, may directly intervene in the domestic (re)imagination process through the alter-casting of specific constituent units as well as through the strengthening of a particular constituent units’ alter-casting capacity. The (re)imagination stage of an international actor’s role-making, while primarily constituting a domestic conversation is thus, at times heavily, shaped by the social expectations and alter-casting practices of external actors.

Once the (re)imagination stage has led to the formation of a role aspiration, which provides an international actor with direction for its interaction with external others, the second stage of role-making, the realization stage, begins. In this stage, IRT suggests, an international actor seeks to realize its aspired role in society through the alter-casting of its significant others, being those others through the eyes of whom it sees its ‘self’ (McCourt, 2012: 380–381). Critically, this stage, while presupposing an actor’s (re)imagination of a role, does not terminate the (re)imagination stage, nor does it imply that the role an international actor pursues abroad is domestically uncontested. It merely indicates that the expectations of constituent units have sufficiently converged so as to provide an international actor with renewed purpose and direction in its interaction with significant others.

Following the view of alter-casting outlined above, an international actor’s capacity to realize its role aspirations in society depends on its creativity and resources as well the social expectations of others. An international actor, an IRT perspective suggests, thus realizes an aspired international role in an interactive and creative process. The role an international actor realizes for its ‘self’ in society constitutes in this regard a social structure, which is comprised of the reconciled role expectations of – and upheld in the interaction between – the actor’s ‘self’ and its significant others (Harnisch, 2016). IRT, moreover, suggests that the role an international actor realizes functions as a constituting element of (specific social structures in) international society. The structures of international society, such as regional structures therefore emerge and transform through role-making dynamics.

By the same token, international structures consolidate as international actors perform and solidify their (newly established) roles in the interaction with others. From an IRT perspective, it is consequently through both role-making and role-playing that international structures emerge and evolve. While role-making, as noted above, signifies the (re)constitution of an international actor’s role in response to a problematic situation, role-playing denotes the actor’s (more or less routinized) performance of an established role. Together, following IRT, these two processes (re)constitute and consolidate international structures as well as an international actor’s image of its ‘self’ (its identity). International structures, including regional structures thus reflect the (more or less routinized) responses of international actors to (past) problematic situations. From an IRT perspective, the evolution of Europe’s regional structure, for instance, can, in this context, be understood as shaped by the role-making and role-playing that followed problematic situations like the fall of the Berlin Wall or the European debt crisis (see also Beneš and Harnisch, 2015: 154).

Considering this perspective, the article argues that IRT is well positioned to complement new regionalist theorizations of the emergence and evolution of an external actor’s regional role, and by extension the (re)constitution of regional structures and an external actor’s ‘self’. On the one hand, this article suggests that IRT is well-equipped to complement Buzan and Wæver’s conception of penetration by offering an understanding of the motivations behind – and the dynamics of – an external actor’s regional engagement. Concretely, IRT suggests that the regional involvement of an external actor starts with a problematic situation in reaction to which the actor – by drawing on its creativity and reflexivity – (re)imagines its regional role(s) and by extension a region’s social structure. From an IRT perspective, it is thus in response to a problematic situation that an external actor develops its aspiration to penetrate a particular region.

The actor’s capacity to realize this aspiration, IRT further argues, depends on its ability to cast significant others into commensurate roles, and thus its resources and creativity as well as the role expectations of others. An external actor, following this perspective, realizes a regional role, and by extension the (re)constitution of a regional structure, through alter-casting. It is therefore through the casting of others that an external actor realizes regional alignments, and thus the penetration of a regional structure. At the same time, IRT suggests that just as external actors seek to realize their role aspirations through the alter-casting of others, those others may seek to cast the external actor into a role that is commensurate with their own aspirations. Following IRT, the emergence and evolution of an external actor’s regional role is consequently shaped by the alter-casting practices of both the external actor and its significant others. IRT, in other words, suggests that external actors take up regional roles, and thus penetrate regional structures, in an interactive process.

This interaction, IRT holds, goes beyond processes of socialization. Concretely, an IRT perspective suggests that even though the (re)constitution of an external actor’s regional role at times resembles a process of socialization in which the external actor adapts to – and internalizes – the shared role expectations of significant others, socialization does not (necessarily) account for all that is going on. From an IRT perspective, socialization occurs when an external actor primarily draws on its ‘me’ in developing its regional role (Harnisch, 2016: 16). Socialization, in this sense, pays little attention to an external actor’s capacity to react to uncertainties, and (conflicting) role expectations, through the use of its creativity. By contrast, an IRT perspective stresses that an external actor draws on both its reflective and creative capacity (its ‘me’ and ‘I’) as it (re)imagines and realizes its regional roles. IRT, in this sense, emphasizes an external actor’s capacity to creatively (re)imagine – and consciously express – its ‘self’ in a region’s social structure.

IRT, with its emphasis on role-making and role-playing, creativity and reflexivity, as well as problematic situations and alter-casting, this article argues, constitutes a perspective that is not only well-suited to complement new regionalist theorizations of the relations between external actors and regional structures, but that also provides a promising framework for analysing the emergence and evolution of an external actor’s regional role. To illustrate the potential of this framework, the following section will employ the above-outlined perspective to analyse the EU’s emerging security role in the region of East Asia. Concretely, in adopting an IRT perspective, the section will analyse the EU’s emerging security role in East Asia as a role-making process, and thereby focus on the emergence of the EU’s role aspiration as well as the EU’s attempts at realizing its aspired role in the interaction with significant others.

The European Union’s emerging security role in East Asia: An interactionist role theory perspective

One of the EU’s most frequently articulated role aspirations in international affairs is its ambition to position its ‘self’ as a security provider in the region of East Asia (Council of the European Union, 2007; 2012; 2016c; Berkofsky, 2014; Cameron, 2013; Christiansen et al., 2013; Mogherini, 2015; Reiterer, 2014).¹ To provide an understanding of how this aspiration has emerged – and how the EU has sought to realize its aspired role in the interaction with others – this section analyses the EU’s foreign policy towards East Asia from an IRT perspective. This section, in this context, analyses the EU’s ambition to realize its ‘self’ as a security actor in East Asia as a role-making process, which is shaped by alter-casting dynamics and the EU’s experience of – and creative response to – problematic situations. To analyse this process, this section triangulates close-readings of official policy documents and semi-structured interviews with representatives from EU institutions and the foreign ministries of EU Member States and East Asian countries.²

Problematic situations and alter-casting: The EU’s role-making in East Asia

In its 2007 ‘guidelines for the EU’s foreign and security policy in East Asia’, the European Council, for the first time, articulated a comprehensive vision for a EU security role in the region of East Asia (Cameron, 2013; Council of the European Union, 2007). This role, the guidelines argued, would constitute a necessary response to East Asia’s growing economic and political weight, which poses challenges to the EU’s capacity to safeguard its prosperity and international actorness (Council of the European Union, 2007). Concretely, the guidelines, which were updated in 2012, stressed that intensifying trade links with East Asia had made the EU’s prosperity increasingly dependent on East Asia’s stability, and thus the peaceful resolution of persistent conflicts and tensions in the East and South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula (Council of the European Union, 2007, 2012). Moreover, the guidelines emphasized that the EU’s capacity to strengthen multilateralism and international institutions had become increasingly dependent on its ability to harness the growing economic and political clout of East Asian partners (Council of the European Union, 2007, 2012).

In the same vein, the EU’s Global Strategy stressed the need to work with ‘like-minded and strategic partners in Asia’ to ‘deliver effective global governance’ (Council of the European Union, 2016b: 43). It moreover restated concerns over ‘mounting security challenges in Asia’ while emphasizing that ‘peace and stability in Asia are a prerequisite for [the EU’s] prosperity’ (Council of the European Union, 2016b: 13, 37). EU policy documents, in this context, suggest that the EU has experienced East Asia’s growing economic and political weight, combined with East Asia’s persistent regional disputes, as a problematic situation, which has challenged its own capacity to provide economic prosperity and global governance through established routines. The EU’s aspiration to take up a security role in East Asia may thus be understood as a reaction to the uncertainties that the EU has experienced in the context of East Asia’s rise.

EU policy documents, in this context, stressed that a EU security role in East Asia could contribute to the region’s stability, and thus help protect the Union’s economic prosperity (Council of the European Union, 2007; 2012; 2016b). The EU’s East Asia guidelines, for instance, emphasized that ‘the EU’s economic presence in the region, and its unique experience of post-war reconciliation and political and economic integration, [would] position [the Union] well to play an important role in helping to bolster regional security’ (Council of the European Union, 2012: 8). At the same time, the documents highlighted that closer EU cooperation and coordination with East Asian countries on global security issues could enhance the EU’s capacity to perform its assumed roles ‘as an agenda-shaper, connector, coordinator and facilitator’ in the area of global governance (Council of the European Union, 2016b: 43). EU policy documents, in this context, suggested that a EU security role in East Asia would enable the Union to sustain its routinely assumed role as a provider of economic prosperity and an effective promoter of global governance in a changing international environment.

To realize its aspired security role, the EU has, particularly since updating its guidelines in 2012, increasingly invested in developing closer security ties with like-minded and strategic partners in East Asia. In order to realize its ‘self’ as a regional security actor, the EU, in this context, has sought to cast significant others into the roles of partners on regional and global security issues. Much of the EU’s efforts, in this regard, have focused on casting the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a Southeast Asian regional organization, into a regional security partner. To develop closer security relations with ASEAN – as well as to profile itself as a security actor in the wider region – the EU has, for instance, acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), which commits the EU to take responsibility for the region’s peace and security (European Commission, 2012). Moreover, it has stepped up its involvement in regional security dialogues, such as the Shangri-La Dialogue or the ASEAN Regional Forum, in which it has acted as co-chair for workshops on preventive diplomacy, mediation and the prevention of violent extremism (European External Action Service (EEAS), 2017c).

To strengthen its cooperation with – and the position of – ASEAN, the EU has furthermore substantially increased its financial assistance to the ASEAN secretariat, appointed a dedicated EU ambassador and organized a number of high-level visits and meetings, including four high-level dialogues on maritime security (EEAS, 2017c; Reiterer, 2014). Finally, the Union has offered ASEAN the status of a ‘strategic partner’ in return for ASEAN’s support to the EU’s bid for membership in the East Asia Summit, the region’s most significant security dialogue (interviews with European External Action Service (EEAS) and ASEAN officials, May–August 2016). To build a security partnership with ASEAN, and, by extension, to realize its ‘self’ as a security actor in the region, the EU has, in this context, made creative use of its financial and diplomatic resources, as well as its experience and expertise in areas such as maritime security and multilateral diplomacy.

Interviews conducted for this study suggest that these efforts have not been ineffective in so far as ASEAN member states have come to increasingly recognize the EU as a security actor who can contribute to the region’s stability through its promotion of multilateralism as well as its capacities and expertise in tackling non-traditional security threats (interviews with EEAS and ASEAN officials, May–August 2016). This growing recognition has been further reflected in a recently agreed ASEAN–EU Plan of Action as well as the EU’s first participation, in 2017, in the East Asia Summit, albeit only as guest of the chair (Council of the European Union, 2017; EEAS, 2017a). While these developments point to the EU’s success in casting ASEAN into a partner on regional security affairs, not all ASEAN members, however, equally consider the EU to be a significant regional security actor. Singapore, for instance, has, in light of the EU’s lacking ability and willingness to deploy ‘hard’ security instruments, remained hesitant to support full EU membership in the East Asia Summit or the ASEAN Defence Minister Meeting Plus (interviews with EEAS and Singaporean officials in Brussels and Singapore, May–July 2016). The role expectations of actors like Singapore, in this sense, have so far limited the EU’s ability to perform its envisioned role in regional security dialogues. The EU’s efforts to convince (the members of) ASEAN of its capacity to perform as a significant regional security actor have thus so far yielded mixed results.

While the EU has focused much of its efforts on casting ASEAN into a regional security partner, its alter-casting efforts, however, have not been directed at ASEAN alone. Most notably, the EU has further engaged in realizing its envisioned security role by strengthening its security cooperation with its regional strategic partners China, Japan and South Korea. The EU, in this context, has, in particular, focused on strengthening partnerships in the area of crisis management as well as the promotion of nuclear non-proliferation, multilateral diplomacy and international institutions. To strengthen the former, the EU has, for instance, made use of bilateral free trade talks to negotiate a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Japan (agreed in 2017) as well as a Framework Participation Agreement with South Korea (signed in 2014), which provide the legal framework for closer security cooperation. The EU, in this regard, has made creative use of its economic resources to strengthen its cooperation with strategic partners on global and regional security issues.

To strengthen the latter, the EU has sought to enhance bilateral dialogues with its strategic partners on regional security issues. To address North Korea’s evolving nuclear programme, the EU has, moreover, sought to work closely with its strategic partners in enforcing international – as well as enhanced voluntary – sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The EU, furthermore issued statements to condemn North Korea’s violations of international obligations while emphasizing that ‘the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula must be achieved through peaceful means - [not] military action’ (EEAS, 2017b). At the same time, the EU has also called upon parties in the South China Sea to resolve disputes ‘in accordance with international law’ and expressed its support for multilateral negotiations about a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea as a measure to ‘support a rules-based regional and international order’ (Council of the European Union, 2016a; EEAS, 2016). Through these measures, the EU has sought to position its ‘self’ more clearly in regional security affairs as a promoter of multilateral negotiations and international institutions.

This aspiration has, however, been increasingly challenged by the Union’s emerging internal divisions. Most notably, the Union’s capacity to enact the role of a promoter of international institutions has been increasingly challenged by the growing contestation of some EU member states, such as Hungary or Greece, towards China-critical EU statements. Alongside Croatia, Greece and Hungary – who share strained relations with Brussels and intensifying economic and political links with Beijing – have, for instance, kept the EU from issuing a strongly worded statement in reaction to China’s rejection of an international arbitration ruling on sovereignty rights in the South China Sea (Fallon, 2016). Greece, in 2017, moreover, blocked a EU statement prepared for the scheduled review of China’s human rights situation in the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council, which it claimed would provide ‘unproductive criticism’ (Cumming-Bruce and Sengupta, 2017).

Together, these incidents may serve as an indication of China’s growing political clout in Europe, and thus its growing capacity to cast EU constituent units, such as individual member states or institutional actors, into roles that are commensurate with its own vision of its ‘self’ and others. China’s growing influence, particularly over smaller and peripheral EU Member States, which have been at the receiving end of Chinese infrastructure investments, in this sense, may constitute an emerging problematic situation, which increasingly challenges the EU’s routinely assumed role as an advocate for human rights and international governance. Chinese alter-casting, in other words, has emerged as an increasingly significant force that shapes the EU’s (capacity to realize its aspired) security role in East Asia. The EU’s emergence and evolution as a regional security actor in East Asia, in this sense, is driven – and shaped – not only by the EU but also by the role aspirations and alter-casting practices of significant others.

While these practices may be most salient in the case of China, it is important to note that the EU’s security role in East Asia is shaped by the alter-casting practices of other regional actors, too. The EU’s like-minded partners in the region, such as Japan, South Korea and Indonesia, for instance, have long encouraged the EU to take a up a more visible role in regional security affairs, particularly in the context of countering Chinese assertiveness in the East and South China Sea (interviews with EEAS, Korean and Japanese officials). All three actors, moreover, have, if to varying degrees, sought to strengthen their own profile in regional and international security affairs, whereby they have identified the EU as a like-minded partner whose crisis management missions and expertise provide opportunities for learning as well as visible and effective international security cooperation (interviews with EEAS official, May 2016; see also EEAS, 2017d; and Khandekar, 2018). The emergence of EU security links with East Asian countries, in this context, is not only shaped by the EU’s measures to strengthen its regional security ties, but also by the alter-casting measures of those East Asian actors who seek greater involvement of – as well as strengthened relations with – the Union in regional and international security affairs.

Complementing penetration and socialization: IRT’s contribution to the new regionalist literature

IRT, as this brief analysis has sought to illustrate, is well positioned to complement the new regionalist literature in theorizing the emergence and evolution of an external actor’s regional role. In particular, this article argues that its focus on role-making, creative action, problematic situations and alter-casting equips IRT well to complement new regionalist perspectives, which have theorized the regional engagement of external actors by reverting to the concepts of penetration and socialization.

An IRT perspective, as noted above, suggests that an external actor’s regional role emerges and transforms in an interactive process, which is triggered by problematic situations. IRT, in this context, offers a theoretical framework for analysing how and why an external actor comes to develop a regional role aspiration. An IRT analysis of the EU’s aspiration to take up a security role in East Asia, for instance, takes its interest in identifying the problematic situations that have led the EU to imagine that role for its ‘self’. An IRT perspective furthermore suggests that an external actor realizes aspired regional roles through the alter-casting of others. The analysis above, in this context, has, investigated how an external actor like the EU realizes its aspired regional role as it seeks to cast others through the creative use of its resources. IRT, moreover, stresses that just as an external actor aims to realize an aspired regional role through the casting of others, so do significant others seek to cast the external actor into (regional) roles commensurate with their own aspirations. IRT, in this sense, highlights how an external actor’s regional role, and by extension a region’s social structure, is shaped in an interactive process that takes place within and between the domestic and international spheres.

This perspective, this article argues, is well-positioned to complement the concept of penetration, which, following Buzan and Wæver describes the process of alignment-making through which an external actor engages in – and shapes – a region’s (security) structure. Concretely, this article suggests that IRT offers a theoretical understanding of why and how an external actor comes to aspire and realize regional alignments, and thus to shape (i.e. penetrate) the social structure of a particular region. IRT, for instance, provides a framework that allows for analysing why and how the EU has come to aspire and realize particular security alignments with regional actors in East Asia. IRT furthermore emphasizes that alignment making constitutes an interactive process, which is shaped by the alter-casting practices of (the constituent units of) both an external actor and its significant others. It thus highlights the roles that (the constituent units of) an external actor and its significant others play in the emergence or transformation of an external actor’s regional role, and thus in the penetration of a particular regional structure.

The interaction between an external actor and its significant others, which leads an external actor to adopt certain regional roles, IRT further suggests, generally goes beyond a process of socialization in which the external actor adapts to – and internalizes – the shared role expectations of significant others. Critically, IRT, in this context, emphasizes the capacity of an external actor to react to external role expectations creatively. Concretely, while not excluding that the emergence and evolution of an external actor’s regional role may at times resemble a process of socialization, IRT stresses the capacity of an external actor to consciously develop and realize its role aspiration in the creative interaction with its significant others. Those significant others, IRT emphasizes, are in turn capable of using their resources creatively to cast the external actor into a role that is commensurate with their own individual role aspirations. An IRT analysis of the EU’s emerging security role in East Asia does, in this context, not only look at how that role is shaped by the (shared) role expectations of regional actors, but also at how it is shaped by the creative alter-casting practices of both the EU and its significant others.

Conclusion

IRT, this article has argued, is well-equipped to offer a theoretical understanding of the emergence and evolution of an external actor’s regional role. Concretely, the article holds that IRT, with its emphasis on role-making, creative action, problematic situations and alter-casting, is well-positioned to theorize about the social interaction that leads an external actor to aspire and realize a specific regional role for its ‘self’. IRT, the article suggests in this context, has the potential to complement the literature of new regionalism, which has so far theorized about the regional involvement of external actors by reverting to the concepts of penetration and socialization.

While this article has sought to outline and illustrate the capacity of IRT to provide a theoretical framework for analysing the emergence and evolution of an external actors’ regional role, IRT’s potential, however, has yet to be fully explored. In particular, more comprehensive and comparative studies are needed to test and further develop an IRT perspective on the social dynamics of an external actor’s regional involvement. Empirical analyses, for instance, will be needed to provide greater insights into the social dynamics of domestic and international alter-casting. Such analyses, may, in turn, provide valuable insights into the roles that creative action, social expectations and (material and social) resources play in the social interaction that give rise to the actors and structures of IR.

Comparative analyses, moreover, may provide insights into how an external actor’s role-making in one region affects role-making dynamics elsewhere, and how an external actor’s experience of a problematic situation is reflected in different international contexts. The IRT perspective outlined above may, moreover, provide a starting point for analysing the emergence and evolution of a region’s social structure as well as an external actor’s ‘self’ (its identity). Finally, the example used in this article for illustrating an IRT perspective may serve as an indication for IRT’s potential to further link – and perhaps integrate – the (still surprisingly disconnected) literatures of ‘new regionalism’, ‘interregionalism’ and ‘EU actorness’. An interactionist approach, for instance, may provide insights into the EU’s (in)ability to take up certain international roles and enable a better understanding of the processes that drive the emergence and evolution of the EU’s external relations.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Klaus Brummer, Caterina Carta, Luis Simon, Michael Smith, Marie Tuley and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author biography

Stephan Klose is a PhD Candidate at the Institute for European Studies (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, VUB). His research interests cover EU foreign policy, East Asian and Middle Eastern studies, International Relations Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis.

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