1st Edition
Role Compatibility as Socialization The Case of Pakistan
In Role Compatibility as Socialization, Dorothée Vandamme examines Pakistan’s socialization process in terms of role compatibility in the 2008-2018 period.
Adopting an Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) method of analysis, Vandamme builds on role theory to develop a theory of socialization as role compatibility to explain the dynamics of Pakistan’s (dys)functioning position and its status-seeking process as a fully functioning member of the international system. Specifically, she focuses on how Pakistani civilian and military leaders define their country’s positioning towards India, the United States and China. In doing so, she traces the link between domestic role contestation at the country’s inception and the resulting domination of the military’s conception of their country, state identity, how it projects itself externally and how it is received by others.
Departing from strictly structural or agent-oriented explanations, Vandamme expertly demonstrates Pakistan’s perceived role compatibility with significant others and underlines the causality between state identity, foreign policy behavior and socialization. Role Compatibility as Socialization will be of interest to graduate students and researchers who work on and with role theory and socialization theory, and for those with a research interest on South Asia.
1. Introduction: The social world of Pakistan
2. State socialization as role compatibility
3. Acquiring statehood and building social identity
4. Setting the stage: Pakistan and its significant others’ NRCs
5. Dealing with the other: The construction of India-Pakistan oppositional identities
6. Client or independent? Understanding the difficulty of the US-Pakistan relations in light of the patron-client framework
7. China as alternative dominant socializer
8. Conclusion
Biography
Dorothée Vandamme is a lecturer at the University of Mons and a visiting lecturer at the Université catholigue de Louvain. She is a researcher at the ISPOLE institute and a research fellow at the European Foundation for South Asian Studies. Her main research interests are political sociology and social processes in interstate relations, the political and security environment in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Chinese foreign policy and contemporary international security issues.
"A well-crafted and intellectually engaging mix of theoretical, empirical and policy analyses. A noteworthy contribution to the field"
Niall Duggan, Department of Government and Politics at University College Cork
"This book by Dorothée Vandamme provides essential reading for scholars, students and practitioners with an interest in the domestic, regional and international factors that shape Pakistan’s foreign policy and, by extension, politics in the Indo-Pacific."
Sebastian Bersick, Ruhr University Bochum, Jean Monnet Chair
"An insightful and innovative application of role theory to the study of international relations in Asia"
Jörn-Carsten Gottwald, Chair, East Asian Politics, Bochum
"A fresh approach through use of role theory to an understanding of the paradox of Pakistan’s foreign policy. Vandamme’s penetrating analysis looks closely at how India, the U.S. and China have served to help form Pakistan’s national self-identity. In throwing light on the subjective factors in state behavior, the book’s interpretative approach and theoretical insights can find broad application in international relations studies."
Marvin G. Weinbaum, Professor Emeritus of political science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
