Competing Roles, Diverging Strategies
Grand Strategy of Great Powers through the Lens of Role Theory
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publishing:2nd Oct '26
£171.99
This title is due to be published on 2nd October, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Grand strategy is back at the center of global politics; this book offers a clear framework for understanding how and why the grand strategies of states change over time by placing role theory at the center of analysis.
Focusing on the United States, China, and Russia, it shows how the alignment and contestation of national role conceptions among leaders, factions, and opposition actors shape long-term strategic orientations. Drawing on a systematic analysis of foreign policy discourse, this book traces how these roles evolve across leadership periods and regime types. By measuring patterns of agreement and disagreement, it demonstrates when change is likely to be incremental and when it takes the form of sharper, critical shifts. The analysis also unfolds across three temporal layers, capturing short-term variation, medium-term adjustment, and longer-term continuity. In doing so, it moves beyond accounts that focus solely on implementation, offering instead a way to identify the underlying structure of grand strategy itself.
Written for scholars and graduate students of International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis, and Role Theory, this book provides a rigorous yet accessible approach to studying strategic change and will also appeal to analysts seeking to better understand how great powers define and adapt their place in world politics.
"In Competing Roles, Diverging Strategies: Grand Strategy of Great Powers through the Lens of Role Theory, role theory is employed to identify continuity and change in the grand strategies of the United States, China, and Russia and their origins, respectively, within divergent role contestation dynamics of the democratic, one-party, and increasingly personalistic regimes that they represent."
Stephen G. Walker, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Arizona State University
"This is a superb scholarship, with significant relevance to policy – the first application of role theory to the study of grand strategy for great powers to understand change. The volume develops a time-based typology and reveals how role-related patterns can transform grand strategy. This book is essential reading for scholars and practitioners."
Patrick James, Dornsife Dean’s Professor Emeritus of International Relations, USC
"This book is a significant contribution to the literature on great powers. With a rigorous methodology and through innovative theorizing, Çağla Kılıç explores the trajectory and distinct qualities of the U.S.’s, Russia’s, and China’s grand strategies. Her insightful study carries important implications for our understanding of these powers’ future strategies, their management of alliances, and the predicament of smaller powers."
Akan Malici, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Furman University
ISBN: 9781041359845
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
142 pages