Embracing Complexity: New ways forward for identity scholarship in International Relations

Abstract: Insufficient theorizations about identification result in flawed conclusions about how actors in the international arena construct themselves and the Other. With references to fallacies of previous identification studies, the thesis at hand therefore argues for the necessity to contemporize research approaches. It asks the question “how could identification research in International Relations be improved?”. Based on a micro-level survey and interviews, the thesis can show how discourse, as well as inadequate conceptualizations and operationalizations, produce limited understandings of identification. The thesis recognizes several pitfalls that identification research must seek to avoid, for example: the uncritical acceptance of, and contribution to, dominant discourses, the reduction of identification into dichotomous categories, as well as the aiming for clear-cut, essentialist operationalizations. Research shows that identifications are ambiguous, fluid and contextual. Hence, identification research must embrace and encompass these traits in theorizations about the international system.