Revisiting ‘identity’ in International Relations: From identity as substance to identifications in action

In recent years, the concept of identity has become central to International Relations theory. Opposing rational actor assumptions, constructivist and post-structuralist identity scholarship has argued that preferences and interests are tied to actors’ identities, which, in turn, explain action. While we welcome the attempt to move beyond rationalist and materialist accounts of state action, we argue that identity scholarship conceptualizes identity in methodologically individualist and causal terms. However, understanding identity in this way hinders us from grasping how actors are situated and continually develop within complex networks of social interdependencies. We suggest an approach that draws on processual-relational thinking and figurational sociology, and that shifts analysis from searching for identity to analysing identification processes. Contrary to the notion that identities inform action, we argue that specific sets of identifications are temporarily and incompletely stabilized in decision-making, and do not precede or inform action. To this end, we develop a model for empirical research that makes agency in identification processes visible and apply it to Swiss foreign policy decision-making. We suggest that non-foundationalist research revisit and discuss how identity is conceptualized and used in research, lest it reproduce the pitfalls of rationalist and materialist approaches.