“Vision of Itself” in Foreign Policy Analysis: From the Role of Ideas to Identity and Recognition

For Henry Kissinger, a stable international order is not only based on a balance
of power, but also on a balance of identities, of “visions of itself ”. How do our observational theories of international relations come to understand this practical maxim? This article shows that rationalist theories' methodological underpinnings fall short of satisfactorily addressing the issue, while constructivism’s and post-structuralism’s social ontology and relational understanding of identity provide a better starting point. And yet, when we return from the level of explanatory theory back to foreign policy practice, constructivist theorizing, precisely for its focus on identity, risks of being abused for the purpose of nationalist apologies of the very kind that makes a balance of identities impossible.