Description
Despite much research on the UK’s foreign policy after Brexit and the narrative of ‘Global Britain’, very few scholars examine how political actors, beyond foreign policy elites, negotiate and construct this narrative and its associated national role conceptions (NRCs). Indeed, most researchers rely only on official documents and speeches coming from the Government, which therefore tends to assume that there is a consensus among the political class on the UK’s foreign policy and the ‘Global Britain’ narrative. This ultimately leads to black boxing the state, while neglecting the internal process of elaborating the UK’s role on the world stage.
I intend to fill this gap by examining the NRCs of both the Government and parliamentarians through a narrative analysis of official documents, speeches, parliamentary debates, and interviews to unveil the discursive processes shaping the ‘Global Britain’ narrative and its underlying roles. The central question is how role contestations among British parliamentarians, expressed through alternative/counter-narratives, alter the Government’s foreign policy role.
Combining role theory and narrative analysis contributes to the methodological enrichment of role theory, while focusing on intra-elite role contestations allows to explain fluctuations and inconsistencies in a state’s foreign policy. Moreover, the value of this research is wider, as it reveals an ‘in the making’ process of constructing foreign policy and identity, emphasising the influence of the ‘Global Britain’ narrative on British decision-makers’ representations.
