Two-Level Role Theory and EU Migration

Applying role theory and Putnam's two-level game framework to the European migration crisis of 2015, Magdalena Kozub-Karkut expertly shows how the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland used the crisis to contest their roles in the European Union (EU) and how each country and the V4 as a group, subsequently used their new contested roles in the bargaining process within the EU structures.  In doing so, Kozub-Karkut demonstrates how international negotiations might be used by the chief negotiators as a way of triggering contestation and enhancing their position at the domestic level as well as how role contestation processes from the domestic level might be used at the international one.

Two-Level Role Theory and EU Migration is an excellent resource for scholars and students of Foreign Policy Analysis, International Relations Theory, European Studies, and Migrations Studies.

Two-Level Role Theory and EU Migration addresses the migration crisis with game models from binary role theory and Putnam?s two-level games framework. It identifies horizontal and vertical role contestation patterns that illuminate the dynamics of political discourse over the migration crisis and illustrate a theoretical synthesis linking levels of analysis in world politics. It is an important addition for scholars to read with interests in role theory and world politics.

Stephen G. Walker, Arizona State University