THE RECOGNITION PROCESS: EXPLAINING THE COMPRESENCE OF PROSOCIAL AND ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOURS IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS.

The thesis aims at finding a theoretical framework that is able to give a comprehensive explanation of the compresence of prosocial (complying) and antisocial (deviant) behaviours within international politics. The thesis moves from an analysis of the IR literature on identity formation and its important component: the process of recognition. The first part of the thesis focuses on introducing the conception of the recognition process, its related characteristics, and the developed alternative explanations to international politics based on the conception of the recognition process. The second part of the thesis focuses on highlighting the shortcomings of the two alternative explanations of international politics based on recognition studies which are able to explain the presence of complying or deviant behaviours in the international arena but fall short in explaining their compresence. Next to this are also presented some alternative explanations that try to justify the simultaneous observation of prosocial and antisocial behaviours. The third part of the thesis introduces interesting findings from developmental peer relations studies on children and adolescents. By presenting the sociological research field and the conceptual and theoretical evolution that took place at the end of the 1990s, the author moves towards a presentation of the concepts and findings that can prove useful to IR to close the gap between theoretical conception on the recognition process and the empirical observations of interactions within the international arena. The advanced theoretical framework is checked against the case study of Italian foreign policy during the Mussolini government. Conclusions and further implications are drawn.