ALT Title: Role Hedging and Regional Cooperation: Serbia’s Discourse on the Berlin Process and the Open Balkan Initiative Abstract: Although the prevalent IR and FPA literature, drawing on neoclassical realism (NCR), focuses on the material aspects of hedging, it largely overlooks identity-driven dynamics, thereby falling short of offering a more wholesome understanding of states’ hedging behaviour. By leveraging an affinity between NCR and role theory in FP research, we argue that identity needs are so deeply intertwined with material considerations that they can themselves constitute primary drivers of hedging moves. The paper introduces the concept of role hedging, capturing how states seek to retain, rather than abandon, their various and often conflicting roles, by managing them either through distribution across different stages (global, regional, subregional), or by strategically shifting between those stages.