the present and future of diplomacy and diplomatic studies

The Present and Future of Diplomacyand Diplomatic Studies

Edited by Stuart Murray, Bond University, Paul Sharp, University Of MinnesotaDuluth, GEOFFREY WISEMAN, University Of Southern California, DAVID CRIEKEMANS,

University Of Antwerp, JAN MELISSEN, Clingendael Institute And University Of Antwerp

Of late, practical and theoretical interest in diplomacy and diplomaticstudies has grown, prompting a number of diplomatic scholars toundertake a long overdue stock take of the past, present, and future ofthe subfield. What follows, therefore are five essays by both senior andjunior scholars of diplomacy reflecting on the origins of diplomaticstudies, showcasing contemporary scholarship, and suggesting some ofthe opportunities and challenges the study of diplomacy poses for thoseworking in the broader ISA and International Relations (IR) communi-ties in the future. Its aims are simple: to demonstrate that diplomacyand diplomatic theory are central to a complete understanding of inter-national relations; to illustrate myriad possibilities for fascinating, valu-able, and useful cross-fertilizations between diplomatic studies andother fields of study, IR chief among those; and to publicize future dip-lomatic research tasks and agendas. The authors take diverseapproaches but agree on one thing: the need for a strong and activeDiplomatic Studies Section in ISA serving as a two-way conduit betweenpractitioners and scholars, alerting the former to the best in IR scholar-ship while reminding the latter that explanations and understandingsof international relations from which diplomacy and diplomats areabsent can never be complete. The need for such a conduit has neverbeen more pressing.

Diplomacy, Diplomatic Studies, and the ISA

Paul Sharp

University of Minnesota Duluth

ISA’s Diplomatic Studies Section was proposed at the San Diego Convention in1996. Raymond Cohen was the primary force behind this happening, but manypeople agreed with the idea and, indeed, expressed surprise that such a sectiondid not already exist. After all, most people intuitively suppose that diplo-macy—the institutions and processes by which states and others represent them-selves and their interests to one another—plays an important part in shapingwhat happens in international relations. Add to this the end of the Cold War,the creation of new states with new diplomatic services following the collapse ofthe Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, plus the hope generated by the UN’s ‘‘Agendafor Peace,’’ and the time seemed propitious. The San Diego meeting decided tocampaign for a new ISA Section focused on diplomacy. The Governing Councilsaid ‘‘aye’’ at Toronto the next year, although Susan Strange raised an eyebrow

Murray, Stuart et al. (2011) The Present and Future of Diplomacy and Diplomatic Studies. International Studies Review, doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2486.2011.01079.x� 2011 International Studies Association

International Studies Review (2011) 13, 709–728

over the new Section charter’s distinction between ‘‘diplomatists’’ (those who doit) and ‘‘diplomaticists’’ (those who study it).

‘‘Now what?’’ I said to Tom Volgy after the Toronto vote, to which he replied,‘‘now you go forth and multiply.’’ So we did. Over the intervening years, the Sectionhas grown to a hundred or so members and regularly offers between eight and 12panels at each ISA convention. These have provided a launch pad for the publica-tion of multiple articles in ISA journals and elsewhere, together with what is becom-ing a flood of both single authored and edited books on practical and theoreticalaspects of diplomacy. The Section has contributed to maintaining two book seriesfocused on diplomacy: one with Palgrave-Macmillan and one with Brill. Its memberswere heavily involved in founding in 2006 what remains the only peer-reviewed jour-nal devoted exclusively to the study of diplomacy, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.Now, close to 15 years on, with America’s diplomatic effort undergoing an unprece-dented expansion, the last of the original Section officers stepping down, and theSection’s existence confirmed by ten essays in the International Studies CompendiumProject, Stuart Murray (one of the diplomatic studies 3.0 generation, as Secretary ofState Clinton might call it) suggested that it was time to take stock. What follows,therefore, are five short essays by both senior and junior scholars of diplomacyreflecting on the origins of diplomatic studies, showcasing contemporary scholar-ship, and suggesting some of the opportunities and challenges the study of diplo-macy poses for those working in the broader ISA and IR communities in the future.The authors take diverse approaches but on one thing they are in agreement. Thatis the need for a strong and active Diplomatic Studies Section in ISA serving as atwo-way conduit between practitioners and scholars, alerting the former to the bestin IR scholarship while reminding the latter that explanations and understandingsof international relations from which diplomacy and diplomats are absent can neverbe complete. The need for such a conduit has never been more pressing.

Bringing Diplomacy Back In: Time for Theory toCatch Up with Practice

Geoffrey Wiseman

University of Southern California

Over the past 100 years, sovereign-state diplomacy and the diplomatic norms typicallyembodied by professional diplomats were attacked by adherents of four historicallysignificant critiques: the Wilsonian liberal democratic critique, that secret diplomacyleads to war; the revolutionary critique, associated with communists from Trotsky on,that diplomacy would wither with the capitalist state’s demise; the postcolonial critique,that diplomacy was merely a polite form of neo-colonialism whereby the Westco-opted the newly independent states of Africa and Asia; and the American neo-conservative critique, nowadays associated with George W. Bush’s administration,which built on an American tradition of diplomatically isolating adversarial stateswhile claiming that diplomacy is harmful because it constrains the United States fromdealing preemptively and decisively with such states. Despite these attacks, however,diplomacy and the study of it managed to survive and adapt in many parts of theworld. It is therefore curious that, unlike scholarship elsewhere, American IR haslong overlooked diplomacy, generally showing little interest in what diplomacy is, inwhat diplomats do, and, indeed, in what diplomats should do. This academic neglecthas become even more apparent with the advent of the Barack Obama administra-tion, which has accorded diplomacy a central place in its worldview. Significantly,

710 Diplomacy and Diplomatic Studies: Present and Future

Obama’s endorsement of diplomatic norms in the emerging world order reveals justhow far American IR theory now lags behind American diplomatic practice.

American IR Assumptions about Diplomacy

Certain elements of the US political legacy—for example, historical distrust ofdiplomacy, ill-advised political ambassadorships—may help explain this long-lasting neglect, but I see four assumptions held by American IR scholars as moreimportant. First, during the Cold War, it was widely assumed that US leadershiphad to be heavily based on realist hard power assets of force, coercion, and intel-ligence, and far less on soft power assets of diplomatic skill and persuasion. Thiswas reflected in the State Department’s decline and the ascendancy of theNational Security Council, Defense Department, CIA, and several economicdepartments. A second, related assumption was that Cold War bipolarity anddeterrence required skills and approaches different from those of traditionaldiplomacy. It was strategists and game theorists who helped the country (and theWest) survive the nuclear Cold War, not some latter-day George Kennan report-ing from the US embassy in Moscow. Third, it has been assumed that scholarsfrom universities and think tanks seeking government positions in a new presi-dential administration would find them in Washington, DC, where many foreign-policy-related jobs open up in a variety of departments and agencies, rather thanat embassies abroad, where the ambassadorial-level openings are few. This stateof affairs reinforced the notion of decision making and negotiation at home,rather than diplomacy in the field. Fourth, much of IR scholarship assumed theimportance of macro decisions, befitting a superpower having to deal with crisisdiplomacy from Berlin to Cuba.

A few major American IR scholars (Hans Morgenthau, for example) systemati-cally addressed diplomacy, but the IR field as a whole focused on US grand strat-egy, institutional design, and conflict ⁄ cooperation effects at the macro level—notat the micro level of diplomats’ social practices, which is the main focus of diplo-macy scholars. This emphasis on practice distinguishes diplomatic studies as asubfield of IR.1

Non-American IR Assumptions about Diplomacy

Non-Americans tend to value the theory and practice of diplomacy more thanAmericans do. For example, English School theory—with epistemic and intellec-tual connections to the study of diplomacy—long promoted diplomacy as bothan order-creating institution of international society and a process involving rulesand practices to facilitate inter-state relations. Famously, Martin Wight describedthe diplomatic system as the ‘‘master-institution’’ of international relations(1986). While the School did not fulfill its theoretical promise concerning diplo-macy (Neumann 2003), it provided important frameworks within which otherscould theorize. For example, Hedley Bull (2002) advanced the concept of a diplo-matic culture and with Adam Watson (1984) theorized that postcolonial statesgenerally adopt Western diplomatic institutions and methods of internationalsociety rather than create their own.

Diplomatic studies, often drawing on the revived English School theory of the1990s, is arguably the only IR subfield that does not take diplomacy for granted.Its scholars may be characterized as epistemic torchbearers (scholars of a subjectwhose importance goes unrecognized by others), but change is clearly in the air.Norm theory and Nye’s ‘‘soft power’’ concept promise fresh insights; earlier‘‘post-modernist’’ attempts to theorize diplomacy (Der Derian 1987; Constantinou

1Given its practical orientation, I situate public diplomacy within this subfield.

711The Forum

1996) are finally finding wider resonance (Sharp 2009); theorists with interdisci-plinary sensibilities in anthropology and sociology (Neumann 2007; Pouliot2008) have done interesting new work focusing on routine social practices;non-American constructivists, typically more attuned to diplomatic culture thantheir US counterparts, have applied Habermasian notions of communicativecompetence to diplomatic dialogue (Løse 2001). Once resistant to such influ-ences, scholars of diplomacy now largely embrace them, bringing greater episte-mic and theoretical self-awareness to diplomatic studies. A common threadrunning through these approaches is what can be called practice-based theorizing.

A key challenge for the subfield, therefore, is to draw attention to the fact thatdiplomatic norms and the daily practices from which they are constituted––in boththeir bilateral and their multilateral forms––became so deeply internalized overthe years that many scholars no longer appreciated their regulative, evaluative,constitutive, and practical effects. Ironically, the George W. Bush administration’sabrasive view of the Uinted Nations revealed worldwide support for the diplomacyof dialogue and the multilateral norm, support that the Obama administrationhas significantly drawn on. Constructivism has done much to conceptualize thenotion of taken-for-granted norms (for example, Finnemore and Sikkink 1998),but it has not fully applied this insight to diplomacy, reflecting American IR’sneglect of diplomacy among sovereign-state actors. To bring these internalizednorms and practices to light will require extensive research across fields, researchthat underscores the fact that the norm lifecycle does not end with norm internali-zation: once internalized, a norm is ‘‘successful’’ and loses some of its normativevalue. In diplomacy’s case, some norms may need to be disinterred and the lifecy-cle recommenced. This is but one of many examples in which the Obama adminis-tration’s approval of diplomacy—formalized as policy in the May 2010 NationalSecurity Strategy—becomes theoretically important for the IR field as a whole.

A New Diplomatic Culture?

In addition to uncovering the many significant taken-for-granted norms and prac-tices of traditional state-based diplomacy, diplomatic studies, working with IRmore generally around the world and in the United States, will need to conceptu-alize the state’s changing role in relation to new actors of all kinds. There is wide-spread agreement that even if the sovereign state remains the key actor, nonstateactors will complicate and diversify diplomacy. In the emerging world diplomaticsystem, at least three types of diplomacy will be conducted simultaneously––bilat-eral, multilateral, and ‘‘polylateral’’ (my term for state-nonstate relationships;Wiseman 1999). Diplomacy scholars have robustly debated such issues (Langhorne1997; Sharp 1999; Cooper and Hocking 2000), even if mostly intramurally.

A related matter needing further study is how state-nonstate diplomacy (poly-lateralism) will affect the prevailing state-based diplomatic culture of bilateraland multilateral diplomacy. Will (and should) nonstate entities be absorbed, co-opted, and regulated by the norms and practices of the state system, just as thenewly independent states endorsed sovereign-state diplomacy following decoloni-zation in an expanded international society? Indeed, there is preliminary evidencethat nonstate actors mimic state diplomatic norms rather than create distinctivelynew diplomatic cultures.2 Or will we move toward a world society (Buzan 2004) inwhich nonstate norms and practices reshape the state-based diplomatic culture,rendering it less state-centric, less hierarchical, less territorial, more transparent?In short, can we expect mutual or asymmetric socialization in favor ofstate norms or nonstate norms? Moreover, it is not premature to wonder what

2Hans Peter Schmitz, ‘‘Being (Almost) Like a State: Challenges and Opportunities of Transnational Non-Gov-ernmental Activism,’’ unpublished paper.


lies beyond polylateralism. The question of how we conceptualize sustained,purposive interactions and relations not involving sovereign-state actors or state-based international organizations remains open. Would this be diplomacy?

The incipient revival of diplomacy––in both theory and practice––has yet to benoticed by the American IR field. This is a pity, as there is much to recommend inthe new diplomatic studies research agenda and its increasingly sophisticated, andeclectic, practice-based theorizing. The diplomats will need to play their part in thetwo-way conduit between practitioners and scholars, primarily by thinking morereflectively about what they do and engaging with theorists about their practicesrather than taking them for granted. But perhaps what is most likely to encourageAmerican IR to change its mind about diplomacy and to see its many opportunitiesis that the United States, via the Obama administration, is moving toward a diplo-matic worldview and that the emerging world order, involving state and nonstateactors, raises the importance of diplomacy as an international policy instrument.

Exploring the Relationship between Geopolitics,Foreign Policy, and Diplomacy

David Criekemans

University of Antwerp

How can diplomatic studies further develop empirically and theoretically? Tobegin with, by engaging with other IR-subfields and social sciences, and contrib-uting to a more complete view on the forces reshaping modern world politics.

One neglected yet promising area to be developed within diplomatic studies isthe relationship between geopolitics and diplomacy. At the beginning of the1990s, influential IR scholars focused their attention on globalization and itsimpact. Some believed the world would gradually become one village, with noborders. They argued that myriad processes of de-territorialization were occur-ring, in which society and politics were less bound to territorial spaces.3 Duringthe 1990s, it seemed this process would continue.4 However, as the twenty-firstcentury dawned, it became clear that territoriality had not vanished as a potentialexplanatory variable of international relations and diplomacy.5 In fact, quite theopposite has occurred.

Today, multiple processes of re-territorialization can be identified. This conceptcan be understood as a series of ‘‘developments which occur when certain territo-rial entities diminish in importance, in favor of other territorial configurations’’

3Different authors in IR but also in Political Geography focused on other aspects of de-territorialization. O Tuat-hail (1998) made some very important remarks in this regard: ‘‘Deterritorialization is best interpreted, as Virilioremarks, as a question; it evokes the challenges posed to the status of territory and, by extension, our territoriallyembedded understandings of geography, governance and geopolitics, states, places, and the social sciences, by plan-etary communication networks and globalizing tendencies. But it is deceptive when it becomes an answer polemi-cally naming this challenge as a clear disappearance of territoriality. The problematic of deterritorialization istherefore also the problematic of re-territorialization; it is not the presence or absence of state territoriality but itschanging status, power and meaning in relation to postmodern technological constellations, speed machines andglobal webs of capitalism’’ (82).

4A seminal contribution can be found in the work of Ruggie (1993). He spoke of a process of ‘‘unbundling’’ ofterritoriality: ‘‘in the modern international polity an institutional negation of exclusive territoriality serves as themeans of situating and dealing with those dimensions of collective existence that territorial rulers recognize to beirreducibly transterritorial in character. Nonterritorial functional space is the place wherein international society isanchored’’ (165).

5Scholte (2000) argued: ‘‘The end of territorialism as a consequence of globalisation does not mean the end ofterritoriality’’ (59).

713The Forum

(Scholte 2000:60).6 Thus, geopolitics has not vanished: different types of re-territo-rialization are altering the fabric of international relations and, inevitably, suchprocesses are also influencing the practices and conduct of modern diplomacy(Criekemans 2009). Four recent occurrences of re-territorialization highlight theseprocesses and suggest a promising area of scholarship for both diplomatic and IRscholars.

The first occurrence concerns changing spheres of political influence, both ata regional and global level. The BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India, and Chi-na—are of particular relevance here. They all combine steady economic growth(somewhat hampered by the economic crisis of 2008–2009) with a more promi-nent geopolitical role, both individually and as a group (for example, via thenew G-20 regime). In some cases, there is even a desire to translate this new-found geo-economical and geopolitical influence into a more prominentgeo-strategical one. Via diplomacy, countries such as China or Brazil ‘‘test’’ theirrelationship vis-a-vis each other and, more importantly vis-a-vis the hegemon, theUnited States of America. Today, diplomacy constitutes an integral part of thegeopolitical and geo-economical shifts taking place both at a regional and globallevel and thus demands academic attention.

The second example of re-territorialization relates to the first. The interna-tional relations system is evolving from a uni-multipolar world (which saw its dawnin 1991, when the Soviet Union disintegrated) to a possible duo-multipolar world(the United States and China) or even a multipolar world. What implications willthese tectonic shifts have on diplomacy? How, also, will the diplomatic apparatusof Western countries cope with the changing international order? In most cases,one can detect a serious ‘‘lagging behind-effect,’’ in which the national diplomatsstill consider Paris, Vienna, London, or Berlin more important than Beijing, NewDelhi, or Brasilia. Some countries seem to adapt better and in more flexible waysto the changing geopolitical and geo-economical currents, while others seem tohave a diplomatic network and priorities which more resemble the world in 1945instead of 2011. Re-territorialization will also affect multilateral diplomacy, but insome fora such as the WTO7 or IMF, the ‘‘translation process’’ of geopoliticaland geo-economical power shifts seems to move quicker than in the UN SecurityCouncil. When and under what conditions do changing power relations affect therules and practices of diplomacy itself? These trends will force diplomatic studiesto lessen its traditional Western focus and contemplate an emerging worldbeyond the doorsteps of Washington and London.

A third form of re-territorialization concerns the increasing role which geo-graphically located, scarce resources (oil, gas, coal, and other natural deposits ofvarious kinds) have on international relations and diplomacy. As more peopleenter the global economy, they will have a profound impact. The demand fornatural resources will increase, making some countries or regions relatively moreimportant than others. The resulting power shifts may be facilitated or sloweddown by diplomacy. An area for future theoretical and practical exploration,therefore, would be to study how these shifts in power relations impact the diplo-matic strategies of producer, transit, and consumer countries in a world with everscarcer resources.

The fourth and final example concerns the relationship between re-territoriali-zation and nonstate actors. Both above and beneath the state level, territorial

6The concepts ‘‘deterritorialization’’ and ‘‘re-territorialization’’ originally stem from the psycho-analytical work‘‘A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia’’ by Deleuze and Guattari on the impact of capitalism (1988).In today’s geopolitical literature, both concepts are often utilized as metaphors for cultural, social, and spatialchange.

7Some important, yet at this time unpublished work on this phenomenon, has been developed by Braz Bara-cuhy, a diplomat at the WTO Agricultural Desk of the Permanent Mission of Brazil to the WTO in Geneva. Thiswork is due to be published in Global Policy, 2011.


entities become relevant and generate their own external relations, foreign pol-icy, and diplomatic practices. Europe constitutes an interesting testing ground inthis regard. On the one hand, the new Lisbon Treaty has led to the establish-ment of the European External Action Service (EEAS), headed by EU High Rep-resentative Lady Ashton. The impact the EEAS will have on diplomacy remainsto be seen, but already some national diplomatic services of the 27 EU membercountries are facing an existential crisis and will have to adapt. At the same time,national diplomatic services will be partially integrated and fused with the exist-ing diplomatic services of the European Commission. This experiment willimpact European and possibly global diplomatic practices.

On the other hand, Europe has been and still is a nursery for sub-state diplo-macy. Different regional sub-state entities in Europe such as Flanders, Wallonia,Catalonia, Scotland, Bavaria, and others engage in international relations ontheir own merits and conduct a foreign policy parallel, complementary or some-times in conflict with their state diplomatic counterparts. The days when diplo-macy was exclusively associated with national states are gone. Since the late1990s, the spectrum of diplomatic instruments and the strategies that accompanysub-state entities have become more diverse and complex (Criekemans 2010a,b).To a certain extent, today’s diplomatic practices resemble a pre-Westphalianworld in which realms of different territorial sizes generate their own diplomaticidentity and practices. Diplomacy has become a multi-level endeavor, in whichdifferent policy levels (macroregional, national, crossborder, sub-state: regionsand cities) each generate specific types of diplomatic activities reflecting specificneeds felt at their respective territorial levels. The question here then is whenand under what conditions are diplomats of the macro-regional, national, and sub-state level able and willing to cooperate with one another? This line of thinkingmirrors the complexity of societal questions relating to the EU experiment andwould add another layer of knowledge to diplomatic studies.

Re-territorialization challenges the study of diplomacy, particularly in terms ofits research questions and objectives. The potential for exploring the geopolitics-diplomacy-nexus is valuable but multifarious. This is true empirically, but also inregard to developing deductive frameworks or theories so as to advance furtherdiplomatic knowledge and the field of study. Probably the best way forward isnot to try to develop a ‘‘grand theory’’ of diplomatic practice, but rather todevelop middle-range theories that can be empirically tested within definedsettings, and build further from there.

The Relationship between Diplomatic Studies and Foreign Policy Analysis

This suggested direction leads to the more fundamental question of how diplo-matic studies relates to other subfields within IR. Perhaps most striking is thatdiplomatic studies seems to be living separately from Foreign Policy Analysis.8

The two terms somewhat relate to one another as a medium relates to a mes-sage. Diplomacy can be considered as ‘‘an activity, a mechanism of representa-tion, communication and negotiation through which states and otherinternational actors do business with one another’’ (Melissen 1999:xvi–xvii). For-eign policy, in turn, can be defined as ‘‘the sum total of decisions made onbehalf of a given political unit (usually a state) entailing the implementation ofgoals with direct reference to its external environment. Foreign policy inputs arethose many factors that influence foreign policy decision making, while theobservable outputs of foreign policy are a feature of state (and nonstate) behav-ior within the international system’’ (Smith, Hadfield, and Dunne 2008:392).

8Perhaps one of the problems why Diplomatic Studies was less able to influence FPA and IR is because the sub-field has few theoreticians leading the way.

715The Forum

From a Foreign Policy Analysis perspective, diplomacy is both a foreign policyinput or a foreign policy output. Diplomacy considered as a foreign policy inputrelates to the different factors that can influence foreign policy decision-makingprocesses and decisions—the diplomatic messages sent by one entity to another,for example. Or, a second example (involving re-territorialization) would be thecase of China which attempts to persuade the United States—via its diplomaticnetwork—that it is rising peacefully. Diplomacy considered as a foreign policy out-put somewhat ‘‘instrumentalizes’’ the diplomatic network of an entity as just oneamong many means in the foreign-policy ‘‘tool-box’’ of an entity, next to—forinstance—deterrence, economic sticks and carrots, cultural initiatives, or militaryintervention. In terms of re-territorialization, this means analyzing what diplo-matic interventions or structural changes in the diplomatic network are part ofthe way in which an entity copes with the new situation. What Foreign PolicyAnalysis has to offer to diplomatic studies is a more integrated way of looking at‘‘foreign-political phenomena,’’ thus appreciating better the interdependence ofboth independent and dependent variables. In the twenty-first century, every-thing is connected, including the diplomatic activities at a specific space-timeinterval.

From a diplomatic studies perspective, foreign policy is the bigger dramaand ⁄ or background around which the research object—diplomatic activities, net-works, or traditions—takes shape and constantly adapts itself. Whether the unitof analysis is the individual diplomat or the broader structural diplomatic appara-tus or traditions, the main interest of the scholar is how certain practices takeform. The level of detail that diplomatic studies confers to these analyses issomething from which students of foreign policy could greatly benefit. In ques-tions of re-territorialization, scholars of diplomacy have interesting things to tell,for example, on the way in which the ‘‘mental maps’’ of individual diplomaticplayers can impact upon the final outcome of a foreign policy question.9

Diplomatic studies and foreign policy analysis have been living separately.Although the partition is a result of the scientific-historical development of bothIR-subdomains, it denies scholars the opportunity to conceive of certain dynam-ics that are at work between foreign policy (both in terms of behavior, process,and output) on the one hand, and diplomacy on the other. More integratedresearch designs are required to better capture how both foreign policy and dip-lomatic elites work together, how a specific message needs a precise medium,and vice versa. As this contribution shows, diplomatic studies could learn fromthe scholarship within foreign policy analysis, and vice versa—and especially inquestions of re-territorialization. The juncture where geopolitics, foreign policy,and diplomatic studies meet is a very promising one indeed.

Diplomats, Diplomacy, Diplomatic Studies, andthe Future of International Relations and

International Studies

Paul Sharp

University of Minnesota Duluth

There has never been a better time for studying diplomacy. The United Statesis rediscovering it. The European Union is reinventing it. The Chinese are

9For more on ‘‘mental maps,’’ see Henrikson (1980).


inscribing it with their own characteristics. Even the Taliban are thinking aboutit. And over all, like some vast volcanic cloud, public diplomacy seems to drift,entering every nook and cranny of international life to open new opportunitieswhile causing the old machinery to lose power, seize up, and stall. Diplomacy,the institutions and processes by which states and, increasingly others, representthemselves and their interests to one another in international and world socie-ties, is back on center stage.

The return of diplomacy has been mirrored by increasing interest in its aca-demic study. Long gone are the days when diplomatic studies was regarded as aminor subfield devoted exclusively to the study of embassies, ambassadors, andcocktail parties. Gone too is the sense that diplomacy itself must be boring, bad,or beside the point; boring to those who think international relations havemoved far beyond the time when states monopolized them; bad to those whosee diplomacy as actively maintaining a condition which IR was intended to moveus beyond; and beside the point to those who believe that unmediated powerand interests still rule. Instead, it has become almost impossible to examine anyproblem in contemporary international relations effectively without consideringthe diplomatic challenges which it poses, the innovations in diplomatic practicewhich it calls forth, and the contribution which diplomacy can make to easingthe problem in such a way as to contribute to a more peaceful, just, and orderlyworld.

Why is this so? The end of the Cold War provided some bounce by unfreezingdiplomatic thinking from the grip of grand strategy. The US-led wars of theGeorge W. Bush administration demonstrated the costs of trying to do withouteffective diplomacy. And the election of the Obama administration and appoint-ment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, both committed to more and betterUS diplomacy, provided strong incentives for placing the idea of diplomacy backunder the academic microscopes. These are very American and Western answersto be sure, but not the less important for that. In fact, diplomacy never wentaway, just interest in it in those parts of the world which are in a position toinvest the most in the academic study of international relations.

And now interest in diplomacy has revived and for two reasons. The first is thegrowing sense that the distribution of power and wealth in the world is shifting.The second is a concomitant sense that the ways in which we represent ourselvesto one another are also undergoing change. Both provide entrees to diplomacyand, hence, its study. The first does so in terms which are familiar to IR. Wehave theoretical frameworks about declining hegemonies and shifting balancesof power within which to place the revival of diplomacy and interpret it. Diplo-macy’s own canon suggests the activity prospers only when no one is in a posi-tion to impose their own way. The Americans are still trying to use diplomacy tolead, instead of to develop ways of living in a world where you cannot always getwhat you want. The Chinese, Indians, Brazilians, and others still think of diplo-macy as a way of protecting their political and economic spaces from a worldstacked against them and are only just beginning to use it to help shape thatworld. From their different points on the compass or rungs on the ladder, never-theless, they are all being pushed toward relying on diplomacy more.

In the short term, great power politics may provide fragile ground on which tobuild a diplomatic revival. It is subject to the political fortunes of the rich, thepowerful, and those who aspire to being both. The United States is always asclose as a major foreign policy failure, and never further than the next presiden-tial election, from downgrading diplomacy. And for others, the habit of free rid-ing as marginalized victims on an American bus, even after the driver has gottenout, remains tempting when things go wrong. Either development wouldadversely affect the flow of resources toward both the practice and the study ofdiplomacy. In the medium to long term, however, the great power trends which

717The Forum

have revived this interest are only going to sharpen. Then the important issuewill not be diplomacy’s revival, but the effectiveness of the diplomacy whichemerges.

The second reason for a revived interest in diplomacy is a sense of greatchanges in the way we represent ourselves to one another. The story of interna-tional relations told in terms of the rise and fall of powers, states in particular, isincomplete and increasingly so. There is much more going on in terms of whoacts in international relations, what moves them to do so, and what explains howthings turn out. These changes have been occasioned by revolutions in the tech-nologies of communication and a transformation, not in our respective senses ofwhat is morally right, so much as our collective sense of how right, as a practicalmatter, the world could be. This is actually getting to be a fairly old story itself,albeit one couched in terms of novelty and innovation. Paradoxically however, itprovides firmer ground for a diplomatic revival because it involves stepping offinto the unknown where our frameworks fail, our screens go blank, and we haveto feel our way forward. This is no more clearly illustrated than by the current,and spectacular, emergence of interest in public diplomacy on the part of greatpowers, civilian powers, small states, large and small enterprises, civil societyorganizations, and individual human beings, alike.

In one sense, public diplomacy is merely the latest of a series of waves seekingto transform diplomacy and to point us to a world which will not need it. Inanother, it is a soft power magic bullet to be used by all the usual suspects. Sus-tained reflection on public diplomacy, however, relentlessly pushes us towardcentral problems in IR on terms which play to the strong suits of diplomacy anddiplomatic studies. When we ask who the public and publics are, and why theyneed to be differentiated from states, governments, and even professional diplo-mats, we do not walk away from diplomacy. We plunge directly into a debatewhich has always provided diplomacy its raison d’etre from the earliest encoun-ters of human groups, through the ancient and modern ages of imperial expan-sion, to the postmodern, yet resolutely plural, present. In relations betweenhuman collectives, who is to be represented, why and how?

In settled times, the terms on which questions about representation areanswered, if not the answers themselves, appear to be self-evident. To askwhether Kurdistan or Palestine qualify as sovereign states entitled to diplomaticrepresentation may invite a difficult discussion. It does so, however, on termsabout which there is agreement. When the principles and terms of membershipare challenged or undergoing change, however, then questions of representationtake on a foundational character. How people established practical answers tothe question ‘‘who is to be represented’’ at Westphalia and San Francisco, forexample, had profound consequences not only for themselves, but fortheir understanding of the wider world in which they believed themselves to beparticipating.

The study of diplomacy engages core questions asked by students of interna-tional relations. Modern diplomacy and balance of power politics are closelyassociated, and we may yet see a return to heroic statecraft facilitated by subtleprofessional diplomacy at one level of the emerging system. The study of diplo-macy also addresses questions about who is to be represented and on what termsboth in particular cases and in circumstances when the general character of aninternational system may be undergoing change. Indeed, it may be said that thestudy of diplomacy has an important leg up in the ideational and constructivistturns in social theory. Diplomats have long been practical theorists engaged inconstructing and maintaining ambiguous collective identities in thin social con-texts. Indeed, the modern international society of states may be regarded as oneof the most important, radical, and transformational products of their handiworkin this regard.


I will conclude, therefore, by suggesting a number of open-ended questions bywhich the study of diplomacy can make a contribution to broader debates in IR.

• What can it mean to say that a diplomatic system is in decline or crisis;what would a thriving and effective diplomatic system look like andwhat would we expect it to accomplish?

• What are the roles of diplomacy when people believe the fundamentalprinciples around which their international relations are organized tobe undergoing change?

• How have classes of actors gained and lost international standing inthe past and what has been the role of diplomacy in these processes?

• How does contemporary diplomatic practice encounter, engender, andrespond to new claims for diplomatic representation under conditionsof what James Der Derian has called increasing ‘‘heteropolarity’’?

• How are what Geoffrey Wiseman has called ‘‘polylateral’’ diplomaticrelations to be conducted where some actors are more enterprise thanpolity, some stand in vertical rather than horizontal relationship to oneanother, and all have identities that strengthen and weaken by issueand context?

These questions call for historical research and contemporary empirical andinterpretive analysis focused on how people act diplomatically. They also call forexercises of sociological and philosophical imagination from a standpointbeyond state-system-critique. We have talked and acted ourselves into a differentsort of world to be sure, but no conceptual answer with the apparent tidiness ofWestphalia to what we now have is in prospect. Yet people still seem to want tolive in groups whose internal relations and obligations differ in kind and inten-sity from their external ones. Where they do so, politics and law may fail anddiplomacy must cover. Can we imagine, then, a diplomatic system under thesecomplex and ambiguous conditions which people will be able to understand, letalone regard as legitimate? There is plenty of work for everyone in trying toanswer this question. There may have been easier times for studying diplomacy,but there never have been better or more interesting ones.

Diplomatic Theory and the Evolving Canon ofDiplomatic Studies

Stuart Murray

Bond University

It is well documented that diplomacy and diplomatic studies has a resistance totheory (Der Derian 1987; Constantinou 1996; Murray 2008; Sharp 2009). Forcenturies, this culture was unimportant because the state was the only diplomaticactor of any significance and therefore commanded all academic attention. Fromthe outset, diplomatic theory was thus grand, monolithic, and rationalist andsought to explain, describe, and prescribe the elite practice of official state-qua-state diplomacy. With the recent diplomatic ‘‘renaissance,’’ however, short-comings in this Traditional school of diplomatic theory—and ergo diplomaticstudies—have emerged (Rana 2002:8). Today, acknowledging and overcomingthe culture of theoretical resistance is important for diplomatic studies if itwishes to continue its recent and impressive gains.

719The Forum

The Canon of Diplomatic Studies and Traditional Theory

After a correlative Westphalian boom in diplomatic scholarship in the seven-teenth century, the canon of diplomatic studies began to follow a pattern: anesoteric focus on the state and its diplomats. This ‘‘conceptual framework ofdiplomacy’’ gave diplomatic studies its identity and ‘‘has been constant in diplo-macy studies from Wicquefort’’10 (Lee and Hudson 2004:354). Remarkably andwell into the 1990s, diplomatic studies was propped up by a handful of such‘‘manuals of diplomatic procedure,’’ the classics: Callieres (1716), Wicquefort(also 1716), Satow (1917), Barston (1988), and, belatedly Berridge (1995)(Watson 1982:11).11

Over time, this normative way of writing and thinking on diplomacy crystal-lized into an explanatory body of Traditional theory, replete with consensual the-oretical assumptions and generalizations.12 Traditional theory focuses on the‘‘real world…out there,’’ meaning that this theory has massive practicalrelevance which, in turn, demands a close relationship with the profession ofdiplomacy and the diplomats therein (Burchill, Linklater, Devetak, Donnelly,Paterson, Reus-Smit, and True 2005:4–6). Despite subtle differences and nuan-ces, the state and its diplomats are the key referent object for any inquiry intodiplomacy for this group of theorists.

Traditional theory has proved to be both boom and bust for diplomatic stud-ies. Granted, the subfield’s emphasis on Traditional theorizing distinguishes itand does provide a unique knowledge environment. But a traditional focus alsoleaves diplomatic studies open to some regular claims: first, one grand theorycannot account for reality of modern, plural diplomacy. To effectively under-stand a plural diplomatic environment, this field of study needs plural diplo-matic theories. Second, a focus on the practice of diplomacy discourages andrelegates, for example, the equally important but equally neglected philosophi-cal, sociological, or psychological study of diplomacy since the ‘‘dawn of history’’(Nicolson 1954:2). Third, diplomatic studies is far too close to its boring subject,which makes it ‘‘difficult to maintain intellectual integrity,’’ and means that dip-lomatic memoirs—written by self-aggrandized heroes or Faustian apologists—areoften mistaken for sound empirical data (Hill in Nye 2008:954).13 A Traditionaltheoretical approach is also…well…traditional, in that it encourages familiarityover innovation. Rightly so, diplomatic studies is often accused of ‘‘perfectingand embellishing familiar bricks in a long-established wall whose foundationsmay be crumbling’’ (Sharp 1999:50–51). The end result of over 300 years’ studyof the state fossil is that diplomatic studies, and its scholars remain marginalizedin IR and stereotyped as theoretically reluctant to bite the empirical hand thatsupposedly feeds them. Scholars are thus construed as ‘‘technicians to the state’’(Hill in Nye 2008:954); consultants and accoutrements to a visible, stately profes-sion; or as glorified diplomatic historians, microscopically combing the minutiaeof state-qua-state relations.

New Bricks: Complementing the Diplomatic Studies Canon

Overcoming stereotypes and marginalization has driven epistemic torchbearers (inWiseman’s phrase) since the end of the Cold War. These scholars successfullyharnessed diplomatic studies to the early rumblings of a practical diplomatic

10Abraham De Wicquefort, a seventeenth-century Dutch diplomat, wrote The Ambassador and His Functions

(1716), one of the seminal works in diplomatic studies.11The years listed here are when these works were first published, not the year of the latest editions.12For an expansion on Traditional diplomatic theory, see Murray (2008).13For examples, see Carne Ross (2007); Craig Murray (2007).


renaissance. Innovative work on NGO, citizen-to-citizen, and even celebrity diplo-macy began to slowly reveal a far broader, virginal, and fecund diplomatic land-scape of inquiry than Traditional theory was ever able to conceive of. Glaringholes in the canon appeared, as well as a second generation of torchbearers thathas been busy filling them in ever since.

Today, for example, the work of Pigman (2005, 2006, 2008), Lee and Hudson(2004), Lee and Hocking (2008), Hocking (2002, 2004a,b), Potter (2002, 2003),and others has introduced debates about the reform of traditional diplomacy orthe role of business and civil society groups in diplomacy. Other dynamic areasfocus on sub-state diplomacy (Criekemans 2010a,b), multi-stakeholder diplomacy(Hocking 2004a), or sustainable diplomacy (Wellman 2004). Some theorists haveeven gone as far as to entirely disaggregate the state and its diplomats in theirnovel theories (Hoffman 2003). Not before time, the canon has significantlybroadened. Alluding to further promise, originality and interdisciplinary collabo-ration, diverse articles on spiritual, sports, oil ⁄ pipeline, rogue, pirate, environ-mental, nuclear, bulldozer, aid diplomacy, and so on and so forth are nowcommonplace.

Resistance or Renaissance?

A practical renaissance in diplomacy is occurring, but the same cannot be saidof a matching, theoretical renaissance, at least in absolute terms. Thanks toover 300 very Traditional years, theoretical resistance lingers. In the past twodecades, the breadth of the canon and the volume of theory have improved,but diplomatic studies’ conceptual framework continues to lag, and thesubfield—still—does not seem to get the bigger theoretical picture.14 Notmany diplomatic scholars would agree with this point (highlighting the recentboom in diplomatic scholarship as counter-evidence). In fact, when theoreticalinertia, reluctance, or resistance is mentioned scholars seem to take eitheroffense or cover: ‘‘we have a lively theoretical debate…moreover, it has beengoing on for centuries’’ is a familiar retort.15

However, why then do only a handful of explicit—not cross-fertilizations orpractice-based—theoretical works exist (Der Derian 1987; Constantinou 1996)?Or why is it that only last year a Diplomatic Theory of International Relations (Sharp2009), the first exclusive book on diplomatic theory, appeared? Surely, a livelytheoretical debate conjures images of red-faced academics arguing the merits ofexplanatory over constitutive theory, of regular inter-paradigm discussion, ofpolemic and plural schools of thought, of scholarship attacking and layeringscholarship, and so on. This observation is not a criticism, rather a wakeup call:with increasing growth, relevance, and presence, the time is ideal to reinventdiplomatic studies’ relationship with so-called diplomatic theory.

Pushing Diplomatic Studies toward Plural Diplomatic Theories

Of late, however, diplomatic studies’ theoretical awareness and maturity arechanging. Scholars are more theoretically aware than they have ever been (nottoo difficult, considering the dominance of Traditional theory) and in time, theymay even take on an IR-style approach to theory and theorizing. Both the ingre-dients and necessity are certainly there. The canon is ‘‘a goldmine…volumi-nous,’’ and within, conflicting theoretical views on diplomacy are clustering(Jonsson and Hall 2005). These emerging theories of diplomacy are largely

14In this context, the word ‘‘resistance’’ is perhaps too strong and unfair a term; a theoretical immaturity or ado-

lescence might be more appropriate.15This was a comment I received from an anonymous ISR reviewer in a recent submission.

721The Forum

amorphous, but with a little work they can be teased into rudimentary but pluralschools of diplomatic thought (Murray 2008).

Encouraging theoretical pluralism would confer three immediate and much-needed benefits on diplomatic studies. First, theoretical order would be greatlyenhanced. Cross-fertilizations and imports have been flooding the subfield overthe last decade and while a welcome addition to Traditional theory, they havecreated a sense of conceptual disorder and confusion. For example, trying todefine ‘‘what is modern diplomacy?’’ is quite difficult.16 Furthermore, the massproliferation of hybrid terms such as ‘‘sports-diplomacy’’ has created a conditionof ‘‘over-hyphenation,’’ further compounding the distillation of the essence andutility of modern diplomacy.17 What sports-diplomacy actually has in commonwith sports or diplomacy is an example of the many paradoxical yet intriguingareas of future research. Plural theories and taxonomies of different diplomaticschools can alleviate such confusion, filtering and categorizing extant and newknowledge into a more orderly, productive and twenty-first-century conceptualframework. Second, embracing pluralism encourages contest and competitionamong different schools of thought, which would drive knowledge (further) for-ward in a heuristic fashion and further broaden the canon; and third, recogniz-ing, consolidating, and building different theoretical groups (again, just as IRdoes) would give scholars a theoretical identity—alongside Wiseman’s theoreticalawareness—that the subfield is currently lacking.

How might this be done? Optimally, diplomatic studies could learn and bor-row much from IR. While the two are not equivalent in terms of membership orscholarship, an improved theoretical discourse would do much to enhance diplo-matic studies’ theoretical legitimacy, dispel the myth that diplomatic studies hasnothing interesting to say about IR and counter the unfortunate, needlesscondition of marginalization that persists between the two endeavors.

A starting point would be to further explore the confluence between IR theo-ries and the diplomatic canon. The marriage between the English School orConstructivism and diplomacy has proved valuable, but what might a LiberalIntuitionalist or Structural Realist make of diplomacy? Similarities between suchcommon academic pursuits abound and await reification: surely there is aninteresting, complementary, and triumvirate body of work to be teased outbetween various experts on the predominant means (diplomatic studies), actors(IR), and origins ⁄ ends (foreign policy analysis) that perpetuates the interna-tional society of states? As globalization enters a new Western ⁄ Asian phase andforces diplomacy to readapt, the need for esoteric diplomatic theories will onlyincrease.

These and other potential pathways, a broadening canon and the appearanceof new knowledge cultures and clusters in diplomatic studies, suggest a brighttheoretical future for the Wallflower subfield. As such, the timing is ideal for dip-lomatic scholars to expand their theoretical horizons, to light more epistemictorches, and to be aware that theory can be harnessed to proactively and posi-tively shape a growing canon. If diplomatic scholars truly believe that diplomacyis to IR what the God particle is to quantum physics, then the development of athriving body of plural diplomatic theory would bolster such a claim. Any coun-sel or assistance from the theoretical experts, our IR brethren, would be very,very welcome.

16Consider the three following, popular definitions, for example. For Berridge (2010), diplomacy and diplo-matic studies are axiomatic with the state and its diplomat. According to Ramsay (2006), however, this gatekeepermonopoly Berridge describes is incorrect, for today ‘‘every man is a diplomat, painful though it may be for profes-sional diplomats to acknowledge.’’ For Sharp, diplomacy cannot be defined on a ‘‘state’’ or ‘‘man’’ level, but is bestunderstood sociologically as a ‘‘group’’ interaction (2003).

17Thanks to Halvard Leira of the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs for this point.


Diplomatic Studies in the Right Season

Jan Melissen

Clingendael Institute, the Netherlands, and University of Antwerp

With just a little imagination, it is easy to see a fascinating research agenda fordiplomatic studies. In terms of ISA’s 2010 theme about the relationship betweenscholars and practitioners, it is of particular interest that diplomatic studies isembedded in a knowledge environment that extends far beyond academia. Theopen-minded student of diplomacy believes in cross-fertilization, without fear ofcross-contamination by extramural contacts and ideas, and has a distinct relation-alist perspective on the study of international relations. In this sense, diplomaticstudies is perhaps even ‘‘ahead’’ of some other areas in IR.

Diplomatic Studies’ Psychological Condition

The fact that IR has pretty much turned a blind eye to diplomacy should be seenin the perspective of the remarkable genealogy of a field of study with its ownexperiences of defending its scholarly corner in the discipline of political sci-ence. The story is well known: mainstream IR developed in a way that left littleroom for those who believed that diplomacy matters. But in its evolution as afield of study, IR sooner or later responded to changes in the social environ-ment. It is therefore tempting to speculate that current international trends willgive diplomatic studies a more comfortable tailwind than was the case in thesecond half of the twentieth century.

Some scholars also seem to have forgotten about diplomatic studies’ eminentlyinterdisciplinary focus, denying exclusive ownership to any larger field or disci-pline. The doors of diplomatic studies have always been open to a variety ofmethodologies and theoretical approaches, and some of the finest work ondiplomacy has emerged from disciplines such as history and law, and withinpolitical science from the field of political theory. It is a matter of speculation asto whether economists, sociologists, or others will leave their own future markon the field, but if they do they will take diplomatic studies even further out ofits imagined location within the province of IR.

It is in diplomatic studies’ interests to branch out further, even beyond acade-mia, and play to the strengths of a much more inclusive learning environment. Sig-nificant learning about diplomacy takes place in think tanks and NGOs, ininternational organizations and transnational networks, in diplomatic training, aswell as in governments that increasingly engage in policy transfer with their foreigncounterparts. These are diplomatic knowledge environments that do not, ofcourse, play by any academic rulebook, and they only have approximate answers tothe challenging questions that they are addressing. But this is not a small crowdand their scouting activity is vital. Students of diplomacy should take pride in theirfield’s embeddedness in a comprehensive network of knowledge, where muchmore is at stake for the academic than a ‘‘reality check’’ from the Ivory Tower.There is no dispute about the importance of academic distance, but those whoare fearful of cross-contamination, rather than cross-fertilization, run the risk ofstudying diplomacy as if it was an activity in another time and another place.

Diplomatic studies are closer to their subject—that is, diplomatic pract-ice—than some IR students see as acceptable. In more than one sense, theattitude toward practitioners and practice seems to be a source of potential

723The Forum

friction between diplomatic studies and some IR students. Mainstream IR’s out-right resistance to, or seemingly careful maneuvering around, the analysis ofdiplomacy is one obvious reason why little love is lost between the two. Theemphasis on practice is, after all, the hallmark of diplomatic studies, as GeoffWiseman writes in this collection of essays. Another distinguishing feature thatdeserves mention is its focus on relationships between international actors ratherthan their internal characteristics and objectives, or the context in which theyoperate. Alien to mainstream IR and too vague for methodological purists, sucha relationalist perspective is fundamental in the practice of diplomacy and forstudents of diplomacy. The study of IR could, or should, give such a perspectivemore serious thought. Analysis in terms of unfolding and evolving relationshipsinstead of a primarily actor-oriented perspective, in other words a more sociolog-ical approach of international relations, points to an acceptable theoretical inter-face between IR and diplomatic studies.18

Those who either ‘‘refused’’ to theorize about diplomacy, work in the theoreti-cal slipstream of IR, or came to the conclusion that IR theory was hardly suited to abetter understanding of diplomacy, have been held accountable for diplomaticstudies’ marginalization in the field of International Relations. The picture is prob-ably more complex and there is, of course, no denying that there is still a lot ofimportant conceptual and theoretical progress to be made. Nothing, however, war-rants the sort of inferiority complex among some students of diplomacy, which is agreater problem for the field than either innocent ‘‘traditionalism’’ or the evenless harmful ‘‘mingling with practitioners.’’ And the baby should not be thrownout with the bathwater. A field that aims to act as a two-way conduit between schol-ars and practitioners benefits from reflection on the practitioners’ added value forits academic work. Last but not least, it would be in the interests of diplomatic stud-ies to recognize that a lot of empirical research is still needed and that such workmay have critical conceptual and theoretical implications.

Enlarging the Field

There is much that can be recommended for future research on diplomacy, butfour avenues for future work immediately suggest themselves. First, in diplomaticstudies, it is time to look beyond the IR ⁄ political science horizon and seek schol-ars in other disciplines to make a contribution of their own. Diplomatic studiesis as much a home for Assyriologists as it is for forward-looking IR think-tankers,and for others of different disciplinary backgrounds. Collective research projectsare a good vehicle for turning such intentions into reality.

Second, as far as views on diplomacy have been shaped by academic research,they are dominated by a Western worldview and within the West largely by a smallgroup of scholars from the English-speaking world. Asia’s meteoric rise as one ofthe power houses of the twenty-first century’s world economy tells diplomatic stud-ies, geographically speaking, where one could look for inspiration. Asian research-ers should be strongly encouraged to join the fray and put Western ideas to thetest of the experiences, ideational preferences, and normative frameworks ofother civilizations.19 The learning process should be in two directions.

Third, students of diplomacy could bring the analysis of power more explicitlyinto their field. The predominant focus in diplomatic studies on diplomacy as aninstitution, as well as on processes, change, and innovation in diplomatic modes,has been to the detriment of exploring the power–diplomacy nexus. This is notthe place to elaborate on how current work on soft power and public diplomacy

18See Katzenstein (2010) and Jonsson and Hall (2005).19One project aimed at getting more Asian perspectives on public diplomacy and soft power is: Lee and

Melissen (2011).


is giving a welcome jolt to diplomatic studies. One interesting conclusion fromthis debate, however, could be that the issue of power—fundamental to all ques-tions in political science—should not be omitted from the equation.

Fourth, it can be safely concluded that there is a renaissance of empirical workon the richness of the diplomatic experience. Mining the enormous variety ofnontraditional social practices ‘‘out there’’ could help to enhance the field’s rep-utation. Examples abound. Historical research on consular diplomacy requiresadjusting the dominant perspective on the origins of diplomacy,20 and criticalexamination of suzerain relationships could be another field unsettling conven-tional Westphalian assumptions. Research on contemporary diplomacy betweensub-state regions and on the functioning of multi-actor networks are other exam-ples that should help shed the image of diplomatic studies as a state-orientedfield. More speculative forward-looking research can help to prepare the groundfor systematic academic work. Diverse questions that currently occupy the mindsof government officials can be sources of inspiration for diplomatic studiesresearch, such as the implications for state-based representation of post-sovereigndiplomacy in the EU, the impact on diplomacy of the rise of Asia, or the chal-lenge for ministries of foreign affairs of the changing relationship between statesand their ‘‘unruly citizens.’’

A research strategy for diplomatic studies is more than a list of questions andtopics to be addressed. One practical issue is how to make the fascination with thepractice and theory of diplomacy contagious. There is no substitute for fine mindsproducing excellent academic work, but this is not a sufficient condition for suc-cess. A thriving research culture needs more to make diplomatic studies a fieldwith the capacity to grow. At the risk of stating the obvious, teaching is vital toinstill an appreciation of diplomacy in successive generations of students. It is fromthese cohorts that young researchers need to be recruited, thus creating a new gen-eration of academics that is no less than an existential necessity for a small field.Diplomatic studies also needs centers of excellence with sufficient critical massand global visibility. No more than three such centers, in North America, Europe,and Asia, would act as a powerful magnet for newcomers. Finally, more thoughtshould be given to popularization and other indirect ways of spreading the gospel.Contact with non-academics does not produce holes in the brain and divulgingresearch results, a fundamental skill, is a form of academic smart marketing. Stu-dents of diplomacy could write more op-eds to convey key ideas to a large reader-ship, they should not fear engaging in policy debates, and write clearly to shareresearch findings with opinion-makers and the general public. Popularization is anoften underestimated way of getting through to those who cannot be reachedthrough established or dysfunctional channels. There are hence many ways inwhich diplomatic studies could be a transmission belt to the IR community and,indeed, to the wider world.

Diplomatic Studies: Under New Management

Stuart Murray

Bond University

Today, diplomatic studies is busy shedding its traditional skin, abandoning self-flagellation and growing in confidence, scholarship, and stature—and not before

20See the essays on the history of the consular institution by Leira and Neumann, Hernandez, Kersten and vander Zwan, and Ulbert, in: Melissen and Fernandez, Eds. (2011).

725The Forum

time. Thanks to the work of several innovative and inspirational scholars, thesubfield now stands on the verge of a burst of dynamic activity. The purpose ofthis collection of essays, therefore, was to showcase this new brand of scholar-ship, to illustrate numerous possibilities for fascinating, valuable, and usefulcross-fertilizations, and to publicize future research tasks and agendas for diplo-matic studies, IR, and their common practical and theoretical knowledge envi-ronments. An additional purpose was to dispel the stereotype that diplomaticstudies has nothing interesting to say about international relations.

To that end, each of the authors approached the task differently. Wisemancriticizes American IR for neglecting diplomacy for so long and for allowing IRtheory to lag behind practice, and in the process failing to see both that the Uni-ted States—through the Obama administration—is embracing diplomacy andthat the emerging world order raises diplomacy’s importance as an internationalpolicy tool. Arguing for a greater discourse between diplomatic studies, Geopoli-tics, and Foreign Policy Analysis, Criekemans proactively challenges IR Titanssuch as Buzan and Ruggie to argue that re-territorialization is in fact occurring,which poses challenges to IR and diplomatic studies. Sharp demonstrates thestudy of diplomacy provides as distinctive and useful way of looking at bothquantitative and qualitative changes in contemporary international relations.Murray describes the literary cud and origins of the subfield, before turning onTraditionalism to illustrate the need for theoretical pluralism as a means to fur-ther enhancing epistemological awareness and productivity in the growing sub-field. Finally, Melissen advocates that diplomatic studies should be fearless andinvest more in its own sustainability. It can do so thanks to an inclusive learningenvironment that extends beyond academia, and the tailwind from diplomaticadvances made in the world ‘‘out there.’’ For Melissen, the season has neverbeen better for an imaginative research agenda linking diplomatic studies toother disciplines.

In each of the five essays, just as there were broad differences, there were alsosimilarities. Chief among those was that each author addressed marginalizationin IR and took a shot at how that conduit could be improved. While diplomaticstudies’ periphery status is no longer as glaring, it remains a concern. Why so?For some time now, the torchbearers have been creatively trying to attract theattention of the great and good in IR, yet marginalization endures. Where thetwo academic endeavors meet, the neglected diplomacy ⁄ IR nexus must beexplored, pathways developed, and symbioses realized. To do so, however,requires the input, opinion, and openness of the broader IR community tostrengthen the mutually beneficial two-way conduit between diplomatic studiesand IR. In other words, the academic tango takes two.

The future looks promising for the study and practice of diplomacy. Theoreti-cally, the torch was passed from the last of the ISA’s original Diplomatic StudiesSection Officers to a new panel of 3.0 scholars in New Orleans, 2010. This collec-tion of essays provides a clear roadmap from which to start filling in the manyoutstanding knowledge gaps. Practically, diplomacy will continue to operate atthe forefront of international relations for the foreseeable future. In the twenty-first century, the challenges in the modern diplomat’s inbox—climate change,overpopulation, resource deficiencies, nuclear proliferation, for example—sug-gest that only madmen bent on suicidal political tenure would choose the swordover the pen. War is also out! The voter backlash to the Blair ⁄ Bush Jr. years dem-onstrated that an internet-savvy global civil society has had enough of the type of‘‘spinning’’ politicians, diplomats, and wars that so blighted the previous cen-tury. In the twenty-first century, it is diplomacy that can be the difference in anelection win or loss, not the type of ‘‘bleeding ulcer’’ Iraq and Afghanistan com-mitments. More importantly, the revolution in information and communicationstechnology continues to surprise and profoundly impact the conduct of


diplomacy and international affairs. The information century is only justbeginning and for sure it will be a complex, mad century, but rest assured thatdiplomacy, the business of peace, information gathering ⁄ dissemination, repre-sentation, negotiation, and communication will feature prominently. If the firstdecade of the twenty-first century has taught us anything, it is that the vanguardforeign policy institution best placed to soothe the growing pains of globalizationis diplomacy.

References

Barston, R. P. (1988) Modern Diplomacy. London: Longman.Berridge, G. R. (1995) Diplomacy: Theory and Practice. London: Palgrave.Bull, Hedley. (2002) The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 4th edition. New York:

Columbia University Press.Bull, Hedley, and Adam Watson, Eds. (1984) The Expansion of International Society. Oxford: Claren-

don Press.Burchill, Scott, Andrew Linklater, Richard Devetak, Jack Donnelly, Matthew Paterson,

Christian Reus-Smit, and Jacqui True. (2005) Theories of International Relations. London andNew York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Buzan, Barry. (2004) From International to World Society? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Constantinou, Costas M. (1996) On the Way to Diplomacy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota

Press.Cooper, Andrew F., and Brian Hocking. (2000) Governments, Non-governmental Organizations

and the Re-calibration of Diplomacy. Global Society 14 (3): 361–367.Criekemans, David. (2009) Geopolitical Schools of Thought: A Concise Overview from 1890 Till

2015 and Beyond. In Geopolitics: Schools of Thought, Method of Analysis and Case Studies, edited byGyula Csurgai. Geneva: Editions de Penthes & International Centre for Geopolitical Studies.

Criekemans, David. (2010a) Regional Sub-state Diplomacy from a Comparative Perspective: Quebec,Scotland, Bavaria, Catalonia, Wallonia and Flanders. The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 5 (1): 37–64.

Criekemans, David, Ed. (2010b) Regional Sub-State Diplomacy Today. Leiden: Martinus NijhoffPublishers.

De Callieres, Francois. (1716) The Art Negotiating with Sovereign Princes. London: printed for GeorgeStrahan, Bernard Lintott and John Graves.

De Wicquefort, Abraham. (1716) L’Ambassadeur et ses Fonctions. London: printed for BernardLintott.

Deleuze, G., and F. Guattari. (1988) A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London:Athlone Press.

Der Derian, James. (1987) On Diplomacy: A Genealogy of Western Estrangement. Oxford: Blackwell.Finnemore, Martha, and Kathryn Sikkink. (1998) International Norm Dynamics and Political

Change. International Organization 52 (4): 887–917.Henrikson, A. K. (1980) The Geographical ‘‘Mental Maps’’ of American Foreign Policy Makers. Inter-

national Political Science Review 1 (4): 495–530.Hocking, Brian. (2002) Enhancing Global Governance: Towards a New Diplomacy? Tokyo: United

Nations Press.Hocking, Brian. (2004a) Changing the Terms of Trade Policy Making: From the ‘‘Club’’ to the

‘‘Multistakeholder’’ Model. World Trade Review 31: 3–26.Hocking, Brian. (2004b) Privatizing Diplomacy? International Studies Perspectives, 5: 147–152.Hoffman, John. (2003) Reconstructing Diplomacy. The British Journal of Politics and International Rela-

tions 18: 525–542.Jonsson, Christer, and Martin Hall. (2005) Essence of Diplomacy. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Katzenstein, Peter J., Ed. (2010) Civilizations in World Politics: Plural and Pluralist Perspectives. Lon-

don and New York: Routledge.Langhorne, Richard. (1997) Current Developments in Diplomacy: Who Are the Diplomats Now?

Diplomacy and Statecraft 8 (2): 1–15.Lee, Donna, and Brian Hocking. (2008). Change and Innovation in Diplomacy: The Canadian and UK

Experience. Final Report for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Govern-ment of Canada and the Foundation for Canadian Studies in the UK.

Lee, Donna, and David Hudson. (2004) The Old and New Significance of Political Economy inDiplomacy. Review of International Studies, 30: 343–360.

727The Forum

Lee, Sook Jong, and Jan Melissen, Eds. (2011) Public Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia. London:Palgrave Macmillan.

Løse, Lars G. (2001) Communicative Action and the World of Diplomacy. In Constructing Interna-tional Relations: The Next Generation, edited by Karin M. Fierke and Knud Erik Jørgensen.Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

Melissen, Jan. (1999) De Diplomatie in de International Samenleving. In Diplomatie. Raderwerk vande internationale politiek, edited by Jan Melissen. Assen: Van Gorcum.

Melissen, Jan, and Ana Mar Fernandez, Eds. (2011) Consular Affairs and Diplomacy. Leiden andBoston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

Murray, Craig. (2007) Dirty Diplomacy: The Rough-and-Tumble Adventures of a Scotch-Drinking, Skirt-Chasing, Dictator-Busting and Thoroughly Unrepentant Ambassador Stuck on the Frontline of the Waragainst Terror. New York: Scribner.

Murray, Stuart. (2008) Consolidating the Gains Made in Diplomacy Studies: A Taxonomy. Interna-tional Studies Perspectives 9 (1): 21–39.

Neumann, Iver B. (2003) The English School on Diplomacy: Scholarly Promise Unfulfilled. Interna-tional Relations 17 (3): 341–369.

Neumann, Iver B. (2007) To Be a Diplomat. International Studies Perspectives 6 (1): 72–93.Nicolson, Harold. (1954) The Evolution of the Diplomatic Method. London: Constable.Nye, Joseph S. (2008) Bridging the Gap between Theory and Policy. Political Psychology 29 (4):

593–603.O Tuathail, G. (1998) Political Geography III: Dealing with Deterritorialization. Progress in Human

Geography 22 (1): 81–93.Pigman, Geoff. (2005) Making Room at the Negotiating Table: The Growth of Diplomacy Between

Nation-State Governments and Non-State Economic Entities. Diplomacy and Statecraft 16 (2): 385–401.

Pigman, Geoff. (2006) The World Economic Forum: A Multi-Stakeholder Approach to Global Governance.Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Pigman, Geoff. (2008) Consuls for Hire: Private Actors, Public Diplomacy. Place Branding and PublicDiplomacy, 4 (1): 85–95.

Potter, Evan. (2002) The Coming Anarchy? Connected Citizens and Economic Diplomacy. In CivicDiscourse and Cultural Politics in Canada: A Cacophony of Voices, edited by Sherry Ferguson and Les-lie Shade. Norwood, NJ: Greenwood ⁄ Elsevier.

Potter, Evan. (2003) Branding Canada: Renaissance of Canada’s Commercial Diplomacy. Interna-tional Studies Perspectives, 5 (1): 55–60.

Pouliot, Vincent. (2008) The Logic of Practicality: A Theory of Practice of Security Communities.International Organization 62 (Spring): 257–288.

Rana, K. (2002) Bilateral Diplomacy. New Delhi: Manas Publications.Ross, Carne. (2007) Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unaccountable Elite. Ithaca, NY: Cornell

University Press.Ruggie, John Gerard. (1993) Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International

Relations. International Organization 47 (Winter): 139–174.Satow, Ernest. (1917) A Guide to Diplomatic Practice. London: Longmans, Green & Co.Scholte, J. A. (2000) Globalization. A Critical Introduction. London: Macmillan.Sharp, Paul. (1999) For Diplomacy: Representation and the Study of International Relations. Inter-

national Studies Review 1 (1): 33–57.Sharp, Paul. (2009) Diplomatic Theory of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.Smith, Steve, Amalia Hadfield, and Tim Dunne. (2008) Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors and Cases.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.The Hague Journal of Diplomacy. 2006–2010, Vols. 1–5.Watson, Adam. (1982) Diplomacy: The Dialogue between States. London: Eyre Methuen.Wellman, David J. (2004) Sustainable Diplomacy: Ecology, Religion, and Ethics in Muslim-Christian Rela-

tions. London: Palgrave.Wight, Martin. (1986) Power Politics. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books.Wiseman, Geoffrey. (1999) ‘‘Polylateralism’’ and New Modes of Global Dialogue. Reprinted in

Christer Jonsson, and Richard Langhorne, Eds. (2004) Diplomacy, Vol. III. Discussion Papers,No. 59, Leicester Diplomatic studies Programme: 36–57. London: Sage.


the present and future of diplomacy and diplomatic studies

Documents