#NewDiplomaticHistory is currently a very lively field of research, especially with regard to #emdiplomacy. If you want to know more about how it developed, have a look into the @emdiplomacy#handbook and the overview Julia Gebke is giving on its development.
#Emdiplomacy can be, according to Gebke, described as a multi-layered diversity. To explore this, current research pursues different approaches: First, it is actor-centered & widening our understand of who could be a diplomatic actor. Second, there’s a great emphasis on diplomatic practies. Here, Gebke argues that it could be useful to connect such an approach focussing on diplomatic practices with #history of knowledge, thus closing the gap between theory and practice. Third, these approaches concentrate on the micro-level of #earlymodern#diplomacy. Who is acting how? However, we need to combine such a micro perspective with a macro perspective that allows us to come to more general observations. (5/6)
Fourth, to do this – combining micro and macro perspective – one needs to take an inter- and multi-disciplinary approach. #NewDiplomaticHistory greatly benefits from other disciplines or sub-disciplines, such as #politicalscience, #arthistory literary studies, #linguistics, #historyofideas or history of medicine, to name but a few. Finally, #emdiplomacy research needs to take up a global perspective that “challenges our self-evident beliefs and prevents us from being lured by the master narrative of #diplomacy as European innovation".
Gebke concludes by encouranging us not only to take a look at different (sub-)disciplines when researching #earlymodern diplomacy, but also to work in teams in order to connect the micro with the macro perspective. (6/6)
📖 The book "Consuls in the Cold War", edited by Sue Onslow and Lori Maguire, includes a chapter authored by Pedro Aires Oliveira dedicated to the diplomatic relations between Portugal and the People's Republic of China in the mid-20th century. 🇵🇹 🇨🇳
1 Dorothée Goetze/Lena Oetzel: A Diplomat is a Diplomat is a Diplomat? On How to Approach Early Modern European Diplomacy in Its Diversity: An Introduction
Research on #earlymodern European #diplomacy is heavily biased: research achieves its findings mainly through studies on southern and western European cases. Other regions are less intensively considered. Consequently, research unquestionably transfers conclusions about (south‐)western European diplomacy on diplomacy as a whole. Besides the regional bias, research focuses heavily on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially post 1648. The sixteenth century gets far less attention. Moreover, the few attempts at generalisations rely heavily on observations made with regard to the seventeenth and eighteenth century and court environments. This creates an impression of homogeneity and a simplistic picture of #emdiplomacy. (2/7)
In their introduction the editors @LenaOetzel & @dorotheegoetze argue that #diplomacy at court was different from diplomacy at a diet or a peace congress; diplomatic actions by an officially accredited diplomat differed from those of his wife or a merchant travelling abroad; diplomacy between European monarchies was different from diplomatic interactions in Asia or Africa. Therefore, a diplomat is not a diplomat is not a diplomat. Instead, research should acknowledge the wide variety of diplomacy as manifestations of #earlymodern diplomacy in their own right. Each of these forms of diplomacy has taken on its own specific development, although not independent of the others. They have developed in parallel, in exchange with each other & sometimes shifted in time. This assumption also contradicts the idea that these different forms of diplomacy reflect consecutive stages in the development of early modern diplomacy. (3/7)
The first section Historiographical Perspectives will give an overview of the (New) Diplomatic History and the History of International Relations. In addition, global historical perspectives will be presented, thus setting the groundwork for understanding why we define #diplomacy as we do and how we can profit from widening our disciplinary perspective. The second section Contemporary Diplomatic Discourses asks how diplomacy was described and theorised during the #earlymodern period, as reflected in handbooks and treatises but also in art and literature, thus the normative and discursive back-ground will be outlined. Section III Development of European Diplomacy–An Overview takes on the question of the “where” by providing an overview of the development of diplomacy in key European regions. (5/7)
Section IV Spheres of Diplomatic Interactions retains the spatial perspective by exploring different spheres of (inter)action. The fifth section Diplomatic Actors stays true to the actor-centred perspective and the recognition that international politics is always “man-made.” This includes both the rulers & the respective courts as well as the envoys & the diplomatic personnel, but also informal actors such as diplomats’ wives, merchants, physicians, etc. The last section #Diplomacy in Practice focuses on how diplomatic action was conducted: this includes diplomatic ceremonial, symbolic communication, forms of reporting, clientele & patronage policy, networks, finance, gifts & corruption, the acquisition of information, diplomatic languages etc. In some cases, we need to differentiate between permanent & non-permanent diplomacy, as the specific conditions of the spheres of diplomatic interaction shaped diplomatic practices (6/7)
The @emdiplomacy handbook deliberately focuses on European #diplomacy in order to limit the framework and ensure precise definitions of diplomacy and its manifestations. So, focusing on Europe does not mean to take a Eurocentric approach. On the contrary, the handbook clearly shows the diversity of European diplomacy, diplomatic actors and practices with all the analytical challenges this entails. Moreover, many articles touch on non-European areas, though mostly from a European perspective. The editors argue that understanding European diplomacy in its diversity is the prerequisite for entering into a comparison and discussion with non-European approaches towards early modern diplomacy and potential future global historical perspectives. (7/7)
#InternationalLaw#InternationalRelations#Diplomacy: "To conclude: on any realistic assessment, international law is neither truthfully international nor genuinely law. That, however, does not mean it is not a force to be reckoned with. It is a major one. But its reality is as Austin described it: what in the vocabulary which he inherited from Hobbes he termed opinion, and today we would call ideology. There, as an ideological force in the world at the service of the hegemon and its allies, it is a formidable instrument of power. For Hobbes, opinion was the key to the political stability or instability of a kingdom. As he wrote: ‘The actions of men proceed from their opinions, and in the well governing of opinions consisteth the well governing of men’s actions’—thus ‘the power of the mighty hath no foundation but in the opinion and belief of the people’. It was seditious opinions, he believed, that triggered the Civil War in England, and it was to instill correct opinions that he wrote Leviathan, which he hoped would be taught in the universities that were ‘the fountains of civil and moral doctrine’, to bring ‘public tranquility’ back to the land. We do not have to share the extent of Hobbes’s respect for the power of opinion, or indeed his preferences among the opinions of his day, to acknowledge the validity of the importance he attached to them. International law may be a mystification. It is not a trifle."
There is still time to apply to the upcoming conference "Treaties as Instruments of International Relations from Antiquity to the Present. Types, Actors and Practices". Deadline: 15 January!
We are looking forward to your abstracts!
📖 In a paper published in Women's History Review, Jesús Bermejo examines the work of an overlooked Portuguese female intellectual within the League of Nations' history: Virgínia de Castro e Almeida.
Ukrainian foreign minister Kuleba to Western countries: "We offer you the best deal: you don't sacrifice your soldiers, give us weapons and money, and we will finish the job." (twitter.com)