Volume 10 (2015)
Issue 1
Issue 1 at Brill.comContents
Corneliu Bjola and Costas M. Constantinou
Abstract
The objective of this forum is to provide a framework for intellectual exchange and debate about the role of diplomacy in negotiating global crises and the impact of such crises on the evolution of diplomatic leadership, identity and method. Drawing on theories of leadership, decision-making, power and crisis management, the five contributions to this forum invite readers to reflect upon the analytical implications of theorizing crisis diplomacy.
Corneliu Bjola
Piki Ish-Shalom
Marcus Holmes
Rebecca Adler-Nissen
Costas M. Constantinou
Natalia Grincheva
Abstract
This article explores the discourse around the events of the Fifth BRICS Summit, as constructed through Russian media coverage across three channels: Russia Today (RT); Channel One Russia (1TV RU); and Russian Television International (RTVI). Through comparative analysis of how the BRICS Summit was portrayed by different channels, the article aims to highlight the influence of the Russian political discourse, the national media ecology, and the television companies’ missions and agendas in shaping Russia’s image within the BRICS Summit’s media coverage. The study explores this image through the lens of Russian public diplomacy and tries to evaluate the Russian government’s effectiveness in communicating its political messages to national and international audiences.
Vanessa Bravo and María De Moya
Abstract
This article explores the official communication of the governments of El Salvador and Colombia to, and about, their diaspora communities. Through a qualitative content analysis of news releases, speeches, factsheets and other public information material, the themes used to ‘construct’ the image of the diaspora are explored, as well as the issues that these governments traditionally associate with their expatriates. The study also analyses the type of relationship described (that is, communal versus exchange), with its findings suggesting a typology of government-to-diaspora communication and a new category of relationship (‘hybrid’ relationships), which is detailed herein.
James Thomas Snyder
Book reviewed:
- Martha Bayles, Through a Screen Darkly: Popular Culture, Public Diplomacy, and America’s Image Abroad. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.
Roman Chestnov
Book reviewed:
- Bruce O. Riedel, Avoiding Armageddon: America, India, and Pakistan to the Brink and Back. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2013.
Publication date: 27 January 2015
Issue 2
Issue 2 at Brill.comContents
Marwa Fikry Abdel Samei
Abstract
This article discusses the public diplomacy of the European Union (EU) towards the Arab Spring by focusing on the case of Egypt. It argues that despite its clear efforts, the EU's response to the Arab Spring was a missed opportunity to establish Europe’s normative power. The EU has simply maintained its pre-Arab Spring policies. By analysing and comparing the content of the Facebook pages of both the EU delegation to Egypt and the European External Action Service (EEAS) during the period from 14 October 2012 until 16 August 2013, the article demonstrates the differences between the messages and image presentations that were promoted in each page. Comparing these public diplomacy messages with specific EU policies reveals the gap between the words and deeds. The article explains this gap with reference to the discrepancy between Europe’s perception of the region, which results in certain policies, and its internal identity-building considerations.
Aurora A.C. Teixeira, André Caiado and Ana Paula Africano
Abstract
Empirical studies are scarce on the usefulness of state trade missions as a way to promote the internationalization of firms. The results of applying an econometric model — involving 136 participations in twelve state trade missions that occurred between 2005 and 2008 — indicate that a company’s size, foreign capital, export intensity, innovation intensity and experience in the market visited are relevant variables in an assessment of the results of state trade missions. Investment in the simple organization of trade state missions is not enough. It is necessary to select the most competent companies and to add more structured programmes to the organization of a mission in order to create and improve firms’ competences.
Jonathan Colman
Abstract
This article explores efforts to reform the US State Department under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, with the intention of making the Department better able to lead and coordinate the sprawling foreign policy apparatus. When Kennedy soon gave up on what he described as the ‘bowl of jelly’, the reform effort was left to his successor Johnson. Under Johnson, there were attempts to boost the State Department’s internal efficiency and its ability to support counterinsurgency efforts. Yet there was a justified perception by the end of 1968 that the State Department was unredeemed managerially and in terms of its standing in the foreign policy nexus. The reasons for the lack of progress include sporadic presidential engagement, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk’s limited aptitude for managerial affairs.
Livingstone Thompson
Abstract
Many flashpoints of violence and conflict around the world involve religious actors both as part of the crisis and potentially part of the solution. Until recently, however, states have been slow to see a role for religion in diplomacy. In this article, which is taken from a lecture that he delivered to the London Academy of Diplomacy, the author explores the notion of faith-based diplomacy and delineates the characteristics of a faith-based diplomat. The argument is that a religious view of the world functions as a Gestalt through which events and data in the public arena are filtered. The faith-based diplomat is one whose religious knowledge and skills allow the diplomat to decode the religious rhetoric by which crises are often articulated. As in the case of Northern Ireland, peace has a chance when the rhetoric is decoded and when local religious actors are party to the diplomatic process.
María Claver Ruiz
Abstract
Spain has created an innovative foreign policy instrument: its network of public diplomacy Casas, comprising Casa América, Casa Asia, Casa Árabe, Casa África, Casa Mediterráneo, and Centro Sefarad-Israel. The network of Casas is, today, an essential asset of Spanish foreign policy, one with an ever-increasing international projection. Located in landmark buildings in different Spanish cities (Madrid, Barcelona, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Alicante and Córdoba), the Casas have a threefold advantage. First, they are much more than a cultural space — they are institutions that help strengthen relations with a region or group of countries in many aspects (scientific and economic, among others). Second, they are spaces for collaboration, both among public administrations (national, regional and local) and with private partners. Last but not least, they were created and function as a public diplomacy instrument, to keep in touch — through an increasing use of new technologies — with civil society representatives from different countries.
Alison R. Holmes
Book reviewed:
- John W. Young, David Bruce and Diplomatic Practice: An American in London, 1961-9. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.
John W. Young
Book reviewed:
- T.G. Otte (ed.), An Historian in Peace and War: The Diaries of Harold Temperley. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014.
Publication date: 22 April 2015
Issue 3
Issue 3 at Brill.comContents
Ursula Stark Urrestarazu
Abstract
This article contends that diplomacy is an essential factor in the (trans)formation of ‘intercommunal relations’ — that is, international relations understood as social order(s) constituted by the practices of different sorts of actors. This relationship is illustrated by the regulation of ranks of diplomatic agents at the Congresses of Vienna (1815) and Aix-la-Chapelle (1818) and its effects on international order. This regulation was supposed to — and indeed did — offer a solution to some typical ‘foreign policy problems’ of the early nineteenth century, whereas other equally typical problems remained unsolved. Yet the effects of this innovation resulted in a significant shift, both in diplomatic practice and in notions of international order, as it ‘ordered’ the relations between actors and constituted specific patterns of identity recognition.
Cristian Cantir
Abstract
This article seeks to make two contributions to the literature on paradiplomacy. First, it provides an account of the foreign activities of the Gagauz autonomous region in the Republic of Moldova, which expands the empirical reach of scholarship in the post-Soviet area beyond studies of Russian regions. Second, it stresses that theory-building efforts need to incorporate consideration of foreign states that support diplomatic activities by non-central governments. Such patrons can exacerbate conflict between regional and central governments when they encourage paradiplomatic activities by regional governments to pressure the central government. Moscow’s recent relationship with Gagauzia — and the Moldovan capital Chișinău’s frustration with it — is illustrative of this theoretical point.
Sonia Rossetti
Abstract
Gender and cultural diversity have not been thoroughly studied in the literature devoted to the diplomatic system. The fundamental reason behind this gender blindness reflects the presumption that institutions are gender-neutral. Feminist literature has longed argued that gender has effects in political life and recent engagement with neo-institutionalist literature has analysed how institutions rebalance the structure/agency scale, pushing for a better understanding of the co-constitutive nature of politics. This article uses feminist neo-institutional theory to analyse whether recent internal and external changes to diplomatic practice are affecting formal and informal rules of diplomacy and improving women’s agency within diplomatic institutions.
Matthew Rice
Abstract
In an era dominated by a web of institutionalised summitry, from the G20 to the European Council, the bilateral variant has been increasingly overlooked in the academic literature. This article seeks to rectify this situation by assessing the extent to which bilateral summits during the first five years of Mrs Thatcher’s premiership helped to solve the thorny issue of Britain’s net budgetary contribution to the European Community. In doing so, a qualitative case-study analysis was conducted, based on the use of newly released documents obtained from the National Archives in London. The argument is twofold: first, bilateral summits were not a panacea in the search for a solution to the budget question, but were instead part of a multi-level process; and second, bilateral summits were a useful forum for an exchange of views to take place, which was important in preparing for the multilateral summits that punctuated the period in question.
Publication date: 24 July 2015
Issue 4
Issue 4 at Brill.comContents
Ronit Kampf, Ilan Manor and Elad Segev
Abstract
Social media holds the potential to foster dialogue between nations and foreign populations. Yet only a few studies to date have investigated the manner in which digital diplomacy is practised by foreign ministries. Using Kent and Taylor’s framework for dialogic communication, this article explores the extent to which dialogic communication is adopted by foreign ministries in terms of content, media channels and public engagement. The results of a six-week analysis of content published on Twitter and Facebook by eleven foreign ministries show that engagement and dialogic communication are rare. When engagement does occur, it is quarantined to specific issues. Social media content published by foreign ministries represents a continuous supply of press releases targeting foreign, rather than domestic, populations. A cross-national comparison revealed no discernible differences in the adoption of dialogic principles. Results therefore indicate that foreign ministries still fail to realize the potential of digital diplomacy to foster dialogue.
Juan Luis Manfredi-Sánchez, Juan Antonio Sánchez-Giménez and Juan Pizarro-Miranda
Abstract
Ideas fuel power, giving means, understanding and arguments to the public sphere. Think tanks are the most influential actors in creating and disseminating such ideas in the field of international relations. This article analyses the networks of relations among think tanks in order better to understand their nature and the ways in which they operate in a global reality, organized by geographical areas. The research method is by structural analysis, using raw data collected on Twitter. Most of the think tanks selected are those categorized by the gotothinktank.com study. The main conclusions are that English is the predominant language, that geography still matters in influencing ideas and that us-based think tanks lead the social media conversation.
Caitlin Byrne and Jane Johnston
Abstract
Public diplomacy is an inherently social endeavour, engaging public audiences at home and abroad to shape perceptions and influence foreign policy outcomes. Social media has a part to play in this, with sites such as Facebook and Twitter gaining visibility and traction as ‘must-have’ tools for public diplomacy 2.0. This article casts light on the less visible but pervasive social media platform of Wikipedia. Taking a case-study approach, the article posits that Wikipedia holds a dual relevance for public diplomacy 2.0: first as a medium; and second, as a model for public diplomacy’s evolving process. Exploring Wikipedia’s folksonomy, crowd-sourced through intense and organic collaboration, provides insights into the potential of collective agency and symbolic advocacy. The article’s findings highlight the limitations within current approaches towards public diplomacy 2.0, and offer new approaches for public diplomacy’s more progressive agenda.
Thomas Bagger
Abstract
The ‘Review2014’ project was announced by Frank-Walter Steinmeier on 17 December 2013, the very day of his return to the German Foreign Ministry for a second term as Foreign Minister after his first term from 2005-2009. He presented the project’s conclusions under the heading ‘Crisis, Order, Europe’ on 25 February 2015, to the ministry’s staff and the wider public (see online at http: //www.review2014.de). A more detailed Action Plan aims to implement a set of specific institutional and procedural changes by summer 2016. The more ambitious goal of changes to the German Foreign Ministry’s culture will require a long-term effort.
Gerard Keown
Abstract
In January 2015, the Irish government published a new statement of the goals and objectives of Ireland’s foreign policy. The document, The Global Island: Ireland’s Foreign Policy for a Changing World, was the result of a year-long process of reflection, research and analysis and a wide-ranging process of consultation and engagement. It offers a progressive and forward-looking vision of Ireland’s foreign policy and Ireland’s place in the world. The review was led by Ireland’s foreign ministry, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Steven Collet
Abstract
A small country with a big international footprint, the Netherlands depends on the world around it for its future security, prosperity and well-being. Its wide diplomatic network is managed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is responsible for policy in the areas of foreign relations and trade, European cooperation, development cooperation and consular services provided to Dutch nationals abroad. Responsibility for foreign trade was added to the ministry’s core tasks when the present Dutch government was formed in 2012. This article looks at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ major programme of reforms and spending cuts—‘Modernizing the Diplomatic Service’—which was started three years ago to ensure that the diplomatic service remains well placed to fulfil its roles. The article discusses the rationale behind the programme, the approach taken, and discusses the reforms that have been introduced and the lessons learned. Finally, the article considers elements for future reform.
Sanderijn Duquet
Book reviewed:
- Kai Bruns, A Cornerstone of Modern Diplomacy: Britain and the Negotiation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014.
Publication date: 23 October 2015