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Volume 17 (2022)

Contents

Christina Churruca-Muguruza
Abstract

This article advances the notion of humanitarian border diplomacy, contributing to current academic discussions on humanitarian diplomacy and on the practice-theory nexus by conceptualising NGOs’ migrant accompaniment at borders as a form of everyday humanitarian diplomacy. The contention is that humanitarian diplomacy is similar to other diplomatic practices. Starting by rethinking humanitarian diplomacy, it discusses the emergence of humanitarian border diplomacy as a key component of everyday migrant accompaniment. Humanitarian border diplomacy focuses on advancing migrants’ rights, seeking to make helpful, empowering and transformational interventions in an attempt to resist and change the contemporary global governance of migration. The article presents the everyday diplomatic practices of the Servicio Jesuita a Migrantes in Melilla, on Spain’s southern border, as an example of humanitarian border diplomacy. At the border, as an alternative space for resistance, difference and otherness, the need for diplomatic culture as the symbolic mediation of estrangement is revealed.

Article available at Brill.com

William Maley and Ahmad Shuja Jamal
Abstract

On 29 February 2020 in Doha, the United States signed an ‘Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan’ with the extremist Taliban movement. Yet on 15 August 2021, the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. This article argues that the Doha Agreement did not simply precede the Taliban takeover; in significant ways it contributed to it. In its negotiation, content and implementation, it created destructive incentives for domestic and international parties, and it had effects on mass psychology in Afghanistan that its creators seemed not to have anticipated or understood. In that sense, it serves as a cautionary tale about the danger of assuming that negotiated ‘diplomatic solutions’ are necessarily superior to messy alternatives. The closest 20th-century equivalent was the Munich Agreement of September 1938.

Article available at Brill.com

Novita Putri Rudiany, Silvia Dian Anggraeni, Gita Meysharoh Nurhidayah and Muhamad Firmansyah
Abstract

Energy diplomacy is usually conducted by national governments. However, the case of sister city co-operation between the cities of Surabaya, Indonesia, and Kitakyushu, Japan, shows how substate actors can perform energy diplomacy by developing technology to create public spaces that apply energy efficiency and energy-saving principles. This article offers a new angle on energy diplomacy by elaborating on the role of the city government. To future-proof our perspective, we applied qualitative methods by gaining data from in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, then triangulated the result from the literature about energy diplomacy. The article argues that energy diplomacy has expanded in the sense that it is now carried out at municipal as well as national level and yet still adheres to states’ foreign policy agendas in the energy sector. These substate actors ultimately strengthen the principle of energy utilisation that has been regulated at the national level within the framework of bilateral co-operation with other substate actors.

Article available at Brill.com

Sohaela Amiri
Abstract

Whilst city diplomacy as a topic of study is gaining more attention, the practice is often approached through fields other than the study of diplomacy or international relations. A commonly accepted framework, and the governance system that supports it, is missing to shape research and scholarship. This forum outlines the key parameters of a framework for city diplomacy rooted in earlier research and validated through five essays by geographically and professionally diverse authors. The framework introduced in this introduction structured the direction of the essays that are informed by academic research and by practitioners. The essays also propose policies and strategies to make city diplomacy more systematically and officially integrated into global affairs.

Article available at Brill.com

Max Bouchet
Abstract

National foreign policy actors traditionally neglect the opportunities and challenges that local actors active on the global stage create. Cities and regional authorities have become important international players, engaging in bilateral and multilateral relations outside national borders. They exemplify a style of global co-operation perceived as pragmatic and effective. Subnational diplomacy does not undercut national diplomacy; instead, it can extend it. National governments need their cities and local governments to achieve certain domestic and foreign policy goals related to national security, competitiveness and international development. National governments also need local actors to solve 21st-century challenges linked to promoting democracy and addressing climate change, violent extremism and global migration. National governments should adapt their diplomatic tools and cultivate partnerships with their local governments to leverage their international strength, support their global reach and, where useful, amplify it.

Article available at Brill.com

Alexander Buhmann
Abstract

Public diplomacy efforts of nation states and cities within these states inevitably develop alongside another, giving rise to joint attributions regarding these entities as actors in global affairs, though also potentially intensifying perceptions of their independent and even contradictory roles in international diplomacy. Variations in attributions of cities and states as more or less conjoint actors can be expected to affect both the visibility of key actors and the formation of attitudes and behaviours towards these actors in international affairs. In this essay I explore how and in what dimensions such variations can be expected to occur, applying recent thinking on the constitution of social actors to this emerging debate in public and city diplomacy scholarship and proposing a conceptual framework that distinguishes joint ‘selfhood’ and ‘actorhood’ as key dimensions of joint city/state attributions. The essay includes a discussion of the implications of this conceptualisation for public and city diplomacy.

Article available at Brill.com

Rosa Groen
Abstract

To understand the factors that contribute to successful city diplomacy, this essay explores the example of how city diplomacy is used to attract international organisations. As soon as an international organisation (IO) starts looking for a location, local networks are formed and candidate host cities are selected internally. Cities benefit from hosting IOs, not only in worldwide reputation but also in economic growth. However, cities face increased competition and need improved strategies that are informed by a better assessment of contextual factors that affect a city’s international affairs. The ways in which cities co-operate with ministries and regional government levels when attracting IOs take different shapes and can be crucial for a successful outcome. This essay acknowledges three categories of context and introduces them as relational, discursive and instrumental in scope.

Article available at Brill.com

Antonio Alejo
Abstract

Cities are becoming critical in governing global challenges, and urban policies are not seen as purely local realities. From critical diplomatic studies, this essay states that the notion of urban diplomacy has the possibility to distinguish itself by avoiding being a mere imitation of state/traditional diplomacy, and it allows an analytical path to identify a more inclusive perspective to involve resident foreigners in the design and implementation of a city’s foreign policy. This essay discusses the role of global human mobility in urban diplomacy and the foreign policy of cities from a deterritorialised perspective. The essay argues that diaspora organisations are relevant actors in designing and implementing cities’ foreign policy as part of inclusive urban diplomacy through their trans-local dynamics. Following a qualitative approach, the essay’s empirical bases are four socio-political experiences that show how Mexico City’s diaspora feeds trans-locally the everyday relationship between Mexico City and Chicago.

Article available at Brill.com

Peter Kurz
Abstract

Although the concept of city diplomacy is not new, we are seeing exciting developments in the ways that cities work together to address local and global challenges. This article explores how the global political system must evolve to harness the full potential of a city diplomacy that is well-integrated into global governance. In order for city diplomacy’s promise to be unlocked, we must take action in four central areas: facilitating knowledge exchange between local, national and international governance; embracing networks as an integral part of global governance; systematically expanding municipal development co-operation; and revitalising the idea of a world charter of local self-government.

Article available at Brill.com

Lise H. Andersen

Book reviewed:

  • Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall, eds. (2021). Diplomacy and the Future of World Order. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. ISBN: 9781647120948, 376 pp., $36. 95 (paperback).

Article available at Brill.com

Ekaterina Mikhailova

Book reviewed:

  • Lorenzo Kihlgren Grandi. (2020). City Diplomacy. Cities and the Global Politics of the Environment. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature. ISBN 978-303-060-716-6, 204 pp, $59.99 (hardbound).

Article available at Brill.com

Andre Nordensterne

Book reviewed:

  • Iver B. Neumann (2020). Diplomatic Tenses: A Social Evolutionary Perspective on Diplomacy. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-152-614-870-4, 144 pp., £80 (E-book).

Article available at Brill.com

Hanna T. Tuominen

Book reviewed:

  • Hendrik W. Ohnesorge (2020). Soft Power: The Forces of Attraction in International Relations. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-3-030-29921-7, 307 pp, € 98.09.

Article available at Brill.com

Publication date: February 2022

 

 

 

Contents

Olli Hellmann and Kai Oppermann
Abstract

This article explores the effectiveness of photographs as instruments of public diplomacy through an analysis of China’s visual storytelling during the Covid-19 outbreak. Beijing considered the pandemic an existential threat to its image and responded with a communications offensive that was designed to highlight the regime’s success in containing the Coronavirus — both at home and abroad — and to safeguard the wider ‘China story’ of a ‘peace-loving and responsible global leader’. By combining scholarship on public diplomacy and strategic narratives with the ‘visual turn’ literature in international relations, this article focuses on the non-verbal dimension of China’s storytelling and explores the impact of photographs — distributed by the regime’s news agency, Xinhua — on international public opinion. Through a survey experiment among 1,000 US adults, we demonstrate that such photographs had a positive effect on China’s international image, but that this effect was moderated by levels of political knowledge among the target audience.

Article available at Brill.com

Asaf Siniver
Abstract

This article addresses a gap in the literature on international mediation by proposing the power to blame as an additional source of mediation leverage that had been hitherto largely ignored. The power to blame is framed here as ‘dead cat diplomacy’, a term originally coined by US Secretary of State James Baker to describe his threats to lay a figurative dead cat at the doorstep of a disputant to publicly signal its intransigence and thus force its acquiescence during the Middle East negotiations following the 1991 Gulf War. Drawing on the case studies of Baker and presidents Obama and Trump, the article presents three conditions necessary for the successful leveraging of the power to blame in international mediation: it must be used as a last resort, be perceived as credible by the targeted disputant and take place at a time when the targeted disputant’s bargaining capacity is limited.

Article available at Brill.com

Anna Popkova
Abstract

This article examines the local impact of citizen diplomacy through the case study of a volunteer-driven citizen diplomacy organisation Global Ties Kalamazoo (GTKzoo) based in Kalamazoo, Michigan (United States). Drawing on the data from 25 in-depth interviews with GTKzoo volunteers, this study demonstrates that citizen diplomats view citizen diplomacy as more authentic compared to traditional diplomacy. Representation as a key component of citizen diplomacy is also discussed, with GTKzoo volunteers struggling to reconcile their desire to ‘show the good parts of America’ with their understanding that ‘the good parts’ alone are not giving visitors a complete picture. This study also introduces two approaches to assessing the local impact of citizen diplomacy — instrumental and reflexive. The study concludes that the reflexive approach dominates citizen diplomats’ discussions as they focus on learning from the visitors, feeling inspired to be better community members, and seeing their local community through a more nuanced perspective.

Article available at Brill.com

David Ocón
Abstract

Beyond their traditional role as entertainment, form of expression and meeting spaces within local communities, arts and culture festivals can perform various functions. They can serve as showcases of artistic pride, signal openness towards cultural diversity, support the local economy, contribute to reducing political tension and provide grounds to consolidate international relationships. On occasion, such festivals function as tools to support the vision of a multilateral co-operation institution, as is the case of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Through a comprehensive review of the arts and culture festivals curated in ASEAN, this article investigates the festivals’ ulterior motivations. A range of economic, political, diplomatic, and organisational logics explain the evolution of such festivals during the last fifty years. The article concludes that arts and culture festivals have remained a compelling and instrumental co-operation mechanism in ASEAN, but formats and approaches need substantial revision.

Article available at Brill.com

Hanna Tuominen
Abstract

The Finnish Government practises a human rights-based foreign policy, and norm advocacy within international organisations is an integral part of this ambition. One priority was to apply for UN Human Rights Council (HRC) membership for the 2022-2024 term. This article studies the Finnish campaign from the theoretical perspective of a small state seeking to update its status through norm advocacy and UN campaigning. It claims that the HRC campaign is an important means of updating Finland’s status within its ambitious Nordic peer group. Updating a country’s status can be achieved by showing moral authority and good UN membership. It also demonstrates the challenges and opportunities set by the domestic and external situation, introducing the HRC campaign priorities, based on Finland’s country brand, and shows how these are refreshed. The article draws on foreign policy documentation, campaign materials and interviews with Finnish diplomats and public officials involved in the campaign.

Article available at Brill.com

Gerardo (Gerry) Diaz Bartolome

Book reviewed:

  • Ilan Manor (2019). The Digitalization of Public Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, xvi + 356pp. ISBN 978-3-030-04404-6 (hardcover £74.99). ISBN 978-3-030-04405-3 (eBook £55.99).

Article available at Brill.com

João Mourato Pinto

Book reviewed:

  • Yolanda Kemp Spies (2019). Global Diplomacy and International Society. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-3-319-95524-7, 272 pp., €80.24.

Article available at Brill.com

Publication date: March 2022

 

Issue 3: Understanding the Gender of Ministries of Foreign Affairs

Special issue edited by Birgitta Niklasson and Ann E. Towns

Issue 3 at Brill.com

Contents

Birgitta Niklasson and Ann E. Towns
Abstract

This introductory article situates Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) as gendered institutions at the intersection between domestic and international relations. Based on an extensive literature review and analysis of articles on Australian, Bulgarian, Czech, Japanese, Turkish, UK, and US MFAs in this special issue, we claim that research on gender and MFAs has made important contributions to diplomatic studies by deepening, challenging, and diversifying understandings of what MFAs are; MFAs’ institutional structures; and power struggles within MFAs. MFA relations with other actors remain decidedly understudied from a gender perspective, however. Future research on gender and MFAs should direct attention to these relationships, including how they shape MFAs as gendered institutions. Future studies would also benefit from global and intersectional analyses of multiple axes of power and differentiation. By identifying research questions, new theoretical perspectives, and largely unapplied research designs, we hope to facilitate the pursuit of such studies.

Article available at Brill.com (Open Access)

Catriona Standfield
Abstract

The practice turn in diplomatic studies has focused on how and when diplomats recognise others’ practices as competent. I argue that gendered, raced and classed power shape who is recognised as competent or virtuosic. Denial of recognition reveals how normative conceptions of competence reproduce inequalities in diplomacy. I trace the development and assessment of competence through the autobiographical narratives of Dame Margaret Joan Anstee, a British diplomat, diplomatic wife, international civil servant and then UN special representative in Angola in the 1990s. I find that developing social capital through education was key to allowing Anstee to transcend her working-class origins and enter the upper-class milieu of the post-World War II British Foreign Office. However, as the UN’s first female head of a peacekeeping mission, she struggled to be recognised as a competent actor, even as she took what could be seen as virtuosic action to resource the failing mission.

Article available at Brill.com

Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm and Bahar Rumelili
Abstract

This article analyses the gender performances of Turkish women diplomats through in-depth interviews. Building on Morison and MacLeod’s performance-performativity approach, we highlight the need to take into account the different meanings and significance of gender performances under different political and social conditions. We find that a shift and the diversification of gender performances are under way among Turkish women diplomats, from female masculinity being the dominant form towards hegemonic femininity becoming more common. We note that this change is associated with the increasing valorisation of femininity in diplomacy and the changing priorities of the feminist movement and foreign policy in Turkey. We caution, however, that the enactments of hegemonic femininity are not necessarily empowering women diplomats and may inadvertently provide a basis for undermining the role and status of women in the increasingly anti-feminist political context in Turkey.

Article available at Brill.com

Zuzana Fellegi, Kateřina Kočí, and Klára Benešová
Abstract

Although Czech women are solidly represented in the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, only a fraction of this 14 per cent make it to the highest positions. This underrepresentation is in stark contrast with Nordic countries, where women make up almost half of the top diplomats. Based on semi-structured interviews with top diplomats conducted in the period 2018-2021, this study aims to identify how Czech female diplomats assess their own gender and professional identity, and to what extent they apply these identities strategically in order to advance their careers. The research enriches concepts on femininities by adding a type of ‘principled feminist’ and further develops career strategies in a specific historical and cultural context. The analysis shows that conservative personal gender ideologies of top Czech female diplomats and their related career strategies present one of the major obstacles to the increased representation of women in top diplomatic positions.

Article available at Brill.com

Tonka Kostadinova
Abstract

The article sets оut to investigate gender-related challenges in the diplomatic work of post-communist diplomatic institutions, with a focus on Bulgaria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It draws on the author’s own experience as a diplomat and takes an auto-ethnographic perspective in order to elucidate from within the daily routines, working life and gender relations at Bulgaria’s Foreign Office. The research provides unique first-hand access to the institutional and micro-political context in which Eastern European diplomats perform and develop. It brings greater nuances to the understanding of gender and diplomatic work and unpacks important issues that have remained invisible in mainstream diplomacy studies such as the complex and sensitive contemporary interactions between gender, diplomacy, and the national security and intelligence departments.

Article available at Brill.com

Petrice R. Flowers
Abstract

How do we account for the discrepancy between the number of Japanese women serving in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the number in United Nations (UN) organisations? This article identifies where women and men are located in both national and international diplomacy. I argue that in ministries of foreign affairs around the world, institutional rules and norms account for the low numbers of women in these organisations. This research makes a new contribution to the literature by demonstrating that institutional rules and norms at the UN provide many opportunities for Japanese women to engage in diplomatic work, in contrast to national MFAs where norms and rules tend to circumscribe women’s participation. I argue that women choose to seek out these opportunities to fulfil their goals. Thus, this article investigates women’s agency in pursuing careers in international affairs as well as the effect of institutional rules and norms.

Article available at Brill.com

Sylvia Bashevkin
Abstract

This article is among the first to probe the views of seven women who held foreign policy cabinet positions in Democratic and Republican administrations in the United States between 1981 and 2018. Grounded in debates over a polarising ‘culture war’ versus converging social attitudes, the study uses autobiographical sources to gauge cross-party differences over time in leaders’ understandings of feminism and anti-feminism, levels of secularism and religious orthodoxy, and views of women’s rights in foreign policy. The study also examines questions of intersectionality, notably whether appointees from racial minority backgrounds expressed distinctively transformative views about inequality and discrimination. The findings confirm left/right polarisation arguments with respect to attitudes towards women’s movements but show that nominees, regardless of party or racial background, were deeply committed to liberal individualism. The conclusion discusses the implications of these results and proposes directions for further research.

Article available at Brill.com

Elise Stephenson
Abstract

For the first time in history, women in Australian diplomacy have equal or near-equal representation in leadership whilst the institution they represent is shrinking — in funding, footprint and status. Even if simply a natural shift in policy priorities, this diplomatic ‘glass cliff’ has specifically gendered effects. Indeed, ‘hard’ militaristic agencies — where funding and prestige flow — remain pockets of gender resistance in Australian international affairs. This article employs a combination of qualitative interview analysis as well as quantitative longitudinal data on gender representation and agency funding across four case agencies to argue that women are gaining positions of diplomatic leadership just as diplomacy’s relative power, influence and funding decreases. It contributes to women’s leadership research in finding that women’s increased opportunities in leadership are therefore constrained by the declining status or shrinking nature of the institution to which they are gaining access.

Article available at Brill.com (Open Access)

Elise Rainer
Abstract

This article examines the genesis of LGBTI diplomacy across ministries of foreign affairs (MFA s). Examining primarily Sweden and the United States, insights are provided into early LGBTI diplomatic adoption in the 2000 s. It analyses how foreign policy leaders have peer-pressured, inspired and influenced another, and continue to do so, to include LGBTI rights into their foreign policy agendas. As a former US diplomat and scholar, the author utilises primary source data and high-level interviews from the US, Sweden and the EU. Findings indicate that Swedish diplomats played a unique role in norm entrepreneurship in the development of global LGBTI diplomacy. Diplomats across North America and the EU replicated Sweden’s policy framing and programmatic strategies for global LGBTI rights. From the State Department side, once US diplomats joined the small community of nations engaged in LGBTI diplomacy, US political influence served to legitimise and further prioritise LGBTI rights across global institutions.

Article available at Brill.com

Publication date: August 2022
 

Issue 4: Forum - Engaging Home In International Diplomacy

Special issue

Issue 4 at Brill.com

Contents

HwaJung Kim and Jan Melissen
Abstract

Governments, their foreign ministries and other international actors are increasingly busying themselves with dialogues with people, the smallest units of society. There seems to be a distinct pattern towards more inward-directed conversations on external relations issues and the impact of international and global challenges on the domestic sphere. Arguably, this home dimension of diplomatic work takes place on the margins of international talks and relationships, but we submit that an understanding of things peripheral in diplomatic practice may inform us about shifts in professional culture and what is commonly assumed to be the hard core of diplomacy.

Article available at Brill.com (Open Access)

Anna Geis, Christian Opitz, and Hanna Pfeifer
Abstract

Over the last decade, relations between the state and its citizens have changed in the fields of diplomacy and, more generally, foreign policy in some Western democracies. Both sides have begun to transform their roles through novel formats of citizen dialogue and participation. The full breadth and depth of these phenomena remain understudied, despite the fact that they constitute an important catalyst of the apparent ‘societisation’, or even further democratisation, of diplomacy. Based on our analyses of participatory formats in German diplomacy, we offer insights into the transformative potential of this development and discuss to what extent it simultaneously perpetuates unequal power relations. In order to further scrutinise these preliminary hypotheses on how the complex relationship between state diplomacy and domestic society is currently changing, we propose a new research agenda on citizen participation in foreign policy.

Article available at Brill.com

Minseon Ku
Abstract

The recent revival in the interest in summitry in International Relations scholarship conceptualises it as an elite-centred or foreign policy-focused process targeting foreign governments and publics. This article makes a theoretical intervention on the effects of summitry by foregrounding publics as audiences of international politics who can exercise agency. Because summits are primarily elite-staged performances of Westphalian principles of state sovereignty, they generate a political space for audiences to publicly embrace or contest summitry performances and their meanings of sovereignty. They can do so by co-performing with or by counter-performing elitist summitry performances, which can generate narratives with potential to shape and alter domestic societies in the long run.

Article available at Brill.com

Yun Zhang
Abstract

In most of the scholarship on diplomacy, whether historical or contemporary, the governmental elite-based perspective has consistently dominated. The societisation of diplomacy is the process of legitimisation of foreign policy deliberations between state and society, both domestically and internationally. This article argues that there are two types of societisation: internal and external. It defines the former as a dynamic political communication process comprising diplomatic policy deliberation and legitimisation between state and society in a domestic context. The internal dimension is yet to receive sufficient academic and practical attention. This article fills the gap in the literature on the internal societisation of diplomacy through an empirical case study of Japan’s diplomacy towards China. It shows that the unsuccessful internal societisation of diplomacy has had moderating effects on Japan’s diplomacy towards China.

Article available at Brill.com

Scott Michael Harrison and Quinton Huang
Abstract

Since their early origins in the Cold War, municipal twinning relationships have relied on citizen initiative and participation. Where does the government end and the citizen begin? Using examples from Canada–Asia city twinning, we argue that municipal twinning relationships should be viewed as a co-produced diplomatic ‘middle ground’ formed by the interactions of official and domestic society actors. We map how the concept of a co-produced middle ground helps us better understand the identities, capacities, continuities, criteria and conceptions at the heart of municipal twinning relationships. These insights could inform a co-productive model for municipalities to approach the design and implementation of twinning relationships. As a preliminary examination of domestic society actors in municipal twinning using the interpretative framework of co-production, this article points towards possibilities for future avenues of research and policy-making that more carefully attend to the actors, sites and scales of subnational diplomacy.

Article available at Brill.com

Anna Popkova and Jodi Hope Michaels
Abstract

At its core, diplomacy is about representation. Including the domestic voice in diplomatic work pushes us to reflect critically on who represents our local communities to international constituents. To what extent is the diversity of local communities reflected in such diplomatic initiatives as, for example, state-supported citizen diplomacy programmes? This article argues for the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work at the local level to the policy goals that citizen diplomacy programmes support. The article draws on the concept of ‘subaltern counterpublics’ to emphasise the importance of DEI efforts at the local level for more inclusive and authentic diplomacy globally. The article also discusses some of the current practices of intentionally incorporating DEI initiatives into citizen diplomacy work among civil society actors.

Article available at Brill.com

Štěpánka Zemanová
Abstract

The democratisation of diplomacy in recent years has opened up new opportunities for non-state actors’ engagement and activities in the public interest or on behalf of governments. Scholarly literature has broadly reflected the inclusion of civil society into governance frameworks, non-state public diplomacy and non-governmental institutions. Nevertheless, due to the complexity of these issues, as well as their dynamics and rapid innovations, many blind spots remain. This article focuses on the neglected topic of the engagement of future practitioners, students in diplomacy-related undergraduate and graduate university programmes, in people-to-people diplomatic communication. Drawing on the concept of grassroots diplomacy, it examines the activities of the Junior Diplomat Initiative. It deconstructs the effect of student organisations’ diplomacy projects by showing how they translate into innovative interactions with domestic and foreign youth communities. Lessons for diplomatic practice are also addressed.

Article available at Brill.com

Alisher Faizullaev
Abstract

Diplomatic studies are becoming more open to social ideas, and a growing number of scholars are looking at diplomacy as a social practice. At the same time, diplomacy itself is in greater demand in increasingly complex societies, both international and domestic. This article analyses diplomacy between socially defined actors and complements the ideas of social diplomacy outlined in my book Diplomacy for Professionals and Everyone (Leiden: Brill, 2022). Since the social is essentially interconnectional, interactional and relational, I explore social diplomacy that takes place between purposive social entities, such as individuals, groups, organisations and states, and their aggregations, by focusing on their means of engagement, interaction and relationship-building. Diplomacy has always been regarded as a mission, and social diplomacy can be considered a goodwill mission that involves constructive engagement and dialogical interaction between parties to create a social good, most notably positive relationships.

Article available at Brill.com

Publication date: October 2022

 

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