Book series
Diplomatic Studies (DIST) is a peer-reviewed book series that encourages original work on the theory and practice, processes and outcomes of diplomacy.
The book series is edited by The Hague Journal of Diplomacy’s co-Editor-in-Chief, Jan Melissen. In line with the journal, Diplomatic Studies publishes research on the theory, practice, and techniques of diplomacy that is meeting a standard of international excellence.
Book series
Author: Alisher Faizullaev
Expected publication date: 20 October 2022
If you want to better understand not only international but also social diplomacy, then this book is for you. If you are a practitioner in traditional diplomacy or a person who want to apply diplomatic ideas and methods in social life, you can find many useful insights in this original work. A scholar and experienced diplomat, the author argues that international and social diplomacy can learn from each other. He explores genuine diplomacy as a goodwill mission, constructive engagement, and dialogical interaction that can help states, non-state organizations, companies, groups, individuals, and their aggregations to create public goods and make positive social changes.
Author: Kim B. Olsen
Publication date: 7 July 2022
When policy-makers opt for sanctions or other economic power instruments in response to geostrategic challenges, the stage is set for geoeconomic diplomacy. Challenging traditional conceptions about the interplay between governments and markets, this book sheds a new light on the diplomatic actors and processes that shape successful geoeconomic foreign and security policy-making. Unpacking the ‘networked practices’ through which diplomats advanced the early implementation of the European Union’s far-reaching sanctions regimes against Russia and Syria, the book demonstrates how geoeconomic diplomats depend on their abilities to navigate in complex actor-networks in the interfaces between the public, private, and non-governmental realm.
Editor: Christian Lequesne
Publication date: 24 March 2022
Ministries of foreign affairs are prominent institutions at the heart of state diplomacy. Although they have lost their monopoly on the making of national foreign policies, they still are the operators of key practices associated with diplomacy: communication, representation and negotiation. Often studied in a monographic way, ministries of foreign affairs are undergoing an adaptation of their practices that require a global approach. This book fills a gap in the literature by approaching ministries of foreign affairs in a comparative and comprehensive way. The best international specialists in the field provide methodological and theoretical insights into how best to study institutions that remain crucial for the world diplomacy.
Contributors are: Thierry Balzacq, Guillaume Beaud, Gabriel Castillo, Andrew Cooper, Rhys Crilley, Jason Dittmer, Mikael Ekman, Bruno Figueroa, Karla Gobo, Minda Holm, Marcus Holmes, Walid Jumblatt Abdullah, Nikolaj Juncher Waedegaard, Casper Klynge, Halvard Leira, Christian Lequesne, Ilan Manor, Jan Melissen, Iver B. Neumann, Birgitta Niklasson, Kim B. Olsen, Pierre-Bruno Ruffini, Claudia Santos, Jorge A. Schiavon, Damien Spry, Kamna Tiwary, Geoffrey Wiseman, and Reuben Wong.
Author: Katrin Buchmann
Publication date: 20 July 2022
Buchmann analyses the work of UK, German, Danish and Swedish embassies in the USA and China on climate change in the late 2000s and early 2010s. She relates which coalitions and narratives embassies sought to develop to convince China and the United States that a more progressive climate policy was possible, to achieve gains supporting an agreement under the UNFCCC. This book shows that a key interpretation of climate diplomacy was selling/trade: Europe selling technology “solutions” to solve climate change. In this narrative, Europe has already done what needs to be done and outsourcing of production to China e.g. is ignored. In the USA, embassies entered coalitions with states, faith groups and the military, arguing that a more progressive climate policy was mandated by either God or security concerns. State politicians, including Democrats, often actually didn’t implement any climate policies. Any gains were reversed through climate denial lobbying funded by corporations. Embassies did not address this.
Editors: Katie Laatikainen and Karen Smith
Publication date: 9 April 2020
Group Politics in UN Multilateralism provides a new perspective on diplomacy and negotiations at the United Nations. Very few states ‘act individually’ at the UN; instead they often work within groups such as the Africa Group, the European Union or the Arab League. States use groups to put forward principled positions in an attempt to influence a wider audience and thus legitimize desired outcomes. Yet the volume also shows that groups are not static: new groups emerge in multilateral negotiations on issues such as climate, security and human rights. At any given moment, UN multilateralism is shaped by long-standing group dynamics as well as shifting, ad-hoc groupings. These intergroup dynamics are key to understanding diplomatic practice at the UN.
Author: Ellen Huijgh
Publication date: 3 June 2019
This book is about the domestic dimension of public diplomacy, which must be understood within the context of public diplomacy’s evolution over time. In the virtually connected world of today, newcomers such as supranational organizations, sub-states and Asian countries have had less difficulty than Western nation-states including a domestic dimension in public diplomacy. Doing so does not separate the domestic and international components; rather, it highlights that there is a holistic/integrative approach to public involvement at home and abroad. In Huijgh’s comprehensive analysis, including case studies from North America, Europa and the Asia-Pacific, public diplomacy’s international and domestic dimensions can be seen as stepping stones on a continuum of public participation that is central to international policymaking and conduct.
Author: Steffen Bay Rasmussen
Publication date: 24 September 2018
In The Ideas and Practices of the European Union’s Structural Antidiplomacy, Steffen Bay Rasmussen offers a comprehensive analysis of EU diplomacy that goes beyond the functioning of the European External Action Service and discusses the sui generis nature of the EU as a diplomatic actor, the forms of bilateral and multilateral representation as well as the actor identity, founding ideas and meta-practices of EU diplomacy. The book employs a novel theoretical approach that distinguishes the social structures of diplomacy from the practices and meta-practices of diplomacy. Comparing EU diplomacy to the two theoretically constructed ideal types of Westphalian diplomacy and utopian antidiplomacy, Steffen Bay Rasmussen concludes that the EU’s international agency constitutes a new form of diplomacy called structural antidiplomacy.
Editors: Stelios Stavridis and Davor Jancic
Publication date: 6 February 2017
In Parliamentary Diplomacy in European and Global Governance, 27 experts from all over the world analyse the fast-expanding phenomenon of parliamentary diplomacy. Through a wealth of empirical case studies, the book demonstrates that parliamentarians and parliamentary assemblies have an increasingly important international role. The volume begins with parliamentary diplomacy in Europe, because the European Parliament is one of the strongest autonomous institutional actors in world politics. The study then examines parliamentary diplomacy in relations between Europe and third countries or regions (Mexico, Turkey, Russia, the Mediterranean), before turning attention to the rest of the world: North and South America, Asia, Africa and Australia. This pioneering volume confirms the worldwide nature and salience of parliamentary diplomacy in contemporary global politics.
Editors: Louis Clerc, Nikolas Glover and Paul Jordan
Publication date: 29 September 2015
Histories of Public Diplomacy and Nation Branding in the Nordic and Baltic Countries provides an historical perspective on public diplomacy and nation branding in the Nordic and Baltic countries from 1900 to the present day. It highlights continuity and change in the efforts to strategically represent these nations abroad, and shows how a self-understanding of being peripheral has led to similarities in the deployed practices throughout the Nordic-Baltic region.
Edited by Louis Clerc, Nikolas Glover and Paul Jordan, the volume examines a range of actors that have attempted to influence foreign opinions and strengthen their country’s political and commercial position. Variously labelled propaganda, information, diplomacy and branding, these constant efforts to enhance the national image abroad have affected how the nation has been imagined in the domestic context.
Author: Manuel Duran
Publication date: 10 March 2015
In Mediterranean Paradiplomacies: The Dynamics of Diplomatic Reterritorialization, Manuel Duran presents a new view on the phenomenon of paradiplomacy by analyzing the diplomatic activities of a number of Mediterranean substate entities as a site of political territorialization. The international agency of these substate entities is giving way to new patterns of territorialization, as well as alternative forms of diplomacy.
Duran examines the diplomatic activities of two Spanish, two French and two Italian regions. The book poses the question of why and how these regions operate diplomatically in a given territorial milieu and convincingly elucidates the particular patterns of reterritorialization that result from these diplomatic activities.
Author: Ingrid d'Hooghe
Publication date: 8 January 2015
In China's Public Diplomacy, author Ingrid d'Hooghe contributes to our understanding of what constitutes and shapes a country's public diplomacy, and what factors undermine or contribute to its success.
China invests heavily in policies aimed at improving its image, guarding itself against international criticism and advancing its domestic and international agenda. This volume explores how the Chinese government seeks to develop a distinct Chinese approach to public diplomacy, one that suits the country's culture and authoritarian system. Based on in-depth case studies, it provides a thorough analysis of this approach, which is characterized by a long-term vision, a dominant role for the government, an inseparable and complementary domestic dimension, and a high level of interconnectedness with China's overall foreign policy and diplomacy.
Author: Maaike Okano-Heijmans
Publication date: 4 July 2013
This book by Maaike Okano-Heijmans makes an important contribution to the concept of economic diplomacy.
A conceptual-study mode of economic diplomacy is combined with applied analysis of Japan’s economic diplomacy practice. The two approaches reinforce one another, yielding a conceptualization of economic diplomacy that is grounded in practical insights.
A comprehensive approach
A core argument in the book is that economic diplomacy, strategically, affirms that economic/commercial interests and political interests reinforce one another and should thus be seen in tandem. This contrasts with the predominant approach in the transatlantic world, which attaches relatively greater importance to the military–economic linkage in the quest for influence.
The case of Japan
Japan has employed economic diplomacy as a central instrument of its foreign policy and quest for national security since the post-war period. The reconfiguration of regional and global power that started in the 1990s encouraged the Japanese government, in coordination and cooperation with the private sector, to reassess its economic diplomacy policy.
Power shifts
Economic Diplomacy: Japan and the Balance of National Interests illuminates the debates underlying these shifts, the various ways by which Japan’s reinvention of its economic diplomacy is implemented, and the consequences for Japanese foreign policy at large.
Practical relevance
The critical insights offered by the examination of Japan are pertinent for Western countries, as well as for other East Asian nations. They will be of interest to scholars and practitioners of diplomacy, international relations and international economic law and policy.
Author: Noé Cornago
Publication date: 1 June 2013
In Plural Diplomacies: Normative Predicaments and Functional Imperatives Noé Cornago asserts the need to restore the long-interrupted continuity between the relevance of diplomacy as raison de système - in a world which is much more than a world of States - and its unique value as a way to mediate the many alienations experienced by individuals and social groups. The book contends that an incursion beyond conventional understanding of diplomatic studies, into fields of knowledge such as social studies of science, psychology, critical sociology of law, or conceptual history, offers expanded potential within the field by addressing the modern complexities of global life. With particular attention to the semantics of diplomacy, pluralization of diplomacy, diplomacy within states, commodity diplomacy, and finally, antidiplomacy, 'Plural Diplomacies: Normative Predicaments and Functional Imperatives' offers a new vision of diplomacy for the twenty-first century.
Editors: Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández
Publication date: 7 February 2011
Consular Affairs and Diplomacy analyses the multifaceted nature of diplomacy’s consular dimension in international relations. It contributes to our understanding of key themes in consular affairs today, the consular challenges that are facing the three great powers—the United States, Russia and China—as well as the historical origins of the consular institution in Europe.
Consular Affairs and Diplomacy breaks new ground in the field of diplomatic studies by illustrating how consular affairs can be understood in the broader context of diplomatic practice and vice versa. As a result, the much-neglected study of the consular institution may improve our understanding of contemporary diplomacy.
Editors: Ali Fisher and Scott Lucas
Publication date: 17 December 2010
In the last decade public diplomacy has become one of the most important concepts in the development and implementation of foreign policy. Trials of Engagement: The Future of US Public Diplomacy, with contributors from leading scholars in disciplines from international relations to communications, considers the challenges for this ‘new’ public diplomacy, especially as it is pursued by the US Government. It highlights the challenges of aligning policy and projection, overcoming bureaucratic tensions, and the language used by public diplomats. Most importantly, the volume illustrates that the issues for public diplomacy are more than those of a producer seeking to win the hearts and minds of passive ‘audiences’.
Trials of Engagement portrays public diplomacy as an increasingly public project. To overcome the trials of engagement, public diplomacy must provide more than a rhetorical nod to a “two-way” process. Ultimately, a collaborative public diplomacy must be built on a broad understanding of those involved, the recognition of stakeholders as peers, and effective interaction with networks made up of traditional and new interlocutors.
Editor: Kenneth. A. Osgood
Publication date: 16 February 2010
Public diplomacy is the art of cultivating public opinion to achieve foreign policy objectives. A vital tool in contemporary statecraft, public diplomacy is also one of the most poorly understood elements of a nation’s “soft power.”
The United States and Public Diplomacy adds historical perspective to the ongoing global conversation about public diplomacy and its proper role in foreign affairs. It highlights the fact that the United States has not only been an important sponsor of public diplomacy, it also has been a frequent target of public diplomacy initiatives sponsored by others. Many of the essays in this collection look beyond Washington to explore the ways in which foreign states, non-governmental organizations, and private citizens have used public diplomacy to influence the government and people of the United States.
Author: Kathy Fitzpatrick
Publication date: 26 October 2009
Public diplomacy has never been more important in international relations. Yet, public diplomacy’s future as a valued national resource and a respected profession is far from certain. Lingering historical misperceptions and contemporary debate regarding public diplomacy’s role and value in protecting and advancing national and international interests threaten public diplomacy’s advancement on both fronts. Grounded in public relations theory and steeped in common sense, this book advances the global debate on public diplomacy’s future by documenting the intellectual and practical development of public diplomacy in the United States and analyzing key challenges ahead. The author’s fresh perspective provides compelling insights into public diplomacy's purpose and value, the conceptual foundations of the discipline, and principles of strategic practice. Based on extensive primary and secondary research, including a comprehensive survey of veteran U.S. public diplomats, the book reveals lessons learned from the U.S. experience in public diplomacy that will be critical in determining public diplomacy's fate in the United States and throughout the world.
Author: Geoffrey R. Berridge
Publication date: 31 July 2009
Since the early twentieth century the resident embassy has been supposed to be living on borrowed time. By means of an exhaustive historical account of the contribution of the British Embassy in Turkey to Britain’s diplomatic relationship with that state, this book shows this to be false. Part A analyses the evolution of the embassy as a working unit up to the First World War: the buildings, diplomats, dragomans, consular network, and communications. Part B examines how, without any radical changes except in its communications, it successfully met the heavy demands made on it in the following century, for example by playing a key role in a multitude of bilateral negotiations and providing cover to secret agents and drugs liaison officers.
Author: Jozef Bátora
Publication date: 25 July 2008
The ongoing information revolution is perceived as a profound organizational challenge for foreign ministries. Yet there is only scant empirical evidence on the nature of the change dynamics. Anchored in new institutionalist approaches in political science, this book reconceptualizes diplomacy as an institution of the modern state order and identifies its key organizing principles maintained by the global group of foreign ministries. With this conceptualization as a point of departure, the book provides a comparative analysis of information technology effects in the foreign ministries of Canada, Norway and Slovakia. The result is a comprehensive assessment of the magnitude and the direction of change in the organizational machinery of diplomacy in early 21st Century.
Author: Lorna Lloyd
Publication date: 30 May 2007
This book illuminates two familiar phenomena – diplomacy and the Commonwealth – from a new and unfamiliar angle: the atypical way in which the Commonwealth’s members came to, and continue to, engage in official relations with each other. This innovative and wide-ranging study is based on archival material from four states, interviews and correspondence with diplomats, and a wide range of secondary sources. It shows how members of an empire found it necessary to engage in diplomacy and, in so doing, created a singular, and often remarkably intimate, diplomatic system. The result is a fascinating, multidisciplinary exploration of the evolving Commonwealth and the way in which its 53 members and Ireland conduct diplomacy with one another, and in so doing have contributed a distinctive terminology to the diplomatic lexicon.
