Fringe Players and the Diplomatic Order

The 'New' Heteronomy

Kenneth A. Loparo, Jozef Bátora

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780230363939
• eBook ISBN: 9781137314697
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Diplomacy & Treaties
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book analyzes ways how three fringe players of the modern diplomatic order - the Holy See, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and the EU – have been accommodated within that order, revealing that the modern diplomatic order is less state-centric than conventionally assumed and is instead better conceived of as a heteronomy.

1

Social Scientific Conceptualizations of Diplomacy

Introduction

Most theorists of IR seem to agree that diplomacy is one of the core institutions of the state order or at least a set of rules that regularize interactions between actors in the international system. This general insight was most concisely formulated by the authors of the English school in the second half of the 20th century (Wight et al. 1966; Wight 1977; Bull 1977; Watson 1982). As Wight (1977:53) argued, “diplomacy is the system and the art of communication between powers. The diplomatic system is the master-institution of international relations.” But the authors of the English school remained relatively vague as to how the institution was formed, how it is maintained and how it changes. We agree with Neumann’s (2002a:1) observation that in order to understand and explain the nature of stability and change of diplomacy, we need to connect the insights of the English School with broader social science theorizing of social change. This is the reason why in our approach we do not focus on what many consider the classics of diplomacy studies such as the work of Henry Kissinger (1995) or earlier works by Harold Nicolson ([1939] 1988) or Ernest Satow (1917). These works and their important academic corollaries in the form of studies by Berridge (1995) are anchored in empirical observations by statesmen and former practitioners of diplomacy, who provide excellent insights into the workings of the diplomatic apparatus, diplomatic practices and habits, characteristics and personal qualifications of diplomats, as well as uses of diplomatic strategies and tactics in actual situations pertaining to specific events in world politics. However, the usefulness of such works is limited for analyzing stability and change of diplomacy as a profoundly social and institutionalized set of practices. As Sending, Pouliot and Neumann (2011:530–532) argue, these works provide mostly empirically inspired prescriptive accounts of diplomatic practices and an ideal-typical self-understanding of diplomats themselves. Given its lack of distance from diplomacy, this literature is less useful for studies of stability and change in and of diplomacy.

Along with Sending, Pouliot and Neumann (ibid.:533–534), we are also skeptical of the prospects of finding such analytical tools in the so called “new diplomacy” literature. It seeks to identify change of diplomacy descriptively by identifying new actors, agendas and practices (e.g., Cooper, English and Thakur 2002; Riordan 2002; Cooper 2008). As Sharp (2009) argues, the challenge with this is that merely describing the actorness and influence of NGOs and other kinds of new diplomatic actors does not reveal much about the relative stability and change of diplomacy as an institutionalized system of practices and relations.¹

While Sending, Pouliot and Neumann (2011) do pinpoint the shortcomings of the two above mentioned strands of literature on diplomacy, they provide relatively little in terms of developing a coherent analytical framework that would help to actually remedy these shortcomings. Indeed, they note almost in passing that diplomacy is an institution and discuss two dimensions along which one could study the changing ways of how diplomacy is performed and thereby identify ways of change of diplomacy as an institution over time (ibid.:536–541). Yet, while they do consider diplomacy an institution that is to be studied for its patterns of stability and change, somewhat surprisingly, they do not consult any social scientific literature on institutions and their change. Our point is to continue where they stop and actually take the notion of diplomacy as an institution seriously. This means also taking up the old concern with diplomacy as an institution present in the English school at least since Wight (1977) and possibly earlier. We argue that to conceptualize diplomacy as an institution and explore its patterns of stability and change, it is useful to delve into some of the theorizing on institutions developed in political science, organization theory and sociology since the 1950s.

Reading the literature on the formation of the modern state order and diplomacy as one of its key institutions, we find that institutionalist theoretical arguments have found their way into some of the core contributions to the debate. Exploring the contributions, we can find interpretations using various kinds of institutionalist arguments to theorize emergence, maintenance and change of diplomacy. Also there are different visions about how to study diplomacy, that is, what do we need to look for to explore and at what level to capture the characteristics and change of diplomacy. Broadly speaking, there are at least three kinds of approaches focusing respectively on the role of selection processes and environmental pressures (e.g., Spruyt 1994), on the role of individual practices and action patterns among collectives of individuals (Pouliot 2008; Seabrooke 2011) and, finally, on the role of structural factors (Ruggie 1993). In what follows, some of the key contributions are reviewed and grouped according to their basic approach. This lays the groundwork for our subsequent conceptualization of diplomacy as a three dimensional institution anchored in organization theory oriented to new institutionalism.

The environmental fitness explanation

The use of social evolutionary theories for explanation of institutional change has been increasingly popular in social and economic sciences (Tang 2012; Knudsen 2000; Nelson 1995; Nelson and Winter 1982; Hodgson 1995; Haveman and Rao 1997; David 1994; Hallpike 1986; Angner 2002; Alchian 1950).² Direct parallels with a biological evolutionary approach have been made clear in this regard:

As a social evolutionary theory, the general theory can explain human progress neatly. Just as the biological evolutionary approach explains adaptation or fitness, which is equivalent welfare improving in social evolution, via the mechanisms of variation-selection-inheritance, a social evolutionary approach explains social progress via the same mechanisms. (Tang 2012:44)

Specifically in the field of International Relations, social evolutionary theory has been applied to issue areas such as war and ethnic conflict (Thayer 2004), the resolution of the offence vs. defense realist debate (Tang 2010), US military interventionism (Tang and Long 2011), shifts from non-state societies to states to networks, and the historical prevalence of state form over institutional competitors (Spruyt 1994a, b). It is especially Spruyt’s scholarship which is greatly relevant for our purposes of discussion concerning the supposed link between an evolutionary fitness explanation, modern system of sovereign states and its one attribute: the institution of diplomacy.

In a seminal article and a book on the rise of the modern territorial state as the dominant mode of political organization, Hendrik Spruyt (1994a, b) argues that this dominance is the result of territorial states outperforming alternative forms such as city states and city leagues. In his interpretation, modern territorial states came to be more efficient than the alternative forms in extracting taxes, standardizing coinage and other measures and ultimately in waging war. The result was gradual defection of actors towards the territorial statehood model and/or transformation of alternative forms of governance towards this newly dominant way of organizing rule and governance. Once the environment of political governance had changed so profoundly that being a sovereign state came to be considered the standard, alternative forms of governance were gradually selected away and eventually eliminated.

Spruyt presents what he calls a non-linear view of evolutionary change which is informed by the scholarship of Stephen Jay Gould (evolutionary developmental biology) and Fernand Braudel (the Annales School of history). The relevance of Gould for Spruyt’s argument lies in the notion of the so-called punctuated equilibrium which he co-developed with Niles Eldredge (1972). The general idea of punctuated equilibrium consists in the assertion that classical (Darwinian) evolutionary biology conventionally put too much emphasis on gradualism and that the majority of species remain in stasis for most of their geological history and further specialize only in the event of several evolutionary challenges (external pressure). In the words of Gould and Eldredge (1972:84), “[t]he history of life is not one of stately unfolding, but a story of homeostatic equilibria, disturbed only ‘rarely’ (i.e., rather often in the fullness of time) by rapid and episodic events of speciation.”

With regard to punctuated equilibrium, Spruyt embraces the perspective of a relatively clean evolutionary rupture: “Whatever forms survive are not explained by reference to the types preceding the exogenous shock but by reference to the new environment and the now simultaneously existing forms which emerged after the shock.” Spruyt reserves the explanatory place of punctuated equilibrium for the first phase of his causal model. Expansion of international trade is understood as an “independent variable” (Spruyt 1994b:27) and the cause of broad-based external change which in turn leads to internal repercussions, especially the emergence of political coalitions based on new material interests and conceptual frameworks.³ Rational choice theory is thus used to complement the notion of punctuated equilibrium.

The second phase of Spruyt’s causal model is concerned with the selection of previously emerging types of political units: both by systemic pressure and by social choice, that is again the combination of social evolutionary approach and rational choice theory. Specifically, Spruyt’s understanding of evolutionary change is based on the notion of perfect efficiency and effectiveness of political units, that is, dynamics of competitive advantage (Spruyt 1994b:15). As Spruyt puts it, “[o]nce new unit types have been generated, they operate in competition with others” (ibid.:15). This is the basis for Spruyt’s multilinear approach: an examination of fortunes of different actors within the same historical period, including their ability to use diplomacy to their own advantages (see below).

In addition to Spruyt’s specific application of Gould and Eldredge’s concept of punctuated equilibrium, his use of Braudel boils down to the use of his three levels of change: instant, cyclical and long durée. According to Spruyt (1994b:23), they relate to opposite ends of the agency-structure composite: “Change on international relations might be categorized as interaction change, rank order change, or change in the constitutive units.” While interaction change (i.e., instant change) is reserved (problematically, see the critique below) for diplomatic practices, rank order change (i.e., cyclical change) is represented by hegemonic shifts, and change in the constitutive units (i.e., long durée change) is portrayed as the emergence, competition and eventual predominance of the most efficient and effective political form. For a detailed understanding of Spruyt’s reasoning, the full citation is in order:

Interaction change, the change of diplomatic practices, is the most susceptible to individual decision making. Such practices are influenced by the presence of particular decision makers and by specific strategic choices. By contrast, shifts in the distribution of capabilities occur less frequently. Changes in relative power, and the subsequent challenges to the existing rank order by ascending powers, occur, by some accounts, every century or century and a half. Such changes might correspond with periodic cycles in the economy. Finally, unit change, for example, the change from city-states to empires, or from empires to feudal organization, occurs the least often. When a particular type of unit comes to dominate the international system, it transforms the deep structure of the system. The more frequent changes in interactions and rank order occur without affecting the particular character of this deep structure. For example, diplomatic practices and the rank order of states have changed in the past decades, but all this happened without affecting of a system of sovereign, territorial states. (Spruyt 1994b:23)

As the above quote suggests, Spruyt does not view diplomacy as a full-fledged institution, but rather a set of diplomatic practices for which “shallower” levels of international milieu are reserved. Since his perception of diplomacy is about interactions between and among individual statesmen and diplomats, it could be tempting to subsume Spruyt under the second discussed approach to modern state system and diplomacy (the actors and practices explanation).

Three points should be emphasized here in order to understand Spruyt as the primary example of the social evolutionary approach. First, Spruyt is mainly concerned with deep and long-term change of the international system and in doing so focuses on the emergence and predominance of the sovereign state over its institutional competitors. In other words, while he is indeed interested in diplomacy, it is mainly a rational-choice understanding of diplomacy through coalition-formation, bargaining and political recognition (he particularly follows Putnam 1988). Put differently, since diplomacy is not seen as a specific institution, but rather as a centralized gatekeeping tool of newly formed political units, it cannot be linked to the discussion of social evolutionary change per se.⁴ This can be seen when Spruyt tackles adaptation to environmental demands in the context of evolving units in the international system but never in the context of diplomacy (see Spruyt 1994b:188). Second, Spruyt clearly links the existence of modern diplomacy to the principle means through which the modern state-based system was maintained as an increasingly exclusive enterprise. The notion of the state system being a self-selecting system in which only the same types of actors (sovereign states) would be accepted by their peers delimits the role and relevance of diplomacy in Spruyt’s account (ibid.:155). Finally, unlike the second approach discussed in this chapter, Spruyt’s interactionist view of diplomacy is seen as a particular facet to and a function of robust, institutionalist accounts of social evolution at the level of the international system. Indeed, that has posed significant limits to what diplomatic interactions can achieve in Spruyt’s approach, and especially how they can be transformed over time due to changes in diplomatic practices themselves, rather than changes in the external environment on which they have been contingent.

Consequently, reading Spruyt’s arguments with a focus on the change dynamics in diplomacy, we would find a gradual transformation from a multifaceted order featuring various kinds of actors and multiple forms of diplomatic interactions towards a system in which only territorial sovereigns (usually kings) would claim the right to conduct diplomatic relations. In the newly formed territorial states such as France and England, kings gradually monopolized the conduct of diplomacy (Spruyt 1994:542). Hence, for instance the French king claimed during the Hundred Years War that only he was allowed to negotiate with the English.⁵ Kings hence effectively sought to take on the role of gatekeepers separating the domestic sphere of their territorial realm from the foreign sphere (ibid.). Conduct of diplomacy was different in city leagues and in city states. City leagues had difficulties in making credible commitments when engaging in diplomatic negotiations with other powers. This related to the fact that member cities would often defect from joint actions of the League and free-riding was quite common. External powers would often make agreements and negotiate treaties with individual cities or sub-groups of cities, which put the League as such on the side-line. Moreover, leagues had no clear external borders and would continue adding in new member cities (ibid.:544–545). City states as the next competing form were similar to territorial states in their conduct of diplomatic affairs in that they had clearly demarcated boundaries and could negotiate with outside powers in a relatively unified manner. However, their internal set-up was characterized by a multitude of standards of legal codes and coins and measures, which Tilly (1990:21, cf. Spruyt 1994:547) referred to as “fragmented sovereignties.” Here, various segments within city states conducted their own diplomatic relations in a fragmented manner.

Eventually, city leagues and city states were eliminated by what Spruyt (ibid.:546) refers to as “‘Darwinian’ selective processes” where individuals and cities joined or became what came to be perceived as a superior form of political governance, that is, territorial sovereign states. This became the property of the new environment with virtually all units gradually shifting towards this new form. As territorial statehood became the new standard, territorial sovereign states preferred other territorial states in their mutual diplomatic interaction. As Spruyt (ibid.:550) argues,

sovereign authorities also reduced the problems facing transboundary trade by providing for clear focal points through which to negotiate. Such rulers, moreover, could more credibly commit their subjects to long-term agreements. Hence states had good reasons to prefer like units, that is, other sovereign territorial states, in their environment. Consequently, individuals had reasons to mimic those successful institutions and to shift loyalties. Individuals emulated what they perceived to be successful arrangements in order to reduce uncertainty and gain legitimacy.

This isomorphic change and mimicry (cf. DiMaggio and Powell 1991) towards the prevailing territorial state model is one of the explanations why so many small states (i.e., former city states or members cities of city leagues such as Bremen or Hamburg) continued as legitimate members of the system of modern (territorial) states – they fit the new standards in the environment. As sovereign states became the core constitutive elements of the environment in which diplomacy was conducted, diplomacy had adapted to the pressures of the environment and was shaped accordingly.

In sum, diplomacy had different features in an early medieval environment in which territorial states, city leagues and city states competed than in a later type of environment dominated by territorial states. Seen from this perspective, the key factor in analyzing the change of the institution of diplomacy is to identify shifts in the environment where diplomacy is being conducted. Put differently, the form diplomacy takes on as an institution is a reflection of the properties of the environment in which it is being conducted.

Extending this line of argumentation into the current debates on the changing nature of diplomacy, we find arguments that see the change dynamics through the prism of environmental determinism. Some of the literature exploring the impacts of the “information age” on diplomacy is a case in point. Here, the established institutional structures of diplomacy are depicted as increasingly inadequate in a rapidly changing global environment where interactions between various actors follow a multitude of new patters by and large enabled by new information technologies.⁶ Following this logic of argumentation and placing a premium on the rapidly changing environment, a number of academic st...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1  Social Scientific Conceptualizations of Diplomacy
• 2  Diplomacy as an Institution Embedded in Environments, Structures and Practices
• 3  Studying Liminality and Fringe Players in the Modern Diplomatic Order
• 4  The Holy See: Global Borderless Sovereignty and Double-Hatted Diplomats
• 5  The Sovereign Military Order of Malta: Extraordinary Resilience Meets Chance
• 6  The European Union: Bending the Rules to Fit in
• 7  Conclusion – Liminality, Co-existing Diplomatic Orders and the “New” Diplomatic Heteronomy
• Notes
• References
• Index