Diplomacy has been practised since the beginning of human evolution, and it carries enormous practical and symbolic value. Yet historically, it received scant academic attention. The culprit is its arcane image: it is seen by many people, including academics, as elitist and politically manipulated. Sadly this is not altogether untrue. To some or other extent, diplomacy has always been concealed from public scrutiny. It is only in recent decades that diplomatic studies have surged, driven by demands for democratic accountability and boosted by more accessible information in the public domain.
Ideationally, however, diplomacy remains a slippery notion. Many people use the term without understanding what it means and end up confusing it with a range of other concepts. Foreign policy, negotiation , international politics, even exploitative tactics such as espionage and propaganda, are frequently conflated with diplomacy. As a diplomatic practitioner-turned-academic, I am vested in the institution and rather protective of its conceptual demarcation. So let me start off by offering a definition of diplomacy , to set it apart from all other international engagements: it is a peaceful and continuous process of communication that involves international relations among states or other collectivities, on the basis of intermediation , reciprocity and formal representation . As implied by the definition, diplomacy cannot be unilateral; it exists only by mutual participation. The formal dimension is equally important, because all the prestige and interests of an international actor are at stake when it confers authority to an official representative. Under international law , states are held accountable for what their diplomats do, hence the extensive international legal framework that protects and guides the practice of diplomacy.
In international studies, the agency of individual diplomats is generally under-appreciated because their workâeven on high profile issuesâis done in a discreet, low profile manner, thereby blending into the bureaucratic âwhite noiseâ of global relations. It deserves to be studied much more attentively, because diplomats constantly weave a safety net for the preservation of international society . Consider, for a moment, the distinction made in Ancient Greece between two types of international envoys, âheralds â and âdiplomatsâ. Heralds, regardless of their status, could only convey news about imminent war . They were respected individuals, but they were only messengers. Diplomats, on the other hand, communicated messages but also had the leeway to negotiate treaties. This manoeuvring space continues to define the institution of diplomacy. Contrary to what cynics allege, diplomats have a mandate that far exceeds the simple communication of preset messages. They have to bargain, âthink out of the boxâ, create common ground, add value and engineer peace where none exists. The work is never done: new fissures appear; new generations of politicians forget the lessons learnt. The professionâs duty, and its strength, lies in its continuity of communication. After all, the world we live in is largely a product of diplomacy: the peace treaties, charters of international organisations , even the borders of sovereign states result from deals struck by diplomats. Diplomacy outlives empires and ideologies, trends and fads, and all the many ways we humans find to undermine each other.
In this book, the modalities used by diplomats will be investigated, so as to provide a framework for analysis of diplomacy. I should add that the book complements a predecessor, Global Diplomacy and International Society, which provided wider contextual perspective on diplomatic practice and theory. Theoretical, historical, legal, bureaucratic and cultural frameworks for diplomacy were variously discussed in the previous book.
I should also make it clear why the title of this book refers to Global South perspectives. Most scholarly work on diplomacy originates in the industrialised countries of the Global North . The rest of the world is yet to make a definitive mark on diplomatic studies , and as proud African and Global Southerner, I want to see this rectified. Diplomacy is truly global; it does not belong exclusively to any part of humanity, it is universally practised and universally institutionalised. For that reason, we have to study it in its totality: not just the content of what we analyse, but also the perspectives we engage. It makes practical as well as theoretical sense to do so.
Ironically, the Global South itself is still understudied in the field of international relations (IR) . This is astounding, given that it includes the bulk of humanity and the most ancient of civilisations. Yet even the name people use for the world beyond the highly industrialised Western countries is contested. The many labels (âDeveloping World â, âThird World â, âGlobal Southâ, âPeriphery â and so forth) all seem to be imprecise as a collective term, because the constituent units of the Global South are hugely dissimilar; much more so than those of the Global North. They range from desperately poor states such as Haiti and Bangladesh and failed states like Somalia ; to newly industrialising middle-income countries like Mexico and Turkey ; and even the worldâs aspirant superpower, China . While the Global South label implies that most of its members are physically located in the southern hemisphere, this is of course not necessarily the case. Australia and New Zealand are both in the southern hemisphere, but are categorised as Global North . By the same token, many states in the northern hemisphere, such as Uzbekistan , Mongolia and North Korea , are part of the Global South . The latter label is more political than geographical, but it is not an entirely subjective identity. States in the Global South tend to have unconsolidated or very uneven socio-economic development; authoritarian or only recently evolved democracies; and usually a history of colonisation . They are vulnerable to the political and economic policies of the rich industrialised states; their development dependent on access to the markets, investment and technology of the Global North. To this extent, they perceive themselves to be subjugated or dictated to; treated as second-class members of international society . The Global South is therefore mostly defined in negative terms, namely by what it is not (yet).
What this separate âworldâ has accomplished is to have inserted development onto the global diplomatic agenda. Since the first generation of development diplomacy appeared in the late 1950s, an alternative diplomatic narrative gained momentum and in todayâs world the issue of development is more âmainstreamedâ than ever before. It should be emphasised that for the Global South, diplomacy is primarily about development, the countering of asymmetry in the global economy. For the most marginalised of these countries, diplomacy is the only viable foreign policy tool with which to wage an existential struggle. Countries that lack comparative advantage in alternative foreign policy instruments, especially âhardâ military or economic power, have a disproportionately high interest in successful diplomacy to advance their national interests . At the same time, it is an unfortunate reality for many of the worldâs states that the weight of their national bargaining power is inversely proportionate to the size of their developmental needs. Their diplomats are routinely outnumbered, out-trained and out-(hard)powered in the global diplomatic arena . Often their domestic realities are as unpredictable as the dynamics within international relations .
The plight of struggling diplomats motivates me to bring their views in from the cold, not to reinforce an identity of âothernessâ but to ensure that the puzzle of diplomacy features a complete picture. Hence this book, which includes cases from around the world (not just the Global South), highlights the particular challenges experienced by struggling states .
The focus is on âcontemporaryâ diplomacy, an elastic time frame but one which I consider to indicate essentially the post-Cold War era. Nevertheless, historical elements infuse all the chapters, because an ancient, constantly evolving profession like diplomacy draws on precedent as well as innovation.
The methodological approach of the book, as mentioned, involves a modal analysis of diplomacy. I distinguish among four main modes: bilateral , multilateral , third-party and polylateral diplomacy. Diplomatic modes are determined by the number and identity of parties that are involved, and the nature of the relationship that ties them together. Modes are not mutually exclusive, and they can be conducted simultaneously.
An important clarification is that modes are not synonymous with issue specialisation in diplomacy. A plethora of issues punctuate present-day books on diplomacy: nuclear proliferation, human rights , the environment, trade, energy, migration and so forth. It is not uncommon for diplomats to specialise in an issue-field, because it requires knowledge of specific processes and jargon, and networking with exclusive epistemic communities. Foreign ministries might even recruit technical experts to become diplomats, if a given issue is a foreign policy priority. Nonetheless, whatever the specialisation, it is still practised by means of a diplomatic mode (one or more, or a combination). To illustrate: Egyptâs economic diplomacy can be bilateral (if conducted with one other state, such as Kenya ) or multilateral (if conducted with several others states simultaneously, for instance within the World Trade Organisation or Organisation of Islamic Cooperation ). It can also be polylateral, if one or more non-state parties (such as NestlĂŠ or Samsung ) collaborate in reaching the Egyptian objectives.
Like much of diplomatic theory, there is no uniformity when it comes to identification of modes. There is broad agreement that bilateral diplomacy is the oldest, most traditional form of diplomacy, and that it is distinct from a more recent practice, namely for clusters of actors to conduct âmultilateralâ diplomacy. Some authors do not include third-party diplomacy as a separate mode, on account of its indirect nature: it indicates that there is a problem between parties that prevents them from having normal diplomatic relations. Intercession by a third party is therefore required, but only on a consensual basis. In a best-case scenario, the third-party role will be short-lived: it should end when the problem is resolved and the primary parties return to a normal diplomatic relationship.
Polylateral diplomacyâwhere state and non-state actors cooperate in diplomatic processesâis absent from traditional, state-centric diplomatic literature. Contrarily, it dominates recent diplomatic texts from authors who hail from liberal democracies. Summitry , the practice where political executives interact directly and visibly, is treated as a separate diplomatic mode by authors such as Geoff Berridge; whereas I see summitry as a technique that can occur in any of the main modes. My own identification of and differentiation among four modes are simply what I perceive to be most practical for analytical purposes.
Another caveat regarding modes of diplomacy should be noted. Diplomatic practice might seem rigidly constrained by rules and tradition, but the opposite is true. It has survived and grown in scope through all the ages precisely because diplomacy evolves in tandem with international society . Polylateral diplomacy is a testimony to the influence and agency of non-state actors, and it is often used in hybrid form with other modes. When the African Union cooperates with France in post-conflict reconstruction and development in CĂ´te dâIvoire , and they outsource implementation of certain projects to the International Committee of the Red Cross , they are engaging in a hybrid of third-party, multilateral and polylateral diplomacy. The overlap between modes is indicative of a larger, integrated picture that I hope the book will reveal. Nevertheless, I separate out the modes in structuring the book, for ease of study.
Chapter 2 deals with bilateral diplomacy, the foundation of diplomatic practice as we know it, the oldest and most traditional mode, where two entities engage directly with each other. The chapterâs contents are what I term the âperennial basicsâ of diplomacy, because the principles, techniques and institutions of bilateral diplomacy are replicated in all the other modes of dipl...