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मुख्य Diplomatic Theory of International Relations
Diplomatic Theory of International Relations
Paul Sharp
Diplomacy does not take place simply between states but wherever people live in different groups. Paul Sharp argues that the demand for diplomacy, and the need for the insights of diplomatic theory, are on the rise. In contrast to conventional texts which use international relations theories to make sense of what diplomacy and diplomats do, this book explores what diplomacy and diplomats can contribute to the big theoretical and practical debates in international relations today. Sharp identifies a diplomatic tradition of international thought premised on the way people live in groups, the differences between intra- and inter-group relations, and the perspectives which those who handle inter-group relations develop about the sorts of international disputes which occur. He argues that the lessons of diplomacy are that we should be reluctant to judge, ready to appease, and alert to the partial grounds on which most universal claims about human beings are made.
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The Oxford Handbook of International Relations (Oxford Handbooks of Political Science)
Christian Reus-Smit, Duncan Snidal
Satow's Guide to diplomatic practice
Sir Ernest Mason Satow, Lord Gore-Booth (Ed.), Desmond Pakenham
Diplomatic handbook
Feltham R.G.
Diplomatic law in a new millennium
Paul Behrens
Mamluk Cairo, a Crossroads for Embassies: Studies on Diplomacy and Diplomatics
Frédéric Bauden, Malika Dekkiche
diplomacy1035
diplomatic778
diplomats637
diplomatic theory213
international societies162
public diplomacy148
diplomatic tradition125
diplomacy and diplomats115
separateness112
rogue112
actors83
relations of separateness71
wight69
disintegration65
traditions62
identities61
rogues58
encounters58
rogue states58
basingstoke56
palgrave macmillan46
conception42
diplomatic thinking42
negotiations39
diplomat38
sovereign36
ambassadors36
rogue state35
leicester34
studies programme34
diplomatic studies34
abroad33
iraq33
diplomatic corps33
diplomatic relations32
modern diplomacy31
diplomatically30
diplomatic studies programme30
diffusion30
realist tradition30
conceptions29
state diplomacy29
watson29
contraction28
greedy28
rogue state diplomacy26
regimes25
Big History and the Future of Humanity
Fred Spier
Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith: Union, Knowledge, and Divine Presence (Oxford Early Christian Studies)
Martin Laird
Diplomatic Theory of
Diplomacy does not take place simply between states but wherever people
live in different groups. Paul Sharp argues that the demand for diplomacy,
and the need for the insights of diplomatic theory, are on the rise. In contrast
to conventional texts which use international relations theories to make
sense of what diplomacy and diplomats do, this book explores what diplomacy and diplomats can contribute to the big theoretical and practical
debates in international relations today. Paul Sharp identifies a diplomatic
tradition of international thought premised on the way people live in
groups, the differences between intra- and inter-group relations, and the
perspectives which those who handle inter-group relations develop about
the sorts of international disputes which occur. He argues that the lessons of
diplomacy are that we should be reluctant to judge, ready to appease, and
alert to the partial grounds on which most universal claims about human
beings are made.
paul sharp is Professor and Head of Political Science at the University
of Minnesota, Duluth.
Cambridge Studies in International Relations: 111
Christian Reus-Smit
Nicholas J. Wheeler
James Der Derian, Martha Finnemore, Lene Hansen, Robert Keohane,
Rachel Kerr, Colin McInnes, Jan Aart Scholte, Peter Vale,
Kees Van Der Pijl, Jutta Weldes, Jennifer Welsh, William Wohlforth
Cambridge Studies in International Relations is a joint initiative of Cambridge
University Press and the British International Studies Association (BISA). The
series will include a wide range of material, from undergraduate textbooks and
surveys to research-based monographs and collaborative volumes. The aim of the
series is to publish the best new scholarship in International Studies from Europe,
North America and the rest of the world.
Cambridge Studies in International Relations
John A. Vasquez
The war puzzle revisited
Rodney Bruce Hall
Central banking as global governance
Constructing Financial Credibility
Milja Kurki
Causation in international relations
Reclaiming causal analysis
Richard M. Price
Moral limit and possibility in world politics
Emma Haddad
The refugee in international society
Between sovereigns
Ken Booth
Theory of world security
Benjamin Miller
States, nations and the great powers
The sources of regional war and peace
Beate Jahn (ed.)
Classical theory in international relations
Andrew Linklater and Hidemi Suganami
The English School of international relations
A contemporary reassessment
Colin Wight
Agents, structures and international relations
Politics as ontology
Michael C. Williams
The realist tradition and the limits of international relations
Ivan Arreguín-Toft
How the weak win wars
A theory of asymmetric conflict
Series list continued after index
University of Minnesota, Duluth
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore,
São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
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© Paul Sharp 2009
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the
provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part
may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2009
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and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
To Janny, Patrick and Caroline
I am suggesting that after many of the more incidental features
of the case have been peeled away, we shall find at the heart of
everything a kernel of difficulty which is essentially a problem
of diplomacy as such.
Herbert Butterfield, "The Tragic Element in Modern
International Conflict," in Herbert Butterfield, History
and Human Relations, p. 26
Traditions of international thought and
the disappointments of diplomacy
Diplomacy and diplomats in the radical tradition
Diplomacy and diplomats in the rational tradition
Diplomacy and diplomats in the realist tradition
Elements of a diplomatic tradition of
international thought
The diplomatic tradition: Conditions and relations
of separateness
The diplomatic tradition: Diplomacy; diplomats
and international relations
Diplomatic understanding and international
Using the international society idea
Integration–disintegration
Expansion–contraction
Concentration–diffusion
Thinking diplomatically about international issues
Rogue state diplomacy
Greedy company diplomacy
Crazy religion diplomacy
Dumb public diplomacy
This book has had a long gestation and I owe a debt of gratitude to
many people who have had to listen to parts of the argument over
several years. I am particularly grateful to the following. Raymond
Cohen and Geoffrey Berridge, though in their different ways they may
regard this work as heresy, always provided reliable guides to what it is
possible to say about diplomacy. Iver Neumann constantly reminded
me that it is important not to keep saying the same old things in the same
old ways and that, even in diplomacy, it is possible to say things of
import without losing track of how profoundly funny life can be. Costas
Constantinou encouraged me to see how emancipating to diplomacy
and diplomatic thought it can be to see the Modern in historical terms.
His insight that diplomacy can tell us about the world drives my argument, although not always in directions with which he would agree,
James Mayall and Richard Langhorne read chapters and provided
critical advice and encouragement at important moments. And to the
anonymous external reviewers all I can say is thank you very much.
Finally, I have benefited a great deal from the intellectual legacies of
Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight. Therefore, it follows that I should
also acknowledge the work of Barry Buzan and Richard Little in reviving
the English School as an intellectual project.
When things go wrong in international affairs, we frequently find
people talking about a failure of diplomacy. When something difficult
needs to be accomplished, or when a settlement or general improvement
in international relations is in prospect, more and better diplomacy is often
called for. Newspaper and television editorials, in particular, assure us
that the elements of this or that particular international problem are quite
clear, as is the range of possible solutions. Governments have committed.
Peoples are supportive. It is now, they assert, up to the diplomats. Not
only are diplomacy and diplomats important, however, after the best part
of a century of apparent decline, the demand for both of them is currently
on the rise. It is so in the senses outlined above. It is often asserted, for
example, that foreign policy failures, especially those of the United States
(US) in the Middle East and in the "War on Terror," were in some sense
caused, or at least made worse, by a lack of effective diplomacy. We even
find those closely associated with these failures almost penitently declaring
their determination to try more diplomacy in the future. However, this rise
is also evidenced in a number of other ways. Both new countries and
aspirant ones work hard to obtain diplomatic recognition and build new
diplomatic services. New international actors seek changes in the practices
of international relations that will permit them to acquire similar sorts of
recognition and representation. Even individual people can join in some
diplomatic conversations on the Internet and create a virtual diplomatic
presence as impressive as those created by the foreign ministries and
embassies of states.
While diplomacy and diplomats are regarded as important, however,
and the demand for both is currently on the rise, quite what diplomacy
is remains a mystery. To be sure, we have a sense that it is a way in which
countries talk to and negotiate with one other. We also have images of
embassies and ambassadors, consulates and consuls, and the presence
of diplomats on a variety of public and private occasions, seated at
tables with colleagues, walking with (or slightly behind) their political
masters, caught by journalists in airport arrivals and departures, or
giving careful interviews on television. However, the distinguishing
characteristics of diplomatic practice (if there are any) remain unspecified except for a general sense that they lie outside what is regarded as
the normal range of human interactions. In the absence of this specification, therefore, diplomacy acquires the character of a magical balm-like
"political will" which, when called for and applied to a problem in
sufficient quantities, will in some mysterious way get things moving and
make things right.1
Magic and mystery or, more properly, a belief in the former and an
acceptance of the latter, certainly play a part in diplomacy's effectiveness, and the term has a talismanic quality. We consecrate attempts to
negotiate an important agreement, achieve an interest or obtain recognition, for example, as diplomacy in the hope that this will help to secure
what we want and avert what we fear. We may also identify developments that we do not want or do not like as the fruits of diplomacy as
a black art, since a talisman can be used for good and bad purposes.
In both its good and its bad applications, however, we use the term
diplomacy in the hope that it may help convince others and possibly
ourselves that a mysterious power is at work. The question arises,
therefore, is there any more to diplomacy and diplomats than this? To
say they have a talismanic quality is surely to imply that there is, for
there must be some reason why people think them powerful. Even
magicians have their own rules and magic its accounts of how and
why it works. Yet here mystery is compounded by a puzzle, for neither
the diplomats nor those who study them provide much insight into how
and why diplomacy works.
In this regard, the former may be forgiven. One does not ask conjurors how they perform their tricks. Those who study them do not get off
so easily. They certainly provide corroborative expert testimony for the
talismanic qualities of diplomacy and diplomats. Beyond this, however,
students of diplomacy tend to differ only over whether its sustaining
myths should be protected or exposed. The minority position, taken by
diplomatic historians, for example, is less interested in explaining diplomacy's mysteries as in charting the exploits of those who are said to
An example of the use of "political will" in this sense may be found in Raymond
Tanter, Rogue Regimes: Terrorism and Proliferation (New York: St. Martin's
Griffin, 1999), p. 202.
understand them without explanation. Unlike Dean Acheson, many
students of diplomacy, particularly the historically inclined, accept the
idea that the special skills of the diplomat involve a "mysterious wisdom, too arcane for the layman" which is derived from the sovereign
character of those they represent.2 In contrast, the majority position
taken by those who have escaped the archives and embraced the international world beyond the Vienna règlement approaches the mysteries
of diplomacy in a different way. The thrust of their work is to say that
the more closely one looks at diplomacy – at its history, its sociology
and its psychology – the more one comes to realize that, like fog, it
cannot properly be said to exist in the way it appears from a distance.
It consists merely of people doing the normal things like bargaining,
representing, lobbying and, of course, communicating we find in all
walks of life.
Neither buttressing diplomacy's mysteries nor seeking to normalize
the activities of diplomats is a good idea in my view. The former
involves viewing diplomacy as exclusively a state practice and diplomats through the prism of how three centuries of modern European
interstate relations were presented, and it is now both impossible and
wrong. It is impossible because it inexorably forces students of diplomacy in the minority position to defend claims at odds with a flood of
material and social facts growing stronger every day. It is wrong
because they can only manage this by ignoring more and more of the
international relations we must and ought to talk about. The majority
position in contrast, that of normalizing diplomacy, is quite possible
but still wrong. It is possible because it does involve encountering and
engaging these developments. It lets us see, for example, how more and
more people are involved in the sorts of activities which used to be the
exclusive preserve of state diplomats, and it lets us see the great
changes which have taken place in what even state diplomats actually
do. It is wrong, however, in that it suggests that diplomats are now
simply operatives, like other operatives, in the great transnational
social networks of power and influence which function both between
and within countries. Insofar as this position is adhered to, it may
Acheson's reaction described in Robert D. Schulzinger, The Making of the
Diplomatic Mind: The Training, Outlook, and Style of United States Foreign
Service Officers: 1908–1931 (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1975),
contribute to the processes by which we see and produce more people
whom we call diplomats in the world. Insofar as it denies that there is
anything particular and distinctive to diplomatic practice, however,
these diplomats will be far less effective than they might otherwise be
at delivering the sort of magic for which expert opinion calls and
which common wisdom hopes when things get difficult.
Of course, the mystery of diplomacy and source of its effectiveness do
not reside in any magical powers that people may believe it to have.
Rather, they are to be found in the distinctive ordering of familiar
understandings, values and priorities that is particular to diplomacy
as a social practice. What follows, therefore, is my attempt to make
explicit what common wisdom hopes for, namely that there is something called diplomacy that can produce desirable effects when other
ways of conducting human relations are regarded as inappropriate or
have failed. Indeed, I shall argue that it is possible to identify a specifically diplomatic tradition of international thought from which the
generation of diplomatic theory which can say interesting and useful
things about international relations and human relations in general is
Theory and international relations
To say that I am attempting diplomatic theory of international relations
requires that I say something about social theory in general and international theory in particular. What do we understand ourselves to be
doing when we engage in theorizing of this sort? There are no universal
criteria as to what constitutes good social theory. Thus, there is no single
answer to this question with which everyone will agree. In principle, as
students of international relations, we seek to understand and, perhaps,
explain the occurrence of significant phenomena in our field with the
intention of having what we have found out and what we think about it
used, more or less directly, to make the world a better place for some or
all its people. Knowledge about international relations is accumulated
by discoveries, while understanding is deepened by the interpretation
and discussion of their possible significances. In practice, however, the
processes by which theories are generated and considered are not
straightforward. No general agreement exists among those who study
international relations about what we are studying or how it should be
studied, and when attempts are made to secure general agreement in this
regard, they often produce a counter-reaction or are simply ignored.
Indeed it sometimes seems as though, beyond sub-groups of the likeminded, we barely listen to each other. As for the wider world, it takes
notice of a few of us only when we have something useful or relevant to
say to projects, or on grounds, which should often make us feel distinctly uneasy.
The implications of these observations for the question, "what are we
doing when we do International Relations (IR)?" may be captured by
imagining a social gathering of members of the attentive public in an
early fifth-century Roman provincial town.3 They are considering a
response to the barbarians soon to be at the gates. The discussion is
led off by the more policy-relevant types polarized between those who
call for more legions and those who maintain that legions are never the
answer. It soon becomes derailed, however, by someone pointing out
that, as a result of imbalances between imperial revenues and expenditures which are probably structural, more legions are simply not an
option. To which someone else adds that even if they were, it would be
no good because few people are willing to serve as soldiers anymore,
and those who do won't fight. With the benefit of distance we can see
how vital their deliberations must have seemed to the participants, and
how the proto-political economist and proto-sociologist might have
had a deeper, but not necessarily more useful, understanding of what
was going on. We can also see how little these deliberations mattered in
terms of the outcome to the crisis that prompted them (although, since
this is a book about diplomacy, the story ends with a successful parlay
which allows the barbarians to enter the town without burning it or
killing everybody). Finally, we can see whose problems attract my
attention, not, for example, the deliberations held in what I imagine to
be the gloomy, brutal encampments soon to be established outside the
All this is going on when we "do IR." We are always involved in the
world of international relations (ir/IR), whether by choice or implication. We may be influential in it, but rarely for the right reasons or in
the way that we would wish, and never decisively because ir/IR is an
I shall follow the convention of putting the academic discipline of field of study
in upper case and the practice studied in lower case. Thus, International Relations
is the study of international relations. The same convention will be followed for
abbreviations, thus IR. Abbreviations will not be used in denoting the practice
in question.
open-ended process. As to the debates one can have about which theoretical and methodological approaches to take, therefore, I have little to
say beyond declaring that I am an adherent of Smithsonian pluralism
rather than de Mesquita monism.4 There may be a best way to get at
different kinds of truths about international relations, although I am not
even sure about that, since people may differ on even how the same sort
of thing is best apprehended. I am sure, however, that there is no single
best way of getting at all of the things in which we are interested.
My own point of departure is to paraphrase one of Hedley Bull's
attempts to identify international theory. Diplomatic theory may be
understood simply as the leading ideas of diplomats and those who
study them that have contributed to our thinking about diplomacy and
international relations.5 Thus, and although they would have made
better titles, I am not offering a diplomatic theory of international
relations, still less the diplomatic theory of international relations by
which all significant international phenomena can be explained in a few
sparse and tightly related causal propositions. To be sure, my diplomatic theory attempts to generate some related propositions from these
leading thoughts about diplomacy and diplomats, but it does not seek to
capture and explain the whole world of international phenomena in
terms of these propositions. It merely asks us to explore how these
propositions might affect our view of that world and how to live in it.
For all of its apparent simplicity, however, my adaptation of Bull's
leading-thoughts-and-thinkers approach to diplomatic theory requires
further clarification. It does so because it invites us to consider at least
three types of thinking about diplomacy, in only two of which I am
Former ISA Presidents Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Steve Smith used the
opportunity provided by the bully pulpit of their presidential addresses to lay out
their sense of how the field ought to progress, the former claiming that scientific
methods generated better knowledge in terms of both yielding truths and practical
utility, the latter claiming that different approaches yielded different forms of
knowledge and that claims for the inherent superiority of one form of knowledge
over all others should be treated with great caution. See "Presidential Address by
President-Elect Bruce Bueno De Mesquita," ISA Convention, Chicago, February 22,
2001 and "Presidential Address by President-Elect Steve Smith," ISA Convention,
Portland, Oregon, February 27, 2003.
Hedley Bull, "Theory and Practice of International Relations, 1648–1789,
Introduction," in Brunello Vigezzi, The British Committee on the Theory of
International Politics (1954–1985) (Milan: Unicopli, 2005), p. 310.
First, there is what a number of people, already on the brink of closing
this book in disappointment, take to be diplomatic theory – namely the
relatively narrow and applied body of knowledge pertaining to the right
conduct of professional diplomats in their relations with one another
and other servants of the states to which they are accredited.6 Of
diplomatic theory in the narrow sense, I have nothing else to say other
than it is derived from reconciling general diplomatic assumptions with
the historically specific circumstances of the modern state system. It sets
out one way of doing diplomacy and, under certain conditions, a very
good way at that. Secondly, there is what international theorists in
Bull's sense have had to say about international relations and the
place of diplomacy and diplomats within them, that is to say diplomatic theory as a subset of international theory. I am very interested in
this, of course, but principally as a target of criticism. International
theory provides or, at least, implies theories of diplomacy, whereas
what I develop is diplomatic theory of international relations and, as it
turns out, diplomatic theory of international theory too. Thirdly, my
paraphrasing of Bull implies diplomatic theory in the sense of what
diplomats themselves have had to say about international relations.
They have had a great deal to say. However, because of their circumstances and priorities, this often appears in forms – autobiographies,
diaries and histories, for example – which do not lend themselves well
to the conversations and debates of theoretical discourse. It is my contention, nevertheless, that a coherent and distinctive set of propositions
about international relations – diplomatic theory in this third sense – can
be derived if not from the utterances of diplomats always, then from the
place which is distinctively theirs in international relations.
Outline of the argument
I begin by critiquing what the academic study of International Relations
(IR) has had to say about diplomacy and diplomats. To do so, I borrow
heavily on the English School and, in particular, on the idea of traditions
See, e.g., John Wood and Jean Serres, Diplomatic Ceremonial and Protocol:
Principles, Procedures and Practices (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970),
Elmer Plischke (ed.), Modern Diplomacy: The Art and the Artisans (Washington:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy, 1979), and, of course, Earnest
Satow, Guide to Diplomatic Practice, 2 vols. (London: Longman, 1979). From
this point, I shall not use "diplomatic theory" in this narrow sense.
of international thought associated with Martin Wight.7 This approach
assumes that when we examine inquiry and debate over time, those
engaged in it can be grouped on the basis of shared sets of assumptions
about important questions, ways of answering them, and significant
findings. It is not unproblematic for, while these traditions seem to take
on a life of their own as patterned and distinctive ways of thinking with
their own histories, this is not the case. They are always identified as
such by someone and, as such, they are always shaped by the identifier's
own priorities and way of seeing. Even Wight's own organization of the
traditions, for example, operates like one of those tilting maze games
where all movement seems complex but the slope carries you steadily in
one particular direction. Thus, traditions of thought are always contestable, often contested and significant only to the extent that they secure a
consensus from others about their usefulness and reasonableness. While
each particular tradition may be challenged, however, people do seem
drawn to the general activity of identifying traditions because doing
so and maintaining that such traditions exist seems more useful than
maintaining that they do not.
This being so, I employ Wight's schema from his essay in Diplomatic
Investigations. In this, he suggests that Western thought about international relations can be broadly organized into three great traditions.8 The
first, which he identifies as a Machiavellian or realist tradition, presents
the world in terms of interests and power. Its focus is on explaining why
the world is the way it is, why this must be so, and how to survive and
prosper in it. The second, which Wight calls the Grotian or rationalist
tradition, presents the world in terms of interests and rights. Its focus is
on exploring attempts to reform and improve international relations by
the application of reason to the problems in which their conduct results.
And the third, which he calls the Kantian or revolutionary tradition,
For useful histories of the English School see Timothy Dunne, Inventing
International Society: A history of the English School (Basingstoke: PalgraveMacmillan, 1998) and Vigezzi, The British Committee on the Theory of
International Politics (1954–1985). For an extensive bibliography of English
School research and much more see The English School website at www.leeds.ac.
uk/polis/englishschool/.
Martin Wight, "Western Values in International Relations," in Herbert Butterfield
and Martin Wight (eds.), Diplomatic Investigations (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1966), pp. 89–131 and Martin Wight (Brian Porter and Gabriele
Wright, eds.), International Theory: The Three Traditions (Leicester: Leicester
University Press/Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1991).
presents the world in terms of power and right. It proceeds from the
assumptions that the existing arrangement of relations is itself the source
of most problems, and its focus is upon how people, as moral beings or
agents of a historical process, might overthrow or transform these relations.9 In successive chapters of the first section I examine how diplomacy
and diplomats appear in the theory and practice of each of these traditions. I argue that they play important parts in all three, but ones for
which each tradition cannot fully account in its own terms. Instead, a
common theme emerges. Not only do the operations of diplomacy and
diplomats remain mysterious in all three traditions, they are also presented as disappointing, albeit in very different ways.
In the second section, I examine how diplomats look back at this world
of competing traditions of international thought making their own sense
of how it works, what may reasonably expected of it and, thus, what may
be expected of them. Again, I use the traditions of thought idea as
presented by the English School. This time, however, I rely on what
may be termed Richard Little's corollary to Wight's exposition.10 It is
tempting to regard the traditions presented above as competing or contending approaches to International Relations which are, in principle at
least, mutually exclusive. Something like the trinity appears in many
college texts, for example, as a menu from which, at some point in the
future if we are to be serious about IR, difficult choices will have to be
made.11 In Wight's approach, however, the three traditions are not
presented as contending approaches to capturing some essential truth
about international relations and the people who undertake them, nor
even as watertight intellectual traditions in themselves. As Little makes
clear, the traditions co-exist in more-or-less permanent tension with one
another as the markers of a space within which international conversations and actions are undertaken and undergo further interpretation by
theorists, practitioners and ordinary people alike.12
I will refer to these as the realist, rationalist and radical traditions from this point.
Richard Little, "The English School's Contribution to the Study of International
Relations," European Journal of International Relations, 6, 3 (2000), pp. 395–422.
See, e.g., Paul R. Viotti and Mark V. Kauppi, International Relations Theory:
Realism, Pluralism, Globalism (2nd edn.) (New York: Macmillan, 1993) and James
E. Dougherty and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., Contending Theories of International
Relations: A Comprehensive Survey (2nd edn.) (Cambridge, MA: Harper Row, 1981).
Little, "The English School's Contribution to the Study of International
Relations," pp. 395–422.
Little's corollary, I argue, makes it possible to identify a distinctive
diplomatic tradition of thought from which diplomatic theory of international relations can be developed. It does so by implying a place to
stand from which to make diplomatic sense of a world populated by
people who think about international relations and conduct them in
terms of any or all of the three traditions outlined above. At the heart of
the diplomatic tradition lies the assumption that people live not as such,
but as peoples in various sorts of groups. This plural fact both engenders
and is engendered by a value placed on living separately. The diplomatic
tradition thus presents peoples as living in conditions of separateness
from one another, and even where they are not physically separated,
a sense of separateness remains a dimension of their relationships. These
conditions give rise to a distinctive form of human relations – relations
of separateness, and diplomacy develops to manage these relations.
Those whom we regard as diplomats occupy positions between human
communities that make possible a specifically diplomatic understanding
of the world. It is an understanding that privileges the plural character of
human existence, the plural character of the ideas and arguments by
which people make sense of their lives both to themselves and to others,
and it treats as axiomatic the proposition that relations between groups
are different from those within them.
This diplomatic understanding of human relations, in its turn, makes
possible thinking diplomatically about their content, and especially
about the sorts of arguments that people get into about the world,
how it should be, and their places in it. Between groups of people,
arguments cannot be definitively settled and the balance of virtue cannot be definitively determined in the senses in which both of these are
usually understood, nor do they need to be. Thinking diplomatically,
therefore, privileges the maintenance of relations – peaceful relations at
that – over whatever those relations are purportedly about. The existence of this commitment to raison de système – keeping the whole show
going – in addition to or above raison d'état, raison de souverain or
even raison de peuple is extraordinarily difficult to establish. We get
intimations of it, however, in the paradox by which actual diplomats
are often criticized both for going against the grain of what everybody
really wants and taking the line of least resistance instead of doing the
right thing. What they are actually doing, I will argue, is attempting to
manage three sorts of diplomatic relations: encounter relations between
peoples meeting for the first time; discovery relations between peoples
seeking to find out more about, and enjoy closer relations with, each
other; and re-encounter relations where peoples stay in touch, yet keep
one another at arm's length.
I then put this diplomatic theory to work. In the third section,
I explore the possible relationships between diplomacy and diplomats,
on the one hand, and international relations and international societies
on the other. Do international relations, broadly defined, require or,
indeed, presuppose diplomacy and diplomats? They do not, I argue, but
the social character of all but the most brutal and simple of relations
between groups very quickly brings diplomacy, if not diplomats, into
existence. We should be glad that this is so because, and pace the English
School's view of diplomacy as an institution of international society, it is
diplomacy which constitutes, and diplomats (in the sense of those who
act diplomatically) who produce, the international societies which put
relations between separate groups on a more stable and peaceful footing
than they otherwise would be.13 It is perhaps in this sense that we
can finally understand Wight's striking claim made long ago that the
diplomatic system should be regarded as the master-institution of international relations14 (a claim which, as Iver Neumann notes, neither
Wight nor anyone else did much).15
I then examine what diplomatic theory can tell us about how international relations are, and might be, conducted in a variety of
The international society idea is also closely associated with the English School
on international theory. See, e.g., Hedley Bull, "Society and Anarchy in
International Relations," in Butterfield and Wight (eds.), Diplomatic
Investigations, pp. 35–50, Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: a Study of
Order in World Politics (London: Macmillan, 1977), Hedley Bull and Adam
Watson (eds.), The Expansion of International Society (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1984), Barry Buzan and Richard Little, International Systems
in World History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) and Barry Buzan,
From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social
Structure of Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Martin Wight (Hedley Bull and Carsten Holbraad, eds.), Power Politics
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979), p. 113. See Martin Wight, "The States-System
of Hellas," in Martin Wight (Hedley Bull, ed.), Systems of States (Leicester:
Leicester University Press, 1977), p. 53 for an alternative formulation of the
"master-institution" idea, "The master-institution of the modern Western statessystem is the diplomatic network of resident embassies, reciprocally exchanged."
Iver B. Neumann, "The English School on Diplomacy: Scholarly Promise
Unfulfilled," International Relations, 17, 3(2003), pp. 341–69. His argument is
foreshadowed by Alan James, "Diplomacy and Foreign Policy," Review of
International Studies, 19, 1 (1993), pp. 94–9.
international society settings. To this end, I employ continua of the sort
suggested by Adam Watson: the integration-disintegration of structures; the contraction-expansion of boundaries; and the concentrationdiffusion of power within and between international societies.16 Over
time we can chart the movements of international societies along each
of these dimensions, and at any given point in time we can identify
the clash of claims, views and interpretations of what is and ought to
be going on in these terms. What can diplomatic theory tell us about
different sorts of international societies, specifically their conduciveness
to the successful and peaceful conduct of relations between separate
groups? What can it tell us about the dynamic properties of such
societies as they undergo both quantitative and qualitative changes
that have consequences for their character and identity? I argue that a
diplomatic understanding can make an interesting contribution to our
arguments about the sorts of international societies there can be, the
sort we should want, and what is happening to the ones we have. It
suggests, however, that, except in moments when it is generally agreed
that a crisis exists or that a catastrophe has occurred, the forces shaping,
moving and transforming international societies run to their own multiple imperatives that are almost beyond apprehending, let alone control.
If this is so, then a diplomatic understanding suggests quietism, and
possibly even quiet subversion, as the best response of us all to great
projects based on the great images of the world and how it should be
which are held by many of those whom diplomats represent.
In the final section, I move from what a diplomatic understanding has
to say about the geology of international societies – the big questions of
international theory – to the light which thinking diplomatically sheds on
what people take to be the big issues of international relations and foreign
policy at any given time or place. Diplomats pride themselves on being
able to avoid or solve problems when given the chance because they have
a better grasp of how to handle what is going on than do governments,
experts, interested parties and ordinary people. I identify four big issues
which currently bother governments and people alike: rogue states;
greedy companies; crazy religions; and dumb publics, and ask what
thinking diplomatically can tell us about how each of them might be
handled. I intentionally frame these issues in terms that do not sit well
Adam Watson, The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative and
Historical Analysis (London: Routledge, 1992).
with how the business of diplomacy is traditionally conceived to suggest
they are tough cases. I also intentionally depict them in terms of agents,
actors or people, rather than problems or issues. Diplomacy is, first and
last, a set of assumptions, institutions and processes – a practice – for
handling certain kinds of relations between human beings. Thus, personalizing these issues in this way is intended to make them subjects of
diplomacy in a way in which, for example, terrorism, exploitation, intolerance and inclusive participation can never fully be.
Nevertheless, the pejorative terms in which these agents are identified
signal the extent to which each one's right and ability to participate fully
in international life are regarded as problematic by someone. Therefore,
each subject considered here, and the problems associated with them,
leads us quickly back into core arguments about international relations
that are unlikely to be settled by the application of force, reason or
revolution. However, this does not prevent human beings from trying
and, in the course of their efforts, inflicting a great deal of harm on one
another. In the conclusion, therefore, I suggest that core arguments
especially can often be handled better if they can be classed as diplomatic arguments. I examine some objections to this claim – what
happens when we avoid making moral judgments in disputes, appease
the wicked and treat all claims as partial – and consider the limits they
suggest for what diplomatic theory can accomplish. Finally, since
professional diplomats can no longer be given a monopoly over handling such arguments, I call for the expansion of diplomatic education
to match the contemporary trend of more people at all levels of society
becoming directly involved in international relations.
Traditions of international
thought and the disappointments
of diplomacy
Diplomats are often misunderstood and unappreciated.
James Lee Ray and Juliet Kaarbo, Global Politics, p. 251
Diplomacy and diplomats
in the radical tradition
What sort of places do diplomacy and diplomats occupy in each of
Wight's three traditions of international thought? I am interested
particularly in the accounts they provide of what diplomats do and
the explanations they offer for how they accomplish it. I begin with the
radical tradition partly because it is customary to leave it until last.
More importantly, it is easy to suppose that resistance to the plural
"fact" of human existence upon which my characterization of diplomacy rests will be strongest within this tradition. Why so? Our stories
of the origins of diplomacy and, indeed, international relations often
start with imagined encounters between groups of people who, until
that point, did not merely regard themselves as separate, but were
not even aware of each other's existence. As in Harold Nicolson's
version, the first moment in international relations occurs at the
point of contact between different groups. The second occurs when
they institute an exception to the general injunction to kill and eat all
outsiders in the form of immunity for heralds and messengers.1 This is
a plausible origin myth. It may capture aspects of what actually
happened on numerous occasions, and I shall make use of it below.
Nevertheless, both anthropological research into prehistoric societies
and a modest exercise of the imagination suggest that this is not the
only possible point of departure for a story about the origins of
international relations.
The anthropological record of human development, for example,
lends credence to stories of ruptured unities and the drawing apart
Harold Nicolson, Diplomacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3rd edn, 1969),
p. 6, Harold Nicolson, The Evolution of the Diplomatic Method (Leicester,
Diplomatic Studies Programme, University of Leicester, 1998), p. 2. A storehouse
of anthropological examples of diplomacy in simple and early human systems
may be found in Ragnar Numelin, The Beginnings of Diplomacy: A Sociological
Study of Intertribal and International Relations (London: Oxford University
Press and Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1950).
of human groups, as much as it does to stories of isolated groups
encountering and entering into relations with each other. And individual experience indicates that the first encounters of actual human
beings with others of their kind are always with members of "us,"
parents, siblings and relations, for example, rather than "others." The
primary separation which each of us experiences is between me and the
rest. The rest can be mapped out from the individual in concentric
circles encapsulating increasing distance in some sense, but it is by no
means clear why or how the notion of "otherness" necessarily begins
to grow stronger and develops into a sense of us and them. Why, on the
evidence from their encounters, don't people simply recognize each
other as more of us? In fact we quite often do. We tend to assume, for
example, that other people are more-or-less like us until we are given a
reason, or acquire a motive, to think otherwise.
This is illustrated when someone who has not had occasion to think
much about international relations is offered a brief explication of how
the contemporary international society is organized, the institutions
which provide it with some structure, the conventions and understandings which make these institutions possible, and the dynamics which
both make them necessary and yet constrain them. As anyone who
has taught an introduction to international relations will confirm, the
reaction of their more thoughtful novitiates is often one of disbelief.
Whether they have previously assumed the world to be a broadly peaceful place marred by only the occasional aggressor, or as some sort of
racket run for the benefit of a few at the expense of the many, the system
as it is presented to them will seem anything but natural. Rather, it may
appear as a contrived and foolish obstacle to the happiness of ordinary
people or as a sinister way of maintaining relations of oppression and
exploitation over them.
Nor are such reactions the exclusive preserve of those who have not
thought much about international relations. Some who pay a great deal
of attention to international relations are driven by what they see as the
willed and contrived awfulness of existing arrangements to argue and
work for something better. Indeed, all of us, when the logic of the states
system and the reasons of states seem to have driven us into corners with
painful consequences which no one really wants, will at least wonder
about the plural arrangements under which we live and the price we pay
for so doing. In short, and the plural fact of our existence notwithstanding, the possibility of living otherwise, arguments to that effect, and
people acting on the consequences of those arguments all exert a continuous presence in the world of international relations. They are part of
it, and only the intensity of their presence and its effects fluctuates over
time and space. It is this collection of possibilities, arguments and
actions that constitute the elements of a radical tradition in international thought and practice.2
Diplomacy and diplomats as the enemy
Between diplomacy and diplomats, on the one hand, and the practical
and political components of the radical tradition, on the other, it is both
conventional and easy to pose an antagonistic relationship. The former
seek to hold the existing world together at almost any price, while the
latter seek to tear it apart and replace it with a new one. The Irish
socialist revolutionary James Connolly, writing on diplomacy and diplomats for The Workers' Republic in 1915, gives fine expression to a
strong current of suspicion and, indeed, contempt which exists in the
radical tradition. Speaking of British diplomacy in particular, he refers
to it as "hypocrisy incarnate." He continues,
Diplomacy has a code of honour of its own, has a standard by which it tests all
things. That code has no necessary relation to the moral code, that standard
has nothing to do with the righteousness of any cause … The diplomat holds
all acts honourable which bring him success, all things are righteous which
serve his ends. If cheating is necessary, he will cheat; if lying is useful, he will
lie; if bribery helps, he will bribe; if murder serves, he will order murder; if
burglary, seduction, arson or forgery brings success nearer, all and each of
It is, perhaps, worth distinguishing here between the sorts of arguments in which
the question of whether the real or underlying "human condition" is really a plural
one or one of solidity and, indeed, solidarity, and those which use the plural "fact"
suggested by the historical record and its consequences as reasons for making
arguments and encouraging developments which emphasize the sense in which
people exist or ought to exist as a single human community. Pushed too far, of
course, the pluralism/solidarism distinction collapses, for solidarist sentiments at
one level of social organization can strengthen pluralism at another and plural
sentiments at one level can strengthen solidarist ones at another. For discussions of
these themes, see John Williams, "Pluralism, Solidarism and the Emergence of
World Society in English School Theory," International Relations, 19, 1(2005),
pp. 19–38 and Nicholas J. Wheeler and Timothy Dunne, "Hedley Bull's Pluralism
of the Intellect and Solidarism of the Will," International Affairs, 72, 1 (1996),
pp. 91–107.
these will be done … And through it all the diplomat will remain the soul of
honour – a perfect English gentleman.3
Diplomats, in this view, are defenders and beneficiaries of the present
international arrangements. It is they who, day by day, undertake the
work, practice the deceptions and create the spectacle of a world divided
into sovereign states by which the divisions or apparent divisions
between peoples and between people and their real interests are maintained. They are the enemy in two senses. First, and most obviously,
ambassadors and envoys are regarded as servants of those with power
and influence. As such, they either support or take no position on the
internal arrangements and processes by which their principals become
and remain powerful and influential. Secondly, while diplomats may
seek to advance the interests of their sovereigns at the expense of others,
and may even help prepare the ground for violence to be used to serve
these interests, they do so in such a way as to safeguard and perpetuate
the understandings and conventions which make relations between the
powerful and influential possible.
The only question then is whether or not they are important enemies.
One response is to regard them as mere ciphers, or even ornaments, of
established power, objects of resentment and subjects for kidnapping
and assassination, but little else. Another is to assign special significance to them at particular historical moments, for example, during
crises, or to see particular diplomats exerting undue influence like
favorites at court. It is then that they will tempt their principals into
taking terrible risks or shirking great moral responsibilities in order to
serve the needs of some dark conception of domestic or international
order. While they may be "enemies" of revolution, however, the overall
view is that diplomats are symptoms, not causes, of what the revolutionary is up against, and servants of the real enemy, however the latter
is viewed.
The enemy conception is often confirmed by the historical record. We
can see diplomacy playing the part suggested by it on occasions, especially in the hands of the great powers, and we can see diplomats whose
personal qualities conform to the unflattering picture Connolly paints
See James Connolly, "Diplomacy," The Workers' Republic, November 6, 1915
at www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1915/11/diplmacy.htm. Connolly's quote
would require little modification to serve as a conventional presentation of the
contemporary international terrorist.
of them. However, the enemy conception presents an incomplete picture
for, on occasions, we can hear the diplomatic representatives of great
powers sounding like revolutionaries while, sometimes, we can see
revolutionary movements represented by people who look and sound
like diplomats, even to the point of manifesting some of the vices
associated with them from within the enemy conception. I am referring, of course, to the phenomenon of revolutionary diplomats and to
the idea of revolutionary diplomacy.4 These pose problems for the
way in which diplomacy and diplomats are presented in all three
traditions of international thought but, in particular, for the radical
tradition with its enemy conception of both.
This is so, because the characteristic modus operandi within that
tradition is to present a series of characterizations of how the world is
now, contrasted unfavorably with a series of characterizations of how
it might be. Getting from the former to the latter involves big changes,
an uprooting of the established ways in which we think and act.
Revolutionary ideas and movements, nevertheless, find their expression
in organizations of human beings who are condemned to live in and
negotiate the world as it is presently organized and understood by the
people with power around them. To advance their causes and maintain
themselves these organizations require what anyone else would need to
engage in effective political or military action, whether this is material
assistance in the form of guns and money or ideational acceptance in
the form of recognition. Accordingly, revolutionary movements, most
obviously those which have been successful in seizing state power, find
they need diplomacy, and those who conduct it quickly begin to act and
sound like diplomats. From within the radical tradition, this development prompts three questions. Can those engaged in revolutionary
diplomacy avoid the pressures to accommodate with and be co-opted
by the existing order of things? Can they be used successfully to subvert
For discussions of revolutionary diplomacy (although not from revolutionary
perspectives) see David Armstrong, "Revolutionary Diplomacy," Diplomatic
Studies Programme Discussion Paper (DSPDP) (Leicester: Centre for the Study of
Diplomacy, November 1996), David Armstrong, Revolution and World Order:
The Revolutionary State in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1993) pp. 244–72, Wight, Power Politics pp. 88–9 and 117–21, and Wight,
International Theory: The Three Traditions, pp. 154–8, 173–9 and 196–205.
Wight presents revolutionary diplomacy as a perversion, but his use of Kant
to signify the revolutionary or radical tradition makes this difficult for him to
sustain.
and undermine that same order? And, most importantly of all, can
revolutionary diplomats and diplomacy play a part in creating a new
and radically different social order?
The radical tradition, revolutionary diplomacy and
the problems of accommodation and co-option
Diplomats are conventionally not trusted by many of those they represent. Do they serve their Princes, themselves, or intricate and secret
schemes of their collective concocting that they dignify with terms
like stability, order and peace? The problem of trust is even worse for
revolutionary diplomats. To begin with, those they represent are, generally speaking, a tense, suspicious and, above all, untrusting crowd.
After all, they have already rejected the conventional appearance of
things that the rest of us allow to regulate our lives. Much more
importantly, however, they are aware of how those who represent
them have to circulate in, and to a certain extent embrace, the world
they have rejected and whose roots they are committed to tearing up.
This does not matter so much for the sort of bargaining required to
negotiate the exchange of hostages and the acquisition of supplies from
friends and enemies alike. The skills required for this sort of horsetrading are not particular, or even particularly germane, to diplomacy.
Sooner or later, however, all but the most nihilistic of revolutionary
movements seeks recognition from others in the world in which they
operate. Recognition and acceptance improve one's chances of guns
and money, to be sure, but they also provide conduits by which new
ideas and principles have a chance of becoming effective in international life.
This, for revolutionary diplomats, is where the troubles begin. To
serve their principals well in this regard, they must operate effectively in
the prevailing diplomatic system amidst the material temptations and
norms of accommodation and compromise such systems usually exhibit. Conventional diplomats have to strike a balance between raison
d'état and raison de système, which they often do, with more or less
success, by maintaining a rhetorical consistency between them both and
what their principals want them to do. Revolutionary diplomats, in
contrast, have to maintain a balance between the requirements of their
movements as actors in an international society, the requirements of
those societies that make relations between their members possible, and
a revolutionary telos committed to the destruction or transformation of
both. It is a difficult juggling act, and it is also one they do not perform
very well. At least, this is the conclusion to which we are drawn if we
accept at face value the powerful story, often told, of revolutionary
movements – even those with avowedly international and transnational
objectives – being tamed and made ordinary by their engagement with
the modern international society of states which they had originally set
out to transform or overthrow.5
In the first flush of revolutionary victory, foreign ministries are
declared closed, ambassadors recalled, sacked and shot, while the secret
dealings of the old regime are exposed by a new army of direct representatives: citizen soldiers, polpreds, and people's bureaux who ransack
the archives. All this, it is declared, will put the nation and, indeed, the
world on a new course in which the conduct of international relations
will be transformed. In the end, however, it is the transformers who are
transformed or, at least, forced to conform with both the power political necessities and the diplomatic requirements of the international
society of states.6 The implication is that revolutionary movements
either fail or become state-like because, in the end, full independence
can only be achieved and exercised in a state-like manner, and a system
of states implies or dictates a very narrow range of ways of relating to
one another. If this is so, then revolutionary diplomats are simply in the
vanguard of those who come to this realization, for they work at the
interface between the revolutionary movement and the world in which
it exists, and are exposed to the full force of the latter's degenerative
effects upon their revolutionary health.
This revolutionary diplomat's version of "going native," as it were, is
a source of considerable satisfaction for those in the realist or rationalist
traditions who regard the resilience of international societies as a fact, a
David Armstrong, Revolution and World Order, develops the theme of
socialization of diplomats and those they represent into the existing order of
things. Fred Halliday, Rethinking International Relations (Vancouver: University
of British Columbia Press, 1995) provides a useful account of how socialization is
not unidirectional.
The terms "transformative" and "transformational" have considerable currency
in contemporary social theory. The use of the latter term in connection with
diplomacy by the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, however, nicely
illustrates the problem of co-option under consideration here. See Condoleezza
Rice, Transformational Diplomacy, speech given at Georgetown University,
January 18, 2006, www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/59306.htm.
good, or both.7 By the same measure, it is a source of dissatisfaction to
some in the radical tradition, confirming the weakness of mere mortals
in the face of the rewards and punishments the status quo has at its
disposal for getting its way. After all, what kind of revolutionary could
be tempted away from the privations and dangers of challenging the
existing scheme of things by the carriages, limousines and high society
of diplomatic life? Surely only one whose heart was not in it in the first
place. This is a harsh, if understandable judgment. Certainly some
revolutionary diplomats have wined and dined in the service of social
transformation with more enthusiasm than others, and some have been
corrupted by it. Not all of them have, however, and the choice which
revolutionary diplomats face is not always a stark one between venal
corruption and revolutionary purity. This is so because, as those in the
radical tradition are quick to point out, there are many different types of
revolutions for many different types of objectives.
Most of those in the last two centuries, for example, have been
primarily nationalist in character, seeking not the overthrow of international society as such but "a place among the nations" for those they
represent.8 To this end, it is not merely for tactical reasons that representatives of the Palestinian Authority today, just like the representatives of Irish nationalism in the early part of the last century, seek to
present themselves as the "normal" agents of a "normal" country. This
is what they want to be, and it is not surprising that their diplomats
should seek to act normally, even before the normal status of those they
represent has been accepted by other members of the international
society they seek to join. The revolution in these cases consists in their
being accepted, not in the transformation of the world they seek to
join, except perhaps in some of the consequences of their being accepted
into it.
"Going native" is a term from European experience with colonial officers
adopting the ways of the local peoples whom they administered. It is applied in
diplomatic life and sometimes elsewhere to those who are judged to have become
overly sympathetic to the outlook and interests of those to whom they are
accredited to the detriment of the interests of those they represent.
Patrick Keatinge, A Place Among the Nations: Issues of Irish Foreign Policy
(Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 1978) is named after a common
formulation of one of the objectives of the Irish nationalist movement. This
phrase occurs elsewhere including a book about Israel by Benjamin Netanyahu,
A Place Among the Nations: Israel and the World (New York: Bantam, 1993).
Less convincingly, perhaps, a similar argument can be advanced for
presenting as unsurprising the fate of more radical and avowedly internationalist movements like the Bolsheviks in Russia or their imitators in
China. Neither originally sought a respectable place among the nations,
seeing themselves rather as the agents of a broader process of social
transformation through revolution. However, they sought transformation through the exercise of a particular kind of power that the idea of
the modern European state expressed. Seeing power in primarily statist
terms, exponents of the Marxist-Leninist version of revolutionary communism fairly quickly accommodated themselves to many aspects of the
external exercise and representation of state power, even as they kept
their revolutionary fingers putatively crossed behind their backs. Then,
as the tides of international and transnational politics turned against
them, they became some of the strongest defenders of conventional
state practices and privileges to protect their respective revolutionary
spaces. What is a little surprising, perhaps, is that they also often
became strident, if inconsistent, defenders of all, including the most
superficial, forms and conventions of modern diplomacy.9
From a standpoint within the radical tradition, however, we are not
encouraged to look at the fate of revolutionary movements purely in
terms of their own frames of reference, and thus absorbed by the very
things they were originally against. Instead, our attention is drawn to
two themes. The first is the persistence of attempts to transform the
world – the latter's structures may appear to stand, but the battering of
transformational waves against them seems to continue unabated.
People keep trying because the problems that bother them do not go
away, but also because previous efforts have not been without results.
While these efforts may have failed in their own terms to transform
international relations, they have had a profound impact on aspects of
their content. Accommodation has always taken place on what the
terminology of contemporary negotiations calls a "two-way street."
The fact that it has brings us to the second theme, the complexities to
See, e.g., Keith Hamilton and Richard Langhorne, The Practice of Modern
Diplomacy: Its Evolution, Theory and Administration (London: Routledge, 1995)
pp. 148–53, and Armstrong, Revolution and World Order, pp. 244–72. The
Soviet and Communist Chinese attitudes to the observation of conventional
diplomatic forms are usefully contrasted and a different learning or socialization
curve into an incomplete diplomatic respectability for each of them may be
usefully postulated.
be discovered by unpacking the idea of accommodation and the part
it plays in the activities of revolutionary diplomats and diplomacy.
For while the latter may have been centrally involved in the efforts to
demonstrate that those they represent are "normal" to the rest of the
world, they have also been centrally involved in managing and representing the consequences of the fact that, in many respects, they are not.
Consider again in this regard the diplomatic representation of the
Bolsheviks and the Soviet state. Initially after the revolution, the
Bolsheviks were able to maintain three missions – in Sweden, Germany
and Switzerland. Much of their work – local and regional agitation and
propaganda – remained unchanged after the revolution, while they also
assumed many of the consular functions of their Tsarist predecessors,
working with displaced persons and on repatriation issues in particular.10 While Bolshevik cadres slid into the places, figuratively if not
always physically, of the former Tsarist missions, they all continued
to effect a delicate balance between seeking out political allies and
supporters in society at large and keeping their official hosts happy.
Madame Kollontai and Karl Radek, however, had very different conceptions of accommodation from those of their colleagues who had
been members of the old Tsarist service and retained by the Bolsheviks.
And, of course, both had a very different conception from, for example,
Mr. Dobrynin, who represented the Soviet Union in Washington in the
heyday of Soviet power. Kollontai and Radek both regarded themselves
as revolutionaries. Radek, in particular, performed a political role at
the Berlin embassy in what was initially a highly revolutionary situation,
whilst his Tsarist colleagues elsewhere sought to reconcile directives from
Petrograd with their own conception of whatever Russian foreign interests and relations might be salvaged from the upheaval. Dobrynin, in
contrast, served an apparently established state, and presented himself at
times in the classical mode, an old diplomat damping down the passions
of successive generations of political leaders whom he represented to one
another and reducing the tensions between them.11
It may be objected that these differences simply reflect the passage of
time during which the Bolsheviks evolved from a Russian revolutionary
Alfred Erich Senn, Diplomacy and Revolution: The Soviet Mission to
Switzerland, 1918 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974).
Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow's Ambassador to America's Six Cold
War Presidents (New York: Times Books, 1995).
movement with international characteristics, through a brash and insecure revisionist phase when they struggled for survival, into the established and, in diplomatic terms at least, highly conventional great power
noted above. Such an evolutionary model over-simplifies the conduct of
Soviet diplomacy, however. At times, the bourgeois formalism of Soviet
diplomatic protocol co-existed with a radical approach to intervening in
the internal affairs of other countries, whilst at others, the doctrines of,
for example, socialist and proletarian internationalism were tailored
to the power political requirements of the Soviet, Russian, state. As the
final appeals of the Soviet leadership to their peoples to follow them
down the road to Mikhail Gorbachev's "new political thinking" – a
course which involved them in a full-frontal assault on the pillars of
their own domestic and international standing – demonstrate, no full
transition from revolutionary or revisionist to status quo power was
ever completed. Now it is perfectly possible to view the Soviet diplomatic experience with accommodation either in developmental terms –
the maturation/degeneration of a successful revolutionary movement
into an established power – or in operational terms, as one tactic
among many by which power is acquired and interests advanced.
Plumping for one or the other, however, involves either forcing a
great deal of evidence into frames it does not properly fit or discounting
it completely. In point of fact, the Soviet Union was a complex entity with
multiple personalities formed by Russian historical narratives of nationbuilding, modern ideologies and technologies of state-building, and a
collective understanding of itself as being at the center of an enduring
revolutionary project with international and civilizational significance.
It was all this, not simply one dimension of it, which Soviet diplomats
had to represent.
Far from being unusual, this sort of complexity is, in fact, the norm
for most diplomats in the contemporary international society. All of
them represent entities with multiple personalities and nearly all of them
represent entities that, for one reason or another, wish to be seen as
agents of change, challenging aspects of the existing state of affairs. An
Indian diplomat, for example, simultaneously represents a regional
great power with vast potential, a national idea built upon the secular
unity of diverse religious and ethnic identities, and a set of principles by
which a political movement sought to lead an escape from the dilemmas
and horrors of a Western-inspired international politics. We can imagine how these cross-currents of identity operate in different contexts
when Indian ambassadors talk, for example, with their American colleagues in New York, are talked to by their British hosts in London, or
talk to their guests from Kathmandu or Dacca.12
To push the point beyond context to more basic elements of personal
identity, we may wonder what was going on in the mind of the Taliban
ambassador to Islamabad as he attempted to represent his movement
and its ideas to the agents of the architects of a sinful world, and talked
with them about heretical matters in heretical terms.13 And we may
reflect on how his experience compares to that of Mr. Mohammed
al-Douri, Iraq's permanent representative to the UN in 2003, when he
was summoned to the Security Council to hear its deliberations on his
country's fate.14 In the case of the Taliban ambassador, we might seek
evidence of accommodation to new conventions and expectations
about which he had previously barely thought. In the case of the Iraqi,
in contrast, we can only speculate on the radicalizing effects of seeing his
country treated as a rogue and he as its representative as such, on a man
whose job had been to epitomize respectability and propriety in the
service of Saddam Hussein.
Thus we may say that the experience of representing revolutionary
regimes or movements may pull their diplomats in multiple directions
at the same time. Sometimes they will feel pressures and, indeed, be
tempted to let themselves be co-opted into serving and reproducing the
existing scheme of things. Always they will be required to engage in
some measure of accommodation. This may amount to little more than
co-option but from within the radical tradition, we are encouraged to
think of accommodation in more complex terms. It may involve representing the multiple and, at times, unstable personalities of a revolution
to the outside world, providing a normal exterior within which a
revolutionary vortex continues to spin, or acting normally at one level
of international society while continuing to serve the vortex at another.
Useful in this regard is Kishan S. Rana, Inside Diplomacy (New Delhi: Manas
Publications, 2000).
See Paul Sharp, "Mullah Zaeef and Taliban Diplomacy," Review of International
Studies, 29, October (2003), pp. 481–98.
For a summary of events leading to the second US-led war against Iraq and
culminating in the presentation by US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the
UN Security Council, February 5, 2003, see "International Developments,
November 15 2002–February 1 2003," News Review Special Edition at
www.acronym.org.uk/textonly/dd/dd69/69nr01.htm#summ. Al-Douri's
modest part is well-captured.
The modern historical record may lead us to expect a secular trend
towards co-option, but snapshots of more recent Iranian, Taliban and
even Libyan diplomacy show all these forces in play and suggest that the
socialization of religious radicalism in the Middle East and South Asia
into the prevailing norms of contemporary international society is far
from complete. Indeed at this point, it is hard to imagine roles into
which movements like al Qaeda and Islamic Jihad could be socialized by
the present international society, even if they wanted to be. Until revolutions have run their course, therefore, and there is much to suggest
that they never completely do, the accommodation practiced by those
who represent them will be tactical, rather than strategic or existential
in its scope. Indeed, as they seek to carve out a place in an international
society and conduct relations with its members, revolutionary diplomats may also seek to undermine the foundations on which it rests and
weaken the sinews that hold it together. In multiple ways, they will play
their part in undertaking its subversion. This brings us to the second
question posed by revolutionary diplomacy and revolutionary diplomats from within the radical tradition of international thought. How
effective can they be at subverting the existing order of things? It is a
difficult question for within the tradition, the idea of subversion is
almost as problematic as those of revolutionary diplomacy and revolutionary diplomats.
The radical tradition, revolutionary diplomacy
and the idea of subversion
The idea of the revolutionary diplomat as a subversive is a familiar one.
It conjures up images of the abuse of diplomatic pouches for running
guns, drugs, money and even people on occasions, the presence of such
diplomats at demonstrations and riots, and their secret meetings with
their local sympathizers. All this is interwoven with their more conventional diplomatic life of representing, negotiating and reporting. Thus,
revolutionary diplomats are held to be subversive in two senses, in what
they actually do and how they present themselves. They are not what
they appear to be. From within the radical traditions of international
thought, however, the idea of subversion is troubling, and these troubles
are not eased, as they were in the case of accommodation, by unpacking
the idea. This is because the word subversion is seen as a politically
loaded term which privileges a particular conception of existing social
arrangements as the social order and, in so doing, confers an element of
legitimacy on that conception. It is a term more readily used by defenders and supporters of the established order than by those who seek to
overthrow it. This difficulty can be eased, however, by maintaining a
distinction between the sociological use of the term legitimacy to say
something about the extent to which people accept the social arrangements under which they live as being good and right, and the philosophical use of the term to make judgments about the claims of particular
regimes in this regard. With all but the most repressive and unrepresentative of domestic political regimes, it seems reasonable to concede that
they must enjoy a measure of legitimacy among their people in the
sociological sense and that, hence, we may speak of aspects of an attack
on this legitimacy in terms of subversion.
However, the extent to which we may apply the idea of legitimacy,
even in the sociological sense above, to international societies is not
clear. Even in their stronger forms, the latter are characterized by
rules and conventions that are permissive by domestic standards and
seem anchored by contractual commitments rather than rooted in the
unchosen obligations of membership and belonging. As a consequence,
international societies do not present big targets in terms of legitimacy
to be undermined by subversion. This point may be illustrated by
examining the activities of some of those who would clearly appear to
qualify as subversive diplomats. In so doing, I shall develop the distinction made above between diplomats who engage in subversive acts
and those who conduct the affairs of their missions in a largely correct
and appropriate manner on behalf of states or movements that are,
nevertheless, intent on overturning the existing order of an international
society. Joachim von Ribbentrop's term as ambassador to Britain, for
example, while marked by a number of professional lapses was, nevertheless, intended to present the respectable, if robust, face of Nazi
Germany to this important member of the international society and
rival great power.15 Similarly, there is little to suggest that Mr. al-Douri
above did anything other than conform to the highest standards of
diplomatic propriety (the same cannot be said of his staff). Indeed, it
was of vital importance to the regime of Saddam Hussein that he should
John Weitz, Hitler's Diplomat: The Life and Times of Joachim von Ribbentrop
(New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1992).
do so, as part of its effort to present itself as a respectable and wronged
Islamic, Arab country.
Actively subversive diplomats, in contrast, conduct themselves in
ways that are grossly inconsistent with their status as diplomats under
agreements like the Vienna Convention. Missions may orchestrate and
serve as centers of support for revolutionary political and propaganda
activity or terrorism. As we have seen, Russian embassies were used by
the Bolsheviks to hand out money and instructions to local Communists.
Chinese diplomats during the Great Cultural Revolution gained notoriety by launching direct attacks on their colleagues from other countries
and, when abroad, on the police officers of the receiving state providing
security for their missions.16 More recently, Iranian consulates have been
involved in the distribution of arms and money to their religious and
political allies in the Lebanon, Afghanistan and Muslim republics of the
former Soviet Union.
These may all be regarded as examples of subversive activity, but
the difficult question is "subversive of what?" We have two possible
answers. The first is the organizing principles of the international
society in which they are operating and the integrity of the processes
by which its affairs are conducted. The second is the ordering principles
and processes of the state to which they are accredited (and, hence,
perhaps, the existing international order). It is very hard to identify
unambiguous examples of the former. Propaganda tracts on the station
platform at Brest Litovsk, readings from the Little Red Book in Portland
Place, classes on classical Arabic and the teachings of the Ayatollah
Khomeini in Herat might all seem to qualify. However, they may be just
as easily read as attempts to advance primarily state interests by weakening the ordering principles and community bonds of rivals. The
Bolsheviks may have been seeking to undermine the idea of a world of
states by their direct approach at Brest, but they were also trying to
influence the Germans in particular and sell themselves as a political
force of a new type.17 The Iranians may be trying to undermine the idea
For useful accounts of this period in China see Kishan S. Rana, "Representing
India in the Diplomatic Corps" and J. E. Hoare, "Diplomacy in the East,"
both in Paul Sharp and Geoffrey Wiseman (eds.), The Diplomatic Corps as an
Institution of International Society (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007),
pp. 125–41 and 105–24 respectively.
For differences in emphasis between Lenin and Trotsky regarding the scope of
Bolshevik diplomacy and especially the latter's attempt to withdraw Russia
of a world of broadly secular powers by their assistance to a myriad
of groups and tendencies, but they have also been trying to advance
the interests of particular co-religionists by helping them in the hope
that they become allies or even instruments of Iranian policy. There may
be subversive consequences for an international society and its processes from the abuse of privileges like diplomatic immunity and nonintervention, but these consequences have not clearly been the primary
intentions of those who undertake such actions.
Moreover, the argument that subversive diplomacy directed at particular states also contributes to a general decline in diplomatic standards
and thus weakens international society is undermined by the fact that all
sorts of states may use their diplomats in this way if they judge the need
to be sufficiently pressing. Most embassies engage in gathering intelligence by methods other than those sanctioned by convention, international law or the expectations of the receiving state. As the activities
of the US embassy in Tehran have illustrated on several occasions, the
embassies of the great powers in their clients may take on vice-regal
characteristics in their relationship to their host governments, and
when the latter are judged to be failing may become active sources of
support and guidance for political opponents of the regime. Indeed,
on occasions coordinated efforts emerge from diplomatic corps to
advise and assist the opposition to governments collectively deemed
troublesome.18
In short, and as the popular conception of diplomats as complex,
subtle and not entirely open characters would suggest, there is a great
deal of subversive diplomacy and a great many diplomats acting as
unilaterally from the war, see John W. Wheeler-Bennett, Brest Litovsk – The
Forgotten Peace, March 1919 (London: Macmillan, 1966), especially p. 191,
"Primary Documents: Lenin's Decree on Peace, 26 October 1917" on First World
War.com, www.firstworldwar.com/source/decreeonpeace.htm and Leon
Trotsky, "Official Government Documents for the People's Commissar for
Foreign Affairs," November 1917 to March 1918, Brian Bagson, History of the
Soviet Government Documents website, www.marxist.org/archive/trotsky/
works/1918/gov.htm.
Consider, for example, the role of the diplomatic corps in the Macedonian political
crisis of 2002, the Nepalese crisis of 2005–2006, and the Paraguayan crises of
1996 and 2002. For Macedonia see Paul Sharp, "The Skopje Diplomatic Corps
and the Macedonian Political Crisis of 2001" and for Nepal see M. Humayun
Kabir, "The Kathmandu Diplomatic Corps in Search of a Role in Times of
Transformation," both in Sharp and Wiseman (eds.), The Diplomatic Corps,
pp. 197–219 and pp. 145–67 respectively.
subversives in an international society. They engage in such activities
to widely disparate ends, however. Some, but not many, may seek to
subvert international society and its processes, while others seek to
subvert the power of rivals for reasons of state or even in the name
of maintaining the particular order which exists in an international
society at any given moment. A few diplomats – revolutionary and
ordinary alike – of the more heavily co-opted variety may even present
themselves as working with their colleagues to subvert the more radical
projects of their own regimes. Insofar as diplomats engage in subversion, therefore, it is probably wise to consider such activities in terms of
a vulgar Machiavellian preoccupation with power, rather than through
the radical tradition's frame of investigating the dimensions of social
transformation and advancing specific efforts in this regard.
The radical tradition and diplomats as revolutionaries
From within the radical tradition of international thought we can see
how the accommodation practiced both by revolutionary diplomats
and their more orthodox colleagues is neither simple nor unidirectional,
how subversion is not the exclusive preserve of the former, and that how
the intent to subvert entire international societies, as opposed to their
members, is very hard to identify. These insights entail a reformulation
of the third question suggested by the tradition concerning the part
played by revolutionary diplomats and diplomacy in creating new and
radically different social orders. Instead, they encourage us to ask can
diplomats act as revolutionaries, as opposed to representing revolutionaries, and can diplomacy be seen as a revolutionary force in international affairs, rather than a means by which revolutionaries, among
others, obtain representation and conduct some of their relations?
In both empirical and theoretical terms, the answer is yes. Nearly
all contemporary diplomats, not just revolutionary ones, sometimes
engage in a great deal of talk which would seem to have revolutionary
implications for the arrangements of the present international society.
In conferences on the environment, trade, international finance, arms
control, disarmament, genocide and war crimes, for example, diplomats
are often to be found at the forefront of those calling for global solutions
to global problems. In regional organizations like the European Union
they are centrally involved in the effort to present what were once issues
requiring diplomacy between interest-driven actors as ordinary matters
of public policy to be collectively managed. In short, they engage in a
solidarist discourse and sound like agents of the various processes of
globalization said to be dissolving both our ability to live in separate
political communities and our reasons for so doing. Much of what
diplomats say in these respects may be regarded as examples of ketman,
bogus pieties expressed to serve a greater good, and such pieties have
always been a feature of diplomatic discourse.19 Insofar as they mask the
role of power, passion, interest and relative gain in the conduct of international affairs, both skepticism about them and gratitude for them is in
order. Even pieties insincerely expressed may have radical consequences,
however, for they present new points of reference and new channels in
which the old games have to be played. Insofar as they do, they deserve
Indeed, in this sense, it may be claimed that diplomacy and diplomats
have been at the heart of every profound transformation in the structures and processes of international relations that has ever taken place.
As the radical tradition makes us aware, not all revolutions are discreet
events taking place over a relatively short period of time. Indeed, even
"classic" revolutions such as those in America, Russia and China were
climaxes in processes that began long before and continued long afterwards. And some revolutions – those regarding gender, race and slavery, for example, occur over extended periods without their subjects
being fully aware of what is going on. International societies, like other
societies, may appear as settled affairs waiting from some great exogenous shock to unsettle and transform them. They are, however, sites of
continual arguments about how life is and ought to be organized. Even
when things look relatively settled, we must view them, in Butterfield's
striking image, like the arches of a great medieval cathedral – their solid,
static qualities made possible by the stresses and strains of counterpoised powerful forces which may, in this view, become unbalanced at
any moment.20
Thus, the first great "international" revolution in this broader sense,
establishing the immunity of messengers from customary rules regarding
For discussions of ketman see Sir Arthur H. Hardinge, Diplomacy in the East
(London: Jonathan Cape, 1928), p. 273, and Christopher Hitchens, "The Persian
Version," in The Atlantic Online (July/August 2006), at www.theatlantic.com/
doc/prem/200607/hitchens-persian.
For a different conception of a similar idea see Harold Garfinkel, Studies in
Ethnomethodology (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1967).
foreigners, may be told as a story about diplomats, as may the story of
how "continuous relations" of sovereigns emerged between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries in Europe, through the establishment of resident embassies and the conversations of their diplomats.
A similar claim can be made about all the great international settlements
of the modern period. Sovereigns might seek to impart general direction
to their representatives, but it was the latter who were directly and
creatively engaged in ongoing negotiations. Even if sovereigns retained
direct involvement, the nature of the negotiations arguably drew them
into behaving more like diplomats than like sovereigns. Thus, the Treaty
of Westphalia, iconically presented as a foundation agreement for the
modern state system, was actually conducted as an extended argument
about who was entitled to what sort of representation.21 Rather than
showing up as unambiguous entities merely needing to work out the
modalities of how to conduct relations with each other, modern
states emerged from negotiations conducted primarily by diplomats
at Westphalia and other conferences.22 Not all great international
settlements have transformative purposes to be sure. The Congress
of Vienna and the Treaty of Paris at the end of the Napoleonic and
Cold Wars, respectively, could be said to have been primarily restorative in their intent. Versailles, San Francisco and the various treaties of
the European Union, however, all aspired to look forward and to
deliver new international or regional political dispensations.
To the extent that diplomats are centrally involved in the processes by
which such agreements are created, framed and implemented, therefore,
it may be said that neither revolutionary diplomacy nor revolutionary
diplomats are aberrations. Revolution may be presented as the enemy of
diplomacy and diplomats as the enemy of revolution in the radical
tradition of international thought but, in fact, diplomats have acted as
agents of some of the most profound revolutions in human history. We
may reasonably expect them to be at the center of the next one. The
See Abraham de Wicquefort, L'Ambassadeur et ses Fonctions in Maurice Keens
Soper, "Abraham de Wicquefort and Diplomatic Theory," DSPDP (Leicester:
Diplomatic Studies Programme, 14, February 1996), p. 7.
Richard Langhorne, "The Development of International Conferences, 1648–1830,"
Studies in History and Politics/Etudes d'Histoire et de Politique: Special Issue,
Diplomatic Thought 1648–1815, 2 (1981/1982), pp. 61–91. See also Andreas
Osiander, The States System of Europe, 1640–1990 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
implication of some recent studies of diplomacy undertaken by theorists
working in the radical tradition is that we should not be surprised by
this. Constantinou's etymological recovery of the relationship between
the ideas of embassy and theory in journeys of discovery both of others
and self arguably puts diplomacy at the heart of projects for human
emancipation. More prosaically, perhaps, Davis-Cross suggests that
diplomatic corps may constitute epistemic communities with their
own way of seeing the world and their own solutions to problems
which, when implemented, are capable of having a profound effect
on the broader sets of relations within which they are situated.23
Diplomats, it seems, must invariably be involved in revolutions because
they work on the boundaries of, and between, human communities
which appear settled and "natural," and because they are engaged in
producing and representing the outer aspects of those communities in
such a way as to make them appear so. They are at the smoke and
mirrors end of the international business, working to maintain the
illusions which help the world go round and, like all good illusionists,
they cannot abide one which is beginning to fail, and will always be
receptive to the possibility of new ones.
Even if the radical tradition in international thought allows us to see
diplomacy and diplomats as bound up with revolution and the fates of
revolutions, however, from within it they continue to puzzle and disappoint. They do so because the activity of diplomacy involves a certain
kind of compromise and orientation to compromise in general. As we
shall see, this charge can be made from standpoints within all three
traditions. Within the radical tradition, however, it rests on two observations, one about the content of the change in which revolutionary
diplomacy has been involved, the other about the means by which these
changes have been effected.
First then, the content of the transformation in which diplomacy has
been involved is, quite simply, context-dependent. Transformation at
the time of Westphalia, for example, involved the replacement of a
single, fading political community to which ideas of empire and
Christendom had given expression with multiple political communities
Costas Constantinou, On the Way to Diplomacy (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1996) and Mai'a K. Davis Cross, The European Diplomatic
Corps: Diplomats and International Cooperation from Westphalia to Maastricht
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
of sovereign states. Transformation in the nineteenth century involved
deepening the divisions in, or the plural condition of, humanity, by
insisting on the existence of nations which were authentic, natural
and, if they were to realize their potential fully, in need of their own
sovereign states. Transformation today, in contrast, is widely presented
as involving a flow in the opposite direction; that is, from a fragmented
world of sovereign parts towards solidarist conceptions of humankind
in some emerging single political community, whether this is conceived
in imperial or civil society terms. This pendulum effect implied by the
shift from seeing revolutionary progress in pluralist terms to solidarist
terms, and possibly back again, is at odds with the progressive strain
within the radical tradition. If one is engaged with effecting changes
directed at emancipating human beings, as opposed to studying and
understanding the processes by which these changes occur, it cannot be
the case that what was wrong and unjust under one set of conditions can
be right and just under another. If one is committed to the construction
of a global, inclusive, egalitarian civil society, for example, then one can
only understand how at one point people saw the creation of national
sovereign states in emancipatory terms, one cannot agree with them.
It may be objected that counter-currents to these trends have always
existed and continue to exist today. The architects of Westphalia and
the new Europe, alike, were countered by arguments for political communities below or between states which would somehow avoid the
requirements of sovereignty, and the pluralism of national states was
countered by claims about class and, eventually, human solidarity.
However, diplomacy and diplomats, even in their revolutionary articulations, always appear to have been on the side of the big battalions
or, at least, sailing with the prevailing winds and currents of world
politics. If the revolution moved in a pluralist direction yesterday, then
so did diplomacy and diplomats. If it takes on a more solidarist character today then so too do they. Who knows what they will do tomorrow other than follow the trend? Diplomacy and diplomats may be
more open to radical change than is generally supposed. They may serve
as its agents on occasions, but it is not what they are about in the driving
sense that those within the radical tradition are interested.
Secondly, a relationship between the context-dependent character
of the changes in which revolutionary diplomacy has been involved
and the means by which revolutionary diplomats have contributed to
them can be identified. They may work in social conditions of great
indeterminacy and ambiguity, and they may be highly involved in giving
a revolutionary new shape and sense to those conditions. However, they
appear to do so, and certainly like to present themselves as doing so, by
the pragmatic application of reason to negotiations in which existing
realities are allowed to condition future possibilities. We are neither
friends nor enemies of revolutions and transformations, they seem to
say. We merely aspire to work through their consequences in as civilized
and reasonable ways as we can.
This may not be saying much. The historical record suggests that it is
perfectly possible for diplomats to facilitate murder and mayhem by
appearing civilized and applying reason and tact. And reason may be as
easily devoted to revolt as to any other ends. However, reasoning, and
particularly diplomatic reasoning, from a posited state of affairs, as
opposed to first principles, constitutes thin gruel within the radical
tradition of international thought. Whatever its potentials in theory,
in practice it is seen to encourage accommodation of the worst sort –
speaking one way and acting another – with the existing state of affairs.
At the most in this view, diplomatic reasoning can deliver modest
improvements that may only serve to put off the wholesale redevelopment required. It is for these reasons that, within the radical tradition,
diplomacy and diplomats are more easily associated with the other two
traditions. Diplomats appear to offer pleasantries, rather than speak
truth, to power and they appear to engage in what is presented as
conventional reasoning to define and address problems in conventional
ways. While they may conform to the requirements of revolution,
war and power when they must, it is when talking is allowed that the
diplomats come into their own. Thus, diplomacy and diplomats are
more easily associated with the second great current of international
thought identified by Wight: the rational or Grotian tradition. Indeed,
some are tempted to argue that diplomacy is nothing less than reason
made manifest on the international stage and that its pedigree is intrinsically and indelibly liberal.24
Maurice Keens-Soper, "The Liberal Pedigree of Diplomacy," Butterfield Papers,
University Library Cambridge (BPULC) Box 332, paper for the British
Committee on the Theory of International Politics (BCTIP) 1974.
in the rational tradition
Wight's rational tradition identifies approaches to international
thought which assume individual human beings are its proper subjects,
and that their affairs are best addressed by the application of reason,
both to the challenges and opportunities which they face, and to the
processes by which arguments over what to do about them are settled.
Put thus, it is a broad and attractive church, for who would openly
disagree with putting individuals first, and who would not prefer reason
to other methods, even of merely getting one's own way? Ask diplomats, of course, and they will tell you that, when it comes to international relations in particular, a great many people, leaders and
followers alike, subscribe to neither principle, but that they, the diplomats, are among the strongest supporters of reason in both respects.
This claim has considerable purchase. There is certainly overlap
between the habits of mind and vocabulary of the rational tradition
and the diplomatic tradition of international thought. Both are interested
in dampening passions and moderating egos by reducing ignorance and
elevating reason, and both are interested in the resolution of conflicts by
procedures that encourage fair compromises. The overlaps, however, are
apt to lead to more confusion than clarity, for the differences between
the two are considerable, especially on the question of procedures for
resolving disagreements and how they are to be established and operate.
Indeed, and notwithstanding the close links between the rational tradition and diplomacy claimed by theorists and practitioners alike, a good
case can be made for saying that of the three established traditions, it
is the rational one that has the least to say about diplomacy per se. Its
proponents simply assume diplomacy, or good diplomacy, to be an
expression of the sort of conduct they regard as wise and virtuous. The
result is much misunderstanding and unhappiness on both sides when the
rational tradition and diplomacy part company, especially as they seem
to have now over the extent to which the plural condition of humanity
may be regarded as natural, necessary or desirable.
The rational tradition and the growth of reason
and reasonableness
As with the radical tradition, it is helpful to employ the anthropological
fiction of the first encounter between human groups to establish its key
assumptions regarding diplomacy and diplomats. In the rational tradition, the significant moment does not occur when people develop, or
have imposed upon them, a notion of otherness. Given the empirical
and moral primacy accorded to individuals, the notion of separateness,
if not otherness exactly, is taken as a given. The significant moment
occurs, therefore, when one or both the parties to s

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