Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | The SAGE Handbook of Political Science |
Editors | D Berg-Schlosser, B Badie & L Morlino |
Place of Publication | London, United Kingdom |
Publisher | SAGE Publications |
Pages | 1193-1213 |
Volume | 3 |
Edition | 1st |
ISBN (Print) | 9781526459558 |
Publication status | Published - 2020 |
Abstract
Diplomacy is conventionally understood as the processes and institutions by which the interests and identities of sovereign states are represented to one another (Wiseman and Sharp, 2017: 297). This chapter makes five inter-related arguments about diplomacy. First, ideas and practices of diplomacy have a multi-millennial history, much longer than is generally thought. Second, this long history has been characterized by perpetual and productive tension between continuity and change, with diplomacy's critics under-estimating its capacity for adaptation. Third, nowadays, traditional diplomacy, as a coherent set of state-based, distinctive practices � and the diplomats who carry it out � is not diminishing, but growing, in importance. Fourth, diplomacy has become increasingly more �complex� than at any time in history � we can now claim that in both theory and practice it is more multifaceted, involving four dimensions: traditional bilateral diplomacy (state�state relations), multilateral diplomacy (three or more states), polylateral diplomacy (state�non-state relations), and omnilateral diplomacy (relations between non-state entities).1 Fifth, and finally, Diplomatic Studies is now, in the words of the editors of The SAGE Handbook of Diplomacy, a �rich and expanding� academic subfield within the field of International Relations (Constantinou et al., 2016a: 1) and indeed within the still broader, global discipline of Political Science.