Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Cocktails and Daggers in Diplomacy's Courtly World

A History of Diplomacy

By Jeremy Black,
Reaktion Books, 312pp.
Reviewed: 15 May, 2010

From early historic times, the written records of Hittite and Egyptian empires give detailed descriptions of the protocols and ceremonies for the reception of foreign envoys, to ensure that relations between competing states and individual rulers should not be more violent, nor costly, than necessary.

Diplomacy is the function and culture of mutually-recognised arrangements to mediate communication between states. Black tracks the development of diplomacy as a specialist profession; the continuing tug-of-war between ideology, idealism and realism affecting diplomatic relations; and the modern complexity caused by growth of numbers and kinds of states that need to be accommodated in any national or international diplomatic practice.
Envoys used to be personal representatives of an individual sovereign. Ambassadors had to put up a display of pomp and conspicuous life-style at least as grand as their competitors at a foreign court. Scandals and even traffic accidents arose from diplomats vying for protocol precedence.
Diplomatic privileges and immunities have had many functions apart from the protection of foreign legates. Amongst them was royal shopping – Louis XV of France ordered hunting dogs and condoms to be delivered from London, through diplomatic channels.
The slow evolution of states, from absolute monarchies toward versions of electoral democracy, has in many ways complicated the lives of diplomats, though rendering them generally less liable to be beheaded for a failed mission or a protocol blunder.
Contested sovereignty and claims for independence have always created problems on the status of representation and recognition – current glaring examples are Taiwan and Palestine. 
Resident diplomats still have a very practical role in providing information and intelligence to their home government, aided by conventions such as immunity from local laws. Increasingly, they are also called upon to participate in forms of public relations activity that would been unthinkable in earlier times, when diplomats were a privileged, often secretive, elite.
For most of history, Empires and hegemonic powers have played a significant role in managing conflicts between lesser states. Now, an interdependant, globalized world is supposedly organized into almost two hundred sovereign states enjoying nominally equal status, in fora such as the United Nations or World Trade Organisation.
Black considers the greatest weakness of diplomacy to be inability to resolve differences that are ideological, religious, or otherwise irrational. Diplomacy should deliver outcomes of most advantage to most parties – and that requires compromise. Neither Jihadists nor Neo-Cons may see the point.
Diplomacy faces future challenges from rising powers, such as China, that may see advantage in repudiating “Western” notions of international diplomatic practice. But Black suggests that the tested methods and conventions of diplomacy remain a vital tool as, at least, one of several tracks for managing the relations between sovereign powers. The specialist understanding of local nuance can be the difference between conflict and resolution.

Richard Thwaites spent many years on the fringes of the diplomatic world, as observer and as participant

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