Diplomacy and Diplomats

Author(s):  
Iver B. Neumann

The diplomat is formed in certain socially specific ways, and is defined by the role they play within certain contexts in the field of international relations. Since it is human beings, and not organizations, who practice diplomacy, the diplomats’ social traits are relevant to their work. Historically, diplomats can be defined in terms of two key social traits (class and gender) and how their roles depend on two contexts (bureaucrat/information gatherer and private/public). Before the rise of the state in Europe, envoys were usually monks. With the rise of the state, the aristocracy took over the diplomatic missions. Nonaristocrats were later allowed to assume the role of diplomats, but they needed to be trained, both as gentlemen and as diplomats. From the eighteenth century onwards, wives usually accompanied diplomats stationed abroad, though by the end of the nineteenth century, a few women came to work as typists and carry out menial chores for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). As women became legal persons through performing such labor, they later became qualified to legally serve as diplomats. Meanwhile, in terms of context, the key context change for a diplomat is from “at home” (as in “my home country”) to “abroad.” Historically, work at home is the descendant of bureaucratic service at the MFA, and work abroad of the diplomatic service.

Author(s):  
Joanne Boucher

Abstract This article examines the role of women in Hobbes's economic thought. First, I frame Hobbes's economic thought in relation to his philosophical materialism so as to underscore the extent to which Hobbes's materialism entails the insight that human beings are, by definition, productive, economic creatures. I argue that his description of the economy, even without explicit acknowledgment, necessarily positions women as crucial economic actors. I then consider the implications of this in relation to the feminist possibilities of Hobbes's gender politics. I conclude that when deliberating on this question, we face the same conundrum that is evident in all literature considering Hobbes and gender. His radical comments about women in the state of nature are undermined by his seeming indifference to the state of women in commonwealths once they are founded.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-34
Author(s):  
Maximilian Jaede

This article argues that the artificiality of Hobbesian states facilitates their coexistence and eventual reconciliation. In particular, it is suggested that international relations may be characterised by an artificial equality, which has a contrary effect to the natural equality of human beings. Unlike individuals in Hobbes’s account of the state of nature, sovereigns are not compelled to wage war out of fear and distrust, but have prudential reasons to exercise self-restraint. Ultimately rulers serve as disposable figureheads who can be replaced by a foreign invader. Thus, this article highlights the implications of Hobbes’s views on sovereignty by acquisition, which allow for states to be decomposed and reassembled in order to re-establish lasting peace. It is concluded that these findings help to explain why Hobbes does not provide something akin to modern theories of international relations, as foreign affairs appear to be reducible to a matter of either prudence or political philosophy.


2019 ◽  
pp. 165-174
Author(s):  
I. Datskiv

This article covers the main directions and results of the diplomatic activity of the first foreign minister of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic Vasyl Paneyko. The role of V. Paneyko in the partypolitical life, and the implementation of the idea of the unity of the Ukrainian lands was clarified. His nation-wide and diplomatic activities during the national liberation struggles of the Ukrainian people were thoroughly analyzed. It is noted that V. Paneyko among the Galician politicians was distinguished by theoretical and political preparation, far-sightedness and convincing position. It is noted that during the first month of his work in the foreign affairs department, he resolved two important issues: the organization of the State Secretariat of Foreign Affairs and foreign missions, and realized the idea of uniting the West Ukrainian People’s Republic with the Ukrainian People’s Republic.


Early China ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 113-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Rakita Goldin

This article discusses the several previously unknown Confucian texts discovered in 1993 in a Warring States tomb at Guodian, near Jingmen, Hubei Province. I believe that these works should be understood as doctrinal material deriving from a single tradition of Confucianism and datable to around 300 B.C. Of the surviving literature from the same period, they are closer to the Xunzi than to any other text, and anticipate several characteristic themes in Xunzi's philosophy. These are: the notion of human nature (xing 性),and the controversy over whether the source of morality is internar or “external”; the role of learning (xue 學)and habitual practice (xi 習) in moral development; the content and origin of ritual (li 禮), by which human beings accord with the Way; the conception of the ruler as the mind (xin 心) of the state; and the psychological utility of music (yue 樂) in inculcating proper values.It is especially important for scholars to take note of these connections with Xunzi, in view of the emerging trend to associate the Guodian manuscripts with Zisi, the famous grandson of Confucius, whom Xunzi bitterly criticized.


2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. H. M. Ling

AbstractAs Andrew Linklater has shown, Europeans have decreased their tolerance for, or endorsement of, violence over the centuries. Various international and domestic conventions demonstrate the point. This accomplishment rightfully deserves celebration. But herein lies the rub. While Linklater recognises the role of imperialism and colonialism in perpetrating global violence, he does not grant equal opportunity to the Rest in contributing to the world’s new moral heights. Linklater assumes, for instance, that Las Casas never talked with indigenes to realise that they, too, warrant recognition as human beings; Catholic piety alone sufficed. The West thus towers in singular triumph, embedding International Relations (IR) in what I call Hypermasculine Eurocentric Whiteness (HEW). Still, the Other retains a sense of its Self. An effervescent spirit of play enables resilience and creativity toco-produceour world-of-worlds. Come out and play!, I urge. It’s time to shed IR’s ‘tragedy’ for the sparkle within.


1993 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Simpson

This article examines the trajectory of the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo), currently the ruling party in Mozambique, focusing on the complex interplay between various factors which contributed to the metamorphoses it has undergone since its founding in 1962. Recent work in the field of international relations and historical sociology has thrown light on the rôle of the state as an administrative-coercive entity constantly cross-pressured by domestic and foreign forces, and acting simultaneously on both fronts in pursuit of advantage. While this scholarship has not focused on ruling parties per se, it is arguable that the standard government versus state dichotomy is of limited analytical value in cases such as Mozambique, where the distinction between party and state remained in practice, until recently, a constitutional nicety. When the ruling party has been institutionalised to the extent of Frelimo, and where the state has become almost an extension of the party, it is the latter that is the key variable in any explanation of political and economic change within society.


1993 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Shaw

This article offers a sociological perspective on a major conceptual issue in international relations, the question of ‘security’, and it raises major issues to do with the role of sociological concepts in international studies. For some years now, the work of sociological writers such as Skocpol, Giddens and Mann1 has attracted some interest in international studies. International theorists such as Linklater and Halliday have seen their work as offering a theoretical advance both on realism and on Marxist alternatives. At the same time, these developments have involved the paradox that, as one critic puts it, ‘current sociological theories of the state are increasingly approaching a more traditional view of the state—the state as actor model—precisely at a time when the theory of international relations is getting away from this idea and taking a more sociological form.


Author(s):  
Orlando Coutinho ◽  
◽  

The way in which an unknown virus has moved from a local to a global case, taking on a pandemic outline, has caused significant changes in the lives of all human beings. Firstly, for that reason, it is unknown, then because behind the ignorance comes mistrust and fear. Nowadays, these ingredients are - in the political-social space - substance for the biggest factors of action and decision of the actors of the power. Have we been in a war context, as some have said? Was confinement, global and so prolonged, really necessary? Was decreeing a state of emergency essential? Were the exception measures proportional? And are they reversible? This article aims, in the way of the ideas of several authors that thinking about the political philosophical role of health contexts, of exception state, and of political control of the State, in face of public health issues and not only, understand the “state of the art” in the way of governing western democracies, in the firstly, but flying over other geographies and systems as the virus has assumed global contours. And, by means of the concrete measures, politically adopted, by the different political actors, what real impacts they had on the life and the institutions working, and on the psychology of the persons individually or socially considered.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Syahrul Salam, Adi Rio Arianto, Rizky Hikmawan

<p><strong>Abstrak – </strong>Kemajuan teknologi, khususnya dibidang informasi, transportasi, dan sains, telah<strong> </strong>menciptakan evolusi peran negara sebagai aktor Hubungan Internasional (HI). Negara harus berbagi peran dengan aktor HI lainnya, seperti: organisasi internasional (OI), organisasi pemerintah/ non-pemerintah (IGOs/NGOs), kelompok epistemik, perusahaan multinasional (MNCs), dan individu. Pergeseran peran negara dalam usaha membela negara mengubah warna disiplin ilmu HI, yaitu pendekatannya. Kajian ini mendalami pergeseran peran negara dan implikasinya bagi sudut pandang HI, serta mengkaji evolusi lingkungan strategis. Hasil studi menemukan bahwa selain negara, universitas adalah salah satu calon aktor HI. Hal ini diidentifikasi melalui empat aspek berikut, yaitu: (1) aspek bela negara menuntut peran sentral (mayor) dan peran sektoral (minor) negara sebagai subyek HI dimana negara berbagi peran dengan Universitas, (2) aspek bela negara mempengaruhi pendekatan Realisme dengan perilaku anarkisnya bergeser ke pendekatan alternatif: Horizontalisme dengan perilaku gotong-royongnya, (3) aspek bela negara menuntut perubahan lingkungan strategis dari Era Global (Globalisasi) ke Era Horizontal (Horizontalisasi) atau dengan istilah “Globalinium”, dan (4) aspek bela negara menjadi krusial saat disandingkan dengan kepentingan nasional di pentas Internasional.</p><p><strong>Kata Kunci : </strong>bela negara, hubungan internasional, era horizontal, globalinium, negara, universitas</p><p><strong><em>Abstract – </em></strong><em>The development of technological in the fields of information, transportation, and science,<strong> </strong>have created the evolution of the role of the state as an actor of International Relations (IRs). States should share roles with other IRs actors, such as international organizations (IO), government/ non-governmental organizations (IGOs / NGOs), epistemic groups, multinational corporations (MNCs), and individuals. The shifting role of the state in the effort to defend a state changed the color of the discipline of IRs, particularly in its approach. This study explores the shifting role of the state and its implications to IRs paradigm, and examines the evolution of the strategic environment. The results found that beside the “state”, the “university” can be one of the IRs actors. This is identified through the following four aspects: (1) the state defense aspect demands the major role and the minor role of the state as the subject of IRs in which the State shares its role with the university, (2) the state defense aspect affects the Realism approach with the anarchy shifts to alternative approaches: Horizontalism </em><em>with its “gotong-royong”, (3) the state defending aspect demands a strategic environmental change from the Global Era (Globalization) to the Horizontal Era (Horizontalization) or with the term “Globalinium”, and (4) the state defending aspect were crucial when it juxtaposed with national interests on the international stage.</em></p><p><em><strong><em>Keywords: </em></strong><em>state defending, international relations, horizontal era, globalinium, state, university</em></em></p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 113-129
Author(s):  
V. A. Avatkov

The article considers the role of ideology and values in the formation and implementation of the current foreign policy of the Republic of Turkey. Taking into account the increasing role of regional actors such as Turkey in international politics, studying their tactics and mechanisms of influence on the global political environment is necessary to explain the further transformation of the international system.The study reveals the strengthening role of the ideology and values in world politics in general and in individual states, such as Turkey, in particular. Under the rule of the Justice and Development Party headed by the current President R.T. Erdogan the country began a gradual transition from «Kemalism», which includes the preservation of secularism, ProWestern democratic values and a gradual departure from the Ottoman heritage, to a more conservative domestic and foreign policy, characterized by the strengthening of Islamist and nationalist sentiments, as well as the transition to the policy of «neo-Ottomanism», «neo-pan-Turkism». The return of the idea of «aggrandizement» of the country to the official political discourse has affected the conduct of Turkey's foreign policy towards both the regional states and the world arena as a whole.The Republic not only began self-restoration as an autonomous actor of international relations in the eyes of the key world powers, but also started to spread its own values and ideas among the population of both the Middle East and among the states which constitute a national interest for Turkey (Russia, the post-Soviet space, etc.), thus influencing them at various levels and involving them in its orbit of influence – both politically, economically and from a humanitarian point of view.Using «hard power» abroad no longer meets the current Turkey’s policy. Instead it relies on forging humanitarian ties, combining initiatives in the cultural, educational and scientific fields to achieve a long-term influence. The Republic of Turkey is trying to spread the following values among the world community:«Justice». International relations must be just and fair. For Turkey it means conformity with its national interests.«Religious fatalism». Government actions both at home and abroad are legitimized through references to religion and fate.«Democratic values». The Republic of Turkey considers itself the most democratic state in the world and contrasts itself with “Western democracies”, which, according to the Turkish leadership, are spreading hegemony rather than democracy.«State-centrism» and collectivism. The interests of the state, society, and especially the Muslim Ummah, are placed above the values of the individual.«Traditional values». Given the Islamization and conservatism of Turkish society as a whole, traditional values also begin to play a major role in the general political discourse of the state.«Culture». Turkey also makes adjustments to the concept of «culture» in very inclusive terms, presenting its culture as a «melting pot» that can turn anything into Turkish.«Respect». In the eastern tradition, it is customary to show respect to elders, as well as neighbors and guests. Turkey uses a demonstration of respect in foreign policy instrumentally and pragmatically. An example of this is the address of the President of Turkey in relation to the leaders of other states: Nursultan Nazarbayev – «aksakal» of the Turkic world, Vladimir Putin is a «dear friend».


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