Geographies of Diplomacy

Geography ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Spatial Dynamics ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
The Core ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Building Process ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Spatial Dimensions ◽  
External Actors

From the micro-geographies of specific diplomatic sites to the global imaginations of world politics that inform diplomatic relations, diplomacy has countless spatial dimensions. In recent years, scholars from various disciplines, including geography and International Relations (IR), have begun the task of critically engaging with geographical questions that diplomacy raises. At the core of this endeavor is foregrounding the often overlooked significance of space in diplomatic practice. At a micro-scale, diplomacy is comprised of a collection of activities and materials that are necessarily located somewhere in space. These specific “sites” of diplomacy have their own spatial organization—from the seating plan of a state dinner to the offices and corridors of embassies and foreign ministries—and these locations are shaped by their unique micro-geographies. The spatial dynamics of both spectacular and mundane diplomatic sites have led scholars to draw on the core geographical concept of “place” in analyzing diplomatic practice. Location has an emotional and affective agency that influences our perception of events; decisions as to where diplomacy takes place are as significant as the diplomatic actions themselves. Beyond specific sites, scholars have also considered how diplomacy plays a much wider role in the spatialization of world politics. First, diplomacy is an act closely associated with the functionality of the state. Performing the capacity to represent a polity through engagement with external actors is a legitimacy-building process and a key tool of statecraft. Second, the act of diplomacy also has transformative potential. Encounters between states that take place in diplomatic settings can mediate disputes, ignite arguments, and generally reshape how relations between actors are imagined. Research into the geographies of diplomacy benefits from a great breadth of perspectives. At a time when technological innovation and forces of globalization have given rise to “new” diplomatic actors and practices, multiple disciplinary perspectives have highlighted the changing spatial dynamics of diplomacy. In particular, innovative theoretical and methodological approaches have been developed to study alternative diplomatic actors both “above” and “below” the state. This challenge to traditional notions of who and what might be considered as diplomatic actors suggests that scholarly work on the geographies of diplomacy sits at the forefront of engagement with the rapidly changing terrain of contemporary diplomatic practice. The works included in this bibliography were selected to reflect current trends in this vibrant and rapidly evolving subfield. They are, however, only a sample of the wider work associated with the geographies of diplomacy and should be seen as a starting point for engagement with the literature.

Introduction: Questioning the Punitive Paradox

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Insa Lee Koch
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
The State ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Popular Support ◽  
The Core ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
State Coercion

The introduction starts with what many have seen as a worrying paradox: the illiberal turn that liberal democracies have taken with, or perhaps because of, popular support. While commentators have focused on ‘why’ liberal democracy has taken an illiberal turn, the book proposes an alternative starting point that focuses on the ‘how’ and the ‘what’: what democracy means to some of Britain’s most marginalized citizens in the first place and how these citizens engage with the state. It is by shifting the analytical focus to these questions that a more encompassing legacy of state coercion than commonly acknowledged in narratives of the punitive turn can be brought into focus, as well as the possibility of its critique and subversion. The introduction sets out council estates as a historical and ethnographic setting for such a project, outlines the methodology, and introduces the anthropological framework at the core of the book.

Transnational Relations and World Politics: An Introduction

1971 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph S. Nye ◽  
Robert O. Keohane
Keyword(s):  
International Politics ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Basic Unit ◽  
Transnational Relations ◽  
The Core ◽  
Unit Of Action

Students and practitioners of international politics have traditionally concentrated their attention on relationships between states. The state, regarded as an actor with purposes and power, is the basic unit of action; its main agents are the diplomat and soldier. The interplay of govern-mental policies yields the pattern of behavior that students of international politics attempt to understand and that practitioners attempt to adjust to or control. Since force, violence, and threats thereof are at the core of this interplay, the struggle for power, whether as end or necessary means, is the distinguishing mark of politics among nations. Most political scientists and many diplomats seem to accept this view of reality, and a state-centric view of world affairs prevails.

scholarly journals IN NETWORK: THE CASE FOR DECOLONIAL JEWISH THOUGHT

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-171
Author(s):  
Santiago Slabodsky
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Critical Thought ◽  
The Core ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Spatial Dimensions ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Jewish Intellectuals ◽  
Critical Process ◽  
Blind Spots

In this article I take the blind spots in the liberal interpretation of modern Jewish thought as a starting point to argue for the necessity of adopting a decolonial framework for situating the critical thrust of Jewish intellectuals. I contend that this innovative approach illuminates the existential condition that became the driving force behind the articulation of Jewish subversions of modernity. While most liberal interpreters situate these as a result of the development of the nation-state, I show that this presumption of nineteenth/twentieth centuries (European) Jews leading the critical process ignores centuries of struggles and reproduces Eurocentric liberating qualities. As such it limits critical thought to the same spatial context where oppressive discourses emerged. As an alternative I contend that the critical thrust of Jewish thought is the outcome of a more long-standing process known as coloniality and encompassing the patterns of domination that developed in colonial contexts but exceeded their temporal and spatial dimensions. This process is traced back to the sixteenth century, when Jewish intellectuals became one group among other racialized collectives to attack the core of a 500 years-long process. I conclude by claiming that this framework can offer an invigoration of the field by re-evaluating disciplinary alliances, methodological frames, and geopolitical sensitivities.

Republicanism and International Political Theory

2018 ◽  
pp. 625-638
Author(s):  
Steven Slaughter
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
The Core ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
Republican Theory ◽  
The Way

In recent decades republican political theory has gone through a significant revival in the form of neo-Roman republicanism, as chiefly articulated by Philip Pettit. Despite this revival, International Political Theory has tended to overlook republican political theory, and the international dimensions of republicanism are still a subject of debate. Yet at the core of republicanism is the idea that the citizen is central to the way that power and liberty can be institutionalized in both domestic and world politics. This chapter contends that republican theory needs to complement the institutional and constitutional account of republican government exemplified by Pettit, with a greater focus on republican citizenship and the variegated civic efforts conducted by citizens and activists to promote liberty in the context of globalization. This broader consideration of citizens acting both through and beyond the state also requires engagement with critical forms of political theory.

Book review: Beyond Globalization: Capitalism, Territoriality and the International Relations of Modernity, written by Hannes LacherBook review: Marxism and World Politics: Contesting Global Capitalism, written by Alexander Anievas

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 477-504
Author(s):  
Daniel R. McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Excellent Starting Point ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Marxist Approach ◽  
Ongoing Development

This article will discuss the ongoing development of a Marxist theory of international relations. Examining the work of Hannes Lacher and that of the contributors toMarxism and World Politicsreveals an overarching concern amongst this group of scholars to engage with the central concerns of the discipline of International Relations – the nature of the state, anarchy, and war. Their analysis provides an excellent starting point for the development of a Marxist approach to international relations.

Communication, Ideology, and Democratic Theory

1990 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
James F. Bohman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Communicative Action ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Fourth Condition ◽  
The Core ◽  
Theory Of Communicative Action ◽  
Starting Point

Using Habermas' theory of communicative action and his remarks on the legitimacy of the state under modern social conditions as a starting point, I combine normative democratic theory with the critique of ideology. I first outline four necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions of communication for democratic decision making: such agreements must (1) be formally and procedurally correct, (2) be cognitively adequate, (3) concern issues on which consensus or compromise can be reached, and (4) be free of ideology. The first three conditions form the core of a normative democratic theory, one that is not purely procedural, as many have argued it is. I then discuss the fourth condition and establish the relation between ideology and democracy. Taken together, these conditions not only provide an answer to troubling questions for democratic theory but also delineate the extent to which politics is rational and political claims are “truthlike.”

Incapable Yet Central

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arjun Chowdhury
Keyword(s):  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
State Formation ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Central Unit ◽  
Weak States ◽  
The Core

This chapter introduces the puzzle motivating the book: most states are weak states, incapable of monopolizing violence and supplying order, and yet the modern centralized state remains the central unit of world politics. Having introduced the puzzle, the chapter previews the core argument. The process of state formation that yielded centralized states in Europe required costly interstate wars and imperial conquest. This process of war driving state formation was not replicable beyond a certain level of destructiveness. After this point, states faced the problem of escalating popular demands for services, and declining willingness to pay taxes and disarm. This gap between what I call “the demand for services” and “the supply of the state” is what we call state weakness, and this gap has deep historical roots. The chapter concludes with an outline of the book.

scholarly journals The ‘body politic’ in ancient China

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chun-chieh Huang
Keyword(s):  
Body Politic ◽  
The State ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Core ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Inside Out ◽  
Chinese Philosophers ◽  
State Functions

The ‘body politic’ occupies the core position in traditional Chinese political thinking. This is strongly supported by the fact that, for most ancient Chinese philosophers, self-cultivation was taken as the starting point of a programmatic way leading to the management of the world. The aim of this essay is to analyze the meaning and significance of the prevailing ‘body politic’ of ancient China.In section two, the Chinese ‘body politic’ is placed within a comparative frame with the ideas of Plato (428–347 BCE) and Hobbes (1588–1679). It is argued that the ‘body politic’ in China is far from an abstract or theoretical discourse; the state was epistemologically taken as an extension of the human body, which is integral and organic in itself. Thus the body served as a metaphor or symbol to explain the organization and functionality of the state.Section three details the ‘body politic’ in three ways. First, due to the comparability between the state and the body, the ruling of the state, as that of the body, should also commence with a kind of inside-out, morality-concerned self-cultivation. Second, there is a complicated interdependency between state functions, which are similar to those of the body. Third, if there is a center of dominancy gathered through the interactive process of the body, then a kind of political autocracy can thus be extrapolated in by the ‘body politic’.The conclusion points out that, in ancient Chinese body-thinking, the mind-heart had its socio-political dimensions, and the ‘body’ is no less than a psychosomatic one. Since the unification of China in 221 BCE, Confucianism had gradually gained the political vantage and become the imperial ideology. However, the ancient ideal of the ‘Confucianization of politics’ was thus transformed to the reality of the ‘politicization of Confucianism’.

Untimely Development, Ugly History:A Drama in Muslinand the Rejection of National-Historical Time

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-183
Author(s):  
Mary L. Mullen
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The Core

This article considers the politics and aesthetics of the colonial Bildungsroman by reading George Moore's often-overlooked novel A Drama in Muslin (1886). It argues that the colonial Bildungsroman does not simply register difference from the metropolitan novel of development or express tension between the core and periphery, as Jed Esty suggests, but rather can imagine a heterogeneous historical time that does not find its end in the nation-state. A Drama in Muslin combines naturalist and realist modes, and moves between Ireland and England to construct a form of untimely development that emphasises political processes (dissent, negotiation) rather than political forms (the state, the nation). Ultimately, the messy, discordant history represented in the novel shows the political potential of anachronism as it celebrates the untimeliness of everyday life.

Corporate culture as a driver of the corporate security of foreign military-industrial enterprises

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. 2363-2380
Author(s):  
S.B. Zainullin ◽  
O.A. Zainullina
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
The State ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Corporate Security ◽  
Industrial Enterprises ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Military

Subject. The military-industrial complex is one of the core industries in any economy. It ensures both the economic and global security of the State. However, the economic security of MIC enterprises strongly depends on the State and other stakeholders. Objectives. We examine key factors of corporate culture in terms of theoretical and practical aspects. The article identifies the best implementation of corporate culture that has a positive effect on the corporate security in the MIC of the USA, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Japan ans China. Methods. The study employs dialectical method of research, combines the historical and logic unity, structural analysis, traditional techniques of economic analysis and synthesis. Results. We performed the comparative analysis of corporate culture models and examined how they are used by the MIC corporations with respect to international distinctions. Conclusions and Relevance. The State is the main stakeholder of the MIC corporations, since it acts as the core customer represented by the military department. It regulates and controls operations. The State is often a major shareholder of such corporations. Employees are also important stakeholders. Hence, trying to satisfy stakeholders' needs by developing the corporate culture, corporations mitigate their key risks and enhance their corporate security.

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