Introduction

Author(s):  
Sylvia Bashevkin

Chapter 1 situates the study in the context of feminist diplomatic history. It shows how women leaders in positions of international responsibility have been evaluated since the early modern period. The discussion then considers how the gender and politics field evolved within political science in recent decades, demonstrating the emphasis of that literature on institutions and especially legislatures, rather than on the actions of individuals in executive office. It examines a key theoretical pivot of the field, political representation, and suggests ways in which the concept can be reconceived for contemporary research on foreign policy leaders. The chapter concludes with an overview of the book.

Author(s):  
Charlotte Scott

Beginning with an exploration of the role of the child in the cultural imagination, Chapter 1 establishes the formative and revealing ways in which societies identify themselves in relation to how they treat their children. Focusing on Shakespeare and the early modern period, Chapter 1 sets out to determine the emotional, symbolic, and political registers through which children are depicted and discussed. Attending to the different life stages and representations of the child on stage, this chapter sets out the terms of the book’s enquiry: what role do children play in Shakespeare’s plays; how do we recognize them as such—age, status, parental dynamic—and what are the effects of their presence? This chapter focuses on how the early moderns understood the child, as a symbolic figure, a life stage, a form of obligation, a profound bond, and an image of servitude.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Bäck ◽  
Jan Teorell ◽  
Alexander Von Hagen-Jamar ◽  
Alejandro Quiroz Flores

Abstract Why do some foreign ministers stay longer in office than others? Are they punished when the country loses a war? Several scholars have focused on the tenure of leaders as an important predictor of foreign policy outcomes, such as war onset, creating an interest in leadership survival. We here shift the focus to the survival of other important politicians in cabinet—foreign ministers, hypothesizing that their tenure depends on their performance in office. For example, we expect that foreign ministers stay longer in office when the country experiences an armed conflict resulting in a win or in a compromise agreement. We evaluate and find support for several of our hypotheses using an original historical dataset, which comprises all foreign ministers of the world's thirteen great powers from the early modern period to the present, covering about 1,100 foreign minister-terms of office.


Author(s):  
Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin

Chapter 1 analyzes the profound importance of continental education in shaping the clerical leadership of Irish Catholicism in the Early Modern period. While not all clergy were educated abroad, formation in continental seminaries emerged as a key aspect of both the Catholic hierarchy and the guardians and preachers of the regular clergy. This system of clerical provision was based on the evolution of a somewhat haphazard network of continental colleges, but the decentralized nature of the system may in fact have conferred significant advantages. While impossible to determine the precise influence of this development, the evidence suggest that it was of profound importance in confirming the nature of the Catholic identity of most of the population.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 423-441
Author(s):  
Felicia Gottmann

Abstract This article takes a micro-historical actor-centered approach to study the encounter between the officers of a Prussian East India Company Ship and local elites in 1750s Praia, Cape Verde. Combining recent advances in New Diplomatic History and in Company Studies with insights from the study of Contact Zones and transculturation, it analyzes the diplomatic strategies marginalized and hybrid players could adopt to project themselves onto the early modern global stage and locally counterbalance the hegemonic Northern European Atlantic powers. It thus proposes an alternative model of nonprofessional diplomatic interaction in the early modern period.


2021 ◽  
pp. 31-61
Author(s):  
Samuel Wright

Chapter 1 draws a connection between critical inquiry and the feeling of trust among scholars. It argues that a new relationship between doubting and reasoning can be found in the early modern period of Sanskrit logic that allowed for new forms of critical inquiry to be employed by scholars. Specifically, the chapter recovers a new conception of doubt called “doubt from speech” (śābda-saṃśaya) in contrast to an older conception called “doubt in the mind” (mānasa-saṃśaya). Yet, when scholars accepted the arguments for this new conception of doubt, they displayed themselves to be not only intellectually competent but also emotionally competent with respect to “the new,” enabling a feeling of trust to emerge between scholars who accepted the new view on doubt and its role in critical inquiry.


2020 ◽  
Vol 135 (573) ◽  
pp. 337-358
Author(s):  
David Onnekink

Abstract This article underscores the significance of symbolic communication in early modern international relations. Taking naval incidents during the period leading up to the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1667–72) as a case-study, it shows how the use of imagery constituted an undervalued symbolic language in which vital interests were communicated by diplomats. Moreover, it argues that the way in which these incidents were discussed in diplomatic circles was relevant to and congruous with public debates. It also highlights the often-ignored international dimension of popular disputes. An overall objective is to further the debate on a New Diplomatic History for the early modern period.


2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 905-932 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHEÁL Ó SIOCHRÚ

Ireland's status as a kingdom or as a colony continues to influence the historiographical debate about the country's relationship with the wider world during the early modern period. Interest in the continent is almost exclusively focused on exiles and migrants, rather than on diplomatic developments. Yet during the 1640s confederate Catholics in Ireland pursued an independent foreign policy, maintaining resident agents abroad, and receiving diplomats in Kilkenny. Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, they sought foreign assistance in their struggle against Oliver Cromwell. In alliance with the exiled House of Stuart, Irish Catholics looked to Charles IV, duke of Lorraine, as a potential saviour. For three years the duke encouraged negotiations in Galway, Paris, and Brussels. He despatched vital military supplies to Ireland, and attempted on at least one occasion to transport troops there from the Low Countries. Although his intervention ultimately failed to turn the tide of the war in Ireland, the English parliamentarians nevertheless believed he posed a serious threat. This detailed study of the duke's role, in the international struggle for Ireland during the early 1650s, largely ignored until now, helps to place the crises of the three Stuart kingdoms in their broader European context.


2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 93-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maartje van Gelder ◽  
Tijana Krstić

This special issue, an exercise in integrated Mediterranean history through the lens of diplomacy, demonstrates that diplomatic genres and practices associated with a European political and cultural tradition, on the one hand, or an Islamic tradition, on the other, were not produced in isolation but attained meaning through the process of mediation and negotiation among intermediaries of different confessional and social backgrounds. Building on the “new diplomatic history,” the essays focus on non-elite (e.g. Christian slaves, renegades, Jewish doctors, Moriscos) and less commonly studied (mid- and high-ranking Muslim officials) intermediaries in Mediterranean cross-confessional diplomacy. The issue argues that the early modern period witnessed a relative balance of power among Muslim- and Christian-ruled polities: negotiations entailed not only principles of reciprocity, parity, and commensurability, but these were actually enforceable in practice. This challenges the notion of European diplomatic supremacy, prompting scholars to fundamentally rethink the narrative about the origins of early modern diplomacy.


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