Diplomacy Versus Politics: Two Mutually (In)Dependent Systems

Abstract

Diplomacy is often presented as subordinated to politics as if it merely received politically willed ‘inputs’ to produce politically structured ‘outputs’. However, diplomacy often deviates from political instructions. It can even operate almost without any political considerations whatsoever. This observation gives rise to a sense that politics and diplomacy operate as two separate systems that are mutually dependent and yet simultaneously independent from each other. To illuminate this relationship, the present paper draws from Modern Systems Theory (especially Parsons and Luhmann) to argue that politics and diplomacy engage in double interchanges: (1) they stimulate each other through premises for actions like ‘foreign policy goals’, and (2) they implement each other such that diplomatic happenings can be booked as political successes and vice versa. The discussion section outlines how the autonomy of the two systems varies empirically – such as in the case of politically appointed diplomats – and how extreme cases of autonomous operations (apolitical diplomacy or adiplomatic politics) face negative sanctions.

Peace needs constant reproduction: The temporality of the diplomatic system

“…The systems reference of the observation differs; while the events may not be trivial from the viewpoint of diplomatic peace, they do seem irrelevant with regards to political power rationalities. The two systems are simply separate, following different rationalities with different pasts and different futures, carrying different functions and different media, and if one is not aware of the distinction between politics and diplomacy (Nishikawa-Pacher, 2023), then one may easily fall prey to the diplomacy-devaluing (peace-devaluing) narratives inherent in political (power-mediated) observations.…”

“…Diplomacy takes for granted that its environment (here: the political system within the environment of the diplomatic system) ensures a sufficient degree of intrastate order, just like it takes for granted a functioning economic system, well-running hospitals or the earth’s magnetic field. The conceptual starting point is that of a system/environment distinction based on modern systems theory (Luhmann, 1995), with the additional premise of a separateness between diplomacy and politics (Nishikawa-Pacher, 2023).…”

How diplomacy evolves: the global spread of honorific state awards

“…The term 'peace' is thus used in a diplomatic sense, denoting the restraint of power among multiple power-centres (Sharp, 2009), and not within a single polity. Since a separateness between politics and diplomacy is seldomly formulated in IR (but see Constantinou, 1996;Der Derian, 1987;Youssef, 2020;Nishikawa-Pacher, 2023), it may be useful to briefly digress on this premise before the section thereafter applies the evolutionary-systemic framework onto state awards.…”