On the Origins of ‘Parliamentary Diplomacy’

Abstract

Starting from the observation of a renaissance of the term ‘parliamentary diplomacy’ in practical politics - if with a shift of meaning from parliamentary methods and procedures toward parliamentary agents - this article pleads for a scholarly adaptation of the concept and suggests not to neglect either of these dimensions. Reviewing the history of the League of Nations, in particular its creation and the policies and patterns of delegation and group formation pursued by the Scandinavian countries, the historical interrelation of the aspect of strategic alignment and representative delegation of legislators is shown. International relations theory, in particular constructivist approaches, should note that the twentieth century’s contribution to diplomatic history, meaning the emergence of multilateral diplomacy on a regular basis, is parliamentary not only in regard to the character of its proceedings, but also increasingly in regard to some of the relevant diplomatic agents.

Parliamentarians in government delegations: An old question still not answered

“…One form of this is seen in the obligation of parliaments to follow the participating governments’ instructions given prior to the conference (this is not unique to the NPT setting, cf. Baehr, 1969 ; Götz, 2005 ). MPs, unable to attend any closed or confidential meetings, depend on the executive for the information (similar to the situation in the Parliament).…”

“… Riggs (1977) , in his work, studied how participation in the UN GA changes the attitude towards the organization among US senators; while Biedenkopf (2015) in her study on the European Parliament’s engagement in climate diplomacy also discussed the participation of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in international climate negotiations. Norbert Götz (2005) looked at the origins of the practice in Scandinavia. His later book ( Götz, 2011 ) analyses the participation of Scandinavian MPs in the national delegations to the UN GA within the framework of societal involvement.…”

“… Levy (1994) argued that learning accounts for much of policy continuity, and hence it is not inconceivable that executives would try to ‘teach’ the MPs about the policy. Götz (2005) argues that policy continuation was an important reason for including MPs in diplomatic delegations prior to World War II in Scandinavia. Peter van Raalte, a Dutch journalist, highlighted that participation of MPs in government delegations strengthens the cooperation between the government and the legislature ( Van Raalte, 1966 in Baehr, 1969 ).…”

“…The inclusion of MPs to such delegations therefore warrants further attention as it represents neither trivial nor commonplace activity. Yet, MPs’ participation in government delegations to international negotiations has been explicitly addressed only by a handful of authors ( Biedenkopf, 2015 ; Götz, 2005 , 2011 ; Riggs, 1977 ). The existing scholarly focus on MPs’ involvement in foreign policy focuses on the phenomenon of parliamentary diplomacy, defined as a [f]ull range of international activities undertaken by parliamentarians in order to increase mutual understanding between countries, to assist each other in improving the control of governments, and the representation of a people and to increase the democratic legitimacy of inter-governmental institutions.…”

“…This translated into a lively research agenda focusing on the role of parliaments in the scrutiny of foreign policy, and on studying interparliamentary bodies ( Alger, 2010 ): conference diplomacy, practised by national MPs ( Götz, 2005 ; Rittberger, 1983 ). In the former stream, attention was given to the involvement of the parliaments in their country’s foreign policy in general ( Raunio and Wagner, 2017 ; Stavridis and Jančić, 2017 ), with a special focus on the parliamentary scrutiny of European Union (EU) affairs ( Auel and Christiansen, 2015 ; Gattermann et al, 2016 ; Raunio, 2009 ).…”