Representation and agency in diplomacy: How Kosovo came to agree to the Rambouillet accords

Wille, Tobias

doi:10.31235/osf.io/fdhxj

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Discourse analysis has not hitherto been applied to large volumes of evidence of internal (as opposed to external-facing, as in Dittmer and Parr, 2011) diplomatic knowledge production. The approach here proposed helps understand how, in practice, identity contributes to categorisation as enemies, allies (Adler, 2008;Williams and Neumann, 2000), partners (Adler-Nissen, 2014a), 'diplomatic pecking orders' (Pouliot, 2011), the overlooked agency of postcolonial diplomacy (Laffey and Weldes, 2008), and substantiates accounts of the role of self-representation in constituting diplomatic agency (Fisher, 2013a;Wille, 2017). This is of relevance to politics and practices predicated on identity such as securitisation (Buzan and Hansen, 2009;Waever, 1996;Williams, 2003) or stigmatisation (Adler-Nissen, 2014a).…”

Section: Introductory Démarchementioning

confidence: 80%

“…Diplomacy, however, is far more than text. Research drawing on critical perspectives based on anthropology, Bourdieusian sociology, Latourian Actor-Network theory and de Certeau, have highlighted that its practices depend on material assemblages (Dittmer, 2017), technology, (Wille, 2016) bureaucratic structures and norms (Neumann, 2012), personal performances (Wille, 2017), and social capital (Pouliot, 2016). In diplomacy, the capacity to exercise influence (on representatives of other actors as well as one's own superiors) emerges from the deployment of personal resources, skills and competences generated by particular practices, drawing on diplomatic goods produced by routine, existing competences, knowledge and hierarchies (Adler-Nissen and Pouliot, 2014).…”

Section: Conceptualising Text and Language In Diplomatic Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Retrieving how diplomacy writes subjects, space and time: a methodological contribution

Orellana

2019

European Journal of International Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How does diplomacy describe international actors? Diplomatic practices observe, analyse, prioritise and constitute information that is ultimately committed to text. Drawing on post-structuralist approaches to identity, diplomacy and textuality, this paper argues for consideration of the unique role of diplomatic text in constituting the state and especially its representation and understanding of Self and Other. It consequently develops a methodology to empirically analyse how the text of diplomatic communication describes people, places, time, politics, and informs policy. The analytical method proposed adjusts and expands post-structuralist discourse analysis, adapting it to the intertextual study of large collections of diplomatic knowledge production documents. It firstly determines data selection in relation to diplomacy’s own theory. Secondly, it develops an approach to retrieve how any diplomatic text constitutes representations of subjects and their contexts. Thirdly, it follows the development of representations across diplomatic knowledge production, identifying when they come to influence other international actors. This approach is demonstrated in the analysis of America’s 1945–1948 diplomatic road to involvement in Vietnam, showing how diplomacy’s representation of actors were vital to US involvement, and identifying hitherto unconsidered events, descriptions and actors. These analytics contribute to and empirically substantiate understanding of how diplomacy constitutes Self and Other, informs policy and shapes world politics.

show abstract

Section: Introductory Démarchementioning

confidence: 80%

Section: Conceptualising Text and Language In Diplomatic Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Retrieving how diplomacy writes subjects, space and time: a methodological contribution

Orellana

2019

European Journal of International Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Weber 1995Weber , 1998Jackson and Nexon 1999). Such performative state practices include, for instance, the constitution of agency in diplomatic relations and at international conferences (Wille 2017;Visoka 2018), where the state represented by a delegation can become tacitly accepted and hence co-produced by other states and international organizations. Legal constructions and decisions can have a similar effect (Grzybowski and Koskenniemi 2015).…”

Section: The Foundational Paradox Of State Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The paradox of state identification:de factostates, recognition, and the (re-)production of the international

Grzybowski

2019

Int. Theory

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The literature on de facto states challenges the conventional identification of states by legal recognition, proposing to identify states based on their effectiveness instead. Yet, as I argue in this paper, rather than turning the tables on recognition, the de facto state challenge ultimately reveals all state identification in International Relations and international law to be essentially indeterminate. This lacuna, I suggest, is not an accidental omission, but an expression of the foundational paradox of modern political order that is rooted in the intertwined ontology of the state system and the individual states constituting it, with each presupposing the other. As a result, the opposition between empirical facts, political decisions, and legal norms invoked in attempts to identify states cannot but remain irresolvable. This should not be regarded as a problem to be overcome, however, but as a source of social order. Although states cannot be substantively identified, any effort to do so in practice naturalizes the state as the very form through which we articulate and shape political claims, conflicts, and settlements. In performatively enacting states precisely at the contested margins, state identification thus both invokes and (re-)produces the statist international as the central imaginary of modern political order.

show abstract

“…Even worse, with no international recognition other than by three entities without externally recognised sovereignty themselves-Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh-Transnistria lacks external legitimacy as well. In the absence of formal membership of international society, it relies on eliciting informal shows of outside support through diplomatic relationship management (McConnell 2017;Wille 2019).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Transnistria’s Order of Friendship: Legitimacy Through Diplomatic Practice

Nishikawa-Pacher¹

2020

Europe-Asia Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

What strategies do de facto states employ in conducting their diplomacy? This article examines Transnistria's Order of Friendship, a state award that primarily targets foreigners, by analysing the profiles of all known award recipients. The Order is found to be a political tool to enhance Transnistria's domestic and external legitimacy in the absence of recognised sovereignty. The findings confirm the literature on Transnistria's 'bandwagoning' with Russia, indicate that a patron's support must be actively sought rather than taken for granted, andsince many awardees are from jurisdictions other than the patron state Russia-point to the need to examine the foreign policy of de facto states more holistically. WHEN, IN 2012, TRANSNISTRIA ESTABLISHED THE ORDER OF FRIENDSHIP as its only state award primarily aimed at foreigners, 1 there were good reasons to doubt that the de facto state 2 still enjoyed a strong commitment from its patron state Russia. In the preceding year, Russia had backed a defeated candidate in the Transnistrian presidential election, pressuring the newly elected de facto government under the leadership of Evgenii Shevchuk to 'convince his Russian ally of the continuity of Transnistria's devotedness' (Istomin & Bolgova 2016, p. 12). The cooling of relations between Russia and Transnistria was indicated by, inter alia, the eruption of a dispute on gas prices in Transnistria, the closure of the Russian quasi-consulate in Tiraspol, and investigations regarding the son of a former Transnistrian de facto president for allegedly embezzling Russian aid (Devyatkov 2012, pp. 57-8).

show abstract

Representation and agency in diplomacy: How Kosovo came to agree to the Rambouillet accords

Cited by 4 publications

References 23 publications

Retrieving how diplomacy writes subjects, space and time: a methodological contribution

Retrieving how diplomacy writes subjects, space and time: a methodological contribution

The paradox of state identification:de factostates, recognition, and the (re-)production of the international

Transnistria’s Order of Friendship: Legitimacy Through Diplomatic Practice

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About