This book shows how changing diplomatic practices are central in explaining key dimensions of world politics, from law to war.

This book is composed of interconnected essays which reflect on challenging new issues related to diplomacy, communication, and peace. This book begins by drawing out some of the challenges for diplomacy that arise from modern theories of semantics and of strategic communication, as well as those posed by the need for secrecy, and by the activities of agents of influence. It then proceeds to examine important issues in contemporary diplomacy, including refugee diplomacy, humanitarian diplomacy, sovereignty, norms, and consular activities. It concludes with an exploration of dilemmas that confront attempts to promote peace through multilateral means, such as the limitations of peacemaking diplomacy, the difficulty of promoting democratic governance, and the problems associated with dealing with morally repugnant actors. The book is grounded in the conception of diplomacy as a social practice with multiple players, and recognises that ‘the state’ has many different elements, and that ‘state actors’ live in worlds shaped not just by their relations with other states, but also by their own complex domestic politics. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy, foreign policy, and International Relations.

World of our Making is a major contribution to contemporary social science. Now reissued in this volume, Onuf’s seminal text is key reading for anyone who wishes to study modern international relations. Onuf understands all of international relations to be a matter of rules and rule in foreign behaviour. The author draws together the rules of international relations, explains their source, and elaborates on their implications through a vast array of interdisciplinary thinkers such as Kenneth Arrow, J.L. Austin, Max Black, Michael Foucault, Anthony Giddens, Jurgen Habermas, Lawrence Kohlberg, Harold Lasswell, Talcott Parsons, Jean Piaget, J.G.A. Pocock, John Roemer, John Scarle and Sheldon Wolin.

Science diplomacy is becoming an important tool by which states can more effectively promote and secure their foreign policy agendas. Recognising the role science plays at national and international levels and identifying a state’s national diplomatic style can help to construct a ‘national style’ in science diplomacy. In turn, understanding science diplomacy can help one evaluate a state’s potential for global governance and to ad-dress global issues on a systematic scale. By using a Realist framework and by testing proposed hypotheses, this study highlights how different national styles in science di-plomacy affect competition between major powers and their shared responsibility for global problems. This study adds to general understanding of the practice of diplomacy as it intersects with the sciences.

This comprehensive collection offers a concise introduction to the institutional framework of the Holy See, conceptualizing papal agency and positions from a range of international theory perspectives. The authors – international scholars from political science, history, and religious studies – explore multiple fields of papal and Vatican influence, ranging from spy networks and inter-religious dialogue to social doctrine and religious freedom. This book demonstrates that, contrary to secularization theory, the papacy is not in decline in world politics. Since World War II, the Holy See has played a steadily increasing role in international relations. Globalization supports the role of the Catholic Church as a transnational actor not only in the advanced industrial societies of the West but also increasingly across the Global South. In this volume, the authors document the legacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI as well as the current pontificate of Pope Francis from a range of contemporary perspectives. This book comprises research articles and commentary essays on the papacy in world politics originally published in The Review of Faith & International Affairs.

The Arctic Council, created in 1996, has facilitated over twenty years of successful democracy and regional cooperation between Russia and the seven other Arctic states – the United States, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, and Finland. What has allowed this unity to continue despite political turmoil between these nations? In Diplomacy and the Arctic Council Danita Burke argues that the Arctic Council is a club: a group of states that mutually benefit from voluntary collaboration and that use the forum as a vessel to help define and guide the parameters of their cooperation. How the club members identify and address challenges reflects power relations among them, which vary depending on the topic under discussion or debate. Providing insight into the daily practices of the Arctic Council and the relative status of its member states, Burke seeks to understand why major international events, such as the 2014 Russian-Ukrainian conflict over the Crimea region, do not deter the Arctic countries from cooperating. The author posits that the Arctic Council's club structure and its strategy of practising and projecting unity have allowed it to weather the storm of international conflicts involving its core membership. Through interviews with representatives from the Arctic states and Indigenous peoples, Diplomacy and the Arctic Council offers a unique look into the diplomatic practices of the council after more than two decades of operation.

This volume discusses Korea’s role as a middle power in the midst of the 21st century global power shift. Focusing on Korea’s middle power diplomacy from the perspective of coalition building, the book discusses structural factors that shape middle power strategy and diplomacy. Written by leading Korean researchers, the chapters use diverse methodologies to offer a range of perspectives on Korea’s place in the developing global order. Topics discussed include South Korea’s approach to technology policy in the midst of US-China cyber competition, the East Asian ‘Thucydides Trap’, MITKA and middle power diplomacy, Korea’s role in the South China Sea dispute, and South Korean cyber security. Providing a unique treatment of middle power opportunities and motivations in the East Asia region, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, Asian politics, diplomacy, security studies, and global governance.

In 1975, M.R. Kurkrit Pramoj met Mao Zedong, marking the eventual establishment of diplomatic relations and a discursive rupture with the previous narrative of Communist powers as an existential threat. This book critically interrogates the birth of bamboo (bending with the wind) diplomacy and the politics of Thai détente with Russia and China in the long 1970s (1968–80). By 1968, Thailand was encountering discursive anxiety amid the prospect of American retrenchment from the Indo-Pacific region. As such, Thailand developed a new discourse of détente to make sense of the rapidly changing world politics and replace the hegemonic discourse of anticommunism. By doing so, it created a political struggle between the old and new discourses. Jittipat Poonkham also argues that bamboo diplomacy – previously seen as a classic and continual ‘tradition’ of Thai-style diplomacy – had its origins in Thai détente and has become the metanarrative of Thai diplomacy since then. Based on a genealogical approach and multi‑archival research, this book examines three key episodes of Thai détente: Thanat Khoman (1968–71), M.R. Kukrit Pramoj (1975–76), and General Kriangsak Chomanan (1977–80). This transformation was represented in numerous diplomatic/discursive practices, such as ping‑pong diplomacy, petro‑diplomacy, trade and cultural diplomacy, and normal visits.

This book provides an overall picture of East Asian international politics during the early interwar period and examines the various foreign policy trends of the major powers involved, including Japan, China, Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Based on extensive original research, it posits that East Asia experienced four waves of international change during the interwar period: the transition to the post-World War I international order; the appearance of Nationalist China and the Soviet Union as actors in East Asian international politics; the Japanese invasion of Manchuria; and Japanese implementation of the North China Buffer State Strategy. It considers the new challenges brought about by each of these waves, how the powers – particularly Japan, Britain, and the United States – were able to meet these challenges by working together, and how this became more difficult as time went on. It argues that the Washington System – the international order established at the 1921–1922 Washington Naval Conference – was not a break with the past, as is frequently argued, on account of new forms of foreign policy, including the ideological approaches of the United States and the Soviet Union, but that rather spheres of influence diplomacy continued as before. In addition, in discussing Japanese foreign policy, the book provides a comprehensive picture of the diversity of views towards China among Japanese actors and the ways these shifted over time. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.