The End(s) of Diplomacy
| Date | 01 March 1998 |
| Published date | 01 March 1998 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209805300109 |
| Subject Matter | The Readers' Column |
THE
READERS'
COLUMN
The
end(s)
of
diplomacy
Brian
Hocking
Professor
of
international
relations
Coventry
University
iplomacy
is
no
stranger
to
contentious
debate.
That
it
is
in
decline
-whether
as
an
institution
of
the
international
system
or
in
terms
of
the
profession
to
which
that
institution
has
given
birth
-is
a
well
rehearsed
proposition. But
your
readers
might
be
forgiven
for
succumbing
to
some
confusion having
read
the
two
articles
in
the
last
issue
(autumn
1997)
under
the
banner
'The
end
of
diplomacy?'
For,
in
different
ways,
the
contributions
from
Joe
Clark
and
Paul
Sharp
are
celebrations
of
diplomacy
-
or,
at
least,
their
own versions
of
it.
Clark's
argument
(albeit
cast
specifically
in
a
Canadian
context)
is
a
reaffirma-
tion
of
a
not
unfamiliar argument;
namely,
that
too
great
a
preoccupa-
tion
with
economics
and
trade
has
diverted
attention
from
the
essen-
tial
concerns
of
diplomacy.
Sharp's
article,
on
the
other
hand,
lays
the
threat
to
diplomacy
at
the
feet
of
its
practitioners who
have
forgotten
who they
are
and
what
they
should
be
doing. This
lapse
of
collective
consciousness
is
reinforced
by
the
pernicious
attentions
of
those
acad-
emics
who
do
not
subscribe
to
the
particular
brand
of
state-centrism
with
which
the
discussion
is
infused.
As
is
usually
the
case,
then,
the
debate
about
the
decline
of
diplo-
macy
turns
on
contending
images
of
how
the
world
works
-
or should
work
-
and
what
images
most
accurately
convey
its
character. Do
we
live
in
a
world
of
sovereign states;
is
the
state
under
threat
from
the
twin
processes
of internal
and
external
erosion,
the
product
of
the
dialectic
between localization
on
the
one
hand
and
globalization
on
the
other?
Diplomacy
becomes
subsumed
within
this
broader
debate.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter
1997-8
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