Diplomatic agency

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Diplomatic agency is intriguing. On the one hand, diplomats are crucial to the management of day-to-day international relations and the negotiation of war and peace. On the other hand, most diplomatic action is highly constrained or invisible. This chapter provides an overview of the ways in which diplomatic agency has been conceptualized in International Relations theory (English School, game theory, Foreign Policy Analysis, constructivism, practice theory, post-positivism) before presenting and exemplifying major and overlapping types of diplomatic agency, including communication, negotiation and advocacy. It analyzes how professionalization, legalization, personalization and popularization of diplomacy have shaped diplomatic agency including how international law, bureaucracy, public diplomacy and new information technologies have impacted the scope and content of diplomatic agency. Finally, it discusses how diplomatic agency is linked to conceptions of diplomatic representation and legitimacy in its actual, functional and symbolic forms.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSAGE Handbook of Diplomacy
EditorsCostas Constantinou, Pauline Kerr, Paul Sharp
Number of pages11
Place of PublicationLondon
PublisherSAGE Publications
Publication date2016
Pages92-103
ChapterPart I, Chapt. 7
ISBN (Print)1446298566, 9781446298564
Publication statusPublished - 2016

ID: 142147639