Science Diplomacy from Pierre-Bruno Ruffini’s Point of View: the Concept and its Essence

Abstract

The paper deals with the way that Pierre-Bruno Ruffini uses to conceptualize the science diplomacy in his books and articles since 2015. Pierre-Bruno Ruffini is a practitioner who has been directly involved in the implementing his country's foreign policy for a long time; at the same time, he is a prominent researcher that contributes to theoretical framing and mainstreamification of science diplomacy, its basic notions and key questions. P.-B. Ruffini’s articles of the last ten years make evident the evolution in this area even if the relate vocabulary emerged only recently. The paper shows the way P.-B. Ruffini completes the mainstream approach to science diplomacy (including the well-known typology “diplomacy for science”, “science for diplomacy”, and “science in diplomacy”) and considers such factors as national interests and the rationale of competition. The paper emphasizes the distinction that P.-B. Ruffini makes between science diplomacy and international scientific cooperation. At the same time the paper discusses the possibilities and eventual limits to the use of all these instruments in such traditional areas as the history of international relations, history of diplomacy, history of science. The specificity of every historical period makes relevant the danger of introducing modern meanings into the practices of the past. However, the due respect and the right estimation of these risks can turn the idea of science diplomacy such as P.-B. Ruffini conceptualizes it into the starting point for an interdisciplinary dialog and the integration point for various studies in history (from the traditional reconstitution of the bilateral relations and the case studies of some emblematic projects to the research based on documents of a personal nature and the witness’ memoirs).