Theoretical and Methodological Aspects of Security Diplomacy

Abstract

The article deals with diplomacy as an object of scientific research and the fundamental institution of daily international life, as opposed to other institutions, such as war. The author proceeds from the assumption that diplomacy is often neglected in international studies and is considered methodologically redundant. Therefore, the article examines approaches to diplomacy and security currently used in scientific circulation and proposes ways of combining and further refining them in order to enhance their explanatory potential and rectify numerous theoretical and methodological shortcomings in traditional paradigms of international relations theory, to wit: an excessively generalised division of international actors into ‘security seekers’ and ‘greedy states’ as well as ‘revisionist states’ and ‘power-seekers,’ which lacks detail and fails to provide a complete understanding of a certain state’s strategy; a noticeable focus on the role of great powers; a superficial perception of the significance of ideas, values and identities. With this in mind, the author analyses scientific publications of scholars representing the English school of international relations (Martin Wight, Hedley Bull, Barry Buzan, etc.) and praxeology, also known as the theory of social practices, introduced into academic parlance by Pierre Bourdieu. The article concludes that utilising innovative findings of praxeology with the ontology of the English school results in creating a new view on diplomacy, trespassing the confines of classical rationality and overcoming causal determinism inherent in the English school. Drawing upon the concepts used in Pierre Bourdieu’s theory (habitus, doxa, field, hysteresis), the author infers that both Ukraine and russia do not recognise the doxa of the European security order, thus finding themselves in the state of hysteresis. The conclusion therefore has practical significance for further research into the russian-Ukrainian war and its security implications. Keywords: diplomacy, security, English school, praxeology, practices.