Theorizing Diplomacy as Agency

Abstract

Brian C. Rathbun. (2014). Diplomacy’s Value: Creating Security in 1920s Europe and the Contemporary Middle East . Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 267 pp., $29.95 paperback (ISBN: 978-0-8014-7990-8). Almost twenty years ago, Paul Sharp (1999, 34) made the following observation in this very journal: “… we might think that students of international relations would pay a great deal of attention to diplomacy, but they do not. The study of diplomacy remains marginal to and almost disconnected from the field.” Close to two decades later, the study of diplomacy, firmly planted within the discipline of international relations, is in much healthier shape. Sharp’s own (2009) Diplomatic Theory of International Relations , Christer Jonsson and Martin Hall’s (2005) Essence of Diplomacy , Jennifer Mitzen’s (2013) Power in Concert: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Global Governance , Keren Yarhi-Milo’s (2014) Knowing the Adversary: Leaders, Intelligence, and Assessment of Intentions in International Relations , and Rebecca Adler-Nissen’s (2014) Opting Out of the European Union: Diplomacy, Sovereignty, and European Integration are all exemplary attempts to not only refocus attention onto diplomacy as a discrete activity of international practice that deserves attention, but to theorize at a deep level how diplomats contribute to the construction of the international system. Brian C. Rathbun’s (2014) Diplomacy’s Value: Creating Security in 1920s Europe and the Contemporary Middle East not only contributes to this resurgence of interest in diplomacy, but propels the discussion forward in three important ways, including theoretically, empirically, and methodologically. Before discussing the value of the argument, … mholmes{at}wm.edu