Diplomatic History Research Articles

Terrorism in International Law

Numerous countries around the world have made exceptional efforts to combat terrorism. Many of these efforts have been undertaken individually and outside the scope of the United Nations, despite its charter designating it as the authority responsible for addressing issues of international peace and security through the Security Council.Describing these efforts, they represent the endeavors of states directly affected by terrorism. However, this does not imply that the United Nations, as the institution under which the international community operates, has been distant from this highly significant matter. On the contrary, the diplomatic history of the issue of terrorism found its primary arena within the United Nations. Legal discussions began within the framework of UN bodies and agencies. Mechanisms ensuring the international community's response to combating terrorism were appropriately developed within UN agencies. Additionally, the executive mechanisms can be found in the organization's efforts. Moreover, the international legal confrontation of terrorism was fundamentally organized through the United Nations. Reports, resolutions, treaty formulations, and conferences were significantly conducted within the premises of the international organization. The United Nations also served as the primary sponsor of other international conferences closely examining issues directly related to international terrorism, attempting to blend statements and recommendations in a manner consistent with the accepted concept of terrorism, achieving widely acceptable results among all member states. Regarding individual state activities, efforts to combat terrorism legally and materially vary according to the interests of those states and their concept of terrorism, which often does not align with the concept upheld by other countries. Therefore, this study will explore the concept of terrorism in the first section, address the legal obstacles to combating terrorism in the second section, and finally, discuss the international efforts to confront it in the third section.

РОССИЯ И КОНТИНЕНТАЛЬНАЯ СИСТЕМА В КОНЦЕ 1810-НАЧАЛЕ 1811 ГГ. ЧЕРЕЗ ПРИЗМУ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ А.Б. КУРАКИНА

This article highlights the political position in Paris of the Russian Ambassador, Prince A.B. Kurakin, regarding the Continental System of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1810-1811. The activity of the prince was out of sight of historians for a long period because of their biased attitude towards his figure. This article includes the analysis of highlights of Prince Kurakin’s activities according to the Continental System declared by Napoleon (negotiations on new tariffs between Russia and France, regulation of neutral trade, actions of French corsairs etc.). This analysis is based on published sources on the history of diplomacy: the fundamental publication «Foreign Policy of Russia in the XIX-early XX centuries», the collection of A.B. Kurakin’s dispatches and first-introduced documents of the Russian Empire’s Foreign Policy Archive. The conclusion of this article is that A.B. Kurakin was worthy to defend the interests of Russia in France at the rejection of the Trianon tariff and at the introduction of new conditions of the Russian-French trade. A.B. Kurakin became active as ambassador: he systematically contacted the French Foreign Minister J.-B. Champagny, filed notes, collected information, etc. However, Alexander I was not pleased with his actions, considering them insufficiently effective.

The Promise and Failure of Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process in 1990s: A Literature Review

In 2023, the world marked 30 years since the start of the Oslo process, which sought to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Given the ultimate breakdown of these negotiations, it is crucial to examine the evolution of academic research on this process, identifying its key themes and trends. This literature review focuses on both empirical and theoretical studies of the Oslo process, with a particular emphasis on research that investigates the reasons behind its failure. Such studies provide valuable insights for developing more effective models of negotiation and conflict resolution. Initially, the commencement of the Oslo negotiations was met with optimism in the academic community, with scholars highlighting the pivotal role of individual leaders in successfully launching the process. However, as the peace process faltered, the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were analyzed through existing theoretical frameworks. Various scholars critically examined the Oslo Accords from the perspective of international law and highlighted economic factors that obstructed the path to a lasting peace. Other studies explored indirect influences on the peace process, such as public opinion and electoral dynamics, often employing Robert Putnam's “two-level games” theory. Nevertheless, these studies mainly address the immediate causes of the peace process’s failure and do not fully account for the underlying motivations driving the behavior of actors in the negotiations. Research into the deeper causes of the Oslo process’s collapse has highlighted socio-psychological barriers, such as the “conflict syndrome” and issues of ontological security. Scholars have investigated the roles of historical memory, collective trauma, and cultural identities in shaping negotiation outcomes. The rise of interdisciplinary approaches—combining insights from psychology, philosophy, and linguistics—has been essential for understanding the complex dimensions of this conflict. The diverse body of research and theories inspired by the Oslo peace process continues to influence the field of negotiation and conflict resolution studies, underscoring the enduring significance of this critical episode in diplomatic history.

The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI): Did It Help or Harm a Friend?

Helpem Fren, Michael Wesley's diplomatic history of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), the Australian-led multilateral intervention in Solomon Islands from 2003–2017, is a near definitive study of the intervention from an Australian perspective. As such, it shares some of the failures of RAMSI itself, such as overconfidence in its success. The reviewer, based on his experience of living in the Solomons during many years of the RAMSI intervention, examines both the strengths and weaknesses of RAMSI and this volume, its semi-official history. These include RAMSI's early success in peacemaking and its more problematic long-term exercise in state building, including its inflexible entrenchment in law and justice, finance, and governance sectors to the exclusion of support for sustainable human development. The reviewer notes areas not dealt with in the book, including RAMSI's cost and its relations with the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the churches. While Helpem Fren is an essential study for understanding the Australian role in RAMSI, its strictly Australian perspective calls for further critical study of RAMSI.

Defence Spending, Economic Growth and Regional Balance: Evidence from Azerbaijan and Armenia

Military expenditures have a significant impact not only on the socioeconomic condition of a state but also on the regional balance of power. In this study it will be examined the relationship between military expenditures and economic conditions in Azerbaijan and Armenia and impacts of military expeditures on the regional balance. In the context of the diplomatic history from the First Karabakh War to the Second Karabakh War, the regional balance between the two states is clarified. Then the complex relationship between military expenditures and economic conditions is empirically analyzed via using non-linear ARDL and ARDL limited test methods. The empirical findings indicate that in Azerbaijan, military spending aligns with the Military-led Standard of Living Improvement Hypothesis, whereas its positive effect on well-being in Armenia is minimal. Specifically, military expenditure positively influences the standard of living and well-being in Azerbaijan, as evidenced by both the ARDL Bound and multiplier effect. Conversely, according to the Military Burden Hypothesis, military spending poses a burden on the budgets of both countries. Nevertheless, this burden is more pronounced for Azerbaijan compared to Armenia, where the adverse impact of military expenditure is comparatively lesser.

The Ceremony of Receiving Ambassadresses at the Russian Court of the Eighteenth Century

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the European system of international relations underwent significant changes, marked by the institutional development of diplomatic services and the establishment of more coherent diplomatic ceremonials. Resident embassies became common, introducing the presence of female relatives of diplomats who actively participated in the life of the diplomatic corps. The growing presence of ambassadresses played a transformative role in early modern diplomatic culture, contributing to the development of gendered diplomatic ceremonials. Drawing on relevant approaches to the study of the ‘new diplomatic history’ and using archival material from the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire, this article examines the diplomatic ceremonial of ambassadorial spouses at the eighteenth-century Russian court. It examines the presentation of ambassadors’ wives at court, the implementation of protocol, and issues of etiquette that became sources of contention between ‘ambassadresses’ and the St Petersburg court, as well as methods of conflict resolution. The study of the reception ceremony for ‘foreign ladies’ reveals that, although it was governed by legal norms, it depended heavily on the Russian monarch’s personal attitude towards the ambassador and ambassadress, as well as the country they represented.

Formation of Social Ties in P. I. Potemkin's Embassy to France (1680–1682)

Based on the extant complex of Russian and French sources, this article analyses the mechanisms of the formation of social ties of the Russian embassy in France in 1681. The embassy had both foreign policy and diplomatic significance for the representation of tsarist power and Russian culture in France: the envoys had not only to inform Louis XIV about the events in Eastern Europe, but also to get an overview of the French position on the preparation of the Perpetual Peace of Russia with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the conclusion of the Russian-French trade treaty, and to ensure the recruitment of foreign specialists. The author examines the formation of relations in the context of the new diplomatic history, paying special attention to the problems of power representation, the personalities of diplomats and the cultural side of their mission. For the first time in historiography, the article characterises the whole complex of archival documents about the embassy, the peculiarities of the formation of social ties of the embassy participants necessary for the successful implementation of the tasks of the diplomatic mission. The study is based on French court reports on ceremonies, notes of courtiers, internal correspondence of Russian and French diplomatic departments, materials of the Parisian periodical press, and reports of Russian envoys. Conclusions are drawn on the peculiarities of the strategies of the envoy P. I. Potemkin in establishing social relations, their significance for the development of Russian diplomacy, foreign policy, and cultural contacts with Western Europe, as well as on the peculiarities of the reflection of these relations in the surviving sources.

Navigating and Exhibiting Ambivalence: Yin Hua Artist Organization and Sino-Indonesian Relations in the 1950s to 1960s

Abstract: This paper interrogates the logic of inclusion and exclusion that foregrounds the ethnocentrism and spatial boundedness of the state project’s national identity construction and proposes critical terms of discussion that challenge the limiting nation-centric framework prevalent in the dominant modern art historiography discourse. Drawing on primary archival research, it describes accounts of Lembaga Seniman Yin Hua (Yin Hua Meishu Xiehui, 印華美術協會, Yin Hua Artist Organization), an art organization established in 1955 in Jakarta and analyzes it against the backdrop of the Sino-Indonesian diplomatic relationship during the Cold War era. By engaging with the ambivalent aesthetic and politic of Chinese Indonesian artists, this paper recognizes the active and strategic agency of Chinese Indonesians as both insiders and outsiders in China and Indonesia under the uncertain circumstances of their dual nationality status. It argues that Yin Hua ambivalently navigated between the political patronage of Indonesia and China, performed dual loyalty to Indonesian and Sino-centric art history, and exhibited multiple artistic lineages that disrupted the stabilized territory of postcolonial nation-state geographical and cultural border. Weaving exhibition history, diplomatic history, and critical ethnic studies through a thread of transnational perspective, this paper provides historical narratives that unsettle the roots of racializing logic in the political articulation of nationalism and pushes toward an epistemic shift in rethinking categories of national identity, ethnicity, and citizenship.

Diplomatic Relations and Globalization: A Historical Analysis of China and America during the Post-Cold War Era

This research delves into the intricate diplomatic ties between China and America, tracing their journey from Cold War adversaries to contemporary partners. The primary objective is to scrutinize the historical evolution of this alliance, emphasizing the blend of political, economic, and strategic factors shaping their complex relationship. The study aims to unravel critical questions surrounding the genesis and progression of the China-America alliance, dissecting diplomatic ties from the Cold War era to the present. Analyzing the influence of the Cold War context on the formation of the China-America alliance. Identifying pivotal milestones in their diplomatic relations during and after the Cold War. Assessing the contemporary nature of the China-America partnership and its implications for regional and global geopolitics. Using a comprehensive historical research design, the study reviews primary sources like diplomatic archives, treaties, and official statements. Secondary sources, including academic works and policy analyses, provide essential context and depth. The research reveals a nuanced interplay of geopolitical, economic, and strategic considerations sustaining the China-America alliance. Critical junctures in their diplomatic history shed light on factors contributing to the partnership's resilience. This research offers a holistic understanding of the historical roots of the China-America alliance, providing insights into contemporary implications. By seamlessly integrating historical analysis with present-day dynamics, the study contributes to broader scholarship on international relations and regional geopolitics.

Endogenous Colonial Borders: Precolonial States and Geography in the Partition of Africa

We revise the conventional wisdom that Africa’s international borders were drawn arbitrarily. Europeans knew very little about most of Africa in the mid-1880s, but their self-interested goals of amassing territory prompted intensive examination of on-the-ground conditions as they formed borders. Europeans negotiated with African rulers to secure treaties and to learn about historical state frontiers, which enabled Africans to influence the border-formation process. Major water bodies, which shaped precolonial civilizations and trade, also served as focal points. We find support for these new theoretical implications using two original datasets. Quantitatively, we analyze border-location correlates using grid cells and an original spatial dataset on precolonial states. Qualitatively, we compiled information from treaties and diplomatic histories to code causal process observations for every bilateral border. Historical political frontiers directly affected 62% of all bilateral borders. Water bodies, often major ones, comprised the primary border feature much more frequently than straight lines.

Power, Connection, and the Endless Present

Published more than a decade ago, Paul Kramer's “Power and Connection: Imperial Histories of the United States in the World” is arguably the most important intervention in the field of U.S. and the World history. This roundtable affirms its standing among modern American historians. Yet the essay's exact influence is hard to characterize. Classic state-of-the-field essays—like Charles Maier's broadside against U.S. diplomatic history or Jacquelyn Dowd Hall's invocation of a long civil rights movement—spurred field-wide reckonings. Kramer's impact was subtler. Recently, Daniel Bessner and Fredrik Logevall cited the essay to say that the field should revisit U.S. policy making, using “Power and Connection” as a foil to discuss the limits of the international and transnational turns. However, boosters of those turns—Erez Manela and Naoko Shibusawa, among others—ignore “Power and Connection,” even as they advance claims about globalization and imperialism that touch on the article's arguments. This impasse is as fascinating—as worthy of exposition—as Kramer’s original claims, partly because it invites us to historicize the decade just past. Rather than handling the essay with antiquarian gloves, I’d like to dig into this dirt to consider three questions: What did “Power and Connection” displace? What did it do? And how does the essay resonate in our present?

The Nature and Scope of Diplomatic History

Diplomatic history is a subfield of history that focuses on the interactions and relationships between states and their representatives. It is concerned with the nature of diplomacy and the role it plays in shaping international relations. Diplomatic history also encompasses a wide range of areas including the study of treaties, alliances, war and peace, and the role of diplomacy in shaping the modern world. More so, the discipline looks at the influence of non-state actors, such as individuals, corporations, and NGOs, on the course of diplomatic history. In addition, the scope of diplomatic history is vast and covers a range of historical periods and regions. The field also studies the impact of culture, emotions, and identity on diplomatic interactions. However, the discipline is faced by some challenges and limitations. Some historians argue that diplomatic history is too focused on state actors and official sources, and that it fails to account for the experiences of ordinary people. This paper examines the nature and scope of diplomatic history. It explains the meaning of history, diplomacy and how the concept of diplomatic history evolved and the role of diplomacy in history. It also highlighted the impact of diplomacy on world events. The relationship between diplomatic history and other disciplines was also examined. The paper uses a historical research approach in its analysis.

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

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).

Olof Palme, Sweden, and the Vietnam War: A Diplomatic History by Lubna Z. Qureshi (review)

Olof Palme, Sweden, and the Vietnam War: A Diplomatic History by Lubna Z. Qureshi (review)

Jayaprakash Narayan, domestic dissent and the unfolding of the Tibet crisis in Sino-Indian relations 1959-1961

ABSTRACT The historical origins of the Tibet issue in Sino-Indian relations remain understudied. Most diplomatic histories on this subject focus on the highest levels of government, glossing over the immense role of domestic actors in shaping the Tibet question in the India-China relationship. This paper aims to address this gap by studying the domestic response to Dalai Lama’s flight to India. Specifically, it analyses the domestic and international advocacy of the noted freedom fighter Jayaprakash Narayan. The paper highlights how Narayan’s advocacy was critical in building global and public opinion on the Tibet question, culminating in the passage of Resolution 1723 at the United Nations. It argues that understanding his actions on Tibet is critical because of its negative impact on the Indian government’s policy of preventing the issue from gaining international recognition – a gesture aimed at steadying the declining relationship with China. By hindering the government’s efforts at damage control, the paper demonstrates how Jayaprakash Narayan’s advocacy was a key factor explaining why Sino-Indian ties precipitously declined over the Tibet issue.

„Wjeżdża, ale nie szablę niezgody przynosi” Poseł moskiewski – poemat dyplomatyczny Jana Żabczyca

The article is divided into three main parts. First, the author introduces the subject, genre and historical background of the poem. The main content of the poem is a legation from False Dmitry to Cracow sent in order to keep an alliance with the Commonwealth by wedding per procura of Dmitry and Maryna Mniszech. Similar works of literature from the seventeenth century are also presented. The second part focuses on the details of the poem, referred to as a diplomatic poem, in New Diplomatic History’s language, since the subject of diplomacy determines the structure, the nature of the characters and the main purpose of their actions: agreement and settlement, as opposed to victory over the enemy as the subject of heroic poems. The third part provides a detailed analysis of diplomatic ceremonies, gifts, habits and customs, e.g. speeches and table seating during the wedding. It also proposes an interpretation of the tzar and aristocrat’s wedding as an image of the alliance between Russia and the Commonwealth. It is concluded that Poseł moskiewski is a short but important poem in the history of Polish epics. As a representative of diplomatic literature, it is unique among early modern Polish epic poetry.

The Olympics and the Cold War: A Historiography

Abstract This article is a historiographic review of the literature on the Olympic Games and the Cold War. The topic has been a growth area among scholars of both diplomatic history and the history of sports over the past three decades. Most of the literature has been in English, but a significant amount of work has appeared in French, German, and a few other languages. Despite the proliferation and richness of the historiography, some large gaps in coverage still exist, and some important issues still need to be explored.

Language Practices of the Brothers Simolin, Russian Foreign-Born Diplomats, in the Second Half of the 18th Century

This article considers the usage of native and foreign languages in the multinational community of Russian diplomats in the second half of the eighteenth century, especially by the immigrants from the Ostsee (Baltic) provinces of the Russian Empire annexed as a result of the Great Northern War of 1700–1721. Incorporating the approaches of new diplomatic history that applies the methods of sociolinguistics and studies, among others, the national, social and cultural identities of international actors, the author examines language practices and language competences of Swedes Karl Gustav (Karl Matveevich) and Johann Matthias (Ivan Matveevich) Simolin in the context of their career strategies. The study refers to their correspondence with Russian monarchs and the leadership of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs over the 1740s–1780s kept in the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire and the Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents. The reconstruction of both brothers’ career paths reveals that they used similar language competences they initially had in different ways. Karl Gustav, the elder brother, translator, and polyglot, was responsible for correspondence in German in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs for many years. However, when he received an appointment to Mitau, his only diplomatic post, in 1758, he began to conduct official correspondence in the Russian language. Johann Matthias, the younger brother, spent most of his life abroad and, starting from 1758, held diplomatic posts in Regensburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, London, and Paris. German that he spoke as a native speaker and French were his main languages of correspondence with the Russian monarchs and the leadership of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. French gradually replaced German in documents of all types as the language of international and court communication. In addition, Simolin understood the Russian language perfectly, which, from the mid‑1770s, spared the Collegium from having to translate rescripts sent to him on behalf of the empress. The analysis of both brothers’ language practices demonstrates that despite the introduction of French into the internal correspondence of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs in the second half of the eighteenth century, the new subjects of the Russian Empire found it necessary to learn Russian to gain promotion and become part of the Russian imperial elite.

Marshall Plan or neocolonization? The Model Cities Program and Black planning criticism

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the writing of Black activists, planners, and critics to reconcile two opposing perceptions of the Model Cities Program: an initiative known for its elevation of Black elected officials and a program that used the guise of citizen participation to stifle more radical forms of dissent. In 1966, Model Cities emerged in part from the call for a domestic Marshall Plan for Black Americans. Yet as the program began making incremental changes to the country’s neighbourhoods from 1967 to the early 1970s, participants and critics instead began to see Model Cities’ relationship to Black Americans as a new form of colonialism. To determine how this shift occurred, this paper analyses this critical commentary against the archival evidence of Model Cities implementation in the cities in which it appeared. Situating these authors’ arguments within the parallel emergence of Black studies and participatory planning as well as within larger Cold War diplomatic history, planning history, and African American intellectual history reveals how visions of revolution turned into a program of representation. Meanwhile, the plans these figures produced as part of Model Cities point to what a revolutionary program might yet be.

A neoclassical realist model of overconfidence and the Japan–Soviet Neutrality Pact in 1941

Why did Japan conclude the Japan–Soviet Neutrality Pact in 1941, even though it knew the German-Soviet relations were deteriorating and heading towards a disastrous war? Under the Tripartite Pact, it would be irrational for Japan to approach the USSR, which Germany had decided to invade. This article examines this long-standing puzzle in Japanese diplomatic history (also an anomaly of neorealism) by developing a new neoclassical realist model termed ‘neoclassical realist model of overconfidence’ based on self-deception in evolutionary psychology using scientific realism in the philosophy of science as a metatheoretical foundation. Drawing on neoclassical realism, I argue that Japan’s balancing strategy during 1940–41, which initially reflected the tripolar structure of the international system (independent variable), ultimately resulted in the suboptimal balancing of the Japan–Soviet Neutrality Pact (dependent variable) due to Yosuke Matsuoka’s (Japanese foreign minister) self-deception, including the positive illusion and cognitive dissonance effect (intervening variable).