Diplomatic Incident Research Articles

A Dilemma between Politics and Evangelism: S. Wells Williams’ Controversial Translation of the “Toleration Article” in the Sino–U.S. Treaty of Tientsin

The Sino–U.S. Treaty of Tientsin (1858), for the first time in history, included an article to ensure the toleration of Protestantism in China, i.e., the Toleration Article. The man behind the article was S. Wells Williams (1812–1884), an interpreter of the U.S. Legation and a former missionary, who negotiated with Chinese officials directly. Williams produced the Chinese version of the clause and its official English translation which led to controversies, for it was deemed unfaithful and humiliating to the Christian communities. This paper revisits this important episode in the history of Protestantism in China. Using first-hand archival materials, it reveals how Williams was forced to “mistranslate” the article in order to satisfy both parties. It further discusses the reasons behind the missionaries’ criticism, which placed Williams in the center of clashes between religious and political interests. Through Williams’ case, the paper foregrounds the crucial roles and difficult situations of missionary translators in diplomatic incidents that shaped the history of Christianity in China. More importantly, it highlights the conflicting interests and ideas in early Sino–U.S. diplomacy and shows how missionary translators worked to mediate the dilemma between evangelism and politics in 19th-century China.

Deflating the Chinese balloon: types of Twitter bots in US-China balloon incident

As digitalization increases, countries employ digital diplomacy, harnessing digital resources to project their desired image. Digital diplomacy also encompasses the interactivity of digital platforms, providing a trove of public opinion that diplomatic agents can collect. Social media bots actively participate in political events through influencing political communication and purporting coordinated narratives to influence human behavior. This article provides a methodology towards identifying three types of bots: General Bots, News Bots and Bridging Bots, then further identify these classes of bots on Twitter during a diplomatic incident involving the United States and China. In the balloon incident that occurred in early 2023, where a balloon believed to have originated from China is spotted across the US airspace. Both countries have differing opinions on the function and eventual handling of the balloon. Using a series of computational methods, this article examines the impact of bots on the topics disseminated, the influence and the use of information maneuvers of bots within the social communication network. Among others, our results observe that all three types of bots are present across the two countries; bots geotagged to the US are generally concerned with the balloon location while those geotagged to China discussed topics related to escalating tensions; and perform different extent of positive narrative and network information maneuvers. The broader implications of our work towards policy making is the systematic identification of the type of bot users and their properties across country lines, enabling the evaluation of how automated agents are being deployed to disseminate narratives and the nature of narratives propagated, and therefore reflects the image that the country is being projected as on social media; as well as the perception of political issues by social media users.

The Journey of Foreign Minister Choquehuanca to the port of Arica: a Diplomatic Incident Interpreted from a Social-Local Perspective

El presente trabajo profundiza en un incidente diplomático acontecido en la frontera que conecta el norte de Chile y el centro-oeste de Bolivia y que se expresa en el marco de la demanda interpuesta por Bolivia a Chile en el Tribunal de La Haya (2013-2018). Se trata del viaje del excanciller Choquehuanca junto a una comitiva a puertos chilenos en el año 2016. Con el análisis de este evento se busca comprender sus alcances políticos y sociales, sobre todo a escala regional. Se utilizó un análisis documental y de discurso de fuentes de prensa y bibliográficas, haciendo uso, además, de algunos aportes del giro etnográfico de las relaciones internacionales para sostener que los actores locales y paradiplomáticos aprovechan estas coyunturas para reivindicar problemas asociados al esquivo desarrollo fronterizo de las localidades en que se desenvuelven, trayendo como consecuencia ajustes a veces no previstos por el sistema diplomático y una valoración de las prácticas informales de alcance internacional.

The Future Is Furby

The Future Is Furby

The good, the bad and the sofa: Order of protocol among EU leaders in the context of the Union's external representation

ABSTRACT The joint visit by European Council President Michel and Commission President von der Leyen to Turkey in April 2021 sparked a heated discussion on the EU's diplomatic protocol rules. The reason: the seating arrangements provided when the two met with Turkish President Erdoğan. Michel and Erdoğan sat on chairs, while von der Leyen was given a sofa, implying a lower rank. This triggered a diplomatic incident between the EU and Turkey and increased intra-institutional tensions in Brussels. This article analyses EU protocol rules and explains the order of precedence of its leaders in foreign policy. It argues that EU protocol rules lay out a clearer hierarchy for its leaders than what was implied in the aftermath of the incident. However, the rank that the Commission President holds when he/she is representing the EU externally together with the European Council President requires clarification since their respective foreign policy competencies are different.

Rally 'Round the Prime Minister: a study into the effects of a diplomatic conflict on public opinion under coalition government

The rally ‘round the flag effect is a well-known phenomenon in the nexus between public opinion and international relations. This phenomenon has been well studied for the US. It has not been studied extensively for multiparty coalition systems. This study analyses the effect of a diplomatic crisis on the popularity of the Prime Minister of the Netherlands. It makes three key contributions to the literature on the rally effect. Firstly, it considers the effect of a diplomatic incident on the popularity of the head of government in a parliamentary system with coalition government. Secondly, it considers the effect of this incident on both the Prime Minister and the Vice Prime Minister who come from different parties. Thirdly, it employs a matching quasi-experimental design to get a better grip on the causal relationship between an international conflict and the support for government leaders.

«Bukhara Is Like Algeria»: the Ottoman Political Elite on the Petition of the Bukhara Emir Khaidar to Sultan Mahmud II to Accept Bukhara into the Ottoman Empire.

Relations between the Bukhara Emirate and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century previously became the object of study more than once [Saray, 1994; 2003. Andican, 2003]. However, one curious episode of bilateral relations has not received the proper assessment of the researchers. We are talking about a very interesting message from the ruler of Bukhara, Mangyt Emir Haidar (1800-1826) to the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II (1808-1839) with a request to accept Bukhara into the Ottoman Empire. Difficult internal and external political situation around Bukhara in the 1810s - 1820s. forced Emir Haidar to look for ways to solve it, one of which was to receive external assistance from the state, which was considered the most powerful in the Muslim world. Also interesting are the motives of the Ottoman political elite, who discussed various aspects of this diplomatic incident and made a direct comparison of the situation with the potential entry of Bukhara into the empire with the range of problems experienced by Ottoman diplomacy around Algeria. The similarity of the conditions for the entry of Algeria in the XVI century into the Ottoman Empire and the situation around Bukhara in the 19th century was due to the similarity of the military-political threats they faced. However, Bukhara was a little-known region of the world, the annexation of which carried significant risks. In this article, the author will attempt to consider this episode, the motives and goals of the parties in more detail.

The Antigallican Affair: Public and Ministerial Responses to Anglo-Spanish Maritime Conflict in the Seven Years War, 1756–1758

Abstract In the first year of the Seven Years War, on 26 December 1756, the British privateer Antigallican captured the French East Indiaman Le Duc de Penthièvre some way off of the Spanish town of Ferrol. In short order the Duc de Penthièvre was given back to the French by Spanish authorities. The actions of the Spanish were a violation of Spain’s stated neutrality in the conflict and led to a protracted diplomatic incident that tested the commitment of Britain’s government to the preservation of Spain’s maritime neutrality, which was key to Britain’s overall wartime maritime strategy. Focusing on the Antigallican affair, this article presents a case-study which affords insight into how ministers dealt with public opinion that was in opposition to strategic needs at a specific political point in time, and over a specific issue. It also suggests that using measures based on the volume and intensity of press coverage as a proxy for public influence on policy making is an uncertain approach. By looking more deeply into the political, personal, and historical contexts of making policy, a micro-history offers a more certain method for understanding the complexity of policy-making and the power of the press at any given time. The point of such a close study is not to generalise about the power of the press to influence policy in the mid-eighteenth century, rather, it is to show that such generalisations are fraught with unanticipated errors and assumptions that gloss over the complexity of interactions between politics and public opinion.

Historia, archeologia i paleobotanika. O demaskowaniu dziejów w badawczo- artystycznej praktyce Sławy Harasymowicz, Thierry’iego Oussou oraz Michaela Wanga

The practice of contemporary artists is sometimes similar to the methodology of the researcher of the past. The creators engaged in the discovery of history, generate images of memory using historically or biologically similar methods, among which archival research, archaeological excavations and botanical experiments are a full-fledged artistic method. The reason for the work of Sława Harasymowicz is the nearby history, in which the members of her family and herself participated. Thierry Oussou has recently become famous for the excavation mystic that triggered the diplomatic incident. In his artistic work, Michael Wang raises global themes: climate change and economics. Their projects level the artistic and research work with the process. They reject the dictates of the objectivity, and linearity of the story. The method chosen by them, the questions posed and comments made by commentators are included in the discourse of contemporary humanities, in which the human subject has been included in the system of dependencies between animals, plants, and machines.

Bonded but not embedded: trust in Australia-Indonesia relations, Keating & Suharto to Turnbull & Jokowi

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to use theories of bonded and embedded trust to explain the ‘roller-coaster’ nature of the Australia-Indonesia relationship. An examination of Prime Minister Keating and President Suharto as a case of bonded trust between leaders reveals the value such a relationship has in building trust in bilateral relations. However, it also reveals that such trust cannot survive changes in leadership if it has not become more broadly embedded in both government and society. This is particularly problematic given Australia’s tendency for rapid leadership and ministerial turnover across the past decade. While President Joko Widodo and Prime Minister Turnbull were able to develop a warm relationship which helped to reset the relationship and enabled them to navigate diplomatic incidents, Malcolm Turnbull’s recent political demise only serves to further highlight the necessity of building trust between societies. Without trust, cooperation between the two states will be limited. Building trust between societies will be required if Australia wants to develop a trusting relationship with Indonesia capable of undertaking deeper forms of cooperation on more sensitive issues – something which will be fundamental to Australia’s ability to navigate growing strategic uncertainty in the region.

How Political Perceptions Affect Attitudes Toward Tourism: A Study of Chinese Generations

Based on the case of Chinese tourists' travel to Japan, this study is aimed at providing more insight on the relationship between international politics and travel decisions. This study identifies the generational gaps of attitudinal structure between the Chinese Cohort 60 (CC 60) and Chinese Post-80s (CP 80) based on the textual data collected through in-depth interviews with two generations of Chinese tourists. The fluctuation of Chinese tourist arrivals in Japan following diplomatic incidents suggests that Sino–Japanese historical and contemporary political incidents may have an effect on tourism attitude. Result indicated that the association between the attitudes toward tourism, Japan, and political incidents are stronger for CC 60 than for CP 80. Compared with CP 80, CC 60 tourists hold stronger stereotype and prejudice toward the Japanese, as well as experience considerable pressure from anti-Japanese social norm, thereby producing cognitive dissonance for those interested in visiting Japan. CP 80 hold more neutral attitude toward Japan tourism and their intention to travel to Japan is less influenced by their attitude toward this country and the historical incidents. The findings have implication on sustainable Sino–Japan tourism and pointed out the important role of political incidents in tourist behavior.

The Netherlands: Political development and data for 2017

The year 2017 was a period of contradictionary development in terms of political stability in the Netherlands. On te one hand, the Mark Rutte II cabinet, the longest serving cabinet since the Second World War, was the first since 1998 to complete the entire term. On the other hand, the highly volatile 2017 national elections yielded the most fractionalized parliament in Dutch history. The ensuing cabinet formation was the longest on to date.

Beyond the media event: modes of existence of the diplomatic incident

Diplomatic incidents repeatedly create unexpected concern among chanceries worldwide, immediately capturing global media attention and public interest. Despite this, their academic treatment remains either fleeting and anecdotal or exclusively focused on detailed analysis of some critical cases that were historically conducive to serious international crises or war. These approaches have been unable however to anticipate the transfiguration undergone by diplomatic incidents into media events. Against this background, this article advances a more comprehensive approach. After some introductory considerations, the notion of ‘diplomatic incident’ will be examined through four consecutive prisms: the phenomenology of the diplomatic incident as a discrete event, or set of related events, rooted in some discernible causes, susceptible to being managed, and able to produce more or less controllable consequences; their consideration as memorable moments that serve as plot for the historical and popular narratives of national pride and shame; their functioning as dispositif through which the diplomatic system signals elements of friction and performs its constant adaptation to the changing functional and normative imperatives of the wider global system; and finally, their transfiguration through intense mediatization into global media events, whose eruption and effects ostensibly exceed the capabilities of public diplomacy techniques of control. In these circumstances diplomatic incidents reset their old ritual value for testing the consistency of national political imaginaries, but within a completely new context, namely that of a de-territorialized global public sphere.

Critically Important: The Heterogeneous Effect of Politics on Trade

There is strong empirical evidence showing that political relations have an impact on aggregate bilateral trade flows. In this paper, we show that the impact is heterogeneous across products, depending on product characteristics. Specifically, imported products used as intermediate inputs intensively may be more sensitive to adverse shocks. This is particularly relevant in the current context of increased international input linkages. We sketch a simple theoretical framework and test the mechanism in reduced-form. We implement a difference-in-differences approach with monthly trade flows and a novel dataset of diplomatic incidents. We find that a negative shock to political relations leads to a general decrease in trade flows, and that the response is larger for products in markets with low price gaps to alternative sourcing partners and high direct and indirect imported input use.

История одной телеграммы: Палестина, Фашодский кризис и кайзер Вильгельм II

The article studies historical sources (diplomatic notes, correspondence, telegrams of the employees of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and presents a content analysis and a systematization. Most documents are being introduced into scientific use for the first time. The information basis is formed by previously unpublished materials of the Political Archive from the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire. The article attempts to characterize the documentary sources found in the archival file ‘The Journey of Emperor Wilhelm to Palestine’ that are dedicated to the Fashoda incident. The validity of the hypotheses of relevance of microhistorical plots in objective evaluation of crucial historical events is verified by traditional methods of historical research: comparative historical analysis, chronological approach, retrospective and perspective methods. The method of historical reconstruction helps to narrate the episode of Emperor Nicholas II’s telegram to Kaiser Wilhelm II in the circumstances of the developing Fashoda crisis. The author takes into account the assessments found in Russian sources. A variety of official and unofficial documents allows to clarify and to correct existing ideas about the resolution of the Fashoda question in 1898. The article is the first to examine the history of the Fashoda crisis in the diplomatic correspondence between Nicholas II and Wilhelm II. The correspondence focuses on the role of Russian consul-general in Beirut K. N. Lishin. The author concludes that Lishin's excessive diligence and fear to harm his own career bolstered the diplomatic incident concerning the telegram and compounded the diplomatic situation around Fashoda. The archival file ‘The Journey of Emperor Wilhelm to Palestine’ yet again demonstrates a strong connection between the event and the policies of the great powers in the Middle East and Europe. To understand the history of international relations it is important to research not just the relevant topics and cases, but to study the whole complex of diplomatic sources of the period.

From Enemies to Allies? Portugal's Carnation Revolution and Czechoslovakia, 1968–1989

This article analyses the relationship between Portugal and Czechoslovakia between 1968 and 1989, with a specific focus on the influence of the Carnation Revolution. This analysis includes the Portuguese communist migration to Czechoslovakia, the contact between the Portuguese and Czechoslovak communists during Portugal's transition process, a diplomatic incident in 1982 and the specific conditions within the Portuguese student community at Czech and Slovak universities. The article also explores the fact that Czechoslovak communists, despite hopes that southern Europe might ‘go socialist’, did in fact very little to support communist forces in Portugal after the collapse of the Caetano regime. Likewise, the post-dictatorial governments in Portugal did little to help Eastern European dissidence. Instead, political players in both countries saw each other much more in terms of economic advantage and realpolitik.

Neutralist crossroads: Spain and Argentina facing the Great War

In this article, we propose an initial comparative approach to the cultural and political impact of the First World War on Spain and Argentina, considering the common denominators and the singularities of both social experiences of the conflict. The relevance of the proposed comparison lies in several factors. In the first place, deep historical, cultural and demographic ties bound both nations. In second place, during the First World War, Spain and Argentina adopted a neutralist foreign policy, unaltered despite several diplomatic incidents with the warring nations, and of internal and external pressures. In both cases, civil society displayed a high level of political and cultural polarisation, and undertook an active mobilisation. Finally, there was a remarkable circulation of ideas and intellectuals through both margins of the Atlantic Ocean, which nourished the public controversies on the Great War. Nevertheless, beyond these similarities and confluences, there were also significant differences between Argentina and Spain, which exerted an influence on the countries position towards the conflict. The national cases analysed in this article demonstrate that diplomatic neutrality did not imply necessarily the indifference or passivity of civil society. Rediscovering neutrality within the war dynamics is one of the most stimulating paths for research.

The Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet (or the Virtual Times of a Postmodern Law). Doi: 10.5020/2317-2150.2015.v20n3p746

The paper presents a critical perspective about the article “Le temps virtuel des lois postmodernes ou comment le droit se traite dans la société de l’information” (“The Virtual Time of Postmodern Laws, or How the Law is Processed in the Information Society”), published by the philosopher and jurist François Ost, with the purpose of conducting a case study through the Brazilian law “Marco Civil da Internet” (“Civil Rights Framework for the Internet”). The article analyzes the profound changes in the way the law came to be produced and interpreted, in the passage from the forms of writing and printing based on paper to the forms of text processing and communication based on computers and networks. The law known as "Marco Civil da Internet" (Law 12,965 / 2014) was used here as a validity test of the main elements of the text under examination, by means of illustrations and references published by the international media, especially after the diplomatic incidents arising from the revelations of the electronic monitoring of international telecommunications, conducted by the National Agency of Security (NSA) of the United States of America. The study concludes that Ost’s article, published even before the Internet massification, can be considered as a premonitory insight about the changes in the operation and reproduction of law in the postmodern society, in which the hierarchical and pyramidal understanding of law moves to a distributed and networked understanding and production of law. It also concludes that the paradigmatic law "Marco Civil da Internet" validates the propositions of the vanguardist article, by meeting the postmodern characteristics of a law as a network. Finally, it presents relations between the model of word processing of law and risk as deployments of the transformations that law is undergoing in the postmodern society.

“The intolerable business": Religion and diplomacy under Elizabeth’s rule

Within the scope of foreign affairs between Portugal and England during Elizabeth’s rule, numerous events indicate the challenges faced by the Portuguese ambassadors on their missions. Regrettably, little is known about these envoys and one rarely finds any reference to their names or their diplomatic accomplishments in Early Modern studies. This paper focuses on a diplomatic incident which involved Francisco Giraldes, a Portuguese resident ambassador in England, aiming to shed some light on “the intolerable business” that led to a confrontation with the Bishop of London, Edwin Sandys. Attending a Catholic Mass in the context of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement involved certain challenges that should be considered. Diplomats, however, enjoyed certain immunities, including the droit de chappelle, and were allowed to hold Catholic services in their ambassadorial residences. But in March 1573, while Mass was being held, Francisco Giraldes’s residence was raided by the Sheriff of London’s men, working under the Bishop of London’s instructions. The ongoing tension between the religious and the political areas of power was, thus, exposed. Two letters, written by the Bishop of London, included in the Lansdowne Manuscripts Collection of the British Library, registered the event. As Sandy’s correspondence appears to be the single piece of surviving evidence regarding this diplomatic incident, it stands to reason that its analysis will provide significant insight into the coexistence, as well as the clash, of oppositional forces, while further contributing to an interpretation of Anglo-Portuguese affairs in Early Modern times.

The Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet (or the Virtual Times of a Postmodern Law)

the paper presents a critical perspective about the article “Le temps virtuel des lois postmodernes ou comment le droit se traite dans la societe de l’information” (“The Virtual Time of Postmodern Laws, or How the Law is Processed in the Information Society”), published by the philosopher and jurist Francois Ost, with the purpose of conducting a case study through the Brazilian law “Marco Civil da Internet” (“Civil Rights Framework for the Internet”). The article analyzes the profound changes in the way the law came to be produced and interpreted, in the passage from the forms of writing and printing based on paper to the forms of text processing and communication based on computers and networks. The law known as “Marco Civil da Internet” (Law 12,965 / 2014) was used here as a validity test of the main elements of the text under examination, by means of illustrations and references published by the international media, especially after the diplomatic incidents arising from the revelations of the electronic monitoring of international telecommunications, conducted by the National Agency of Security (NSA) of the United States of America. The study concludes that Ost’s article, published even before the Internet massification, can be considered as a premonitory insight about the changes in the operation and reproduction of law in the postmodern society, in which the hierarchical and pyramidal understanding of law moves to a distributed and networked understanding and * Doutorando em Direito na Universite de Montreal, Canada. Bolsista CAPES/Programa Ciencia sem Fronteiras. Email: cristiano.therrien@umontreal.ca ** Professor titular da Faculdade de Direito da Universite de Montreal e pesquisador do Centre de recherche en droit public. Email: pierre.trudel@umontreal.ca