Spanish Diplomacy Research Articles

An unsolved case from mediation activities of the Spanish diplomacy during World War One

During World War One the diplomats of neutral Spain carried out important mediation activities, supporting Russian citizens on enemy territory and trying to facilitate the return of the Russian citizens from the enemy countries. The Spanish assistance consisted, among other things, in the transfer of funds to the Russians. One of the episodes of that humanitarian mission was the rescue of a Russian journalist D.G. Yanchevetsky, a correspondent for the Novoye Vremya newspaper in Vienna, who was arrested by the Austrian authorities in July 1914 on charges of espionage and sentenced to death for «high treason». A similar case is found in the memoirs of the Spanish ambassador to Russia, Anibal Morillo y Pérez del Villar, Count de Cartagena, «Memories of my Embassy in Russia», without indicating the name of the person who was assisted. The Spanish ambassador, using the example of a so-called Ivanov, reports on the pan-Slavist propaganda of the Russian Foreign Ministry on the territory of Austria-Hungary. Based on the analysis of the memoirs of the Spanish ambassador and the correlation of that information with the facts from the Spanish and Russian sources, mainly the press, the article aims to figure out whether the Spanish ambassador described the same episode of the rescue of Yanchevetsky or he meant some other person. Discrepancy in some dates urges to express various assumptions on the issue under consideration and dwell in more detail on the role of Spanish diplomacy in the return of Yanchevetsky to Russia. The article attempts to characterize this fragment of the memoirs of the Spanish ambassador and tries to comprehend the goal set by Count de Cartagena in mentioning that case in his memoirs.

Strategies of communicative influence and model of public diplomacy of the Kingdom of Spain in the globalised world of the 21st century: National Branding Experience for Ukraine (Institutional and Image Discourses)

Strategies of communicative influence and model of public diplomacy of the Kingdom of Spain in the globalised world of the 21st century: National Branding Experience for Ukraine (Institutional and Image Discourses) Post published:15.01.2024 Post category:Issue XXIV Viacheslav Tsivatyi PhD in History, Associate Professor, Merited Education Worker of Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Member of Board of the Scientific Society of History of Diplomacy and International Relations DOI: Abstract. The article examines the features of the development of public diplomacy in Spain and analyses its key directions of activity at different stages of historical development. The study is devoted to methodological problems, institutional origins, and achievements of the diplomacy of the Kingdom of Spain. Special attention is paid to the expediency of implementing in Ukraine the best diplomatic examples (models) and achievements of Spanish diplomacy in the conditions of a globalised world system. The focus is on the activity of the main governmental agencies that stimulate the development of full-fledged Spanish foreign cultural policy as the means both for the promotion of Spanish culture abroad and for the presentation of other cultures in Spain. At the same time, much attention is given to the new forms of cultural exchange, which promote the development of cultural dialogue between nations. The institutional development, the strategies of communicative influence and the model of national branding of the Kingdom of Spain are analysed. The historical legacy and modern practical experience of the diplomacy of the Kingdom of Spain have not lost their relevance to this day, and bilateral Spanish-Ukrainian relations firmly connect Spain and Ukraine through the millennia of European history. The focus is on the modern diplomatic system and model of Spanish diplomacy, national features of the Spanish school of diplomacy, the effectiveness of the diplomatic toolkit and the art of the negotiation process of Spain’s diplomats in the conditions of the globalised world system. The project Marca España proved to be an important step towards improving Spain’s national management system. Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, foreign cultural policy, diplomacy, public diplomacy, institutionalisation, national branding, Marca España, Ukraine, Spain

Óscar Alfredo Ruiz Fernández. England and Spain in the Early Modern Era: Royal Love, Diplomacy, Trade and Naval Relations, 1604–25.

Óscar Alfredo Ruiz Fernández’s England and Spain in the Early Modern Era examines diplomatic relations between Spain and England during the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The influence of Spanish diplomacy in English international politics is explored through the activity of the Spanish ambassadors ­living in London between 1604 and 1625, years of peace between the two countries. Spanish diplomacy with England is summarized by “neutrality, tolerance, and control” (171) vis-à-vis the English host since, as the author vindicates, Spain used “a seduction game” to maintain its position of power in England. The highlight of this work is the sizeable amount of Spanish and English archival sources. The author investigates “Spanish diplomatic machinery” through centralized and transversal communication (170). The crux of the sources is the correspondence from ­­diplomats, officers, secret audiences, and bookkeepers added to the personal stories of couriers, soldiers, ­­officers, shipwreck survivors, pirates, monks, confidants, and...

Conducting Spanish Diplomacy in the Digital Age

Abstract This article demonstrates how digital diplomacy strategy has been devised, developed, and executed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation in Spain. Since 1995, digital initiatives have taken place without a joint plan of action, but as a result of individual impulses. Until 2008, public diplomacy is developed without a model, planning, or evaluation. However, the global financial crisis has accelerated interest in this issue. The first steps were taken to face the reputation crisis and the bases of action were established. Since 2012, the digital response has been systematized through the communication of diplomatic missions. The Spanish model has evolved toward consular services and issues of language and culture, showing a case study of digital transformation in the field of public administration.

Early Spanish Intruders in China: The 1579 Mission of Pedro de Alfaro, O.F.M., Reconsidered

Abstract In 1579, four years after the visit of the Augustinian missionaries Martín de Rada and Jerónimo Marín to Fujian, a new group of Spanish friars reached China from the Philippines. The mission of Pedro de Alfaro, O.F.M., has generally been dismissed as a useless attempt to break the spiritual monopoly of the Society of Jesus in East Asia, which was perceived as an attempt to put at risk the careful labor of the first generation of Jesuit “giants.” However, as this study shows, the arrival of the Franciscans in Guangzhou cannot be simply regarded as a reckless behavior to “smuggle” the Gospel in China by means of some local Cantonese convert. Alfaro and his brethren pursued a specific goal, which was related to the recent achievements of Spanish diplomacy. Rather than Guangdong, they tried to reach the coast of Fujian (Chincheo), to carry on the mission of the Augustinians, who had visited Fuzhou in 1575. With the indirect support of some local encomenderos, the Franciscans intended to take advantage of the words of “friendship” expressed by Governor Liu Yaohui and other Mandarins to Rada and his fellows. Through a comparative analysis of European and Chinese coeval sources, notably some unpublished letters and reports, this article offers a reinterpretation of the aims and results of the Alfaro mission, shedding new light on a well-known but not yet fully explored page of the history of the early Christian presence in China.

Why Did Everything Go Wrong? Some Notes on Hispano-Algerian Diplomatic Misunderstanding from a Study of a Letter of Beylerbeyi Hasan Pasha (1545-51)

The Spanish Monarchy became used to negotiating with Algerians in the final decades of the fifteenth centuries, when the Catholic Monarchs began reaching commercial and political agreements with many North African harbours. However, once the Ghazi corsairs from the Levant —Oruç and Hayreddin Barbarossa— conquered Algiers in the late 1510s, Spanish relationships with this harbour completely changed. From that moment on, Algiers tuned into an Ottoman possession subordinated to the House of Osman, posing a real threat to the Spanish Habsburgs’ Mediterranean estates. Although the Spanish Monarchy sent several military expeditions to recover Algiers, none of these attempts was successful. At the same time, Spaniards also considered diplomacy as a useful means of maintaining a channel of communication with Algerians open. Hence, this article focuses on the first half of the sixteenth century and aims to explore the evolution of Spanish diplomacy with Ottoman Algiers to find out why these inter-policy contacts did not achieve the purposes hoped for by the government of the Spanish Monarchy. For that reason, after defining the diplomatic model deployed to negotiate with the Algerians and its goals, I shall explore how the Spanish Monarchy regarded the Ottoman governors of Algiers by studying a letter that beylerbeyi Hasan Pasha sent to the Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria in the summer of 1548. This letter, which is conserved in the Archivo General de Simancas, presents us with a great opportunity to note that the socio-political consideration granted by the Spaniards to their North African interlocutors had considerable influence on the results of diplomatic missions conducted in Algiers.

Weak State, Powerful Culture: The Emergence of Spanish Cultural Diplomacy, 1914–1936

This article explores the historical factors that allowed a weak state like Spain to have cultural influence in other European countries during the interwar period. Drawing on archival material from several countries, I argue that Spain could not promote systematically its culture in the early 1920s, but that it gained in soft power because of Western European countries’ new interest first in Spanish neutrality and then in the Latin American market. When the Spanish state developed an active cultural diplomacy in the late 1920s, it was able to derive benefit from the work that other countries had already done to promote Spanish language and culture.

The basics of modern Spanish and Latin American public diplomacy

At the present stage, there is an increase in scientific attention to the phenomenon of public diplomacy and an increase in practical interest in its applied application. This trend is explained both by the development of new communication technologies and by the desire of various states to diversify the formats of cross-border communications, intensify activities to increase the attractiveness of their foreign policy in the eyes of the foreign public, and improve their international image. Another trend can be observed related to the application of the resources of public diplomacy in a comprehensive strategy for the implementation of "hard-power" scenarios in the narrow national interests of individual states. This trend raises the question of the potential role of public diplomacy as an avant-garde instrument of "hard power". Note that the socio-cultural, religious, political and ideological (historical) relationship between Spain and the states of Latin America is a necessary subject of research in the field of interdisciplinary academic discourse. The purpose of this article is to determine the meaning of public diplomacy in the relationship between modern Spain and the states of Latin America, using a synthetic, comparative and general scientific political science approach.

Displaying the Prince’s Identity: Textile Accessories and Fineries in Seventeenth-Century Diplomatic Gift-Giving

The language of gifts is plural and part of age-old strategies of soft power, i.e. the indirect representation of and negotiation between sovereigns. Studies by Christian Windler, Harriet Rudolph and Gregor M. Metzig underlined the significance of material culture in diplomacy and its importance for starting economic and cultural exchanges and transfers. This article offers to observe both the official and the parallel gift-exchanges in various diplomatic contexts. It analyses the Spanish mission of the Duke of Grammont in 1659 and the importance given to gloves, lozenges and perfumes before showing how gift-giving is in turn gender-neutral and genderoriented with a close analysis of gifts given outside official diplomatic events and aimed particularly at women. A closer study of the material environment of the widely discussed 1623 negotiations of the Spanish Match between Spain and England will show what the material language meant in the case of a doomed negotiation. The structure of exchanges may not change a lot, but the meaning of a gift and how it was received varies according to the territory, time, the stakeholders’ identity, and the political situation. This means that the study of material details – textiles, cuts, patterns, decorations, qualities, values – or the process of exchanges alone does not suffice to understand the meaning(s) princes gave such gifts. They need to be contextualised geographically, historically, economically, sociologically, and strategically. Such need is made particularly in the final case studies of the article dedicated to the role of portrait medallions and finery in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries French and Spanish diplomacy.

Por Ser Hombre Platico: Francisco Gasparo and the 1568 Spanish Negotiations with the Ottoman Governors of Algiers

In the spring of 1568, Uluc Ali Pasha, a Christian convert to Islam born in the Spanish viceroyalty of Naples, became the new Ottoman governor of Algiers. Subsequently, Phillip II of Spain tried to establish a dialogue with him. To conquer the city without having to resort to a military expedition, the king of Spain sent Francesco Gasparo, a Corsican merchant, to Algiers. This article aims to shed light on the Spanish diplomatic practice used in the dialogue with the Ottoman Governors of Algiers during the sixteenth century. To do so, we have had to move away from the traditional focus on the study of agreements and opt for a more holistic approach of the diplomatic event. Diplomacy is no longer seen as a simple political relationship capable of establishing an agreement between two parties during a specific time, but as a permanent practice defined by a complex structure. Thus, the article focuses on the agents and practices used during the Spanish negotiation with Uluc Ali to assess the tenets underpinning this type of diplomatic interaction. Gasparo’s mission enables us to reflect on the structure of Spanish diplomacy in the Early Modern Mediterranean. The Corsican merchant’s experience in Algiers reveals the presence of a specific dialogic pattern between the Iberian and Maghreb coasts and how it was consolidated during the sixteenth century. This article endeavours thus to analyse the characteristic elements and principles of what seems to be a specific diplomatic model.

Violações transnacionais: diplomacia, colaboração e repressão contra espanhóis (1936-1939)

Neste artigo, analisaremos a participação da diplomacia espanhola nos atos de repressão praticados por autoridades varguistas contra espanhóis no Brasil, no período entre 1936 e 1939, e que levaram a violações de direitos humanos. Por meio da leitura crítica de correspondência trocada entre ex-funcionários do Ministério de Estado da Espanha, e que representavam o governo nacionalista no Brasil, e de relatórios e despachos produzidos pela polícia política do Estado de São Paulo (DEOPS/SP) avaliamos a eficácia da estratégia utilizada por diplomatas espanhóis para aniquilar seus inimigos. Sustentamos que as ações repressivas estiveram vinculadas intimamente à perseguição política que era empreendida na Espanha e foram cometidas em conjunto – por agentes públicos brasileiros e espanhóis - transpondo, assim, as fronteiras espanholas para atingir cidadãos deste país no território brasileiro.

España y la guerra de los 6 días

La reciente desclasificación de parte de los archivos del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores nos permite ya abordar acontecimientos recientes de la vida internacional en los que estuvo involucrada la política exterior española, muy especialmente, en el conflicto del Oriente Medio, como es el caso de la llamada Guerra de los 6 días (6-11/6/1967). Los intentos de mediación española en este conflicto comienzan ya en los orígenes del mismo en el año 1948 y, vienen determinados por tres razones fundamentales: la primera la no existencia de relaciones con el Estado de Israel, la segunda los derechos históricos sobre los Santos Lugares y por último las relaciones con los países árabes. La orientación diplomática del entonces ministro de Asuntos Exteriores Fernando Castiella se mueve en el sentido de apoyar la causa árabe, a la vez que éstos como contrapartida apoyarían las tesis españolas sobre la internacionalización de Jerusalén y por otra parte los árabes a su vez recaban, además el apoyo español con la finalidad de que España gestionase cerca de los países hispanoamericanos el apoyo a la causa árabe en los Foros internacionales. La diplomacia española mantiene también contactos con el Vaticano buscando también su apoyo en el problema de Jerusalén. Sin embargo la diplomacia Vaticana adopta una postura maniquea, que consistía en defender de cara al exterior la internacionalización de los Santos Lugares, y en la realidad aceptando la situación de hecho, es decir la ocupación de la ciudad por jordanos e israelíes en perfecta sintonía con los intereses norteamericanos y británicos. La diplomacia española actúa en los Foros internacionales movida por estas circuntancias, a las que hay que añadir las presiones norteamericanas sobre el gobierno de Madrid para que atenuase su posición proárabe y, como consecuencia de la misma, España protege a los intereses norteamericanos en muchos países arabes, y logra una buena imagen exterior con la liberación de muchos judíos que en aquellos momentos vivían en varios países árabes, especialmente en Egipto.

Cuarenta años de diplomacia parlamentaria

El artículo expone el papel que la diplomacia española ha tenido durante los cuarenta años de andadura constitucional. Tras exponer el surgimiento histórico del fenómeno y realizar algunas precisiones terminológicas, se repasa la evolución que la diplomacia parlamentaria española ha experimentado a partir de tres etapas: el retorno a la escena internacional (1977-1986), la expansión de las relaciones interparlamentarias (1986- 2010) y la consolidación (2010-). En este tiempo se han diversificado los instrumentos de que disponen las Cortes Generales para conducir sus relaciones con otras Asambleas parlamentarias y se ha progresado en términos de transparencia, especialización y coordinación con el Ejecutivo a partir del principio de unidad de acción exterior del Estado. Asimismo, el artículo analiza cómo las crisis que han tenido lugar en los últimos años han afectado a la acción internacional del Parlamento español. Finalmente, se abordan algunas reflexiones finales acerca de la concentración geográfica de la actividad internacional de las Cortes Generales, la necesidad de dotar de mayor carácter proactivo a su labor y el imprescindible compromiso con los valores democráticos que deben inspirar la diplomacia parlamentaria en el momento actual.

La participación española en la Conferencia para la Seguridad y la Cooperación en Europa (CSCE): aportaciones al Acta Final de Helsinki

The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe announcement provided Francoist Spain an excellent opportunity to join a multilateral forum aiming to promote security in Europe as well as a detente between the West and the Soviet Union. Spanish diplomacy, despite the relative international isolation of the country and the limits derived from the authoritarian nature of the Regime, designed a negotiation strategy contributing to gaining visibility and providing valuable contributions to the Final Act, such as the incorporation of the text on Mediterranean security. They also reached a wording of the Act principles agreeable to Spain’s interest and to the progress made in United Nations. On the basis of the analysis of the Spanish delegation reports, this article studies both the lights of the work done in Helsinki and Geneva and its shades, the latter being identified with the red lines established by the Francoist Regime. In terms of human rights and especially regarding free circulation and exchange of information.

Assyriology and politics. Joaqu�n Pe�uela and Spanish diplomacy during the early Franco�s regime

Assyriology and politics. Joaqu�n Pe�uela and Spanish diplomacy during the early Franco�s regime

The Elusive West and the Contest for Empire , 1713-1763 (review)

Reviewed by: The Elusive West and the Contest for Empire, 1713-1763 Jesús F. de la Teja The Elusive West and the Contest for Empire, 1713-1763. By Paul W. Mapp. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Pp. 480. Illustrations, maps, notes, index. ISBN 9780807833957, $49.95 cloth.) At the end of the French and Indian War (or Seven Years' War), Britain stood as the only imperial power east of the Mississippi River while Spain remained the only imperial power west of the great river—the notional empire of the Comanches notwithstanding. In this sprawling retelling of how Spain and Britain wound up as the only Europeans standing and how France fell victim to its colonial ambitions, Paul Mapp takes us not only to the contested regions of western North America but to the Falklands in the South Atlantic and the Juan Fernández Islands in the South Pacific and to Siberia and China as well. His argument is that as long as historians remain focused on the geographic space of North America they cannot fully understand the role of the largely unexplored part of the continent on imperial decision making in London, Paris, and Madrid. In the end, he concludes, the French became disenchanted with the potential of western North America to provide access to Spanish sources of wealth in the years leading up to the war while the British reached the same state in its aftermath. Spain, of course, had no choice in the matter; its acceptance of trans-Mississippi Louisiana at the end of 1762 was a purely defensive move in the face of Britain's sweeping victories to the north and east. Much of what The Elusive West tells us, as the author readily admits at times, is already part of the standard historiography. The book's innovation consists in broadening the context to make French, British, and Spanish diplomacy with regard to western North America more understandable, if not always more reasonable. A substantial portion of the book is consequently devoted to explaining how the judgments of European policy makers were informed by an imperfect understanding of the geographical relationship of western North America to more valuable places such as Mexican and Peruvian silver-mining regions and potential Pacific trade routes. Developments and contrasts in the collection and processing of geographic information among the imperial powers in North America, [End Page 80] and even in Asia, receive considerable attention. A particularly insightful section delves into how the influence of Locke and Newton (replacing Descartes) on French thinking in the mid-eighteenth century led to Paris policy makers wanting empirical evidence for the fanciful claims of earlier geographers regarding access from the interior of North America to the Pacific Coast and to Spanish territories. To the degree that the facts did not support them, "The old marvels were dropping out of written evidence of foreign office deliberations" (382). Readers of this journal will be most familiar with the latter part of the book, where matters come to a boil in the decade of the 1750s, although they are bound to be disappointed with the minor role that Mapp assigns to Texas. Mapp does a very good job of explaining the strategic thinking of British, French, and Spanish statesmen based on short- and long-term objectives. However, although some of the major Spanish-French encounters in Texas are briefly discussed—the French trader Blancpain's capture on the lower Trinity River, the Norteño attack on Mission San Sabá—his arguments are mostly built around French encounters with New Mexico. Curiously, the founding of Texas in response to French activities in trans-Mississippi Louisiana is missing from Mapp's narrative. The Elusive West is an impressively well-researched and thoughtful work, even when its narrative rambles so far afield from the plains and mountains of western North America that it becomes difficult for the reader to see all the connections. The book will amply reward those patient enough to stick with it to the end. Jesús F. de la Teja Texas State University-San Marcos Copyright © 2012 The Texas State Historical Association

Spanish Diplomacy and English Recusancy in Early Elizabethan England

Reformation governments devoted considerable assets toward monitoring the activities of their wayward subjects who went into exile. Monarchs also provided resources for exiles seeking their support; the "Elizabethan Exiles" who sought refuge at the court of Philip II, and urged the king to undertake a conquest of England on behalf of the faith, are merely among the most famous. However, an even greater task was to provide spiritual, financial and even martial support for those who sought to go into exile, or else could not or would not go into exile. This task largely fell on the shoulders of the diplomatic representatives maintained at foreign courts. For English would-be exiles and recusants, their most likely source of support lay in the form of the Spanish ambassador; all of Philip's representatives offered money and moral encouragement to their coreligionists to varying degrees. There were many instances, especially in the early years of Elizabeth's reign, in which the Spanish ambassadors networked with these recusants and monitored the activities of would-be exiles. The 1562 case of Arthur Pole, an English Catholic, would-be exile, and aspirant to the crown, serves as a powerful reminder that the Spanish could, and did, support early efforts against Elizabeth's government.

Colonial Crisis and Spanish Diplomacy in the Caribbean During the Sexenio Revolucionario, 1868–1874

During the nineteenth century, the Caribbean was the stage for a complex geopolitical confrontation involving the United States, Spain, Great Britain, and France. The precarious balance of powers in that region was upset by the outbreak of the Cuban crisis in 1868 and by the dawn of the period of severe instability in Spain following the overthrow of Isabel II and the onset of the reformist period characterised by the Sexenio Revolucionario. The Cuban crisis strongly constrained the foreign policy of the new regime in Spain and turned the Caribbean Basin into a zone of vital interest for Spanish diplomacy.

Una diplomacia defensiva: la política exterior española en el Caribe y el golfo de México entre 1865 y 1878

The Spanish foreign policy in the Caribbean during the middle of nineteenth century was directed to the construction of several counterbalances that diminished the United States pressure against Cuba. The failure of the Spanish projects in Mexico and Dominican Republic during the reign of Elizabeth II and the outbreak of Cuban crisis had influence in the Spanish foreign policy during the Sexenio and the Restauracion and converted to the Caribbean in a vital zone for the Spanish diplomacy. This situation moved to Spain to try to normalize his diplomatic relations with the Hispanic American states which, from their independence, had suffered the agressive or indifferent attitude from the old colonial metropolis.

La política exterior española de 1907 a 1920: entre el regeneracionismo de intenciones y la neutralidad condicionada

In 1907 Spain obtained an external guarantee for the security of its maritime possessions, main objective of its foreign policy after the 98. From then the Spanish diplomacy tried to practice a less conservative policy in its reduced scope of action, but it was limited by the predominant interests of the guarantors of its security —France and Britain— in that strategic surroundings, although occasionally it was favored by the differences between the partners of the Entente. When exploding the Great War the marginal position of Spain, together with its multiple limitations, conditioned its neutrality, imitation of its impotence in the international order. That forced neutrality stayed, although it was more and more benevolent with the allies, because the outer guarantee that these provided was much more essential —and irreplaceable— in the warlike context. In the immediate postwar period the new policy of intentions did not control to still more reduced manoeuvre margin, by the disappearance of the German counterbalance, in the international direction of Spain.