Diplomatic Training Research Articles

Visualising and mapping historical networks of international diplomatic training

AbstractWhat might methodological approaches drawing on Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Social Network Analysis (SNA) offer to sub‐disciplines in geography which have traditionally been dominated by qualitative and often micro‐scale research, such as historical or political geography? How might these approaches—often understood as opposing—be brought together to advance transnational research in particular? This article responds to these questions through a reflection on a recent project on the geopolitics of diplomatic training in the mid‐twentieth century. Building on the established use of biography to focus transnational analyses within a complex abundance of sources, the project complemented such close‐reading with computational methods of distant‐reading, able to analyse large datasets to produce prosopographies and network visualisations that help identify diffuse and larger scale political and geographical relationships. The article concludes with a consideration of how such methods might be effectively integrated in the historical or political geographer's toolkit.

National schools of diplomatic training: divergences in the global epistemology of international relations

The proposition of establishing “global international relations” (Global IR) as an amalgamation of diverse national epistemologies in the field of international relations, potentially superseding the Western-centric paradigm, presents significant challenges. A critical inquiry emerges: Is it possible to form a discipline based on the polyphony of national approaches, despite the fact that the ontology of international relations has remained fundamentally unchanged since the mid-17th century? This study evaluates the thesis of extant national epistemologies in international relations by examining national traditions of diplomatic training. The primary research question is formulated as follows: What are the foundational approaches employed by leading states in the training of IR specialists, and can these approaches be considered reflective of national epistemologies regarding the nature of international relations? The research methodology involves a synthesis of findings from an examination of diplomatic training institutions across a diverse sample of countries. This sample encompasses Western nations (United Kingdom, Hungary, Poland, United States, Finland, France, and Germany), Asian countries (Vietnam, Indonesia, India, China, and the Republic of Korea), Middle Eastern states (Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey), African nations (Nigeria and South Africa), and Latin American countries (Brazil, Mexico, and Cuba). The article is structured in two principal sections. The theoretical section explores the hypothesis of “global international relations” within the context of existing literature and theoretical frameworks. The second section synthesizes the empirical findings from the study of national approaches to diplomatic training, testing the hypothesis of its correlation with national epistemologies in the field of international relations.

Geopolitics of decolonization: Carnegie Endowment’s diplomatic training program 1960–73

This paper considers the case of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s ‘Programs in Diplomacy’, which from 1960 to 73 provided international, bilingual training for the diplomats of ‘newer states’ – former colonies that gained independence after 1945. Drawing on archival research in three continents, we can see that the spaces and practices of diplomatic training through these programmes were inherently geopolitical: they would shape social and professional norms and networks, in turn shaping state-building and international life. As a result, the pedagogies, curricula, and spaces of these courses must be understood through the prism of contemporary (geo)political tensions: the ideological confrontations of decolonization and the Cold War. Organizers sought ‘neutral ground’ for the programmes, in terms of both their locations and their content. Beginning in Geneva and New York, the programmes shifted quickly towards universities in the Global South and articulated Third World ideals such as African unity. Despite consistent attempts to frame the programmes as technical and non-ideological, their discursive and material geographies reveal an approach to ‘learning the international’ that privileged Western liberal norms and practices, particularly through a pedagogy of socialization.

Tracing Diplomatic Tutelage: (Post)colonial Pedagogies and the Training of African Diplomats

Abstract Throughout the twentieth century, colonies emerged from the so-called tutelage of European imperial powers to represent themselves as sovereign states. One consequence of this change was an expansion in overseas diplomatic training, aimed at inducting into international life the hundreds of diplomats required to staff new foreign services. This paper interrogates the pedagogical and (geo)political practice of tutelage—where guardianship and instruction are held in tension—in order to shine a critical spotlight on programs training African diplomats, hosted in Britain, France, and Switzerland, and later in Cameroon and Kenya. In exploring practices of tutelage both within the classroom and at the international scale, we bring to the fore hitherto overlooked relational and temporal dimensions of tutelage that provide new insights into enduring paternalistic power relations as well as possibilities for agency and resistance. We trace the legacies of colonialism within these training programs but are also attentive to the ways trainers problematized the generalizability of their knowledge and pedagogy, and how African diplomats-in-training resisted relations of tutelage. In dialogue with scholarship on socialization and international education, we develop an enhanced conceptualization of tutelage that provides analytical purchase on inter-scalar relationships in world politics during and beyond formal decolonization.

Understanding Diplomatic Training from the Global South: Transnational Networks and (Post)colonial Connections

Understanding Diplomatic Training from the Global South: Transnational Networks and (Post)colonial Connections

Russian Diplomatic School during the Reign of Elizabeth Petrovna (1741—1761)

The article is devoted to the study of the Russian diplomatic school in the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna. The empress came to power under the slogan of the Russian revival, trying to transfer government posts from the hands of foreigners to the hands of Russians. However, it retained Russian diplomatic posts abroad for foreigners, which was explained by a lack of trained national personnel. The need to prepare their own diplomats forced the Russian court, in the absence of Russian universities, to use the institute of nobles of the embassy introduced by Peter I, who served in missions abroad as students. If earlier the nobles of the embassy studied a variety of subjects in European capitals, now they studied precisely diplomatic work. Ultimately, the young diplomats had to be ready to replace the heads of diplomatic missions. The estate character of the Russian state assumed that the nobles of the embassy would replace the heads of missions, and their assistants (secretaries, translators, clercs) would be students of the embassy, mainly immigrants from unprivileged classes. The preparation of the embassy students was also entrusted to the heads of missions. Diplomats should have followed the studies of both embassy nobles and embassy students, encouraged good studies, and punished laziness. The experience of training the nobles of the embassy was recognized as successful, and in 1756 the Russian court ordered to have three noblemen of the embassy in officer ranks at each mission. The most capable of these nobles could obtain the position of adviser to the embassy, thus becoming the first deputy ambassador or envoy. This measure was intended only for nobles. The former democratic nature of the College of Foreign Affairs was already a thing of the past (although immigrants from other classes continued their diplomatic service under Catherine II, reaching the posts of heads of mission). The government of Elizabeth Petrovna paid great attention to the training of diplomats, and, in the opinion of the author of the article, created a good national diplomatic school capable of responding to the challenges of our time, another thing is why this school was not in demand in the same volume in the Catherine II reign.

ПРОФЕСІЙНА ПІДГОТОВКА ДИПЛОМАТІВ В УМОВАХ ГЛОБАЛІЗАЦІЇ СУСПІЛЬСТВА

The article considers the peculiarities of training future diplomats in the context of globalization of society. It was found that the historical traditions and changes in the domestic and foreign policy development of Ukraine, on the one hand, and the processes of globalization and transformation of international relations, on the other, became a significant factor influencing the definition of approaches and training requirements for future international specialists. Globalization leads to the modernization of professional training of diplomats, the formation of an innovative educational system focused on entering the world educational space. Professional training is characterized by the search for new approaches and methods of training future diplomats in the humanization of education, the implementation of which brings the future specialist to intercultural interaction. In the context of this trend there is a problem of educating a multicultural personality that is able to perceive and understand the cultural characteristics of other peoples, which creates the preconditions for successful interaction and interpenetration of different cultures. The professional training of a diplomat should ensure harmonious interaction of the future specialist with the globalized society, promote the level of general and professional culture, culture of thinking, prepare for intercultural communication, form tolerance as a stable value-semantic attitude. We see prospects for further research in the search for new approaches and methods of training future diplomats in the context of informatization of society. Historical traditions and changes in Ukraine's domestic and foreign policy development, on the one hand, and the processes of globalization and transformation of international relations, on the other, have become an important factor influencing the definition of approaches and training requirements for future international specialists. The professional training of a diplomat should ensure harmonious interaction of the future specialist with the globalized society, promote the level of general and professional culture, culture of thinking, prepare for intercultural interaction, communication, form tolerance as a stable value-semantic installation.

United States Foreign Service Institute: A Historical Retrospective

Purpose of the study. The article analyzes the history of the formation of a scientific center at the US Department of State, which is engaged in the training of professionals in the diplomatic field. Research Methods. General scientific research methods are used. The article is based on the principleof historicism. The research and synthesis methods, as well as the problem-chronological method, which made it possible to show the development of the institute of foreign service in chronological sequence, became the base for the study. This helped preserve historical continuity, present a unified picture and consider qualitative changes in the issue of the development Foreign Service Institute. Scientific novelty. The stages of the establishment of the institute were detailed, which made it possible to structure the information about its activities from the period of its inception to the present day. The substantive and structural elements of thedevelopment of the institution of foreign service were identified and their evolution in accordance with the political realities on the world stage was shown. Findings. Today, the institute is the cornerstone of the career of American diplomatic officers, as well as thousands of government officials from all walks of life whose work requires expertise in foreign affairs. gradually over the last seven decades, the methodological and not only the content of the educational process has changed, which was due to the everincreasing number of employees in the diplomatic service, but alsothe need to improve the training of such employees due to constantglobal changes on the world stage. New skills and knowledge is realized in the implementation of practical effective diplomacy. Today's mission of the institute is to conduct worldclass diplomatic training and provide opportunities for professional growth throughout the career of a diplomat in order to achieve success on the world stage in the matter of promoting US foreign policy on behalf of the American people. For more than seventy years o history, the institute has not only not ceased to exist, but has alsomodernized in the preparation of diplomats to modern international realities

The British and American Systems of Diplomatic Training in the Face of Globalization Shifts

The article deals with frameworks for studying diplomacy in the leading foreign countries, namely the United States and the United Kingdom. The methods of determining educational disciplines for mastering the principles of diplomatic work are explored. At the same time, as an example, attention is attached to the experience of the Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine in the preparation of diplomatic staff for Ukraine. The article is dedicated to institutional and human resource issues and stages of establishment of the US diplomatic service, including the current rotation model and advanced training system. The need for drastic changes in the system of foreign policy institutions and the advisability of reforming the US diplomatic service came to the forefront of American political and academic discourse in the mid-1990s. The events of September 11, 2001 served as a catalyst for rejuvenating the preparation and advanced training model as well as the personnel management model in the US foreign policy and made the topic discussed increasingly relevant. Historically, the US diplomatic service has been relatively small but the most competent, qualified and efficient part of the US foreign policy mechanism. It is the experience of the United States which is valuable and helpful for post-Soviet countries with respect to the use of the US experience, given its established traditions and prompt response to emerging threats and challenges of the globalized world of the 21st century in the context of the ongoing reform of the diplomatic service in Ukraine. The article covers the urgent issue of renovating the diplomatic training model in Ukraine based on the analysis of experience of its US counterpart. The US experience is important and useful for Ukraine in the context of government service reforms as well as for other post-Soviet countries within the framework of integration processes and globalization. Keywords: diplomatic training system, UK diplomatic service, US diplomatic service, foreign policy, diplomacy, diplomatic institutions, institutionalization, Ukraine.

Transnational institutional fields: Positionality and generalization in the study of diplomacy

Using European diplomacy as an example, this article makes a methodological and conceptual argument about the study of transnational institutional fields. Empirically, I focus on diplomatic training in today's Europe. Although such training has traditionally been the realm of national foreign ministries, it increasingly includes non-state actors: universities, private consultancies, and European Union (EU) institutions. EU member states collaborate to train diplomats who are well-versed in the interests and working cultures of other such states. The result is a transnational field of cooperation and competition in which state and non-state actors as well as national and international players can be difficult to distinguish. Drawing primary empirical material from nine years of fieldwork, including well over one hundred interviews conducted with diplomats in Brussels and eight other cities, the paper describes that field of practice. Conceptually and methodologically, the paper delineates the difficulties of elucidating the daily operation of such fields. Central to these difficulties is the personalized character of transnational institutional settings. Individuals matter: to grasp what happens, how, and why, we must know a great deal about particular individuals' professional histories, agendas, and networks. This high level of specificity raises significant methodological challenges around positionality (of the researcher and the research subjects) and generalizability (of the argument). By dissecting these challenges, the paper improves our understanding of how transnational fields work and how to study them. I show why and how the conceptual and the empirical are integrally linked to methodological considerations in the study of transnational processes.

Political economies of transnational fields: harmonization and differentiation in European diplomacy

ABSTRACTPolitical economies of transnational fields: harmonization and differentiation in European diplomacy. Territory, Politics, Governance. Focusing on Europe, this paper analyses diplomacy as an uneven transnational field. The field is uneven not only along the predictable lines of big and small states, but also along the lines of wealth and tradition that are customarily overlooked in diplomatic studies. The political economy of European diplomacy cannot be read off the map of states without considering cross-national patterns of economic and symbolic capital. The field is transnational in the sense that national, international and supranational elements blend in daily practice to create qualitatively new forms of diplomatic knowledge production. By analysing such uneven transnationalism, the paper brings greater empirical and conceptual specificity to our understanding of bureaucratic knowledge production. The empirical material focuses on diplomatic training. It is drawn from web-based sources and over 100 interviews with the professionals of diplomacy in Brussels and five national capitals. This ‘peopled’ lens enables a high-resolution analysis of diplomatic practice and thereby illuminates socio-spatial patterns that remain invisible in traditional state-based accounts. By unpacking in concrete terms what the oft-used phrase ‘beyond the state’ means in diplomatic training, the paper advances the study of bureaucratic knowledge production in geography and cognate fields.

The making of a diplomat: the case of the French Diplomatic and Consular Institute as an identity workspace

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the creation of the Diplomatic and Consular Institute by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and conceptualises this new professional school of diplomacy as an “identity workspace” following the analysis of a cohort’s learning experience. This article aims to spark a debate from a practice perspective on diplomatic training as offered by Ministries of Foreign Affairs in Europe.

Ambivalence in International Dialogue: Implications for Diplomatic Training

Diplomats are civil servants who represent their governments abroad. By the nature of their work, diplomats work in multicultural environments. Working in intercultural settings can involve grey areas, paradoxes, and a wide range of emotions. This article analyzes how diplomats construct their professional identity, how they approach intercultural diversity and how they manage ambivalence. Qualitative interviews with senior diplomats as well as a review of literature from multiple disciplines indicate that it is vital for diplomats to be highly skilled in self-management; in building and maintaining relationships; and in operating in intercultural environments. We argue that it is essential to include these emotional, social, and cultural competences in diplomatic training so that diplomats may become effective bridge-builders. This will be particularly relevant for a diplomat whose country is currently involved in a conflict with another country, as well as for diplomats who work in the context of a political conflict.

The Prototypes of MGIMO: from the History of Specialized Diplomatic Education in Russia

The article considers the history of establishing and developing specialized education of diplomats in the pre-revolutionary Russia that was perfected along with the professionalization and growth of the diplomatic service, while the country's international contacts expanded and grew more complicated. The author points out that specialized offices for foreign affairs and permanent diplomatic missions brought about the necessity of training personnel, which meant, in particular, developing specific skills and abilities. Perfecting the training of diplomats implied the growing role of higher education for the personnel in the diplomatic service and making entrance examinations to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs more and more difficult, which meant that the applicants had to possess specific knowledge in history, economics, law, regional studies, etc. The article analyzes the role of universities, lyceums and the Oriental Institute at the Asian Department of the 70 Ministry of Foreign Affairs in professional training of diplomats. The author gives a detailed analysis of the evolution of approaches of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire towards raising the standards of training diplomats, the role of the educational qualification and entrance examinations to the diplomatic service. It finally led the Ministry to the idea of creating a specialized education centre.

Diplomatic Training and the Challenges Facing the EEAS

Summary Following a difficult birth, the European External Action Service (EEAS) is now a much scrutinized reality. Much of the analysis has concentrated on its quasi-institutional nature, its relations with the principal external action actors in the European Union and beyond, as well as the question of its legal capacity. Relatively little attention, however, has been paid to the important training dimensions, which are critical to the smooth development of the Service, especially considering the disparate backgrounds of EEAS constituents. This article argues that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution to the training dilemma. Differentiation rather than standardization, within the constraints of a programme (rather than a full-blown European Diplomatic Academy), will be the salient features of the first years of training in the EEAS. It is also argued that training can be a key strategic tool for the Service’s development and, more generally, the external relations of the EU itself.

L’adaptation du ministère des affaires étrangères aux objectifs de la diplomatie japonaise

Japanese diplomacy stands alone amongst that of industrial nations in benefiting from an increase in resources which has allowed it to face up to the significant proliferation of its needs. This development is accompanied by organisational reform and by reform in the training of diplomats and in the area of cooperation with other public bodies. Nevertheless problems remain such as coordination within the ministry of foreign affairs itself and the coherence of economic and commercial activities.

International Negotiation: Analysis, Approaches, Issues.

Negotiation researchers and practitioners from over 10 countries offer a state-of-the-art synthesis of contemporary negotiation theory, perspectives for understanding negotiation dynamics, and innovative strategies for producing enduring, mutually satisfactory agreements. The book examines the different levels of analysis and methodological approaches by which negotiations can be assessed. The principal areas in which international negotiations have been applied -- arms control, trade talks, environment, terrorism, scientific exchange -- are reviewed. Finally, a section is devoted to the application of theory and research to the training of diplomats and policy makers in the practice of negotiation.

Anna Monson

For the past decade the editorial office of Arctic has been in the capable hands of a woman of varied experience, unusual achievement and quiet initiative. Anna Monson wears these qualities very modestly, so that it is proper, now that she is retiring from that post, to expose something of the light that she has been hiding. Born in Canada, Mrs. Monson went to St. Helen's School, Abingdon, England; from there to Macdonald College of McGill University and finally to the Secretariat Course at the Mother House in Montreal. Employed at first in the McGill University Library, she became Secretary to the Chairman of the Department of Chemistry who was at the time also Director of Chemical Warfare, Canadian Department of Defence. This started her off on a career of writing and editing of reports in a variety of diplomatic and international offices .... She began in the Canadian Embassy in Mexico (1945-47), and from there to the United Nations in New York, where from 1947 to 1951 she edited reports on cartography, standards of living, tropical housing and refugees. From 1951 to 1957, in the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, she became Liaison Officer with U.N. specialized agencies and several intergovernmental organizations, and finally Professional Assistant in the Public Information Section. From 1957 to 1963 she was Reports and Liaison Officer in the World Health Organization, Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office. ... With or without personal Arctic experience, there is no doubt that Anna's experience made her an ideal editor of a scientific journal, and the Arctic Institute was fortunate to be able to enlist her services for Arctic. In a very short time she managed to get the journal out on time, no mean achievement in the first place, and she has managed also to maintain the very high standards of content, language, and arrangement set by her predecessors, notably Diana Rowley and Paul Bruggemann. Speaking as a contributor, I can add that she also succeeded in keeping the peace between herself and her contributors, something that speaks for her diplomatic training - for friction can develop very rapidly between author and editor unless one at least of the parties has that rare combination of firmness and understanding that makes for effective publication. We express to Anna Monson our acknowledged gratitude, and our wishes that she will continue from strength to strength and at last find herself working in the North. Not the least of her qualities is an impressive determination and staying power in the face of discouragement and handicap. Some years ago she had an incipient reputation as a sculptor; perhaps this may furnish a passport to the North, for many artists have found happy hunting grounds there.