The relevance of classical diplomacy in the twenty-first century

Abstract

The rudiments of diplomacy as we know it go back several centuries. It was in fact between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries that diplomacy started to take shape together with the parallel emergence of the nation state. There is evidence that diplomacy was practiced even before this epoch with findings dating back to circa 2500BC, but these earlier forms of diplomatic practices are beyond the scope of this study. Before the emergence of the nation state people were mostly ruled by kings, popes and emperors and the European map was in a constant flux as peoples and territories were bartered and inherited in the name of the various dynastic feuds or through bloody wars. Diplomacy during this time was only remotely recognlsable and was mainly practiced by noble families and the very earliest of Italian city states in their bid to survive and prosper in a highly unstable balance of power that was characterized by constant shifting alliances. It was to be the ascendance of France and more specifically the peace treaties of Westphalia that would finally give way to the gradual institutionalization of diplomacy. With the advent of the foreign office and the establishment of a diplomatic service the French model would become the guiding blueprint for European diplomacy and its subsequent spread throughout the known world. Classical diplomacy with its ambassadors, permanent missions, congresses and functional detachment from domestic affairs had finally came of age. Since those times the international arena and states themselves were to witness epochal changes. The rise of nationalism, numerous wars, the more recent fragmentation of state sovereignty and a myriad of other significant developments litter the history of the old continent and global civilization. As a corollary, diplomacy, running at a parallel with the development of the state and of the international system was significantly affected. It is these effects that I seek to determine, analyze and examine in my thesis. I will do so by comparing the classical and modern state juxtaposed together with classical and modern diplomacy. In doing so I discern the trends and ways classical diplomacy evolved and from what perspectives it retained its relevance in the twenty first century.