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Brian C. Rathbun. (2014). Diplomacy’s Value: Creating Security in 1920s Europe and the Contemporary Middle East . Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 267 pp., $29.95 paperback (ISBN: 978-0-8014-7990-8). Almost twenty years ago, Paul Sharp (1999, 34) made the following observation in this very journal: “… we might think that students of international relations would pay a great deal of attention to diplomacy, but they do not. The study of diplomacy remains marginal to and almost disconnected from the field.” Close to two decades later, the study of diplomacy, firmly planted within the discipline of international relations, is in much healthier shape. Sharp’s own (2009) Diplomatic Theory of International Relations , Christer Jonsson and Martin Hall’s (2005) Essence of Diplomacy , Jennifer Mitzen’s (2013) Power in Concert: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Global Governance , Keren Yarhi-Milo’s (2014) Knowing the Adversary: Leaders, Intelligence, and Assessment of Intentions in International Relations , and Rebecca Adler-Nissen’s (2014) Opting Out of the European Union: Diplomacy, Sovereignty, and European Integration are all exemplary attempts to not only refocus attention onto diplomacy as a discrete activity of international practice that deserves attention, but to theorize at a deep level how diplomats contribute to the construction of the international system. Brian C. Rathbun’s (2014) Diplomacy’s Value: Creating Security in 1920s Europe and the Contemporary Middle East not only contributes to this resurgence of interest in diplomacy, but propels the discussion forward in three important ways, including theoretically, empirically, and methodologically. Before discussing the value of the argument, … mholmes{at}wm.edu

Since the end of the Cold War, the scope and study of diplomacy has expanded. In the modern diplomatic environment, novel terms such as pipeline diplomacy, coercive diplomacy, diplomacy by sanction and citizen diplomacy are common, alongside the more traditional view of diplomacy as state-to-state activity, monopolized by professional, official diplomats. With such a broad range of views, the scholar can become confused as to what actually constitutes modern diplomacy? In this article, it is argued that the disparity of views in the diplomacy studies field must be classified and consolidated before the enhanced role of diplomacy in the twenty-first century can be better understood. In this article, three different classifications or schools of diplomatic thought are introduced and constructed: the Traditional School, the Nascent School, and the Innovative School.

Economic diplomacy is no brand new contemporary phenomenon. Since the early days, securing economic interests has always been one of the twin core tasks of diplomacy, alongside military or security diplomacy. Economic and military diplomacy can be viewed as two linked DNA-chains, alternately gaining prominence to the apparent detriment of the other, with the latter evidently not disappearing but temporarily taking a back seat. In the 1990s, economic diplomacy gained the upper hand. A 1998 survey has pointed out that ministries of foreign affairs all over the world were somewhat suddenly rediscovering the importance of economic diplomacy.1 Diplomats of many countries made no secret of the fact that their prime task was to look after the commercial interests of the state they represent. Ministries of foreign affairs (together or in competition with other departments) showed a remarkable aggressiveness with regard to bilateral commercial activities. Economic diplomacy in the 1990s can easily be compared in intensity and in scope with the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’ commercial diplomacy. When seen through a historical prism, the reasons behind this recurrence appear quite easy to grasp. Economic diplomacy takes prominence when an acceleration in globalization is accompanied by an absence of agreed rules of conduct and the emergence of new items on the trade agenda as a result of an industrial revolution. New opportunities, challenges, but also threats abound. In a precarious and highly competitive international environment, firms turn to their governments for support. Governments have no choice but to further their companies’ interests, otherwise other firms would benefit. An intensive economic diplomacy is the result, strengthening the role of the state—notwithstanding all assumptions of its near demise due to globalization—be it at the end of the nineteenth or at the end of the twentieth century. Put in simple terms, when …