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‘Diplomacy of the American Revolution’ considers the United States' battle for independence and the diplomatic efforts required to reach agreement with Great Britain. In order to win independence, the United States had found it necessary to involve itself in the international rivalries and politics of Europe. The negotiations between the US peace commissioners — John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay — and the Comte de Vergennes, the French Foreign Minister, the Earl of Shelburne, Richard Oswald, and the Spanish are worth examining at this point. A number of key treaties were signed during the negotiations, including the 1778 Treaty of Amity and Commerce and Treaty of Alliance between America and France.

This chapter describes the transferring of imperial power from the British to the Americans and outlines the display of American hegemony in the Caribbean during this period. It refers to key moments in US history which impacted the Caribbean, including the Monroe Doctrine (1823); the Venezuela—Guiana dispute of the 1890s; the Spanish American War, the Teller Amendment, the Platt Amendment, and the US base at Guantanamo Bay; US construction and control of the Panama Canal; President Theodore Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” diplomacy; President William H. Taft’s “Dollar Diplomacy”; President Woodrow Wilson’s “Missionary Diplomacy”; and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy”.

This article provides an over-view of Nordic contributions to the field of public diplomacy, examining the historical appearance of such constituent practices as listening, advocacy, cultural diplomacy, exchange, international broadcasting and an awareness of soft power. The Nordic approach is contrasted with that of the United States. The piece ends with a consideration of the Nordic experience of the so-called New Public Diplomacy approaches including use of on-line media and memes.

This article examines the impact of American religious beliefs about Islam in shaping American foreign relations during the First World War by examining the lobbying efforts of Rev. James Barton, the secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, one of the largest American missionary organizations in the United States at that time. During the war, Barton sought to convince both the American public and government officials, including his important network of contacts in the Wilson administration, that converting Muslims to Christianity was a necessity in reforming the empire. In order to do this, he argued that the empire should fall under American or British control after the war.

This article challenges the dominant framework that drives US public diplomacy initiatives and insists that, short of major structural changes, US public diplomacy lacks ethical legitimacy. Based on a review of past US public diplomacy practices, the article finds that these efforts were mainly characterized by a one-way flow of information and an emphasis on image management. Using the theories of hegemony, American exceptionalism, Orientalism, and cultural imperialism, the author lays a theoretical framework for analyzing public diplomacy. The author suggests that, for public diplomacy to move beyond propaganda, it needs to incorporate two-way communication and symmetry.

The construction of the concepts of diplomacy and health diplomacy must consider their conceptions and practices, at both the global and regional levels. Health diplomacy is vitally important in a global context, where health problems cross national borders and more new stakeholders appear every day, both within and outside the health sector. On the other hand, regional integration processes provide excellent opportunities for collective actions and solutions to many of the health challenges at the global level. In the current global context, the best conditions for dealing with many health challenges are found at the global level, but the regional and subregional spheres also play essential roles. The region of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) consists of 26 countries or territories that occupy a territory of 7,412,000 square miles—almost 13% of the Earth’s land surface area; it extends from Mexico to Patagonia, where about 621 million people live (as of 2015), distributed among different ethnic groups. Geographically, it is divided into Mexico and Central America, the Caribbean, and South America, but it presents subregions with populations and cultures that are a little more homogenous, like the subregions of the Andes and the English Caribbean. By its characteristics, LAC has acquired increasing global political and economic importance. In the 1960s, integration processes began in the region, including the creation of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), Mercosur, the Andean Community, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Central American System, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), the Sistema Económico Latinoamericano y del Caribe (SELA), the Asociación Latinoamericana de Integración (ALADI), and finally, since 2010, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños, or CELAC), which is the most comprehensive integrative organization. While originally a mechanism for political and economic integration, health is now an important component of all the abovementioned integration processes, with growing social, political, and economic importance in each country and in the region, currently integrating the most important regional and global negotiations. Joint protection against endemic diseases and epidemics, as well as noncommunicable diseases, coordination of border health care, joint action on the international scene (particularly in multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and its main agencies), and the sectoral economic importance of health are among the main situations and initiatives related to health diplomacy in these integration processes. The effectiveness of integration actions—and health within those actions—varies according to the political orientations of the national governments in each conjuncture, amplifying or reducing the spectrum of activities performed. The complexity of both the present and future of this rich political process of regional health diplomacy is also very important for global health governance (GHG).

Conflicts often emanate when one society tries to enforce its own culture on others. Cultural diplomacy, as a form of diplomacy, is often an integral part of diplomatic activities of almost all states to alleviate cultural clashes and to assist cultural institutions in the dissemination of national culture. In practice, the under-deployment of cultural diplomacy very often results from false perceptions about its activities. The aim of this paper is to conceptualise the term ‘cultural diplomacy', provide a short history of its development, sketch its major functions and evaluate its importance in the process of foreign policy implementation. South Africa should diversify its diplomatic tools more effectively. Cultural diplomacy should receive more prominence by the practitioners of diplomacy and could serve as a useful means for the implementation of South African interests abroad. It could promote favourable conditions as a precursor for the effective achievement of the country's foreign policy goals.

This essay draws attention to the vital role that the “other” America has played in the creation of (U.S.) American rhetorics. It examines how U.S. presidential invocations of the Monroe Doctrine make use of the figure of Latin America to imagine the United States and its role in the world. In 1823, when James Monroe articulated what became the “Monroe Doctrine,” the idea that the United States had a two-continent sphere of influence was novel at best. Over time, however, U.S. public discourse developed a ubiquitous common sense in which U.S. strength, security, and even national being have a hemispheric basis. From Monroe’s assertion that actions against any American state would manifest “an unfriendly disposition toward the United States” to Theodore Roosevelt’s lionized national virility and into the present moment, the figure of Latin America—present and absent—has become powerfully definitive for U.S. national image.

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

Religion has long been seen as an obstacle to diplomacy, especially in disputes and conflicts that seem to be related to or motivated by religion. The very nature of religion—its concerns for dogma, truth, and certainty— would seem to be contrary to the nature of successful diplomacy, with its emphasis on empathy, dialogue, understanding, negotiation, and compromise. However, religion and diplomacy have become more interrelated since the end of the twentieth century. Globalization and the changing nature of conflict have exposed the limits of conventional diplomacy in resolving these new conflicts in a global era, and this has opened up new opportunities for religious actors involved in diplomacy. A so-called “faith-based diplomacy” has emerged, which promotes dialogue within and between religious traditions. Particularly in the Islamic world, with a new generation of theologians and politicians, it is recognized that there is a key role for religious leaders and faith-based diplomacy in the Middle East. Faith-based diplomacy can be distinguished from the traditional models of peacemaking and conflict resolution by its holistic approach to the sociopolitical healing of a conflict that has taken place. In other words, the objective of faith-based diplomacy is not only conflict resolution but also the restoration of the political order that has suffered from war and injustice, and the reconciliation of individuals and social groups.

Objective to study the international political phenomena which in the twentieth century were defined by certain scientific communities and governments of the world as ldquomoral diplomacyrdquo. Methods dialectical approach to cognition of social phenomena allowing to analyze them in historical development and functioning in the context of the totality of objective and subjective factors that determined the choice of the following research methods formallogical systemic. Results the concept of ldquomoral diplomacyrdquo is considered from different points of view. The sources of information analyzed in this work ascertain that there is a relationship between the concept of laquomoral diplomacyraquo and the two main approaches to its consideration. Despite the small amount of information on the subject we managed to gather a sufficient number of documents in which the term ldquomoral diplomacyrdquo is applied to both certain types of foreign policy and some diplomatic strategies. We attempted to provide actual historical facts and identify the main scientific conceptions on the matter as well as to form new ideas and concepts that would help to distinguish between different modern political scenarios. One of these concepts is ldquoContemporary moral diplomacyrdquo that the U.S. government used as a diversion in an attempt to strengthen and extend their domination over Latin America. Scientific novelty the information presented in the article helps to understand one of the types of modern diplomatic strategies used in the activities of the United States aimed to retain control in Latin American countries and the possible actions that countries can take to defend themselves from this strategy. Practical significance the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used in research and teaching for the consideration of various contemporary political scenarios. In particular the understanding of moral and immoral diplomatic strategies may be useful in the interpretation of international political movements in some countries such as the United States.

The fourth case looks at the formation of the Foreign Section of the Committee on Public Information and its operations during World War I (WWI). In addition to looking at the practices used by the Committee to engage publics abroad, the case will highlight how the Committee relied on private organizations, such as American businesses, the American Red Cross, and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), to assist with their foreign public engagement activities. The case will also expose the origins of America’s repulsion toward propaganda and the tendency to differentiate the Committee’s activities as educational or informational activities. The story of the Committee on Public Information’s (CPI) activities overseas is essential to understanding the pathologies of present-day public diplomacy as well as the established practices of public diplomacy.

America’s Civil War became part of a much larger international crisis as European powers, happy to see the experiment in self-government fail in America’s “Great Republic,” took advantage of the situation to reclaim former colonies in the Caribbean and establish a European monarchy in Mexico. Overseas, in addition to their formal diplomatic appeals to European governments, both sides also experimented with public diplomacy campaigns to influence public opinion. Confederate foreign policy sought to win recognition and aid from Europe by offering free trade in cotton and aligning their cause with that of the aristocratic anti-democratic governing classes of Europe. The Union, instead, appealed to liberal, republican sentiment abroad by depicting the war as a trial of democratic government and embracing emancipation of the slaves. The Union victory led to the withdrawal of European empires from the New World: Spain from Santo Domingo, France from Mexico, Russia from Alaska, and Britain from Canada, and the destruction of slavery in the United States hastened its end in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Brazil.

Diplomacy’s role in foreign policy is hampered by multiple understandings of what diplomacy is and does. A broad definition of diplomacy holds that it encompasses more than the promotion of peaceful international relations. Instead, it applies to the sum of those relations—peaceful, hostile, and everything in between. Thus, foreign relations—so long as they involve the interests, direction, and actions of a sovereign power—may be regarded as being synonymous with diplomatic relations, whereby foreign policy relates to the theory and practice of setting diplomatic priorities; planning for contingencies; advancing strategic, operational, and tactical diplomatic aims; and adjusting those aims to domestic and foreign constraints. This conception of diplomacy is functional: it emphasizes the roles of diplomats and recognizes that many other people perform these roles besides official envoys; and it illustrates that diplomatic settings—and the means, methods, and tools of diplomacy—undergo continuous change. The basic mediating purpose of diplomacy, however, has endured, as has much of its institutional apparatus—embassies, ambassadors, treaties, and so on. This is likely to remain the case so long as there are multiple polities in the world, all having to relate to one another.

This chapter interrogates the nexus between political communication and diplomacy in Africa. African political communication in the early years of independence focused on attempts at putting a stop to the then trending pattern of coup d’etats but would later incline towards the struggle against racism and apartheid not at the expense of economic developments. In this chapter, consideration is also given to the influence of external powers on the content and current of political communication in Africa right from the Cold War era and how various African nation states such as Congo, Angola, and South Africa responded to those powerful nations concerned.

This chapter explores the link between public diplomacy and foreign policy as practiced by the United States—one of the most, if not the most, important practitioner of public diplomacy. The chapter opens with a brief overview of the history of American public diplomacy and current practitioner institutions. This historical approach is important in order to understand the foundations of the practice that remain unchanged throughout the years as well as to highlight the recent changes made to better respond to the contemporary political needs. The exemplary public diplomacy project is the Education, Culture, Sports, and Media Working Group of the Russia–US Bilateral Presidential Communication. This initiative of public diplomacy is chosen due to its explicit connection to a foreign policy (Reset policy) and to the fact that it can be used to represent general American relational public diplomacy projects, given the fact that the working group executes different types of public diplomacy activities, utilizing a variety of bureaucratic structures. The chapter concludes with presenting the pathways of connection observed in the project.

The research is carried out to describe public diplomacy as a tool of power for countries to advance their national interest and it is trying to answer this: “What are the best reasons to apply public diplomacy in foreign policy?” The method of research in this study is descriptive-analytic. First, a theoretical description of public diplomacy has been provided and then the way public diplomacy is applied in US foreign policy is analyzed. Public diplomacy is the process of direct communication with people in other countries to influence their thoughts often its goal is to influence the behavior of foreign governments via influencing the viewpoints of their citizens. The importance of public diplomacy, especially in terms of promoting a country’s image, comes into play and police-makers do their utmost to get their message across and, hence, leave a positive image of themselves. The United States of America was the first country to realize the importance of public diplomacy in foreign policy after the September 11 terrorist incidents and seriously took advantage of it. In this regard, the US relied on soft power and targeted other nations and by this means tried to give identity to people in accordance with the policies and interests of the US, and captured their hearts and minds to make them follow their policies. The United States has concluded that to advance its national interest on international level, before anything it needs to make the public opinion follow them and attaining this goal is tied to the use of soft power and public diplomacy; However, despite the efforts by American politicians to make up and positive image of this country, because the authoritarian policies of the United States in some regions like the Middle East, the negative image of the US is becoming widespread by the day.

Diplomatic history has undergone profound alterations during the last century. According to the old model built by Mattingly in 1955, diplomatic history was the analysis of international and political relations within a national context. Subsequent studies analysed how diplomacy evolved towards a more institutionalised and professional scheme (established in eighteenth-century European diplomacy). However, was this conclusion an inevitable one for Early Modern and Baroque diplomacy? This essay intends to retrace the steps that have been taken towards a new history of diplomacy, by early-modern historians in general, and by Spanish historiography in particular, as well as to assess the idea that what made a difference for Spanish Baroque diplomacy was the extent of networks that allowed cultural transference, the capacity to influence others, rather than the institutional extent of connections and practices. Which people or processes promoted the circulation of ideas, information, and culture, within and o...

At the 1860 conference on Protestant missions held in Liverpool, a session was dedicated to the use of the reported 200,000 monthly missionary periodicals produced by various societies for encouraging the home support of missionary work. The 125 delegates from more than twenty-five Protestant missionary societies both in Britain and abroad had divergent opinions on the prospective contents and audiences for missionary periodicals. One thing that they did agree upon, however, was their necessity. The Reverend Thomas Green from the Church Missionary Society noted that missionary periodicals provided a means of “influencing” the minds of readers in order to excite the missionary spirit among the home community. The high circulation of missionary periodicals was, according to the Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society, Reverend Frederick Trestrail, an indication that they provided a source of information that was received willingly and consumed by the masses.

Between the 1960s and the 1980s Tanzania inspired a host of countries in Africa and the global South with its principled foreign policy centred on liberation diplomacy. This policy was abandoned in the 1990s, as Tanzania adopted economic diplomacy. Over two decades have now passed and some sections of the public are questioning what economic diplomacy entails in practice, what it means to the Tanzanian society. This article is an attempt to respond to some of these questions, by exploring some general conceptions of economic diplomacy and counter-posing them to popular notions and experiences. The article argues that economic diplomacy thus far has been nothing but a tool of the neoliberal project to facilitate accumulation by dispossession.

Secret diplomacy may at first glance appear to be the antinomy of public diplomacy. Diplomats have traditionally been discouraged from participation in the domestic or foreign politics of the state in which they exercise their functions, and their official communications are, according to Articles 12 and 13 of the Havana Convention (1928), to be channelled through the host Foreign Ministry. By consequence, diplomatic studies scholars have tended to view public diplomacy as “foreign propaganda conducted or orchestrated by diplomats,” an activity which is manifestly “not diplomacy” (Berridge 2002: 17 & 125). Since the 1990s, however, scholars have observed the impact of new communication technologies on diplomatic conduct, and the necessity of multiple stakeholders from across and outside of government being able to share in the co-creation and co-delivery of policy. Thus, diplomacy is now seen as an integrated field, drawing upon a range of techniques and strategies including public diplomacy (Sofer 1998; Hocking 2006; Kelley 2010). (Less)

Este artículo analiza las relaciones políticas y diplomáticas de Colombia con los países del Caribe durante los gobiernos del liberalismo radical que van entre 1863 a 1885, evidenciando que tanto el pensamiento político como la acción diplomática estuvieron influenciados por dos situaciones, de un lado las confrontaciones internas del Estado Federal que impedían la unidad de la nación y por otro la doctrina de la unidad moral que establecía como regla fundamental, el orden interno y la armonía externa. No obstante, esta doctrina de la unidad moral presentó serias limitaciones en la práctica diplomática que los gobiernos liberales de Colombia desplegaron en el Caribe durante estos años.

This chapter aims to analyze conflict resolution between Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) operating in Latin America and their host countries. The chapter focuses on the importance of establishing a policy for addressing local governments through permanent channels, as a strategy to solve disagreements with the authorities. The analysis includes different scenarios drawn from the experience of foreign firms in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. Thus, international managers may get a deeper view about the consequences of relying on formal diplomatic channels when conflict arises. Decision makers at MNEs need to evaluate separately each country outlook in order to assess the level of confidence that may be placed on diplomatic representation from the parent country and, consequently, the convenience of developing additional ties with local authorities through international business diplomacy.

Since George F. Tucker’s full account of the Monroe Doctrine in 1885, U.S. historians have provided, on a fairly regular basis, varying interpretations of President James Monroe’s 1823 message to Congress. Between 1900 and 1930, as the United States intervened repeatedly in the Caribbean and Central America, most of them agreed that the drafters of the message had meant an active U.S. policy to drive European powers away from meddling in the Western Hemisphere. Hiram Bingham, however, in his provocative book The Monroe Doctrine: An Obsolete Shibboleth (1913), cared to differ, as he claimed that the United States had outgrown the Doctrine and thus should refrain from intervention. In the 1930s, Dexter Perkins, the founding scholar—and still the leading authority for some—of the history of the Monroe Doctrine, also believed that U.S. imperial thrust in Latin America had not been a motivation for the originators of the Doctrine. Upsetting the status quo in Cuba, a Spanish colony and major U.S. trading partner, would have been detrimental to U.S. commercial interests in the Caribbean. That the Doctrine had been transformed into an instrument for intervention in later years was no fault of the Monroe administration, Perkins pointed out. But most importantly, Perkins brought his thorough research of European archives into the historiographical discussion. He concluded that the European threat—the Russian expansion in the Northwest and the attempt of the Holy Alliance to restore the Spanish former colonies—was not real. Hence the prevailing myth that Monroe’s message had shielded Latin America from European despotism was inaccurate. Soon after, Edward Tatum broke away from the Holy Alliance–menace argument. In United States and Europe, 1815–1823 (1936), he made a case of the serious danger Great Britain had posed to her former colonies. It was a realistic assumption at the time of the drafting of the message that Britain could indeed upend U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere. Then during World War II, Walter Lippmann turned the argument around. He strongly suggested that

This article presents mainstream views in China about US diplomacy in general and particularly US diplomacy towards China in the twenty-first century. In general, US diplomacy is seen as primacy-seeking, missionary pragmatism, hard power first, with persistent impulsive unilateralism, and only constrained by a disruptive power-sharing domestic political system. Chinese leaders and diplomats tend to favour those American counterparts who can demonstrate pragmatism, appreciation, commitment and professionalism. They believe that China needs to negotiate from a position of strength with normally over-demanding American counterparts, and to pay extraordinary attention to detail in negotiations. While the Chinese held a negative view about the overall diplomacy of US President George W. Bush, they welcomed his pragmatic diplomacy towards China and regarded it as his most positive diplomatic legacy. Although the Chinese have developed a more positive view towards President Obama’s diplomacy, in considering the United States’ persisting desire for primacy, its missionary tradition and highly pluralistic domestic politics, the Chinese are more cautious in embracing the Obama administration’s charm-offense diplomacy than many US allies.

The Monroe Doctrine had been a pillar of US foreign policy in the nineteenth century, but its importance in the twentieth century is disputed. On the one hand, it laid the grounds for American expansion in the Western Hemisphere and, on the other, it provided a framework of reciprocal non-interference in transatlantic relations. Therefore, a reconsideration of its impact is relevant to the discussion of the tension between internationalism and isolationism. An assessment of the relevance of the Monroe Doctrine in twentieth-century US diplomacy must take into account that (i) it outlined a space-based, regionalist view of world affairs and (ii) it expressed widespread notions of American culture, history, and national identity.

Within the last years, the U.S. government significantly cut funding for cultural and arts diplomacy. While arts exchanges constitute a core component of public diplomacy in many countries, recently, the U.S. arts diplomacy has not been carried out properly by the government, nor by private or public sectors. Although the international image of the U.S. has shattered, the public is reluctant to urge the government to take a lead in arts diplomacy again. A unique perception of arts in American society, prevalence of democratic and “free market” principles, and dominance of international cultural trade policy keep the debate about the governmental role in arts diplomacy in progress.

Recently, China’s cultural and public diplomacy has aroused the increasing attention of the international community. As a political power, its cultural and public diplomacy mode has had a positive ...

This article examines the history of public diplomacy and identifies seven lessons from that history. These are: (1) public diplomacy begins with listening; (2) public diplomacy must be connected to policy; (3) public diplomacy is not a performance for domestic consumption; (4) effective public diplomacy requires credibility, but this has implications for the bureaucratic structure around the activity; (5) sometimes the most credible voice in public diplomacy is not one's own; (6) public diplomacy is not ‘always about you’; and (7) public diplomacy is everyone's business. The article considers the relevance of these lessons for ‘the new public diplomacy’, which have emerged over the last decade. Cull concludes that this new public diplomacy era has opened up fresh possibilities, but has not erased the relevance of the history of public diplomacy. On the contrary, the lessons of the past seem even more relevant in an age in which communications play an unprecedented role.

The term preventive diplomacy was first used in the United Nations in the late fifties when Secretary General Dag Hammarskj?ld 'invented' it to describe the remaining function that the United Nations could apply in the bipolar system of international relations. Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali included it in the Agenda for Peace in 1992 putting it in the same rank with peace-keeping, peace?making and peace-building concepts, thus giving preventive diplomacy a high political priority. In this paper the author deals with the following questions: the impact of the Cold War on the emergence of preventive diplomacy, meaning of preventive diplomacy, international documents and institutions related to preventive diplomacy and the attempts to implement preventive diplomacy in the former Yugoslavia.

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.

Religion has been largely absent in diplomacy, particularly in the Western world, for a long time. Some would even say since the Enlightenment. Moreover, religion has been ignored in present-day theories of international relations, and thus also in diplomatic studies. A recent 'resurgence' of religion in international affairs, however, presents an opportunity to apply moral insights and religious concepts towards the development of peaceful settlements of conflicts through diplomatic techniques. The approach of faith-based diplomatic approaches may infuse those insights into today's political reality, thereby incorporating important initiatives, such as reconciliation and forgiveness, into conflict resolution.This article examines the concept of faith-based diplomacy as declared track-two diplomacy in the context of classical track-one diplomacy. It starts with a brief overview of political science research of track-one and track-two diplomacy. Additional focus is applied to the principles and practices of Christian faith traditions and their potential contributions to peace-building. Finally, the article also evaluates the 'spiritual roots' of diplomacy. It assesses how 'diplomatic theory and practice can be informed and enriched by experimenting with spirituality'. The success of faith-based diplomacy lies in its insights and applications of religious values and methods. But it is also its realistic approach that makes faith-based diplomacy a promising, needed and additional style of diplomacy even though it cannot be properly located within either track-one or track-two diplomacy.