No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
The Politics of the State Visit
Abstract
State visits are one of the oldest forms of diplomatic contact between the leaders of states. Redolent of the pomp of previous ages, the modern era has seen a vertical rise in the frequency of state visits. This article examines the mechanics of the state visit and considers their purpose in contemporary diplomacy, as well as some of their unintended consequences.
... Both bilateral and multilateral diplomatic ceremonies provide a means of communicating ideas and information (Goldstein 2008,154-5), a situation to prove the host's power and a method to enable diplomats to access society and bureaucracy outside the usual political channels (Roosen 1980,453; Morgenthau 1985,86-9). Under the framework of the power of prestige, diplomatic ceremony also serves both as a " barometer " (Roosen 1980,464) for political relationships and as a two way " mirror " (Morgenthau 1985,87) to the political sphere; with actions in either reflecting the political sphere's power struggles. ...
... One rationale for the meeting of agents and the use of diplomatic ceremony is provided through the medium of food. When heads of state gather in bilateral or multilateral contexts a core feature of most diplomatic events is the diplomatic banquet (Goldstein 2008,159). At these events heads of state and diplomats have to follow strict protocols on precedence, with digressions signalling shifts of power (Morgenthau 1985,88-91; Urbach 2003,992). ...
... The food served at the meal-event can promote a national agenda or message. Goldstein (2008,159) eloquently describing how " the French President … on a state visit to Great Britain, was served Scottish Beef … in the wake of the European Union's ban on British beef caused by the BSE crisis. " The desire to impress or dominate can also be expressed by the food served, with host nations serving either local or guest cuisine, to illustrate both the level of geniality and the power relationship at the meal-event. ...
Food is an emotive political issue worldwide. This proposition is evident from the
breadth of academic writing on food, as well as the media attention given to food
related incidents that occur in politics (ranging from food aid and embargos to
diplomatic banquets and the effects of globalisation on food cultures). Yet there has
been little contemporary academic discussion of how the political sphere
comprehends and utilises food’s culture and economic aspects as instruments for
power and coercion.
I wish to argue that food is a medium for provoking change in political issue areas and
policy. I propose to draw upon Morgenthau’s Realist tradition (Morgenthau 1985)
concurrently with Nye’s modern concept of Soft power (Nye 2004) to investigate how
food is utilised as power by actors in the political sphere and explore the
understandings of food in the political arena.
Food’s avenues for coercion will be categorised as: hard power, soft power and the
power of prestige. Each of these concepts will be explored through an examination of
how the various political actors (States, and Non-governmental organisations and
individuals) in the political sphere effectively utilise food as a power source. Real
world examples will illustrate both successes and failures of the political power of food
in a modern globalised context.
... Royal visits were considered a great honour, involving much pomp and protocol, and attracting widespread public interest. And as most monarchs undertook only one or two state visits a year (seeGoldstein 2004), such visits were important signs of recognition, adding to the status of the host country that had been deemed important enough to visit. Assuch, royal visits and interaction served as important symbolic activities in the diplomatic toolbox. ...
This chapter explores whether an analytical framework that places the accent on status can provide a complementary understanding of how the Norwegian–British relationship emerged and unfolded in the first half of the 20th century. This empirical task is inspired by a more general theoretical interest in how states’ quest for social and relational standing in the international hierarchy – status – influences how asymmetric security relationships between small and greater powers unfold in practice. I begin with some reflections on how an increased concern with status can add value to IR scholarship on inter-state cooperation and relationship. Then, using the Norwegian–British relationship in the early 20th century as an exploratory case, I discuss some specific instances where Norway, through its relationship with Britain, may be seen to have enhanced and displayed its social status.
... One rationale for the meeting of agents and the use of diplomatic ceremony is provided through the medium of food. When heads of state gather in bilateral or multilateral contexts a core feature of most diplomatic events is the diplomatic banquet (Goldstein 2008 159). At these events heads of state and diplomats have to follow strict protocols on precedence, with digressions signalling shifts of power (Morgenthau 1985 88-91; Urbach 2003 992). ...
Paarlberg (2010), Schanbacher (2010) and Reynolds (2010) have begun re-introducing a food based agenda to political science that had been left dormant since Morgenthau (1985), by proposing that food is not only crucial to the survival of individual consumers but also to the survival and proliferation of the modern nation state. With Brown (2011) suggesting that food policy, food security, food sovereignty and food culture are all becoming determining factors in a nation state’s bank of food power.This paper will add to this aforementioned body of work by updating and expanding upon an idea raised by Morgenthau in Politics Among Nations (1985 86-97): The ‘power of prestige’. The power of prestige, can be understood to be a proto-conceptualisation of how elites use cultural diplomacy and soft power to achieve their goals. This paper will firstly examine this classic theory highlighting the similarities of the power of prestige to modern understandings of soft power and cultural diplomacy through the lens of food and conviviality. It will then investigate how food can be utilised by actors and elites as a form of cultural diplomacy.
Web video: https://youtu.be/qzaCfnWHGbs
Keywords: Food diplomacy, Diplomatic gastronomy; Soft power; cultural diplomacy
The aim of this article is a political-geographical analysis of political and economic relations between the Slovak Republic and the countries of the world from 1993 to 2019. We spatially analyze more than 15,000 trips of Slovak government officials to countries around the world and their relation to foreign trade. Using the statistical method of correlation, we examine the degree of relationship between trade indicators and political interactions (represented by government visits) in more than 150 countries around the world. We cartographically define spatial concentration, especially the high direct correlation between trade and trips, and examine the factors and causes of this correlation on the example of selected countries with significant values. The countries of the Eastern Partnership, the Middle East, the Western Balkans, and East Asia have the highest correlation coefficients. Our article seeks to contribute to the discussion on the effectiveness of economic diplomacy using geographical approaches.
This article introduces the concept of diplomatic peace. It starts by developing a heuristic frame for identifying understandings of peace embraced by the actors we study. This frame encompasses three faces of peace — restraint, compromise and polylogue — and further differentiates different degrees of each of these faces (induced, co-operative and categorical restraint; profitable, principled and iterated compromise; extended, communal and deliberative polylogue). Then, this heuristic is applied to key United Nations General Assembly declarations and conventions that have passed unanimously since 1946. Studying how diplomats define peace yields remarkable results. Diplomats make far-reaching promises about the kind of peace they purport to pursue, strongly endorsing co-operative restraint, principled compromises and deliberative polylogues. The added value of this article is threefold: it systematically enquires into the nexus of diplomacy and peace, develops a multifaceted concept of peace, and reminds scholars and practitioners of how far-reaching already existing diplomatic promises of peace are.
Consumir uma ou outra comida, em grupo ou sozinho(a), postando ou não nas redes sociais, faz parte de um modo inerente ao espírito humano de armar e de negar sentidos sempre em fluxo. Diante dessas perspectivas relativas ao consumo, a obra reúne estudos sobre comida, identidades sociais e subjetividades cu. Ao mesmo tempo, conformam perspectivas inovadoras dirigidas aos processos de construçãjo olhar está voltado para o caráter provisório dos códigos culturais que são assumidos em função de determinados contextos históricos. São abordagens que investem na desnaturalização da alimentação e do corpo, reorientando o foco dos debates para tensões presentes nas relações sociais cotidianas marcadas por moralizações e jogos de podero das identidades sociais e de subjetividades, conferindo visibilidade aos nexos entre essas temáticas complexas e a comensalidade em diferentes cenas contemporâneas.
Why do infrastructures remain in place if they do not perform the functions which compelled their design? If soft infrastructures such as diplomatic trips do not increase bilateral trade volumes, why do they stay on the agenda? Drawing on fieldwork with businesspeople and government representatives attending a Turkish government sponsored diplomatic trip to Algeria, Mauritania and Senegal in 2018, this article makes three points. First, it shows that businesspeople joined diplomatic trips, not necessarily because they were interested in African markets or because they had the necessary expertise to engage in foreign trade, but because they saw them as practical spaces for improving their relations with Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. Second, it points to how businesspeople believed that participation in these networks offered “a fast track,” enabling entrepreneurs to acquire wealth quickly. Third, it demonstrates that businesspeople participate not only because they seek involvement in relationships of exchange, but also because they believe in the emergence of a grand Turkey, dominant in international politics. In this context, such infrastructures remain intact not necessarily because they fulfill the promises with which they were started, but because they serve legible pragmatic and ideological purposes for a range of users. Overall, this article documents and analyzes how businesspeople in Turkey conceptualize their existing and future presence in African markets, while providing windows into the repurposing of soft infrastructure.
This study explores the factors that affect visits between national leaders in the world, shedding light on their ancestral origins. We combine data on visits involving Chinese leaders from 1993 to 2013 with genetic distance that captures ethnic differences transmitted intergenerationally. Empirical analysis shows that there are more visits between Chinese leaders and leaders of countries that have smaller genetic distance to China. Furthermore, the impact of genetic distance is achieved primarily through trade and positioning of political relationships, which are proxies for economic and political exchanges, respectively. Our findings show that ancestral relatedness plays an important part in modern diplomatic activities.
Regional powers are often assumed to place diplomatic emphasis on their surrounding regions. Yet few systematic comparisons have been carried out to empirically verify this assumption. Do regional powers tend to devote more attention to their neighbours or to more influential global partners instead? This article attempts to bridge that gap by comparing the amount of diplomatic attention that Brazil, South Africa and Turkey have devoted to their regions, ie South America, Africa and the Middle East/North Africa region, respectively. Relying on data on presidential diplomacy and diplomatic presence from the Rising Powers Diplomatic Network (RPDN) data set, we verify which destinations were prioritised by these three countries from 1995 to 2018. Results indicate that South Africa is the most regionally committed regional power. Turkey shows the least significant regional engagement, while Brazil occupies an intermediate position.
The present paper analyses the production of knowledge pertaining to British state visits in the twentieth century. It first highlights various uncertainties in relation to state visits that the various actors in the Foreign Office and the Palace experienced historically. Second, the chapter discusses how knowledge production has changed over time. It presents a long-term perspective and argues that two distinct phases mark this change. During the first phase from the beginning of the century up until the 1960s, knowledge about state visits was developed reactively, in response to specific situations, which is referred to as practices of actualising knowledge. The second phase, from the 1960s onwards, was characterised by targeted interventions made with the deliberate intention of making more knowledge available and to develop general ideas and standards. This procedure is referred to as systemizing knowledge.
Why do political leaders travel abroad? In this article, we propose an informational mechanism linking in‐person diplomacy to leader survival. A foreign power visits an incumbent in order to reap a future policy concession; the visit is only worth the effort if the incumbent remains in power long enough to deliver on the deal. A diplomatic visit thus provides a visible and credible signal of the visitor's high confidence in the incumbent's stability in office. Domestic opponents, facing incomplete information as to the incumbent's strength, observe the signal and are deterred from mounting a challenge. Using data on U.S. diplomatic visits from 1960 to 2013, we find strong empirical support for our predictions: A visit with the U.S. president substantially reduces the risk of a leader's removal from office.
The chapter addresses a topic at the intersection of macro-structures defined by the differentiation of the global field of world religions and the micro-structures of individual Christian subjectivities. It looks at how modern popes have used pilgrimages to the Middle East in order to foster the standing of Christianity in the region. It focuses on papal diplomacy and the modern form of pilgrimages as a political tool. Based on the distinction between possession goals and milieu goals, the chapter studies practices and speeches by Benedict XVI and Francis during their Middle East pilgrimages. It highlights how these two “traveling popes” have made use of pilgrimages in order to foster possession and milieu goals, and how this shapes interreligious dialogue with Islam and the broader standing of the Roman Catholic Church in world society and its relationship with Christianity in the lands of the historical origin of Christianity.
Diplomacy always occurs in the shadow of domestic political competition. We develop a model of top-level diplomatic exchange between an incumbent and a foreign leader, embedded within a global game of regime change, and examine four mechanisms that induce a relationship between diplomatic visits and regime survival. First, the foreign leader chooses to visit incumbents who are ex ante more secure in office (a selection effect). Second, because the foreign leader’s decision is based partly on private information, the citizens update on the revelation of that information (a learning effect) and are discouraged from mounting a challenge. Third, the foreign leader can bolster the incumbent’s strength in office with a transfer of material support (a strengthening effect). The latter two effects are then amplified by the complementarities in the citizens’ strategies (a multiplier effect). Contrary to standard global games results, we show that increased precision in the public information transmitted strategically by the foreign power induces a unique equilibrium, as citizens coordinate on the foreign leader’s action. Our findings explain why leaders are so eager to receive state visits from major world powers.
This chapter examines the ways in which, as a result of collaboration between the government and the royal family, it became possible for what was practically (if not officially) a state visit to go ahead at what was considered by the politicians of the day to be a crucial time, despite the difficulties that were posed by the run-up to the coronation of Elizabeth II. The Duke of Edinburgh effectively deputised for the Queen, after a lengthy political debate, even though he was not head of state and in reality held no official role in British public life at that point. His status as a senior royal, however, made his willingness to take a prominent role in receiving Tito an important asset for the government. The chapter explores the use made by politicians, in the national interest, of the symbolism, role and importance of the monarchy through this case study focusing on Tito’s 1953 visit to the UK.
With the rise of the Justice and Development Party under the leadership of Recep T. Erdogan, Turkish foreign policy has experienced an "Eastern turn", which raised question marks in the minds of many. In this study, we investigate the "Eastern turn" in Turkish foreign relations through an analysis of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's foreign visits to the non-Western world between 2003 and 2010. Using Poisson regression models, we test ideological and economic explanations of Turkey's "Eastern turn". We fail to find a particular anti-Western trend in Erdogan's foreign visits. To the contrary, Erdogan's most frequent destinations in the non-Western world were pro-Western countries. The results of our statistical analyses provide support to the argument that the Justice and Development Party's foreign policy has been guided more by a sensible economic rationale than by ideological orientation.
Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin's visit to Britain in April 1956 was the first by the new Soviet leadership to a Western bloc country after Josef Stalin's death. It presented British policy-makers with a unique opportunity for insight and discussion. However, British self-deception regarding their scope for independent action as well as excessive focus on events in the Middle East hampered efforts to build a rapport with Khrushchev and Bulganin. This analysis explores the planning and conduct of what turned out to be a fruitless diplomatic initiative. The visit illustrates British and Soviet policy at the time, as well as Britain's already clear position as the junior partner in the Anglo-American “special relationship” on the eve of Suez.
Khrushchev's visit to Britain in 1956 exemplified and gave impetus to the proliferation of transnational ties that connected Britain and the Soviet Union during the period of de-Stalinisation. This article shows how Khrushchev's visit affected British–Soviet relations at the levels of policy and mass perceptions. It analyses the significance of the exchanges that resulted in the areas of trade, technology transfer, culture, science, and the professions. The article concludes that the Suez and Budapest crises of 1956 were only superficial disruptions to the increasingly powerful and elaborate British–Soviet connections that de-Stalinisation set in train.
People engaged in international relations/international studies (IR/IS) should study more diplomacy, especially since diplomacy is reviving in the aftermath of the Cold War. In methodological and theoretical terms, diplomacy has fallen afoul of the old arguments between diplomatic historians and IR/IS theorists. In prescriptive terms, it has fallen foul of critical perspectives on states, their practices, and their rationales. Advocates of diplomacy and its study have also contributed to its isolation by presenting it as an exclusive and esoteric practice. Nevertheless, an opportunity now exists to bring the study of diplomacy to center stage in IR/IS, and in so doing, to revive the flagging conversations among its subfields. Perspectives that focus on the construction of ambiguous identities offer a way of reinterpreting diplomacy, providing a richer account than positivist approaches. Diplomacy, seen in terms of representation of constructed identities, is not a residual of the modern state system, but transcends it and constitutes that which is particular to the kinds of human relations in which IR/IS is interested.
The visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to the USA in 1939 proved an immense public relations success, and has rightly been seen as critical in thawing Anglo-American relations in the face of looming conflict, and in paving the way for wartime alliance. The visit's success had been particularly extolled by historians of international propaganda, who regard the event as a classic illustration of the interplay between public relations and diplomacy. Less well known, however, is the anxiety shared within the British government lest the event precipitate an isolationist backlash, engendered by suspicion that the visit might be a ploy to entangle America within an alliance in all but name. What the present article argues, in contrast to existing scholarly accounts, is that the Foreign Office was motivated more by the fear of enhancing neutral opinion within America than by expectations of diplomatic success; and it shows the great insecurity felt in London at the prospect of entering a second global conflict without the backing of the USA.