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In Spring 2020, as COVID-19 spread across the globe, diplomats embraced the digital as a means of continuing to practise statecraft. Drawing on online observations of the (resumed) 43rd, 44th and 45th sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) in 2020, and 23 interviews with representatives who participated in these sessions, this paper addresses two lacuna in the existing literature: the under-theorisation of the role of the spatial in studies of digital diplomacy; and the lack of attention paid to diplomacy in digital geographies scholarship. We explore how diplomacy, an inherently spatial practice, is being 'recast' by the digital via a shift both in the form of diplomatic interactions, and in the human and non-human actors involved in doing diplomacy. In doing so, we take as our starting point Leszczynski's theory of the mediation of socio-spatial-digital relations. We consider two features of digital diplomacy which scholarship on digital mediation opens up for examination. First, how digitalisation – specifically the use of 'real-time' online audio-visual communication devices – has altered the geographies of diplomatic inclusion and exclusion at the HRC, simultaneously fostering interactions between diverse diplomatic actors whilst also exacerbating pre-existing spatial exclusions. Second, the shifting geographies of diplomatic encounters, including how digital technologies have reconfigured opportunities for intimacy. The paper concludes by calling for dialogue between scholars of digital diplomacy and of digital geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simulation and role-play have a proven track record as pedagogic techniques to provide students with insights into geopolitics, diplomacy, and international relations. Since the first Model United Nations (MUN) in 1947, simulations have proliferated within secondary and tertiary educational settings. However, these activities overwhelmingly focus on recognised nation-states, neglecting polities that are not UN member states, but that are often acutely affected by conflict and human rights abuses. This paper is part of a broader project that is seeking to bring the realities and stories from such communities, territories, and peoples – a number of which have come together as the 'Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization' (UNPO) – to a wider audience. Loosely based on MUN simulations, the 'Model UNPO' exercise involves participants being assigned a UNPO member, researching that polity's context and rights claims, and coming together for a structured role-play debate. Drawing on participant observation of Model UNPO exercises with 16–18 year old students at thirteen UK secondary schools we examine how geopolitics can be taught and learned within school classroom settings, how young people make sense of geopolitics, and how they imagine and articulate alternative internationals. We assess what simulation exercises can offer to understandings of the intersection of young peoples' geopolitics and geographies of education. In doing so, we analyse how students draw on 'known worlds' and advocate for possible worlds through role-playing unrepresented diplomats, and examine the role of clause writing in the scripting of geopolitical imaginaries, and how role-playing forges empathy and solidarities. We conclude by making the case for foregrounding young people as critical and creative geopolitical thinkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe is facing challenging times. The so-called ‘migration crisis’ has seen the hardening and militarisation of Europe’s borders. Nationalist politicians are framing European states as being under siege from Islamist terrorists and economic migrants, which has led to a rise in xenophobia and casual racism on the streets of European cities. Meanwhile the Euro-zone has seen a series of employment crises and economic bailouts. Alongside such political and economic turmoil, the European Union is facing unprecedented pressures, not least from the ‘Brexit’ result of the UK's referendum on EU membership in June 2016. In reflecting on these manifold challenges to the idea and space of Europe these interventions focus on three themes that have long animated political geography scholarship: borders, power and crises. Cross-cutting the interventions are two calls to action: to rethink our analytical approaches to Europe, and to reframe our role as critical scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue explores the production of political legitimacy, approached from the angle of the legitimacy claims of the governing authorities of anomalous geopolitical spaces. Legitimacy sits at the heart of theories of sovereign power, a position that has drawn a range of scholars – be they political geographers, political anthropologists, international lawyers or political scientists – to focus on the state as a primary source of political legitimacy. This special issue starts from a different premise: namely, that by studying alternative sites of legitimacy, so-called de facto states, annexed territories, governments-in-exile, liberation movements or unrecognised governments, we may shine a light on the wider arena of political actors, forms of agency and sites of contestation through which legitimacy is produced. This special issue introduction draws attention to, first, the centrality of questions of legitimacy to the enactment of political authority; second, the plural disciplinary and political interpretations of legitimacy, staking a claim for why this study has interdisciplinary significance; and, third, the spatial and temporal importance of studying anomalous geopolitical spaces. The latter are presented as zones that have often been neglected areas of comparative study but may hold the key to understanding the complexities of political legitimacy in the modern world. The introduction concludes with an overview of the themes contained within the individual papers that comprise this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholars agree that political legitimacy, or the legitimacy to rule, is sought by governing authorities, the concept itself is often considered to be problematically vague. This article explores how the very ambiguity of the concept of legitimacy may make it ‘good to think with’. Calling into question two problematic assumptions in discussions of legitimacy—whether legitimacy is the prerogative of state authorities, and whether legality is a necessary basis from which to make claims for legitimacy—this article uses the cases of two exiled governing authorities, for Western Sahara and Tibet, to examine how legitimate government can be produced in the absence of full legality as a recognised sovereign state. Attending to similarities and differences between these governments-in-exile we trace the sources of political legitimacy in each case and the techniques through which legitimacy is constructed in exile. Key to this has been the enactment of forms of rational-legal authority, including the establishment of state-like bureaucracies, the provision of services to their diasporic populations and aspirations to develop democratic structures. With the latter presented as a strategy both of securing internal legitimacy and of being seen to adhere to international norms of ‘good governance’, legitimacy in these cases emerges not so much as an achieved status, but as a set of techniques of government. We conclude by reflecting on how liminality – both territorially in terms of displacement and legally in terms of lack of full recognition – can counter-intuitively provide creative grounds for producing legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Diplomacy and recognition play central roles in the conventional conferral of state legitimacy and functioning of the inter-state system. In broadening the diplomatic frame by stepping outside the conventional state-system, this paper brings a poststructuralist and performative toolkit to mimetic diplomatic practices. Adapting Bhabha’s notion of mimicry to diplomatic discourse, it demonstrates how non-state diplomacies draw on, mimic and intervene in the realm of formal political action in ways which both promote ‘official’ state diplomacy as an ideal and dilute its distinction from other, ‘unofficial’ diplomacies. In thereby examining the enactment of international diplomacy in unexpected spaces, this paper brings together three empirical studies: a Government-in-Exile, a religious community and micropatrias (self-declared parodic nations). In each of these cases, attention focuses on: discourses of recognition; sovereignty and legitimacy; the diplomatic relationships fostered and institutions of diplomacy constructed; and the strategic position of such diplomacy vis-à-vis the conventional state-system. Unpacking the relationship between legitimacy, recognition and diplomacy and exploring the tension between state-centric and non-state diplomatic practices, this paper foregrounds the points of connection between the official and the unofficial. As a result, this paper expands the analytical gaze of diplomacy studies while incorporating lessons from the margins into our understandings of legitimacy, recognition, statecraft and sovereignty. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Based on ethnographic research on exiled Tibetan political institutions and practices in India, this paper investigates sovereignty in exile. The Tibetan Government-in-Exile (TGiE) remains internationally unrecognised and lacks de jure sovereignty over territory in both Tibet and in exile. However, this exiled administration claims legitimacy as the official representative of the Tibetan population, performs a number of state-like functions in relation to its diasporic ‘citizenry’ and attempts to make its voice heard within the international community. Rejecting arguments that such entities should be viewed merely as discrepant forms of political practice, this paper asserts that the state, sovereignty, and territory can be conceptually disentangled, opening up the theoretical possibility of entities other than territorial states claiming sovereignty. In teasing apart and problematising constituent elements of sovereignty, this paper focuses on three aspects of the TGiE's articulations of sovereignty: its claims to and production of legitimacy, authority and de facto sovereignty; its displaced sovereignty and strategies of territorial governance over non-contiguous spaces in exile; and the mediation of its ambiguous relationship with the host state India through practices of tacit sovereignty. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

While the extractive industries and related infrastructures are highlighted as key to economic development, they often come at a cost. Most projects involve a network of stakeholder parties; even though developers are allocating more resources to stakeholder engagement, conflict surrounding infrastructure development continues to rise. Whilst the causes of this paradox are numerous, ranging from the increasing demand for natural resources to the limited regulatory capacity of governments in the global south to oversee developers, they also highlight the lack of engagement with effective conflict resolution mechanisms. This paper undertakes a comparative review of 21 existing frameworks or "toolkits" presented by international organizations for avoiding and resolving mining-related conflicts in emerging markets. This review and analysis has four aims: i) to identify the dominant trends in frameworks that address conflict arising from the extractive industry and related infrastructural systems; ii) to identify the weaknesses and limitations of existing frameworks; iii) to assess opportunities for innovation that might increase the adoption of more effective conflict resolution strategies; iv) to forecast how existing frameworks may need to adapt and respond to emerging global shifts in development investments. Addressing these aims will contribute to a better understanding of how conflict resolution discourses, procedures, and strategies function in a sector that is critical to sustainable and equitable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]