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This study explores how silk as an aesthetic sign plays the active and efficient role of diplomatic narrative in the cultural and political communication between countries employing the historical and archaeological evidence in China. Aesthetic signs are of communicative values and cultural narrative significance. Silk is an aesthetic sign with iconic properties. The paper argues that beauty, exquisiteness, and value are the visual properties that silk as a sign vehicle presents in terms of texture, colours, patterns, and weaving techniques, recognised across all cultural contexts throughout history. The richness of favourable meanings that a sign conveys is embodied in the characteristics of its specific vehicle. The combination of silk as a sign vehicle and its designated object conveys the sign's value, thus performing the narrative function. Due to its iconic functions, silk is the most distinct and active aesthetic sign. Therefore, this paper argues that silk as a sign expresses diplomatic fraternity and harmony narrates aesthetics of unremitting pursuit of gentleness and auspiciousness, and constructs an international image of a country willing to coexist with others harmoniously and offer mutual assistance during difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aḥmad al-Ghazzāl was a Moroccan scribe and litterateur who served as Sultan Muḥammad III's (r. 1757-1790) chief diplomat to Spain from 1766 to 1775. In this capacity he wrote over thirty letters to his Spanish and other foreign counterparts around the Mediterranean. We use these letters to examine how al-Ghazzāl strategically employed Middle Arabic, defined as a written variety that incorporates both classical and colloquial elements, as part of an effective diplomatic agenda. His use of Middle Arabic combined previously established norms with innovations that have up to now not been documented in this period or genre. Proposing a historical-linguistic analysis, we argue that al-Ghazzāl's innovative rhetorical strategies offer insight into both spoken and written Arabic in the early modern period and developments in diplomatic thought and practice from a North African perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diplomatic ties have deepened between China and Africa. However, unlike the friendly rhetoric at the State level, racist issues at the individual and societal levels, which are under-researched, are becoming increasingly salient in the Chinese context. Analysing 2766 posts and 13 477 comments from Weibo, this study deploys the 2021 Shadeed Abdulmateen murder case in Ningbo to investigate the online racial discourse that Chinese Weibo users construct around Black people. While thematic analysis shows that racism in China comprises a complex combination of anti-Black, anti-government, and anti-social class attitudes, critical discourse analysis identifies the discursive strategies used to construct the dichotomy between "positive Chinese" and "negative Black people". Specifically, the argumentation strategy justifies exclusionary practices against Black people in China, whereas the predicational strategy criminalises the Black community. Moreover, the nomination strategy discursively represents Black people as foreign threats and animals. Lastly, this study also reveals the orthographic manoeuvrings contrived by Weibo users to avoid censorship of racist language use on Weibo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevailing narrative from the Brezhnev era to the present holds that Moscow's relations with Tokyo failed to achieve a breakthrough due to a territorial dispute lingering from 1956. Japan had demanded the return of all four islands seized by the Soviet Union after Japan had announced its surrender, but Moscow had insisted on no islands or hinted at two. A different argument is made here: The primary culprit in the two periods when diplomacy took off was Moscow's skewed thinking about Japan. Rejecting arguments for complementarity, historical parallelism, and balance of power, Russian writings in the late 1980s and 2013–2023 saw little value in Japan. Regardless of Gorbachev's 'New Thinking' and Putin's 'Turn to the East', the intellectual groundwork for rapprochement never materialized. This was a harbinger of other negativity about Japanese history, the Japan-U.S. alliance, and Japan's 'disrespect'. Failure to assess Tokyo accurately, including its many reasons for pursuing Moscow, testifies to a warped understanding of geopolitics as well as geo-economics owing to a distorted national identity. Misjudging Japan in each period paved the way to greater hostility to the West that followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cycle pattern of retreat and advance in the US-China relationship was replaced by a prolonged crisis. The breakdown of regular communication during the Trump presidency was blamed partially for the downward spiral. The reopening of the line of communication in the summer of 2023, however, has not reversed the prolonged crisis. Exchanging goodwill and reaffirming the importance of diplomacy, Washington and Beijing have continued pushing each other's hot buttons not because they misjudged each other's intentions but because they understood each other's red lines too well to make gains through accommodation on the fundamental issues of friction: the ideological struggle, the great power competition, and the Taiwan issue. Beijing risks overreaching and Washington risks overreaction. The two countries cannot move beyond the prolonged crisis unless their leaders find ways to overcome the fundamental roadblocks and cooperate in areas of mutual interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact of the BRI on the peace processes of conflict-affected states (CAS) bordering China, namely Nepal and Myanmar. It underscores the need to assess the impact of the BRI as an iterative process: where the BRI impacts the political economy of host CAS; but also how contextual specificities of the CAS, undertaking a peace process, are reshaping the delivery of the BRI. Here, the article first outlines that the BRI is not only physically transforming host CAS through infrastructure and connectivity but also influencing the core agenda of the peace processes, notably federalism, through the uneven distribution of benefits of infrastructural development. Second, the challenges of working in the complex settings of CAS, with fragmented state authority, and political uncertainty have also brought significant changes in the delivery of the BRI and Chinese diplomacy broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to descriptions of Japan as a country that shied away from involvement in international political affairs during the Cold War, this article shows that since the 1960s, Japan has actively engaged in diplomacy to resolve conflicts in Southeast Asia. What motivated these efforts? What role did Japan play? What are the characteristics of Japan's diplomacy? Drawing on declassified diplomatic documents, these questions are addressed by investigating Japan's peace brokering in four conflicts during the Cold War era. The findings deepen our understanding of Japan's contribution to conflict-resolution and its political role in Southeast Asia during the Cold War, which was much more active than claimed in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1985, Dutch businessman Frans Lurvink created the Alerdinck Foundation and its Centre for East-West Communications. A private venture, Alerdinck set out to achieve greater understanding between Eastern and Western media to reduce Cold War tensions. An example of citizen diplomacy aimed at promoting peace, Alerdinck's story illustrates the strengths of a private initiative in creating spaces for dialogue and relationship-building, and the limitations of a non-state actor aiming to alter international relations. The article chronicles the formation, ambitions and obstacles faced by Alerdinck as it endeavoured to improve cross-bloc dialogue through its conferences, bilingual newspaper, and journalist exchange programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A long-surviving tradition in Nigeria's foreign policy has to do with observing neutrality in the Arab-Israeli conflict. This neutrality, however, was tested between 1973 and 1992 when Nigeria had a sustained break in diplomatic ties with Israel. At no point did successive Nigerian governments use religion to justify either the sustained severance or eventual restoration of ties. However, religion is a non-material factor in international relations that can play out in multidimensional ways without being seen as a catalyst for an action or inaction. It is against this background that within the analytical purview of Rosenau's linkage politics theory and the bottom up theoretical approach to public opinion in foreign policy, the essay investigates the extent to which religion determined Nigeria's severed relations with Israel and its eventual restoration of ties with the Jewish nation. The essay is historical and employs the use of primary sources including materials sourced from Nigeria's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There were also personal communications with veteran diplomats, including two of the foreign affair ministers who served during the period. The essay concludes that while religion was neither the justification for the severance of relations with Israel nor the restoration of ties with the Jewish nation, religion played a role in the manner successive governments dealt with the matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India’s rise as the world’s largest democracy and its challenge to the Western-defined global order have attracted significant scholarly, political, and media attention. Using Anderson and Prelli’s pentadic cartography to enhance discursive analysis in international relations, this paper looks at journalist Maithreyi Seetharaman’s interview with Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s External Affairs Minister at the GLOBSEC Forum in Bratislava, Slovakia. Depicting three interlocking maps of the symbolic landscape of the interview, we highlight the use of Seetharaman and Jaishankar’s scene-act ratio, situating India’s actions in its geopolitical contexts. Jaishankar’s dual use of materialist and idealist discourses presents India as both a reactive agent influenced by external circumstances and a proactive agent with its own distinct goals and ethical considerations. This approach offers a comprehensive understanding of international politics, balancing dominant empirical narratives in IR and emphasising a complex interplay of motives that drive state behaviour. Through this case study, we advocate for a broader application of pentadic cartography in international relations to uncover the deeper meanings and contexts that shape state actions, providing a richer, more textured understanding of geopolitics, global diplomacy and state interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attacks by the Houthis, an Iran-backed armed group from northwest Yemen and now its de facto governing authority, pose a significant threat to commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and therefore to the global economy. Washington faces a range of unpalatable options to deal with this threat. The current approach of limited American and British airstrikes is flawed, but the alternatives – no airstrikes or more airstrikes – are arguably worse. Under a more ambitious strategy, the United States would through diplomacy help rebuild the internationally recognised government of Yemen, which nominally brings together anti-Houthi factions but is in fact fragmented and weak. Only this option has a realistic prospect of modifying the balance of power inside Yemen and containing the Houthis' regional threat. Otherwise, the Houthis are likely to consolidate power, which would be a tragedy for the Yemeni people given the brutality of Houthi rule, and present a perennial danger to regional security given their ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractWhat determines government access to capital? Conventional explanations of state credit access rest on tenuous assumptions and fail to fully elucidate market behavior seen in recent years. This article argues that investors evaluate governments based on their diplomatic ties to the West. Specifically, diplomacy with major Western powers serves as a heuristic which signals to market actors that the debtor state is a trustworthy borrower with low default risk. Focusing on in-person diplomacy with the United States, I construct a new data set, the United States Economic Diplomacy (USED) Data, which codes over 5,000 meetings between the US President, US Treasury Secretary, and high-level foreign policymakers from 1990 to 2016. Among a sample of 110 countries, the statistical results uncover evidence of a significant but conditional “Western advantage” in sovereign bond markets. Greater diplomatic ties to the United States are associated with higher volumes of bond issuance. This advantage, however, manifests itself primarily when global capital is scarce and reverses as lower global interest rates incentivize greater risk-taking among investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's use of 'Back-channel Diplomacy' with Palestine and Saudi Arabia. The paper advances a new typology of back-channel diplomacy, which is used as an analytical framework. Those in Israel who favour the so-called 'two-state solution' have generally pursued back-channels to explore whether a two-state deal is possible, while those who favour a permanent Jewish retention of much of the West Bank have used back-channels to buy time for this project, including by making secret deals with sworn enemies of Israel's existence. Former PM Netanyahu's reliance on back-channels, both for 'doing business' with Hamas, and for contacts with Saudi Arabia, was the culmination of the second approach; a strategy intended to both appease his political base and prevent peace with the Palestinians, while seeking to tactically manage relations across the region. However, this strategy contains a fundamental tension which may be difficult to ignore for much longer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diplomacy is traditionally associated with politeness and civility. As a fundamental element of international relations, diplomacy is rooted in professional skills and codified practices. By moving diplomacy to online platforms, diplomatic statements have been accelerated, sometimes resulting in aggressiveness. The purpose of this paper is to identify outrage in diplomatic communication. Outrage can be defined as uncivil expressions evoking emotion in the audience. This concept is examined based on the tweets produced by the Russian Foreign Ministry account between 1 December 2021, and 24 April 2022 (total: 2485 tweets). Based on the framework proposed by Berry, Jeffrey M., and Sara Sobieraj (2014. The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and The New Incivility. Oxford: Oxford University Press), qualitative analysis identifies 370 outrageous tweets. Frame analysis shows how outrage acts as a narrative tool for activating (self-)representational devices. Moreover, outrage influences the diplomatic tone, international actors' characterisation, and international institutions' delegitimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractIn a manner almost reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire’s frantic search (late nineteenth to early twentieth century) for müstemlekat (colonies) in Africa, modern Turkey seems to have revived its imperialist dreams in contemporary Africa. Following the elaboration of a proactive African foreign policy strategy, Turkey declared 2005 the Year of Africa, and established diplomatic relations with a raft of Muslim-majority African countries (MMACs). While Ghana is not an MMAC, Turkey re-established diplomatic ties with Accra in 2010, heralding a burgeoning relationship. Drawing on the theory of sub-­imperialism in tandem with the diplomacy of architecture (DoA) framework, this work will argue that Turkey has cleverly utilised the symbolism and siting of the Ghana National Mosque Complex (GNMC) to make the most visible and audacious broadcast yet of its imperial intentions in Africa, and in record time. In unpacking the argument my primary interest will be to canvass the view that architectural imprints have become a powerful cultural weapon in the geostrategic soft-power arsenal of recent rising powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since achieving independence, Azerbaijan has employed its Islamic identity in its foreign policy to develop an international Islamic agenda concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) conflict. It has promoted the notion of Islamic solidarity and diversified its strategic interests in the conflict. The study aims to analyse Azerbaijan’s diplomatic strategies to garner comprehensive support from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, focusing on the 2020 war. The paper argues that Azerbaijan has developed Islamic diplomacy and instrumentalized religion as one of the components of its foreign policy against Armenia and the de facto Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. During the 2020 war, Azerbaijan applied the discourse of Islamic solidarity and the Azerbaijani narratives on the NK conflict that have been introduced in the OIC during the last three decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugee commodification, or the use of refugee hosting to extract political and economic concessions, has attracted growing scholarly attention in recent years. Yet, studies tend to focus on its international component, neglecting the domestic political space and how these extractions impact domestic political dynamics. To address this gap, we ask: how does refugee commodification influence domestic politics? Our study focuses on the Republican People's Party (CHP) in Turkey, in order to assess the political implications of refugee commodification within domestic politics. Through a mixed qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with opposition politicians and an analysis of policy documents, we examine the nexus of international and domestic spheres, assessing how political actors beyond the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) engage in, react to, and employ refugee commodification strategies. The findings of this study have implications beyond Turkey, demonstrating the transformative effects of refugee commodification for domestic politics across Global South states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia’s economic growth and democratisation since 2003 have vaulted it into the ranks of the middle powers in the international system. However, Malaysia remains hesitant about its middle power status. It has assumed a counterhegemonic or pro-multipolarity role; it has supported some new international rules and institutions; it leads regional governance institutions; and it advocates for small countries on development issues. However, these middle power behaviours are countered by a continuation of traditional Malaysia diplomacy which is inactive in shaping the emergence of superpower China as well as being disruptive and personalistic, most recently because of its embrace of radical Islam. It would require major shifts in international system structures and Malaysian national role conceptions for Malaysia to become a fully active middle power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For much of its history, Canadian policymakers conceived of Canada as operating within the North Atlantic Triangle, a descriptor of its close economic, cultural, military, and diplomatic ties with Britain and the United States. Frequently, within this triangular relationship, Canada had sought to counterbalance one side against the other. This task became increasingly difficult with the post-1940 transition of power, even as it made the counterbalancing effects of the Triangle all the more important. Examining American-British-Canadian relations in the wake of the Suez Crisis, this article traces that ongoing salience of the North Atlantic Triangle. In particular, it examines Canadian efforts to pursue their interests against the backdrop both of Britain's decline and US hegemony and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's efforts to rekindle London's 'special relationship' with Washington. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pacific Island states have, for decades, considered climate change a threat to their security. In 1991, island leaders declared global warming and sea level rise as serious environmental threats, and that their 'cultural, economic and physical survival' was at risk. Pacific Island countries have since played a disproportionate role in United Nations climate negotiations, working as a diplomatic bloc to shape new rules and to drive multilateral cooperation to reduce emissions. Pacific Island states have also sought greater recognition of climate change as a security threat. This article considers the history of Pacific climate diplomacy. It explains how Pacific Island countries have played a key role in the global response to the climate crisis and outlines the history of regional climate politics in the Pacific Islands Forum. We also focus on recurring tensions between Pacific Island states and Australia with regard to ambition to tackle climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates boundary spaces and agents in one social field: the socialization of diplomatic and European Union (EU) professionals in Europe. Theoretically, I combine the geographical work on boundary practices in diplomacy with the Bourdieusian scholarship on transnational fields in sociology and international relations. Empirically, I examine the institutional settings in which the professionals who move in EU diplomacy are trained and socialized. I theorize such settings as interstitial fields to highlight their ambiguous and in-between character. The professionals who move in such fields are nomadic figures who link and mediate multiple national, institutional, and cultural settings: they are both diplomats and Eurocrats at the same time. The paper foregrounds the hinge-like spaces and practices that regulate the production of diplomatic and EU-related expertise in contemporary Europe. It thereby contributes to our understanding of the workings of international governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Japan's resource diplomacy in the Middle East by focusing on the activities and ideologies of business leaders before the First Oil Crisis in 1973. By analysing the roles played by four prominent leaders in the oil industry (Idemitsu Sazō, Yamashita Tarō, Tanaka Seigen, and Sugimoto Shigeru), the article illustrates how the beliefs of these leaders intersected with those of the political class in Japan's oil diplomacy towards Middle East. The approach they took to oil diplomacy reflected the notion of Kōdōshugi (Imperial Way principles and ethics). This form of nationalism had some continuity with the prewar Greater Asianism insofar as it was infused with the religious ethics and doctrines of the 'Japanese Imperial Way' and the avoidance of dependence on the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India is investing more in religious diplomacy, arguing that the world might learn lessons from that country's extraordinary repository of philosophical and spiritual traditions. This diplomacy has an increasingly Hindu character, reflecting the present government's conviction that India is essentially a Hindu civilization. This article examines the drivers of India's contemporary religious diplomacy, its target audiences, its practitioners within and outside the government, and its likely influence. It argues that India's religious diplomacy is unusual in terms of its target audiences and the message aimed at each of them, and in terms of its messengers, which include several Hindu nationalist social movements and elements of the Indian diaspora. It argues too that the impact of these efforts remains unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to challenge an ideologically overestimated view of diplomacy as a universal self-sustaining value and remedy for unpredictably chained and escalated conflicts in the world. The article shows the necessary connection between diplomacy and the fragility of human ethical decision-making, including in the areas of strategy, international politics, and military defense. This more modest approach also applies to proposals for diplomacy built on direct or indirect religious inspirations. The article calls for a nuanced critical approach to religious diplomacy and the positive transformation of the limits of human rational negotiation by the paradoxical "power of the powerless" and transcendental mystery. The final part provides three biblically-inspired Christian opportunities for this transformation: endurance of faith, voluntary self-denial (kenosis), and the complex "two level"—both protective and eschatological—pursuit of peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article elaborates dialogue as one of the most important tools of faith-based diplomacy from the Catholic perspective, as presented by some post-conciliar popes. In the first part, after presenting the state of the art, some characteristics of dialogue are briefly outlined. Subsequently, its "ideal type" fulfilling some basic preconditions is introduced. The third part sheds some light on the levels of dialogue in public and multilateral diplomacy, explaining the ways dialogue promotion works in diplomacy. The final part presents some outcomes of dialogue in diplomacy and international politics in general. The content analysis applied in the article is based on various statements of the popes delivered in their speeches, addresses, homilies, letters, exhortations, and encyclicals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March and April 1390, three French knights jousted against over one hundred knights and squires who had travelled from across Europe to challenge them, but above all from England. This great tournament was held at Saint-Inglevert near to Calais, the English outpost on the northern coastline of France. Modern scholars have viewed the event through the lens of the on-going Hundred Years War. But rather than seeing this chivalric competition as an extension of the war between the two sides, it should rather be understood as part of the diplomatic engagement between Charles VI and Richard II during the 1390s, an informal opportunity for the elites to meet and form bonds that shaped the rapprochement between the two sides. Saint-Inglevert also marked an important stage on the path towards the great theatrical tournaments of the fifteenth century, helping to explain the rise in popularity of the famous pas d'armes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on how space and relationships co-produce one another within the Japanese foreign policy language of the Indo-Pacific. By reframing Agent-Structure dynamics, by which actors and social structures reproduce one another, into Watsuji Tetsurō's idea of aidagara ("inter-relationships") consisting of the Agent-Structure relationship being mutually constitutive with space within which the relationship is situated, this article fills a gap in the literature by bringing space back into discussions on international political dynamics. The article analyses Japanese government narratives appearing in official pronouncements and media reports to show that Japan's foreign relations are apprehended as a function of space, and vice versa. These narratives show that the Indo-Pacific takes on a double-meaning: as a geographical space within which Agent-Structure dynamics play out, and as a concept that denotes what this space means for Japanese diplomacy. By reframing the Agent-Structure relationships into aidagara, scholars can rethink an interpenetrating dynamic involving the Indo-Pacific as a space that reproduces Japan's evolving political relationships, and as relationships reproducing space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International climate governance no longer takes place only in the UNFCCC but is spread across numerous fora that collectively form the international regime complex on climate change. For climate leaders like the EU, the regime complex creates opportunities for strategic activity in its diplomacy across the different fora. This article examines how internal compartmentalisation affected the EU's diplomacy across the international regime complex on climate change in the negotiation of four climate agreements: the Paris Agreement (UNFCCC), CORSIA (ICAO), the Kigali Amendment (Montreal Protocol), and the Initial Strategy (IMO). It finds that internal compartmentalisation indeed hinders the EU's pursuit of a comprehensive climate diplomacy, making the regime complex a missed opportunity for the EU. Various combinations of a lack of communication channels, different priorities and policy framings, and a lack of resources and expertise contributed to situations where the EU was limited in using the regime complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ron Asmus, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, liked to say that the Baltic states had to run a marathon to join NATO but could rely on the support of their American 'coaches.' Estonian diplomats have used the word 'babysitter' to describe their American colleagues. While it is true that the result of NATO enlargement was never inevitable, the uncertainties of the process were diminished by cooperation between candidate countries and the forces inside the US who pushed for enlargement. Without delving into their motives, this article traces the role of the US as 'coaches' and 'babysitters' in making the Baltic states' 'run' toward NATO a nearly perfect marathon, despite all the pitfalls and doubts along the way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do managerial bureaucracies emerge? We consider this central question of Chandlerian business history by examining how Tata and Sons governed its steelmaking company TISCO, 1907–1925. Tata had no steelmaking knowledge and was reliant upon American expertise and personnel. This knowledge imbalance skewed power in favour of autocratic American steelmasters who wielded complete operational control. Unable to impose its will on TISCO, Tata was forced to govern through everyday diplomacy. Through everyday diplomacy, Tata introduced accounting routines to establish a hierarchy and render the American steelmasters accountable to the parent company. Every administrative and accounting process suggested by Tata's diplomat, B.J. Padshah, was resisted by the American steelmasters as an erosion of their absolute power. We contribute to our understanding of how a uniquely Indian type of enterprise, the managing agency, governed their loosely coupled subsidiaries. We extend Foucault's power/knowledge by introducing everyday diplomacy as the vehicle for establishing organisational discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the diplomatic and political efforts made by Florence to establish a significant institutional presence in Constantinople. It explores Florence's diplomatic relations with the Byzantine Empire, which are analysed in three distinct phases: the first, from the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade in 1204; the second, from 1421 to 1434, following the arrival of the Medici; and the third, from 1434, including the Ecumenical Council, to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The research aims to provide an historical narrative and a comprehensive study of the origins and development of political contacts between Florence and the Byzantine Empire, an enquiry into the Florentine privileges granted in 1439, and a critical discussion of the genuine presence of a Florentine colony in the Byzantine capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the Scandinavian countries' contributions to the United Nations' 1968 International Year for Human Rights (IYHR) based on archival research in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. It traces how the three countries launched national campaigns to commemorate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and participated in the International Human Rights Conference in Tehran. This engagement with the IYHR occurred at a time when the Scandinavian countries were elevating human rights concerns in their diplomacy as part of a new foreign policy activism. The article demonstrates that the commemoration campaigns spawned numerous activities to raise awareness of human rights issues and spurred reflection on the state of human rights at home and abroad. At the Tehran conference, the Scandinavian countries failed to strengthen international protection of human rights as the concerns of Global South countries dominated the agenda. The analysis confirms two general aspects of the Scandinavian approach to human rights: their emphasis on mutual coordination and their preference for robust civil society involvement. The article concludes that the comprehensive national commemoration campaigns facilitated broad civil society engagement with human rights, but that the IYHR did not transform Scandinavian human rights policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the effects of war on the diplomatic practices of nonstate actors, this article focuses on the wartime diplomacy efforts of Ukrainian think tank experts in the aftermath of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. Drawing on the concept of think tank diplomacy, the study specifically examines how Ukrainian think tankers adapted their diplomacy functions – negotiation, communication, information-gathering and promotion of friendly relations with other countries – under the conditions of the full-out war. The analysis combines insights from existing studies with the authors' participant observation and original reflexive expert interviews with Ukrainian think tankers. The article reveals how Ukrainian expert professionals, unified by the goal of generating and maintaining international support for their country, adapted their diplomatic practices for asserting greater control over their agendas, engaging in cross-border collaborations and broadening their outreach efforts. By shedding light on the work of Ukrainian think tank experts in times of war, this article showcases the agency of knowledge-producing nonstate actors in wartime diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractDuring the Second Abe Administration (2012-2020), Japan intensified its efforts to strengthen economic ties with Africa. This paper explores the reasons behind this shift and its implications for Japan’s African policy. Challenging the prevailing ‘Reactive State’ model of Japanese African policy, the study argues that the shift resulted from political and bureaucratic reforms that centralized power in the Prime Minister’s office (Kantei) and Abe’s favoritism toward the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). As a result, METI gained greater influence over African policy. Unlike the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, METI views Africa as a promising market with a limited Japanese presence and advocates for a more business-oriented approach. The paper concludes that Japan’s new policy provides a convincing reason why Japan must engage with Africa. However, Japanese companies do not always follow as the Government intended. Despite government efforts, the Japanese private sector remains hesitant to expand investment in Africa due to challenging business environments and the absence of legal frameworks between Japan and African countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Qatar has emerged as a key actor in humanitarian diplomacy (HD), which has received limited academic attention. This paper provides an analysis of Qatar's engagement with HD, drawing on a literature review and extensive interviews with officials and humanitarian workers in Qatar, observations of state activities and humanitarian agencies, and personal interviews with international humanitarian aid workers. The study reveals Qatar's unique strategy, characterised by its diplomatic stance and the integrated efforts of its governmental and non-governmental sectors, as foundational to its HD efforts. The study also reports challenges hindering those efforts, namely the impacts of the political tensions, the lack of diplomatic immunity for humanitarian workers, and a scarcity of specialised expertise in HD. These are explored in terms of their implications for the effectiveness of Qatar's efforts, emphasising the critical need for enhanced supportive frameworks, targeted capacity-building initiatives, and well-defined protocols for HD engagement. To add to the dialogue on HD, this paper reflects on Qatar's engagement in HD, suggesting that smaller nations can meaningfully contribute when leveraging their strengths and international relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent did Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe influence empire formation in the late sixteenth century? In analyzing diplomatic letters of correspondence from the State Papers, this investigation reveals that Drake’s piratical activities, claims of English sovereignty, and the ensuing diplomatic controversy with the Spanish ambassador, Bernardino de Mendoza, forced the English Crown to use legal arguments rooted in the ius gentium (law of nations) and natural law to justify expansion into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. During the dispute, both Mendoza and the English Crown variously invoked natural law and the law of nations to argue for justice and friendship. In testing these legal arguments, the Crown demonstrated that it had the capacity to counter Spanish claims for empire, which subsequently influenced imperial propagandists like Richard Hakluyt to promote English expansionism in natural law and ius gentium terms. In turn, the English Crown’s newfound confidence from the dispute manifested in its turn to reason of state and self-preservationist thinking in its international relations in the early 1580s, shortly before the outbreak of the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604). The dispute thus facilitated an ideology for empire rooted in natural law and the law of nations in the sixteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By drawing on Chinese, Soviet, Albanian as well as other Eastern European archives, this manuscript examines Ho Chi Minh's shuttle diplomacy between 1960 and 1961 inside the Marxist-Leninist world. It is primarily interested in understanding the reasons for its failure and to make better sense of why Ho Chi Minh was unsuccessful in his attempt to act as an honest broker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the live music industry have received much attention, little consideration has been given to regional music production clusters more broadly. Evaluating the impacts of the pandemic on the music economy of North West England, this paper identifies key areas of support required as music businesses transition into a digitally-orientated post-COVID period. Findings demonstrate the ways in which the pandemic encouraged or forced music businesses to innovate with new digital ways of showcasing, promoting and distributing music. Yet, while digitalisation offers many opportunities, these are often difficult for businesses to capitalise upon. The paper argues the need to place business support at the heart of local cultural policy. More specifically, the paper makes the case for a soft institutionalist approach whereby local policymakers, the market and civil society work together to generate and distribute crucial resources of human, financial and social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production and distribution of 'local' content around the world has been a major regulatory pressure point emerging from the global rise of video streaming platforms. To support greater evidence-based policy development as these regulations emerge, this article reflects on the outcomes of Australian local content regulation on pay-TV. In doing so, the article explores the cultural outcomes of Australian pay-TV local content regulations since the 1990s. This article demonstrates how prevailing Australian cultural policy frameworks facilitate particular types of content. The Australian case study highlights the fraught relationship between policy goals and outcomes that can occur with cultural frameworks that do little to regulate the type of culture produced and suggests a greater separation between cultural and industrial value of content is needed by regulators. The findings from this analysis of Australian cultural policy can be valuable to other interventionist markets as new regulations are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Established in 1951, the Children's Film Foundation (CFF) contributed to the growth of children's film culture in Britain. This paper aims to show how the CFF's active involvement of public authorities, film industry organisations and educationalists resulted in partnerships between them and in the growing production of children's films in Britain. Drawing on under-investigated archival materials, this paper argues that the Advisory Council of the Children's Film Department and Children's Entertainment Films, precursors of the CFF, offered significant platforms for mediation between public authorities, industry organisations and educationalists, and for shaping new beliefs about child audiences and children's cinema, which resulted in both the film industry's and educationalists' support for, and commitment to, producing films with entertaining and educational values. The case study demonstrates how the CFF overcame a commerce – culture dichotomy. It therefore offers a more nuanced understanding of state–market–civic relations in British cultural policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to clarify how social positioning and modes of cultural participation shape the meanings people attach to the European Capital of Culture Wrocław 2016 initiative. The authors analyse both quantitative and qualitative evidence for narratives on ECOC, drawing on data collected in a survey (N = 1000) in 2017 and qualitative group interviews (10 FGIs) in 2016 and 2017. A literature-based narrative on the ECOC legacy is first reconstructed as a point of reference. Local perspectives on ECOC 2016 are derived from a representative survey and in-depth qualitative analysis to reveal bottom-up perspectives on what ECOC 2016 was. The paper examines the relationship between ECOC's values and the socioeconomic and sociocultural characteristics of city residents who support and oppose it, to determine how ECOC's values are related to class dimensions of social positioning and modes of cultural participation. The paper concludes that ways of understanding and narrating ECOC are derived primarily from cultural practices. Socio-demographic variables are of secondary importance. Both affirmative narratives of ECOC's achievements in cultural policy and critical accounts can be viewed as informative markers of who and how perceives cultural policy successes and failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent to which Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs), as policy concepts, are globalized, has been a matter of debate. This paper engages with the debate while seeking to move beyond the binary division of global and local scales of analysis. Empirically, it examines the emergence and politics of CCIs in Vietnam, with a focus on its connection with the implementation of the UNESCO 2005 Convention. The paper explores the complexity of the policy translation process, which shows the degrees to which neoliberal ideas can be translated in a post-socialist context. It also examines the role of UNESCO and questions the consistency of its position against the commodification of culture. Conceptually, it brings together different approaches to policy translation from language studies, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and postcolonial studies. The paper suggests that this interdisciplinary framework can further the understanding of both paradigmatic and pragmatic dimensions of policy travel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the use of intangible cultural heritage as a vehicle for soft power in the service of geostrategic competitions between Iran and Turkey, two regional powers in West Asia. We focus on two significant trans-regional instances of intangible cultural heritage relevant to both countries: the mystic poet Rumi and the New Year's celebration of Nowruz. We draw on theories in political science and cultrual heritage as well as a host of sources in Persian, Turkish, and Azerbaijani, to demonstrate how heritage is mobilised concurrently as a nation-building device and a tool for soft power in international relations. We conclude by suggesting that, despite strong grounds for its claims, Iran's response in this competition has been reactive rather than proactive. Overall, the paper contributes to the scholarship on soft power and heritage diplomacy by presenting the first comparative analysis of cases of shared intangible heritage in West Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although plausible deniability is a definitional characteristic of covert actions, numerous Russian actions have been unveiled and attributed to Russia over the past decade. The reason for these frequent revelations can be explained by three factors: ignorance, indifference, and incompetence. Russian actions often display ignorance about the reactions they might elicit, indifference to global opinion if they are caught, and incompetence that allows foreign governments to unpeel the sometimes thin veneer of clandestinity that is supposed to cover Russian actions. Frequent revelations based on a combination of those factors have given Russia a reputation of aggressiveness in the international arena, while also limiting Russia's own actions, even in overt areas such as diplomacy and economic relations, because of that reputation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Franco-German relationship is considered a measure of the European Union's overall health. Yet the bilateral ties between Germany and another founding member, Italy, are at least as important. Historical parallels between the two countries have been present since the founding of their modern nation-states. Economic differences have caused deep rifts that influence not just diplomatic relations, but also popular opinion. The rise of right-wing parties in both countries could be considered a new parallel, but upon closer inspection, there are important differences between the Alternative für Deutschland and Fratelli d'Italia. In the aftermath of the EU Parliament elections, it is worth taking a closer look at Germany, Italy, and what their relationship means for the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe island of Syros in the Cyclades almost spontaneously emerged in 1830 as a prominent transit and trade hub for Greece and the Ottoman Empire. The present work is an attempt to conduct a deductive reading on the impressive number of documents produced by the Ottoman Consulate General of Syros (şehbenderlik) records to answer two interrelated questions: (I) how the Ottoman Empire engaged with its former territory and (II) what kind of diplomatic tools the Sublime Porte used to deal with the security challenges it perceived emerging in the Eastern Mediterranean after the establishment of the Hellenic Kingdom in 1830. Delimiting a definition of illegality during the Age of Mobility in the Middle East, the states depended on one another to control and define the movements of illegality but paradoxically refused to cooperate. Frustrated, the Ottoman Empire, appropriated from European international legal thought, acted in typical nineteenth-century imperial coerciveness and considered using force to occupy Syros to compel the Greek state. The current article asserts that the Ottomans not only appropriated the French model of diplomacy but also European justifications of imperialism as it pertained to diplomatic coercion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of the Alliance Française in the United States inspired Germany to enhance its relations with the USA from a cultural perspective. Germany’s own cultural policy traditions and its foreign cultural policy practices provided the theoretical basis for the development of a cultural policy towards the USA. Germany, which firmly believed in its position as a pioneer of world culture, hoped to distinguish itself from the cultural competition with France by generously transferring knowledge to the Americans and to gain a political and economic ally. In German-American academic diplomacy at the beginning of the twentieth century, German intellectual elites had already attempted to move away from the power-state and militaristic foreign-policy thinking that had prevailed in the Empire, and they harboured internationalist dreams of culture as a means of overcoming national antagonisms. Nevertheless, unfortunately, these intellectual elites were still unable to shake off nationalist values, even as Karl Lamprecht, who had joined the Society for International Understanding, embraced Pan-Germanism again after the beginning of World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'Arab Spring' posed major emotional challenges to European diplomats. Sympathies for the demonstrators' open embrace of European norms and values merged with discomfort about incalculable consequences following the former rulers' eventual fall. Focusing on Egypt, this contribution analyses how European diplomats reacted to Hosni Mubarak's ouster and the following developments. With their reminiscences to Europe's own history and the European Union's (EU) self-perception as 'force for good', a two-sided sense of disillusionment grew among European representatives: about the regime's eventual unwillingness to reform, and about their own incapacity to meaningfully support change. Based on extensive research in Cairo and Brussels, this article analyses the emotions that escorted the actions of officials from the EU and its member states in Egypt. From a multi-level perspective, it considers activities by the EU Delegation to Egypt and EU member states' embassies in Cairo, plus initiatives coming from Brussels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates North Korea's climate diplomacy by analyzing a comprehensive dataset of 39 policy documents and 93,439 news articles through content and sentiment analysis. The research aims to provide insights into the country's climate diplomacy approach, framing, and priorities. The findings reveal that North Korea's climate diplomacy is primarily driven by materialistic interests, focusing on loss and damage reduction, access to climate finance, and technology transfers. The study highlights key themes in North Korea's climate change discourse, such as economic factors, human security, and a surprisingly non-ideological stance. The sentiment analysis also indicates a collaborative approach toward the international community and strong support for UNFCCC mechanisms. The results offer valuable and nuanced implications for future diplomatic efforts, suggesting potential avenues for collaboration and engagement with North Korea on climate change issues. Nonetheless, the study also identifies several barriers to diplomatic engagement, such as North Korea's reluctance to accept certain conditionalities associated with climate finance as well as its contentious focus on nuclear energy as a climate mitigation instrument. Overall, this research contributes to the growing literature on climate diplomacy and sheds new light on an underexplored aspect of North Korea's foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]