DIPLOMATIC COMMUNICATION. Winston Churchill “Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell...
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Transcript of DIPLOMATIC COMMUNICATION. Winston Churchill “Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell...
DIPLOMATIC COMMUNICATION
Winston Churchill
• “Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.”
HISTORY OF DIPLOMACY
• Definition:• Diplomacy is the application of intelligence
and tact to the conduct of official relations between the governments of independent states, extending sometimes also to their relations with dependent territories, between government and independent institutions.
• The conduct of business between states by peaceful means
• Diplomacy: the best means devised by civilization for preventing international relations from being governed by force alone
• The field in which it operates: between power politics and civilized usage
• The practice goes back to the civilization of Mesopotamia and the Great Kings of the Ancient Near East
• The first diplomatic document: a copy of a letter inscribed on a cuneiform tablet sent around 2500 BC from the Kingdom of Ebla to the Kingdom of Amazi about 600 miles away
• The Amarna letters discovered in Egypt show us a world of quite advanced political interaction among the States of the Near East in the 14th century BC
• The means to transmit the message: messengers or merchant caravans
• Diplomatic immunity was reduced to the standards of hospitality of the period
• Greek city states 4th and 5th centuries: a new and more sophisticated diplomacy
• The city states dispatched and received special embassies with due accreditation, who presented their case, sometimes accompanied by a declaration of war, openly before the rulers or assemblies to whom they were sent
• 432 BC the Conference of Sparta – can be considered the first account of a diplomatic conference
• The Conference was called by the Spartans in order to decide whether or not to go to war with Athens
• However what really ruled at that time was:• “the strong do what they can and the week
suffer what they must”
• The Roman contribution – characteristic of a people who produced rulers and administrators rather than diplomats, who preferred organization to negotiation, and who sought to impose a universal respect for their own system of law
• Their behaviour: brutal and oppressive• The Byzantine emperors earned the machinery of
diplomatic intercourse a reputation for complexity and deviousness– The diplomatic ceremonial was complex– They applied the concept of divide and rule
– They transformed the traditional role of the envoy from a herald to the beginnings of the role of the modern diplomat, a trained observer and negotiator attempting to interpret what he saw for his master and to negotiate an accord
The Venetians learned much from the Byzantine example
Through them, the Byzantine diplomatic practice was passed to the West
RENAISSANCE DIPLOMACY
• In the Middle Ages there was rarely concord between the Pope and the Emperor
• Credentials of some kind were needed if an ambassador was to be received by someone regarding himself as holding sovereign power
• 15th century Italy – the practice of residential diplomacy – the most important innovation in diplomatic practice, came to be commonly accepted
• During the Italian Wars (1494-1559) the practice spread around Europe. The Italian princes and popes needed good intelligence on what was being planned in terms of their own future in the capitals: Paris, Madrid, Vienna
• In the developing nation states, shifting alliances, and the dynastic struggles for power the resident diplomatic agent was invaluable in keeping his master supplied with information
• Alberico Gentili (Professor of Civil Law at Oxford) who found refuge in Queen Elisabeth’s England , wrote the earliest major work on diplomacy law:– The inviolability of the ambassadors and the
establishment– Conduct of diplomatic missions– It was common to accept ambassadors from states
considered infidels or heretics: England had already had an embassy to the Ottoman sultan together with Venice and France
• The relations between Catholics and Protestants prevented civilized intercourse, which was essential to diplomacy, for a period of 100 years
• During this period “the end justifying the means” took precedence over morality, e.g. the French preferred to work with the Ottoman Turks at the expense of the Christian Habsburgs.
• Another cynical behaviour; Cardinal Richelieu of France saw his country’s interests as better served by siding with the Protestants in the Thirty Years War (1618-48) than allowing the Holy Roman Empire to extend its borders further and so weaken Louis XIII’s France
• Thus Richelieu provided an early example of balance of power politics
THE ORIGINS OF MODERN DIPLOMACY• 1648 - The Treaty of Westphalia established a new
order of relationships. It is now that the age of classical European diplomacy is said to have begun
• Abraham de Wicquefort wrote L’Ambassadeur et ses Fonctions in prison and published it in French in 1681
• He identified “the resident ambassador as the principal institutional device for the conduct of foreign affairs” and his work provides “an actualized concept of the seventeenth century European states-system at the time of the Congress of Westphalia”
• In this period diplomacy was conducted by members of the ruling class who had more in common with each other across land and sea frontiers, than with the majority of their own people
• This elitism helped to foster the cohesion of the diplomatic corps
• It proceeded according to well-defined rules and civilized conventions
• The system was flexible and personal, and its style was clear enough for all who took part in it to understand not only what was explicitly stated but what was to be taken for granted
• An important contribution to writing on relations between States came from a Swiss lawyer, Emmerich de Vattel, who discussed the application of natural law to international relations in his treatise “Le Droit de Gens” 1758
• This treatise influenced the authors of the American Constitution, particularly by its focus on liberty and equality, but also by its defence of neutrality
• Vattel sustained the right of maintaining the embassies so that, “ each Nation possesses both the right to negotiate and have intercourse with others, and the reciprocal obligation to lend itself to such intercourse” – this reflected the spirit of the age: embassies were an essential element in the functioning of international society
• The Congress of Vienna • codified more concretely the new world of
diplomacy• Established an agreed basis for diplomatic
representation• Effected the recognition of diplomatic services
as a distinct profession within the public service governed by its own internationally accepted codes
• The settlement of the congress was remarkable in rebuilding an international order broken by the Napoleonic wars
• Europe enjoyed its longest sustained period of peace 1815-1914 with the exception of the Crimean War
• It constructed a balance of power that ensured that the threat from French expansionism was contained in way which was not sufficiently punitive to lead to France nursing a grievance
• The countries formed a kind of proto-European government for the period of the Crimean War and France was rapidly admitted
• The Concert of Europe was the name of the Great Power system of consensus
• It survived as a concept through the 19th century and was invoked by Gladstone in 1879 as a principle to be maintained. He said in speech “Because keeping all in union together you neutralize and fetter and bind up the selfish aims of each”
• In post-revolutionary Europe there appeared new objectives: acceptance of established monarchical order gave way to constitutional methods
• From now on diplomacy should be exercised in the interests, not of a dynasty, not even of aristocracy, but of the nation as a whole
• This arose from statesmen’s realization of the importance of public opinion
• Two British statesmen Canning and Palmerstone, thought this a positive rather than a negative development
• But as we see through the history, public opinion failed to prevent the two World Wars, Vietnam, Iraq – in the case of the latter two it played a role in bringing the wars to an end
• The First World War brought to an end the Concert of Europe
• The system of bipolar military alliances exposed Europe to the risk that a single incident could prompt a chain reaction leading to a general war
• The system of alliances and the excessive weight given to military planning undermined any chance that diplomacy might head off what came to be seen as an almost inevitable clash
• The new diplomacy was determined by the openness born of faster communications, increasing power of the press, and a shift in the balance of forces in the democracies from the ruling elites to the governed
• The new conviction; it was time for diplomacy to be made more open and more accessible to public scrutiny and appraisal
• It was natural that electorates claiming to control governments should require to know what agreements were being made in their name and to exercise the constitutional right of accepting or rejecting them
• Until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, new and old diplomacy coexisted.
• East and West were grouped in 2 mutually antagonistic alliances
• The West attempted to deal with the Soviet Empire and Communist China by a policy of containment which lasted 40 years
• Henry Kissinger added a new word to the diplomatic lexicon in being an early proponent of shuttle diplomacy, (activity in which a person travels back and forth between two countries and talks to their leaders in order to bring about agreement, prevent war) whereby the intermediary in a conflict shuttles backwards and forwards repeatedly between the parties in conflict or in dispute to secure the desired result
• It is not guaranteed to succeed as in the war between Argentina and Britain during the Falklands War in 1982, but Kissinger succeeded in Yom Kippur War 1973
Multilateral Diplomacy
• It has roots in antiquity: in attempts to stop the feuding and warfare, the principal Powers in the Eastern Mediterranean (Greek States and Persia) “agreed to convene great political congresses… to discuss general settlement of outstanding issues” (Watson, Diplomacy: The Dialogue between States)
• It involved 8 congresses between 392 and 367 BC
• In modern times, large-scale conferences took place in the 18th and 19th centuries
• In the 20th century, the Versailles Conference set a precedent• Advantages: efficiency and speed of decision making• A conference - the best forum for decision making and
reaching agreements where it has a deadline, is subject-specific and/or technical details are involved and national experts assembled in one place
• This was valuable for Arab- Israeli bilateral talks by the Geneva Conference of December 1973 and by the Madrid Conference in October 1991
• Both bilateral and multilateral diplomacy are carried out at the highest, that is at summit level
• Summit – first used in this way by Churchill in 1950
• Definition (Dunn) meetings between those who, by virtue of their position are not able to be contradicted by any other individual
• In Middle Ages most diplomacy was carried out at this level, often by kings and princes of neighbouring States
• When the practice of resident diplomats became established in the 16th century, summitry went into relative decline
• The practice enjoyed a renaissance in the 19th century
• The speed of international travel highly developed this practice in the last 30 years
• The practice is now widespread• Serial summit: European Council, G7/8, Arab League,
Commonwealth Heads of Government, Franco-German Summits
• Ad hoc summits set up to deal with crisis or break the ice between states whose relations have been poor or non-existent
• Prime examples:• Paris 1971 Heath and Pompidou meeting leading to
Britain’s entry into EEC• Beijing 1972 Nixon’s meeting with Mao
• High level exchange of views –is the least ambitious type of summitry, is extensively used particularly by leaders taking a tour of a region
• They may hope to get to know their opposite number and may be able to advance some issues which have been blocked
• Diplomacy – is the conduct or execution of foreign policy• Foreign policy – is formulated by the government• In order to carry out its policy, a government manages its
international relations by applying not only persuasion, but also different forms of pressure
• Hard power is in fact the real power that exercises the pressure. It can rest on inducements or threats. Sometimes it can get the outcomes without threats or payoffs. This is the indirect way called the second face of power
• The power must be real, but the government might prefer to keep it in reserve
• In normal circumstances the government conducts its international intercourse by negotiating – soft power
• The diplomat• Is so called because diplomas are official documents
emanating from princes• Diploma:• Comes from the Greek word meaning to double
from the way in which the diplomas were fold• A document by which a privilege is conferred: a
state paper, official document, a charter– The earliest use in England was in 1645 – it was a
collection of treaties and other official documents
• In these titles the word diplomaticus is applied to a body of original state papers but as the subject matter of these collections was international relations, the word has been treated as having to do with international relations.
• Hence the application to the officials connected with these matters
• Diplomatic body signifies the body of ambassadors, envoys and officials attached to the foreign missions residing at any seat of government
• Diplomatic service – the branch of the public service which supplies the personnel of the permanent missions in foreign countries– In England the earliest example appears in the
Annual Register for 1787– 1797 – diplomacy meant skill or address in the
conduct of international intercourse and negotiations
Verbal and non-verbal communication
• Social communication, including diplomatic communication, involves the transmission of messages to which certain meanings are attached. These messages can be either verbal or nonverbal. Just as the verbal components in a normal person-to-person conversation have been estimated to carry little more than a third of the social meaning (Johnson, 1974: 74), so nonverbal messages or “body language” constitute important aspects of diplomatic communication
• Diplomatic “body language” encompasses everything from personal gestures to the manipulation of military forces. A handshake, for example, is commonly used as a metaphor for the quality of inter-state relations, transferring the language of personal relations to the international arena. The venue and format of meetings as well as the shape of the negotiating table (symbolizing prestige and power) and the level of delegations (signaling interests and intentions of the parties) are other aspects that can be used for subtle “body language” (cf. Cohen, 1981: 39-40).
• Nonverbal communication has certain advantages. It is often better able to capture the attention and interest of various audiences than is verbal communication
• In diplomatic communication “saying is doing” and “doing is saying.”
• Activity or inactivity, words or silence, all have message value: they influence others and these others, in turn, cannot not respond to these communications and are thus themselves communicating”
• Today we commonly associate diplomacy with linguistic skills, a carefully calibrated language allowing cross-cultural communication with a minimum of unnecessary misunderstanding, along with protocol governing interstate “body language.” Similarly, the management of verbal as well as nonverbal aspects of communication has characterized variants of diplomacy throughout history
• A contemporary example may illustrate the enduring symbolic significance of the selection of envoys. The selection of Averell Harriman to lead the U.S. negotiating team in the test ban talks in Moscow in the summer of 1963 was one in a series of conciliatory signals on both sides. Harriman was well known to the Soviets and had become well acquainted with Khrushchev during the Soviet leader’s visit to the United States in 1959. In the words of one official from the Soviet embassy in Washington: “As soon as I heard that Harriman was going, I knew that you were serious” (Seaborg, 1981: 252
• The sense of protocol that we associate with classic diplomacy, dating back to Renaissance Italy, is prevalent in the Amarna Letters as well. The address and greeting phrases of the tablets constituted symbolic expressions of status. Only if the sender was superior or equal to the addressee did he name himself first. Deviations were noted and given sinister interpretations, as in this exchange (see Jönsson, 2000: 195):
• “And now, as to the tablet that you sent me, why did you put your name over my name? And who now is the one who upsets the good relations between us, and is such conduct the accepted practice? My brother, did you write to me with peace in mind? And if you are my brother, why have you exalted your name…”
• In the diplomacy of the Roman Empire, protocol seems to have developed only among equals or near equals. Whereas sophisticate rules of protocol developed between the Roman and Persian Empires, Rome’s diplomatic relations with the “northern barbarians” seem to have involved no protocol
Language and Diplomacy
• Language is used to express the subtle needs of the diplomatic profession
• Language in diplomacy can also mean the particular form, style, manner or tone of expression
• Language may also mean the verbal or non-verbal expression of thoughts or feelings
• All these meanings can be used both in oral and written practice
• From the point of view of diplomatic communication , language is not a simple tool, or instrument of communication, but the very essence of diplomatic vocation
• This is the reason why from early times the legates, consuls, and later on ambassadors had to be educated and well-trained people, well-spoken and polyglots
• there has always been a tendency toward developing a lingua franca of diplomacy.
• Sumerian, the first known linguistic medium of culture and civilization in the Tigris–Euphrates valley, may be considered the “earliest language of diplomatic intercourse and expression.”
• From the third millennium BC Akkadian, a rather peripheral Semitic language, became the recognized diplomatic language – it used cuneiform writing
• When Akkadian ceased to exist as a living language, it was superseded by Aramaic as the leading diplomatic language
• The great advantage of Aramaic was that, by the tenth-century BC, it had adopted the best writing technique hitherto known to mankind – the alphabet
• Greek, and later Latin, became common diplomatic languages in the wake of expanding empires
• The choice between Greek and Latin became an issue in Byzantine diplomacy. By the end of the sixth century, Constantinople abandoned Latin and used only Greek as the language of diplomacy, whereas Latin dominated in Rome. Without skillful translation, mutual incomprehension, misunderstanding could occur
• As the written language of not only the Roman Empire but also of its successor, the Holy Roman Empire, and of the Roman Catholic Church, Latin eventually became the natural language of European diplomacy. Most treaties were written in Latin, and Latin was used in conversations between diplomats
• By 1600, command of conversational Latin began to be rare among European diplomats, and negotiations through interpreters became common. No other common language of diplomacy arose until the eighteenth century, when French became the language of the European nobility and, by implication, the diplomatic language
• There were efforts in the nineteenth century to make English a rival.• For instance, in 1800 Lord Grenville conducted his relations with foreign
diplomats accredited to the Court of St. James in English instead of French. British Foreign Secretary George Canning in 1826 instructed his diplomats to use English in official international relations. And Lord Palmerstone in 1851 insisted that every country was entitled to use its own language in official communications
• Only after the First World War did English emerge as one of two languages of diplomacy.
• Multilateral diplomacy has added to the linguistic problems; “unilateralism in diplomatic language is a thing of the past.” Yet it has also generated creative solutions. For instance, a constructive distinction between working languages and official languages was introduced at the 1945 San Francisco Conference. Then English, Russian, Chinese, French and Spanish were granted the status of official languages of the conference, whereas only English and French were accepted as working languages.
• Sometimes linguistic variety can be an asset rather than a liability.• When the Ukrainian leader Leonid Kuchma appeared uninvited at
the NATO summit in Prague in November 2002, he created an acute diplomatic crisis. If he were to be placed in alphabetical order following the English spelling of participating countries, the controversial Kuchma, who was suspected of providing Iraq with radar equipment, would sit next to US President George W. Bush and UK Premier Tony Blair.
• The embarrassing situation was solved by changing to French, whereby USA became Etats Unis, United Kingdom Royaume Uni, and Kuchma ended up between the Turkish president and EU High Commissioner Javier Solana.
• the institutionalization of diplomacy has involved the development of a common language with ritualized phrases, which have allowed cross-cultural communication with a minimum of unnecessary misunderstanding.
• The diplomatic dialogue, therefore, is based on a code that is shared by members of the diplomatic community.
• Courtesy, nonredundancy and constructive ambiguity are prominent features of diplomatic language
Gathering information
• Diplomacy is involved both in the formulation of a polity’s external policy and in its execution.
• Policy formulation requires the gathering and assessment of information about the external environment. Thus, the introduction of resident ambassadors – one of the most important innovations of Renaissance diplomacy – flowed from the growing need not only to send messages but to gather information about neighbors among Italian city-states
• Ever since information gathering has come to be regarded as a basic function of modern diplomacy, explicitly listed in the Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Relations of 1961
• While often associated with the emergence of permanent embassies, information gathering has been an enduring aspect of diplomacy.
• The Amarna Letters have several references to Egypt’s need for intelligence to maintain control of its Asian empire. Two out of the three letters sent from the Pharaoh to another Great King refer to intelligence matters.
• There is reason to believe that the messengers, who carried written and oral communication between the royal courts, supplemented the official information they received with their own sources of intelligence
• Byzantine diplomacy is the best-known historical example of intelligence taking center stage. The Empire was poorly equipped for, and thus wanted to avoid, war. Therefore, the Byzantine considered information gathering crucial and saw it as the chief purpose of all diplomatic exchanges.
• The deeply ingrained expectation that intelligence must be any visitor’s intention explains the care with which foreigners were watched, confined and guarded in Constantinople
• Today intelligence has become a separate institution with “no more than tacit international recognition.”
• Diplomacy and intelligence are competing as well as complementary institutions. Several states, such as the United States and Britain, spend more on intelligence than on diplomacy.
• Especially during the Cold War, embassies often provided cover for intelligence officers
• diplomats during most of history had a virtual monopoly on the supply of information from foreign polities
• today they face competition not only from the intelligence community but also from the media.
• Not only does most of the information reaching governments about developments throughout the world come from the media, but a large portion of diplomatic reporting consists of analyses based on the work of journalists
• The 24-hour news reporting of today’s global electronic media tends to make diplomatic reports redundant. The common counterargument is that the information available via various media, including Internet, will remain significant complements to, but no substitute for, information gathered through diplomatic channels.
• Diplomats have always cultivated private sources as a supplement to official sources.
• Among such sources of information, in fact, are other diplomats.
• The principle of reciprocity applies to the exchange of information as well; “communication among diplomats is a two-way street: one cannot expect to obtain information unless one is able and willing to convey information.” (says K Gruber speaking about the modern ambassador)
• If diplomatic information-gathering is designed to provide principals with the necessary background for the formulation of external policies, diplomatic communication to other polities is an important part of the execution of these policies. This communication has verbal as well as nonverbal elements, and is often referred to as diplomatic signaling.
• Signaling is as essential to diplomacy as to a busy airport. One crucial difference is that there is much more scope for ambiguity in diplomatic signaling. Ambiguous signaling between pilots and traffic controllers may be a prelude to disaster, but in diplomatic communication ambiguity is considered constructive and creative
• The possibility of duplicity and deception contributes to the ambiguity of diplomatic signals. The characterization of a diplomat as “an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country” has gained notoriety. In fact, the association of diplomacy with deception can be traced back to Ancient Greece. The Greeks identified Hermes with charm, trickery, cunning, and deception and subsequently transferred those traits to envoys; ever since they have continued to be associated with diplomacy.
• The fact that there is no way of knowing for sure which signals are false and which are true makes for a diplomatic penchant (habit) for mistrusting messages and always “reading between the lines.” Yet there are obvious restraints on lying in diplomatic communication, the most important of which is the loss of reputation should the deception fail. “The fact that states send and pay attention to signals indicates that statesmen feel they are more apt to give true than false information”
• While needing to communicate, polities want to conceal vital information from each other. Moreover, ambiguity may be a deliberate means to retain flexibility and make signals disclaimable. Ambiguous signals allow the sender to argue “I never said that,” “this is not what I meant” and the like, if the situation calls for it
• The perennial art of sending different signals to different audiences, which flourished during nineteenth-century secret diplomacy, has become more difficult in the modern era of mass media.
• Diplomats, therefore, have to be content with saying both less and more than they mean: less, because their verbal and nonverbal signaling will never immediately convey their meaning; more, because their signaling will always convey messages and involve them in consequences other than those intended. The interpretation of signals, in other words, includes both “selective” and “constructive” elements.
Negotiation
• Negotiation is commonly seen as the core of diplomacy, as “the ultimate form of diplomatic communication.”
• several authors define diplomacy in terms of negotiations: • Adam Watson characterizes diplomacy as “negotiations
between political entities which acknowledge each other’s independence.”
• G.R. Berridge’s elaborate definition is “the conduct of international relations by negotiation rather than by force, propaganda, or recourse to law, and by other peaceful means (such as gathering information or engendering goodwill) which are either directly or indirectly designed to promote negotiation”
• Throughout history diplomatic negotiations have been predominantly bilateral encounters. Yet third-party intervention, in the form of arbitration or mediation, has taken place throughout the ages.
• In the Ancient Near East the great kings had the right to adjudicate in disputes between their vassals. Mediation was customary in Ancient China, with princes or ministers as mediators, either at request or on their own initiative.
• Mediation between polities reflected a practice deeply embedded within Chinese life, enabling crowded societies to continue in peaceful coexistence.
• Third-party arbitration was well established among the Ancient Greek city-states as a preferred practice to regulate conflict and facilitate coexistence both internally and externally
• Mediation and the offer of good offices were prevalent in medieval Europe as well, particularly from the twelfth century onward. The Pope was the principal mediator between Christian princes, but a variety of influential individuals, including princes and emperors, acted as arbitrators and mediators .
• In modern times, mediating roles are assumed not only by diplomats and other representatives of governments, but also by representatives of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations as well as private individuals, such as businessman Armand Hammer in US–Soviet relations during the Cold War and ex-president Jimmy Carter in several Third World conflicts more recently.
• Multilateral diplomatic negotiations, on the other hand, are a relatively recent phenomenon. The earliest multilateral fora were high-level congresses called to arrange the terms of peace settlements, such as the Congresses of Osnabrück and Münster resulting in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
• Diplomatic conferences, peacetime meetings of diplomats, were unknown before 1830 but have since then surged in frequency, significance and complexity. In the middle of the nineteenth century there were about three international conferences annually, today more than three thousand
• Conference diplomacy differs from previous diplomatic forms in several respects, such as the forging of coalitions and groupings, potential leadership roles for the chair, and international secretariats assuming important functions.
• One technique that has been identified as particularly helpful in diplomatic conferences is the use of a “single negotiation text”.
• After listening to the stated positions of all the parties, one participant, in a mediator or leadership role (most often the chairperson), drafts a text, which is then circulated for criticism, modifications and refinements. Successive rounds of redrafting and feedback may eventually produce an agreed document, as in the Camp David negotiations in 1978 and the Law of the Sea negotiations
Verbal and nonverbal communication
• A handshake, for example, is commonly used as a metaphor for the friendly quality of interstate relations, transferring the language of personal relations to the international arena. The origin of the symbolic handshake may have been a precautionary measure to show that the hand did not carry a weapon
• The venue and format of meetings as well as the shape of the negotiating table (symbolizing prestige and power) and the level of representation (signaling interests and intentions of the parties) are other aspects that can be used for subtle “body language.” In the 1930s Neville Chamberlain conceded to Mussolini’s insistence that negotiations between Britain and Italy be held in Rome, with Anthony Eden and the Foreign Office disagreeing on the grounds that this “would be regarded as another surrender to the dictators.”
• Behind the controversy over the shape of the table at the Paris negotiations to end the Vietnam War was the question of the status of the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front: to seat it at a four-sided table with representatives of the United States, North Vietnam and South Vietnam would have accorded it equal status. More recently, the six party talks, prompted by North Korea’s admission in 2002 of having developed nuclear weapons and subsequent withdrawal from the Non- Proliferation Treaty, are being conducted around a hexagonal table, which avoids any connotation of precedence or unequal status
• The Swedish government was criticized by the domestic opposition for conveying the wrong signals by dispatching a lower-rank minister to the ceremony honoring the victims of the terrorist attack in Madrid in March 2004, when most other European states were represented at a higher level
• The exchange of gifts stands out as a prominent form of diplomatic “body language” in early diplomacy. The principle of giving and taking lies deep in human nature, and gifts were exchanged to create goodwill and peaceful relations. Thus, messengers in the Ancient Near East not only carried oral and written communications between royal courts, but also distributed presents among the rulers. Gifts were symbols of the status of, and relations between, rulers
• In the Roman world, “to accept gifts was to accept a diplomatic approach and open the way for further contact.” In Byzantine diplomacy the exchange of gifts played a particularly prominent role.
• Diplomatic gifts were meant to buy friendship and ranged from sumptuous items like elephants, gilded beds and organs to consumer goods
• The ancient tradition of envoys bringing presents for the foreign ruler was upheld even in the worst moments of Byzantine decline.
• While no longer accredited the same significance, the exchange of gifts remains a ritual component of state visits to this day
• The Greek city-states developed a nomenclature of diplomatic ranks, which could be used to send nonverbal messages. Thus, to send envoys whose credentials bore the title of autocrator, or plenipotentiary, was a mark of respect to the receiving polis, and the presence of heralds, in exchanges between city-states was a virtual acknowledgment that war existed even if it had not been declared
• The selection of Averell Harriman to lead the US negotiating team in the test ban talks in Moscow in the summer of 1963 was one in a series of conciliatory signals on both sides. Harriman was well known to the Soviets and had become well acquainted with Khrushchev during the Soviet leader’s visit to the United States in 1959. In the words of one official from the Soviet embassy in Washington: “As soon as I heard that Harriman was going, I knew that you were serious.”
Technological development• Diplomacy has been influenced by the development of available means of
communication and transportation. Most importantly, the speed of diplomatic communication has varied greatly over time:
• In the Ancient Near East, diplomatic missions could take years to complete. In the Amarna Letters there is reference to a messenger being detained, and thus bilateral communication being interrupted, for six years.
• In the sixteenth century it took four months for a Hapsburg diplomat to travel to Moscow, and in the seventeenth century it took eleven days to send a courier from Paris to Madrid.
• The well-known expression that Napoleon did not travel faster than Caesar is not merely a figure of speech, but reflects the reality that even in the eighteenth century the Ancient Roman roads remained the best communication routes on land and transport was dependent on the physical capacity of animals and humans to carry and pull.
• It was only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that technological revolutions changed the premises of diplomatic communication. In the nineteenth century the advent of steamships and railways increased the mobility of diplomats significantly, at the same time as the invention of the telegraph permitted fast and direct communication between governments as well as between foreign ministries and embassies.
• The development of air travel and information technology (IT) in the twentieth century added to the ease and speed of movement and communication
• While facilitating the exchange of diplomatic communication, these technological innovations have been seen as challenges to ingrained diplomatic procedures. For instance, when the first telegram arrived on the desk of British foreign minister Lord Palmerston in the 1840s, he exclaimed: “My God, this is the end of diplomacy.”
• Similarly, the Royal Commission of 1861, which investigated the British Diplomatic Service, dwelt on the influence of the telegraph on diplomacy and wondered whether it would make ambassadors unnecessary.
• The dramatic development of today’s media and IT has elicited similar concerns.
• One of the obvious effects of the IT revolution is that diplomacy has lost its position as the main facilitator of contacts and communication across state boundaries
• Summitry, international meetings at the highest levels of government involving direct communication between political leaders, became an established component of interstate relations after the Second World War
• Summitry has been consistently resented by diplomats who prefer their own professional dialogue to the amateurism of politicians. In the fifteenth century Philippe de Comines advised: “Two great Princes, who wish to establish good personal relations should never meet each other face to face, but ought to communicate through good and wise ambassadors.”
• Five centuries later, former US Secretary of State Dean Rusk cautioned that “summit diplomacy is to be approached with the wariness with which a prudent physician prescribes a habit-forming drug – a technique to be employed rarely and under the most exceptional circumstances with rigorous safeguards against it becoming a debilitating or dangerous habit.”
• The agenda of national leaders is increasingly crowded with engagements abroad, and their absence from the domestic political scene is often criticized and entails certain political risks. In addition, summit proliferation imposes a burden on scarce diplomatic resources. The preparation and diplomatic follow-up of summits require a lot of effort from foreign ministries. Perhaps most importantly, the economic costs of summits have skyrocketed, primarily because of the expensive security measures that nowadays surround meetings at the highest level.
• The G-8 meeting in Genoa in 2001, for example, cost 19 million US dollars, plus 90 million dollars on improvements of the city
• In addition to depriving diplomats of their privileged role in communicating across state borders and facilitating direct communication among political leaders, the dramatic increases in the speed of communication affect diplomacy in other ways as well. It often forces decision makers to react instantaneously to international events, bypassing traditional diplomatic channels. In the age of abundant and instant information combined with intrusive media, the moderate tempo of traditional diplomatic communication, which allowed for careful deliberations of signaling strategy and interpretation, seems irrevocably lost.
• In the words of an experienced diplomat, “the information revolution has compressed the time and distance which once separated one’s own country and others in all parts of the globe.”
• For example, President Kennedy in 1961 could wait eight days before making a public policy statement on the erection of the Berlin Wall. By contrast, President Bush was compelled to make a statement within hours of the dismounting of the wall in October 1989.
• Strobe Talbott, then Deputy Secretary of State, recounts how he was in telephone contact with his Russian counterpart Georgi Mamedov on 4 October 1993, when the showdown took place in Moscow between Boris Yeltsin and his opponents, holed up in the parliamentary building. Talbott and Mamedov both had their television sets tuned to CNN, which broadcast the dramatic storming of the building, and exchanged occasional impressions as the battle unfolded.169 Here representatives of two states that only a few years earlier had been bitter rivals were able to watch an event unfold in real time as they discussed its implications over an open phone line.
• television and other new media have a significant effect on diplomacy. In the television age, the significance of nonverbal signaling and body language is enhanced. At the same time, signaling via the TV screen does not abide by old conventions of diplomatic protocol. Rather, contemporary diplomacy can be analyzed and understood in terms of a theater metaphor.
• Just as in the theater, diplomatic signaling takes place within a setting contrived for that purpose; in the performance actors manipulate gestures, movement and speech to conjure up a desirable impression for a watching audience; statesmen and diplomats assume the role of producer or stage manager, molding the total performance. Television amplifies the visual aspects of the diplomatic drama. As an ideal medium for conveying nonverbal messages, television therefore accentuates the symbolic aspects of diplomatic signaling.
• There are different aspects of diplomatic language in its basic meaning– Rarely diplomats can use the same language,
common to all participants: Germans and Austrians, Portuguese and Brazilians, British and American
– For people who speak different mother tongues there are interpreters or the use of lingua franca
• Diplomatic talk has the role to communicate political differences in a positive way in order to smooth out differences
• Political press conferences are very interesting from the point of view of language use to negotiate ideologies, to show how power relations are asserted, how political differences on difficult issues are discussed and communicated in a positive way
• Because of media, politicians have been transformed in media personalities
• Thus the public began to learn about what kind of people their leaders were and how they dealt with other countries
• Political leaders become public figures and celebrities
Four major sequences in a political press conference
• 1. the opening sequence• The participant hosting the event begins the
press conference by welcoming the guest politician, and saying how successful their meeting was
• The number of meetings both politicians have had previously is recounted
• 2. the individual voices• “individual statements” by the politicians are made –
they include different issues or topics• 3. the interactional sequence• After it no other statements are given by either of the
politicians except in the form of answer to questions by journalists
• 4. the closing sequence• It is as brief as the introduction and ends with the host
politician thanking the audience
• Political press conferences in terms of content can be as clichéd as they are dynamic
• It is repetitive and formulaic• The speeches are prepared after many round-table
discussions and debates• The content and the structure is institutionally organized• The objective is fixed: to project a diplomatic front – that’s
why the goals of the press conference is not negotiable• The procedures are mechanical• The speakers often make sub-textual rather than literal
meanings
• There are three main themes which illustrate the specific strategies:
• 1. positivity – it is used throughout the political press conferences in an effort to depict diplomacy, congruity and mutuality between two diametrically opposed countries
• 2. influence and power – the speakers utilize in order to predetermine one another’s future behaviour. Influence is noticeable in the second sequence where individual statements are made
• 3. evasion – emerges primarily in the third sequence: questions and answers. Politicians cannot prepare in advance, they resort to ambiguous answers to avoid saying anything to cause a controversy in the media.
POSITIVITY
• Positivity embodies four principal strategies:• 1. to achieve common ground, or mutual
understanding between two ideological opposites;• 2. to express praise and politically-motivated
appreciation;• 3. to propose a promising future relationship; and• 4. to express differences diplomatically, to ‘cushion
the blow’.
• 1. Search for common ground• It is rare that in any political press conference
the politicians will directly acknowledge a disagreement, or an antagonistic relationship. Even when negative perceptions are part of common knowledge, attempts are always made to minimize such perceptions.
• This is particularly true in the press conferences between Jiang Zemin and Bush. Both countries are struggling opposites, trying to find common ground, but have for many years been unable to do so in any significant manner.
• China and United States have more rather than less shared interests, and more rather than less common responsibility for world peace. The importance of the relationship has increased rather than decreased. (Jiang Zemin, 21.2.02)
• In the statement above there is no clear acknowledgement of whether or not an actual relationship even exists between the two countries. There are a couple of sentences implying the responsibility the two countries share, and there is an acknowledgement of the common interests of the two countries. This is explicitly reinforced by the juxtaposition of opposites, such as more rather than less shared interests, and more rather than less common responsibility for world peace, and increased rather than decreased to emphasize the positive elements
• The discourse of manipulation is also evident when the two leaders pre-assume one another’s behaviour. There seem to be two functions of the solidarity expression we:
• We have agreed that under the current complex and volatile international situations, China and the United States, both with significant influence in the world, should step up dialogue . . . We have agreed to intensify high-level strategic dialogue . . . We have agreed to vigorously carry out bilateral exchanges. (Jiang Zemin, 21.2.02)
• Here the use of personal pronoun we, made cohesively specific in the text, not only presents a joint front to the public and media, but at the same time it is also a way of preventing the other speaker from acting otherwise, which would cause loss of face, and would mean a denial of such social labelling
• The pronoun we gives a positive and united image of the two intrinsically incompatible leaders.
• In addition, the pronoun we here is very vague in its meaning, it could refer to the two speakers, or the speaker and the audience, or the speaker as a representative of his country. The list of three, which is a repetitive linguistic feature of this genre, is intended to act as a catalyst for persuasion.
• The favourite in the clichéd positivity statements is general coordinated descriptors like candid and constructive or constructive and cooperative
• 2. Expression of praise and politically motivated appreciation
• Positivity is also reinforced in the ‘sweet talk’ incorporating praise, or as Mao (1994) says ‘complimentary feedback’ to consolidate one’s positive face, and politically motivated appreciation to portray a friendly picture, although this is not always possible, as political players may have their own agenda and also different perspectives on international issues.
• At another point Bush expresses the importance of China in order to gain Jiang Zemin’s support:
• ‘I’ve come to Shanghai because China and other Asia Pacific nations are important partners in the global coalition against terror’ (Bush, 19.10.01).
• These appreciations of achievements and compliments by Bush are contrast to his criticism of China as an undemocratic and anti-humanist country
• 3.prospects for constructive relationship• Positivity is also used to proposition a bright
future, which the leaders will build by strengthening their relationship.
• It implies that the present conference was so successful that future communication is definitely a possibility
• 4. Underplaying differences• Positivity is also used to lay out differences as
gently as possible, minimizing any possible negative impact. Conflict of interest refers to the disagreements between the two speakers and how these are disguised politely to prevent loss of face, or stir any feelings of antagonism in the press. Language is manipulated to achieve various effects – deception is especially the effect that politicians subtly strive for to disguise any conflicting attitudes
• My government hopes that China will strongly oppose the proliferation of missiles and other deadly technologies. President Jiang and I agreed that the United States and China could cooperate more closely to defeat HIV/AIDS. (Bush, 21.2.02)
• In the example above, the difference of opinion on serious matters like proliferation of nuclear arms in North Korea and Iraq is underplayed and balanced with an agreement on a more non-controversial issue of less political importance like AIDS. In this way, a picture of common ground and mutual understanding between the two leaders is highlighted.
• INFLUENCE AND POWER
• Influence is the exertion of power used to steer an adversary’s future actions in a particular direction
• Influence is exercised in the following three ways:• 1. By pre-determining the behaviour of the other
party to ensure desired action,• 2. By justifying one’s own actions and beliefs to
persuade the other to act• likewise, and• 3. By expressing any disagreements diplomatically
• 1. Pre-determination of behaviour• In the present corpus, Bush and Jiang Zemin are
aware of differences in each other’s agendas, and effectively use this knowledge to their advantage in the form of ‘emo-political’ blackmail, in order to influence each other to behave in a certain manner, or rather in their individual interests. This form of influence is utilized repeatedly by Jiang Zemin:
• I’m confident that so long as the two sides keep a firm hold of the common interests of the two countries, properly handle bilateral ties, especially the question of Taiwan, in accordance with the three Sino-US joint communiqués, the relations between China and the United States will continuously move forward.
• (Jiang Zemin, 19.10.01)
• Once again, the implication in the above extract is that Jiang Zemin is sending an indirect warning to Bush, by placing a condition on the growth of the relationship between the two countries. As long as the US does not lose sight of their part of the deal, there is possibility of a good alliance; the adjective firm intensifying the necessity of abiding by the condition placed
• 2. Justification of actions• Influence is also displayed in the justification of
one’s actions; this is especially true in the case of Bush, who uses his power as a political leader in order to defend what he believes and how he behaves. Related to the concept of emopolitical blackmail is the discourse of morality, where an attempt is made to persuade the other speaker by bringing in an element of morality.
• These are evil people and the deeds that have been conducted on the American people are evil deeds. And anybody who would mail anthrax letters, trying to affect the lives of innocent people, is evil.
• (Bush, 19.10.01)
• 3. Expression of disagreement• The third strategy through which
influence and power are exercised is the discreet expression of disagreement or a non-committal stance held by the speakers. Urges and stresses are a more direct and predominant form of influence and good indicators of the transpiring ideologies of Jiang Zemin and Bush.
• EVASION
• Evasion is control, or what Holly (1989: 122) calls ‘non-communication’ of content; it is not simply confined to what one says (or does not say), but also how one says it. It is one of the most important tools in the hands of political leaders to make statements without necessarily giving any information. Press conferences are an obvious context for the use of evasive language, as politicians often need to manage and control the type and extent of information divulged when they face the media
• Evasion, in the data analysed, was used to achieve the following.
• 1. To prioritize and lessen the crisis-element of certain events;
• 2. To minimize negative reactions;• 3. To deflect moral and political
blame; and• 4. To assert control over laymen and
journalists