Foreign Policy Analysis Dersi 7. Ünite Özet

Diplomacy

One of the oldest instruments of foreign policy, diplomacy is a tool with which the states address the other states and communicate with them in order to explain their national goals, policies, and views on current affairs, and try to influence their interlocutors’ views and positions on issues that are important to them. Sometimes being defined as an art, diplomacy traditionally meant the way to manage one sovereign state’s relations with other mutually recognized states.

Sovereignty: “The power of a country to control its own government.” (Cambridge Dictionary, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/soverei gn?q=sovereignty) - “Supreme power of authority; the authority of a state to govern itself or another state; A selfgoverning state.” (English Oxford Living Dictionary, https://en.oxforddictionaries. com/definition/sovereignty)

Recognition: Recognition is a political act of a state to acknowledge an act or government or status of another state. Recognition could be either de jure or de facto. De jure (from Latin, meaning “of law” or “by law”) recognition is the formal way of recognizing a state or a government by fulfilling the requirements stipulated in international law. De facto (from Latin, meaning “of fact” or “in fact”) recognition refers to the recognizing a state or a government through practice rather than official statement or declaration to that effect.

Hegemony: “Hegemony is the political, economic, or military predominance or control of one state over others.” (Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemony). - “Hegemony, the dominance of one group over another, often supported by legitimating norms and ideas.” (Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/search?query=hegemony).

Hegemonic Power: The concept of hegemonic power signifies a state that has capability to lead global political and economic order. Traditional use of hegemony refers to the capacity of coercion and hard politics. Throughout the history, hegemonic power has been considered as a state that has military, political and economic supremacy.

Development of Various Forms of Diplomacy

Bilateral Diplomacy:

In order to bilateral diplomacy to take place, recognition by states of each other as legally established states is a prerequisite. Once that happens according to each state’s practices, then exchange of diplomats take place and diplomatic communication starts

Multilateral Diplomacy: With the establishment of the United Nations (UN) after the Second World War, the multilateral diplomacy, involving more than two nations or parties to seek diplomatic solution to transnational problems, gained importance in international relations.

Summit Diplomacy: Summit diplomacy is a form of conference diplomacy in which the heads of state or government come together to conduct negotiations. Even though there were earlier forms of summit diplomacy, it was Winston Churchill who used the word “summit” for the first time in 1950 to describe the meeting of leaders of major powers of the time. Summits can be formed in many sizes and different ways depending on the purpose of negotiations. It should be noted that Summit Diplomacy is different from the direct or personal diplomacy among political figures through correspondence, telephone conversations or tête-à-tête (face-to-face) talks. Summits require specific time and location of a meeting.

Ad Hoc Diplomacy: Ad hoc diplomacy is the oldest form of diplomacy that aims to conduct diplomatic relations by sending a special and/or temporary envoy on mission.

Parliamentary Diplomacy: Although there is no clear definition of parliamentary diplomacy, it can be considered as the sum of duties and actions of parliaments in foreign affairs. There are mainly two types of parliamentary diplomacy: Institutional and diplomatic. The first type of parliamentary diplomacy can be occurred in three particular contexts;

1. Legislative process in which ratification of international treaties and execution of laws take place;
2. Parliamentary monitoring of international affairs through committees; and
3. Political role of parliaments directly related to discussions of foreign affairs of the country and approval of budget of the ministry of foreign affairs.

The second type of parliamentary diplomacy has four domains;

1. Bilateral diplomacy in which parliaments aim to cooperate with other parliaments with a view to develop strong relations;
2. Multilateral diplomacy that takes place through parliamentary delegations, which could be in the form of parliamentary meetings of international organizations such as Council of Europe and NATO;
3. Different forms of associations of the parliamentarians around the world (e.g. Inter Parliamentary Union); and
4. Specific case of the European Union, where the members of the European Parliament are directly elected by the citizens of the member countries and it has specific institutionalized practices, procedures, and roles within the EU system.

Quiet Diplomacy: Quiet diplomacy is often used by international organizations, especially the UN or the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to discuss a particular situation away from international and domestic scrutiny. Within the context of quiet diplomacy, instead of publicizing the statements on the concerned topics, the involved countries and organizational representatives keep silent ya da keep their silence until a solution is found in order to prevent fouling effects of third party, domestic, or international involvements

Open/Secret Diplomacy: Open diplomacy is a term developed by the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in his famous Fourteen Points, published at the end the World War I as a reaction to the secret diplomacy conducted between colonising European powers prior to the war. The main characteristic of the open diplomacy is that all the negotiations between countries should proceed openly in the public view, as secret talks and agreements reached before the First World War between the major powers were partly blamed for the start of the war.

Coercive Diplomacy: Coercive diplomacy refers to the usage of threat of force by a state or group of state to achieve its/their objectives in international relations. Coercive diplomacy usually involves the military strategy to force other states or non-state actors to behave in certain manner. Difference from the use of military force is that in coercive diplomacy, it is the “threat” of using military force rather than the “actual” use of military force that is used to achieve the intended result.

Diplomatic protocol essentially defines how diplomatic personnel and other state officials should behave towards each other in international arena under specific circumstances. Basic elements of diplomatic protocol consist of the rules regarding to ceremony, etiquette, titles, correspondence, wardrobe, and dining. A ceremony could have various forms depending on the context such as state funerals, opening of a public building, presentation of awards, etc. For each ceremony, there are different sets of rules and procedures to follow. However, there is typically a public speech to welcome the guests and deliver the aim of the ceremony. Etiquette is a set of rules based on politeness and respectfulness including greetings, the order of greeting, the order of entering and/or leaving a room, being punctual, etc. Titles are the most important codes of diplomatic protocol, and define how a person should be addressed with a particular honorific depending on the position s/he represents (e.g. royalty, government, diplomatic, military, religious, etc.). Correspondence refers to the formal language and style while writing a message in diplomatic occasions. Finally, wardrobe or the dress code is an important part of the diplomatic protocol, and varies depending on the situation and activity.

The principle idea of the diplomatic immunity is to ensure the continuation of communication and the exchanges of information between the states even in difficult times, including armed conflict. According to the principle of the reciprocity, all diplomats from any country in the world benefit equally from diplomatic immunity.

Reservation means a unilateral statement made by a state to exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain provisions of a treaty, while objection to a reservation means that the objecting state finds the reservation incompatible with the purpose of the treaty. The objection may have effect to prevent the entry into force of the treaty between the objecting and reserving states (Articles 19 and 20, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969).

Ratification is a legal act whereby a state indicates its consent to be bound by a treaty. It requires approval of the treaty on the domestic level by the legally authorized body through enactment of necessary legislation to give domestic effect to that treaty (Articles 2/1(b), 14/1 and 16, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969).

Alongside with the bilateral or multilateral diplomatic activities, there are also one-sided forms of diplomatic communication such as recall or expulsion of diplomats or suspension of diplomatic relations.

Propaganda

In more general terms, propaganda could be defined as the “more or less systematic effort” to influence other people’s “beliefs, attitudes, or actions by means of symbols”, such as “words, gestures, banners, monuments, music, clothing, insignia, hairstyles, stamps”, etc. (https://www.britannica.com/ topic/propaganda). In the early 20th century, Lenin (1902) made a differentiation between propaganda and agitation, defining propaganda as “the reasoned use of historical and scientific arguments to indoctrinate the educated and enlightened”, and agitation as “the use of slogans, parables, and half-truths to exploit the grievances of the uneducated and the unreasonable” (https://www. britannica.com/topic/propaganda).

Targets of International Propaganda

The main aim of the propaganda is to influence thinking and behaviour of its targeted audience. As such it could target five different groups of people:

1. Citizens of the state managing the propaganda.
2. Citizens of friendly nations
3. Citizens of neutral or unrelated countries
4. Citizens of the enemy states
5. Wider general international and domestic public

Economic Instruments

There are several economic tools used by the states in their international relations to achieve different results with varying degree of effectiveness. While some could be dispatched as ‘award’ to states for compliance with certain type of behaviour, others can be used as ‘punishment’ for non-compliance. While the establishment of cooperation, improving trade relations, granting most favoured nation status, or increasing foreign aid etc. can be considered ‘positive’ economic instruments (i.e. award); embargo, boycott, abolition of the most favoured nation status, imposing quotas, unfavourable taxation, putting a state in the ‘black-list’, or cutting foreign aid etc. would be examples of ‘negative’ economic instruments (i.e. punishment).

Foreign and Development Aid

Normally both provider and receiver states expect to benefit from the economic assistance aid. While receivers expect to modernize or grow their economy, achieve economic and political stability, expand their industrial base, etc., grantees, whatever the immediate conditions of the agreement to extend economic aid, usually expect to receive economic, political, and even military benefits in the long-run from the receiving country. Economic aids could either be given as grants or as loans with low interest and long-term payback structure. Foreign aids could be extended for humanitarian reasons, to ensure survival of certain regime, for military support, as bribes, for prestige, or for economic reasons. Among these, only the humanitarian aids do not carry direct political expectations from the receiving country

Sanctions

Economic sanctions take large part in economic instruments of foreign policy with their coercive effects. Economic sanctions can be applied by states and/or international/regional organizations. The economic sanctions that are applied by the international organizations, in particular enforced by the UN Security Council, are more effective and carry more weight in international relations

Trade Related Economic Instruments

Using trade as a foreign policy instrument could be done at least in three ways. First, using a state’s need or dependency on for some goods, to punish or reward it; second, creating economic dependencies abroad; and third trying to limit the economic potential of the enemy and benefits it derives from the international trade.

Quota, Tariff and Black List: Quota is basically creating a quantitative restriction for a state’s exports or imports. Tariff is a tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports. Tariffs are generally used by governments to protect domestic industries from international competition or to create revenue. There are mainly two type of tariffs; specific tariff and ad valorem tariff.. Black list is a declaration by a country of a list of people and/or companies of other countries that trade relations would not be allowed with.

Boycott: Boycott aims to prevent either impBlockade Blockade is a trade-related economic instrument that can be used both in peacetime and wartime. In peacetime blockade (also known as pacific blockade), a state tries to block entrance and exist of ships carrying the flag of a country that it is blockading into its harbours with its navy. While peacetime blockade is in principle applies only to the ships of the blockaded country, in practice it is also applied to third countries’ shipsorting certain goods from the boycotted country or less frequently exporting certain products into that country. Boycott usually applies as a reaction to some policies of a country against which the boycott is launched.

Embargo: Embargo traditionally and legally meant preventing ships in a certain country’s ports or territorial waters from leaving or transporting that country’s goods. This kind of embargo could be applied both in peacetime and wartime. In practice however, the meaning of embargo has expanded in time to cover goods, and thus, came to be defined as official ban on trade or other commercial activity with a particular country.