Preliminary Programme

It has been some thirty years since IR theorist Hedley Bull introduced the concept of ‘diplomatic culture’, which he understood as ‘the common stock of ideas and values possessed by the official representatives of states’. Revised from a political-philosophical point of view by his disciple James Der Derian in the 1980s, Bull’s concept seemed to have sunk into oblivion afterwards. Less than a decade ago, however, it resurfaced vigorously, establishing its omnipresence in IR theory as well as in diplomatic historiography. But nonetheless our understanding of diplomatic culture has not advanced much since Hedley Bull’s initial thoughts on the subject. Admittedly, theoreticians of International Relations, on the one hand, have elaborated his and Der Derian’s definitions, narrowing them down to an ‘encounter culture’ of professional diplomats (e.g. Sharp 2004), or instead widening them to a set of norms, rules and institutions divided by a whole range of political entities involved in diplomacy (e.g. Wiseman 2005). However, no consensus has been reached, and possibly related no methodology for its study has been developed. Historians of diplomacy, on the other hand, have largely ignored the debate in IR Theory. In recent years, voluminous studies of the history of diplomatic culture in early modern Europe and in the modern world have appeared (e.g. Osborne 2002, Auslin 2004). Yet conceptualization efforts in these works are sometimes inexistent and always hardly substantiated. Perhaps for this reason, methodologies mostly are rather impressionist.
This paper proposes a theoretical framework for the study of the history of diplomatic culture. It draws on Glen Gendzel’s (1997) well-known ideas on the concept of political culture, and considers the diplomats as a distinct social group. The diplomat’s culture, consequently, is essentially an elite culture, and can be understood as ‘the context of diplomacy itself, the structure of meaning through which diplomats develop ideas, perceive interests, and act on both’. It adopts the early twentieth century as its chronological framework. Due to the passage from ‘old’ to ‘new’ diplomacy under the influence of political democratization, this was a fundamental faze of transition and equally of crisis in the history of diplomatic culture. Between 1910 and 1940, the community of Belgian diplomats continued to be dominated by the country’s aristocracy. The world around them, though, was changing, as was their relationship with Belgian central authorities and with other members of the corps diplomatique.
Studying the diplomatic culture of this period means looking into the diplomat’s ideas (i.e. identities and loyalties) and actions (i.e. strategies and practices). In order to do so most fruitfully, this paper suggests a theoretical framework that combines insights from IR Theory (Neumann’s thoughts on being a diplomat), sociology (Granovetter’s social networks’ theory), anthropology (Goffmann’s interaction analysis), and psychology (Erikson’s ideas on identity and crisis). (Show less)

The central ideologeme of Marxist-Leninist doctrine was to build a classless society free from exploitation. However, from the very beginning Marxist ideologists were convinced that this vision could not come true by relying on low skilled or low educated workers or masses only.
After the Second World War Soviet-occupied East and Central European countries were forced to follow the Marxist-Leninist paradigm and embraced nationalization and central planning as societal key concepts. This holds also true in the East German case. A sufficient number of adequate (i.e. loyal, legitimate and qualified) management personnel were not available. For this reason, GDR adopted the approach of creating a socialist intelligentsia, even though this resulted not in a complete homogenization of the new socialist elite. Instead, the extent of ideological indoctrination and sector specific qualification standards varied across different employment sectors which has been proven in Event History Analyses of the Central Cadre Panel – an Elite data set collected by the GDR government.
Coping with the absence of adequate personnel by creating a sector specific cadre – the same constellation can also be studied in the case of the GDR diplomatic body. First analyses of archive dossiers (individual files) and interviews with former diplomats reveal different career paths. This is especially true for the older cohorts. But also younger cohorts of then ambassadors or diplomat personnel report different conditions. These findings are the starting point for further analyses of the near completely recorded population (n = 204) of GDR ambassadors in the Cenral Cadre Panel, mirroring whole biographies of their job histories. The aim of the study is to deepen the knowledge of career paths and determinants of the diplomatic body of the GDR by using techniques of Sequence Analysis (Optimal matching). Results of these analyses will be presented at the conference. Even though the diplomatic body of the GDR was dismissed after reunification, the relevance of the results of these analyses can be discussed in respect to the diplomatic bodies of the other satellite states of the former Soviet empire. Here, the conditions for continuing careers of the diplomatic personnel were far more appropriate. This, however, is only one research perspective. Another one is to address the biographical trajectories of the dismissed diplomatic personnel after German reunification. (Show less)

This paper addresses the conflict which involved the Middle American Affairs Desk (the State Department desk focused on Central America and the Caribbean) and the American Embassy in La Habana, while facing the Cuban insurrection during 1955-1958. Both branches of the American diplomacy tried to tackle the Cuban nationalist insurrection. But they split over the tools and the strategic perspective which should be used to fix the crisis. This paper will try to shed some light on the factors that provoked this conflict. (Show less)