DİPLOMASİ

The term “Old World” here refers to a period of time starting from ancient world to emergence of Renaissance especially in Italian peninsula. The political authorities of the “Old World” were far from being as organized as modern state structures.

Pacta sunt servanda is a legal term in Latin, which refers to the continuity of agreements between parties and bindingness of the clauses for both parties regardless of a change of a government or ruler. It is one of the ordering principles of modern international law and diplomacy.

Respublica Christiana was how this collective identity called, although it never turned into an acquired state structure.

Most significant and novel concept of medieval Europe is the term nuncius. A nuncius is the person in charge who is appointed by the ruler as the voice of the principal in another political entity.

The common language that is shared by all these small city states served as another facilitator for diplomatic progress in the region. Despite the lack of a political unity among the city states, there was a linguistic unity among them. Italian, being the lingua franca in the Peninsula, was accepted as the common language for any form of correspondence among the city states. This became an asset for the facilitation of dialogue and prepared the ground for diplomatic interactions to become an effective tool in the interstate affairs.

Siena is not among the five major city-states.

The Peace of Westphalia is signed in 1648 after 30 Years’ Wars between protestant and catholic German principalities. There is a consensus that the Peace of Westphalia introduced the modern notion of sovereignty to interstate relations, therefore, is accepted as the beginning of the modern state system. It established the functional equality among German principalities regardless of their religious/sectarian orientation, size and power.

France was again the first country which initiated a specific department responsible from the foreign policy. In Ancien Régime, Henry III initiated a department and gave the sole responsibility in foreign policy to a specific department under the government as early as 1589. Yet, it should be noted that this department was far from a ministerial structure compared to modern ministries of foreign affairs. In fact, religious affairs were the dominant theme in the agenda of this department, as it was in contact mainly with the authorities in Vatican. In fact, almost all of the personnel working in this department were coming from a clergy background. Famous Cardinal Richelieu made certain reforms in 1630s to restructure this department in a more organized manner. However, the emergence of a ministry as a modern department of foreign affairs had to wait until the overthrow of the Ancien Régime. Still, France was earlier than other European states to initiate a ministry whose sole responsibility was to conduct foreign policy.

What were the duties of these specific ministries of foreign affairs?

Although this had varied from case to case, within the political context of early 20th century, the tasks of foreign ministries started to become alike in many examples of the world.

Firstly, policy making mission was given to this ministry. 

Secondly, these ministries were also given the task of staffing and supporting the missions abroad.

Thirdly, they started to coordinated foreign relations especially after the Great War (WWI). 

Fourthly, dealing with foreign diplomats hosted in the home country was also assigned to these ministries.

New foreign policy”  has the characteristics mentioned below:

• “Foreign policy is made and conducted in complex domestic and international environments.

• Foreign policy results from the work of coalitions of interested domestic and international actors and groups.

• Foreign policy issues are often linked and delinked, reflecting the strength of various parties and their particular concerns.

• The “stuff” of foreign policy derives from issues of domestic politics as well as foreign relations.

• Foreign policy analysis needs to be multilevel and multifaceted in order to confront the complicated sources and nature of foreign policy.

New diplomacy also included the practices of certain interest groups, non-governmental organizations, transnational solidarity movements and even ordinary individuals. Especially with the introduction of the Internet, diplomacy is no longer considered as a practice that diplomats conduct, but all these above-mentioned actors started to pursue their own agendas and take part in the game of diplomacy. Track II diplomacy, meaning the diplomatic conduct run by non-state actors and influential non-diplomatic individuals, became a new diplomatic tool recognized by states as well.

Track II diplomacy is a term that refers to non-conventional diplomacy conducted by not only diplomatic crews, but also by influential individuals (such as artists, authors or celebrities). Track II diplomatic practices usually take place during mediation efforts, formation of peace missions and campaign for more universal causes instead of a political agenda of a specific state. In other words, Track II diplomacy is a non-official effort to facilitate the official diplomatic context towards a cooperative solution.

The political authorities of the “Old World” were far from being as organized as modern state structures. The main difference between ancient states and modern state structures was lying in the capacity of centralization. The ancient states in the “Old World” were mainly constituted of some local authorities which control a piece of land militarily and economically. These local authorities were brought together under more general state structures borders of which reach out broader territories. Although they resemble medieval empires in terms of their organization, these states lacked the permanent institutions, mainly built upon decentralized structures, and their borders were not very well-defined. What we call “ancient diplomacy” today took place both within and among these states of the “Old World”. The diplomatic practices within an ancient state took place among the local authorities such as feudal lords, chieftains and tribal leaders. These practices vary from mutual visits to trade and security related agreements between them. Although we consider these practices as the forerunners of diplomacy in the ancient world, it should be noted that they were not operated through institutionalized structures.

After long lasting fights, Peace of Lodi in 1454 brought a certain degree of peace and stability to the region (Mattingly, 1955: 77). Most noteworthy aspect of Peace of Lodi was that it institutionalized the functional equality among Italian city states. In other words, regardless of their size, power and location, Italian city states came to a consensus in which they are all treated and assumed equivalent to each other. At this point, it should be noted that the principle of functional equality can be considered as the main constituting element of modern diplomacy. In fact, diplomatic interaction between two political entities only started after the mutual acceptance of equivalency by both parties in the medieval and Renaissance Europe. In this regard, the institutionalization of equality through Peace of Lodi accelerated the emergence of diplomatic customs as a legitimate practice in Italian Peninsula.

options A,B, and D are related with France.

With the Peace of Westphalia, German principalities institutionalized the notion of resident ambassador just like Italian city states did in the 16th century. In the beginning, most of the principals sent their envoys to Brandenburg-Prussia and other great powers in the German world. In the longer run, keeping a permanent diplomatic mission in other countries spread all over German principalities. Principals preferred to have resident diplomatic missions mostly in farer principalities, as closer or neighboring principalities were accessible through short trips.

The British also copied and internalized these diplomatic customs. British envoys were sent to the states of the continental Europe mainly after the Peace of Westphalia. Britain, being one of the actors in the peace talks, did not withdraw its committee from Münster and Osnabrück, two German-speaking cities where peace talks took place, and distributed this team later to Sweden, France, Brandenburg-Prussia and Denmark. Although several British diplomatic missions were sent to other countries earlier, resident ambassadors in European countries became a British diplomatic custom mainly after 1648.

France can be noted as one exception to this. Although France did have envoys and resident diplomatic missions in several countries as early as the beginnings of 16th century, it did not follow the general European fashion to build resident and constant diplomatic missions in European capitals. Yet, France has come forward as the country which kept most active contact with the Muslim world. French envoys were sent to Ottoman Empire in 1535 and Safavid Empire (present day Iran) in 1600s (Black, 2010: 54). Still, France was late to institutionalize the resident ambassadors compared to other primary European powers. Yet, it is also worthy to note that once the French developed their own diplomatic system, it was admired by other European states as it was first fully-developed system of diplomacy (Berridge, 2010: 103).

In this regard, immunity was guaranteed multilaterally to assure the credibility and authenticity of the information delivered by the envoys. In other words, the immunity granted to the diplomats and envoys aimed at making the diplomatic crew feel comfortable so that they would not manipulate the message to be delivered in order to guarantee their own security. This diplomatic custom was later institutionalized and legalized in 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, yet it remained as a respected principle mainly after the middle 17th century.

Napoleon Bonaparte came forward as a charismatic figure in the French politics and became the president of the Republic. Yet, he abolished the Republic and declared himself as the Emperor. These developments in the French domestic politics disquieted the monarchs of the Europe deeply as Napoleon put a solid challenge to the very idea of conservative European monarchies. It could be seen ironic that Napoleon himself abolished the Republic and turned himself into a monarch, yet he imposed nationalist republics in the states that he controlled through Napoleonic Wars. In other words, Napoleon appeared as the distributer of two very dangerous ideologies throughout the Europe: republicanism and nationalism.

Therefore, a specific recruitment for diplomatic missions started to take place first in France, later in Habsburgs and Britain. After the recruitment, the diplomatic staff were also subject to additional training. Some training were provided to senior and experienced staff such as ambassadors for them to be able to recruit their own staff such as administrative attachés.

Today, almost all the states in the world have a specific ministry in charge of determining and conducting foreign policy. Yet, this was not the in case. Modern foreign ministries originated mainly from European states, and it has not been even 250 years that the first foreign ministry was founded under government structure (Berridge, 2010: 5). As diplomacy was professionalized and acknowledged as a field which requires special expertise and training, the states of Europe also recognized the need for a specific ministry under the government which is solely responsible from the conduct of foreign policy. France was again the first country which initiated a specific department responsible from the foreign policy. In Ancien Régime, Henry III initiated a department and gave the sole responsibility in foreign policy to a specific department under the government as early as 1589 (Berridge, 2010: 6).

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia)

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Aid (Belgium)

Department of State (USA)

Department of Foreign Affairs (US 1781)

As noted above, it would be an exaggeration to argue that the major principles of permanent diplomacy changed due to the end of the Cold War. Yet, it would also be flawed to neglect the fact that certain significant developments gained momentum. Firstly, the nature of foreign policy shifted from a pure state-centric to a more multi-actor and multi-factorial ground. Neack (2008) calls this new form of foreign policy as “new foreign policy” and argues that new foreign policy has the characteristics mentioned below:

Bipolar international system is a type of international system in which there are two major powers that are significantly superior to other actors in terms of distribution of power.