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At Home with the Diplomats: Inside a European Foreign Ministry

Online ISBN:
9780801462993
Print ISBN:
9780801449932
Publisher:
Cornell University Press
Book

At Home with the Diplomats: Inside a European Foreign Ministry

Iver B. Neumann
Iver B. Neumann
Professor and Director of Research, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
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Published:
23 January 2012
Online ISBN:
9780801462993
Print ISBN:
9780801449932
Publisher:
Cornell University Press

Abstract

The 2010 WikiLeaks release of 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables has made it eminently clear that there is a vast gulf between the public face of diplomacy and the opinions and actions that take place behind embassy doors. This book offers unprecedented access to the inner workings of a foreign ministry, and shows us how diplomacy is conducted on a day-to-day basis. Approaching contemporary diplomacy from an anthropological perspective, the book examines the various aspects of diplomatic work and practice, including immunity, permanent representation, diplomatic sociability, accreditation, and issues of gender equality. It shows that the diplomat working abroad and the diplomat at home are engaged in two different modes of knowledge production. Diplomats in the field focus primarily on gathering and processing information. In contrast, the diplomat based in his or her home capital is caught up in the seemingly endless production of texts: reports, speeches, position papers, and the like. The book leaves the reader with a keen sense of the practices of diplomacy: relations with foreign ministries, mediating between other people's positions while integrating personal and professional into a cohesive whole, adherence to compulsory routines and agendas, and, above all, the generation of knowledge. Yet even as they come to master such quotidian tasks, diplomats are regularly called upon to do exceptional things, such as negotiating peace.

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