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Old and new diplomacy: a debate revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Sasson Sofer
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Extract

There are two popular claims about diplomacy in the modern history of international relations. According to the first, World War One constituted a decisive turning point in the modern era, marking the emergence of a new diplomacy, distinct in both essence and style from that which had existed previously. The second maintains that diplomacy is in a state of continuous decline. This study proposes that the distinction between old and new diplomacy is simplistic and inaccurate, and that the argument regarding the decline of diplomacy is not a valid one, Raymond Aron's observation that ‘diplomacy, in the traditional sense of the term, functions up to a certain degree between allies, but hardly any longer among enemies, or even between the blocs and the neutral nations’ is only partially correct, and reflects its time of writing at the height of the cold war.

Type
Discussions
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , July 1988 , pp. 195 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1988

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