Constructing and de-constructing diplomacy and diplomatic history in the pre- and post-modern worlds

The New Diplomatic History in dialogue with the International Relation Studies

Abstract

In 2008, John Watkins proclaimed that the time had come for a “new diplomatic history”. Watkins’s manifesto was so successful because it arrived at the right moment. A renovated diplomatic history is increasingly at the heart of a political history more attentive than ever to how social structures and cultural practices shape political interactions that are both multiple and flexible. On the other hand, post-1989 IR studies are facing new challenges: contemporary diplomacy is diverging from its classical Westphalian framework, and scholars and practitioners alike are looking for paradigms and models in order to deal with the challenges of globalisation. Moving from late medieval and early Renaissance Italy as a case-study, the communication aims at dealing with such a conceptual framework by focusing on a few key-concepts at the basis of the models of the building of both the ‘modern state’ and the ‘modern diplomacy’, such as sovereignty and territoriality.