Periodic Reporting for period 2 - DIPLOWAR (Hybrid Practices of Diplomacy and Warfare)
Reporting period: 2019-09-01 to 2020-08-31
Hybrid Practices of Diplomacy and Warfare (DIPLOWAR) was a transdisciplinary research project that aimed to shed light on the changing relationship between diplomacy and war. An important analytical move of the project was to understand diplomacy and war not primarily as political or legal relations between states, but as structuring principles of peaceful and violent political practices. This reconceptualization made it possible to bring together insights from research on the “new diplomacy” and research on the “new wars”, two literatures that have not yet been systematically linked to each other. DIPLOWAR sought to sharpen our analytical vocabulary and deepen our empirical understanding of the changing relationship between violent and nonviolent political practices to help scholars, practitioners, and the public better to grasp the new realities of war and peace. During the first year of the project, the researcher was hosted by the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, New York; during the second year he was based at the Research Center “Normative Orders” at Goethe University Frankfurt.
The researcher produced a theoretical framework that can guide the empirical analysis of how the relationship between diplomacy and war has changed over time and carried out a number of historical case studies to demonstrate its empirical purchase. To disseminate the results of this research, three journal articles were written and a number of conference presentations were given. The findings were communicated to the public via public talks, the project homepage, a blog and social media.
The project has generated a theoretical framework that opens up a novel perspective on the relationship between diplomacy and war. Furthermore, empirical case studies were produced that demonstrate the analytical purchase of the framework and contribute to the debates on foreign policy in the US and Germany respectively. The results of the project will advance the academic debate on political violence and foreign policy and can inform more prudent foreign policy decision-making.