At Home with the Diplomats

B. Neumann Iver

Description

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. In At Home with the Diplomats, Iver B. Neumann offers unprecedented access to the inner workings of a foreign ministry. Neumann worked for several years at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he had an up-close view of how diplomats conduct their business and how they perceive their own practices. In this book he shows us how diplomacy is conducted on a day-to-day basis. Approaching contemporary diplomacy from an anthropological perspective, Neumann examines the various aspects of diplomatic work and practice, including immunity, permanent representation, diplomatic sociability, accreditation, and issues of gender equality. Neumann 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. Neumann 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.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Diplomacy
• Diplomatie (homonymie)

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 août 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801462993
• Langue: English

Extrait

AtHomewiththeDiplomats

E X P E R TISE C U L T U R E S A N D T E C H N O L O G I E S O F K N O W L E D G E

edited by dominic boyer

Alistoftitlesinthisseriesisavailableatwww.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

AtHomewiththeDiplomats

InsideaEuropeanForeignMinistry

IverB.Neumann

CornellUniversityPress IthacaandLondon

Copyright © 2012 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2012 by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2012 Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Neumann, Iver B.  At home with the diplomats : inside a European foreign ministry / Iver B. Neumann.  p. cm. — (Expertise)  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9780801449932 (cloth : alk. paper)  ISBN 9780801477652 (pbk. : alk. paper)  1. Diplomatic and consular service, European. 2. Diplomatic and consular service, Norwegian. 3. Diplomats—Europe. 4. Diplomats— Norway. 5. Europe—Foreign relations. 6. Norway—Foreign relations. 7. Neumann, Iver B. I. Title. II. Series: Expertise (Ithaca, N.Y.)  JZ1570.A59N48 2012  327.4—dc23 2011022560 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www. cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Paperback printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ToCecilie,themostfleetingofforeignministryoccupants

Thesocialsciencethatwewanttoconcernourselveswithisascience of actuality.We want to understandin its particularitythe encompassing actuality of the life in which we are placed—on one hand, the coherence and culturalsignicanceof individual occurrences in their contemporary configuration, and on the other hand, the reasons for those occurrences being historically so and not otherwise. Max Weber

Preface

Contents

Introduction:WhoAreTheyandWhere Do They Come From?

1.Abroad:TheEmergenceofPermanentDiplomacy

2.AtHome:TheEmergenceoftheForeignMinistry

3.TheBureaucraticModeofKnowledgeProduction

4. To Be a Diplomat

5.DiplomatsGenderedandClassed

Conclusion:DiplomaticKnowledge

References Index

ix

1 18 34 63 94 129 169

191 211

Preface

Myfirstexperiencewiththediplomaticworldcamein1980,when,at the ripe age of nineteen, I had just finished as a draftee at the Army Lan guage School and set off to serve my last six months of service as a guard and interpreter at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Moscow. I then took up work at a think tank where social and professional contact with diplo mats was frequent. In 1995 I arrived at the European University Institute with a postdoc project in political science on the European Union’s main internal diplomatic institution, COREPER (the Committees of Permanent Representatives of the EU’s member states). I discovered that the lack of studies of diplomacy could not be overcome by drawing on the methods at my disposal as a political scientist. My reaction was to retrain as an an thropologist, and to work in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for three and a half years, first as a planner (1997–99), and then as a senior adviser on European politics (2001–3), on the explicit understanding that I was to write on diplomacy. I then went on to write the archivalbased cen tenary history of the ministry for its 2005 centenary (the result is available