Abstract
In this short book, Ivor Neumann examines the evolution of diplomacy from pre-historic times to the present day. He has chapters on the nature of diplomacy, its general history, the consular institution, visual diplomacy, diplomatic presentation, and imaginary diplomacy.
He distinguishes his approach from much of the existing literature on diplomacy by focussing on the changing “external” social conditions that have shaped diplomacy as opposed to dynamics that are “internal” to diplomacy itself. He considers diplomacy to be as ubiquitous in human history as war, both of which are on a continuum of ways in which humans handle relations among social groups. What is most distinctive, however, is that Neumann adopts a socio-cultural evolutionary approach. Of course, evolutionary approaches vary greatly, as do the processes on which different evolutionary writers focus. It is worth asking, therefore, what he considers to be an evolutionary approach and what it leads him to explore in this book.
Most explicitly, he seeks to identify “tipping points.” He has quite a few, including several “proto-diplomatic” tipping points, but he believes that the major tipping points in the evolution of diplomacy have been (1) the emergence and interaction of territorially stable polities around 7500 BCE; (2) the first diplomatic system, which developed in the Middle East during the Amarna period of the Second Millennium BCE; (3) the appearance of permanent representation among city states in the 15th century CE; and (4) the emergence of multi-lateral institutions in the early 19th century CE.
It is necessary to understand what he means by a tipping point. He defines it as “the culmination of a long-term trend . . . the moment when long-term selection processes crystallize in diplomatic institutionalization.” This conceptualization differs from two closely related definitions of tipping points. First, his tipping point is not a threshold as it is when the term is used to mean the point at which a small change suddenly leads to something very different from what existed before. In most cases, his tipping point is reached gradually and “does not do away with previous practices overnight.” Second, though in passing he equates his concept of tipping point with the concept in evolutionary literature of “punctuated equilibria,” his tipping points are actually very different. In his terms, a tipping point is a stabilization of previous processes, the latter of which consist of changing variants subject to selection pressures from which one or two emerge as dominant. Although periods between Neumann’s tipping points are not revolutionary, they are dynamic. This conceptualization has the advantage of enabling him to examine how variants are selected or selected out over time.
Selection takes place as a result of two kinds of competition, though they are usually combined. First, competition occurs among different carriers (individuals, communities, societies, states) of variants, as a result of which a variant can disappear because the carrier is destroyed or undermined, or because the practices of a more powerful carrier are imposed on a weaker carrier. The selecting out of the visual practices of Iroquois diplomacy occurred as a result of both processes: the imposition of European practices of visual diplomacy on the Iroquois; and the damage done to the Iroquois nations by European expansion and political domination.
Second, competition can occur among variants themselves, as a result of which some variants survive or advance while others do not. A variant may be, for various reasons, more replicable than other variants. In general, rituals are comparatively replicable. This is evident in the relative—and I stress relative—persistence of diplomatic ceremonies and performances. In the larger history of diplomacy, however, what has most often shaped evolution is adaptive selection, in which a more adaptive institution predominates over a less adaptive one.
The best illustration Neumann provides is in a chapter that he co-authored with Halvard Leira on the evolution of the consular institution. I can provide only a brief outline of what they say. People performing a consular-like role appeared first when specialized intermediaries (envoys, legal representatives, commercial agents, and so forth) were established between polities. In a later era, increasing long-distance trading and the establishment of expatriate trading communities created pressures for institutions facilitating trust among traders by adjudicating disputes among them. Over time, these judges became responsible for the behavior of members of these communities and thus acting as leaders of these communities, either formally or informally. More significant change took place subsequently owing to pressures created by rising sovereign states, as a result of which these leaders effectively became representatives of the sending states, performing a variety of tasks over which sovereign states needed to exercise more control than was previously the case. Official recognition of these consuls also bolstered the sovereignty of both the sending and the receiving states. Ultimately, states found that it was most effective to have two kinds of consuls: those who were employees working in ministries of foreign affairs and “honorary consuls,” who were residents of the host country but under the authority of the foreign country.
Driving this and other selection processes that he examines in the book are macro-selection pressures. The most fundamental is the pressure for human cooperation. He does not deny that war has been a powerful selection pressure from earliest times, but in his view, so has cooperation. What has changed over the millennia and generated pressures for new kinds of cooperation—and hence new strategies of diplomacy—have been primarily population growth and density, economic production and exchange, state making, social complexity, and globalization. Neumann also holds that these and other social changes, most notably technological change, can provide new opportunities as well as creating new pressures.
Although Neumann often refers to variants being selected out, it is evident that he also believes that variants can persist as secondary to more adaptive variants. They can also be dormant, survive in limited populations, or even thrive in the imaginary. His main example is the idea of diplomacy as good versus evil, which he argues has existed in varying degrees throughout history. Even in our time, we have had the “axis of evil.” This kind of opprobrium of other polities can lead to “anti-diplomacy,” that is, not talking to the enemy. At the present time, however, even states that are sharply critical of one another and have opposing interests usually engage in diplomatic relations. Neumann contends that the good-versus-evil notion of diplomacy is now kept alive primarily in fantasy literature, which he illustrates by an analysis of the Harry Potter legends. Thus, for Neumann, diplomacy exists in both a realis mood and in an irrealis mood or subjunctive tense, which plays on what could or might come to be, and thereby keeps alive the good-versus-evil idea of diplomacy.
Another characteristic of his evolutionary approach is that he gives considerable attention to the crucial role of groups of individuals, their strategies, and their intentions. Although he sees the major pressures driving evolutionary change as macro-external forces, the selection itself takes place at the meso level, or even at the micro level. For instance, in chapters on visual diplomacy and diplomatic presentation, he examines the performances of representatives of sending and receiving countries. He gives special attention to the staged arrival of Caroline Kennedy, the US ambassador to Japan, at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo in November 2013.
Neumann has the courage to acknowledge that his evolutionary approach is functionalist. His functionalism does not build on the now largely discredited structural functionalism of earlier sociology, but rather on a theoretical perspective that identifies how different conditions, practices, beliefs, and so on can be functional for specific purposes in society and for particular actors, social groups, or institutions. To give an example, he draws on the idea that stone mega-structures, such as Stonehenge, appeared with the emergence of sedentary groups because these monuments served as ceremonial centers to institutionalize regular interaction among related groups.
Diplomatic Tenses is one of an increasing number of publications in which evolutionary theory has been used to identify processes that contribute to our understanding of the development of specific institutions. He could have said a lot more, but what he has said is thoughtful, informative, and interesting.