Diplomatic Training

Despite the essential role diplomatic training plays in the everyday workings of international relations, international law and in the various multilateral organisations, this practice has received little critical attention in the humanities, social and political sciences. Bringing together detailed accounts of the histories, development and contemporary practices of diplomatic training with insights from key practitioners, this edited collection places training centrally within our understanding of international relations. It argues that diplomatic training both reflects and reproduces hegemonic power relations, whilst at the same time offering opportunities to contest them, and imagine alternative futures. The book includes a substantive introduction, nine full-length chapters from a range of disciplinary and regional perspectives drawing on archival research, oral history, interviews, and ethnographic methods, and four ‘interventions’: reflection pieces from trainers and directors of training programmes. It offers a globe-spanning, interdisciplinary account of the politics of diplomatic training and appeals to both scholarly and practitioner audiences.

Author Biography

Jonathan Harris is Assistant Professor in Political Geography at Dublin City University
Ruth Craggs is Reader in Political and Historical Geography at King’s College London
Fiona McConnell is Professor of Political Geography at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow at St Catherine’s College