Diplomacy Becomes Them: Mediating Knowledge in Spaces of Conflict Resolution

Abstract

This dissertation explores informal means of convening various foreign policy professionals in conflict resolution discussions, taking two quite different case studies: the Pugwash Conferences, a long-standing transnational non-governmental organization; and the Ottawa Dialogue, a more recent suite of projects. Although conventionally viewed through the rubric of ‘Track Two’, this thesis instead tackles the subject of unofficial diplomacy through a conceptual framework derived from critical and sociological work in International Relations theory. By taking a practice-based approach, the research reveals that what is actually done in the spaces of unofficial diplomacy not only has a diplomatic purpose at root but in fact can be seen to reproduce a diplomatic logic in how certain tasks are performed. The dissertation shows the intrinsic liminality of these informal, unofficial activities to the corridors of power and policymaking and, in this way, helps elaborate how the emergent landscape of diplomacy is impacted by various actors and changing practices.

To understand why such processes appear around international conflict, the thesis calls attention to investigating how they are used by those who participate. The approach brings into focus the constitution of professional social networks that emerge in spaces left out of limelight, where various experts contest, debate, and refract policy knowledge. Through the eyes of these non-traditional actors, the thesis problematizes diplomacy as a solely state-based authority, insisting that we must look to the close imbrication of government representatives in putatively non-state activities to understand their contribution to global governance. Developed through an immersion and engagement of ten years with the very people who do the work, this project brings together several theoretical and methodological perspectives to make sense of a complex data-set and bridge a number of disciplinary gaps.