Book Summary:Diplomacy has never been a politically neutral field of historical research, even when it was confined to merely reconstructing the context of wars and revolutions. Since the nineteenth century, Renaissance Italy has been at the forefront of scholarship on diplomacy; today, with increasing awareness of the long history of the subject as well as a broader spectrum of case studies, the study of Italian diplomacy has become sophisticated and highly articulated, offering scholars many new directions for further exploration. During the period c. 1350–c. 1520 covered by the present volume, diplomatic sources became extremely rich and abundant. This sourcebook presents a selection of primary materials, both published and unpublished, which are mostly unavailable to English readers: a broad range of diplomatic sources, thematically organized, are introduced, translated, and annotated by an international team of leading scholars of the Italian Renaissance. The aim of this volume is to illustrate the richness of diplomatic documents both for the study of diplomacy itself as well as for other areas of historical investigation, such as gender and sexuality, crime and justice, art and leisure, and medicine.

Excerpt: The political negotiations of fifteenth-century diplomats overlay an unstated, multilayered exchange of symbolic capital between states.

North Korea began opening an the path towards warmer international relations policy in early 2018, after making several threats against the United States and a series of missile test launches and nuclear tests. This paper argues that North Korea is warming relations because they identify as a nuclear state. If a country as openly hostile towards the United States as North Korea believes itself a nuclear power, then any diplomatic act is made with the knowledge that North Korea has the ability to attack the United States if anything goes wrong. North Korea knows that the United States would have more reasoning to deal diplomatically with the country instead of aggressively when these actions could risk mutually assured destruction. The paper explores the history of North Korea and their nuclear abilities to see if these actions could be predicted given their past behavior. Next the paper explores international relations on why states cooperate and how nuclear weapons have effected state behavior. Then a variety of case studies of U.S. interactions with new nuclear powers seek to predict how the United States will interact with North Korea as s new nuclear power based off of previous dealings with other emerging nuclear states. The paper concludes that North Korea has the right to claim themselves as a nuclear state and craft agreements under the pretense of nuclear brinkmanship. However, the United States will not likely give up their policy of nonproliferation or easily accept North Korea's status. As a result, in line with both North Korea's own cyclical history of hostility and diplomacy, and realist motivations behind policy, it is unlikely that the current rounds of warming tension between the United States and North Korea will continue.

acase@tulane.edu / The arrival of World War II triggered significant disturbances in global trade, forcing U.S. importers and exporters to find alternative sources of business to make up for lost markets in Europe and Asia. This study traces the efforts of business and civic leaders in Houston, New Orleans, and Miami to increase trade, transportation, and tourism income from Latin America and the Caribbean by adopting Pan Americanism as a business strategy. Businessmen and local civic officials believed they could combine new trade promotion institutions with a carefully cultivated Pan American civic identity to establish their cities as “gateways” to the Americas. This framework became a key component of the regional competition between Houston, New Orleans, and Miami in the late 1940s and 1950s. The implications for these Pan American business strategies stretched far beyond the Gulf South, however. Business and civic leaders often described their activities within the context of U.S.-Latin American diplomacy, connecting trade promotion and international relationship-building with broader national objectives of hemispheric cooperation and anticommunism. This connection attracted the interest of the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, whose officials hoped to leverage the influence of private enterprise to achieve Latin American economic development and discourage anti-foreign investment policies without significant government funding. Both local business communities and federal agencies used this harmony of vision to their advantage. Washington found ways to co-opt the Pan American business strategies of the Gulf South while local civic and business leaders drew legitimacy and sometimes even financial support for their programs from the federal government. Ultimately, for a variety of reasons, Pan Americanism eventually became unprofitable as a business strategy, and most of the institutions Houston, New Orleans, and Miami had established either failed or changed considerably by the 1970s. The lasting legacy of this phenomenon, however, lies in the frameworks these cities helped establish for reimagining the port city as a diplomatic space and business communities as diplomatic agents. / 1 / Joshua Goodman

Review of The Black Prince of Florence by Catherine Fletcher

This study highlights the role of humanitarian diplomacy to obtain humanitarian access to civilian victims of forced confinement in the municipality of Samaniego, Colombia. Humanitarian diplomacy is made of humanitarian negotiations, coordination and advocacy to provide suffering-alleviation to victims of armed conflicts, and these components will be discussed thoroughly. To inquire in the use of humanitarian diplomacy by international relief organizations, interviews with thirteen humanitarian workers, two public officers and a human rights worker were conducted. The findings, which are complemented with humanitarian and human rights reports and framed in the theoretical discussion, will be the base to discuss whether humanitarian diplomacy contributed to gain humanitarian access in villages of Samaniego facing restrictions in the mobility of civilians and limitations in the supply of basic means of livelihood and humanitarian assistance.

In today¡¦s world, most nations seek for not only maximizing military and economic power, but also using their influence of soft power to other countries. Cultural diplomacy is the tool to help a country establish and spread its ¡§soft power¡¨; cultural diplomacy has become an essential option when the country develops its external relations. This article intends to realize the importance and method of the cultural diplomacy, and the utilities of the cultural diplomacy. Except America, China and the EU are absolutely the two great powers in the world. From culture diplomacy¡¦s perspective, this article examines what kind of the role that culture can play between China and the EU. According to the different self-identity, China will take different external actions. Emphasizing cultural diplomacy helps China defuse fears of ¡§the Rise of China¡¨ from the outside world. On the other side, culture is the key factor to help Europe retaining its advantage and conducting new ¡§Europe identity¡¨ at the same time. It¡¦s true that China and the EU do exist potential conflicts, but it is also difficult to deny the effectiveness of cultural diplomacy. Cultural diplomacy doesn¡¦t create ¡§zero-conflict¡¨ status, it also fairly concentrates on the way and attitude to solve problem. Even though China and EU contend for some issues, cultural diplomacy will continue to provide its function.

In Mao¡¦s era , Mao Zedong had a dominant leadership role, and PLA political role was affected by Mao¡¦s authority. PLA had to subordinate to Mao¡¦s order. PLA only played a role as a tool. After the 1978 reform, Deng Xiaoping promoted military modernization in the 1980s to reduce the political influence of the military. After Deng¡¦s death, Jiang Zemin lacked the personal authority and military background. As a result, Jiang had to grant concessions to PLA in order to ensure its support. One concession had obviously been the unprecedented participation of military chiefs in foreign affairs decisions that were of concern to PLA, including issues related to Taiwan and relations with the United States. Besides, in Jiang¡¦s era, the opportunities and channels which PLA participated in foreign policies increased. PLA influence in foreign policy was stronger than Mao¡¦s era and Deng¡¦s era. The research motivation of this essay is to expect that can understand the change of PLA political influence. The research aims of the essay include the following: 1. exploring the factors that affect PLA political influence; 2.probing into PLA participation in foreign policy, and realizing PLA political influence; 3.analying military diplomacy, and understanding the cooperation between PLA and Ministry of Foreign Affairs; 4.probing into the conflict between PLA and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and understanding PLA strong attitude; 5.analying the decision model, Party-Military relations, political situation, the issues related to the national security, and deducing PLA political influence in the future.

In a broad way, the main intention of this study is an attempt to analyze the changes the diplomatic competition between China and Taiwan in Latin America has brought to all the involved parties. How this competition have concentrated in just a few countries serving as Taiwan last stand hold against Chinese attempts to isolate it in the international community during the last three decades. The aim is to understand the whole evolution and dynamics of this great Asian issue elucidated in Latin America, and the way both China and Taiwan have behave to attract the favor of those small Latin American countries while those Latin American countries have also came to profit from this situation. Both, China and Taiwan have an almost symbiotic relationship with Latin America, relationship to become more and more important if current geopolitical and economic conditions were to continue. One side, Both China and Taiwan demand a great amount of Latin American natural resources to fuel their global industry. On the other side, Latin America demands more and more of the finished goods produced in China and Taiwan. The main research question the author will attempt to solve here is: ¡§Why are Latin American states shifting or considering shifting to China?¡¨ complementary questions intended to shed some light on the author¡¦s original assumptions are that Chinese economic growth is not the only explanation for Latin America¡¦s support of China. These questions are as follow: ¡§Does Latin American States perceive China as a threat? Has US double standard contributed to Taiwan losing its Latin American partners? Has Taiwanese implementation of Dollar diplomacy methods in some Latin American states something to do with its losing of supporters? A throughout analysis of both, the Chinese economic and geopolitical reach as well as Latin American¡¦s own search for economic, political and ideological independence from US are the main explanatory for the changes observed in this triangular relationship. Nevertheless, a series of unorthodox foreign policy methods such as ¡¥Dollar Diplomacy¡¦ conditioned foreign aid, have also contributed to these changes.

Thesis (M.A.)--Harvard University, 2001. / "April 19, 2001." Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-82). Also available via the Internet.