Reuniting strategy and diplomacy for 21^st century statecraft

ABSTRACT

This article offers a new analytical framework to engage more effectively with the unit vs. system levels of analysis divide in International Relations (IR) by introducing Strategic Diplomacy. The systemic focus of structural theories obfuscates the crucial role of unit-level factors that contribute to policy outcomes, and studying actors and issues in isolation is equally unhelpful. By contrast, Strategic Diplomacy starts from a level-playing field and examines how actors and issues are embedded in a systemic context. The framework generates analytical leverage by both disaggregating the complexity of systems and highlighting that problem representation is entirely dependent on the boundaries of the system within which the problem is embedded. Yet, the boundaries that define a collective action problem are not drawn by the system alone; they are a conscious and strategic choice of those who analyse and make foreign policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Strategic Diplomacy
• globalisation
• complex systems
• strategy and statecraft

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Statecraft, in a nutshell, is the skill of governing a sovereign state. For a classic treatment of statecraft in international history, especially its interrelationship with the use of force, see the 6th edition of Lauren et al., 2020; on statecraft from an economic perspective, see Baldwin, 1985. For a more recent account of both military and economic perspectives on statecraft, see Wright, 2017.

2 For example, ASEAN, Australia, France, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States have adopted the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ (rather than Asia-Pacific) as their geographical delineation of regional engagement. A good discussion of the strategic dynamics and implications of the Indo-Pacific concept provides He & Li, 2020.

3 System maintenance and system change are understood here as Weberian ideal-types. Socio-ecological complex systems do not return to the same state when they experience feedback loops and oscillate; they are dynamic and display different behaviours following each cycle (Young 2017, p. 5). Hence system maintenance and system change are two poles at opposite ends of a broad spectrum within which other system states or permutations may exist, e.g. system enhancement or reform. In this special section, Doctor (2021) elaborates on such scenario.

4 The binary terms of Raison d’État and Raison de Système are borrowed from Watson (1992).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jochen Prantl

Jochen Prantl is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University. He was the Director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy (2015–16), and Deputy Director (International Engagement) of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs (2017–18). He is an expert on international norms and global governance, international security, and strategy and statecraft. Previously, he held academic appointments at Oxford, Yale, and Waseda Universities, the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.