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ABSTRACT
Political economies of transnational fields: harmonization and differentiation in European diplomacy. Territory, Politics, Governance. Focusing on Europe, this paper analyses diplomacy as an uneven transnational field. The field is uneven not only along the predictable lines of big and small states, but also along the lines of wealth and tradition that are customarily overlooked in diplomatic studies. The political economy of European diplomacy cannot be read off the map of states without considering cross-national patterns of economic and symbolic capital. The field is transnational in the sense that national, international and supranational elements blend in daily practice to create qualitatively new forms of diplomatic knowledge production. By analysing such uneven transnationalism, the paper brings greater empirical and conceptual specificity to our understanding of bureaucratic knowledge production. The empirical material focuses on diplomatic training. It is drawn from web-based sources and over 100 interviews with the professionals of diplomacy in Brussels and five national capitals. This ‘peopled’ lens enables a high-resolution analysis of diplomatic practice and thereby illuminates socio-spatial patterns that remain invisible in traditional state-based accounts. By unpacking in concrete terms what the oft-used phrase ‘beyond the state’ means in diplomatic training, the paper advances the study of bureaucratic knowledge production in geography and cognate fields.
摘要
跨国领域的政治经济：欧洲外交中的调和与差异。Territory, Politics, Governance。本文聚焦欧洲，分析外交作为不均的跨国领域。该领域不仅根据大国与小国之间的可预测路径而不均等，同时也根据外交研究通常忽略的财富与传统而展现不均。若欲摒除国家来理解欧洲外交的政治经济的话，不能不考量经济与象徵资本的跨国模式。该领域在国家、国际与超国家元素于每日实践中融合以创造外交知识生产在质量上的新模式的意义上是跨国的。透过分析此般不均的跨国主义，本文将更佳的经验与概念特徵，带进我们对于官僚知识生产的理解。本文的经验材料聚焦外交训练，并运用以互联网为基础的资源，以及在布鲁塞尔与五个国家首都对外交专业者进行超过一百次的访谈。此一‘充满人’的视角，提供了对外交实践的高辨识率分析，从而阐明在传统上以国家为基础的解释中无法看见的社会空间脉络。本文透过以坚实的方式拆解外交训练中所谓‘超越国家’之经常用语的意义，推进地理学和同类领域中的官僚知识生产研究。
RÉSUMÉ
Les économies politiques des domaines transnationaux: l’harmonisation et la différenciation de la diplomatie européenne. Territory, Politics, Governance. Mettant l’accent sur l’Europe, ce présent article analyse la diplomatie comme un domaine transnational inégal. Le domaine est inégal non seulement du point de vue de la prévisibilité, à savoir les grands états par rapport aux petits, mais aussi en fonction de la richesse et de la tradition qui sont habituellement ignorées dans les études diplomatiques. On ne peut pas interpréter l’économie politique de la diplomatie européenne à partir de la carte des états sans tenir compte des tendances transnationales du capital économique et symbolique. Le domaine est transnational dans la mesure où les éléments nationaux, internationaux et supranationaux s’harmonisent en pratique du jour au lendemain afin de créer qualitativement de nouvelles formes de la production de la connaissance diplomatique. En analysant un tel transnationalisme inégal, l’article apporte une plus grande spécificité empirique et conceptuelle à la compréhension de la production de la connaissance bureaucratique. La documentation empirique de l’article porte sur la formation diplomatique. Elle puise dans les sources web et dans plus de 100 interviews auprès des diplomates de carrière à Bruxelles et dans cinq capitales nationales. Abordant cette question dans l’optique du ‘peuple’ permet de fournir une analyse haute résolution de la diplomatie en pratique et, par la suite, d’éclaircir les tendances socio-spatiales qui sont ignorées dans les comptes-rendus traditionnels à l’échelle des états. En démystifiant concrètement ce que veut dire l’expression souvent citée ‘au-delà de l’état’ dans le contexte de la formation diplomatique, cet article fait progresser dans la géographie et dans des filières apparantées l’étude de la production de la connaissance bureaucratique.
RESUMEN
Economías políticas de campos transnacionales: armonización y diferenciación en la diplomacia europea. Territory, Politics, Governance. Desde una perspectiva europea, en este artículo se analiza la diplomacia como un campo transnacional desigual. El campo es desigual no solo según los conceptos predecibles de Estados grandes y pequeños, sino también con respecto a la riqueza y la tradición que se acostumbran a ignorar en los estudios diplomáticos. La economía política de la diplomacia europea no se puede deducir del mapa de los Estados sin considerar los patrones internacionales del capital económico y simbólico. El campo es transnacional en el sentido en que los elementos nacionales, internacionales y supranacionales se combinan en la actividad diaria creando cualitativamente nuevas formas de producción de conocimiento diplomático. Mediante el análisis de este transnacionalismo desigual, en este artículo se aporta una mayor especificidad empírica y conceptual para poder entender la producción de conocimiento burocrático. El material empírico del artículo se centra en la formación diplomática. Se basa en fuentes de la web y en más de 100 entrevistas con profesionales de la diplomacia en Bruselas y cinco capitales nacionales. Este objetivo personalizado permite llevar a cabo un análisis de alta resolución de la práctica diplomática reflejando así los patrones socio-espaciales que quedan invisibles en los informes tradicionales basados en el Estado. Al realizar un análisis en términos concretos de lo que significa la expresión tan utilizada ‘más allá del Estado’ en la formación diplomática, en el artículo se fomenta el estudio de la producción de conocimiento burocrático en los campos geográficos y afines.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank the persons who took time from their tight schedules, sometimes several times, to be interviewed for this study. Earlier versions of the article were presented at the American Association of Geographers annual meeting in San Francisco (April 2016) and the European Consortium of Political Research Standing Group on the European Union conference in Trento (June 2016): Jason Dittmer and Federica Bicchi generously served as discussants at these events. Constructive comments from two anonymous reviewers of this journal and from Walter Nicholls as the adjudicating editor are greatly appreciated. Genevieve Parente provided research assistance.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The total number of interviews is 162 so far, conducted with over one hundred individuals (many persons have been interviewed several times) since 2007. The conservative phrase ‘over 100’ indicates the approximate number of interviews with individuals who are trained as national or EU diplomats or move in diplomatic circles on a daily basis, as these interviews feed directly into the present article (the remaining few dozen interviews are with foreign policy professionals whose daily work is more distant from diplomacy). Although many national diplomats uphold the idea that nation-states do ‘proper’ diplomacy – while EU officials suggest that they do ‘proper’ Europe – the distinction between ‘proper’ and ‘EU’ diplomacy is of limited use analytically (see also Kuus, Citation2015b; Lequesne, Citation2015). The diplomatic relations of EU member states are increasingly linked to EU decision-making, and EU-level diplomacy operates centrally through the member states. All EU settings are quasi-diplomatic as all involve intergovernmental and transnational negotiation (Kuus, Citation2014). When drawing on the 52 interviews from which most of the unattributed quotes are drawn, I do not list the capitals where the interviews took place because the number of interviewees in any one place is small – usually two to three persons involved in diplomatic training – and citing the location would jeopardize the anonymity of the speakers. Only the points that are valid beyond one setting (national or EU) are quoted here. The quotes are used to illustrate widely shared sentiments: no quote represents a view held only by the speaker. The 48 individuals behind the 52 interviews in 2014–2016 (again, the numbers are confusing as 8 interviews are follow-ups but some are with a group of persons) come from 15 EU member states (including all of the big states as well as countries from different regions of the union). References to their nationality are omitted in the text: such references would jeopardize anonymity and unduly nationalize the material that is better conceptualized in terms of a transnational field (see also Kuus, Citation2016b).
2. Long-term cordial relationships with foreign officials are a cornerstone of diplomatic work and nation-states promote such relationships. When diplomatic academies market their training courses to (government-sponsored) diplomats from other states, they do so in part to build networks. The foreign alumni, it is hoped, make brilliant careers in other foreign services and thereby enhance the diplomatic network of the host country.
3. The Presidency of the Council of the European Union (colloquially known as EU presidency) rotates among the member states twice annually. The state holding the six-month presidency has some power over the course of intergovernmental negotiations because its officials coordinate and chair some of these negotiations. The persons who do the coordination need to know a great deal about EU-level decision-making in order to do their work well (see Kuus, Citation2014).
4. The field of diplomatic studies is outside the scope of this article, but the research cited herein includes extensive reviews of that field as well as the relevant work on international organizations and EU institutions.
5. The comment comes from a long-time EU official: some national diplomats would dispute the formulation as a symbolic power grab by EU institutions.
6. For national diplomats, there are two paths to Brussels: into the national representations (on the basis of rotation) or into EU institutions (usually on secondment, sometimes permanently). Those who join the EEAS from national diplomatic services must learn to represent the EU rather than ‘their’ state.
7. Diplomatic training for EU civil servants (i.e. officials of the commission) started years before the Lisbon Treaty took effect.
8. The widening rather than narrowing of the gap between the larger and wealthier diplomacies on the one hand and the poorer and smaller ones on the other is observed beyond Europe as well. This article looks only at the differentiation within Europe.
9. College of Europe has two campuses, one in Bruges, Belgium and the other in Natolin, a suburb of Warsaw. Not all of its graduates obtain attractive jobs in EU institutions, but the image of the College as a launch-pad for brilliant Brussels careers persists.
10. National training traditions vary considerably as they are linked to national education traditions (see Berger et al., Citation2013; Baylon, Citation2016).
11. The EU system is particularly complicated because of de facto national quotas, especially for high-level positions. The EU system is also peculiar for its strong middle management layer compared to many national institutions.
12. Many gravitate to EU institutions for the intellectual challenge that comes with this terrain. ‘A lot of people in EEAS are semi-academics’ an interviewee outside that institution says: ‘they want to be academics, but they don’t like the money’.