Introduction to the Special Issue: New Diplomatic Histories of Turkey

ABSTRACT

This article provides an introduction to the special issue on ‘New Diplomatic Histories of Turkey’. Utilizing approaches that follow the rich pathways offered by the increasingly relevant new diplomatic history, we aim to go beyond traditional diplomatic history studies on Turkey, which usually focus on inter-state relations that mostly remain at the bilateral levels. In this regard, this introduction first analyses the recent turn taking place in diplomatic history. By portraying in detail the recent scholarly efforts to enhance the field, it becomes possible to pinpoint the multiple directions in which Turkey-pertinent diplomatic–historical studies could move ahead in novel ways. Upon this premise, second, we summarize the content of the special issue by emphasizing how the present articles connect studies on the diplomacy of Turkey to approaches enriched by new diplomatic history. In this regard, the studies in this special issue cover a wide range of topics, from transnationalism to public diplomacy. The last part deals with possible ways through which to widen the scope of Turkey’s diplomatic histories.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. H. Papuççular and D. Kuru (eds), A Transnational Account of Turkish Foreign Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020.

2. New Diplomatic History, while indicating a change in the field, also functions as the name of a working group, which tries to broaden the scope of the field by connecting diplomatic history to the study of diplomatic actors with respect to cultural studies, transnationalism, social sciences, etc. See the text ‘New Diplomatic History’, published online at https://newdiplomatichistory.org/about (accessed online February 1, 2022). Also important in this regard is the new journal Diplomatica, its first volume published in 2019 by Brill.

3. G. M. Young, Victorian England: Portrait of an Age, London, Oxford University Press, p. 103.

4. For examples of different approaches and also criticisms, see A. Iriye, ‘Culture and power: International relations as intercultural relations’, Diplomatic History, 3(2), 1979, pp. 115–128; E. Kedourie, ‘From clerk to clerk: Writing diplomatic history’, The American Scholar, 48(4), 1979, pp. 502–512; C. S. Maier, ‘Marking time: The historiography of international relations’, in M. Kammen (ed.), The Past Before Us: Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1980, pp. 355–387.

5. G. S. Smith, ‘Commentary: Security, gender, and the historical process’, Diplomatic History, 18(1), 1994, pp. 79–90. See also, R. Meltz, and I. Dasque, ‘Pour une histoire culturelle de la diplomatie. Pratiques et normes diplomatiques au XIX^e siècle’, Histoire, Économie et Société, 33(2), pp. 3–16.

6. U. Lehmkuhl, ‘Diplomatiegeschichte als internationale Kulturgeschichte: Theoretische Ansätze und empirische Forschung zwischen Historischer Kulturwissenschaft und Soziologischem Institutionalismus’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 27(3), 2001, pp. 394–423.

7. T. A. Sowerby, ‘Early modern diplomatic history’, History Compass, 14(9), 2016, pp. 441–456, here p. 441. See also F. Schnicke, ‘“Output matters more than process”? Writing the history of twentieth-century British foreign policy’, The English Historical Review, 135(573), 2020, pp. 417–434, here especially p. 432.

8. M. Lindemann, ‘The discreet charm of the diplomatic archive’, German History, 29(2), 2011, pp. 283–304, here p. 283. For another early discussion that foreshadows the later developments in New Diplomatic History, see J. C. E. Gienow-Hecht, ‘A global group of worriers’, Diplomatic History, 26(3), 2002, pp. 481–491.

9. There are valuable volumes on the history of Turkish foreign policy which are sophisticated yet still predominantly based on bilateral interstate relations of Turkey. These include the three edited volumes by Baskın Oran on Turkish foreign policy, Türk Dış Politikası: Kurtuluş Savaşı’ndan Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar, Iletişim Yayınları, Istanbul, 2001–2013. The English translations are available mostly for the period covered by the original first two volumes, published as Baskin Oran (ed.), Turkish Foreign Policy 1919–2006, Utah University Press, Salt Lake City, 2010. See also Mehmet Gönlübol and others’ edited volume Olaylarla Türk Dış Politikası (1919–1995), Siyasal Kitabevi, Ankara, 1996 (9^th edition); and a very well-known book by William Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy 1774–2000, Frank Cass, London, 2002 (the most recent third edition was published in 2013).

10. M. J. Hogan, ‘The “Next big thing”: The future of diplomatic history in a global age’, Diplomatic History, 28(1), 2004, pp. 1–21, here p. 3.

11. J. Watkins, ‘Toward a new diplomatic history of medieval and early modern Europe’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 38(1), 2008, pp. 1–14.

12. B. Tremml-Werner and D. Goetze, ‘A multitude of actors in early modern diplomacy’, Journal of Early Modern History, 23(5), 2019, pp. 407–422, here p. 410.

13. See, for examples, the discussions in G. Giudici, ‘From new diplomatic history to new political history: The rise of the holistic approach’, European History Quarterly, 48(2), 2018, pp. 314–324; L. Badel and S. Jeannesson, ‘Introduction. Une histoire globale de la diplomatie?’, Monde(s), 5(1), 2014, pp. 6–26; L. Clerc, ‘Review essay: A renewal of diplomatic history or the continuation of old trends? Selected readings from the french-speaking field of international history’, Diplomatica, 1(2), 2019, p. 291–298; S. Schattenberg, ‘Die Sprache der Diplomatie oder Das Wunder von Portsmouth. Überlegungen zu einer Kulturgeschichte der Außenpolitik’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 56(1), 2008, pp. 3–26; H. von Thiessen, ‘Geschichte der Außenbeziehungen/Neue Diplomatiegeschichte’, in S. Richter, M. Roth, and S. Meurer (eds), Konstruktionen Europas in der Frühen Neuzeit: Geographische und historische Imaginationen. Beiträge zur 11. Arbeitstagung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Frühe Neuzeit, Heidelberg University Publishing, Heidelberg, 2017, pp. 315–323; N. Shimazu, ‘What is sociability in diplomacy?’, Diplomatica, 1(1), 2019, pp. 56–72. Also a relevant contribution is presented by the earlier book of C. Windler, La diplomatie comme expérience de l’Autre. Consuls français au Maghreb (1700–1840), Librairie Droz, Geneva, 2002.

14. For a pertinent engagement with the US case, see the earlier tour d‘horizon by T. W. Zeiler, ‘The diplomatic history bandwagon: A state of the field’, Journal of American History, 95(4), 2009, pp. 1053–1073.

15. These distinct literatures would, in the first case, include, Zeiler, op. cit., with the reply that focused on the relevance of non-state aspects by J. C. E. Gienow-Hecht, ‘What Bandwagon? Diplomatic history today’, The Journal of American History, 95(4), 2009, pp. 1083–1086; in the case of early modern diplomatic history and its new diplomatic history approaches, see Watkins, ‘Toward a New Diplomatic History of Medieval and Early Modern Europe’, and also Sowerby, ‘Early Modern Diplomatic History’ as representative takes.

16. A problem in Turkish scholarship of diplomatic history concerns the labelling issue. In many instances, the notion of ‘siyasi tarih’ (literally ‘political history’) is used to refer to diplomatic history and/or international history. This could mean that domestic Turkish politics and international politics are both analysed via ‘siyasi tarih’. On these confusions, see the proceedings in ‘Prof. Dr. Oral Sander Anısına Türkiye’de Siyasi Tarih’in Gelişimi ve Sorunları Sempozyumu—Bildiriler ve Tartışmalar’ published in 2006 by Ankara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Yayınları; also useful is the discussion in G. Özcan, ‘“Siyasiyat’tan ‘Milletlerarası Münasebetler’e: Türkiye’de Uluslararası Ilişkiler Disiplininin Kavramsal Tarihi’, Uluslararası Ilişkiler, 17(66), 2020, pp. 3–21.

17. M. Herren and I. Löhr, ‘Being international in times of war: Arthur Sweetser and the shifting of the league of nations to the United Nations’, European Review of History/Revue européenne d’histoire, 25(3–4), 2018, pp. 535–552.

18. Ibid., p. 536.

19. G. Scott-Smith, ‘Ghosts in the Machine? Ernst van der Beugel, the Transatlantic Elite, and the “New Diplomatic History”’, speech given at Leiden University, October 5, 2009, p. 10, 3.

20. For a very recent elaboration that deals with gendered and mundane practices inherent to new diplomatic history, see S. Erlandsson, Personal Politics in the Postwar World: Western Diplomacy Behind the Scenes, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2022.

21. See A. Iriye, Global and Transnational History: The Past, Present and Future, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2013; S. Conrad, What Is Global History?, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2016; J. Belich, J. Darwin, M. Frenz and C. Wickham (eds), The Prospect of Global History, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016.

22. See R. O. Keohane and J. S. Nye (eds), Transnational Relations and World Politics, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1981.

23. On the different conceptualizations of public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy frameworks, see M. Gillabert, ‘Diplomatie culturelle et diplomatie publique: des histoires parallèles?’, Relations Internationales, 169, pp. 11–26.

24. B. Gregory, ‘Public diplomacy: Sunrise of an academic field’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 616, 2008, pp. 274–290, here p. 275.

25. See H. Gurman, The Dissent Papers: The Voices of Diplomats in the Cold War and Beyond, Columbia University Press, New York, 2012; S. B. Gülmez, ‘Do diplomats matter in foreign policy? Sir Percy Loraine and the Turkish-British rapprochement in the 1930s’, Foreign Policy Analysis, 15(1), 2019, pp. 65–82.

26. See E. Schnakenbourg, ‘Au-delà et en deçà de la politique étrangère? Écrire l’histoire des relations internationales et de la diplomatie à l’époque modern’, in N. Le Roux (ed.), Faire de l’histoire moderne, Classiques Garnier, Paris, 2020, pp. 269–291, here p. 278. Here and below, translations into English (from French and German) are ours.

27. Schnakenbourg, op. cit., p. 272.

28. Giudici, ‘From new diplomatic history to new political history: The rise of the holistic approach’, pp. 314–315.

29. This quite often emerges from studies that focus on the early modern era. See, among others, A. J. Krischer and H. von Thiessen, ‘Diplomacy in a global early modernity: The ambiguity of sovereignty’, The International History Review, 41(5), pp. 1100–1107; also, see H. von Thiessen, ‘Geschichte der Außenbeziehungen / Neue Diplomatie-geschichte’.

30. J. Hennings, ‘Information and confusion: Russian resident diplomacy and Peter A. Tolstoi’s arrival in the Ottoman Empire (1702–1703)’, The International History Review, 41(5), 2019, pp. 1003–1019, here p. 1004.

31. G. Inanç and Ş. Yilmaz, ‘Gunboat diplomacy: Turkey, USA and the advent of the Cold War’, Middle Eastern Studies, 48(3), 2012, pp. 401–411.

32. See L. Hellman, ‘Drawing the lines: Translation and diplomacy in the Central Asian Borderlands’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 82(3), 2021, pp. 485–501, here p. 486.

33. On diplomatic visits, see J. Paulmann, ‘Nation et diplomatie. L’enjeu renouvelé des voyages officiels’, Monde(s), 1(5), 2014, pp. 99–117; on rituals, see T. Balzacq, ‘Rituals and diplomacy’, in T. Balzacq, F Charillon and F. Ramel (eds), Global Diplomacy—An Introduction to Theory and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020, pp. 111–122; on diplomatic decorum, see Fiona McConnell, ‘Performing diplomatic decorum: Repertoires of “Appropriate” behavior in the margins of international diplomacy’, International Political Sociology, 12(4), 2018, pp. 362–381; on gardens in diplomacy, see W. A. Callahan, ‘Cultivating power: Gardens in the global politics of diplomacy, war, and peace’, International Political Sociology, 11(4), 2017, pp. 360–379.

34. B. G. Martin and E. M. Piller, ‘Cultural diplomacy and Europe’s twenty years’ crisis, 1919–1939: Introduction’, Contemporary European History, 30(2), 2021, pp. 149–163, here p. 151.

35. For a recent contribution that discusses its relevance within new diplomatic history, see S. Erlandsson, ‘Off the record: Margaret van Kleffens and the gendered history of Dutch World War II diplomacy’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 21(1), 2019, pp. 29–46.

36. Although diplomatic history accounts on the role of women in the context of Turkish diplomacy are limited, there is an emerging scholarship about Turkish female diplomats in the recent period. For a useful contribution, see R. Süleymanoğlu-Kurum and B. Rumelili, ‘Türk Diplomasisinde Kadın ve Egemen Maskülenlik: Değişen Normlar ve Pratikler’, Uluslararası Ilişkiler, 15(57), 2018, pp. 3–18.

37. However, a Turkish female diplomat would become ambassador only much later, in 1982. See B. Rumelili and R. Süleymanoğlu-Kurum, ‘Women and gender in Turkish diplomacy: Historical legacies and current patterns’, in K. Aggestam and A. Towns (eds), Gendering Diplomacy and International Negotiation, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2018, p. 91.

38. Sowerby, ‘Early modern diplomatic history’, p. 449.

39. L. Hellman and B. Tremml-Werner, ‘Translation in action: Global intellectual history and early modern diplomacy’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 82(3), 2021, pp. 453–467, here pp. 458–459.

40. Ibid., p. 459.

41. On Turkey’s liminality, see B. Rumelili, ‘Liminal identities and processes of domestication and subversion in international relations’, Review of International Studies, 38(2), 2012, pp. 495–508.

42. See, for instance, D. Do Paço, ‘Women in diplomacy in late eighteenth-century Istanbul’, The Historical Journal, 65(3), pp. 640–662; J. Hennings, ‘Information and confusion: Russian resident diplomacy and Peter A. Tolstoi’s arrival in the Ottoman Empire (1702–1703)’, The International History Review, 41(5), 2019, pp. 1003–1019; A. Rathberger, ‘The “Piano Virtuosos” of international politics: Informal diplomacy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Ottoman Empire’. New Global Studies, 8(1), 2014, pp. 9–29; C. Vogel, ‘Istanbul als Drehscheibe frühneuzeitlicher europäischer Diplomatie’, in Europäische Geschichte Online (EGO), Leibniz-Institut für Europäische Geschichte (IEG), Mainz, September 10, 2020, available at http://www.ieg-ego.eu/vogelc-2020-de (last accessed March 1, 2022). Most recently, for a whole volume that focused on these issues, while following this new diplomatic historical path, see T. A. Sowerby and C. Markiewicz (eds), Diplomatic Cultures at the Ottoman Court, c.1500–1630, Routledge, London, 2021.

43. H. Alloul and D. Martykánová, ‘Introduction: Charting new ground in the study of Ottoman foreign relations’, The International History Review, 43(5), 2021, pp. 1018–1040.

44. Ibid., p. 1029.

45. Ibid., p. 1032.

46. For a pertinent take, see N. Rousselot, ‘Un diplomate face à la guerre civile espagnole: l’ambassade d’Eirik Labonne (octobre 1937–octobre 1938)’, Relations Internationales, 170, 2017, pp. 9–24.

47. Schattenberg, ‘Die Sprache der Diplomatie oder Das Wunder von Portsmouth’, p. 7, and quoting J. Osterhammel, ‘Internationale Geschichte, Globalisierung und die Pluralität der Kulturen‘, in J. Osterhammel and W. Loth (eds), Internationale Geschichte: Themen, Ergebnisse, Aussichten, Oldenburg, Munich, 2000, pp. 387–408, here pp. 400–401.

48. Schattenberg, op. cit., p. 25.

49. Badel and Jeannesson, ‘Introduction. Une histoire globale de la diplomatie?’, p. 19.

50. S. Neitzel, ‘Diplomatie der Generationen? Kollektivbiographische Perspektiven auf die Internationalen Beziehungen 1871–1914’, Historische Zeitschrift, 296(1), 2013, pp. 84–113.

51. Watkins, ‘Toward a new diplomatic history of medieval and early Modern Europe’, p. 10.

52. See Badel and Jeannesson, op. cit., p. 21.

53. Ibid., p. 22.

54. H. Alloul and M. Auwers, ‘What is (new in) new diplomatic history?’ Journal of Belgian History, 48(4), 2018, pp. 112–122.

55. Badel and Jeannesson, op. cit.; see also, on global history and diplomatic history connections, the discussion by M. Herren-Oesch, ‘Diplomatie im Fokus der Globalgeschichte’, Neue Politische Literatur, 61(3), 2016, pp. 413–438.

56. For example, see A. Yenen, ‘Internationalism, diplomacy and the revolutionary origins of the Middle East’s “Northern Tier”’, Contemporary European History, 30(4), 2021, pp. 497–512; E. T. Vardağlı, ‘Transnational issues, non-governmental organizations and the genesis of modern turkish diplomacy’, in Papuççular and Kuru (eds), A Transnational Account of Turkish Foreign Policy, pp. 97–120.

57. For such an understanding, see V. Demir, ‘Historical perspective: Ottomans and the republican Era’, in S. Çelik and P. Seib (eds), Turkey’s Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2015, pp. 43–65.

58. For an introduction, see H. Rudolph, ‘Entangled objects and hybrid practices? Material culture as a new approach to the history of diplomacy’, in H. Rudolph (ed.), Jahrbuch für Europäische Geschichte/European History Yearbook vol. 17 - Material Culture in Modern Diplomacy from the 15th to the 20th Century, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin, 2016, pp. 1–28 and other contributions therein.

59. On the latter case, in the Turkish-Israeli context, see I. Hepkaner, ‘Jews from Turkey in Israel and cultural diplomacy (1996–2006)’ in Papuççular and Kuru (eds), A Transnational Account of Turkish Foreign Policy, pp. 195–223.

60. For a useful focus on private diplomacy, see the special issue of New Global Studies, 8(1), 2014, ‘Who is a Diplomat? Diplomatic Entrepreneurs in the Global Age’, guest edited by Giles Scott-Smith; for a brief discussion, see the introduction by G. Scott-Smith, ‘Introduction: Private diplomacy, making the citizen visible’, New Global Studies, 8(1), 2014, pp. 1–7.

61. For helpful discussions, see S. Kunkel, ‘Science diplomacy in the Twentieth Century: Introduction’, Journal of Contemporary History, 56(3), 2021, pp. 473–484 and S. Turchetti, M. Adamson, G. Rispoli, D. Olšáková and S. Robinson, ‘Introduction: Just Needham to Nixon? On writing the history of “Science diplomacy”’, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, 50(4), 2020, pp. 323–339.

62. See F. Gottmann, ‘Mixed company in the contact zone: the “Glocal” diplomatic efforts of a Prussian East Indiaman in 1750s Cape Verde’, Journal of Early Modern History, 23(5), 2019, pp. 423–441.

63. On Turkey’s manoeuvre range as a small power in this era, see G. Baba and M. Önsoy, ‘Resilience versus vulnerability: Turkey’s small power diplomacy in the 1930s’, International Politics, 58(6), 2021, pp. 955–975.

64. For a useful framework, see B. Reeves-Ellington, ‘American women missionaries on trial in Turkey: Religion, diplomacy, and public perceptions in the 1920s’, Diplomatic History, 43(2), 2019, pp. 246–264.

65. For a relevant study, see I. Xypolia, ‘Imperial bending of rules: The British empire, the treaty of Lausanne, and Cypriot Immigration to Turkey’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 32(4), 2021, pp. 674–691.

66. For a broad overview of such a case, see A. G. Levaggi and F. Donelli, ‘Turkey’s changing engagement with the global South’, International Affairs, 97(4), 2021, pp. 1105–1124.

67. C. Guttstadt, Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013.

68. For a similar reference on the inter- and multidisciplinarity in diplomatic history, see Badel and Jeannesson, op. cit., p. 26.

69. On performances, see the contributions in J. C. Alexander, B. Giesen, J. L. Mast (eds), Social Performance: Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics, and Ritual, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006; for a historically structured analysis, see E. Ringmar, ‘Performing international systems: Two East-Asian alternatives to the Westphalian Order’, International Organization, 66(1), 2012, pp. 1–25; as a relevant approach, see also C. Windler, ‘Performing inequality in mediterranean diplomacy’, The International History Review, 41(5), 2019, pp. 947–961.