Introduction

Abstract

This book is an analysis of the nature of stability and change in the institutionalized order of modern diplomacy. It argues that to understand such processes, it is useful to focus not on the central features and dominant players of the diplomatic order, that is, states, but rather on what we term the fringe players — non-state entities with diplomatic privileges that are recognized as legitimate players within the diplomatic order on a par with states. We combine two strands of social-scientific literature, namely the literature on institutions and institutional change dynamics with the literature on liminality, to develop an analytical framework helpful in capturing the dynamic of stability and change in institutionalized orders including in the modern diplomatic order. We then apply this framework to analyze the embeddedness and adaptation of three fringe players — the Holy See (HS), the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), and the European Union (EU) — and show how the institutionalized order of modern diplomacy accommodates such actors. By most accounts, these actors do not fit the dominant state-centric pattern characterizing diplomacy since, in conventional interpretations, the Peace of Westphalia. By doing that we show, first, that the modern diplomatic order has hitherto consisted of multiple co-existing old and new diplomatic orders of different historical origin, retaining their relevance; second, that the modern diplomatic order is less state-centric than conventionally assumed and is instead better conceived of as a heteronomy — an order characterized by co-existence of units with structurally and ontologically different principles of growth and operation; and third, that this heteronomous character of the modern diplomatic order renders it more robust and far less susceptible to change than much of the proliferating literature on the changing nature of diplomacy would have it.