Centralization of European Diplomacy in Theory

Abstract

The discipline of International Relations (IR) exhibits a bias when it comes to the central players in world politics. As the name suggests, the object of IR study is the interactions and relations between nation-states. Quite ironically however, there is increasing skepticism among IR scholars of the (implicit or explicit) assumption of state-centrality. State power, authority and sovereignty dissipate towards all sides: sideways towards private actors such as multinational corporations (MNCs) or non-governmental organizations (NGOs); downwards to sub national players such as cities; and upwards towards international or supranational organizations (Hanrieder, 1978, p. 1278; Schmidt, 1995; Matthews, 1997; Christiansen, 2000, p. 194; Pierre and Peters, 2000, p. 77; Zielonka, 2007, pp.191–194; Segbers, 2011; cf. Murdoch et al, 2013, p. 3). As a result, renaming the discipline from ‘IR’ to ‘Global Politics’ seems appropriate (Griffiths, 2008; Held et al., 1999, p. 49; McGrew, 2008).