Diplomatic training

Histories, geographies, politics

By: Ruth Craggs (Editor), Jonathan Harris (Editor), Fiona McConnell (Editor)

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Hardcover | 10 February 2026

At a Glance

Hardcover
274 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.4 x 15.6 x 1.5

Hardcover

$239.79

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Despite the essential role diplomatic training plays in the everyday workings of international relations, international law and in the various multilateral organisations, this practice has received little critical attention in the humanities, social and political sciences. Bringing together detailed accounts of the histories, development and contemporary practices of diplomatic training with insights from key practitioners, this edited collection places training centrally within our understanding of international relations. It argues that diplomatic training both reflects and reproduces hegemonic power relations, whilst at the same time offering opportunities to contest them, and imagine alternative futures. The book includes a substantive introduction, nine full-length chapters from a range of disciplinary and regional perspectives drawing on archival research, oral history, interviews, and ethnographic methods, and four 'interventions': reflection pieces from trainers and directors of training programmes. It offers a globe-spanning, interdisciplinary account of the politics of diplomatic training and appeals to both scholarly and practitioner audiences.

Industry Reviews

'With their broad and illuminating perspective, Ruth Craggs, Jonathan Harris and Fiona McConnell draw on legal, historical and political studies of the European experience to offer a fresh and global approach to the content, sites and power dynamics of diplomatic training. Bringing together specialists in the field and practitioners to discuss the approaches proposed in their remarkable introduction, they take the reader from the 1960s to the 2020s, from Africa to Latin America, via Iran and the Balkans. This pioneering book, which will be very useful for anyone involved in diplomatic academies and other training institutes, is also expected to become a reference work for historians.' Laurence Badel, Paris 1 Panth©on-Sorbonne

'For a profession historically associated with tact, charm, and judgements of "taste" - all regarded as redoubts of elite privilege and stubbornly untrainable - the rise of formal diplomatic training in the twentieth century, especially since decolonization, should have attracted widespread scholarly interest and attention. This hasn't been the case, and that makes this new book a major contribution to the study of diplomacy and international relations. Over 9 chapters by scholars and 7 "reflection pieces" from practitioners, this edited book uses up-close pedagogic encounters of diplomatic training across world regions to examine how training bureaucratically includes and excludes; produces and performs the "international"; and funnels hegemonic visions of the world yet also allows actors to contest these visions. With its empirically rich chapters and far-reaching insights, the book will be of interest to a wide range of readers in the humanities and social sciences.' Deepak Nair, Australian National University

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