Diplomatic Training

This collection provides the first book-length critical engagement with diplomatic training. 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.

Across the chapters, the book demonstrates that diplomatic training both reflects and reproduces hegemonic power relations, whilst at the same time offering opportunities to contest them and imagine alternative futures. Bringing together insights from practitioners of diplomatic training alongside chapters exploring the practice from a range of disciplinary perspectives, the book provides an essential insight into the history, geography and politics of diplomatic training as it expanded throughout the twentieth century and as it is conducted today. Through these diverse insights, the book asks us to recognise the central role of diplomatic training in making and remaking the profession and practice of diplomacy, and with it, international society as a whole.

The book will be of interest to interdisciplinary scholars of diplomacy, diplomatic training practitioners, and academics in the field of history, politics, International Relations and geography.