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Abstract
This article considers the role of the Scandinavian states in the establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice (pcij) and how the construction of the pcij and the wider League of Nations shaped Scandinavian legal diplomacy. It does so by analyzing legal-diplomatic practices within five significant diplomatic arenas between 1917 and 1920, from the early Scandinavian committee work, via the Advisory Committee of Jurists to the First League Assembly. Our article argues that we need to be attuned to how the emergence of the League of Nations and the particular sequence of multilateral negotiations that led to the creation of the pcij transformed Scandinavian (legal) internationalism and aligned the three countries to the new international order.
Abstract
Swedish financier, philanthropist, and progressive Olof Aschberg played a dynamic, but “forgotten” role in the contacts between international labor, Western finance, and Soviet power across the world wars. We first suggest Aschberg can be studied as a converter of different forms of capital as well as a trader in trust in between the practices of diplomacy and entrepreneurship. We then outline Aschberg’s wide-ranging activities drawing upon existing secondary literature in lieu of a more systematic study of his life. Third, we concentrate on his interwar solidarity work and anti-fascism based in Paris. We analyze, fourth, his cultural diplomacy and publishing activities out of New York in between the Second World War and the early Cold War. Finally, we argue that Aschberg’s multi-positional and variegated vita illustrates the merit of employing entrepreneurship, in its most broad sense, as an analytical category for investigating the art and practice of citizen diplomacy.
Abstract
Using the negotiations of the 1979 Convention on Long-Rage Transboundary Air Pollution as a case, this article examines the characteristics of Nordic environmental diplomacy. Through a Nordic perspective, it investigates the practices, dynamics, and motives of Nordic cooperation on atmospheric pollution within an international context. It argues that Nordic environmental diplomacy was anchored in regional Nordic cooperation, facilitating a fluid and multi-layered collaboration at the international scene. By revealing this complexity of Nordic environmental diplomacy, the article nuances the diplomatic accounts focusing on single countries, emphasizing the multi-ownership of ideas and achievements. Furthermore, by exploring the motivational, organization, and practical traits of Nordic environmental diplomacy, it proposes to characterize Nordic environmental diplomacy as green internationalism, a self-interested international environmentalism resting upon a shared sense of Nordic solidarity and institutional cooperation.
Abstract
The article addresses central problems in the field of small state studies. By revisiting Paul W. Schroeder’s often neglected term “intermediary bodies” in the international system, it attempts to provide a broader conceptual alternative to established categories of description and definition such as “smallness” and “weakness.” In Schroeder’s understanding, intermediary bodies affect the international system beyond functioning as mere buffers. Ultimately, intermediaries influence procedures and outcomes substantially and transcend international politics to another level beyond mere (great) power politics. The subsequent remarks explore the utility and viability of the term by practically applying it to two historical examples: the Danish unitary monarchy within the German Confederation and the role of Finland as an intermediary during, before, and beyond the Cold War. Schroeder’s concept is thereby introduced into varying international contexts and bridges the gap between the history of the 19th century international system and the later modern period.
Abstract
Communication plays a vital role in diplomacy, especially in multilateral settings. Historians of World War ii diplomacy have long neglected the potential of the foreign-language print media originating with the Allied European exiles. Publicity helped the Norwegian government retain two assets of supreme importance to every exile representation – credibility and agency. Norwegian efforts in this realm manifest resourcefulness: several formats have been employed to generate visibility, reciprocity, and reputation, or to transmit positions on the international order in the making. Moreover, content analysis elucidates the transformation of Norwegian internationalism from inter-war liberal propositions towards a more “realist” understanding.
Abstract
This article examines the role of artwork in the diplomatic practice of international organizations and how this relates to the foreign policy of the member states. Although the relationship between artwork and diplomacy has received some scholarly attention, the specific relationship between artwork and international organizations has rarely been covered in academic literature. To that end, the article will analyze the art collection located in the Dutch delegation at nato headquarters. It attempts to establish how the individual artworks in this collection collectively form a narrative, and how this narrative reflects Dutch foreign policy in relation to nato. The article will conclude that the collection reflects, and – through the discursive power of the artworks – comments on, Dutch foreign policy in relation to nato by (over-) emphasizing notions of “neutrality” and anti-militarism, as well as Dutch contributions to the nato-led isaf in Afghanistan.
Abstract
In the 1970s, United Nations debates on human rights and economic inequality were deeply shaped by the New International Economic Order (nieo) advocated by the developing countries and the basic needs development strategy championed by the World Bank and the United States. This article uses archives from Sweden, Denmark, and Norway as well as UN records, to examine the contributions Scandinavian diplomats and policymakers made to these debates. It demonstrates that the Scandinavians took a favorable position on both the nieo and basic needs, viewing them as complementary strategies to realize economic and social human rights. This view matched their activist foreign policies centered on UN diplomacy, human rights, and Global South solidarity. Finally, the article argues that the Scandinavian position reflected and was underpinned by a broad conception of human rights that put economic and social rights on an even footing with civil and political rights.