The Many Faces of Power in Diplomatic Negotiations

Abstract

As a central theme in international relations, power has enjoyed a remarkable level of empirical attention and policy-making fervor. Yet, despite such scrutiny, the concept of power remains surprisingly elusive, lacking definitional uniformity and suffering from reductionist approaches aimed at operationalizing its complex nature. The aim of this paper is to address this apparent cacophony and offer a nuanced synthesis of various forms of power that manifest in international affairs. As a very vibrant sub-discipline of IR, diplomacy (and its surrogate, peacemaking) offer(s) a unique frame of reference through which all of the idiosyncrasies of power in IR can be observed. Therefore, build- ing from an extensive range of studies that addressed various sources and manifestations of power, this paper puts forward a comprehensive framework of different sources and manifestations of power. While they all exhibit unique features that are easily observable in practice, this paper will show that they are also context-dependent and perceptive by nature. As such, power is neither equal to a sum of possessions nor a sum of results, but rather a dynamic that should be assessed through action and reaction of participat- ing actors, and through the nexus of will (interests and resources) and skill (ability to translate the resources into a desired outcome).