“Ambassador, you’re really spoiling us!” Diplomatic gifts and profligate autocrats
Qatar’s “unconditional” gift of a $400 million Boeing 747-8 to Donald Trump serves as a reminder that states have long used diplomatic gifts to impress others, forge bonds, and secure favorable treatment. However, in an age where citizens and media outlets routinely scrutinize public spending, there is good reason to think that not all governments are able to justify lavishing large sums on such interactions. In this paper, we test the claim that autocracies are less constrained in their diplomatic gift giving due to an absence of domestic accountability mechanisms. To evidence this, the authors draw on a dataset of diplomatic gifts presented to U.S. presidents from 2001 to 2018. The results show that autocratic regimes systematically spend more on diplomatic gifts than do democracies. Supplementary analyses suggest that this is, in part, due to new media in democracies being able to criticize profligate diplomatic practices. Interviews with Norwegian diplomats corroborate the importance of domestic media scrutiny in shaping diplomatic gift giving. The article contributes to scholarship that probes the relationship between regime type and public spending, by showing its relevance to diplomatic interactions.
Gull, gaver og goodwill: Diplomati med silkebånd
Hvorfor ga Qatar en Boeing 747 til en verdi av 400 millioner dollar til Donald Trump, mens Norge gjerne bare gir en liten glassisbjørn? I denne ep...
Who Killed the Liberal International Order and What Comes Next?
The Norwegian Centre for Geopolitics invites you to a lecture on the world's most urgent ‘whodunnit’: "Who Killed the Liberal International Order and What Comes Next?".
Who killed the liberal international order and what comes next?
The Norwegian Centre for Geopolitics and NUPI invite you to a lecture on the world's most urgent ‘whodunnit’: "Who Killed the Liberal International Order and What Comes Next?".
The Geography of a U.S.-China War
Øystein Tunsjø (IFS) and Henrik Stålhane Hiim (IFS) believe that the trend of comparing the current US-China relationship with the Cold War is misleading because the geography is different. The rivalry between the US and China is located in maritime East Asia, especially Taiwan, and in a maritime area of operations it is easier to keep a war limited than in a land conflict, which paradoxically lowers the threshold for going to war. At the same time, the threshold for limited use of nuclear weapons is also lower in a maritime scenario.
Navigating a Multiplex World Order
Is the liberal international order coming to an end, and what follows the era of American hegemony? In this episode of The World Stage, Senior Res...
Navigating a Multiplex World Order
Is the liberal international order coming to an end, and what follows the era of American hegemony? In this episode of The World Stage, Senior Res...
How to prevent a direct conflict between Russia and NATO?
How can a direct conflict between Russia and NATO be prevented? This seminar examines the pathways that could lead to war in Europe and the measures that might reduce the risk of escalation.