Halvard Leira

The Emergence of Foreign Policy

International relations scholarship typically treats foreign policy as a taken-for-granted analytical concept. It assumes either that all historical polities have foreign policies or that foreign policy originates in seventeenth-century Europe with the separation between the “inside” and “outside”...

Kinship diplomacy, or diplomats of a kin

Familiarity breeds contempt, or so the idiom goes, and historically there are ample examples of how family-ties and blood kinship have not fostered peaceful cooperation. By contrast, metaphorical kinship has been seen to grease the wheels of diplomacy, creating and sustaining ties between different polities...

The Function of Myths in International Relations: Discipline and Identity

Myths, understood as forms of narrative, providing meaning and significance, are an inescapable part of the life of human collectives. Thus, myths are central to any academic discipline. They tell us who we are and what we should be concerned with, and provide blueprints for arguments about policy choices....

Utenrikspolitikk - en begrepshistorie

Artikkelen tar opp spørsmålet om når Norge fikk en egen utenrikspolitikk, og gir svar gjennom en begrepshistorisk analyse. Tidligere forslag har vært middelalderen, med etableringen av relasjoner mellom norske konger og andre konger, slutten av 1700-tallet, med etableringen av et eget departement i København...

Old diplomacy

Old diplomacy is a term which has been used both politically and analytically since the French Revolution. Politically, it emerged as a term of abuse, used to criticize all which had been wrong with interstate interaction before 1789, in particular secrecy, duplicity, and the reliance on aristocracy....

New Diplomacy

New diplomacy is a term which has been used both politically and analytically since the French Revolution. It was introduced as a positive contrast to the old diplomacy of kings and intrigues, and was concerned primarily with trade. Such a liberal understanding has remained predominant – new diplomacy...

Moral authority and status in International Relations: Good states and the social dimension of status seeking

We develop scholarship on status in international politics by focusing on the social dimension of small and middle power status politics. This vantage opens a new window on the widely-discussed strategies social actors may use to maintain and enhance their status, showing how social creativity, mobility,...

Caring and Carers: Diplomatic Personnel and the Duty of Care

This article deals with the duty of care that states hold in relation to their citizens abroad — more specifically, the double role of diplomatic personnel, as both providers and recipients of care. The focus of discussion is states’ duty of care for diplomatic personnel, raising questions of how this...

The Making of a Classic: On Diplomacy 30 Years On.

In this article, Halvard Leira makes the case for On Diplomacy (published in 1987) being a classic in the making of International Relations, and engages the central notion of diplomacy understood as "the mediation of estrangement".

Norsk språk taper

Hvis vi fortsatt vil ha forskning på norsk om Norge, trenger vi en ny kurs i forskningspolitikken, skriver kronikkforfatterne.