Possessive individualism in modern diplomacy: a critical approach to diplomatic theory

Abstract

This paper argues that C. B. Macpherson's political theory of possessive

individualism is useful in furthering a critique of the ontological development of

modem diplomacy, to the extent that diplomatic theory as informed by its practice

has constructed state personhood centered on the exclusive business of the stateaccredited

diplomatic apparatus in its international relations. Given that modem

international society behaves in ways that acknowledge states as proprietors of their

own sovereignty, modem diplomacy as an instrument of the state may be considered

possessive individualist because it affirms a sovereign right over its own capacities to

engage in the conduct of international relations. Existing approaches to diplomatic

theorising are limited because they cast diplomacy within a loss-averse frame with

regard to state sovereignty, privileging the state-accredited diplomatic apparatus and

perpetuating the very relational conditions that necessitate and legitimise such

possessive individualist diplomacy in the first place. A paradoxical problematique

arises from this tension between the possessive individualist frame of diplomatic

theory and the goals of liberal society: it is only through the sharing of oneself that

the individuality can truly be affirmed. Likewise states, and by extension the domain

of diplomacy, must often share their sovereignty in order that their very basis for

sovereignty may be affirmed in the first place.