Abstract
Summitry has become an established part of the political interactions of states in the twentieth century. Not only has ‘summitry’ become an established term, but so too has the panoply of associated language, such as ‘pre-summit’ ‘base camp’ meetings prepared and supported by staff known as ‘sherpas’.1 Neither the activity of this type of diplomacy, however, nor the level at which these interactions take place are new. Indeed the practice of sovereigns meeting to discuss their affairs is one which pre-dates the establishment of resident embassies in the fifteenth century, and was also a commonplace of court weddings and funerals. Meetings were also arranged for specific purposes, such as the conference arranged by King Vortigen of Kent with the Jutish chieftains of Horsa and Hengist in AD 449 in order to solicit support against the Picts and the Scots.2 A further example is provided by the meeting of Napoleon and Alexander I of Russia on a raft in the middle of the river Niemen near Tilset in East Prussia in 1807 to discuss relations between their two states. What is unique to the present age, however, is the frequency with which these meetings take place, and the extent to which they have replaced more established and traditional methods of diplomatic discourse.3 Huge periods of time each year in the diaries of world leaders are now blocked off for pre-scheduled meetings of various international organizations. Further time is also consumed by meetings at short notice, either in bilateral or multilateral settings. This chapter sets out to explain the origins and the evolution of this development in international politics. Firstly it will explain various factors which have promoted the development of meetings at this level. It will then analyse the various ways in which the concept has been broadened in its usage to reflect a much wider type of high-level meeting. The pitfalls of such usage will be examined in an attempt to construct a more useful and durable definition.
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Notes and References
The term ‘sherpas’ refers to the local bearers who assist mountaineers in the Himalayas. It was a name which entered the diplomatic lexicon at the same time as ‘summits’ as a result of the publicity surrounding the first successful ascent of Everest in 1953.
Charles Roetter, The Diplomatic Art (London, Sidgwick and Jackson, 1965), p. 199.
Abba Eban, The New Diplomacy: International Affairs In The Modern Age (New York, Random House, 1983), p. 359.
Churchill, cited by Eban, The New Diplomacy, p. 360.
Ibid., p. 358.
Sir Harold Nicolson, Diplomacy (Washington DC, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, 1988), p. 52. See also Charles Thayer, Diplomat (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1959).
Eban, The New Diplomacy, p. 359.
Keith Eubank, The Summit Conferences, 1919–1960 (Norman, Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), p. 196.
R. Schaetzel and H. B. Malmgren, ‘Talking Heads’, Foreign Policy, no. 39 (Summer 1980), p. 130.
Eban, The New Diplomacy, p. 361.
Ibid., p. 358.
Roetter, The Diplomatic Art, p. 208.
Sir Ernest Satow, Guide to Diplomatic Practice, ed. Lord Gore-Booth, 5th edn (London, Longman, 1979), p. 438.
S. Jenkins and A. Sloman, With Respect, Ambassador: An Inquiry into the Foreign Office (London, British Broadcasting Corporation, 1985), p. 129.
See G. R. Berridge, ‘Diplomacy After Death: The Rise of the Working Funeral’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, vol. 4, no. 2 (July 1993).
G. R. Berridge, International Politics: States, Power, and Conflict Since 1945, 2nd edn (London, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992), p. 200.
Geoffrey Howe, Conflict of Loyalty (London, Macmillan, 1994), p. 354.
George Ball, Diplomacy for a Crowded World (Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1976), p. 31.
Richard Nixon, ‘Superpower Summits’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 64, no. 1 (1985), p. 1.
Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: An American Life (London, Hutchinson, 1990), p. 634. See also Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1994), chapter 30.
See Phil Williams, ‘West European Security After Reykjavik’, The Washington Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 2 (Spring 1987), and Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (London, Harper Collins, 1993), who observed, ‘My own reaction when I heard how far the Americans had been prepared to go was as if there had been an earthquake beneath my feet’ (p. 471).
Joseph Stalin, Sochineniya (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatelstov Politicheskoi Literaturi, 1946) vol. 2, pp. 276–7, cited by Henry Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (London, Norton & Company, 1969), p. 60.
Sir Geoffrey Jackson, Concord Diplomacy: The Ambassador’s Role in the World Today (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1981), p. 17.
Gordon Craig, ‘The Professional Diplomat and His Problems, 1919–1939’, World Politics (January 1952), p. 151. Cited by Eban, The New Diplomacy, p. 360.
Howe, Conflict of Loyalty, p. 395.
Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, p. 463. Thatcher was particularly at odds with the established bureaucracy over SDI, she being more in sympathy with the US position on several issues. For her, ‘neither the Foreign Office nor the Ministry of Defence took SDI sufficiently seriously’ (p. 464).
Eban, The New Diplomacy, p. 366.
Howe, Conflict of Loyalty, p. 394.
Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, p. 464.
Howe recounts how US Secretary of State George Shultz had remarked that ‘his perception of the gap between Margaret [Thatcher] and [Foreign Secretary] Francis Pym had prompted him to discount the latter’. Ibid.
Thatcher preferred one-to-one meetings as these comments on meetings with Gorbachev and Reagan illustrate: ‘The atmosphere was more formal than at Chequers and the silent, sardonic presence of Mr Gromyko did not help’; and, ‘I had brought Geoffrey Howe [Treasury] and Michael Heseltine [Defence] with me for my meeting and working lunch with the President, which made for a more stilted and less satisfactory conversation than on other occasions. (I did not bring them again).’ Ibid., p. 469.
R. P. Barston, Modern Diplomacy (London, Longman, 1989), p. 95.
Ibid.
These themes are developed by Richard Hodder-Williams in chapter 9.
Satow, Guide to Diplomatic Practice, p. 439.
D. C. Watt, ‘Summits and Summitry Reconsidered’, International Relations, II (1963), pp. 493–04. See also Keith Hamilton and Richard Langhorne, The Practice of Diplomacy (London, Routledge, 1995), pp. 221–3.
Ibid.
Ball, Diplomacy for a Crowded World, p. 34.
Time, 11 September 1995.
Elmer Plischke, Modern Diplomacy: The Art and the Artisans (Washington DC, American Enterprise Institute, 1979), p. 171.
Ibid., p. 170. My italics.
Ibid., pp. 174–5.
Hamilton and Langhorne, The Practice of Diplomacy, p. 222.
As Manheim explains, in the US ‘the choice offered to visiting chief executives is between ceremony and substance. The State and official visits offer more of the former, including ample photo/video opportunities, and appear to carry more prestige. Working visits, on the other hand, command more “quality time” with the president.’ Jarol B. Manheim, Strategic Public Diplomacy and American Foreign Policy (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 65.
G. R. Berridge, Diplomacy: Theory and Practice (London, Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1995), p. 83.
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© 1996 David H. Dunn
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Dunn, D.H. (1996). What is Summitry?. In: Dunn, D.H. (eds) Diplomacy at the Highest Level. Studies in Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24915-2_1
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