International Relations Theory Course

Applied Essay
Usefulness of practice theory to explain the
endurance of diplomacy in international affairs.

Carlos RAMOS GARCIA

The primary concern of state diplomacy is, as it always has been, about how to deal with the
external world, but the nature and function of diplomacy is changing. New actors are challenging
state-to-state diplomacy. States seek to act through non-state actors and non-state actors act
globally through the state’s diplomatic outreach. Nongovernmental organisations, economists,
lawyers, military professionals and religious actors constitute a new global interface. Non-traditional
types of diplomats increasingly make authority claims that are non-territorial in nature. New forms
of interstate interactions are possible thanks to technology and globalisation (Sending, Pouliot and
Neumann 2011). Indeed, new actors, technologies and functions are impacting diplomacy, but they
are doing so by conforming to the in ways that prolongs established ways of doing things (Pouliot
and Cornut 2015). How is it possible that, while everything else is changing, traditional diplomatic
practices continue to operate in fundamentally the same ways as always?

Many IR theorists have criticized the subfield of diplomatic studies for its focus on apparently
mundane and unimportant aspects of international life, arguing instead that it is the more
fundamental mechanisms and structural forces that are the actual determinants of the balance of
power, the creation of international institutions, and global governance more generally (Pouliot and
Cornut 2015). Having made such claims, they seek to explain the behaviour of international
communities from the overarching view provided by these “big picture” parameters.

Leading IR theories usually explain these behaviours by emphasising change or continuity in

international relations (Davies 2016). Constructivist explanations of change can describe how shared
ideas through social practice and interactions can change the identity and interests of actors.
However, they cannot explain how the same actors perpetuate diplomatic practices that are
inconsistent with or create impediments to the successful enactment of the change. Rational choice
explanations of the same phenomena describe the continuity of diplomatic practices of international
actors compelled to act out of self-interest, under the influence of structures and power relations
that shape their actions in a more or less deterministic way. However, rational choice theories fail to
explain how the same organisations make changes and create institutions that arguably deviate from
the path determined by their framework.

The practice turn

Although for much of IR theory diplomacy is epiphenomenal or redundant, a significant proportion
of practice–theoretical studies have focus on it. This is not a surprise taking into account the focus of
practice theories on social practices. By focussing on diplomatic day-to-day practices, practice
theorists are able to gain insights into routine aspects of diplomacy that are regarded by much IR
theories as anecdotic. One example is that, in spite of the shifting purposive and strategic nature of
diplomacy, practice theories can explain how it rests on forms of practical knowledge that remain
poorly understood in IR theory. More importantly, unlike leading accounts of IR, practice theories
can offer accounts of continuity and change in world politics where one does not exclude the
possibility of the other. “[P]ractice theory provides the analytical granularity needed to capture the
dual dynamics of stability and change in world politics. The study of innovation starts from what
practitioners actually do, by looking at the ways in which they create functional patterns of action
out of established ways of doing things.” (Pouliot and Cornut 2015)

Communities of practice
The focus on practice as the core unit of analysis allows practice-theorists to understand the
endurance of diplomacy, not as result of rational choices within of a deterministic exogenous
ideational structures or conditioned by power relations, but as social reproduction through practice.
For practice theorist, the “world is filled not, in the first instance, with facts and observations, but
with agency” (Pickering 1995). As practice is the repetition of patterns, practice theories offer an
account of such patterns as the result of historical intersubjective social structures; “social order is
thus basically social reproduction” (Reckwitz 2002). Wenger’s (Wenger 1998) asserted that such
practice or social reproduction is organized in community structures, or what he called a community
of practice.

Emanuel Adler introduced the framework of Communities of Practice to IR theory in 2005, in his
book Communitarian International Relations. According to Adler, “Communities of practice cut
across state-boundaries and mediate between states, individuals, and human agency, on one hand,
and social structures and systems, on the other”(Adler 2005 bold is mine). In this way, a Community
of Practice framework offers a dynamic concept, which allows for a consistent understanding of
continuity and change not only in communities geographically bounded, but also in the international
arena.

A Community of Practice framework revolves around two core notions (Bueger and Gadinger 2014):
first, that learning is a core mechanism of practice, and second, that practice is organised in
community structures. Therefore, any community of practice is produced by and reproduced in a
collective process of learning. These notions of production and reproduction of communities of
practice can be certainly applied to the study of diplomacy as ‘an old fashioned tradition coexisting
with far-reaching innovation’ (Pouliot and Cornut 2015).

Communities of practice are intersubjective social patterns of structures with fixed meanings where
learning occur. Both change and continuity of diplomatic groups take place within communities of
practice. New collective meanings and agendas, as well as the establishment and reproduction of
discourses occur among people that have a shared interest in new learnings and applying a common
set of intersubjective social patterns of structures, in other word, practices (Adler 2005). These
structures are the epistemic and normative ground where diplomatic practices take place and as
such provide the continuity that explains the endurance of diplomacy in a changing environment.
The new stand on the shoulders of the old.

Diplomats are also agents, “real people who affect the course of political, economic, and social
events via networks, channels, across national borders, via organisational divides, and in the halls of
governments.” However, as long as their social patterns of structures persist diplomatic communities
of practice are able to retain their collective understandings despite changes of function, actors and
membership turnovers. Even “when change occurs, new and innovative practices need to be
synchronous with the past in order to resonate in the present” (Pouliot and Cornut 2015).

By offering a vocabulary that moves from a logic of representations to a logic of practice, practice
theorising transcends the structure-agency divide that peppers IR theory. Instead of focusing on
representations of a matrix of choices and what options diplomats choose from, practice theories
focus on how decisions are made. In sum, back to the question of how is it possible that, while
everything else if changing, traditional diplomatic practices continue to operate in fundamentally the
same ways as always: diplomats do not choose among a set of (rational) choices every time that they
take a decision. Where they sit determines where they stand (Davies 2016). A quote from Cooper
and Pouliot summarises an explanation that practice theories offer to the endurance of diplomacy:
“Practice rests on established ways of doing things, which does not preclude deviation,
improvisation and calculation but, rather, defines the scope of agency. Practices structure
interactions and that is arguably why they tend to exhibit some regularity over time (Cooper and
Pouliot 2015).
Application of practice theories
The applicability of communities of practice approach to international relations has come under
considerable critique. An important criticism concerns whether this concept can be applied to
transnational collectives (Bueger and Gadinger 2014). Traditional notions of what is regarded as a
community of practice require more or less intense interaction among the members, who to some
extent should be geographically bounded. As Bueger and Gardiner pointed out, Adler quickly jumps
scale to quickly in two sentences when suggesting that “Wenger [ ... ] has dealt mainly with domestic
or national communities of practice. There is no reason, however, why we should not be able to
identify transnational or even global communities of practice” (Adler 2005).

However, despite claims that further research is needed around questions of scale and size, some
scholars have already proved the usefulness of practice theories to understand continuity and
change in key international communities. For reasons of space, I summarise only two examples.
These examples are representative because they deal with the problem of the coexistence of
continuity and change in organisations and its relation to diplomacy, which mainstream IR theories
fail to explain.

Cooper and Pouliot explained the odd combination of transformation with the reproduction of the
Western dominated global order through G20 practices. “On the one hand, the G20 has more
inductees who operate along new rules of the game and under a new multilateral ethos of
difference. But, on the other hand, the G20 still comprises self-appointed rulers, with arbitrary rules
of membership and many processes of co-option and discipline” (Cooper and Pouliot 2015).

Cooper and Pouliot, showed how the structuring effects that practices produce are at the source of
both such stability and change in the G20, and by extension in global governance. They asserted
that, “[w]ithout the high level of granularity that practice offers, as a unit of analysis, it is not
possible to tell the old from the new in shifting global conditions.” While they do not dismiss the
importance of how the redistribution of power affects diplomatic practices, their focus on “the way
of doing things” provides an insightful empirical account of how the G20 both transforms and
reproduces global governance, and clarifies the role of diplomatic practices as a bottom up force
structuring its own oligarchic nature.

Mathew Davies (Davies 2016) explains how existing approaches from mainstream International
Relations theorising are unable to adequately explain continuity and change in ASEAN diplomatic
practices. Despite change in the aims, institutions and informal diplomacy of ASEAN since 1997,
including the global financial crisis, ASEAN’s formal diplomatic code of conduct has remained the
same since the 1970s. Davies uses practice theories, and specifically, Bourdieu’s notions of field,
practice sense, and habitus, to explain the endurance of ASEAN’s diplomatic code. He found that
diplomatic practice has created a habitus1, which constitute an ASEAN “unthinking and reflexive”
rationality that supports automatic expectations perpetuating ASEAN traditional diplomacy. ASEAN,
he claims, is a discreet Bourdieu’s field2 (the direct diplomatic negotiations of all members within
ASEAN itself and about ASEAN issues set the boundaries of this field) to which the ASEAN habitus is

1
Habitus is a “system of lasting, transposable dispositions which, integrating past experiences, functions at
every moment as a matrix of perceptions, appreciations, and actions” Bourdieu, P. (1972). "Outline of a Theory
of Practice." Trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2
Field for Bourdieu, is a social space structured along three principal dimensions: power relations, objects of
struggle, and the rules taken for granted within the field Pouliot, V. (2008). "The Logic of Practicality: A Theory
of Practice of Security Communities." International Organization 62(2): 257-288.
linked. This link allows Davies to explain the dissonance between the continuity of the diplomatic
elite’s adherence to ASEAN diplomatic code, and the fact that the member states that they work for
(and that are not part of this same discreet field or community of practice) violate it on a daily basis.

Conclusion
By taking the concept of practice as the fundamental unit of analysis, practice theories can explain
the endurance of diplomacy in a rapidly changing environment. Their logic of practice transcends the
logic of representations that divide IR theory into antinomies like change and continuity, and
provides the analytical tools needed to capture the dual dynamics of stability and change in world
politics. Much more work needs to be done to harvest all the possibilities that the practice turn
offers to a better understanding of international relations, but the field is already proving to be very
promising.

References
Adler, E. (2005). Communitarian International Relations: The Epistemic Foundations of International
Relations, Taylor & Francis.

Bourdieu, P. (1972). "Outline of a Theory of Practice." Trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Bueger, C. and F. Gadinger (2014). International practice theory: new perspectives, Springer.

Cooper, A. F. and V. Pouliot (2015). "How much is global governance changing? The G20 as
international practice." Cooperation and Conflict 50(3): 334-350.

Davies, M. (2016). "A community of practice: explaining change and continuity in ASEAN's diplomatic
environment." The Pacific Review 29(2): 211-233.
Sending Ole Jacob. Pouliot, Vincent. and Neumann Iver B. (2011) "The Future of Diplomacy".
International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis Vol 66, Issue 3, pp. 527 - 542

Pickering, A. (1995). "The Mangle of Practice: Agency and Emergence in the Sociology of Science."
American Journal of Sociology 99(3): 559-589.

Pouliot, V. (2008). "The Logic of Practicality: A Theory of Practice of Security Communities."

International Organization 62(2): 257-288.

Pouliot, V. and J. Cornut (2015). "Practice theory and the study of diplomacy: A research agenda."
Cooperation and Conflict 50(3): 297-315.

Reckwitz, A. (2002). "Toward a Theory of Social Practices." European Journal of Social Theory 5(2):
243-263.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge university
press.