Diplomacy does not take place simply between states but wherever people live in different groups. Paul Sharp argues that the demand for diplomacy, and the need for the insights of diplomatic theory, are on the rise. In contrast to conventional texts which use international relations theories to make sense of what diplomacy and diplomats do, this book explores what diplomacy and diplomats can contribute to the big theoretical and practical debates in international relations today. Paul Sharp identifies a diplomatic tradition of international thought premised on the way people live in groups, the differences between intra-and inter-group relations, and the perspectives which those who handle inter-group relations develop about the sorts of international disputes which occur. He argues that the lessons of diplomacy are that we should be reluctant to judge, ready to appease, and alert to the partial grounds on which most universal claims about human beings are made. paul sharp is Professor and Head of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.

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People engaged in international relations/international studies (IR/IS) should study more diplomacy, especially since diplomacy is reviving in the aftermath of the Cold War. In methodological and theoretical terms, diplomacy has fallen afoul of the old arguments between diplomatic historians and IR/IS theorists. In prescriptive terms, it has fallen foul of critical perspectives on states, their practices, and their rationales. Advocates of diplomacy and its study have also contributed to its isolation by presenting it as an exclusive and esoteric practice. Nevertheless, an opportunity now exists to bring the study of diplomacy to center stage in IR/IS, and in so doing, to revive the flagging conversations among its subfields. Perspectives that focus on the construction of ambiguous identities offer a way of reinterpreting diplomacy, providing a richer account than positivist approaches. Diplomacy, seen in terms of representation of constructed identities, is not a residual of the modern state system, but transcends it and constitutes that which is particular to the kinds of human relations in which IR/IS is interested.

We hypothesize that cultural appreciation of hard work and thrift, the Protestant ethic according to Max Weber, had a pre-Reformation origin. The proximate source of these values was, according to the proposed theory, the Catholic Order of Cistercians. In support, we first document an impact from the Order on growth within the epicenter of the industrial revolution; English counties that were more exposed to Cistercian monasteries experienced faster productivity growth from the 13th century onwards.Consistent with a cultural influence, this impact is also found after the monasteries were dissolved in the 1530s. Second, we find that the values emphasized by Weber are relatively more pervasive in European regions where Cistercian monasteries were located historically, and that the legacy of the Cistercians can be detected in present-day employment rates across European sub-regions.

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We consider the successful early emergence of cooperative creameries in Denmark in the late nineteenth century within the framework of the 'new institutional economics' presented by Williamson (2000). Previous work has focused on the social cohesion of the Danes, but we demonstrate that this was not sufficient for the success. The Danish legal system, which we compare to that of other countries, was also of crucial importance, along with the way in which rules were monitored and enforced. Of particular importance was the Danish cooperatives' use of contracts, which we explore with evidence from a variety of primary and secondary sources.

Why did the establishment of cooperative creameries in late nineteenth century Ireland fail to halt the relative decline of her dairy industry compared to other emerging producers? This paper compares the Irish experience with that of the market leader, Denmark, and shows how each adopted the cooperative organizational form, but highlights that an important difference was institutional: specifically regarding the enforcement of vertically binding contracts. We argue that this failure, combined with a strong proprietary sector which was opposed to cooperation, reinforced the already difficult conditions for dairying in Ireland due to poor social capital.

We argue for a new approach to examining the relationship between tariffs and growth. We demonstrate that more can be learned from time series analyses of the experience of individual countries rather than the usual panel data approach, which imposes a causal relation and presents an average coefficient for all countries. Tentative initial results using simple two variable cointegrated VAR models suggest considerable heterogeneity in the experiences of the countries we look at. For most, however, there was a negative relationship between tariffs and levels of income for both the preand post-Second World War periods. However, in the second half of the twentieth century, the causality ran from income to tariffs: i.e. countries simply liberalized as they got richer. Policy decisions based on the usual panel approach might thus be very inappropriate for individual countries. Abstract: We argue for a new approach to examining the relationship between tariffs and growth. We demonstrate that more can be learned from time series analyses of the experience of individual countries rather than the usual panel data approach, which imposes a causal relation and presents an average coefficient for all countries. Tentative initial results using simple two variable cointegrated VAR models suggest considerable heterogeneity in the experiences of the countries we look at. For most, however, there was a negative relationship between tariffs and levels of income for both the pre-and post-Second World War periods. KeywordsHowever, in the second half of the twentieth century, the causality ran from income to tariffs:i.e. countries simply liberalized as they got richer. Policy decisions based on the usual panel approach might thus be very inappropriate for individual countries.JEL codes: F1, F4, N1, N7, O2