The Power of Performance: Summit Diplomacy in World Politics

What is this practice that states engage in frequently which we call summit diplomacy? The existing literature in International Relations (IR) has reduced this practice to visits, leader interactions, and negotiations while analytically marginalizing the audience dimension. In this book, I argue that summits produce ritual-like effects of performance that function as a stabilizing mechanism in the international system regardless of leaders' motives or intentions for conducting face-to-face diplomacy.

Using an original dataset of bilateral summits since 1945, survey experiments, and focus group study, I show that summits generate ritual-like elements of the international system, allowing for myriad possibilities and the reimagining of relations of separateness among states, leaders, and the mass. I illustrate my theory by analyzing historic summits involving former or current adversaries during and after the Cold War: between the US and its adversaries (China, Vietnam, Cuba, and North Korea) and in East Asia (Japan-South Korea, inter-Korea, and Taiwan-PRC). The book raises implications for the IR literature on audience cost theory, global governance and public opinion, and the politics of inter-state rapprochement and reconciliation.