The Power of Performance: Summit Diplomacy and World Politics

What is this institutionalized practice that states frequently engage in, which we call summit diplomacy? The existing literature in International Relations (IR) has reduced this practice to visits, leader interactions, and negotiations while analytically overlooking its publicness. In this book, I draw on sociology and social psychology to offer a macro-sociological account of a type of diplomatic practice and institution that has become prevalent in international relations since 1945. I argue that summits are performances (re)producing the international system as a social space where states (re)affirm or build relations in both intended and unintended ways in policy rhetoric and discourse, as well as in the public discourse of lay people. The effect of the performance is that summits mediate estrangement not only among states, but between leaders and people, and between home and foreign publics by encapsulating and giving material form to abstract ideas and concepts of the international system and international relations. 

Using original archives and survey experiments,  I illustrate my theory by highlighting the performance aspects of summits and how these produce and even change beliefs about world politics in both policymakers and the public. To encapsulate the performance effect, I look at summits that are politically and strategically controversial - the first bilateral summits between the US and its adversaries (China, Soviet Union, Vietnam, Cuba, and North Korea). 

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.