ABSTRACT
Diplomacy as we know it today is essentially a function of the modern state: its relations with other states, with the institutionalized alliances and groupings which it or other states may form, and with omnilateral or general organizations like the United Nations. Beyond this dialogue between states and their representatives there is a penumbra of diplomacy where one of the interlocutors to the dialogue is not another state, but nevertheless a significant actor on the international scene: for instance, a political movement that aims to set up a new state, such as the Palestine Liberation Organization, or to take over an existing one, or else an international body such as a church (other than the Vatican which is regarded as a state), or a commercial organization like an oil company. The forms and mechanisms of contemporary diplomacy have been inherited largely from the European states system. That system was a much more homogeneous and closely knit international society than the present disparate global one. Also the range of subjects which now regularly come into the diplomatic dialogue has greatly increased since the system expanded geographically. Consequently the inherited European forms, which had been subject to continual evolution and change even in the European system, are today fairly bursting at some of their seams, and visibly in transition. But as often happens with conventions, it matters less what exactly the rules are than that everyone observes them so that behaviour is predictable; and it is impressive how much of the machinery of European diplomacy is still in active use.
