Introduction

This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part discusses the project is to link the classic story and its paradigms to the concept of diplomatic types. Theories help frame the world and that the lenses used, affect the ability to examine, interpret, and predict events in the world. The argument is that the continuing evolution of the European states-system has produced two models and that other factors have combined to create a third model that is becoming increasingly visible in contemporary world affairs. As states themselves have continued to shift and evolve both in terms of economic structures of industrialization and political governance from what some have identified as premodern to modern, and finally, to ‘postmodern’, the diplomacy of the western/Westphalian/European states-system has also changed.