why countries cut ties in peacetime

Why Countries Cut Ties in Peace-Time Aila Lonka

Abstract

Why do states formally sever diplomatic relations with other states, when there is no

recent history of military conflict or threat thereof between them? I argue that before

the 1960's diplomatic sanctions were a prelude to war, but have since then changed in

meaning and use. This study uses speech act theory to analyze Armenia's decision to

cut ties with Hungary in 2012 after Hungary's extradition of the prisoner Ramil

Safarov to Azerbaijan. The performative declaration of disengagement redefined the

nature of the relationship between the two countries then and there, creating a new

institutional fact. Diplomatic sanctions are being used to send fine-tuned costly

signals of disapproval to other countries and to a domestic as well as an international

audience. The different signals can be ordered on an escalation ladder of disapproval.

Cutting diplomatic ties can be placed in the middle of the ladder, being more severe

than a public expression of concern or a condemnation, but less severe than non-

recognition or military intervention.

Keywords: diplomatic sanctions, disengagement, speech act theory, Armenia, Hungary, Safarov case

"... time and again they met in parliaments ... with mouthfuls of soft air

... only soft air to underwrite the in-built violence of being ..."

Christopher Logue, War Music, 2003: 203

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Introduction All of the world's countries maintain diplomatic relations with other countries. On

average each country has bilateral relations with 40% if the world's countries

(Appendix 1,2). Diplomatic relations must bring some significant gains or not having

relations is costlier than having them. It is not surprising that states would want to

withdraw diplomatic personnel in the time leading up to a military confrontation or in

the event of a deteriorating security situation in a host country. But why do it when

there is no threat or intention of military conflict? Since the 1960's it has become a

growing trend to pull back your diplomats and close your embassy to show

disapproval of another state (Berridge, 1994: 7). Is it different from publicly

condemning the country in question? Some states have upheld diplomatic isolation of

other states for decades without engaging in any military conflict with the country in

question. Why bear the costs of diplomatic non-engagement in a non-conflict1

situation?

Research question

Why do states formally sever 2 diplomatic relations with other states,

when there is no recent history of military conflict or threat thereof

between them?

This paper will explore peace-time3 severance of diplomatic ties. The paper does not

focus on cases of non-recognition4. It does not attempt to determine whether a break

1 Non-conflict in this paper is short for non-military conflict. 2 The paper also uses the verbs: cut, break, or breach diplomatic relations interchangeably. 2 The paper also uses the verbs: cut, break, or breach diplomatic relations interchangeably. These are taken to mean the same as diplomatic disengagement, non-engagement or diplomatic sanctions. 3 "Peace-time" or "non-conflict environment" between two states is taken to be when none of the parties have been in military conflict with each other recently and do not expect military

Why Countries Cut Ties in Peace-Time

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in diplomatic ties is the most effective response to a dispute between two states. This

question has been dealt with elsewhere (Maller 2009, 2011, and Carney, 2012). These

studies concluded that it rarely, if ever, an effective response. I rather try to explore

the justifications for diplomatic disengagement in non-conflict environments,

visualized in the figure below.

Figure 1

It is necessary to specify, what I mean when I say a country has cut diplomatic ties

with another country. According to Berridge (1994), a formal breach in diplomatic

relations is when one party to a bilateral relationship indicates that it no longer wants

to conduct conventional diplomatic relations via formally accredited missions with

the other. In consequence it withdraws its own mission from the receiving state and

requires the latter to recall its own diplomats (Berridge, 1994: 3). This definition will

be applied throughout this study.

conflict with one another in the near future. The terms 'recently' and 'near future' are used because creating a cut-off point, for instance 20 years, is artificial and fails to capture all relevant cases. My classification does not depend on tensions between countries but actual history or threat of military conflict. A detailed discussion of how you determine whether a state feels threatened by another is outside the scope of this paper. I have tried to use the classification conservatively in my case selection, excluding ambiguous examples. 4 Non-recognition is when a country does not recognize a new division of territory to be a country or when they do not recognize the legitimacy of the government of a country, new or old. It is perhaps the most severe show of disapproval of another state short of military action. The reasons for this act differ enough from the reasons for closing down an embassy that they cannot easily be dealt with in the same analysis.

Justifications Formal Breach in Diplomatic

Relations Effects

Aila Lonka

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Structure of the paper

This study concludes that diplomatic sanctions are a way to send a costly signal of

disapproval to another country and an international audience. Speech act theory can

explain how a declaration of severance redefines the relationship between two

countries instantly, creating a new institutional fact. I argue further that the cutting of

ties can be contextualized as a part of an escalation ladder including other signals of

disapproval.

The structure of the paper is the following. The first point of order is a review of the

existing literature. Thereafter, I document the costs of diplomatic severance and the

distribution of those costs between the sanctioning party and the sanctioned in order

to establish the significance of severing ties. It is then necessary to examine why

countries choose to have embassies in the first place, in order to find out why they

sometimes close them. The section that follows presents speech act theory and applies

it to the Safarov dispute between Armenia and Hungary, in the process developing an

analytical tool: the Ladder of Disapproval. Finally, conclusions are made along with

suggestions for further research on the practice of diplomatic disengagement.

Diplomatic Disengagement as a Research Topic In the following section, I examine the field of research on diplomatic disengagement,

of which there is arguably too little and it is too normative. Most of the diplomacy

literature deals with diplomatic relations as opposed to their severance. Those that do

deal specifically with severance tend to engage in diplomacy advocacy as opposed to

critical research.


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There is surprisingly little research of diplomatic sanctions across cases. This is

problematic because it is such a widely used practice today and one that is costly, as

the next section will show. It is important to know if and when it is appropriate to

pressure political leaders to break ties with a country as a response to undesired

behavior (The Hill, 2011). Yet, we are not sure why and how it came to be used in

non-conflict environments and if it is an effective response. Tara Maller (2009, 2011,

and Carney, 2012) has tried to answer the last question. Unfortunately in their

research it is difficult to distinguish the desire to defend diplomacy as a normatively

good practice with rigorous study of the effects and meanings of different diplomatic

practices. An example is Maller's (2009) examination of the use of diplomatic

sanctions in US counterterrorism efforts. Only three pages into the paper the author

claims there is an inherent value in diplomatic relations (2009: 513). On page two she

states that breaking diplomatic ties is counter-intuitive (2009: 512). Although both

may be found true as the result of research and analysis, they are less useful as a

starting point in an analysis of the effects of diplomatic sanctions. Since diplomacy is

granted such a high inherent value from the outset, Maller's conclusions will always

be the same: in no case can there be positive effects of breaking diplomatic ties that

outweigh the value of having them. Using this approach, closing your embassy is

always disastrous and a country should always open another. It is necessary to

separate the advocacy for diplomacy and the research of its effects.

It is also surprising that, in her examination of the consequences of diplomatic

disengagement, Maller does not deal specifically with the informal channels of

communication that are available to disengaged countries. As Berridge (1994) has

shown, disengaged countries do in fact keep many channels of communication open.

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It appears that omitting this from her analysis had an effect on her conclusions, as she

takes the severance of diplomatic relations to mean the end of all communication

between states5.

Berridge (1994), on the other hand, examines the channels of communication that

remain open after countries have formally severed ties. This examination deals

implicitly with the severance of ties without answering fundamental questions about

why states do it and in a specific circumstance, why some do and others do not.

Berridge also produced a list of all diplomatic ruptures between 1976 and 1989. Thus,

he only presents half of the story as he does not present us with the number of

diplomatic ties at the time. In this study, I bring the analysis up to date, by including

the last two decades in Appendix 2 as well as the current global level of diplomatic

engagement in Appendix 1.

Costs of cutting ties

This section documents the costs of diplomatic severance and the distribution of those

costs between the sanctioning party and the sanctioned. The distinction between

symbolic and practical severance is introduced to describe the different kinds of

disengagement.

5 "Diplomatic sanctions may hinder communication between the target and sender states, making miscommunication or misperception between the states more likely." (Maller, 2011: 66), "The lack of a diplomatic presence in a country makes it difficult for the United States to give the host country a sense of Washington’s thinking on various issues, which may increase the likelihood of further disagreements between the two states in the future." (Maller, 2011: 68)


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The diplomacy literature mentions a plethora of risks associated with diplomatic

sanctions.

"(...) the loss of valuable intelligence, a diminished public diplomacy

capability, and the potential radicalization of moderates in the target regime."

(Maller, 2009: 516).

Maller further claims that diplomatic sanctions may exacerbate terrorism,

proliferation and undermine the effectiveness of economic sanctions (Maller, 2009:

516). It has not been sufficiently proven that those effects can be achieved by

diplomatic sanctions alone. Remember that formal severance of ties between states

without de facto diplomatic exchange in the first place, can be purely symbolic.

Furthermore, there are many ways countries can keep talking if they want to

(Berridge, 1994).

When severance is predominantly symbolic, the costs are lower for the sanctioning

state and higher for the sanctioned, mainly in terms of the loss of legitimacy and

status (Christopher, 1994: 441). This loss may be negligible when just one country

breaks diplomatic relations, but quite extensive when it is in the context of large-scale

isolation imposed by several countries.

When a host of countries isolate one country and thereby start to redefine it as a

pariah state, the costs for the sanctioned can be severe. An example is the isolation of

South Africa in protest of Apartheid (Christopher, 1994). In some cases this can be an

important reason for diplomatic sanctions: the hope that other countries will follow

suit and impose collective punishment on the deviant. Diplomatic sanctions are

nevertheless applied very inconsistently on a global scale. There are no certain acts a

country can do that will guarantee diplomatic sanctions against it. On the regional

level there are emerging patterns. African sub-regional organizations such as

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ECOWAS as well as the African Union Peace and Security Council have started

using diplomatic sanctions quite systematically towards states that have undergone a

coup d'état. Examples are Madagascar (Voice of America, 2010), Guine-Bissaua

(Panapress 2012) and Mali (CNN, 2012). The UN and the EU also jointly impose

diplomatic sanctions at times, but less systematically.

In cases of practical severance; the discontinuation of real ongoing relations, does

closing an embassy incur higher costs on the sending country or the host country? It

naturally depends on the nature of the bilateral relationship; who needs the other party

the most. However, the main purposes of an embassy mainly serve the visiting

country. The visiting country also bears the costs of moving and closing the embassy

(possibly to be reopened later incurring more cost). These costs could be balanced by

a cut in operational expenses related to the closing of a foreign representation.

Some host countries choose to isolate themselves diplomatically (North Korea) or

expel certain diplomatic delegations (South Africa, Christopher, 1994: 441). Other

times, states chose to maintain diplomatic relations even in the face of intense

belligerence. Examples are the US and the Soviet Union during the cold war

(Embassy of the United States in Russia) or Britain and Iraq in 1990 over the hanging

of a British journalist (Berridge, 1994: 8, 10). The fact that countries choose to

maintain relations even in those cases, suggests that there were other considerations

that outweighed the desire to show disapproval of the other state. For example in the

US-USSR case closing the embassy could have resulted in a loss of intelligence. It

could also be that the closing of an embassy means a loss of influence over the other

party. An example was the dispute between Libya and Great Britain in 2000 only

months after they reestablished diplomatic relations after a 15-year break (BBC,


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2000). A European Union arms embargo and an international treaty made it illegal to

export missile technology to Libya. The dispute with Britain arose when an attempt to

smuggle 32 crates of missile components to Libya was uncovered in Gatwick airport

in London.

After being asked why they did not cut ties with Libya again, The British foreign

secretary, Robin Cook, commented:

"This latest incident demonstrates that we were right not to relax our controls.

We will remain vigilant and alert to frustrate any attempt to breach them. The

re-establishment of diplomatic relations means that we now have an

ambassador in Tripoli. This gives us a direct line to the Libyan regime to

convey any concerns we may have. We will use this new channel to do exactly

that."6 (The Herald, 2000)

Cook referred to diplomatic relations as a form of control, in line with Lerche and

Said's definition of the core function of diplomacy: coercion (Lerche and Said,

1963:74-75). This example suggests that practitioners believe severance of diplomatic

ties comes with a loss of influence over the other country's policies.

In sum, there are practical costs associated with closing an embassy and withdrawing

your personnel. Furthermore, a country loses its ability to perform the core functions

of an embassy, including perhaps influencing the host government's policies.

In the event the costs of leaving a country is higher than being left, it becomes all the

more curious why states choose this strategy over less costly signals of disapproval. A

possible explanation could be that a costly signal sends a stronger message. Acts that

6 The first part of the quote: "We have long had concerns about Libya's ambitions to develop enhanced missile technology. That is why when we resumed diplomatic relations we recommended no change to the EU arms embargo on Libya and the maintenance of missile technology controls." (The Herald, 2000)

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involves a sacrifice sends a signal about the sender as being higher in status, having

acquired the resources necessary (Zahavi, 1975). By incurring costs on your own

state, you give weight to the signal by showing commitment.

The following two sections create an overview of the practice of diplomatic

connections (first) and disconnections (second). It is necessary to establish why states

choose to connect, before we can analyze what it means to disconnect. In my research

I uncovered that there was no contemporary comprehensive list of connections

worldwide. As a consequence, Appendix 1 provides this overview, the main findings

of which are summarized below.

Connect The practice of having and sending resident envoys started in the 1430s between

Italian city-States and the Levant. Its popularity grew in the centuries that followed

(Eyffinger, 2012). Today, there is not a single country in the world that does not have

an embassy abroad. By comparing different publicly available sources, I have come to

the approximation that there are 15,757+ embassies and consulates worldwide

(Appendix 1). According to this research, countries have an average of 80 embassies

and consulates abroad (Appendix 1). The number of embassies and consulates per

country varies immensely with some having just two embassies (St. Vincent and

Grenadines) and others having as many as 429 (Finland). The difference in how many

representations a country decides to send abroad is striking. Neumayer (2008: 229)

argues in his study of bilateral diplomatic relations between 1970-2005 that the

explanation for the large variation in diplomatic representation can be explained by

three factors: geography, power and ideology. A country is more likely to send an


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ambassador to another country if it is geographically close, economically and

militarily powerful or shares a similar ideology. Bull, on the other hand, argued that

diplomacy is one of the fundamental social institutions that make the society of states

more than just self-interest and power relations (1977: 170). Today it appears that

embassies have become one of those things that any real state must have (and they all

do) - which suggests that it also carries some symbolic weight.

Diplomats and State Department officials often argue that there are many pragmatic

reasons for having an embassy7:

"We do not establish an Embassy in a foreign country to show approval of its

Government. We do so to have a channel through which to conduct essential

government relations and to protect legitimate United States’ interests." (Dean

Acheson cited in Maller, 2009: 513)

According to Maller (2011: 66), the primary role of an embassy is to collect

information and channel communication between two states. The role the embassy

plays in relation to legal immigration is rarely highlighted in the diplomacy literature.

Visa processing is an important task for most embassies in terms of keeping unwanted

elements out and allowing for the desired level and kind of immigration to the home

country. There are a number of other functions that an embassy can perform, such as:

protection of its citizens, advancement of a country's values and interests abroad and

help promote understanding of the values and policies of the country to foreign

audiences (Maller 2009: 513). Lerche and Said (1963) have a very different take on

the core functions of diplomacy, which they present as: coercion, persuasion,

adjustment and reaching agreement. In their presentation, the severance of ties is a 7 For instance: former Secretaries of State Dean Acheson and Hillary Clinton, Political advisor and former diplomat George Kennan and Senators John Kerry and Levin (Maller, 2009: 13)

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way to apply coercive pressure on another government. Perhaps it can be considered a

part of a negotiation strategy, the threat to leave the table.

Disconnect The act of severing diplomatic relations was traditionally considered a prelude to war.

Drawing back your diplomats was a way to signal that diplomatic measures had been

exhausted. Since the 1960's it has changed its meaning and use (Berridge, 1994: 7).

Now, severance is also being used to express moral disapproval of another state's

actions (Maller, 2009: 514). It is now common for diplomatic disengagement to

happen without any military threats present. Maller calls this normative justification

"ideological dissatisfaction"(Maller, 2009: 514). Others call it moral indignation or

taking a principled stand. However you chose to define it, it is clearly separate from

the justifications that are based on security concerns for country or personnel.

Berridge observed an increase in cases of diplomatic severance between 1976 and

1989 compared to previous decades (Berridge, 1994: 7, 134-139), although he does

not present the data for the previous decades. To my knowledge there are no new

numbers documenting these developments, which is what Appendix 2 tries to make

up for. In Appendix 2, I register the number of cuts and suspensions in diplomatic ties

from 1990-2010, namely 538. I have coded them according to whether they took place

8 This number is smaller than the number of disconnections, Berridge observes. This is not necessarily an indicator of a decrease in disconnections since there appears to be differences in the definition of a cut in ties. Berridge does not present his selection criteria in full, so it is not possible to replicate exactly, but he does mention that he has included significant downscalings of diplomatic representations in his table of diplomatic breaks. I suspect differences in the cut off point for what makes a significant downscaling is what makes the numbers I got so different from his. Also, the list presented in Appendix 2 could most likely be expanded with the inclusion of more sources or search terms. After producing an initial list


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during peace-time or while there were military actions or threats between the two

countries in question. More than half of the cases, 29, were in non-conflict

environments. It would be necessary to make a similar coding of all the previous

decades to make a comparison. However, with the inclusion of Appendix 1 and 2 it

can be concluded that having diplomatic connections is still more popular than

breaking them, although many countries do not establish relations with each other in

the first place.

Berridge also documented the many ways states continue to communicate after

having officially severed their diplomatic ties. Examples are: Interest sections,

representative offices and other kinds of disguised embassies (Berridge, 1994: 32). An

especially odd example is what he calls the working funeral: the death of a state

leader can be occasion for an orgy of diplomatic activity by all the visiting countries'

leaders and delegations (Berridge, 1994: 59). Since this type of communication is

often kept secret it is difficult to know exactly how it is used, how much and by

whom. We have established, however, know that there are multiple channels

available for diplomatically disengaged states to keep talking and that they appear to

be widely used (Berridge, 1994: 10, 133).

The fact that states continue to communicate, despite severed ties, says something

about the reasons for breaking diplomatic relations in the first place. There are a few

options that we can exclude. We can exclude the option that breaks in diplomatic

relations stem from personal animosity, in the case that two countries continue

based on a search of the world's major news publications, I checked the numbers by using the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. Since this only added one case to the list that was not accounted for by the major news publications, I surmised that the list was good enough to provide an overview.

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informal communication. It also implies that the break is not due to an absolute

unwillingness to continue talks. Finally, it means that a break in ties has less severe

practical consequences than it would have if it were not possible to do black market

diplomacy, as Churchill called informal diplomacy (Berridge, 1994: xiv). Maller

argues that the difference between having diplomats on the ground or not is what

makes all the difference (Maller, 2011: 1), but in reality countries have many different

alternatives despite official non-engagement.

In certain cases the costs of officially severing ties are very low, particularly if the

countries did not exchange diplomats in the first place. In such a case one might be

tempted to conclude that "(...) what is being severed is thin air." (Berridge, 1994: 9).

This was seemingly the case in 1965 when Congo-Brazzaville formally cut diplomatic

ties with Britain but had no embassy there to close and no diplomats to call home. A

more recent example is our case study, when Armenia broke off diplomatic relations

with Hungary in 2012 as a result of the Safarov case (which will be analyzed below).

Armenia and Hungary did not have any embassies in each other's countries (Benitez,

2012). Both Congo-Brazzaville/Britain and Armenia/Hungary involved no threat of

war between the two parties at the time and no significant relations to discontinue.

The ties that were broken were mainly a symbolic relationship with few immediate

practical consequences. Yet, what was severed in both cases was not "thin air".

Speech act theory can help us to understand why not.

Speech Act Theory The conceptual apparatus of Searle's speech act theory, sketched out below, will be

used to analyze the severance of diplomatic ties in the case study. It will show that the

Armenian president's performative declaration of disengagement redefined the nature


15

of the relationship between Armenia and Hungary then and there, creating a new

institutional fact.

According to speech act theory, language is action.

"Speech acts constitute social action by creating social facts, relations and

commitments" (Duffy and Frederking, 2009: 327).

Institutional facts are a type of social fact. Institutional facts are different from facts in

the physical world by being the product of collective human intentionality. In other

words the institutional fact is different from the physical ('brute') fact by being

dependent on human agreement.

We develop constitutive rules that make possible certain types of behavior. The rules

about the establishment and severing of diplomatic ties are constitutive of diplomacy.

Without them the practice of diplomacy would be meaningless. A diplomat is a

diplomat because of the rules that govern this activity. The role of collective human

intentionality is particularly visible when it comes to diplomacy, because the social

institution of customary international law governs it. It works on the ancient

principles of reciprocity, and mutual consent (Vienna Convention, 1961: Article 2).

Speech act theory also presents us with the term Illocutionary speech acts. They can

be defined as a way of doing something by saying something. Different types of

Illocutionary speech acts are directives, commissives, expressives and declarations

(Searle, 1975: 344-369). Cutting diplomatic ties can be categorized generally as an

Illocutionary speech act and specifically as a declaration.

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New Enemies: Armenia, Hungary and Safarov

In the following section I will use speech act theory to analyze Armenia's decision to

cut ties with Hungary in 2012. It will produce a preliminary set of explanations for

disengagement and introduce a new analytic tool: the Ladder of Disapproval.

The Safarov case was a dispute between Armenia and Hungary as a result of the

transfer of the prisoner Ramil Safarov. Safarov, an Azerbaijani Army officer, was

serving a life sentence in Hungary after confessing to the murder of an Armenian

Army lieutenant. Both were attending a NATO-sponsored language course in

Budapest, Hungary, when Safarov killed the Armenian lieutenant, Gurgen Margaryan,

in his sleep with an axe. Safarov spent 8 years in a Hungarian prison before being

transferred to Azerbaijan to serve out the rest of his life sentence. Upon arrival, he

was pardoned and rewarded by the Azerbaijani president and celebrated as a hero

(Barry 2012). As a consequence, Armenia's president, Serz Sargsyan, announced that

Armenia would no longer conduct conventional diplomatic relations with Hungary,

thereby meeting the definition of diplomatic severance. Since there is no history of

military conflict or threat thereof between Armenia and Hungary and both countries

recognize each other's country status, the case fits within the focus of the research

question.

Armenia and Azerbaijan are neighbors in the Caucasus, while Hungary lies (1360

miles away across the Black Sea to Eastern Europe. Armenia and Azerbaijan have

experienced open conflict with one another since 1905. The conflict started as class

tensions under the rule of the Russian czar. Since Armenia and Azerbaijan first

declared their independence from the Russian Empire in 1918 the tensions

increasingly developed into a territorial conflict centered on the region of Nagorno-


17

Karabakh. This resulted in the Armenian-Azerbaijani War of 1918-1920. Both

countries were annexed by the USSR but when the Soviet Empire fell, war broke out

again between 1988-1994 over the division of territory. A ceasefire was negotiated in

1994 but the countries remain technically in a state of war with occasional flare-ups

(De Waal, 20039). There are no diplomatic relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan

but both countries have bilateral relations with Hungary. Azerbaijan and Hungary

have representations in each other's countries while Armenia and Hungary's bilateral

relationship was mainly symbolic. Armenia and Hungary never exchanged

ambassadors but each had an honorary consulate in each other's capitals and both

countries were represented by embassies in neighboring countries. Relations between

Armenia/Hungary and Hungary/Azerbaijan began after the dissolution of the USSR.

Energy producing Azerbaijan has increased its trade relations with Hungary in recent

years, which lead to some speculation about the motivations for the extradition of

Safarov (Economist, 2012).

When Armenia declared that it had severed diplomatic ties with Hungary, they

recreated the relationship between Armenia and Hungary without having to move any

furniture or buy flight tickets for embassy staff (there was none). In this sense it was

an act in no obvious physical way (Searle, 1995: xi). Conversely, It was a speech act

that invoked a certain set of expectations and reactions.

As mentioned before, the utterance of diplomatic disengagement is the type of

Illocutionary speech act called a declaration (Searle, 1995: 34). In this case the

9 All historical information in paragraph based on De Waal, 2003.

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Armenian president addressed the foreign ambassadors to Armenia at a meeting on

August 31, 2012, stating:

"I officially announce that as of today we suspend diplomatic relations and all

official contacts with Hungary." (President of the Republic of Armenia,

2012a).

As a performative declaration it is creating the state of affairs.

"(...) the state of affairs represented by the propositional content of the speech

act is brought into existence by the successful performance of that very speech

act." (Searle, 1995: 36).

This speech act constituted the new institutional fact of the relationship between

Armenia and Hungary. They had not previously engaged in serious dispute. From

then on the Armenian president intended to redefine their relationship to be one of

enmity. It sends a fine-tuned social message to Hungary as well as a domestic and an

international audience. The message was reported far and wide in national, regional

and international media (Today AZ, 2012; Economist, 2012; BBC, 2012; New York

Times, 2012). The intention was not only to let Hungary know that they disapprove of

their actions but to be sure that all the other countries in the courtyard heard. The fact

that all other countries' diplomats were invited to the press conference announcing the

break in ties, confirms this.

The Armenian president also intended for a specific degree of disapproval to be

understood. When Armenians demonstrated in front of the Hungarian consulate in the

capital of Armenia, Yerevan, the president asked them not to burn the Hungarian flag,

albeit too late (President of the Republic of Armenia 2012b). This request points to

the fact that the symbolic message that is sent by each of those two actions is very

different, even when both are displays of disapproval, directed towards Hungary. This


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suggests that the message sent with diplomatic sanctions is different from other

hostile messages, including a public condemnation. To compare, the United States

sent out an "expression of concern" about Hungary's transfer of Safarov, but did not

discontinue diplomatic corporation with any of the countries in question (Armenia,

Hungary, Azerbaijan) (The White House 2012). We can order these different hostile

messages on an ascending ladder of Disapproval.

Figure 2. The Ladder of Disapproval

Armenia's decision to break ties with Hungary 'only' resulted in Hungary publicly

condemning Azerbaijan's actions, which on the Ladder of Disapproval can be

considered to be stronger than an expression of concern but weaker than diplomatic

disengagement. This alludes to the fact that Hungary may not have felt Armenia's

diplomatic sanctions threatened their legitimacy and status significantly. Otherwise,

one would expect a stronger reaction.

It is relatively easy to move up and down the ladder's first three steps, but once

relations have been cut, the situation changes. The final step before cutting relations,

namely downscaling, involves a handful of different possible actions. This includes

Military action

Non-recognition

Cutting diplomatic ties

Public condemnation

Expression of concern

Downscaling relations

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temporarily recalling an ambassador, suspending diplomatic relations or withdrawing

part of the staff. These actions can easily be undone, which can then be used to

reward compliance from the host country. However, once diplomatic relations have

been severed, there are more obstacles to reestablishing them. Both countries might

wait for the other to approach them for fear of losing face. In many cases, ties remain

severed for years, sometimes even after the circumstances that provoked the break are

ameliorated (Berridge, 1994: 10). It thus appears that moving down the steps of the

ladder is much harder after ties are cut.

Conclusions This paper has provided an overview of the field of diplomatic connections

(Appendix 1) and disconnections.

Speech act theory proved to be a useful analytical tool for understanding the

justifications for diplomatic disengagement. The severing of diplomatic ties between

Armenia and Hungary was a symbolic way for Armenia to send a fine-tuned message

of disapproval to Hungary and the international audience. The performative

declaration of disengagement redefined the nature of the relationship between the two

countries then and there, creating a new institutional fact.

Diplomatic sanctions can be purely symbolic, practical or a mix of both. They can be

used to send a costly signal to another country, your domestic public audience and all

other states, high on the Ladder of Disapproval. It is more severe than a public

expression of concern or a condemnation, but less severe than non-recognition.

Imposed jointly, sanctions can be used to isolate a particular state. The global trend in

relation to diplomatic disengagement is utterly scattered, although the African Union

is displaying an emerging pattern of isolating member states that have undergone a


21

coup d´état. International principles, guiding when it is appropriate to close your

embassy and pull out your diplomatic staff, have not been developed.

Perspectives for further research

Finally, I would like to make a few suggestions for new directions for the study of

diplomatic sanctions.

It is important to analyze both the symbolic and the practical aspects of

disengagement. It could be useful to establish if the change in the use of diplomatic

sanctions is in fact an emerging norm. If so, is it likely to be more or less

institutionalized and codified? One fruitful way of analyzing this could be to look at

patterns in diplomatic sanctions imposed by African countries after the establishment

of African Union policies of isolation towards a member state. A more practical

question is whether closing an embassy has an effect on the economic and travel

relations of two countries in cases where no economic and travel sanctions are

imposed. Is immigration affected?

It would also be useful to document the number and kind of diplomatic sanctions

imposed historically across cases in order to identify trends. It would then be possible

to do a temporal analysis of the topology of the global diplomatic network. This could

be done by listing all nodes and links in the diplomatic system in a network program

such as Gephi. Gephi and other such programs are available online, open source. The

program will then map the diplomatic network at a certain time. It would then be

possible to add any information we have about changes in diplomatic connections

over time, thereby adding a temporal component to the network diagram. Thereby we

could visualize and analyze the evolution of the diplomatic connections of the world

throughout history.

Aila Lonka

22

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Country Embassies & Consulates

1. Afghanistan 60 2. Albania 49 3. Algeria 95 4. Andorra 6 5. Angola 76 6. Antigua &

Barbuda 17

7. Argentina 131 8. Armenia 85 9. Aruba 7 10. Australia 150 11. Austria 177 12. Azerbaijani 48 13. Bahamas 32 14. Bahrain 32 15. Bangladesh 82 16. Barbados 68 17. Belarus 60 18. Belgium 416 19. Belize 84 20. Benin 24 21. Bhutan 16 22. Bolivia 39 23. Bosnia 52 24. Botswana 32 25. Brazil 137 26. Brunei 37 27. Bulgaria 144 28. Burkina Faso 24 29. Burundi 14 30. Cambodia 44 31. Cameroon 49 32. Canada 299 33. Cape Verde 31 34. Central African

Republic 23

35. Chad 22 36. Chile 254 37. China 228 38. Colombia 64 39. Comores 13 40. Democratic

Republic of Congo 6

41. Republic of Congo 6 42. Cook Islands* 6 43. Costa Rica 113 44. Croatia 113 45. Cuba 143 46. Cyprus 173 47. Chech Republic 339 48. Denmark 233


49. Djibouti 20 50. Dominican

Republic 62

51. East Timor 13 52. Ecuador 177 53. Egypt 151 54. El Salvador 52 55. Equatorial Guinea 13 56. Eritrea 31 57. Estonia 152 58. Ethiopia 44 59. Fiji 14 60. Finland 429 61. France 294 62. Gabon 29 63. Gambia 23 64. Georgia 42 65. Germany 391 66. Ghana 35 67. Greece 179 68. Greenland 149 69. Grenada 25 70. Guatemala 94 71. Guinea 5 72. Guinea-Bisau 27 73. Guyana 26 74. Haiti 24 75. Honduras 74 76. Hungary 112 77. Iceland 44 78. India 199 79. Indonesia 177 80. Iran 27 81. Iraq 50 82. Ireland 168 83. Israel 98 84. Italy 213 85. Cote d'Ivoire 13 86. Jamaica 103 87. Japan 171 88. Jordan 54 89. Kazakhstan 45 90. Kenya 41 91. Kiribati 11 92. Kuwait 66 93. Kyrgyzstan 15 94. Laos 34 95. Latvia 80 96. Lebanon 57 97. Lesotho 17 98. Liberia 35

Appendix 1. Embassies and Consulates of the World The table below is based on publicly available information from GoAbroad, EmbassyPages and Embassyworld as well as the list of supplementary sources below. Many consulates and embassies across the world open, merge or close every day. Therefore, information on the number of embassies and consulates of a country varies from source to source. This information is an estimate that gives an initial relational overview of the field. Additional research on each country in question would be necessary to get the exact numbers.


27


99. Libya 25 100. Liechtenstein 6 101. Lithuania 58 102. Luxembourg 34 103. Macedonia 50 104. Madagascar 70 105. Malawi 36 106. Malaysia 102 107. Mali 57 108. Malta 117 109. Marshall Islands 11 110. Mauritania 7 111. Mauritius 26 112. Mexico 89 113. Micronesia 6 114. Moldova 28 115. Monaco 42 116. Mongolia 24 117. Morocco 137 118. Mozambique 37 119. Myanmar 34 120. Namibia 22 121. Nauru 11 122. Nepal 85 123. Netherlands 420 124. New Zealand 121 125. Nicaragua 46 126. Niger 26 127. Nigeria 20 128. Niue 2 129. North Korea 47 130. Norway 155 131. Oman 41 132. Pakistan 150 133. Palau 10 134. Palestine 91 135. Panama 55 136. Papua New

Guinea 25

137. Paraguay 41 138. Peru 133 139. Philippines 193 140. Poland 229 141. Portugal 66 142. Qatar 45 143. Romania 118 144. Russia 178 145. Rwanda 25 146. Samoa 6 147. San Marino 75 148. Sao Tome and

Principe 21

149. Saudi Arabia 51 150. Senegal 93 151. Serbia 90 152. Seychelles 108 153. Sierra Leone 33 154. Singapore 76 155. Slovakia 107 156. Slovenia 108 157. Solomon Islands 7 158. Somalia 24 159. South Africa 154 160. South Korea 106 161. Spain 216


162. Sri Lanka 61 163. St. Kitts and Nevis 6 164. St. Lucia 7 165. St. Vincent and

Grenadines 2

166. Sudan 51 167. South Sudan 15 168. Suriname 2 169. Swaziland 19 170. Sweden 283 171. Switzerland 137 172. Syria 68 173. Taiwan 110 174. Tajikistan 16 175. Tanzania 45 176. Thailand 107 177. Togo 36 178. Tonga 4 179. Tunisia 65 180. Turkey 125 181. Turkmenistan 25 182. Tuvalu 11 183. Uganda 36 184. Ukraine 126 185. United Arab

Emirates 58

186. United Kingdom 141 187. United States of

America 262

188. Uruguay 185 189. Uzbekistan 47 190. Vanuatu 11 191. Venezuela 102 192. Vietnam 80 193. Western Sahara 14 194. Yemen 59 195. Zambia 14 196. Zimbabwe 43 References - Cabo Verde. Available from: <http://www.caboverde.com/rubrique/embass.htm> Accessed 19 April 2013. - Cook Islands. Available from: <http://www.cook-islands.gov.ck/consulates.php> Accessed 19 April 2013. - EmbassyPages. Available from: <http://www.embassypages.com/> Accessed 21 April 2013. - Embassyworld. Available from: < http://www.embassyworld.com/> Accessed 21 April 2013. - GoAbroad, Available from: <http://embassy.goabroad.com/> Accessed 21 April 2013. - St. Lucia Guide. Available from: <http://stlucia-guide.info/travel.basics/embassies.and.consulates/>. Accessed 15 April 2013.

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!1990-1999 Cuts in diplomatic relations

Initiator Target Article date

Military threat/ Peace-time

1. Yugoslavia USA 1999 M

2. Yugoslavia UK 1999 M

3. Yugoslavia France 1999 M

4. Yugoslavia Germany 1999 M

5. China Marshall Islands

1998 P

6. Tonga Taiwan 1998 P

7. South Africa Taiwan 1998 P

8. Canada Nigeria 1997 P

9. Uganda Sudan 1995 M

10. Eritrea Sudan 1994 M

11. Lesotho Taiwan 1994 P

12. Liberia Taiwan 1993 P

13. Algeria Iran 1993 M

14. China Niger 1992 P

15. Peru Panama 1992

16. Iraq Egypt 1991 M

17. Kenya Norway 1990 P

18. Sri Lanka Israel 1990 P

!1990-1999 Suspensions or significant downscaling of diplomatic relations Nr. Initiator Target Article

date Military threat or Peace-time

19. Argentina Iran 1998 M

20. Chile France 1995 P

21. New Zealand France 1995 P

22. Nauru France 1995 P

23. Kiribati France 1995 P

24. Ethiopia Sudan 1995 M

25. Algeria Sudan 1993 M

26. Zambia Iran 1993 M

27. Zambia Iraq 1993 M

28. Surinam Venezuela 1991 P

!2000-2010 Cuts in Diplomatic relations

Nr. Initiator Target Article date

Military threat or Peace-time

Appendix 2. Cuts in Diplomatic Relations 1990-2010 The table below is based on a lexis-nexis search for articles in major world publications mentioning a break in diplomatic relations in their heading or subheading. This list is incomplete, and could in the future be improved by using other sources, such as the FBIS. The information should thus be considered an estimate that gives an initial overview of the use of diplomatic sanctions. I have included cases of complete severance of diplomatic relations as well as suspensions or significant downscaling of relations to ensure comparability with Berridge's (1994) list of cuts between 1976 and 1989.


29

29. Venezuela Columbia 2010 M

30. Morocco Iran 2010 P 31. North Korea South

Korea 2010 M

32. Mauritania Israel 2009 P

33. Sudan Chad 2008 M 34. Ethiopia Qatar 2008 M

35. Ecuador Colombia 2008 M 36. Costa Rica Taiwan 2007 P

37. China St. Lucia 2007 P 38. Rwanda France 2006 P

39. Canada Palestinian Government

2006 P

40. Cuba Panama 2004 P

41. Dominica Taiwan 2004 P 42. Haiti Jamaica 2004 P

43. Niger Israel 2002 P 44. US Iraq 2003 M

45. Australia Iraq 2003 M 46. Thailand Cambodia 2003 M

!2000-2010 Suspensions or significant downscaling of diplomatic relations Nr. Initiator Target Article

date Military threat or Peace-time

47. Canada North Korea

2010 P

48. Venezuela Israel 2009 P 49. Canada Belarus 2006 P

50. Mexico Havana 2004 P 51. Italy Iraq 2003 M

52. Jordan Iraq 2003 M 53. Germany Iraq 2003 M

!

why countries cut ties in peacetime

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