Paul Sharp is much taken by the English school and uses Martin Wight's threefold typology of international traditions as a framework for exploring diverse understandings of diplomacy. Each of these traditions offers a different take on diplomacy, and collectively they provide a useful overview. They highlight the different roles diplomacy can play vis-à-vis the status quo, and this in part explains how it is evaluated by these traditions. On the whole, each finds grounds for expressing disappointment with diplomacy and diplomats. Much of the reason for this, Sharp believes, is the unrealistic expectations they have of diplomacy.

Sharp makes the case that diplomacy is a practice rooted in certain normative assumptions. Thinking diplomatically—something not necessarily restricted to diplomats—recognizes that diplomacy has the potential to put relations among groups on a more stable and peaceful footing. It privileges the preservation of the system over most state interests and recognizes that not all arguments are amenable to settlement because of the fundamentally different worldviews of actors. Diplomacy respects conventions and practices, makes relations among antagonists possible, and buys time for changes that may bring about the conditions necessary for accommodation. Diplomats and diplomatic thinking thus provide a valuable service to the international community.

The author then turns to “what diplomatic theory can tell us about how international relations are, and might be, conducted in a variety of international society settings” (pp. 11–12). These include three generic dimensions: integration-disintegration, expansion-contraction, and concentration-diffusion. Subsequently, he examines four specific problems: rogue states, greedy companies, “crazy” religions, and “dumb” public diplomacy. This is the weakest part of the book. What Sharp describes as a theory of diplomacy is little more than a vaguely articulated worldview and related set of maxims. Their application to the dimensions and problems do not add anything that we do not know from more sophisticated works on these subjects.

The core assumptions of the volume are problematic. The author presents little in the way of empirical evidence to support his contention that diplomacy has a special Weltanschauung that is shared by the majority of the diplomatic community at any given time. He is honest enough to provide several important counterexamples, including Hitler's foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop. We could compile a long list of offenders working for an equally long list of offensive and aggressive regimes. We could also include representatives of democratic states (e.g., John Bolton, with his aggressive manner and scorn for the United Nations and multilateral diplomacy, and Cold War American ambassadors involved in the furtive overthrow of governments Washington did not like). It is probably fair to say that diplomats share more in common with the governments they represent than they do with some idealized image of what they should believe and how they should behave.

A second, equally important assumption that is never discussed is agency. If diplomats merely represent the policies of their governments, rather than participate in their formulation, their agency is quite restricted. Traditionally, diplomats have usually had some freedom for maneuver, but this has certainly declined in an era of instant communications and centralization of key foreign policy decisions. Nor is it self-evident that diplomats are able to, or even often in a position where they might try, to educate national leaders.

The evidence concerning how diplomats use the freedom they have is mixed at best. We can identify positive contributions, a case in point being American and Soviet negotiators in the SALT II, Conventional Forces, and START agreements. Negative examples also abound: In July 1914, the Russian ambassador to Serbia, the French ambassador to Russia, and the German ambassador to Austria-Hungary used, even abused, their authority to push the governments to which they were accredited to pursue confrontational policies.

In effect, Sharp confuses empirical and normative issues. With respect to the existence of a diplomatic worldview, the agency of diplomats, and their willingness to use it for beneficial ends, he substitutes an “is” for an “ought.” All of his assumptions are, in reality, questions open to empirical investigation, and indeed generate a worthwhile research agenda.

Sharp's policy prescriptions are unobjectionable. Above all else, we must accept a Weberian understanding of the world as composed of groups with different and clashing worldviews and find ways of living together. Thus, we should avoid exacerbating these differences and their consequences and eschew making tactical gains at the strategic cost of making violent conflict more likely. Such general principles are worthwhile, but they tell us little, as he acknowledges, about how to behave in individual and controversial cases.