"Flattery Helps": Disarming Communication Between Diplomats and State Leaders

• In Event: Conceptualizing the Friendly Voice: How to Achieve Peace Through Amicable Communication?

Abstract

In recent years, studies on friendship (Koschut & Oelsner, 2014) and everyday politics (Wodak, 2009), have opened up new research paths in international relation and political discourse studies. In this presentation I will integrate these emerging fields under the conceptual umbrella of communication studies and examine the friendship practices of foreign affair policy-makers. The questions guiding the study is what disarming and amicable communicative tools are deployed by state leaders in private interactions with their peers and what is their role in enhancing interstate relations. On the basis of eight semi-structured interviews (tentative number) with senior Israeli foreign affair actors (including prime minister, ambassadors, foreign affair advisors, and peace negotiators), I will classify the gestures performed during these interactions, identify the types of transformation they being about, and discuss the competencies needed for deploying them felicitously, namely as communicative tools for decreasing tension and increasing trust and sympathy.

Author

• Zohar Kampf, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem