A Diplomacy Turn? : Writing the History of Science in the Context of International Relations

This essay offers a review of historical studies seeking to explore the sciences in the context of international relations, also in an effort to better understand if this exploration caters for an historiographical ‘turn.' The article first looks back at literature examining the interplay between scientific and international affairs from practitioner and scholarly viewpoints. It then offers a novel perspective on the science/diplomacy nexus at the centre of this interplay by focussing on the negotiation element distinctive of both scientific and diplomatic practices i nternationally, and modelling these i nteractions a s occurring on parallel diplomacy tracks.

An examination of these past parallel-tracked negotiations, I conclude, is important because it underpins our understanding of science's global reach today, in that their historical configuration sheds light on the geographical inequality of the system of global circulation of scientific knowledge. I n particular, i t reveals this circulation to result from negotiations that have either facilitated or prevented the spreading of scientific exchanges across the world hence shaping uneven global scientific networks. [Publisher's text]