Diplomacy is often understood as a rational practice of negotiation between states.

In other words, an approach based on the calculation of interests, the assessment of balances, and the pursuit of strategic advantage.

Relational dimensions, such as tact, communication, and representation, are generally treated as tools serving economic or geopolitical interests.

Yet tensions persist, misunderstandings deepen, and conflicts crystallize, even in situations where rational interest would seem to favor dialogue.

This gap reveals the limits of such an approach: while rationality structures exchanges, it does not always fully grasp the more sensitive relational dynamics that can prove decisive.

A diplomatic approach grounded in the rationality of power relations

Diplomacy has historically developed as a system for regulating relations between political entities.

From Greek city-states to the model of nation-states, widely diffused at the global level, it has progressively been structured around formal mechanisms of recognition and representation.

The etymology of diplôma, referring to an official document attesting to a right or a mission, reflects this institutional origin.

In its dominant conception, diplomacy relies on a set of institutional practices, notably representation, negotiation, and the rational management of interests.

‍

This approach finds a key formulation in Hans Morgenthau, a central figure of classical realism, for whom diplomacy is fundamentally a rational calculation of power.

National interest serves as its guiding principle.

Diplomatic rationality is expressed through the evaluation of balances, risks, and potential gains.

« International politics, like all politics, in a struggle for power. »
— Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 1948

Within this framework, moral, affective, and relational dimensions are often relegated to a secondary role, and sometimes even perceived as sources of irrationality that may disrupt strategic clarity.

Relational dynamics remain implicit or instrumentalized: tact, communication, and negotiation are mobilized in service of interest.

A similar logic appears, in a different form, in the work of Immanuel Kant, for whom diplomacy is primarily conceived as a technique, a rational tool aimed at preventing conflict through law.

Diplomacy thus becomes less a space of relationship than an instrument for managing power relations within an international system perceived as fundamentally conflictual.

A structuring rationality, yet partially misaligned with the relational reality of the international system

This framework has enabled major advances. It has contributed to structuring an international space, securing conditions for dialogue, stabilizing certain relations, and regulating conflicts.

Yet its limits are increasingly visible.

Despite the multiplication of institutions, diplomatic tools, agreements, and legal frameworks, tensions persist, misunderstandings deepen, and conflicts crystallize, even where rational interests would seem to favor dialogue.

This gap suggests that one dimension remains only partially accounted for: the role of human relations between communities and peoples, in their depth, their sensitivities, and the beliefs and imaginaries they mobilize.

This does not invalidate the rational approach, but calls for a complementary reading.

‍

As the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty reminds us, the sensible is the primary mode of our relation to the world, not as mere sensory perception, but as an embodied, situated experience already imbued with meaning.

At both individual and collective levels, we do not encounter the Other first through reason, but through lived and embodied experience.

Before being rational or institutional, international relations are not merely relations of interest, where tact and communication facilitate agreements.

They are relations between human entities, shaped by sensitive and emotional dimensions.

Reducing these interactions to economic or geopolitical logics creates a gap with intersocial and intercultural realities, an illusion of control through rationality, at the cost of a partial understanding of relational dynamics.

What the philosopher and poet Édouard Glissant describes as the chaos-monde cannot be fully contained within rational frameworks.

At the institutional level, these frameworks take the form of spaces presented as neutral, which tend to obscure more complex realities: asymmetries of power, differentiated historical trajectories, and unequal experiences of violence and domination.

As a result, not all actors enter these spaces of dialogue with the same symbolic weight or emotional burden.

Some carry memories of conflict, colonization, or erasure; others engage from a more strategic distance.

In this context, institutional frameworks tend to smooth over these differences rather than fully acknowledge them.

Affects do not disappear when rationalized, they persist in collective memory and continue to shape tensions.

A diplomacy grounded solely in the balance of interests thus creates a gap with lived reality, generating frustration, feelings of injustice, and non-recognition, all of which can fuel latent conflict and hinder dialogue.

‍

Aujourd’hui, certaines limites peuvent néanmoins être observées.

Malgré la multiplication des institutions, des outils diplomatiques, des accords et des cadres juridiques, les tensions persistent, les incompréhensions se renforcent, les conflits se cristallisent, et les décalages se rigidifient.

Y compris dans des situations où l’intérêt rationnel semble pourtant favoriser le dialogue.

Ce décalage suggère qu’une dimension reste partiellement prise en compte : le rôle des relations humaines entre communautés et peuples, dans leur profondeur, leur sensibilité, ainsi que dans les croyances et les idéaux qu’elles mobilisent.

Cela n’invalide pas l’approche rationnelle, mais appelle à une lecture complémentaire.

« Il ne faut donc pas se demander si nous percevons vraiment un monde, il faut dire au contraire : le monde est cela que nous percevons. »
— Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception, 1945

Rethinking balance: integrating the sensitive as a structuring dimension of diplomacy

This does not call for abandoning existing frameworks, but for rethinking their balance.

Institutional structures remain necessary: they guarantee and secure a space for dialogue based on recognition, legitimacy, and shared rules, as exemplified by multilateral settings such as the United Nations. Yet, on their own, they are not sufficient.

The challenge is not to move away from rationality, but to reconsider its place within diplomatic relations.

Rather than serving as their foundation, it can become a tool supporting a more sensitive understanding of human dynamics.        

This is where sensitive diplomacy emerges.

Sensitive diplomacy proposes a fundamental shift.

It does not oppose institutions; rather, it reintroduces what they tend to attenuate: lived experience, subjective perceptions, singular imaginaries, emotions, and collective traumas.

These are not secondary or strategic elements, but structuring dimensions of diplomatic relations.

The issue, therefore, is not to remove rationality, but to redefine its place.
It is not rationality itself that is problematic, but the place we assign to it.

When it becomes dominant, it can reduce the complexity of relations; when used as a tool, it can instead support them.

Within this perspective, economic instruments can repair or dominate, legal frameworks can protect or rigidify, and language can connect or obscure.

Everything depends on how they are articulated with the sensitive.

Sensitive diplomacy thus calls for a shift: no longer treating rationality as the foundation of relations, but as a lever in their service.

It invites us to recognize that understanding often precedes agreement, that recognition precedes negotiation, and that the quality of relationships conditions the durability of outcomes.

Just compromises are never purely rational, yet they cannot exist without rationality either.

The challenge is not to oppose reason and emotion, but to rearticulate them.

Diplomacy can only produce a sustainable balance if it fully acknowledges what underlies it: human relations in all their dimensions.

And this, ultimately, serves rational interest itself.

‍

Liste ordonnée

1. Elément 1
2. Element 2
3. Element 3

Liste non ordonnée

• Element A
• Element B
• Element C

Lien

Text en gras

Mise en emphase, italique