Research & Writing

Global Historical International Relations

System Encounters: Diplomatic Practice and International Order in Early Modern Sino-European Relations (book manuscript, in progress)

How do actors embedded in distinct international orders manage their differences? My book manuscript (based on my dissertation) examines Russian, Dutch, and British embassies to China during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as encounters between distinct international orders in East Asia and Europe—system encounters. Drawing on historiography and published collections of primary sources in multiple languages, I use qualitative text-based analysis to reconstruct the meaning and social effects of diplomatic practices in interactions between the Chinese imperial court and European envoys, and demonstrate how differences in those practices shaped the dynamics and outcomes of encounters. I argue that encounters between diplomatic practices create space for agency by presenting actors with specific manifestations of their differences to which actors respond pragmatically by creating conditions under which challenges can be resolved without significantly altering established practices. My findings present relevant context for Sino-European relations in the nineteenth century and have important implications for our understanding of the role of system encounters in the evolution of a globalizing international order. I am working on an additional chapter that explores the implications of my findings for negotiating between competing visions of international order in U.S.-China relations today.

I gratefully acknowledge financial support for my research on this project up to this point from the U.S.-Asia Grand Strategy Program at the University of Southern California (2023-2024), the United States Institute of Peace (2023-2024), and the International Studies Association (2023).

“‘An affair of State’: Studying International Orders Through System Encounters” (draft available upon request)

The study of pre-modern and non-Western international orders is central to global historical international relations research agenda. Yet, how to study diverse international orders, their differences, and the relevance of these differences for interactions between them remain open questions. The lack of agreed-upon analytical frameworks and clear empirical strategies constitute major challenges.This paper proposes that system encounters, interactions between polities embedded in distinct international orders, can be leveraged as sites of inquiry about distinct international orders, their differences, and their relevance in interactions between them. Applying practice theory to system encounters, I argue that system encounters constitute moments of crisis that problematize established practices and prompt actors to explicate their taken-for-granted views of the world, which allows us to reconstruct the relevant differences between distinct international orders and how they shaped their interaction. I draw on sources detailing interactions in the context of the Russian, Dutch, and British embassies to China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to illustrate my argument. Specifically, I demonstrate that the character of international practices, manifest in disputes over the nature and purpose of embassies as well as courtly ceremonial, constitutes the key difference between distinct international orders in East Asia (asymmetric reciprocity) and Europe (symmetric reciprocity).

“System Encounters: Pragmatic Reconstitution of International Orders in Sino-Russian Relations, 1618-1689” (draft available upon request)

Scholars of historical international relations have focused nearly exclusively on the analysis of specific international orders or their comparative study. Where interactions between distinct international orders are considered, the interaction process and/or international order are inadequately theorized. Building on a conception of international order as relational configurations produced and reproduced through diplomatic practice, this paper outlines a practice-relational approach to studying encounters between polities embedded in distinct international orders. I propose that established diplomatic practices inform the behavior of actors in system encounters, and how actors make sense of their own actions as well as those of their counterparts. As such, encounters constitute actors as belonging to distinct international orders and explicate their relevant differences. Finally, actors respond pragmatically to specific manifestations of differences between diplomatic practices. This paper uses evidence from the onset of Sino-Russian relations in the seventeenth century, a previously neglected case in the study of European expansion and Sino-European relations, to illustrate this argument. Analyzing historiography and published collections of primary documents detailing interactions between officials of the Chinese imperial court and Russian envoys, I find that the Treaty of Nerchinsk, a territorial settlement concluded between the Qing and the Tsardom of Russia in 1689, allowed the two empires to manage their affairs through the multivocal interpretation of divergent diplomatic practices. This paper contributes to scholarship on historical international orders by using a previously neglected case to propose a new argument about the dynamics of pre-modern system encounters.

An earlier draft of this paper was shortlisted for the Barbara W. Tuchman Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper by the Historical International Relations Section of the International Studies Association (2021).