André Pacher
Biographic Data
| ID | 683318 |
|---|---|
| NAME | André Pacher |
| GIVEN NAMES | André |
| FAMILY NAME | Pacher |
| SIGNATURE | PACHER A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Diplomatic Academy of Vienna |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5149-6294 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 30 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 13 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Permanent neutrality
Permanent neutrality is usually studied in terms of legal doctrines or country-level case studies. This article, in contrast, presents a systems-level theory drawing from Niklas Luhmann. It argues that, within the diplomatic system, an arrangement of states as sovereign equals (segmentary differentiation) is more peaceful than a hierarchy of two blocs (stratified differentiation). However, the diplomatic system is regularly drawn away from segmen…
Peace needs constant reproduction
If a diplomatic cocktail party lasts two hours, does it equal the duration of peace? Or are there less simplistic conceptualizations of ‘peace’ and ‘time’ for the theorization of diplomatic practices? This article draws on a concept of temporality based on an irreversible before/after distinction, and combines it with the modern systems theoretical premise that every event within the diplomatic system occurs under the medium of peace, finding tha…
Diplomacy Versus Politics
Diplomacy is often presented as subordinated to politics as if it merely received politically willed ‘inputs’ to produce politically structured ‘outputs’. However, diplomacy often deviates from political instructions. It can even operate almost without any political considerations whatsoever. This observation gives rise to a sense that politics and diplomacy operate as two separate systems that are mutually dependent and yet simultaneously indepe…
How diplomacy evolves
Almost every polity uses state awards as diplomatic tools. Their global spread, however, cannot be explained by dominant theories of International Relations (which focus on military or economic rationales) or of diplomatic practices (which lack criteria for what constitutes a functionally suitable practice). The success of such seemingly non-instrumental tools may be better explained with a combination of Modern Systems Theory with the evolutiona…
Diplomatic complexity and long-tailed distributions
States enact relations with both important partners and seemingly irrelevant countries. The non-strategic constitutes the larger set; a histogram could visualize them in a long-tailed distribution, with the x -axis denoting the partner countries, and the y -axis showing the interaction density. Investigating the function of this long tail, this paper premises that the international is characterized by complexity, meaning that the number of elemen…
Ramy Youssef, 2020. Die Anerkennung von Grenzen
If “diplomacy” captures highly heterogeneous events – an inter-state conference on climate change with thousands of participants is as much “diplomacy” as a cocktail party in a small embassy – then how can it be that society recognizes the very same ‘diplomacy’ in such dissimilar occurrences? Ramy Youssef’s book offers the most complex and yet harmonious response to this question, a response nourished by Luhmannian systems theory, attaining a deg…
Diplomacy’s Paradox in the Law of State Awards
Diplomatic gifts are deeply paradoxical: they signal ‘peace’ between polities constituted by ‘power’ (peace-and-power paradox); they are exchanged between rulers of contiguous territories so as to momentarily signal a merger of separate entities (paradox of overlapping sovereignties). This essay uses a systems-theoretical approach to uncover this paradox in national laws of state awards. The analysis culminates in a conjectural legal norm prohibi…
Theorizing Diplomacy
Transnistria’s Order of Friendship
What strategies do de facto states employ in conducting their diplomacy? This article examines Transnistria’s Order of Friendship, a state award that primarily targets foreigners, by analysing the profiles of all known award recipients. The Order is found to be a political tool to enhance Transnistria’s domestic and external legitimacy in the absence of recognised sovereignty. The findings confirm the literature on Transnistria’s ‘bandwagoning’ w…
The diplomacy of post-Soviet de facto states
Why do post-Soviet de facto states (such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia) regularly interact with remote Pacific islands or Latin American countries, even though they are not bound by any meaningful political, economic or military ties? This article argues that the diplomatic relationship management amounts to a strategy of external legitimacy-building through stigma rejection and ontological security-attainment. This diplomatic practice creates po…
The ritual creation of political symbols
International exchange programmes have been previously conceptualised based on the ‘opinion leader model’. It expects participants to form positive attitudes towards the host country, and to become influential back home. However, the micro-processes through which this goal can be achieved remain undertheorised. Drawing from Interaction Ritual Theory, this article argues that international exchanges consist of a chain of rituals. They strategicall…
Strategic Publics in Public Diplomacy
How do governments select their public diplomacy targets? Officials can shake hands with important allies’ presidents, they can honour writers from far-away states, or they can visit slums to meet victims of violence. This article proposes a conceptual typology of strategic publics based on two dimensions: the strategic importance of the represented polity; and the individual’s power position. The variables are parallel to universal psychological…
Conditions et moyens du développement culturel en milieu rural. L'exemple du Poitou-Charentes
The Conditions and Means of Cultural Development in Rural Areas : the Case of Poitou-Charentes. An initiative undertaken in the Poitou-Charentes region sheds light upon general problems of cultural development in rural areas
Transnistria’s Order of Friendship
What strategies do de facto states employ in conducting their diplomacy? This article examines Transnistria’s Order of Friendship, a state award that primarily targets foreigners, by analysing the profiles of all known award recipients. The Order is found to be a political tool to enhance Transnistria’s domestic and external legitimacy in the absence of recognised sovereignty. The findings confirm the literature on Transnistria’s ‘bandwagoning’ w…
The diplomacy of post-Soviet de facto states
Why do post-Soviet de facto states (such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia) regularly interact with remote Pacific islands or Latin American countries, even though they are not bound by any meaningful political, economic or military ties? This article argues that the diplomatic relationship management amounts to a strategy of external legitimacy-building through stigma rejection and ontological security-attainment. This diplomatic practice creates po…
The ritual creation of political symbols
International exchange programmes have been previously conceptualised based on the ‘opinion leader model’. It expects participants to form positive attitudes towards the host country, and to become influential back home. However, the micro-processes through which this goal can be achieved remain undertheorised. Drawing from Interaction Ritual Theory, this article argues that international exchanges consist of a chain of rituals. They strategicall…
Diplomacy Versus Politics
Diplomacy is often presented as subordinated to politics as if it merely received politically willed ‘inputs’ to produce politically structured ‘outputs’. However, diplomacy often deviates from political instructions. It can even operate almost without any political considerations whatsoever. This observation gives rise to a sense that politics and diplomacy operate as two separate systems that are mutually dependent and yet simultaneously indepe…
Diplomacy’s Paradox in the Law of State Awards
Diplomatic gifts are deeply paradoxical: they signal ‘peace’ between polities constituted by ‘power’ (peace-and-power paradox); they are exchanged between rulers of contiguous territories so as to momentarily signal a merger of separate entities (paradox of overlapping sovereignties). This essay uses a systems-theoretical approach to uncover this paradox in national laws of state awards. The analysis culminates in a conjectural legal norm prohibi…
How diplomacy evolves
Almost every polity uses state awards as diplomatic tools. Their global spread, however, cannot be explained by dominant theories of International Relations (which focus on military or economic rationales) or of diplomatic practices (which lack criteria for what constitutes a functionally suitable practice). The success of such seemingly non-instrumental tools may be better explained with a combination of Modern Systems Theory with the evolutiona…
Conditions et moyens du développement culturel en milieu rural. L'exemple du Poitou-Charentes
The Conditions and Means of Cultural Development in Rural Areas : the Case of Poitou-Charentes. An initiative undertaken in the Poitou-Charentes region sheds light upon general problems of cultural development in rural areas
Strategic Publics in Public Diplomacy
How do governments select their public diplomacy targets? Officials can shake hands with important allies’ presidents, they can honour writers from far-away states, or they can visit slums to meet victims of violence. This article proposes a conceptual typology of strategic publics based on two dimensions: the strategic importance of the represented polity; and the individual’s power position. The variables are parallel to universal psychological…
The ritual creation of political symbols
International exchange programmes have been previously conceptualised based on the ‘opinion leader model’. It expects participants to form positive attitudes towards the host country, and to become influential back home. However, the micro-processes through which this goal can be achieved remain undertheorised. Drawing from Interaction Ritual Theory, this article argues that international exchanges consist of a chain of rituals. They strategicall…
The diplomacy of post-Soviet de facto states
Why do post-Soviet de facto states (such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia) regularly interact with remote Pacific islands or Latin American countries, even though they are not bound by any meaningful political, economic or military ties? This article argues that the diplomatic relationship management amounts to a strategy of external legitimacy-building through stigma rejection and ontological security-attainment. This diplomatic practice creates po…
Theorizing Diplomacy
Transnistria’s Order of Friendship
What strategies do de facto states employ in conducting their diplomacy? This article examines Transnistria’s Order of Friendship, a state award that primarily targets foreigners, by analysing the profiles of all known award recipients. The Order is found to be a political tool to enhance Transnistria’s domestic and external legitimacy in the absence of recognised sovereignty. The findings confirm the literature on Transnistria’s ‘bandwagoning’ w…
Diplomacy’s Paradox in the Law of State Awards
Diplomatic gifts are deeply paradoxical: they signal ‘peace’ between polities constituted by ‘power’ (peace-and-power paradox); they are exchanged between rulers of contiguous territories so as to momentarily signal a merger of separate entities (paradox of overlapping sovereignties). This essay uses a systems-theoretical approach to uncover this paradox in national laws of state awards. The analysis culminates in a conjectural legal norm prohibi…
Ramy Youssef, 2020. Die Anerkennung von Grenzen
If “diplomacy” captures highly heterogeneous events – an inter-state conference on climate change with thousands of participants is as much “diplomacy” as a cocktail party in a small embassy – then how can it be that society recognizes the very same ‘diplomacy’ in such dissimilar occurrences? Ramy Youssef’s book offers the most complex and yet harmonious response to this question, a response nourished by Luhmannian systems theory, attaining a deg…
Diplomatic complexity and long-tailed distributions
States enact relations with both important partners and seemingly irrelevant countries. The non-strategic constitutes the larger set; a histogram could visualize them in a long-tailed distribution, with the x -axis denoting the partner countries, and the y -axis showing the interaction density. Investigating the function of this long tail, this paper premises that the international is characterized by complexity, meaning that the number of elemen…
Peace needs constant reproduction
If a diplomatic cocktail party lasts two hours, does it equal the duration of peace? Or are there less simplistic conceptualizations of ‘peace’ and ‘time’ for the theorization of diplomatic practices? This article draws on a concept of temporality based on an irreversible before/after distinction, and combines it with the modern systems theoretical premise that every event within the diplomatic system occurs under the medium of peace, finding tha…
Diplomacy Versus Politics
Diplomacy is often presented as subordinated to politics as if it merely received politically willed ‘inputs’ to produce politically structured ‘outputs’. However, diplomacy often deviates from political instructions. It can even operate almost without any political considerations whatsoever. This observation gives rise to a sense that politics and diplomacy operate as two separate systems that are mutually dependent and yet simultaneously indepe…
How diplomacy evolves
Almost every polity uses state awards as diplomatic tools. Their global spread, however, cannot be explained by dominant theories of International Relations (which focus on military or economic rationales) or of diplomatic practices (which lack criteria for what constitutes a functionally suitable practice). The success of such seemingly non-instrumental tools may be better explained with a combination of Modern Systems Theory with the evolutiona…
Permanent neutrality
Permanent neutrality is usually studied in terms of legal doctrines or country-level case studies. This article, in contrast, presents a systems-level theory drawing from Niklas Luhmann. It argues that, within the diplomatic system, an arrangement of states as sovereign equals (segmentary differentiation) is more peaceful than a hierarchy of two blocs (stratified differentiation). However, the diplomatic system is regularly drawn away from segmen…
Political science (12 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Diplomacy (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (8 works) · Law (7 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (6 works) · Political economy (6 works) · International relations (5 works) · Epistemology (4 works)