Diplomacy as Collective Actions and Discursive Construction – the Case of Nineteenth Century French Diplomats in China

While researchers in New Diplomatic History often seek to decenter elite-based narratives by highlighting grassroots and marginal actors, this essay argues for a nuanced approach that relativizes the distinction between “elites” and “margins,” rather than simply excluding high ranking decision-makers from the scope of research. Drawing on the personnel archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this essay exposes the intense domestic power struggles that shaped France’s diplomatic practices, undermining the coherence of what is retrospectively labelled as “French foreign policy.” And by analyzing internal tensions within both Chinese and French officialdom during conflicts of the 1880s, it demonstrates how diplomacy can function less as a rational, state-driven mechanism than as a field of competing social ties, discursive maneuvers, and strategic misrepresentations. Often portrayed as central mediators whose personal agency shaped diplomatic outcomes, diplomats instead appear as constrained agents, embedded within broader structures of social interaction and power relations.