Inglês — CACD 2018

Text II 1  What do politically minded visitors to a zoo feel when they stand in front of the panda bear’s cage? The previously cute panda may suddenly strike them as strange — there is an 4 intuitive knowledge that this panda, constantly eating bamboo in front of a cheerful and amazed audience, is deeply charged with political agency. 7  Estrangement from the familiar is the start of every theory. Unfortunately, it was only recently that political scientists have embarked on exploring diplomacy 10 systematically as a conceptual phenomenon, generating one unquestionable axiom: that of representation. As with any axiom, it is unprovable, but it is the taken-for-granted starting 13 point for all further research: most scholars agree on the basic postulate that diplomacy is about people representing polities (most often a state) vis-à-vis another polity. 16  One should mention that the notion of political representation is a theoretical axiom applicable to all countries, but let us explore the example given by the panda bear and, 19 consequently, by China a little further.  It is often correctly perceived that the speech of an accredited Chinese ambassador is attributable to the Chinese 22 government. It is “China” who spoke, not (just) the individual person. This is the basis of representation. But what is often forgotten is how non-human material can represent polities — 25 they are also diplomats, but mute.  It may sound ridiculous, if not provocative, to posit that the panda bear in the zoo is China. But this is merely an 28 extension of the basic premise of diplomatic theory. Why should only human individuals be able to represent a state? In periods of conflict, flags (material objects) are burnt, walls are 31 erected, monuments torn down; in times of better political mood, heads of states exchange precious gifts with each other, while embassy buildings in foreign countries enjoy a “sacred” 34 legal status. Flags, walls, monuments, gifts, and the embassies re-present, i.e. “bring into presence,” a country, and actions toward these objects address the states they represent. 37  And there are good grounds for sensing a foreign policy tool in the giant pandas that now reside in zoos all over the world. They prominently embody China’s modern public 40 diplomacy; they are non-human material deliberately deployed by the Chinese government to the soil of other states; and they have, at times, served as the primary means of expressing 43 inter-state sentiment — during times of both conflict and cooperation —, in instances of the so-called “panda diplomacy”.

Text II 1  What do politically minded visitors to a zoo feel when they stand in front of the panda bear’s cage? The previously cute panda may suddenly strike them as strange — there is an 4 intuitive knowledge that this panda, constantly eating bamboo in front of a cheerful and amazed audience, is deeply charged with political agency. 7  Estrangement from the familiar is the start of every theory. Unfortunately, it was only recently that political scientists have embarked on exploring diplomacy 10 systematically as a conceptual phenomenon, generating one unquestionable axiom: that of representation. As with any axiom, it is unprovable, but it is the taken-for-granted starting 13 point for all further research: most scholars agree on the basic postulate that diplomacy is about people representing polities (most often a state) vis-à-vis another polity. 16  One should mention that the notion of political representation is a theoretical axiom applicable to all countries, but let us explore the example given by the panda bear and, 19 consequently, by China a little further.  It is often correctly perceived that the speech of an accredited Chinese ambassador is attributable to the Chinese 22 government. It is “China” who spoke, not (just) the individual person. This is the basis of representation. But what is often forgotten is how non-human material can represent polities — 25 they are also diplomats, but mute.  It may sound ridiculous, if not provocative, to posit that the panda bear in the zoo is China. But this is merely an 28 extension of the basic premise of diplomatic theory. Why should only human individuals be able to represent a state? In periods of conflict, flags (material objects) are burnt, walls are 31 erected, monuments torn down; in times of better political mood, heads of states exchange precious gifts with each other, while embassy buildings in foreign countries enjoy a “sacred” 34 legal status. Flags, walls, monuments, gifts, and the embassies re-present, i.e. “bring into presence,” a country, and actions toward these objects address the states they represent. 37  And there are good grounds for sensing a foreign policy tool in the giant pandas that now reside in zoos all over the world. They prominently embody China’s modern public 40 diplomacy; they are non-human material deliberately deployed by the Chinese government to the soil of other states; and they have, at times, served as the primary means of expressing 43 inter-state sentiment — during times of both conflict and cooperation —, in instances of the so-called “panda diplomacy”.

Text I 1  With this report, our aim is to present initial reflections on diplomacy in the digital age. In the ongoing debate amongst international relations scholars, information 4 and communication technology (ICT) experts, digital strategists, social media advocates and others, the first question for us is: what is happening to diplomacy? And the obvious 7 answer is what has always happened to it: diplomacy is responding to changes in the international and domestic environments, in the main centres of authority, particularly 10 states, and in the character of societies at home and abroad.  “Newness” in diplomacy today has everything to do with the application of new communications technologies to 13 diplomacy. This issue goes right to the heart of diplomacy’s core functions, including negotiation, representation and communication. Given the centrality of communication in 16 diplomacy, it is hardly surprising that the rise of social media should be of interest to practitioners of diplomacy. Most of them, like people outside diplomatic culture, are in the process 19 of adjusting their “analogue” habits and finding their own voice in a new information sphere. This takes time, and for technological enthusiasts to simply proclaim the arrival of a 22 “new statecraft” in the form of what is variously termed e-diplomacy, digital diplomacy, cyber diplomacy and “twiplomacy” is too simplistic. 25  Paradoxically, greater complexity encourages shallow, hurried analyses and the search for simple explanations about what is happening to diplomacy as the 28 regulating mechanism of the society of states. As in other epochs of fast technological change, the lure of quick fixes addressing multifaceted processes of change in diplomacy 31 appears almost irresistible.

Text II 1  What do politically minded visitors to a zoo feel when they stand in front of the panda bear’s cage? The previously cute panda may suddenly strike them as strange — there is an 4 intuitive knowledge that this panda, constantly eating bamboo in front of a cheerful and amazed audience, is deeply charged with political agency. 7  Estrangement from the familiar is the start of every theory. Unfortunately, it was only recently that political scientists have embarked on exploring diplomacy 10 systematically as a conceptual phenomenon, generating one unquestionable axiom: that of representation. As with any axiom, it is unprovable, but it is the taken-for-granted starting 13 point for all further research: most scholars agree on the basic postulate that diplomacy is about people representing polities (most often a state) vis-à-vis another polity. 16  One should mention that the notion of political representation is a theoretical axiom applicable to all countries, but let us explore the example given by the panda bear and, 19 consequently, by China a little further.  It is often correctly perceived that the speech of an accredited Chinese ambassador is attributable to the Chinese 22 government. It is “China” who spoke, not (just) the individual person. This is the basis of representation. But what is often forgotten is how non-human material can represent polities — 25 they are also diplomats, but mute.  It may sound ridiculous, if not provocative, to posit that the panda bear in the zoo is China. But this is merely an 28 extension of the basic premise of diplomatic theory. Why should only human individuals be able to represent a state? In periods of conflict, flags (material objects) are burnt, walls are 31 erected, monuments torn down; in times of better political mood, heads of states exchange precious gifts with each other, while embassy buildings in foreign countries enjoy a “sacred” 34 legal status. Flags, walls, monuments, gifts, and the embassies re-present, i.e. “bring into presence,” a country, and actions toward these objects address the states they represent. 37  And there are good grounds for sensing a foreign policy tool in the giant pandas that now reside in zoos all over the world. They prominently embody China’s modern public 40 diplomacy; they are non-human material deliberately deployed by the Chinese government to the soil of other states; and they have, at times, served as the primary means of expressing 43 inter-state sentiment — during times of both conflict and cooperation —, in instances of the so-called “panda diplomacy”.

Text II 1  What do politically minded visitors to a zoo feel when they stand in front of the panda bear’s cage? The previously cute panda may suddenly strike them as strange — there is an 4 intuitive knowledge that this panda, constantly eating bamboo in front of a cheerful and amazed audience, is deeply charged with political agency. 7  Estrangement from the familiar is the start of every theory. Unfortunately, it was only recently that political scientists have embarked on exploring diplomacy 10 systematically as a conceptual phenomenon, generating one unquestionable axiom: that of representation. As with any axiom, it is unprovable, but it is the taken-for-granted starting 13 point for all further research: most scholars agree on the basic postulate that diplomacy is about people representing polities (most often a state) vis-à-vis another polity. 16  One should mention that the notion of political representation is a theoretical axiom applicable to all countries, but let us explore the example given by the panda bear and, 19 consequently, by China a little further.  It is often correctly perceived that the speech of an accredited Chinese ambassador is attributable to the Chinese 22 government. It is “China” who spoke, not (just) the individual person. This is the basis of representation. But what is often forgotten is how non-human material can represent polities — 25 they are also diplomats, but mute.  It may sound ridiculous, if not provocative, to posit that the panda bear in the zoo is China. But this is merely an 28 extension of the basic premise of diplomatic theory. Why should only human individuals be able to represent a state? In periods of conflict, flags (material objects) are burnt, walls are 31 erected, monuments torn down; in times of better political mood, heads of states exchange precious gifts with each other, while embassy buildings in foreign countries enjoy a “sacred” 34 legal status. Flags, walls, monuments, gifts, and the embassies re-present, i.e. “bring into presence,” a country, and actions toward these objects address the states they represent. 37  And there are good grounds for sensing a foreign policy tool in the giant pandas that now reside in zoos all over the world. They prominently embody China’s modern public 40 diplomacy; they are non-human material deliberately deployed by the Chinese government to the soil of other states; and they have, at times, served as the primary means of expressing 43 inter-state sentiment — during times of both conflict and cooperation —, in instances of the so-called “panda diplomacy”.

Text V 1  Ages ago, I acquired two recordings that inspire a feeling of weirdness whenever I listen to them, or even think about them. Both are performances of the great Lerner and 4 Loewe musical My Fair Lady in languages other than English. Each of them has a special twist of irony. At the core of the original story is how the coarse Cockney girl Liza Doolittle is 7 as a challenge, taken in by the insufferably smug but utterly enthralled professor Henry Higgins, and through painful exercises — “The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain” — 10 acquires such an impeccably upper-class Oxbridge way of speaking English that at her (and his) ultimate test, a posh ball that she attends incognito, drifting among the cream of British 13 society, the keenest linguistic sleuth in the land dances with this mysterious beauty and in the end declares her too good to be true, and hence not English elite at all, but Hungarian! 16  The whole idea of de-anglicizing this story strikes me as really nutty — and yet there they are, those recordings on my shelf. And so, on what wet plains do those heavy, 19 drenching rains mainly fall, in Mi Bella Dama? And in the Hungarian version, to what elite nationality is the too-good to-be-true unrecognized Cockney girl assigned? Of course, the 22 truly strange part in both cases is that the whole time she is speaking Spanish or Hungarian, the charade is maintained that she is actually speaking English, and, unlike most plays or 25 movies where one language is made to pass for another, the linguistic medium here is not just an incidental fact, but the very crux of the entire plot. I suppose the suspension of 28 disbelief involved is no more strained than our willingness to accept as “reality” a story that is occasionally interrupted by the actors’ breaking into lyrical song, and then, as suddenly as 31 it started, the singing is over and apparent normalcy resumes on stage.

Text V 1  Ages ago, I acquired two recordings that inspire a feeling of weirdness whenever I listen to them, or even think about them. Both are performances of the great Lerner and 4 Loewe musical My Fair Lady in languages other than English. Each of them has a special twist of irony. At the core of the original story is how the coarse Cockney girl Liza Doolittle is 7 as a challenge, taken in by the insufferably smug but utterly enthralled professor Henry Higgins, and through painful exercises — “The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain” — 10 acquires such an impeccably upper-class Oxbridge way of speaking English that at her (and his) ultimate test, a posh ball that she attends incognito, drifting among the cream of British 13 society, the keenest linguistic sleuth in the land dances with this mysterious beauty and in the end declares her too good to be true, and hence not English elite at all, but Hungarian! 16  The whole idea of de-anglicizing this story strikes me as really nutty — and yet there they are, those recordings on my shelf. And so, on what wet plains do those heavy, 19 drenching rains mainly fall, in Mi Bella Dama? And in the Hungarian version, to what elite nationality is the too-good to-be-true unrecognized Cockney girl assigned? Of course, the 22 truly strange part in both cases is that the whole time she is speaking Spanish or Hungarian, the charade is maintained that she is actually speaking English, and, unlike most plays or 25 movies where one language is made to pass for another, the linguistic medium here is not just an incidental fact, but the very crux of the entire plot. I suppose the suspension of 28 disbelief involved is no more strained than our willingness to accept as “reality” a story that is occasionally interrupted by the actors’ breaking into lyrical song, and then, as suddenly as 31 it started, the singing is over and apparent normalcy resumes on stage.

Text V 1  Ages ago, I acquired two recordings that inspire a feeling of weirdness whenever I listen to them, or even think about them. Both are performances of the great Lerner and 4 Loewe musical My Fair Lady in languages other than English. Each of them has a special twist of irony. At the core of the original story is how the coarse Cockney girl Liza Doolittle is 7 as a challenge, taken in by the insufferably smug but utterly enthralled professor Henry Higgins, and through painful exercises — “The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain” — 10 acquires such an impeccably upper-class Oxbridge way of speaking English that at her (and his) ultimate test, a posh ball that she attends incognito, drifting among the cream of British 13 society, the keenest linguistic sleuth in the land dances with this mysterious beauty and in the end declares her too good to be true, and hence not English elite at all, but Hungarian! 16  The whole idea of de-anglicizing this story strikes me as really nutty — and yet there they are, those recordings on my shelf. And so, on what wet plains do those heavy, 19 drenching rains mainly fall, in Mi Bella Dama? And in the Hungarian version, to what elite nationality is the too-good to-be-true unrecognized Cockney girl assigned? Of course, the 22 truly strange part in both cases is that the whole time she is speaking Spanish or Hungarian, the charade is maintained that she is actually speaking English, and, unlike most plays or 25 movies where one language is made to pass for another, the linguistic medium here is not just an incidental fact, but the very crux of the entire plot. I suppose the suspension of 28 disbelief involved is no more strained than our willingness to accept as “reality” a story that is occasionally interrupted by the actors’ breaking into lyrical song, and then, as suddenly as 31 it started, the singing is over and apparent normalcy resumes on stage.