International representation of contested statehood: an in-between of formal and informal diplomacy

Contested states’ international engagement has generated hybrid diplomatic practices by capitalising on their “own political in-between-ness”, as liminal actors of the international system (Bouris and Fernandez-Molina, 2018). This translates by a constant oscillation between reproductive and transformative ways of practising diplomacy, that is, on one hand the “mimicry” of state-led diplomacy (McConnell, Moreau and Dittmer, 2012) and on the other, the “creative ambivalence” (McConnel, 2017, 149) contested states have to resort to in their external interactions. The present contribution focuses on this duality in contested states’ international engagement, by focusing on their networks of representation abroad and their ambivalent relations to informal diplomacy. More particularly, how and why do representative offices maintain a balance between the symbolics and decorum of formal state-led diplomacy and an extensive use of practices characteristic of informal diplomacy? In order to do so, I will build up on the cases of Abkhazia, South-Ossetia, the Popular Republic of Donetsk and the Popular Republic of Luhansk. Firstly, these four contested states have constituted a well-endowed network of representative offices located in the EU- that is in states that did not grant them recognition. Additionally, they also have in common a similar geopolitical culture that shaped the choice of local partners to interact with. In a cross-case approach, I will rely on semi-structured interviews with the heads of representative offices of South-Ossetia, Abkhazia and DPR and LPR in France, Italy and Finland. They will be supplemented by sources collected on the websites of the different MFAs and representative offices.