Karsten Jung Book order

Two centuries after the Congress of Vienna established the "Concert of Europe," the great powers convened in Austria in June 2015 to negotiate an end to the nuclear standoff with Iran. The EU-3+3 negotiations reflect a broader trend where key actors increasingly prefer exclusive, informal ad hoc formats for crisis management, reminiscent of the 19th-century concert. This shift raises important questions: Why do contemporary powers avoid the accountability and legitimacy of the post-war liberal institutional order? What drives their preference for a more casual diplomacy free from inclusive membership, strict procedures, and modern transparency standards? This study explores the rationale and viability of Contemporary Concert Diplomacy in the post-Cold War era. It employs a system-level analysis alongside four extensive case studies—the Yugoslavia Contact Group, the Middle East Quartet, the Six Party Talks with North Korea, and the EU-3+3 negotiations with Iran—to examine the emergence, operation, and outcomes of this approach. By shedding light on this significant yet underexplored instrument of crisis management, the work offers valuable insights for both students and practitioners of international affairs.

More than 50 years after Canada played an instrumental role in its inception, peacekeeping has once again returned to the center of the national foreign policy debate. Having participated in every peacekeeping operation set up during the Cold War and lived through the fundamental changes the activity has undergone in the 1990s, Ottawa is currently struggling to define a viable approach to peacekeeping for the 21st century. As a timely contribution to this effort, the study reveals the overt and subtle ways in which Canada’s commitment to peacekeeping has contributed to the promotion of vital national interests in the past and might continue to do so in the future.