Follow-ups in pre-structured communication
The case of treaty monitoring
This contribution outlines two theoretical frameworks – behaviorist and reflexive
– for considering the discursive interaction between states and international
organizations within treaty monitoring (a process of assessing states’ compliance
with international treaties). Monitoring is seen as a communicative process,
aimed at building and sustaining the interlocutors’ public images and constituted
by a series of multi-directed follow-ups. This definition emphasizes the importance
of anticipation and silence in pre-structured diplomatic communication.
The two suggested frameworks lie across the ontological divide. The behaviorist
framework relies on an actor/speaker-oriented view of social interaction, conceives
of actors as rational, strategizing beings performing cost-benefit calculations
to define their discursive choices, and conceptualizes the participants’
concern with their public image in terms of ‘face wants’. The reflexive framework
looks at how states and international organizations (IOs) use the monitoring
exchange to (re)construct their relationship while projecting a specific image
into the public sphere. Continuity of the interaction, intensity and regularity of
the exchange within treaty monitoring provide IOs with sources of power and
thus allow rebalancing the initially asymmetrical set-up. The frameworks are
illustrated using the example of the monitoring mechanism of the Council of
Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.
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Berlin, Lawrence N., Elda Weizman & Anita Fetzer
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