Rethinking Diplomatic Transformation Through Social Theories of Trust

In the 2012 Martin Wight Memorial Lecture, Nicholas Wheeler explored how trust might be built between political leaders, drawing primarily on how the interpersonal relationship between Reagan and Gorbachev changed the diplomatic relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. This paper engages the theoretical and empirical claims made in this article, arguing that the focus on the interpersonal relationship obscures more potentially important dynamics of trust-building between states. It seeks to show how focusing on the interpersonal relationships alone not only cannot account for long-term trust building, but also how the focus on the interpersonal relationship creates a highly simplified narrative that fails to account for important structural conditions that transformed the diplomatic relationship. Contrary to the claim that 'trustworthiness belong[s] to the individual and interpersonal level,' this paper suggests that investigations of diplomatic transformation through trustbuilding must include both international and societal components and examines the issues that must be considered to build a larger theory of state trust.