Diplomatic Gifts: An Introduction to the Forum

Kustermans offers insights about diplomatic gifts. Its potential dangers notwithstanding, gift-giving has always been fixture of diplomatic practice. When one reads about premodern diplomacy, gift exchange is oftentimes portrayed as particularly central and important to the practice. However, when one reads about modern-day diplomacy, attention to gift exchange is much less sustained and its significance downplayed. The rea-son for this neglect could be that the exchange of diplomatic gifts has indeed become less central to diplomatic relations today than it was before.