Summit Diplomacy Coming of Age

This analysis views the practice of summitry as a controversial but irreversible development in modern diplomatic practice. The author first defines the concept of summit diplomacy, and then examines the advantages and disadvantages of diplomatic dialogue at the highest level. The reasons for summitry?s explosive growth in the second half of the twentieth century are discussed in the context of the changing international setting of summitry. It is argued that the continuing spread of the practice of summitry has a price of its own. In particular it is suggested that the quality of summits does not keep pace with their quantity and that ? in spite of summitry?s continuing utility ? the practice is increasingly problematic for the leaders themselves, their diplomatic support systems and their domestic constituencies. Optimism about the evolution of multilateral summitry in the literature of the 1990s has proven to be unwarranted. The multilateral summit meeting has all but reached a state of crisis and it increasingly has the potential to create more problems for the chief executive than it resolves. This crisis is evident in the relationship between political leaders and their electorates as summitry increasingly becomes the most significant area in which diplomacy at the highest level is required to meet public concerns. One could argue that this development amounts to summitry coming of age.