Diplomatic Outreach Dataset
v.1.1 (Horn of Africa) available on Harvard Dataverse
[ tzcorda.weebly.com/data.html for updates]
The first version of the dataset on Diplomatic Outreach, tracking countries’ international bilateral diplomatic visits, is finally available on Harvard Dataverse. The first version is limited in time and geographical scope, as it covers only the past few years of Eritrea (01.04.2018–31.12.2020), Ethiopia (01.04.2018–31.12.2020), and Sudan (01.04.2019–31.12.2020) — roughly since Abiy Ahmed’s appointment as prime minister in Ethiopia (April 2, 2018) and since the fall of Bashir in the case of Sudan (April 11, 2019). All the variables contained in the dataset are described in detail in the Codebook that has also been published on Harvard Dataverse.
This article summarises the main points of the codebook and, additionally, it discusses the motivations and the process behind the compilation of this dataset, some patterns which already emerged from the data contained in the first version, and also some possible uses researchers but also journalists could make of this data collection.
About the Dataset
The Diplomatic Outreach dataset is a collection of data related to a given country’s bilateral “diplomatic outreach”, an expression here used to refer to the bilateral diplomatic visits the high-level political authorities of a given country make abroad (outgoing) or receive at home (incoming). The publication of a dataset on the topic is intended to raise the level of quality of related research, by ensuring a systematic form to data collection and the possibility of interaction with other datasets.
The dataset tracks only high-level bilateral visits, ranked according to different levels of “seniority” involved: visits that involve the country’s heads of state or government are coded as level 1 (an extra column also indicates whether this level was also present for the partner country, hence characterising the bilateral visit as a “state visit”); those involving their deputies and/or the ministers of Foreign Affairs are coded as level 2 (note that with regard to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar (and potentially also for the other Gulf monarchies), I coded crown princes as 1*, hence as HoSG-to-be, and not as 2 as if they were “deputies” of their kings and emirs); those involving other cabinet members are coded as level 3; those which involved military representatives only are coded as level 4; all the other visits which have involved another kind of political authority linked to the government are coded as level 5. Parliamentary and business delegations, as well as exclusively multilateral fora are excluded from the data collection. The only non-state partner tracked is the European Union (no United Nations, African Union, etc.). Palestine and the Holy See (in the dataset I use “Vatican”) are included as they are UN non-member states. Somaliland is included too.
The dataset also contains additional information about the main actors who took part in the visits, both for the country under analysis (in this first version only Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan) and its partner state. There are also extra columns about each state’s level of democracy and freedom (more on this in the following paragraphs). Finally, some conclusive “Notes” add supplementary details on the motivation or the topics discussed during the visits, although the extent of the information provided varies a lot from case to case (originally I planned to code the theme or nature of the visit as a categorical variable, but too many visits were conducted without releasing official statements, leaving such information confidential).
What to make of it
This is not the first diplomatic dataset ever created, but the existing ones (and their related research) have so far overwhelmingly focused only on the presence (or absence) of diplomatic missions (intended as embassies, consulates, and other offices of diplomatic representation). Correlates of War’s Diplomatic Exchange is an instance of this, just like the Lowy Institute’s Global Diplomacy Index. The only exception which focuses instead on diplomatic visits is Asia Society Policy Institute’s diplomatic relations sections (only on few Asian countries, though, and only in relation to other Asian countries) .
Data on diplomatic outreach can definitely be useful both for descriptive and explanatory purposes, although they can hardly ever, on their own, fully capture the extent of a country’s influence and ties abroad. This dataset does not intend to overstate their explanatory power at all. We should not and cannot read too much in a single diplomatic visit or even a pattern of visits, without exploring in depth the details of them (as for the “sentiment”, were they intended to secure better ties, or the opposite? Besides the “sentiment”, which were the topic discussed or the agreements signed? And so on). But with the help of the details of the visits added in the notes (when available), the data can actually yield some useful insights. And therefore, as a complement to other data, diplomatic outreach can sometimes be a useful barometer of a country’s foreign ambitions, but also of changes in its domestic politics. The data collected can indeed be of use both to research about a country’s international relations and to studies on domestic transitions, as well as on the interactions between the two — as I have already tried to do (i,ii,iii).
The first version of the dataset, for example, can already provide good insights into some of the Horn of Africa’s recent crises.
The timeline of Ethiopia’s recent incoming and outgoing diplomatic visits (figure 1) reveals how frequent the interactions between Addis and Khartoum have been in the past months, at a time in which tensions on the dam and on the farmlands of al-Fashqa are increasing. Whatever the outcome of this latter confrontation will be, diplomacy was actually given a chance in the past months. The intensity of the bilateral visits the leaderships of the two countries paid to each other after November is a tangible sign of their reluctance to start a border war (and overstretch their military and economic resources, given their other ongoing crises). At least concerning the highest political level (let us also remember that Abiy played a primary role in the Sudanese transition, facilitating the negotiations between the military and the civilian front in spring 2019). Yet, more hardline stakeholders involved in the dispute may beg to differ. The timeline also substantiates the story of Addis’ current friction with Cairo and Juba, whose warming of bilateral relations (in mid-November, with the Tigray conflict at its peak, there was the first visit ever of an Egyptian president to Juba) was received in Addis with a marked anti-Ethiopian flavour. Unsurprisingly, the pattern of Ethiopia’s visits in November shows that the three envoys (Demeke, Gedu, and President Sahle-Work Zewde) whom Abiy dispatched abroad after the Tigray conflict visited all the countries in the region except for Egypt and South Sudan.
At a time when also Eritrea-Sudan relations may be getting tense again (after indications of the former’s presence along the Ethiopia-Sudan border), the Eritrean timeline (fig. 2) shows the yet remarkable improvement of ties with the change of regime (when Isaias visited Khartoum in September 2019 for the first time in 6 years, he was the second head of state visiting Sudan after the new regime took power). Looking at the data, you would also appreciate the intensity of contacts between the two countries ever since (only Isaias-Abiy bromance has performed better).
The first head of state visiting Sudan’s TMC was Abiy, though. The Sudanese timeline (fig. 3) reminds us again of how strong the diplomatic ties between Khartoum and Addis have generally been since 2019. Something to bear in mind when speaking of an all-out war now that the border dispute and the ‘dam issue’ are putting considerable strain on their relations. Finally, similar Arabian patterns have emerged across all the timelines, where Gulf monarchies appear either as first destinations of Sudan’s and Ethiopia’s new rulers after they came to power (in the first case also thanks to their intervention) or as “frequent flyers”, hence emphasizing the primary role Gulf powers (especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE) have recently played in all the Horn countries.
What’s next? The objective is clearly to expand this dataset both in time (going back more years) and in countries covered (at least concerning HoSG/MFA visits), first completing the whole Horn of Africa and then going beyond (not only in Africa — West Asia is high on the agenda too). Once additional years and countries are included, the dataset can well be used for more quantitative research too. The inclusion of additional variables on regions, democracy scores, and political rights and civil freedoms is precisely intended to stimulate this kind of research too (the data are taken from the Economist Intelligence Unit and Freedom House, while awaiting the Polity Project’s “dis-embargo”), to address a potentially very broad range of questions, i.e. Are autocracies more likely to exchange diplomatic visits only with each other? To what extent do a country’s patterns of diplomatic outreach also correlate with its trade or arms transfers trends? Or again, following the example of last year’s analysis on Sudan and its transitional government, how do rival domestic power blocs reflect their diversity in international allegiances too, and vice versa how do foreign powers select their favourite “entry points” when vying for influence in a new country? And finally, do African leaders visit more frequently extra-continental powers than other regional states (in the same way as extra-African trade numbers belittle intra-African ones)?, just to name a few.
While existing datasets on diplomatic representations have generally been made for “dummies” (I mean, for research using dummy variables related to the opening/presence or closure/absence of an embassy. Cf Singer and Small, 1973), a dataset on diplomatic visits like this gives you much more and more diverse variables (discrete but also continuous ones) which are suitable for quantitative research too and can give you a more complete and critical overview about the evolution of a country’s international relations besides the mere presence or absence of a foreign mission (you’re welcome).
A “scientific” publication is in order once the data collected are larger and more fine-grained. In this respect, please note that this dataset is neither comprehensive nor free from errors. There is no single source or list of reference sites from which to get the data, thus it is likely that not all the actual bilateral visits have been captured in the dataset, especially lower-level ones. In other words, the dataset can show which and how many visits a given country conducted at least in the years under investigation, but could be the case there were some more that are still missing. Please, feel free to get in touch with me to report missing data and help make this dataset more complete and correct:
tiziana[dot]corda[at]unimi[dot]it
Finally, below you can find an interactive map to explore, also visually, the data contained in the dataset v1.1 (click on the arcs for more details) and a searchable table displaying some of its variables.
I am pursuing a PhD in Political Studies at the Network for the Advancement of Social and Political Studies (NASP) of the University of Milan, Italy. Within the framework of my doctoral research, I am analysing the decision-making process in countries targeted by international sanctions, with a specific focus on the countries in the Horn of Africa and Iran. Currently, I am also collaborating on a project of the University of Sussex and funded by the European Research Council (ERC) on Violence, Elites, and Resilience in States Under Stress (VERSUS), focusing mostly on Ethiopia. Previously, I worked as a researcher at the Italian think tank ISPI.
