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Alan K. Henrikson

Associate Professor of Diplomatic History

Education

AB, Harvard College
BA and MA as a Rhodes Scholar, Balliol College, Oxford
AM and PhD in history as a Danforth Fellow, Harvard University

Professional Activities

Director of Diplomatic Studies, The Fletcher School; Visiting Professor, European Commission, Brussels; Fulbright/Diplomatic Academy Visiting Professor of International Relations, Diplomatische Akademie, Vienna; Visiting Professor (United Nations Development Programme), China Foreign Affairs University, Beijing; Visiting Professor, National Institute for Defense Studies, Tokyo; Lloyd I. Miller Visiting Professor of Diplomatic History, US Department of State, Washington, DC.

Biography

Professor Alan K. Henrikson is Director of Diplomatic Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, where he teaches American diplomatic history, contemporary U.S.-European relations, political geography, and the history, theory, and practice of diplomacy. In November 2005 he was Visiting Professor at the European Commission in Brussels where he taught a course on “American Foreign Policy Making.” During the Spring of 2003 he was Fulbright/Diplomatic Academy Visiting Professor of International Relations at the Diplomatische Akademie in Vienna. He has been an Associate and a Visiting Scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, where he also has served as Counselor on Canadian Affairs. During 1986-1987 he was Lloyd I. Miller Visiting Professor of Diplomatic History and Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs in the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State in Washington. He also has been a Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Defense Studies in Tokyo and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Visiting Professor of Diplomatic History at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing.

He has written widely on the history and current problems of U.S. foreign policy, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, U.S.-European Union relations, the Nordic/Arctic area, Canadian-U.S.-Mexican continental integration, the diplomacy of Caribbean island and also other smaller countries, the geostrategic “mental maps” of American foreign policy makers, and the achievement of “consensus” via multilateral diplomacy and international organization—the subject of his Negotiating World Order: The Artisanship and Architecture of Global Diplomacy. Among his recent publications are: “Diplomacy’s Possible Futures,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 1 (2006); “Niche Diplomacy in the World Public Arena: The Global ‘Corners’ of Canada and Norway,” in The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); The Future of Diplomacy? Five Projective Visions, Clingendael Discussion Paper in Diplomacy 96 (2005); “The Geography of Diplomacy,” in The Geography of War and Peace (Oxford University Press, 2005); “Good Neighbour Diplomacy Revisited,” in Holding the Line: Borders in a Global World (University of British Columbia Press, 2005); and “Diplomacy and Small States in Today’s World,” in In Face of Man, Vol. 2, The Dr. Eric Williams Memorial Lectures (Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, 2005).

Alan Henrikson received A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. degrees in History from Harvard University where he was a Harvard National Scholar and a Danforth Graduate Fellow. He holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Oxford, where he read Philosophy-Politics-and-Economics (P.-P.-E.) at Balliol College as a Rhodes Scholar. He studied as well at the International Summer School of the University of Oslo in Norway.

He is past President of the United Nations Association of Greater Boston (UNA-GB) and currently is a member of the National Council of the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA). He also has served as a Vice President of the World Affairs Council of Boston. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Boston Committee on Foreign Relations and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Programs & Centers

• The Edward R. Murrow Center

Courses

Fall 2009

• DHP H200 - The Foreign Relations of the United States to 1917

Research Interests

American diplomatic history and foreign policy; American-European relations; Canadian-US-Mexican-Caribbean relations; political geography and cartography; the United Nations system; ideas of "new world order"; and the history, theory, and practice of diplomacy.

The “Diplomatic” Turn in U.S. Foreign Policy

Revised text of speaking notes used as basis for a lecture at the National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS) and also for an informal talk to the Fletcher Club of Japan at the home of Mark J. Davidson, Tokyo, July 18, 2006. Read more...

Selected Publications

• What Can Public Diplomacy Achieve? (2006),
• "A Structural Approach to Transatlantic Unity," EU- US Relations: Repairing the Transatlantic Rift (2006;
• "Diplomacy's Possible Futures," The Hague Journal of Diplomacy (2006);
• "Niche Diplomacy in the World Public Arena: The Global 'Comers' of Canada and Norway," The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations (2005);
• "The Geography of Diplomacy," The Geography of War and Peace (2005);
• "Good Neighbour Diplomacy Revisited," Holding the Line: Borders in a Borderless World (2005);
• "Diplomacy and Small States in Today's World," In Face of Man, Vol. 2, The Dr. Eric Williams Memorial Lectures (2005);
• "Paradise and Power? A Fulbright Perspective," Global Society: Journal of Interdisciplinary International Relations (2003);
• "Power, Paradise, and the Atlantic Community," One Culture or Two? Problems and Prospects of Transatlantic Dialogue (2003);
• "Why the United States and Europe See the World Differently: An Atlanticist's Rejoinder to the Kagan Thesis," EUSA Review (Summer 2003);
• "Henry Kissinger, Geopolitics, and Globalization," The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs (2003);
• "Distance and Foreign Policy: A Political Geography Approach," International Political Science Review (2002);
• "Elitism," Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy (2002);
• "Can We Improve the Linking of Cultures?" Current Issues in International Diplomacy and Foreign Policy (2001);
• "A Coming 'Magnesian' Age? Small States, the Global System, and the International Community," Geopolitics (2001);
• "Beyond Global-Regional Thinking," The Global Century: Globalization and National Security (2001);
• "Geographical Antipathy, and the Personification of 'Place Hate,'" Political Geography (2001);
• "The Role of Metropolitan Regions in Making a New Atlantic Community," Ever Closer Partnership: Policy-Making in US-EU Relations (2001);
• "Facing Across Borders: The Diplomacy of Bon Voisinage," International Political Science Review (2000).