People
Aldo Matteucci
Former Deputy Secretary General of the European Free Trade Association
Mr Aldo Matteucci graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ) in Agriculture, and from Berkeley in Agricultural Economics. He spent three years in East Africa doing research on land use, then in Maryland, working on rural development. In 1977 he joined the Swiss Federal Office of Economic Affairs. He was deputy director of the EUREKA Secretariat in Brussels, and from 1994 to 2000, deputy secretary general of EFTA. He obtained early retirement upon leaving EFTA. He remains a committed contrarian.
Related events
Persuasion, the essence of diplomacy - a seminar
New: Consult the report from the seminar. The book Persuasion, the essence of diplomacy will be presented at a seminar organised by DiploFoundation and the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies on 3 April 2013 (...
Related blogs
How can Wikis improve diplomatic reporting?
Everyone loves Wikipedia... yet hardly anyone realises the potential of the underlying software for streamlining paperwork in an MFA and significantly improving the efficiency of the archiving system. ‘Wiki’ softw...
Religiously objectionable material on the internet
Aldo Matteucci comments on the Delhi High Court warning to Facebook and Google that their websites will be blocked if they dipsplay \"obscene depictions online of Jesus Christ, the Prophet Mohammed, and various Hindu ...
Why "offensive realism" is unrealistic theory of international relations?
In his latest blog, Aldo Matteucci, Diplo\'s resident contrarian, questions the function of academia in modern society. According to Aldo, \'It is a game an elite plays when it has lost its social function – i.e. ha...
Two kinds of conversation
Ancient Greece developed a unique way of settling disagreements among cities: hoplites met in a plain, fought for a day and abided by the outcome. “For those men, the purpose was now to settle the entire business,...
Uses and abuses of conspiracy theory
When too many unknowns chase too few equations one gets the “over-determination problem”: too many possible explanations for the same phenomenon. One has no way of choosing among them objectively. Conspiracy the...
The (un)timely demise of Intellectual Property Rights?
Intellectual property rights, such as patents, are “good good good” - or so we say out loud. Well, way may be soon chanting a different tune. Patents were a conditional bounty at the outset: a time-limited mono...
Silent Culture
Jovan has culled this piece of news for me: On July 27, the Olympic Games will open in London.. Perhaps the most socially significant development in London so far has been on a broad avenue leading down from Hyde Par...
Wreckers are as important as builders
I was reading Eric Hobsbawn’s excellent eulogy on Tony Judt this rainy morning. One sentence struck me. Speaking of the end of the Communist system, this Marxist historian stated: The real heroes of the period [i...
Election as catharsis
The results of the first round in the French presidential elections have been published[1]. A “public intellectual” – Max GALLO, historical fiction writer and Member of the French Academy – has given an interv...
Is outcome a good measure of performance?
Duncan J. WATTS has put a conundrum to me in his book[1], which I might share with you. Assume two drivers A and B, both drunk, both running a red light on their way home. Driver A fails to notice a pedestrian as he ...
Putting planning on its head
I’m no friend of “top down” planning and have often chided anyone believing that this can be done meaningfully. Reality is messy, is my jaundiced view, and there are too many factors impinging on it: seeking out...
Be aware (and beware) of bullshit
During an idle pause in a multilateral negotiation you might do worse than read Harry G. FRANKFURT[1] on bullshit[2]. It is short (67 small-sized pages), well and clearly written, and full of wit. He draws a fine lin...
Speak up early and loudly
Mainstream media no longer controls the narrative on a policy subject. It must expect debate, and counter-narratives. The next best thing to influence a policy narrative is to speak up early and loudly in order to set...
In praise of failure
Errors are not the art, but the artificers – I just twisted NEWTON’s words to make the central point of this blog) Everything fails. Hopefully, failure will not surprise us: we have foreseen it, and precautions ...
History and diplomacy
Upon retirement I decided to deepen my knowledge of my country’s origins. The title of the most respected recent history book on the subject bore the less than promising title: Founding period without founders[1]. ...
BAUDRILLARD? I'll admit to anything, Katharina!
Awh shucks, Katharina! Not BAUDRILLARD – it is forbidden by the UN Convention Against Mental Anguish. Being subjected to his thoughts is worse than enduring psychological torture at Abu Graib! BAUDRILLARD’s ...
De-discoursation and metaphors
I’m elated – the recent contributions by Drazen PEHAR and Katharina HÖHNE are a pleasure to read – and allow me to add to their thoughts I’ll reply to both together, because they are, in some ways, related. ...
The darker side of diplomacy rev. 007
I’ve long argued that teaching diplomacy is an exercise in Pollyanna-type thinking as long as one major aspect goes unacknowledged: the “darker side” of diplomacy. In fact, it was one of my very first blogs: num...
Availability bias
The availability heuristic is an uncoscious process by which our brain substitutes one (difficult) for another (easy) one. One answers the easy one, retrofits it to the difficult one and: presto! One’s self-affirmat...
Multi-stakerism: a case of cargo cult in reverse?
Democracy is the rule of law, rather than men. When people got together to establish democracy the constituent assembly was not, and could not have been, democratic (for lack of established rules). This paradox highl...
China’s desire for 'stability'
As the new Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party is inaugurated in Beijing, terms like “harmony” and “stability” are buzz-words describing the vision of the China Communist Country for the country....
Climate change abatement and small countries
In a recent blog Katharina writes: “As much as “one state, one vote” rules or methods of consensus decision-making aim at giving the impression of resulting in a decision among equals, this is simply not the cas...
The perfect internet storm
(with apologies to who took \"my\" reading icon to publish an interesting blog on the same topic and induced me to pour out reflections of my own) A recent article[1] described an instance of internet viralit...
Is war still possible?
(A history of war in two easy pages including an outlook on its future) Hunter-gatherers only had portable goods. Raiding between such groups was probably for women and children – their main “wealth”. Agricult...
Circumstances: the great persuader
For over two thousand years we have celebrated heroes – in war and in diplomacy. By din of skill and savvy they changed the circumstances in their favor. People who argued otherwise – like Lev Tolstoy – were cal...
Taking the long view on Balochistan
Balochistan, in the north of West Pakistan (Quetta is capital), does not get much international press coverage. The Carnegie Endowment for Peace has just published a lengthy report on the politics of the region https:...
The uncertain future of national borders
With the emergence of the nation state national borders became a Western obsession. Every bit of the globe was carved up, with ruler and pencil if need be (see Africa in 1884). Predictably, long-term issues arose f...
Sexism by category
A raging row has developed over who is am “American novelist”. The matter is described by James GLIECK https://bit.ly/11B9uRe. I recommend reading the comments as well, for they illuminate the subject matter signi...
Is it misleading to speak about climate refugees? Of legal concepts, metaphors, and human suffering …
Who is a refugee? Who should be offered protection from human suffering? Much depends on how we define legal concepts. A recent topic that emerged in Diplo’s blogsphere is the question of climate refugees. Petru Du...
Generosity as fairness
Continuing the dialogue on the concept of \'climate refugees\'...... 1.1 In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these eff...
In broken images (Robert Graves)
In Broken Images He is quick, thinking in clear images; I am slow, thinking in broken images. He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images; I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images, Trusting his images, he ...
A brain made transparent
I have been arguing recently that the XXIst century will be the century when we\'ll bring together what is known (rather than speculated) about man and society. This will transform societies in way we can barely begin...
Why we need strong internet governance?
Today’s system of “multi-stakerism” is a travesty in this respect. It reflects the malign neglect/scrutiny of governments (more than happy doing their profiling/censoring unhindered) and the self-serving bullyin...
Internet’s silent and hidden effects
Conviction without experience makes for harshness Flannery O’CONNOR The internet is an enabler. Arguably, the internet has been the most transforming event in the last thousand years – akin, in its impact, t...
A tale of influencers
Behold America: A history of America First and the American Dream (Sarah Churchwell, 2018, p. 356): History is not ancestral memory or collective tradition. It is what people learned from priests, schoolmasters,...
Compensating victims of terrorism – looking at it from the point of view of international law and national culture
Today’s Guardian brings an interesting diplomatic issue into in the news: you can read it here. It raises a wealth of questions in international law but it also in national culture. As an international diplomat,...
What gives? Revolution or civil engagement and resistance?
Ever since people learned to fight autocracy and oppressive regimes, the battle has raged between ‘accommodationists’ and revolutionaries. The first ones pleaded for dialogue and used, if necessary, civil disobe...
All there is to know in international relations
Some see two black faces, Some see a white vase. A few see them both. Both sides mock the relativists. It is all a matter of the right imagination... [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOgFZfRV...
The abuse of analogies: Upon reading the article ‘Reading the CCP Clearly’
The pivoting argument in the article ‘Reading the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] Clearly’ by Perry Link (The New York Review of Books, 11 February 2021 issue) on US policy toward China is the topos of appeasement...
Of topoi and memes
I’ll admit to a prejudice. I dislike Richard Dawkins, the emeritus professor for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford. Holding such a pompous title is enough to warrant a demerit. Dawkins is broadly known fo...
Violent left and right: Which is more dangerous?
We condemn the violent left and right. Are the threats equivalent? Is one more dangerous? Let’s reflect – in compact fashion. 1. Both share an ideology of a ‘desirable’ hierarchical social order...
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Lee Harris is not an academic – his name would hardly be quoted in obscure learned journals. In the aftermath of 9/11 he has written this book in an attempt to articulate and argue a position that justifies (both re...
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The Breaking of Nations
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19 Apr, 2006
The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilisation
Nothing is more changeable than ancient history. As we begin to interpret nature’s archives new insights emerge, overthrowing older orthodoxies, only to be toppled in turn by the next spate of facts. Brian Fagan\'s ...
27 Aug, 2004
To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders
When I feel dispirited about the current crop of political leaders in Switzerland or around the world, I like to take refuge in one of the most uplifting political stories of mankind – the American Revolution....
06 Aug, 2004
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few
Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally. John Maynard Keynes...
06 Aug, 2004
The Dust of Empire: The Race for Mastery in the Asian Heartland
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01 Aug, 2003
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
Ask anyone who was the person that most influenced world history: few would mention Genghis Khan. Arguably, however, Genghis Khan and the Mongols were the dominant force that shaped Eurasia and consequently the modern...
13 Aug, 2004
Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror
All memoirs are incomplete; instant ones even more so; and memoirs about security matters are the worst, in this respect. The book, however, manages to disappoint in an unusual way....
04 Aug, 2004
World on Fire: How Exporting Free-Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
Markets only function optimally when there is perfect information. Joseph Stiglitz received the Nobel Prize in economics for proving that when there are asymmetries of information markets fail. Information economics, ...
08 Aug, 2003
The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey
If God ever gave mankind a mission – it was not so much to multiply as to walk. And walk we did, to the farthest corners of the earth. Homo sapiens sapiens is the only mammal to have spread from its place of origin,...
01 Aug, 2003
A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West
Note: The author of this review compares Noam Chomsky\'s A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West and David Fromkin\'s Kosovo Crossing: American Ideals meet Reality on the Balk...
04 Aug, 2001
Kosovo Crossing: American Ideals meet Reality on the Balkan Battlefields
The author of this review compares Noam Chomsky\'s A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West and David Fromkin\'s Kosovo Crossing: American Ideals meet Reality on the Balkan Bat...
05 Aug, 1999
A practitioner's view
Part of Language and Diplomacy (2001): With examples from a detailed case study of the historical New Zealand Treaty of Waitangi, Aldo Matteucci shows us that the diplomat\'s job is to decode language. Matteucci write...
04 Aug, 2001
Persuasion as a social phenomenon
Aldo Matteucci explores the relevance of social context for persuasion. Since persuasion leads to change, we should look into the mechanisms of change in society. Change is a social phenomenon. Change occurs when the ...
16 Aug, 2013
Soft Power in 2023 geopolitics
Joseph Nye was the first to coin the term \"soft power\". The review of his book on Soft Power is available. Below you will find information about soft power: its definition and main tools as well as the interplay bet...
05 Aug, 2005
DiploDialogue - Metaphors for Diplomats
On Diplo’s blog, in Diplo’s classrooms, and at Diplo’s events, dialogues stretch over a series of entries, comments, and exchanges and may even linger. DiploDialogue summarises. It’s like in sports events: Dip...
30 Aug, 2013
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