The return of Coercion in International Relations
Timeframe: 04/11/1979 – 10/05/2026
Key Insights
- Why are foreign nationals increasingly detained not as criminals, but as leverage? Hostage diplomacy endures because it delivers strategic returns often enough to make repetition rational in a fragmented international system. What is taking shape is not simple disorder, but a harder political landscape in which human vulnerability itself becomes a currency of negotiation.
Definition
Judicialized Coercion: A form of State coercion in which legal proceedings and security charges are used to conceal politically motivated detention intended to generate diplomatic leverage.
If this trajectory continues, hostage diplomacy will not remain an aberration. It will become part of the operating logic of a more transactional and more coercive international order.
Documents: 📂 Source Document
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