Roni Berkowitz is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research asks what encounters between state representatives can tell us about interstate relations and how international politics is practiced. Taking a micro-sociological approach, she reads diplomatic interactions across several levels: the individuals who meet, the institutional roles they occupy, and the states they represent. With Gadi Heimann and Zohar Kampf, Roni has conducted ethnographic research at the Israeli President’s Residence, examining how protocol enables positive signalling, how participants establish rapport, and how diplomats move between personal and representative positions as they manage relationships. Building on this work, she now studies how diplomats perform commitment and seek to bond, and how their personal and institutional roles shape the possibilities for closer ties between states and their representatives.

Keywords: Positive relations in diplomacy, bonding strategies, face-to-face interactions, diplomatic agency