This book analyzes ways how three fringe players of the modern diplomatic order - the Holy See, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and the EU - have been accommodated within that order, revealing that the modern diplomatic order is less state-centric than conventionally assumed and is instead better conceived of as a heteronomy.

This book questions whether the institutions and practices of the emerging EU diplomatic system conform to established standards of the state-centric diplomatic order; or whether practice is paving the way for innovative, even revolutionary, forms of diplomatic organisation.