Full Length Research Paper
Abstract
Haile Selassie, the Ethiopian Emperor who ruled the country for more than 50 years, has been both a celebrity and a controversial figure. He undertook more official missions abroad than any other leader in Ethiopia, making both the country and the person very well-known throughout the world. This paper argues that while the statesmanship and royalty of the Emperor have been extensively studied, there is limited coverage of his official missions during his reign. It aims to fill that gap by reporting the various travels Emperor Haile Selassie made from 1916 to 1974. The paper uses secondary sources, both published and unpublished, largely from the internet to document most of his travels. It posits that these missions provided him with significant opportunities for soft power or public/personal diplomacy. The study examines the national, regional (symbolic/psychological), and personal gains of his travel diplomacy at the end of each period's discussion. However, it should be noted that the study is far from exhaustive as not all records of his missions are available on the Internet. Therefore, the paper is based only on the available literature on the World Wide Web. Despite this limitation, the available sources will pave the way for deeper and more comprehensive research.
Key words: Haile Selassie, Ethiopia, official missions, soft power diplomacy, statesmanship.
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