Of Dinners and Diplomacy: What White House State Dinners Reveal About Relationship Building and Goodwill Signaling in U.S. Foreign Policy

Behind their glamour, White House State Dinners are innately political events that put the U.S. president face-to-face with a foreign counterpart for an evening of food and entertainment, usually followed or preceded by days of bilateral meetings. This thesis explores how these Dinners fit into presidents’ diplomatic toolbox by asking How do White House State Dinners relate to U.S. Foreign Policy? It answers this question by quantitatively examining the characteristics of international states invited to Dinners since the first one in 1874 through President Obama's last Dinner in 2016. It then offers in-depth case studies of the Dinners hosted under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan to further illuminate why Dinners occur. This thesis finds that Dinners are used as signals and as mechanisms to improve leaders' interpersonal relationships. It further concludes that the United States invites states to Dinners to endorse U.S.-oriented behavior, to build regional influence, to maintain traditional relationships, and/or to celebrate diplomatic breakthroughs.