Conceptualising Parliamentary Non-Engagement

Abstract Parliamentary non-engagement – declining meetings, withholding access, refusing visits – can serve as a deliberate diplomatic instrument in conflict settings and merits inclusion in studies of parliamentary diplomacy. Drawing on Luxembourg’s Chamber of Deputies in the Armenia–Azerbaijan case (2005–25), the article traces a post-2020 shift from low-salience normative signalling to a two-track strategy: visible alignment with Armenia and routinised non-engagement towards Azerbaijani counterparts. Analytically, the article models non-engagement as a sequence of motivations, actions, and signals. In the Chamber’s account, motivations centred on its human rights role, solidarity following Azerbaijan’s entry bans on parliamentarians, and concern about photo-op instrumentalisation. Its actions were observable, inter alia , in decisions to limit bilateral contact with Azerbaijan, in unanimous parliamentary texts, and in multilateral positioning. These actions were publicly and consistently signalled. Thus, the article recasts ‘not showing up’ as a deliberate, reversible, and measurable tool of parliamentary diplomacy.