The diplomacy methods have had to change to accommodate all the changes that the world has experienced in the last couple of centuries. A new paradigm has emerged with those changes: especially the changes brought by the two Great World Wars, new actors were added to diplomacy, a new agenda with social concerns were included and a more public relationship was created.
Some of the actors that had emerged and joined the new diplomacy were the newly independent countries and actors that have a transnational dimension and are not state actors. These new actors brought the urge for an abandonment of the old bilateral way of negotiation to a more multilateral process, where more states and other international actors can take part.
We cannot forget about the macro regions that have been established in different parts of the world. Those macro regions can only use diplomacy in a multilateral way.
Economics also makes the world more dependent on the relations between countries; economics plays an important role in all forms of diplomacy more so now than ever before.
The new diplomacy has also changed the focus of divergence between countries to a more convergence approach between countries and the others actors that can be working for a country or a non-state organization, as my colleague Federica mentioned on her piece “the diplomacy for people”.
Additionally, the public have become more aware of what is going on an international level; we can take the example of the demonstrators during the G8 meeting. Public opinion is very relevant and can change government policies.
I also feel that the new diplomacy is more bureaucracy than the old diplomacy. Policies, decisions and elements of those policies need to go through more people than they used to in the old diplomacy, where the diplomat had more freedom. Finally, while the new methods of diplomacy have come a long way, there is still evidence that elements of the old diplomacy exist, particularly in the way that the more powerful countries treat the ‘developing’ countries.
Hi Everone,
ReplyDeleteI t appears my talents do have thier limits as i have no idea really how to blog, hence i have had to post a comment..?...so i have no idea how this will come out on the blog itself.
In my opinion as i have stated already in lecture ect that the most significant change in the nature of diplomacy is the rise in multilateralism, which is to say states acting together on world issues. The rise in this action has been seen to be used on such issues as the terrorist threat, global warming and even more local aspects such as the Earthquake in Haiti recently.
The founding moment for this development was undoubtebly seen with the establishment of the league of nations post world war one which, despit bieng a failure laid the foundations for the UN which gave states not only a forum in which to discuss problems peacefully and hopefully resolve them but also to be able to act together, whilst the UN has been critisized as inefficient and uselss its efforts have been seen throughout peacekeeping, aid and development globally wherever it has been needed. These organisations with reference to multilateral action brought states together in a way that had never been done before and thus in my opinion is the most significant change to diplomacy in the world.