Traditional diplomacy
As we all know diplomacy is seen as the art or practice of conducting international relations. States comes together in negotiating alliances, treaties and agreements. However, “old” diplomacy was used by many countries to spy and disrupt other countries. Although we still have some degree of “old” diplomacy in the contemporary world, one can argue that diplomacy have evolved to a more modern art.
In the old days, states had only diplomatic relations between them selfs, today we have other actors joining the table when states are engaging in their diplomatic relations. For instance WTO are mediating in the US-Brazil cotton dispute. This is taking us a far away from the “old” way of conducting diplomacy. These days other actors plays an important role and this sometimes gives the underdog better chance in pursuing their goals when engaging in a diplomatic encounter with a more powerful and resourceful opponent.
The link with the article below shows how the WTO as an actor provides Brazil with more firepower in their diplomatic 'trade struggle'.
http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15656630
hi, I do see your point when you say that nowadays diplomacy is another art, and i agree with you to the extent that new fundamental actors are involved in the game, in fact they are shaping not only diplomacy but the international system as a whole. however i do not think that, as you have written, "This is taking us a far away from the “old” way of conducting diplomacy". in my view this is an implementation of the players, and, for sure, they brought to the table new rules. thought the old players are still able to play the old game (the old diplomacy), and nothing prevent the latter to play their game with the new actors. it sounds complicate but if you want to comprehend multinational corporations are new actors, for instance, you can see that often states arrange bilateral agreements with them (typical of the old diplomacy)to further the interests of both of them at the expense of the underdogs, as you have called them. an example is the United Fruit Company settled in many third world countries, especially Latina America, producing bananas sold in the US and Europe. the host countries obvioulsy have to deal with this new actors, and they have to do in using the soft-power, however most of the time these companies use their economic power to overwhelm the states.
ReplyDeleteBeside i admit that some other new actors have a positive effect in the scenario. and that is the case of the NAM, the non aligned movement which is an effective diplomatic machinery for many third world countries which do not have the possibility to have a say in the international arena.
overall my point is that it is true that new actors entered the game but this does not change so much the game itself.