An Overall Understanding of Diplomacy

First of all I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed the module and that the blog, that at the beginning gave me some concerns, has been a useful tool to share ideas with my colleagues and to express my ideas. Thanks to the participants, who made the blog an interesting and stimulating activity, and to Steven Curtis who allowed us to get involved in a different approach to our studies than the usual academic one.
The module gave me the opportunity to learn how states interact with each others through their diplomatic machinery, either publicly and secretly. In fact though I do not share the idea that secret diplomacy is fair, especially in democratic societies, I’ve understood that sometimes it is the only tool to resolve international crisis, as the Cuban Missile Crisis shows. In fact in this situation backchannels played a fundamental role to escape a nuclear war (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/16/anatoly-dobrynin-obituary, for the role of Anatoly Dobrynin as key actors to resolve crises through backchannels).
Moreover the module has been helpful to clarify the role played by NGOs and non state actors in diplomatic talks, and their ability to matter in the international scenario, since they can lobby for the issues at stake for their interests; I found an interesting case of an Italian NGO, Emergency, which successfully lobbed, conducting a parallel diplomacy, to realise some of its members arrested in Afghanistan for the allegation of being involved in a conspiracy against the government (for more details see http://it.peacereporter.net/articolo/21433/Emergency%2C+da+piazza+San+Giovanni, if you need translation contact me). The NGO brought a considerable number of people on the streets to protest for the event and carried diplomatic talks with both the Afghan Foreign and Home Secretaries and with the Afghan vice-president as well (ibid.), and eventually succeeded in obtaining its members’ realise. This case clearly shows that nowadays NGOs have a greater role on the international relations, especially thanks to their “parallel Diplomacy”.
Furthermore throughout the module I understood that nowadays diplomats are no longer the only ones who conduct diplomacy, common people are more involved in it especially in public diplomacy, as Mark Leonard says “Britain has 60 million budding ambassadors” (Leonard and Alakeson, 2000) . In fact the latter is aimed at addressing the people, because especially in democratic society they are able to restrain their governments, and their governments have to please them.
Overall the module has been helpful in clarifying the importance of diplomacy in the present days. It is an effective tool to further the interests of the states, as public diplomacy shows, and of non-state actors as well, which carry a parallel, but still relevant, diplomacy. It is a tool to cooperate and reach agreements on an international level, as the case of multilateral diplomacy on environment demonstrates. And finally it could be the most powerful tool to overcome wars, and even prevent them.
Though it is important to bear in mind that despite diplomatic efforts to come together, states ultimately emphasize their national interests and diplomacy is the main tool they use to do it and that is why sometimes is so difficult to reach diplomatic agreements.

Leonard M. and Alakeson V., 2000, “Going Public: Diplomacy for the Information Society”, Foreign Policy Centre.