Important elements in the New Diplomacy

Soft power?

The increasing use of soft power. Joseph Nye explains soft power as the ability to affect others so you get the particular outcomes you want, without using coercion, threath or payments. The point is to make your views, or methods, or ideas attractive to others. Nye argues there has been an increase of use of soft power; and a change of view that power do not lie mainly in armies but in values. The approach is rather to use mutual respect to try to influence people in other countries, or in the domestic field, so people hopefully will be more likely to embrace the new values when they are not seen as a threath but rather as an improvement. Nye also introduced a concept; “smart power”, refering to a combination of hard and soft power. Soft power also matters in relationships between state actors – in three major types; culture such as arts, literature, movies and music, values such as and policies. Soft power could be imposed on people of a nation through the use of public diplomacy, sometimes called propaganda.

The increase of non-governmental actors in international affairs. Even if government are still the main actors, they are not the only bodies operating on the international stage. Non-governmental organization have become important global actors. They have both resources and knowledge to pressure for their interests, and attract people over borders to unite and struggle for the same purpose. The definition of an NGO is an organization independent from the government control, that is to say independent from one state in particular. Non-governmental actors refers to a more broad range of actors, also including criminal and profit-making ones such as terrorist groups and big corporations. I believe NGOs is an important part of the new global civil society, acting together in accord for issues such as human rights, global justice and for saving the planet from a climate disaster.

Increase use of multilateral diplomacy. We live in an age of globalization, and more actors are and states are involved concurrently in negotiations and international talks. The increasing number of actors contributed to the development of a multilateral and more complex style of diplomacy. Today, more conventions and summits are held with invited guests from all over the world, from states, NGOs and MNCs. Economic networks have also grew, broadening the diplomatic field. Additionally, technological advancements have made it easier to communicate transfer data between countries. For example, it is common that some participants only attend through webcam.

The New Diplomacy is also characterized by less secrecy. Public scrutiny and control are applauded as important elements in making the diplomatic process legitimate. The NGOs tried to influence the the inter-state activity to push for their interests. It was more difficult to hold the negotiations secret with so many actors involved, so the new diplomacy thus became a more open process easier to scrutinize.

The New style of diplomacy also brought on a focus on new issues in diplomatic relations, such as social, economic and welfare issues, sometimes called 'low politics'. The new diplomatic agenda reflected a new society with more wider but specialized interests.

http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/p.willetts/CS-NTWKS/NGO-ART.HTM

http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/academy/index.php?Soft-Power-Explained

Balance between patterns of change and continuity

Ever since the end of the Cold War a global organism has come into life, creating new situations in which nearly all states are in diplomatic communication with almost all other states. ‘The Globalization, breakdown of national barriers to the world-wide spread of trade, investment, travel and information of all kinds, brought societies and civilizations into contact as never before’ (R. Cohen and J. Melissen 1999: 1). Diplomacy in his traditional form was mainly responsible for the communiqué on a state-to-state basis and the management of international transactions. However with the rapid change of environments in political and global spheres, the restricted functions of diplomacy consequently revolutionized. As J. Batora and B. Hocking suggests, ‘contemporary diplomacy is not marked by clear breaks with its role in its modern phase but by a re-ordering of functions and additions to them reflection the contemporary context of world politics ‘(2008: 8). Dealing with global problems could not be located within the framework solid of the states; it would require the participation of the range of actors. States remain very important, but observably supranational organizations, trading corporations, other transnational bodies and non-governmental organization, taking now part in multilateral conferences on global issues, as they can contribute with valued information. (Cohen and Melissen, 1999:2) Hence we have two new aspects of diplomacy, dealing with global problems on multilateral level and collectively with non-state actors. In the process of diplomacy, changes are the global issues facing the world today, adapting and reforming diplomacy towards it would be the continuity of modernizing diplomacy. I therefore agree with the following argument that ‘the evolution of diplomacy is marked by a balance between patterns of change and continuity’ (J. Batora and B. Hocking, 2008: 12).
The first significant turning point of global changes was the end of the cold war; however a second turning point to be changing the globe, is the war on terrorism. After the 9/11 attack on the USA and the 7/7 bombings in London, the nature of diplomacy will be changed completely.



References:
• Batora, J. and B. Hocking, ‘Bilateral Diplomacy in the European Union: Towards “Postmodern” Patterns?’, Clingendael Discussion Paper in Diplomacy, No. 111, 2008, available at: www.clingendael.nl/cdsp/publications/discussion-papers/archive.html
• Cohen Raymond, edited by Melissen Jan, Innovation in Diplomatic Practice, Pelgrave, 1999

Hopenhagen became Nopenhagen – public diplomacy during COP15

In connection with the UN Climate Change Conference 2009 (COP15) in Copenhagen in december 2009, the Danish government set up a website, cop15.dk, featuring news, articles, links and information about the conference and related issues. Visitors could look at webcast live from the conference and send “Climate Greetings” that were shown on a large screens on different locations. The official website had about 4 million visitors in total. It is clear that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark put in a significant effort in communicating with the public. They also launched campaigns through social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The UN, together with the International Advertising Association launched a campaign called Hopenhagen – a symbolic name for the role the conference were suppose to play among the public. The aim was to support COP15, and deliver an optimistic message to the global citizens that they actually had a great chance to influence the political leaders. The idea was to empower people to engage in the conference, for instance by signing petititions and appoint a 'Hopenhagen Ambassador', and to inspire people doing good things around the world. John Clang, a photograher, created a short film as well as posters for the Hopenhagen campaign, with the idea of “bring to life the visual representation of Hopenhagen’s citizens”. The Under-Secretary for Public-Diplomacy in Denmark stated that: "Our main objective is that an ambitious agreement will be concluded in Copenhagen, and we want to applaud the Hopenhagen campaign for its emotional and inspirational messages. Hopenhagen is a perfect way to engage the world and make everyone part of the discussion and solution at the December "COP15 meeting."

The goal of the conference was to set up new climate agreements, particularly about an increase in carbon emission cuts and financial funds to developing nations for climate-friendly improvements in technology and production, for 2012. The outcome, however, was no binding agreement for the future. Just a few agreements were made, with barely any significant when it comes to combat global warming. Government representatives from 193 countries participated in the negotiations, as well as many NGOs, industry groups and civil society organizations.

The failure of the conference can be analyzed in many ways. In an article by Shamus Cooke, published on The Market Oracle, the unsatisfying results can be illustrated by two events. First, the huge police actions in the beginning of the conference, where thousands of climate activists and protestors were arrested. Second, the large number of limousine rented in Copenhagen during the conference. The assessment of this, is that public diplomacy extensively failed in the respect that the general public, the people in the civil society, engaged in the issues of climate change, obtained no response from the political leaders representing them. The public diplomacy was aimed at fooling the public that they could involve themselves in saving the planet by participate in organized events around the town, such as paint earth-skaped ballons and send them to the sky with messages to save the climate. But in reality, people were too frustrated to buy such nonsense. The talks were strictly nothing else but talks. Talks among the elite, representing their own governments' interests rather than those of the climate. When the people, from grassroot level, tried to get involved and through different forms of action, put pressure on the politicians, they faced arrests, insults and police violence. The concerns of the people were met with military force while big business and national governments could travel safely in limouines, more concerned with the national economies than to save the planet. People were aware of this, illusrated by the slogans of many protesters' banners: “bla bla bla... ACT NOW!” and “Nature doesn't compromise”.The message to the global citizens, through a fancy designed campaign, had been: "Engage yourself, but not too much".

Democracy Now!'s reporting from COP15 included an interview with Naomi Klein, who claimed that Obama uses the tools of multilateralism to destroy multilateralism. This means U.S., as many other countries are gathering together in multilateral negotiations without any intention of reaching any agreements. Public diplomacy have effectively been used in the sense that Obama was awarded with the Nobel Peace Price for his multilateral attempts to strenghten international diplomacy. The reality, on the other hand, that he undermined it. Cooke also point on another event, when the Bush administration effectively used public diplomacy to justify their invasion of Iraq. While engaging in fake-multilateralism on the international stage, Bush succesfully inlfluenced the U.S. public opinion and gained their support.

The point is that UN, the governments, politicians and the media tried to give the people an impression that there was hope in the COP15 meeting. That there was hope that economic aid and carbon emission caps could save the planet. The powerful leaders, governments and big corporations targeted public diplomacy on the global audience, hoping to get positive response. That people would get the idea that they took their responsibility. That they were willing to come to an agreement, to save our precious world. But in reality, they were just quarrelling over money as usual. The governments, to a high degree controlled by big coorporations, were not interested in saving the world, only to make profits. That's why COP15 turned out to be such a big failure. Not only did they fatally failed to reach any significant agreements, they also let the citizens of the world down. They failed with diplomacy in both respects. So much hope generated by all the campaigns, posters, movies and media reports, for nothing. If all the campaigns were launched to inspire the public to take action and put pressure upon the leaders to come to an agreement, it didn't work. The political elite don't seem to care about demands from the civil society, as long as governments to a considerable degree are controlled by big corporations. When no agreement was reached, the whole scope of public diplomatic campaigns were ridiculed. Hopenhagen became Nopenhagen.

Democracy Now!'s interview with Naomi Klein (and Martin Khor):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLu_wYXIaog&feature=player_embedded

Shamus Cooke's article on The Market Oracle:

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/UserInfo-Shamus_Cooke.html

Hopenhagen's website:

http://www.hopenhagen.org/

John Clang's stop-motion movie, and more:

http://www.youtube.com/hopenhagen

Three articles and a story

• - 19 July 2010: Nancy Birdsall, Molly Kinder and Wren Elhai wrote about “Building, not buying trust in Pakistan” on http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/07/19/building_not_buying_trust_in_pakistan;
• - 25 July 2010: the Guardian wrote “Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-war-logs-military-leaks);
• - 20 October 2010: the Guardian Development Network, in partnership with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, asked “Can US aid change minds in Pakistan?” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2010/oct/20/us-aid-humanitarian-pakistan-winning-hearts-minds).

The three articles listed above have at least one thing in common: they are very skeptical on the significance of the United States’ public diplomacy nowadays.

[A quick reminder on what is commonly intended with the term “public diplomacy”:

‘Official government efforts to shape the communications environment overseas in which American foreign policy is played out, in order to reduce the degree to which misperceptions and misunderstandings complicate relations between the U.S. and other nations’,

see http://www.publicdiplomacy.org/1.htm for further definitions]

One could argue that public diplomacy is wonderful. I agree, to the extent that it is transparent as it promises and that it avoids propagandistic power games. The problem arises when it isn’t wholly sincere, when you find out that the information made public doesn’t quite correspond to some other hidden information that was labelled as ‘unsuitable’ to the sensitive minds of the public.

Like those bloody questionable hundreds of “errors” at civilian expense by American and British troops in Afghanistan, recently made available to every online reader in the so-called Afghanistan War Logs on WikiLeaks.

According to the article, the White House stated that their secrecy was necessary in order not to ‘threaten the national security’.

Or like the US intention to “win hearts and minds” in Pakistan. In a part of the world that is not ready yet to trust the Americans, their clumsy attempts to flood the country with aid to quietly obtain a positive return on their image just could not work. As reported by a journalist for the Guardian Development Network,

the more the US seeks out a public relations boost from its aid, the less likely it is that this will materialise [...] A Pakistani journalist recently captured this sentiment rather bluntly. After I reported on the large relief pledge of the US, he said to me: "Yes, but isn't it all just too contrived?"

As pointed out by Birdsall, Kinder and Elhai, the US are (in)famous in Pakistan for abandoning their aid commitments as soon as ‘diplomatic imperatives’ vanish, regardless of the needs of the Pakistani people. American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s reassuring speech in the country on 19^th July is not enough for the US to meet Pakistan’s favours, unless the States start to seriously stick to the promises they make and to achieve them under the public eye, forgetting once and for all their back-up games behind the scenes. Same goes, of course, for the American military effort in Afghanistan.

On the other hand, it is amazing what a single American citizen can do to improve the perception of his country abroad, without even meaning it. Greg Mortenson, 51, has arguably achieved more in terms of American public image among the Afghani and Pakistani people than the government itself. Author of best-selling book Three Cups of Tea (http://www.threecupsoftea.com/)

and of its sequel Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, Mortenson has established over 90 schools in rural regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 34,000 children, including 24,000 girls, where few education opportunities existed before. He started his work in 1993 in a small village close to the K2 and has recently received the honorifical prize of the “Star of Pakistan” (https://www.ikat.org/2009/03/24/bdc-3-24-09/) for his achievements in the country, which include publishing workbooks and grammar books in local languages, building libraries and playgrounds, initiating women’s development projects, clean drinking-water projects and scholarship programmes. All of this, he did thanks to generous grants from private benefactors, to lots of hard work and determination, and with the help of dozens local co-operators. Now it might be asked, how is this relevant to public diplomacy?

Greg Mortenson represents the best of America. He’s my hero. And after you read Three Cups of Tea , he’ll be your hero, too.” -U.S. Representative Mary Bono (R-Calif.)

I read Mortenson’s book. It is truly awesome. It tells a beautiful story, that of thousands people who live in remote areas and used not to know anything about the rest of the world; people who cherished the first American person they ever met as a family friend, because he did something concrete for them, which now allows them to have a better and better life style; people who now love the whole of the United States, just because that’s where Greg Mortenson, their ‘angel’, comes from. How inspiring to read that, in spite of religious, cultural and –especially- political challenges, Good can still triumph if it comes from a genuine desire to help others. How heart-warming to think that there real ‘public diplomats’ like Mortenson around.

Soft power explained by Joseph Nye

http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/academy/index.php?Soft-Power-Explained

Though you may find this helpful/interesting/good to listen to!

Do Embassies do more than supplying Passports/ Visas?

What is the role of embassies today and of those diplomats that work on them? How relevant is their existence? In 1970 Brzezinski said that “If foreign ministries did not already exist, they surely would not have to be invented”. In my opinion the words foreign ministers should be swapped to embassies (just to be more specific). In ancient time when communications were slow ambassadors had the power to take immediate decisions. Nowadays with the development of communications and the increase of bureaucratic system ambassadors have their roles reduced to mere advisors.

They gather information that they see as important and they send for foreign ministers, this information is then selected by “civil servants, (mostly probably people in a lower rank than them) who them forward to foreign minister who will them decide if is relevant or not. Even Foreign Ministers many times see their role being undermined by their political leaders, when dealing with sensitive issues (terrorism, etc). Also with the creation of bureaucratic systems such as CIA in the US, who also gather intelligence for their governments, (even more efficiently than embassies, I dare to say); embassies loose even more their relevance.


Shaun Riordan in his book ‘New Diplomacy’ talks about how embassies today are seem as buildings that represent enormous capital investment in order to cause a physical impact. Many states build their embassies has a way of a making a statement. Through this evidence my opinion about embassies today is that role or function is to help their citizens in foreign countries, and help advertising their home country for tourism and investment. This doesn’t mean that their role hasn’t developed, on the contrary, embassies have found a reason to still exist.

Western and Europe Diplomacy since 1945

Western and Europe diplomacy since 1945 has been mainly concerned with its relations with the Communist block. In the period of co-operation immediately after the war, the United Nations was established, war criminals were tried, peace trea ties were made with Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, and Finland, and the Marshall Plan—originally designed for all Europe—was initiated.

However, deteriorated by a process of action and reaction publicly manifested by Churchill's Fulton speech in the spring of 1947 in which he referred to the Iron Curtain.

The Soviet take-over of European satellites, the Truman Doctrine, the formation of NATO, the China becoming Communist block, the Korean war, and the initiation of atomic rival maintained a condition of Cold War.

The death of Stalin in 1953 and the advent of Khrushchev led to more peace ful coexistence. The Korean war and the Indo-Chinese war were ended. A summit conference was held; the Asian and African countries met in Bandung on 18 April 1955, and the United States and the Soviet Union acted together to stop aggression at Suez.

The pioneering period, when everything still seemed possible, was also the period when some impulsive ideas, bearing the imprint of hastiness or utopianism, fell victim to events or the inertia of governments. It was followed by a period when more concrete achievements could take shape. Recourse to consensus and intergovernmental measures gave way to initiatives that raised hopes of a supranational approach. The fledgling European Community, born of the Schuman Plan, took its first steps and began to acquire organisational shape. Everyone observed with interest the ever closer relations between the age-old enemies, France and Germany, and it attracted other countries that were also tempted by the European venture. While Central and Eastern Europe lived under the yoke of Communist regimes that owed allegiance to the Soviet Union, in Western Europe the Six decided to take their fate into their own hands and tentatively explored new forms of sectoral integration that might lead to greater things. Agriculture, transport and public health would emerge as possible areas in which sectoral integration might be implemented.

There were some liberalization in Poland, but Czechoslovakia in 1968 was crushed when it attempted to break away from the Soviet bloc. Disarmament negotiations made little progress, and stability continued to depend on a balance of terror. Communism penetrated Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

The Western policy of containment and deterrence by threats of massive retaliation had not prevented a great decrease in the Western relative power position, relative economy, and relative reputa tion in the underdeveloped world. A new policy looking to ward a world secure for all states seems in order.

I am mentioning the west because was all the time the influence and the negotiations in the peace maintaining and the domination on the subject. so was the collapse of the communism block in the late 80's and the extension of the EU family in the early millennium .

So forward has the European diplomacy did play important role on the field of International Relation?

Bibliography

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1032812

traditional diplomacy

Since 1945 there has been significant change in diplomatic practice, one argues that old diplomacy has adapted to essential changes in international relations. World war one and world war two has subsequently lead to an unstable second half of twentieth century. Since then there has been massive increase of diverse diplomatic activities and the globally diplomatic scene significantly altered. Diplomacy has been affected by the forces of change as much as its context, is also facing challenges such as revolutionary developments in transport and communications, the expansion of international society to global size and the rift between the East and West, the ways in which states are dealing with one another in a variety of bilateral and multilateral settings and one argues of mixes of both has altered since the peace of Westphalia. Diplomacy is a sensitive area with complex procedures and rules, for example issue areas in foreign policy and many other changes, have demanded an absolute renovate of the organization of foreign ministries. The dynamics of diplomacy has significantly altered compared to old era of diplomacy due the increase of technical nature and also the growing volume expanding agenda. New set of concerns has surfaced since decolonization and their also has been realization of issues surrounding transnational and global nature which at times leads diplomats into new territory.