Diplomacy and Democracy

Nowadays, one of the major change and challenge for Diplomacy, is it opening to the public opinion.

Diplomacy’s evolution is the mirror of Human cooperation throughout History. At the dawn of the first civilization, diplomatic negotiations were mainly about war and peace issues. Nowadays, Globalization and the growing interdependency between states have extended the diplomatic agenda to economic, cultural, religious, and social issues. Negotiation and collaboration between states to permit the development and maintenance of international transport and trade, for instance, would be impossible without diplomatic experts. Indeed, specialization and assistance is needed within the “corps diplomatic” to face the new challenges of the 21^th Century, like Global Warming, Terrorism and Development.

State collaboration and the growing influence of new actors on the International Relation stage, the NGOs, Transnational Organisations and Multinationals, will, hopefully, tackle these new challenges. Somehow, it will not be easy for the “New Diplomacy” to manage those new actors. The involvement of public actors within diplomatic negotiations can be a threat for any possible accord between States. Paul Cambon claims that including more than 5 actors during diplomatic negotiation reduce the chances of success to reach an agreement. So, should we blame the sheer number of public representatives at Copenhagen for the failure of the conference on Climate Change? The good quote from Bismarck, saying that, like sausages, policy can’t be practice in public, is a reminder of the limits of “Public Diplomacy”. The public opinion lacks the experience, skill and common sense of good diplomats. For example, diplomatic relation between states is seriously undermined when individual like Terry Johns proposes to burn the Koran, in protest against the project to build a new Mosque two blocks away from ground zero (BBC news: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11269681).

One challenge for the “New Diplomacy”, this century, is to learn how to cope with the freedom of expression and the growing power of the media, which can be so disrupting, when cooperation between states is needed the most. Should we limit our freedom of expression to preserve International collaboration and harmony between our societies? To what extend the public can be involve in the negotiation process?

Between diplomacy and democracy, we still need to find the good balance to address the challenge of the 21^th Century. Personally, I think that the old diplomacy (in secrecy) should be use regarding the negotiation process, and only the outcome of negotiations, treaties, should be public. Concerning the freedom of expression, we should all bear in mind the impact of our actions.