The evolution of Diplomacy

Diplomacy failed to prevent the WWI and, as a consequence, more than 10 million people died. So, the diplomacy that was being used, was not working any more. A new kind of diplomacy needed to be created in order to be effective. It was called the “new diplomacy”.

Diplomacy “is the application of intelligence and tract to the conduct of official relations between the governments of independent states, [...], and between governments and international institutions” (Roberts, 2009, 3). This is the definition of the “new diplomacy” because in the “old diplomacy”, the states are the only important actors in the negotiation process. Moreover, in the “old diplomacy”, states are concerned about the physical security of their citizens rather than about their “social and economic well-being” (Baylis; Smith, 2005, 391).

However, the most important change in diplomacy was the establishing of an open diplomacy because of some reasons:

1. Third parties can be involved in negotiations. There have been many cases throughout history in which third parties have offered themselves as mediators such as in the Israel-Palestine conflict where the USA is acting as the third party so that diplomacy can success.
   
   
2. If negotiation fails, states need to give account. Diplomacy is subjected to public scrutiny and control by the citizens.
   
   
3. Multilateral negotiations. It is almost impossible to keep in secret multilateral negotiations due to the complexity of the situation and the number of actors involved. That is why “old diplomacy” was based on bilateral negotiations. However, there are less probabilities of success in multilateral negotiations because each actor has its own interests and does not want to be seen as the loser. One example of this is The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 2009 where nothing was achieved due to the different interests of each state and the unwillingness of some parties to give up some of their demands so that a common agreement could be achieved.
   

Thus, even though technology has changed many things in the way that diplomats interact each other and, therefore, in diplomacy, this change has not been so deep as open diplomacy was after the First World War.