My understanding of diplomacy today

As I have seen during the lectures and seminars, diplomacy has been changing throughout history. However, my understanding of diplomacy before starting this module was very limited to a few elements of what diplomacy is about, such as embassies, ambassadors, negotiations and visas. Moreover, as I wrote in my “first impressions” in the first lecture, I could understand, for the title of the module, that there were two types of diplomacy. What the title module says, new diplomacy, and what I could imagine, old diplomacy.

Nevertheless, during this course I have been able to acquire a better understanding of what diplomacy is and the differences of the new and the old diplomacies. And, even though with the names of new and old diplomacy we can imagine that they are completely opposed and different, today I can say that they “coexist peacefully” in the contemporary world politics. The old diplomacy has not disappeared, and the new diplomacy has taken lots of elements from the old one such as secrecy and bilateral negotiation, among many others. Furthermore, the old diplomacy is not as old as the name says, and the new diplomacy is not as new as the name says, as well.

Diplomacy today is more opened to new types of actors and new channels of communication which were completely unexpected twenty years ago. NGOs are playing an important role in the conduct of multilateral negotiations regarding environment, for example. International Organizations, at the same time, are more taken into account by governments and diplomats than twenty years ago. So, the nature of diplomacy as it was after the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, has changed.

Moreover, the integration of technology in diplomacy has been a key element in the recent years. Besides, the possibilities of being in a negotiation through videoconference, and the limitations that it has, can have a profound impact in the near future. Nevertheless, diplomacy, nowadays, is facing new challenges at the same time. Wikileaks revealed confidential information between the US Department of State and its diplomats around the world. Thus, we do not know yet how it is going to affect diplomacy, if it is going to affect, but governments will probably try to keep their information safer from the newspapers.

Traditional diplomacy in today's world

Do you think the ‘old’ diplomacy has any contemporary relevance?

Diplomacy, nowadays, is a mixture of old and new diplomacy if we consider the characteristics of each one. Making any distinction between "old" and "new" diplomacy does not mean that diplomats must choose between one of them. We can consider that traditional diplomacy is still relevant in the sense that all diplomatic negotiations take some pieces from the old and the new diplomacy. For example, bilateralism is a key feature in the old diplomacy and multilateralism in the new diplomacy. However, bilateral and multilateral negotiations are interconnected one another. Many times, multilateral negotiations success because there have been bilateral negotiations between the different parties before all parties start to negotiate in common.

If we think in the relevance of the "old" diplomacy nowadays, there are at least two highly important things:

1) The strong power of the protocol. Protocol does not only mean the way in which diplomats and heads of state interact, but also the use of structures to have high level relations, such as the embassies. Embassies are a key point in the traditional diplomacy. They are used to interact with other states, to negotiate treaties and to provide assistance to the fellow citizens. Nevertheless, even thought nowadays, technology could substitute embassies, it is not happening since embassies are not only used to negotiate or to provide assistance to citizens or to interact. They are a strong symbol of power.

2) The strong power of the face-to-face. Technology can be used in negotiations and it can save millions of pounds every year to governments. However, the use of technology such as video-conference in diplomatic negotiations could have unexpected consequences in the developing of the negotiations. It does not create the same impact in a negotiation if a head of state stands up and goes, rather than if a head of state switches off the video-conferences. Switching off the video-conference could be seen by the other parties as a failure in the software or in the internet or many other things. Standing up and going, however, has only one meaning. Thus, face-to-face relations become even more important in the contemporary world.

Old Diplomacy and contemporary relevance

Does ‘old’ diplomacy have any contemporary relevance?

So long as we have nation-states we will continue to have Diplomacy, because it facilitates states to interact on political, economical and social issues. The 18th and 19th century characteristics of old diplomacy continue to be applied within contemporary society.

States have maintained their embassies and resident diplomats abroad. Although financially costly, embassies have remained relevant for several reasons. For example, they provide timely and accurate information on local matters, to their home ministries. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office cannot solely rely on information that is provided by foreign states or journalist because such information may be subjected to censorship. Also, the role of embassies has broadened to include administration of visa and travel documentation processing for local residents. Embassies provide tourist advice to their visiting nationals and they can liaise with local officials when problems arise.

A core element of traditional diplomacy is bilateral negotiations. Bilateral diplomacy remains active and key for securing meaningful agreements between two states. Recent bilateral agreements between Sri Lanka and the Ukraine, strengthening their military ties and a similar agreement between the USA and Montenegro illustrates the continued importance of bilateral diplomacy.

The traditional practice of conducting negotiations in secrecy still prevails. ‘If interested parties are aware of what is being negotiated, they might well be able, and would certainly try, to sabotage the talks’ (Berridge, 4th edt, p105). Within contemporary society, secret negotiations are routinely conducted on neutral territory. Like the recent Israeli and Turkish talks which took place in Brussels in July 2010 as a result of Israel’s naval raid on Turkish ships in the Gaza strip (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10471551). Secret diplomacy is particularly important in helping to maintain world peace.

A conventional feature of diplomacy is diplomatic protocols. Whilst some may argue that the pageantry of formal ceremonies, diplomatic ranking and precedence at events, privileges and immunity, is no longer conducive to modern society, they continue to be strictly adhered to by all states, thus providing consistency within the diplomatic community. The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 (http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf)
and The Diplomatic Privileges Act 1964 http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Legislation&searchEnacted=0&extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&sortAlpha=0&PageNumber=0&NavFrom=0&parentActiveTextDocId=1233500&ActiveTextDocId=1233502&filesize=24448 reinforces the importance of diplomatic protocols within contemporary society.

Conventional diplomatic issues of preventing wars and maintaining peace remains as relevant today as it did in previous centuries. Although, the threat of war between states has significantly reduced, attacks and acts of aggression inflicted by dissident groups are the ‘new war’ being fought by states with the aid of traditional mechanism and processes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq3FtHZwzZo&feature=related discusses the current violent capabilities of one dissident group.

As with old diplomacy, reinforcing and promoting national interests abroad is still important. Whilst traditional trade diplomacy, was used to influence the outcome of negotiations and secure and strengthen alliances, it is now coupled with commercial diplomacy (which involves the use of diplomatic resources to secure business opportunities in the host nation for small to medium enterprises at home) as states seek to expand their exports markets within host nations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Wq71iuuOo&feature=related is a Bloomberg TV interview with Suresh Kumar on USA-India trade & commercial diplomacy.

The above illustrates that overall the original structure, processes and agenda issues of old diplomacy has continued to survive in modern society, and they also accommodate contemporary issues. Hence, old diplomacy has contemporary relevance.

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.