Diplomacy in the Digital Age
- By Brian Hocking and Jan Melissen
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 26, 2015
2 Contexts: Defining the Digital Age
If the first casualty in war is truth, then the first casualty in the world of diplomacy when confronted with significant change in communications technologies is balance. Hence the oft-quoted reaction to the introduction of the electric telegraph from the British foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston: 'My God, this is the end of diplomacy!' Taking a less histrionic view but one nevertheless skeptical of the place of newish technologies in the delicate world of diplomacy, astute analyst of diplomatic practice Harold Nicolson, writing in the 1960s, would lament the impact of the telephone as 'a dangerous little instrument through which to convey information or to transmit instructions'. One of the most important assets of sound diplomacy he suggested is precision and the telephone failed to promote it.
Much has changed in the past half century, and even in the past ten years. Social media have added an important real-time dimension to diplomacy, making communication ultra-fast and, by necessity, often less precise. For the first time, foreign ministries have no other option than allowing diplomats with delegated authority to make mistakes in the social media – and to correct such mishaps immediately and preferably repeatedly. There will be no immediate consensus among diplomats, though, as to how to use the social media, neither is there a generational gap between luddites wary of change and technophiles with sympathies in the opposite direction. And while some diplomats embrace change as an opportunity to reform their profession, to others it represents a challenge to established conventions and may simply be 'dangerous' to proven and accepted forms of conducting international relations – or to their own self-interest. The impact of the Internet and the rise of social media platforms, particularly Twitter and Facebook, are generating a wealth of reactions.
What do we mean when use the term 'digital age'? The deeper issue goes beyond diplomatic adaptation to speed and openness. It focuses on the relationship between technological change and the broader societal context in which it occurs. The debates on the recent rise of Islamic State reflect differing views on the impact of the Internet between 'cyber-utopians' – adherents of the view that social revolutions may be the product of the digital revolution – and the 'cyber-realists'. The latter, whilst not denying the importance of the Internet and the various tools it has engendered, make the point that social change is the product of human agency, much of it occurring in offline environments. As the chief exponent of the concept of the 'network society', Manuel Castells, points out, communications technologies are not at the root of social movements, these result from conflicts and contradictions in societies.
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