Diplomacy in the Digital Age
- By Brian Hocking and Jan Melissen
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 26, 2015
Taken together, these perspectives on digital diplomacy suggest diminishing control over events and agendas, and the need for developing new skills and structures and adapting those already in use. This once again echoes experiences with public diplomacy, particularly in the western world. Hence the recognition that MFAs and individual diplomats need to develop networking approaches, adapt their work processes to the changing playing field, and refine 'stakeholder' strategies to accommodate the claims of a broader range of participants. Crucially, networks thrive on the value added of ideas rather than authority, explaining the growing importance of the capacity to influence the shaping of policy agendas in critical areas of external relations, such as health, financial structures, the environment, human rights and other issues on the new security agenda. This highlights the significance of 'knowledge leadership', which is increasingly bound up with digital resources. New ideas are typically launched in the social media and modern networking takes advantage of the multiplier effect of influential netizens and actors whose external communication is centred on the internet.
Related to changing foreign policy agendas, a second facet of the digital diplomacy environment, largely outside the scope of our analysis, focuses on cyber agendas. Rather than concerned with how digitalization impacts on the performance of diplomacy, the focus is on what diplomacy is about. The range of issues subsumed under this heading includes general issues of cyber governance, Internet freedom, and cyber warfare and cyber security. Apart from questions of negotiating formats, for foreign ministries questions of threats to the security of diplomatic structures and processes arise.
A third dimension of the digital diplomacy debate (termed in the US State Department 'e-diplomacy') is the use of the Internet and related digital technologies for knowledge management. As with government more generally, this recognises the importance of managing data efficiently but has a particular resonance in diplomatic networks and MFA policy planning staffs because of the promise of managing scarce resources more effectively. During the 1990s, the term 'virtual diplomacy' came into common usage reflecting the growing demands placed on diplomatic services in the post-Cold War environment. Part of this changed environment (to be followed by the resource constraints created by the global economic crisis after 2007) strengthened the quest for more cost-effective modes of diplomatic representation and experimentation with alternatives to the traditional embassy. One key technological aspect of these changes was the development of secure e-mail. This not only strengthened the arguments of those questioning the age-old balance between headquarters and diplomatic posts – as two parts of the integral MFA network – it also began to challenge traditional hierarchical work procedures within the organization as a whole.
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