Diplomacy in the Digital Age
- By Brian Hocking and Jan Melissen
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 26, 2015
The mix of hybrid diplomacy and digital trends helps us to understand and draw the conceptual outline of a new 21st century environment in which networking as an activity is becoming the foundation of diplomatic practice. The requirements of greater transparency and varying expectations of different types of diplomatic actors are two of the major factors that result in more complex diplomacy. Relationships with new sets of stakeholders are important in expanded policy environments where the power of ideas is greater than in the past and in which procedures, the informal rules of engagement, are no longer dictated by government. The great mistake that diplomats today can make – and do make – is to imply that the institutions that they represent are at the heart of 'their' networks. In reality, and accelerated by the impact of digitalization, diffuse diplomatic networks that put a premium on knowledge and expertise are substituting the more rigid state-centred networks of diplomacy that flourished during most of the 20th century. The value added and 'output legitimacy' of stakeholders within networks, rather than their authority determined by their status, is what matters.
Diplomats still acting and speaking like exponents of a traditional diplomatic world will meet progressive resistance. And as far as agents from government try to copy-paste hierarchical behaviour from their own professional base to multi-stakeholder networks, they will undermine their own legitimacy. Changing diplomatic structures and processes affect the requirements for successful diplomatic behaviour. In the combined 'offline' and 'online' diplomatic networks, information flows more horizontally and is shared in constantly changing milieus – like the subterranean root structures of nettle or ginger plants. Such modern networks are of course inherently less stable than the familiar world of states and international organizations. Furthermore, governmental acceptance that internal norms and routines cannot be imposed on their external environment is a necessary condition for their effective functioning.
Discussions of digital diplomacy are divided between on the one hand analyses of the changing character of diplomacy and the ways in which the use of, for example, social media can impact on its processes. On the other hand, trying to capture change in neologisms such as 'twiplomacy', generally offers little reflection on how the forms of diplomacy might be modified by new communications technologies. Self-help books claiming to offer signposts to developing 'digital diplomacy' are only useful as generic guides to social media dressed up with public relations principles. In order to take our discussion forward, what are the key questions focusing on the character of diplomacy as an activity?
Does the rise of a more participative, interactive diplomatic environment transform our understanding of the very essence of diplomacy? Here it is worth repeating that the term 'diplomacy' has evolved with the growing number of core diplomatic functions and roles, and that it embraces quite diverse activities. Much contemporary 'diplomacy', for example, is service oriented – in the form of consular services and crisis management requiring the deployment of skills and resources that span domestic and international environments.
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