How Digital Tools Are Transforming Diplomacy
(Read in French, in Spanish) The first research question we need to address is about the changes that the advent of digital tools is bringing to diplomacy.
Traditionally, diplomats have focused primarily on interaction between national governments, in other words on state to state communications. Digital tools present three challenges to this practice.
First, as they accelerate the diffusion of power to a broader set of social actors, they have expanded the number of players involved in international relations. No longer can diplomats focus on the top 10 or 20 most influential people in each country, now they must engage with thousands and potentially millions as it becomes easier for people to collaborate together to exercise power.
Second, by connecting actors directly they undermine the role of some institutions and other intermediaries. This opens the door for individuals to play a role as never before in world politics. Before, a citizen had to vote for a political party, join a NGO or get a job as a diplomat, foreign correspondent, or business executive to engage in international affairs. Now one can start a movement online, become a citizen journalist or become an international entrepreneur by doing little more than running a successful website.
Third, because individuals as citizens play a greater role they demand more transparency. Gone are the days when governments could try to exert influence in other countries without explaining what they are trying to do and why they consider it legitimate. It’s simply too easy for individual citizens to question, expose and criticize. Any policy that doesn’t anticipate the need to address those concerns is likely to fail.
The growing role of individuals in international relations obliges us diplomats to adapt our approaches. We offer the following three rules.
- We need to be clear about what we’re trying to achieve. The environment in which we are practicing diplomacy has expanded to include thousands and potentially millions of participants. We need to be able to explain our objectives in terms that all can potentially understand.
- We need to be as transparent as we possibly can. When dealing with a much wider set of interlocutors there will always be those that are suspicions of governments and those that fundamentally distrust anyone in a position of authority. The best response is to be open with what we are trying to do and why we consider our work to be fully legitimate.
- We need to be as interactive where we can. In a highly communicative environment, the worst strategy is to speak without listening, or to broadcast views without giving an opportunity for others to share theirs.
Social Media in International Relations: Meaningless or Menace?
(Read in French) On the one hand, countries supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity launch a campaign of solidarity under the Twitter hashtag #unitedforukraine are derided for being ineffectual in the face of Russian hard power.
On the other hand, the Turkish Prime Minister denounces Twitter as “the worst menace to society” responsible for links between the 2013 protests that shook his country and “foreign powers.”
Opinions on the use of social media in international relations are all over the map. To some it seems a waste of time, to others a mortal threat to the most powerful institutions in the world: national governments.
Time for a deep breath. To those who reacts with derision, we would reply that social media is a tool which is increasingly used in all sectors of political and economic life, and so deserves to be used in diplomacy as well.
To those who react with fear about dark plots of foreign subversion, I would remind them that social media has no special power beyond the power of citizens talking and cooperating with one another. If a government does not fear its own citizens, it should have nothing to fear from Twitter or Facebook.
But the wild divergence in opinions about digital diplomacy also underlines how important it is for us to come to terms with these tools. As they reshape how we conduct global affairs, we need to learn how they can be used effectively, and how they can be used legitimately.
This blog aims to be a discussion by practitioners for practitioners about the role of digital tools in diplomacy.
In launching the blog, our hope is that in having actual diplomats talk about what we actually do with social media will help inject rationality and objectivity into the discussion. For nothing so demystifies a profession as being a part of it. And nothing demystifies digital tools as actually using them.
The discussions on this site will aim to accelerate the learning process as diplomats race to get up to speed with tools the rest of the world has adopted with astonishing speed. With luck, it will also help others interested in international relations understand how diplomacy is adapting to the digital world, and what opportunities are opening for them, as individuals, to play a role.
Our research team will monitor the online activity of prominent digital diplomats and the relatively few analyses that have been written about their work. Along the way we will draw on this research to address the following questions:
- How is the increasing use of digital tools transforming the traditional practices of diplomacy?
- Who are the most successful diplomats using social media and what should we learn from them?
- How should governments engage with new actors in digital diplomacy?
- If governments must act through individual diplomats in a social media world that only really responds to individuals, how should diplomats balance their institutional and individual identities?
- In a world that demands more and more transparency, how should foreign ministries balance openness with the occasional need for secrecy when negotiating or advancing national interests?
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