After the second World War, the need for a new type of diplomacy was advocated for, due to inefficiencies of the old or traditional diplomacy. As to the question, public diplomacy and NGOs, are more interesting to me. First of all, we have to consider what distinct public or new diplomacy from the traditional one. New diplomacy advocated for a more open diplomacy. Public diplomacy as an organ of new diplomacy help we the public to gain access to information’s albeit multilateral or bilateral diplomacy. We as the general public are entitled to the knowledge of outcomes of negotiations that involves our interests. Also, increasingly, public diplomacy is very important in the 21st century due to intense globalization and interdependence. We now live in a world whereby states borders are easily permeable as well as global issues like global warming, starvation, poevrty, that calls for public awareness.
On the other hand, NGOs are increasingly relevant, because they help to foster public interest to some extent. As increasingly known, states are no longer the main actors in international relations, global issues like poverty, environmental issues, are best handled by specialize NGOs, thus, NGOs solicits and advocates for the welfare of the public. What can be gain said, is that, NGOs like Green Peace, help the general public in lobbying state government for the betterment of our planet. This they do through soft power, and with the help of sophisticated technological advancement, like the internet.
However, public diplomacy lack the coercive will, because autocratic rule can ignore pressure from the public thereby continue the old policy of secrecy. Even democratic regimes still engage in secret diplomacy. Consequently, since NGOs are not accountable to the public like democratic regimes do, the questions is, do they really pursue the interest of the public or their interest?
Finally, public diplomacy and the influence of NGO’S on world politics have created a new platform for states to struggle in monopolization and compete with the new global order. What can be said, is that politics or diplomacy remains the same, only with exception of few innovations
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i think that in this blog the main characteristics of the new diplomacy are well shown on the examples and it is good that there is a little bit of describtion of the political stage nowadays (new world order, global governance) but on the other hand it is in some places confusing whether the subject is the new diplomacy or public diplomacy coz the line is bit blured. Overall it gives a very good idea about the use of diplomacy with its new practices.
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