My understanding of diplomacy today

At the beginning of the semester my understanding of diplomacy entailed the sort of 'diplomacy' which symbolized an apparatus through which various relations among states in the international arena was administered. The term also signified the legitimate representation, carries out by legitimate representative of a sovereign state/monarch in overseas territories.

Today, ‘diplomacy’ incorporates a much more complex and intertwined agenda and role within international affairs. Apart from acting as a mere representative of one’s home country, a 21st century diplomat carries endless tasks ranging from the daily-administrations in the resident embassy to fostering the relationship between the host and home country via the promotion and exchange of cultural, social and traditional values. Given the nature of today’s interconnected world has led governments and their foreign representatives to actively engage in ‘public diplomacy’, which according to Melissen, is the gradual building of trust and credibility of states (for positive foreign perceptions), public diplomacy also cultivates and establishes bridges between diverse cultures through exchange programmes, routine summits, talk-shop bilateral and multilateral gatherings, state visits as well as national events (aiming to boost the both tourism and cultural qualities) such as the Holland Flower Festival; the Cherry Blossom Time; the Venice Carnival or the Rio de Janeiro Carnival; Spain's Los Sanfermines in Pamplona: bull running or the Banquet for Monkeys near Lop Buri (central Thailand) where over 600 monkeys gather down for lunch. All the aforementioned events are designed to attract both home and foreign audiences, as well as to enhance a country's distinct uniqueness and style.

Diplomacy is not only about representing one’s government in foreign land, but also to represent its cultural qualities, way-of-life and the overall exporting of the country’s ‘brand’ to foreign publics.

The interesting conception of ‘soft power’ as proposed by Nye is much of an intriguing idea when integrated into diplomatic affairs. Nye claims that soft power is the deployment of ‘cultural and commercial’ potentials, as opposed to the application of more corrupt form of power such as ‘carrots’ as payments, or coercive use of ‘sticks’. All in all, modern diplomacy is executing traditional functions of diplomatic practices as well as newer roles such as the PR of a country, in terms of its image, reputation and value being judged abroad. Today’s diplomacy no longer connotes ideas of tight secrecy behind closed doors; many themes on the diplomatic agenda is gradually becoming more transparent and open, incorporating new actors such as NGOs, TNCs and IOs, rendering diplomacy a transnational business.

Contemporary diplomacy is also working towards establishing commonly-agreed norms, such as the UN Charter for Human Rights, which directly challenges the traditional value of a state’s sovereignty by implying that foreign states might have concerns regarding how a particular state is treating its citizens. Furthermore, humanitarian intervention, labour standards, environmental concerns and global issues such as terrorism and WMD all further challenge the significance of sovereignty.

Today’s diplomatic engagements thus include a much complex and multi-facet agenda that goes beyond states-states relations, but encompasses mutual concerns such as transboundary environmental concerns which again illustrates the significance of an interconnected world (i.e pollution, and exploitation of natural resources of one country holds rather negative long term repercussion for another country).