Tuesday 4 May 2010

My understanding of diplomacy today: How have your opinions about the role of diplomacy in world politics changed since the start of the module? Looki

Looking back on the first impressions I wrote in the first lecture do not believe that my opinion about the role of diplomacy in world politics has changed providing that I always saw diplomacy as being the key for international cooperation, because it values dialogue and debate. Additionally, diplomacy is not stagnant as is evolving from its traditional practice to adjust to the present world. On the other hand, I have to admit that this module taught me everything about the growing importance of non-state actor in diplomatic practice and particularly the way public diplomacy today encourages the processes of democracy, engaging the public and setting the stage for debate distinguishing itself from messages designed to control. In a world, where the public is not a passive recipient, transparency has to be the key to hold representatives accountable.

Diplomacy Today

In my opinion, the role of diplomacy in world politics had changed in relation to the impact of globalization. During the Cold War and the post-Cold War, the politics at that time was more based on the political ideologies such as Marxism and Realism. But nowadays, the politics was based on the political economy. Also, some powerful states were mot considered to be the only significant international actors. When the creation of bilateral states had expanded the supplement of multilateral forms of diplomacy. Another contributions for the change in the world politics was the creation of embassies during the World War 2. The embassies were created for countries to represent their own countries in another states as well as for a country own interest. For example, nowadays, people who wants to know something about their own embassies and want to know more about visas and issues of their own country. They could go to their embassies website where the information is there available for them to read.

Nevertheless, International Organizations and the NGOs, both were seeing to be diplomatic actors and they liked to demonstrate their interests and their resources to influence the overcome their negotiations.

In conclusion, sometimes when a country had problems and they could not solve. There is another country who does try to have a diplomatic talk to solve the problem. Also, the same happened to countries who tries to violent some other countries law.

Saturday 1 May 2010

Diplomacy: The New View

When I began this module, I must admit that my view of diplomacy was very narrow. At the beginning of this semester, I would have defined diplomacy as the means by which states develop relations with each other and seek to solve conflicts. Needless to say, this module has revealed diplomacy to be far less simplistic than I initially assumed.

Learning about the “Old” and “New” diplomacy and the differences between them was the first eye-opener for me on this course. This lecture was the first to reveal to me that there was much more to diplomacy than I thought. It showed me the way diplomacy had evolved from its origins to the present day.

I found it interesting that bilateral negotiations had almost completely been replaced by multilateral negations. This added an interesting new dimension to the module for me because this showed me how diplomatic negotiations (and diplomacy as a whole) became open to non-state actors. The inclusion of non-state actors in the process of diplomacy has truly changed the face of diplomacy because it has shaken more of the elitism and secrecy of the old diplomacy off, allowing for more openness and public transparency. NGO’s and celebrities are now able to illuminate issues that many governments may not have the resources to address.

The development of multilateralism in diplomacy was a defining moment in the evolution of diplomacy because it not only opened the door for non-state actors, but it allowed for the participation of developing states in international affairs. The United Nations and other INGO’s have created forums in which multilateral negotiations can take place as well as allowing developing states to participate in discussions on international issues which may or may not directly affect them.

The inclusion and use of modern technologies in the business of diplomacy was another interesting facet in the evolution of diplomacy for me. Our visit to the Ghana High Commission was an excellent illustration of how modern technology is being used to enhance the work of diplomats and to streamline the daily operations of embassies. Finally, I am very pleased to have learned so much and to have been allowed to gain a broader understanding of what diplomacy was and is, as well as the things that drive it.