Diplomacy is a class sociality. Any individual can be diplomat. She or he has to have characteristics such as truth, knowledge, charm, courage, tact, patience and intelligence. In my research I came across the article “ Diplomacy changes dramatically as Ambassadors become lobbyists”.
In the article, former Austrian ambassador Helmut Tuerk Remembers the highlights of his time in Washington. He had been travelling a lot, visited all 50 states and promoted homeland products and tourism.
His style of diplomacy shows that ambassadors are cultural and commercial emissaries who often perform the functions of public relations officials and one-person chambers of commerce. As a result of his visit, Ohio, Idaho and Virginia sent trade delegations to Austria and Austrian tourists flew to the U.S. to celebrate the new year. Helmut comments that more and more, traditional diplomacy is changing to economics-oriented diplomacy.
It is my view that diplomacy is closely related to the wellbeing of the citizens. Increasingly new diplomacy understands the needs of citizens because it is formed by citizens. It tries to make changes to benefit all.
New diplomacy introduces new principles such as openness, transparency and rough consensus into global negotiations. This can be seen in the article A new diplomacy :- http://www.wsis.ethz.ch/kleinwaechter.pdf
Some interesting points here, but a few questions for you to consider:
ReplyDelete- Do you mean "class speciality" in your opening sentence? If so, how can anyone become a diplomat?
- Are the functions of ambassadors you outline in any way new, or have they been engaged in such activities for a long time?
- Given that most of your post focused on the role of ambassadors, how do we make the jump to the link you provide, which is about contemporary multilateral diplomacy?