Transformation of Diplomacy: Digital Diplomacy in the Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Process

Introduction

Diplomacy is the peaceful execution of relations between states and other institutions in world politics. It is also described as “negotiations between political entities that recognize each other’s independence” (Kelley, 2010, p. 287). Diplomacy involves international actors taking non-violent, compromising approaches to inter-state interests. The important point to be conveyed here is that diplomacy represents an advanced method of change management (Bjola & Kornprobst, 2013, p. 10). Furthermore, it includes a certain type of behavior among international actors; however, the success or failure of these relationships depends on the ability of diplomats to be accurately aware of the developing power dynamics (Cooper, Heine & Thakur, 2013, p. 3).

Toward the end of the 1960s, some diplomats predicted a golden age in communication thanks to the computer network. This prediction has been the harbinger of internet-based public diplomacy (Manor, 2019, p. 7). In February 1968, Leonard Marks, the director of the US Information Agency and one of the nation’s leading diplomats, argued that a world information network connecting computers would be a crucial step toward lasting world peace. As long as technology allows, cultures of different countries should be able to enter homes all over the World (Kitsou, 2013, p. 25). However, this happened in the mid-1990s when the browser system called Mosaic enabled the introduction of personal computers, which became widespread in the 1980s, into data platforms in the rapidly growing World Wide Web (Naughton, 2016, p. 12). As a communication tool, press releases via internet technology have become an alternative to one-way and top-down communication. For example, the “Voice of America,” the pride of American public diplomacy, was a print publication in the beginning but was later broadcast and, today is an online form of communication (Cowan & Arsenoult, 2008, p. 15).

Journals are now being published online because it is less expensive than printed publications. Along with developments in the digital world, there have been developments in diplomacy. After hard power turned into soft power with public diplomacy, diplomacy began to take place in digital environments in the world, where the internet was shrinking (Adesina, 2017, p. 3). Digital diplomacy, which is a fairly new concept, has a short history. Its focus is the application of social media to conduct foreign policy (Stanzel, 2018, p. 8). The concept of digital diplomacy started to attract attention when a book was published in 1984 titled Public Diplomacy in the Computer Age, an analysis written by Allen C. Hansen that investigates public diplomacy implemented by the American Information Agency (USC Center on Public Diplomacy 2020). The first email communication on the topic of diplomacy was about the lifting of the embargo on Vietnam and occurred in 1994 between Swedish diplomat Carl Bildt and U.S. President Bill Clinton (Manor, 2019, p. 34). Social media platforms started to appear later. The Republic of Maldives opened the first virtual embassy in 2007, followed by Sweden. Arturo Sarukhan, Mexican Ambassador of the US, was the first ambassador to post a tweet on the social media application Twitter in 2009; he states that it is a good way to talk directly about the US and Mexico (Singh, 2018, p. 3). The digitalization of diplomacy was the focus of the Hague Digital Diplomacy Camp that was organized by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs; it took place at the Hague, the bureaucratic center of the Netherlands, on February 1–2, 2017. During the meeting, it was shown that countries use digital resources as much as global brands do, to develop foreign policy and plan strategic goals. they use digital channels directly and thus affect the international community (The Hague Digital Diplomacy Camp, 2017).

Digitalization has become an integral part of life—almost everything has started to become digital due to globalization, making technology cheaper, more intensive, and easier. This is also reflected in diplomacy, which has transcended to digital diplomacy. Digital diplomacy, which first appeared in the USA and the UK in 2001, has been frequently mentioned since the Arab Spring. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused havoc in the entire world, everything from education to health and from foreign policy to trade has been used intensively. Leaders and international actors have participated in meetings concerning the international system and use of digital tools. This process, in which digitalization was a prominent factor, has become the harbinger of a new order. It is suggested that the process of digitalization will continue even after the pandemic, leading to very different diplomatic processes in the long term.