How has your opinion about the role of diplomacy in the world politics changed since the start of the module?

My initial understanding of diplomacy was that it is the ability to negotiate. Deliver and pursue the states interest in a friendly manner. That was clearly very narrow view and describers only the top of the iceberg so to say.

During this module we examined different levels of diplomacy from bilateral and multilateral diplomacy of embassies and consulates to public and celebrity diplomacy. Now students of this module are able to distinguish between the consuls and diplomats, why they while doing almost the same job as diplomats and sometimes work even harder than last ones do not sometimes enjoy the privileges of those diplomats. It is very interesting how states use ‘disguised embassies ’such as interest sections, the same consulates, front missions to continue the relations with a state when they are not in the friendly relations in a way that will prevent ‘an embarrassment of both‘ (G.R. Berridge, 2010).

Diplomacy is not only about the negotiation though, that would be quite limited definition. It is an art of influencing as we have learned about the public diplomacy through the utilization of celebrities in other words implementation of soft power as J. Nye argues.

It has become more inclusive as we discussed in our former blogs and the development of new ways of telecommunications have allowed the transformation of the diplomacy as some argue in the era of global governance.

So by the end of the module one comes up with even more questions like: does international system of states have more common goals hence cooperate more and make diplomacy transparent and more accessible for non-state actors? How strong is states’ self interest now and how weak are states when it comes to environmental threats, or global terrorism?

In recent years we have seen examples of growth of cooperation of states as in security issues, environmental and business alike. So now when I say to myself that I want to become a diplomat I also ask myself a question what type of diplomacy I am going to carry.