eDiplomacy

I got an email from Cristina (who I don’t know) saying:

I was wondering if we can really talk about eDiplomacy and if there are concrete experiences of that.

I would assume that eDiplomacy involves the use of the World Wide Web via the Internet to accomplish the purposes of diplomacy. eDiplomacy would be more than the use of the internal or external networks by Ministries of Foreign Affairs; more than use of the Internet for communications; more than the use of computer technology for analysis and forecasting. These applications predate the interest in eGovernment.

Many people have suggested that governments use of the web develops through several stages, such as:

· Establishing a presence on the Web
· Providing information via the Web
· Conducting transactions via the Web
· Reorganizing to take advantage of the possibilities provided by the Internet.

If one accepts this definition, clearly many Ministries of Foreign Affairs, and indeed many Embassies have already started eDiplomacy by establishing websites and providing information important to their diplomatic missions via the World Wide Web.

Merriam-Webster defines diplomacy as “the art and practice of conducting negotiations between nations.” Conducting negotiations of course means more than bargaining face-to-face or via telephone, mail, email, or computer conference. Governments seek to obtain information about each other’s negotiating positions and seek to influence those positions by various means, including providing information to the constituents of the governments with which they are bargaining. Moreover, the private sector and civil society are involved in negotiations between nations, even when those negotiations are lead by the governments. Thus there is a lot of scope for using the World Wide Web in diplomacy.

I think there are many kinds of diplomacy – including political, economic, cultural, and scientific. I would guess that some are more amenable to eDiplomacy than others. I ask myself whether cultural and scientific diplomacy currently involve transactions via the Web, and I suspect that there is some limited use. Indeed, the U.S. State Department website has tabbed sections for the press, travel and business, and youth and education. I suspect that these are well on the way to conducting some transactions in terms of media diplomacy, economic diplomacy and cultural diplomacy.

My only direct contact with diplomacy these days is with respect to my service to Americans for UNESCO. I find myself contacting people by email at the State Department whom I have found via State’s websites, and asking for help with contacts with UNESCO – the prototypical multilateral organization serving as a vehicle for U.S. cultural and scientific diplomacy. The State Department secretariat for the U.S. National Commission on UNESCO and the U.S. Mission to UNESCO in Paris have websites, and I recall that the National Commission website was used as part of the registration process for visitors to the last meeting of the Commission.

How much further will eDiplomacy go? I don’t know. The United States was the first nation to develop the Internet and was a leader in eGovernment applications and so its experience might be a harbinger, but the State Department has been a lagging agency in ICT applications within the U.S. government. The State Department does have an Office of eDiplomacy, and the Transitional Diplomacy initiative focuses significantly on improving use of ICT by the Department. In 2006 there are 33 Virtual Presence Posts which provide points of presence for the State Department in foreign venues which are to small to justify bricks-and-mortar offices. As far as I can see, State is still primarily in the first two stages of e-Diplomacy, and its e-Diplomacy Office is emphasizing bringing the Department up to the standard of ICT use found in other government agencies before the explosive growth of the World Wide Web.

I would predict that, with the appointment of Karen Hughes as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S. public diplomacy will become more visible and more visible in cyberspace and on the Web. I can only hope that it will move from the provision of information to two way communication, opening the return channel to the U.S. Government.

Indeed, it seems to me that a great deal is to be done exploiting the World Wide Web to learn more about the substance on which political and economic negotiations take place, on the factors influencing the negotiators, and on the views and interests of their constituents.

One could imagine using encrypted computer conferencing via the Internet to conduct even sensitive political and economic negotiations between governments. Such negotiations are the prototypical substance of diplomacy. Whether they would qualify as eDiplomacy probably depends on your definition.

Experience suggests that I am not a very good predictor of future impacts of information and communications technology. I failed to predict the importance of pornography and gambling on the Internet, and of computer games. I thought “more serious” applications such as computer modeling and computer aided decision systems would be more important than they appear to be. It seems to me that eDiplomacy will become very important. I am almost sure that people will exploit the World Wide Web more fully for diplomatic purposes in the near future. Bit, time will tell!