The Global Diplomacy course is a unique offering to the MOOC environment. Bringing together cutting edge research in the broad fields of Diplomatic and International Studies, award winning distance learning delivery and the instructors previous experience of delivering a successful MOOC. Please see the volume Global Diplomacy: Theories, Types and Models authored with Dr Alison Holmes, (Westview, 2016), and the Understanding Research Methods MOOC from Coursera. The Global Diplomacy MOOC has a direct heritage in the University of London International Academy/SOAS Global Diplomacy MA Programme launched in April 2013 which have attracted hundreds of students from around the world. The Global Diplomacy MA Programme is provided by the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy which has been teaching postgraduate courses in Diplomacy for over twenty five years. After completing the 'Global Diplomacy' MOOC, learners will have: 1. The ability to demonstrate a critical understanding of the nature and development of global diplomacy, drawing on a variety of relevant contributing disciplines in the broad field of International Studies. 2. An understanding of changes in diplomatic practices and procedures and the relationship of those changes to contemporary politics. 3. A sound grounding in both theoretical and empirical approaches to debates in diplomacy so that students have been exposed to the and skills needed to analyse global diplomacy. 4. knowledge of issues in global diplomacy in historical and contemporary contexts.
Dr Richard Woodward
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En provenance du cours de University of London
Global Diplomacy – Diplomacy in the Modern World
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E-tivity 5: Reflections on Diplomacy
Welcome to the final week of Global Diplomacy: Diplomacy in the Modern World. In this module we reflect on what we have learnt about diplomacy. This extra challenge exercise will add to your understanding.
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Dr J. Simon Rofe, SOAS, University of LondonSenior Lecturer in Diplomacy and International Studies, Global Diplomacy Programme Director, Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy,
SOAS, University of London
[MUSIC]
Hello, I'm joined by Richard Woodward of Coventry Business School.
Richard, in your experience in your academic career,
what do you conceive diplomacy to be?
>> Well, I have a slightly schizophrenic personality on this one which is,
when someone mentions diplomacy or diplomats,
the first thing that I still think of even now is the very conventional idea of men.
And of course very often is still men,
in very smart suits going to big international conferences,
representing their national interest in very important matters of state.
But of course in my own research,
I've come to realize that's a very narrow view of diplomacy.
And what I call the three As, which is something I hear by copyright,
and my three As are actors, audiences, and ambitions.
And by actors, I've come to realize that there are many,
many more actors involved in diplomacy than just states or just the professionals
who inhabit Ministries of Foreign Affairs, and the like.
And I suppose while it would be trite to say that we are all diplomats now,
we have the potential I think all to be diplomats.
Technology has made that possible.
In terms of the audience, I think something else that's changed is that
traditionally we would once think of the audience being the elite of another state.
In other words, their foreign policy establishment.
Whereas I think now the audiences tend to be very often the public's
of those states as well.
And the last thing I think is in terms of the ambition.
I think there's a much greater emphasis now on using diplomacy to augment
soft power in world affairs.
In other words, to try to get the people, foreign audiences, to want what you want.
Which might obviate the need for diplomacy in future or
at least smooth the path of future diplomacy.
>> Okay, that's very interesting though in thinking about how that plays out.
What do you identify as successful diplomacy therefore?
>> I think, for me, successful diplomacy is about getting to yes.
In other words getting some sort of agreement.
I suppose if you think back to the more conventional views of diplomacy here,
it's about getting to yes in the knowledge that there are constraints here.
You know partly of course what your opposite numbers will be thinking and
what you want, but
you also of course know what your own side would want in an ideal world.
So I think it's about getting to yes, but
with the knowledge that their are constraints.
And getting to yes without giving too much away, being a skilled and
tough negotiator.
>> Okay, so, conversely what does failed diplomacy look like to your mind?
>> Well, I think that's a much more difficult thing to identify,
because that sort of presumes that you know what diplomacy is
setting out to do in the first place.
I think one of the things for me is I think diplomacy is an iterative process.
In other words, it's not a one shot thing.
I think that's how it's often portrayed.
That again, you go off to a conference, or you go off to a meeting,
and if you don't come back with an agreement then somehow that's a failure.
I don't necessarily see that as a failure because as I said,
I think diplomacy is iterative.
So you keep, very often going back to the same problem again and again.
Likewise what I've found in my own experience both personal and
looking through academic and doing research here is that very often when
one diplomatic path is closed or blocked, others remain open.
So an example that I would give here is very often that something like a G7 or
a G20 meeting.
Yes, they'll come away with the communique but
there will be certain areas where perhaps no deal has been reached, and
you think well, that's maybe a failure of diplomacy.
But very often what happens is those same people who were at that meeting will go
off into another organization, another setting and negotiations will continue.
And the OECD, in my experience, is very often where that happens.
So the same group of people will go away into a, perhaps a less public forum and
quietly resolve the matter that they haven't been able to resolve in a more
public space.
>> And is that sort of disjunction between a public and a private space,
something that you see as important in the way that diplomacy can play out.
>> Yes, I think in the public sphere very often diplomats and politicians
are worried about losing face, perhaps with their own domestic audiences in mind.
Whereas in more private settings, they're perhaps I wouldn't say they're unconcerned
by it, but they're perhaps less concerned or perhaps willing to be more malleable.
And certainly again using my experience with the OECD here,
I'd say that's definitely the case.
That in the OECD perhaps where they're not meeting and
perhaps making a final agreement, but then perhaps edging towards one
it's in that space where real concessions are actually made.
>> So thinking about your experience in perhaps in OECD, who do you identify
as the sort of good diplomats or those with sort of good diplomatic skills?
>> I think the ones that I have admired the most that I have encountered and
I think which is the key thing here, people who have encountered.
I'm not going to name names because I don't think that wouldn't be appropriate.
But I think the one thing that they've all really had is a very
deep knowledge of international affairs and particularly international history.
And they have also understood the organizational setting that
they've been operating in.
On the international history side of things,
I think very often there's a tendency for people to jump to conclusions or
to jump to here is an easy solution.
Whereas those you have a greater knowledge of international history and
a greater knowledge of past emnities or past friendships and
realize that that might not even be a possible solution,
it's something that you can put off the table completely.
On the organizational side of things, I think they really understand
how you can use an organizational setting to get to yes.
In other words again, they might recognize that this is something we couldn't do
maybe at the World Trade Organization or the IMF.
But we might be able to do it here because it's a slightly different institutional
milieu that we're operating in.
>> Okay, and thinking about those individuals,
what sort of characteristics are distinct to a good diplomat?
>> I think they tend to be, or they come across as very confident, and they come
across as having a real confidence in having mastered their own brief.
And I think is what what's really important to them is the feeling that
they've actually got the backing of the people their representing.
I've seen a number of at that the OECD diplomats who,
particularly if there's been a change of government,
in other words they've had a change of masters.
It is always very tempting to see that foreign affairs just
carries on a respective of who the government is.
But I've seen it before where they've got a new minister of state or
whatever it is that they're representing.
And all of a sudden they're just that little bit more
uncertain about perhaps what it is that they are now representing.
Obviously in international relations we tend to see national interests as very
fixed and unmoving.
But in actual fact I think a number of diplomats,
while they would sort of to move toward that international,
that national interests are to some extent unchanging, but there's always
some wiggle room around the edges and they seem to be very sensitive to that.
>> Finally, if I may, how important do you think of trust in diplomacy?
I'm mean certainly in the context which I'm mostly familiar with it is the OECD
and I think that its actually vital partly because if the organization runs.
So that is an organization where in the private meetings that diplomats have, so
very often the OECD committees are the place where these sort of discussions
might take place.
And the whole point of these meeting is that they are private and so
you can have full and frank exchanges of views, safe in the knowledge that this
isn't going to be something that becomes public knowledge.
It doesn't very often happen, but when it does happen, if a diplomat does speak out
in public and makes clear that there has been a disagreement, that can be fatal for
that diplomat in that setting.
Because of course every time they go back to another meeting,
there's always the people thinking, well hang on a minute.
The last time we said anything slightly controversial or
disagreed, this guy went away and effectively told all.
So I think in that context, trust is absolutely essential.
>> Okay, thank you very much, Richard.
>> Thank you.
[MUSIC]
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