The governance of the internet has gained a central role in global politics. International cooperation is increasingly mobilized to ensure that the expansion of connectivity infrastructure, digital services and their usages also safeguards security, human rights, and economic benefits. The field is truly transnational, including a vibrant stakeholder community that plays an active role in building sustainable ‘digital sovereignty’. Over the past decade, novel diplomatic practices have been adopted in negotiating technical standards, norms, regulations, and policies in the intersection of national and global priorities. This book defines this novel tool for diplomatic dialogue as Internet Diplomacy, a concept that entails the broad range of emerging international practices clustered around digital environments, including cybersecurity and internet governance. In broadening our view of diplomacy in the digital age, the book includes a comprehensive collection of contributions and cases addressing Internet Diplomacy. Collectively, it expands our understanding of transformations in international diplomacy and transnational digital governance, their drivers and their nature, their capacity to challenge power relations, and, ultimately, the values they carry and channel onto the global scene.

This book analyses digital diplomacy as a form of change management in international politics. The recent spread of digital initiatives in foreign ministries is often argued to be nothing less than a revolution in the practice of diplomacy. In some respects this revolution is long overdue. Digital technology has changed the ways firms conduct business, individuals conduct social relations, and states conduct governance internally, but states are only just realizing its potential to change the ways all aspects of interstate interactions are conducted. In particular, the adoption of digital diplomacy (i.e., the use of social media for diplomatic purposes) has been implicated in changing practices of how diplomats engage in information management, public diplomacy, strategy planning, international negotiations or even crisis management. Despite these significant changes and the promise that digital diplomacy offers, little is known, from an analytical perspective, about how digital diplomacy works. This volume, the first of its kind, brings together established scholars and experienced policy-makers to bridge this analytical gap. The objective of the book is to theorize what digital diplomacy is, assess its relationship to traditional forms of diplomacy, examine the latent power dynamics inherent in digital diplomacy, and assess the conditions under which digital diplomacy informs, regulates, or constrains foreign policy. Organized around a common theme of investigating digital diplomacy as a form of change management in the international system, it combines diverse theoretical, empirical, and policy-oriented chapters centered on international change. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomatic studies, public diplomacy, foreign policy, social media and international relations.

This book addresses how digitalization has influenced the institutions, practitioners and audiences of diplomacy. Throughout, the author argues that terms such as ‘digitalized public diplomacy’ or ‘digital public diplomacy’ are misleading, as they suggest that Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) are either digital or non-digital, when in fact digitalization should be conceptualized as a long-term process in which the values, norms, working procedures and goals of public diplomacy are challenged and re-defined. Subsequently, through case study examination, this book also argues that different MFAs are at different stages of the digitalization process. By adopting the term ‘the digitalization of public diplomacy’, this book will offer a new conceptual framework for investigating the impact of digitalization on the practice of public diplomacy.

Through conversations with State Department officials, ambassadors, public relations executives, public policy experts, and academics, Digital Diplomacy explores what it means to be innovative in foreign policy and diplomacy. These leading experts explain what are the new dynamics, developments, trends, and theories in diplomacy brought on by the digital revolution in which non-state actors play an active role. Such access now provides diplomats the means to influence the countries they work in on a massive scale, not just through elites. The book’s focus on innovative approaches shows how both public and traditional diplomacy have been transforming foreign policy in the 21st century, highlighting new means and trends in conducting diplomacy and implementing foreign policy. The enhanced e-book version features interviews with the experts who appear in the book, including Carne Ross, the “rock star” of digital diplomacy; Teddy Goff, the Digital Director for President Obama's 2012 Campaign; Lara Stein, Director of TEDx; Ambassador David Thorne, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State, and more.

The handbook delves into the shifting power dynamics in diplomacy, exploring the establishment of embassies in technology hubs, the challenges faced by foreign affairs departments in adapting to digital technologies, and the utilization of digital tools as a means of exerting influence.

This book analyses digital diplomacy as a form of change management in international politics. The recent spread of digital initiatives in foreign ministries is often argued to be nothing less than a revolution in the practice of diplomacy. In some respects this revolution is long overdue. Digital technology has changed the ways firms conduct business, individuals conduct social relations, and states conduct governance internally, but states are only just realizing its potential to change the ways all aspects of interstate interactions are conducted. In particular, the adoption of digital diplomacy (i.e., the use of social media for diplomatic purposes) has been implicated in changing practices of how diplomats engage in information management, public diplomacy, strategy planning, international negotiations or even crisis management. Despite these significant changes and the promise that digital diplomacy offers, little is known, from an analytical perspective, about how digital diplomacy works. This volume, the first of its kind, brings together established scholars and experienced policy-makers to bridge this analytical gap. The objective of the book is to theorize what digital diplomacy is, assess its relationship to traditional forms of diplomacy, examine the latent power dynamics inherent in digital diplomacy, and assess the conditions under which digital diplomacy informs, regulates, or constrains foreign policy. Organized around a common theme of investigating digital diplomacy as a form of change management in the international system, it combines diverse theoretical, empirical, and policy-oriented chapters centered on international change. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomatic studies, public diplomacy, foreign policy, social media and international relations.

Communication technologies have become an important tool for instantaneous effects and reactions both individually and collectively. The fact that traditional discourses become digital by transferring them through tools heralded a new understanding of digital in individual and social networks. The tendency to use these features offered by communication technologies in international relations, rather than just individual use, has emerged as a result of being built over digital in their discourse on diplomacy. However, the concepts of transparency and public offering, which do not exist in classical democracy, clearly show themselves in digital public diplomacy. Maintaining International Relations Through Digital Public Diplomacy Policies and Discourses reveals the tendencies of countries, institutions, and their representatives to use communication technologies as a diplomatic tool in international relations practices. It reveals the difference between the discourses built on digital media and classical diplomacy. Covering topics such as crisis management, new media platforms, and international relations, this premier reference source is an excellent resource for government officials, diplomats, social media managers, communications professionals, students and faculty of higher education, libraries, researchers, and academicians.