'The Future of Diplomacy? Five Projective Visions'

‘The Future of Diplomacy? Five Projective Visions’.

D 1 1 P 3 Ll 01 M3 A1 C 3 Y4.

About the author. The author, Alan k. Henrikson, is the Lee E. Dirks Professor of Diplomatic History Emeritus and founding Director of Diplomatic Studies at The Fletcher School at Tufts University. This is the place where he taught American diplomatic history, contemporary U.S.-European relations, global political geography, and the history, theory, and practice of diplomacy for a long stretch of time. He is a renowned name in the study of diplomacy and his viewpoint is considered as very well researched and firm in all aspects..

The motive behind writing the article. The article ‘The Future of Diplomacy? Five Projective Visions’ was written by the author in the year 2005 and through this article he expected to make a series of claims and predictions about the future of diplomacy between various nations based on the historical laws and events that have been seen in the nineteenth century before. Henrikson believes that making such conscious future predictions is of immense importance since due to increasing globalization and a hastening history has pushed world leaders and diplomats around the globe to make urgent decisions in a precise manner..

Evidence from past. In this article, Henrikson has clearly established that today, we have more in common with the nineteenth century than the twentieth century and thus have a lot to learn from the history of the nineteenth century to apply those findings in making better future predictions. For instance, the cause of terrorism and large scale geostrategies along with international peace to some extent have all been more common with the nineteenth century in terms of today’s era..

The five visionary models of the future of diplomacy.

1. Disintermediation. According to this model, the private sector poses a very serious threat to the future of diplomacy. This means that overall involvement of actual diplomats will decline owing to more private individuals and organization involvement in the diplomacy. As a recent example, we can even consider the example of counties like China, who instead of focusing on diplomacy have to some extent started engaging in Personalism..

2. Europeanization. The second possible form of diplomacy that has been proposed by Henrikson is listed as Europeanization. An explanation of how the European Union functions and the bilateral diplomatic missions that have been somewhat eclipsed by the inner communicative activity of the EU and also by the efforts to create a common foreign security policy (CFSP) for a united Europe. Along with this, the members of the COREPER (Comite des representants permanent) have also established a sense of cross national collegial solidarity. It is therefore stated that the effects and efforts of such unifying efforts by the EU can be of immense inspiration. However, the drawback that Henrikson has suggested here is that of a ‘democratic deficit’ among the member states..

3. Democratization. The third model that is suggested by the author for a possible future of diplomacy is that of Democratization. The basic idea of democratization is to establish ‘international democracy’. The assumption behind the establishment of this model is to take into consideration the voices and opinions of all the geographical locations possible and valuing them. This is to be done irrespective of the power of wealth that the people in that location hold. The only drawback behind the establishment of a diplomacy as democracy model is that while diplomacy is used to accomplish the most important tasks, without it the most important issues in the world would be abolished and application of it as the core behind diplomacy might backfire the motive in all..

4. Thematic diplomacy. Henrikson defined the Thematization of diplomacy as an equivalent of functional diplomacy. In layman language, we can define thematization of diplomacy as a diplomatic action that only takes care of a certain state of affairs. For instance, the author has provided the example of the incident of 11 September 2001 and how it acted as fuel and motivation for various crusade like efforts of the American war against global terrorism. This needs excessive improvisation every step of the way however. It elaborates on the fact that no matter how competitive nations get between themselves, they can never ignore the aspects where cooperation is needed from both sides. Interdependence has in turn also made the facts about co-dependence hold true..

5. Americanization. According to Henrikson, the core value of Americanization lies in that the politics of the United States influences all the other nations in their politics in turn and thus has a huge part to play in the global international system. Henrikson also claimed that United States is exercising hegemonic control over the world. The concept of Americanization is supposedly seeing a boost due to increased globalization and international interdependence. However, it has been made short time and again that sound national and international policy making cannot be brought to existence without the inclusion of more diversity into the policy making step this and including nations are known pinyons other than that of American and European original alone..

Strengths. The article that has been written by the author allows us to reflect on why diplomacy is so important and addresses the issue about it’s constant adaptation to globalization. All of the five predictions that have been made regarding the future of diplomacy hold one important factor and revolve around it, thus giving an insightful experience into deeper knowledge about diplomacy and its roots of functioning. It was very precisely and factually laid out that the unfair supremacy that Europe and America hold as leading actors in running the world can be of immense harm and negatively influence all the smaller nations, which lack either in terms of finances or in terms of population..

Weaknesses. In the given article, the author failed to acknowledge the role that technology might play in the diversification off diplomacy and the impact it might have on the said issues. As for the current issues and the impact of current situation has been nil in the article owing to the article being published more than 15 years back. However, the knowledge imparted by the article and information provided is appreciated and appropriate as well..

References. Henrikson, A. (2005). ‘The Future of Diplomacy? Five Projective Visions', Clingendael Discussion Paper in Diplomacy 96, The Hague, Clingendael Institute.

Thank you!. Presented by: Sahildeep Singh.