By Wilfried Bolewski, Ph.D.,
former German Ambassador, Professor of International law and Diplomacy at Free University Berlin and Sciences Po Paris, author of Diplomacy and International Law in Globalized Relations
And Ruchi Anand, Ph.D.,
Associate Professor of International Relations at the American Graduate School in Paris, author of Self Defense in International Law and International Environmental Justice: A North-Suoth Dimension
Posted on June 28th, 2012
After the recent financial turmoil in some parts of the world, it seems we are now experiencing an unprecedented type of crisis: A crisis of diplomacy, which in its conventional way is letting us down in the conflict management of Syria, Iran, North Korea and elsewhere.
At first sight, it looks like all these ongoing failures of diplomacy can be partly attributed to the traditional pursuit of national interest and geo-politics. But a real inside change is coming with the melting of geo-political hard power poles and the uprising nodes of soft power of economic, political and social influence. The latter are shaping on a regional basis or as issue-related, public–private transnational networks. They form temporary coalitions with collective problem-solving capabilities, such as the G 20 and BRICS.
Richard Haass, as President of the Council of Foreign Relations, foresaw already in 2008 the “age of nonpolarity”: a multitude of large and medium-size nations moving away from dominance and hegemony but sharing a common dependency on the existing international system for economic welfare and political stability. This perspective, today turned reality, opens a new playing field for diplomacy. In the era of globalization, the unilateral pursuit of state interests has to be harmonized with the protection of collective public values and interests, ranging from environmental concerns to the struggle against terrorism, forging common ground. It is this combination of enlightened global interest which provides moral legitimacy through widespread public acceptance, domestically as well as within the international community. Its ethical dynamics lie in the effective problem-solving capacity and its social purpose.
However, defining collective public values in an international system ridden with inequalities of power (i.e. military, economic, population, geographical size, resources and influence) is not a straightforward task. How can we overcome the impending crisis of diplomacy when the very first step of diplomatic practice, namely problem recognition and problem definition of any crisis depends on who’s gauging the problem and how and whether the problem is even being identified as worth discussing? The status of a state in the international system – i.e. great, middle or small powers and microstates – still determines what diplomacy can achieve. How can diplomacy activate its magic spell to make all these different powers see eye to eye?
Since the aim of diplomacy is the management of complexity and insecurity among states in conditions of political, economic and cultural separateness, we should approach it with a different mindset. As Albert Einstein taught us, you cannot solve problems with the same
mindset that created them. Diplomacy, as the art of convincing without using force has to be practiced on the basis of ethically principled pragmatism and inclusive engagement rather than exclusion or even demonization, inducement instead of precondition. This new mindset of thinking and acting diplomatically involves the understanding and acknowledgement of the “Other”, the legitimacy of their moral universe and their grievances, reciprocal restraint and mutual respect as a consequence of sovereign equality, the search for a sustainable new status quo. Diplomatic engagement can serve to remedy the neglect of underlying causes (disregard, disrespect, ideology) which led to the disconnection and loss of influence. Creative political imagination is needed to rethink some of the congealed bases of national interest. Political decision making in times of increased uncertainties demands also certain risk-competencies and courage.
Due to the failure of the Copenhagen Conference on climate change, critics claim that multilateralism is in crisis. Yet, the final meeting of a handful of different sized states serves
as an example of a new type of functional minilateralism, which consists of bringing to the negotiating table the smallest number of states needed to generate the leading impact on solving an international problem. Not only can the flexibility of the composition of a minilateral form break down gridlocks of multilateral negotiations by thinking in structures outside the traditional system, but it provides the foundation to extend its achievements for a larger scale of states (process from exclusiveness to inclusiveness). While it did not bring the expected positive result yet in Copenhagen, already next time, the dynamics of minilateralism’s magic number might succeed.
We should not be persuaded that we are all locked into an iron cage of international relations in which we have to replay our disturbances and anxieties over and over again. Today, new actors and players on the diplomatic stage have emerged, i.e. non-governmental organizations, corporations, media, civil society, technology, each of which, alone and together, add a new dimension to the prospects of diplomacy. What if we would test the changes – problems and prospects – that these new actors bring, by developing new mindset strategies as shifts of paradigm thinking and acting - recently scrutinized at a Diplomacy Conference of the American Graduate School in Paris entitled the “Roles and Challenges of Diplomacy in the 21st Century: Inclusion and Exclusion in a Globalized World” - on the so far intractable conflicts in Syria, Iran and North Korea? We might discover that creative diplomacy as thinking outside the box matters more than ever, since it is not about perfection, but accommodation. It is time to start rethinking diplomacy and to break the power of habit.
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