Over the last half-century, the nature of diplomacy has changed significantly as a result of changes in international relations, communication technology, and the dominant role of the innovation ecosystem for the progress of countries—members of the essentially transformed international community.

Up until the late 20th century, the function of diplomacy was primarily to reduce the tension among countries and possibly prevent their armed and other conflicts. Now diplomats are involved in practically every domain of international cooperation, having an active role in initiating, facilitating, supporting, and globally promoting all kinds of international collaboration, in any domain, from science & research to education, migrations, culture, and security.

There are three important features distinguishing modern from classical diplomacy:

  • Intensive globalization has introduced an international, inter-country dimension into practically all spheres of public activity.

  • As a consequence of globalization, professional diplomats have become just one of the many actors influencing international activities, and intensively using diplomacy as part of their modus operandi.

  • While in the past there was just one general profile of diplomats, now there is an intensive process of differentiation among diplomats who are specialized in specific domains of international collaboration: economics and business, science, R&D and protection of intellectual rights, culture and arts, migrations, and others.

The following are some additional characteristics of modern diplomacy:

  • Multilateral engagement: Modern diplomacy often involves working within multilateral frameworks, such as the United Nations or regional organizations, to address global issues such as climate change, security, and human rights.

  • Public diplomacy: The rise of technology and social media has transformed the way nations communicate with foreign publics. Public diplomacy focuses on building relationships and influencing perceptions through transparency and cultural exchange.

  • Economic diplomacy: global trade and economic policies are increasingly central to diplomatic agendas. Economic diplomacy generally promotes sustainable development, investment, and cooperation.

Crisis management: modern diplomats must address urgent global challenges, including pandemics, conflicts, and natural disasters, requiring swift, innovative solutions, often being the initiators.

Though the basic diplomatic knowledge and skills have remained more or less the same, with the increasing role of electronic communication, modern diplomats have to develop specific knowledge and competencies in one of the domains listed above. This enables them to play an active role in negotiations. However, a classical type of diplomat is still needed, particularly for some type of issue to be addressed, and often for coordinating bigger negotiating teams, covering all relevant aspects of a specific diplomatic case.

Unlike traditional diplomacy, which focused primarily on state-to-state interactions and formal negotiations, modern diplomacy encompasses a broader spectrum of activities, particularly in the initial as well as final stages of negotiations. It involves collaboration between governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), multinational corporations, and civil society.

According to the Vienna Convention, the functions of a diplomatic mission include:

  • The representation of the sending state in the host state at a level beyond the merely social and ceremonial.

  • The protection within the host state of the interests of the sending state and its nationals, including their property and shares in firms.

  • The negotiation and signing of agreements with the host state when authorized.

  • The reporting and gathering of information by all lawful means on conditions and developments in the host country for the sending government.

  • The promotion of friendly relations between the two states and the furthering of their economic, commercial, cultural, and scientific relations.

Classics of diplomacy

If a negotiation succeeds, the result is embodied in an international instrument, of which there are several types. The most solemn is a treaty, a written agreement.

Between states, that is binding on the parties under international law and analogous to a contract in civil law. Treaties are registered at the UN and may be bilateral or multilateral; international organizations also conclude treaties both with individual states and with each other.

A convention is a multilateral instrument of a lawmaking, codifying, or regulatory nature. The UN and its agencies negotiate many conventions, as does the Council of Europe. Treaties and conventions require ratification, an executive act of final approval. In democratic countries, parliamentary approval is deemed advisable for important treaties. In the US, the Senate must consent by a two-thirds vote. Elsewhere, legislative involvement is less drastic but has increased since World War II. In Britain, treaties lie on the table of the House of Commons for 21 days before ratification; other countries have similar requirements. For bilateral treaties, ratifications are exchanged; otherwise, they are deposited in a place named in the text, and the treaty takes effect when the specified number of ratifications have been received.

Agreements are usually bilateral, not multilateral. Less formal and permanent than treaties, they deal with narrow, often technical topics. They are negotiated between governments, though sometimes nongovernmental entities are involved, as banks are in debt-rescheduling agreements. The US has long used executive agreements to preserve secrecy and circumvent the ratification process.

A protocol prolongs, amends, supplements, or supersedes an existing instrument. It may contain details pertaining to the application of an agreement, an optional arrangement extending an obligatory convention, or a technical instrument as an annex to a general agreement. It may substitute for an agreement or an exchange of notes, which can be used to record a bilateral agreement or its modification.

International instruments have proliferated since World War II; between 1945 and 1965, there were about 2,500 multilateral treaties, more than in the previous 350 years. As the countries of the world have become more interdependent, this trend has continued. Most multilateral agreements are negotiated at conferences.

Conference diplomacy

Professional diplomats are rarely dominant in conferences, where the primary role is usually played by politicians or experts, especially at summits, the most spectacular type. Heads of state or government, or foreign ministers, meet bilaterally or multilaterally. Summit diplomacy can be risky, a point made in the 15th century by the Burgundian diplomat and chronicler Philippe de Commynes, who wrote, “Two great princes who wish to establish good personal relations should never meet each other face to face but ought to communicate through good and wise emissaries.”

Summits also raise expectations; if poorly prepared, they can be disastrous failures. As former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson once remarked, “When a chief of state or head of government makes a fumble, the goal line is open behind him.” Haste can also lead to bad bargains or murky texts. On the other hand, the development of personal relationships between leaders can be an asset, and political leaders can speed agreement by setting guidelines or deadlines and cutting through bureaucratic thickets.

Summits put professional diplomats briefly into the shade but rarely hurt their standing unless there is constant intervention in their work by political leaders or other officials. In the 1970s, for example, the “shuttle diplomacy” of U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the Middle East served to reduce the incentive of leaders in the region to do important business with regular U.S. diplomatic representatives. Normally, the professionals resume their roles when the summit ends. Indeed, a visit by the foreign minister can be an asset to an ambassador by serving to raise his standing.

A summit is often preceded or followed by coalition diplomacy. This necessary joint working out of common policies or responses to proposals by cabinet ministers may be fairly informal. Coalitions require cumbersome two-step diplomacy at each stage, arriving at a joint policy and then negotiating with the other party.

Larger conferences are called, often under UN auspices, to address specific problems. The more technical the topic, the larger the role played by specialists. The trend over the last two decades of the 20th century was toward numerous conferences on social, economic, and technical issues. Many conferences produce agreements that create international law, often in new areas. In some cases, the negotiations leading to these agreements are cumbersome.

International organizations play several roles in multilateral negotiations, including sponsoring conferences and encouraging coalition diplomacy. ASEAN, the Arab League, and the EU attempt to create a unified policy for their members. Regular meetings of the UN, its agencies, and regional organizations provide forums for parliamentary diplomacy, oratory, propaganda, and negotiation.

International bureaucracies negotiate with each other and with individual states. This is particularly true of the UN and the EU, the latter of which has assumed some attributes of sovereignty. UN peacekeeping forces have played an important role, and the secretary-general engages in third-party diplomacy to bring feuding states to agreement or at least to keep them talking until the quarrel has faded. States, specialized agencies, and regional entities also conduct third-party diplomacy.

Comparing modern and traditional diplomacy

While traditional diplomacy laid the foundation for international relations, its focus on state sovereignty and formal negotiations often excluded non-state actors. Modern diplomacy, by contrast, thrives on inclusivity and adaptability.

Diplomacy remains a salient activity in today's world, in which the basic authoritative actor still remains the state. In some respects, the practice of diplomacy is undergoing significant, even radical, changes to the context, tools, actors, and domain of the trade. These changes spring from the changing nature of the state, the changing nature of the world order, and the interplay between them. One way of describing this is to say that we are seeing increased interaction between two forms of diplomacy, 'club diplomacy' and 'network diplomacy.'

The former is based on a small number of players, a highly hierarchical structure based largely on written communication and on low transparency, while the latter is based on a much larger number of players (particularly of civil society), a flatter structure, a more significant oral component, and greater transparency. Therefore, it is not surprising that diplomacy in our era continues to benefit from centuries-old techniques of negotiation while developing some new approaches that respond to the important changes that have transformed the structure of international relations over the last half-century.

Let us briefly compare the main features of traditional and modern diplomacy:

Traditional diplomacy:

  • Bilateral negotiations.

  • Strictly limited to state representatives.

  • Strong emphasis on secrecy and confidentiality.

  • Highly structured protocols and hierarchy.

Modern diplomacy:

  • Multilateral negotiations and broader partnerships.

  • Engagement with NGOs, corporations, and citizens.

  • Transparent and interactive approaches.

  • Focus on digital communication and rapid decision-making.

Both approaches are integral to understanding the evolution of international relations. Traditional diplomacy provides the historical and procedural context, while modern diplomacy reflects the realities of our interconnected and highly technological era.

The importance of changes characterizing modern diplomacy has inspired the organizers of the UN Panel on Modern Diplomacy to use a provocative title, "The End of Diplomacy?"—of course finishing with a question mark.

Advantages of modern diplomacy

There are important benefits from modern diplomacy—probably the most important one being that hardly any major international negotiations nowadays take place without reference to the global impact, in particular in areas such as impact on our environment, health, and climate change. References to these vital conditions for a better world are becoming a common feature of most international documents being negotiated among countries, irrespective of the particular domain addressed by the document.

In most negotiations, initial demands by one or both sides exceed the solutions finally agreed upon by all involved. Sometimes, it is a result of agreement between the negotiating parties, and sometimes, some external pressure has contributed to the final result. This pressure could be motivated by the direct interest of neighboring countries or global powers, and sometimes it is the contribution of relevant international organizations, regional or global. We are a global community, right?

The constructive pressure of forces not directly involved in the negotiated issue is actually most welcome, because it usually represents broader interests, including issues related to the already existing globally agreed principles or those negotiated at the regional or international level—protecting global stability, security, and the environment around our planet.

With intensified globalization, diplomatic skills and competencies are not only the qualities expected from professional diplomats and government officials but also from civil society representatives, including businessmen. If so, problems will be resolved better and quicker, plus governments will not be overburdened by intervening in those »private« negotiations and will have more time and energy to focus on those public ones, affecting millions of people. Many companies and other civil organizations have understood this and have engaged adequate profiles of people, either employing them or hiring them regularly to conduct their negotiations. This has proven to be a smart decision.