The most significant change in the nature of Diplomacy?

After searching in the Oxford English Dictionary, the meaning of “diplomat” and “ambassador” was the same “an important official who represents his or her government in a foreign country”.

From here I could deduce that the history of the Diplomacy even Before Christ did not change its basic meaning. If not replace the word “change” with “evolution”, I would state that the significant change in the nature of Diplomacy is the evolution of the human thinking.

On the first hand, the development of the media and communication technologies benefited for the establishment of the principle of open diplomacy. Furthermore the foundation of the human rights and liberties as treaties, conventions and even as part of the “international law” (I prefered to put it in brackets because of the disagreements of its existence) binding on the countries signing them , expression of the liberal thinking, gave the right to the citizens to know about the public affairs their country is involved in.

But following the idea of Ernest Satow that after the World War II and until the collapse of the Soviet Union “new and old diplomacy coexisted” (Robert; 2009:15) it could be added that this is the case even today. Despite the power of the mass media some aspects of the “high politics” could not be reached by the public. This situation is likely to be designated as secrecy which is an aspect of the old diplomacy.

On the other hand, the comprehension that not only war but also cooperation among the states may be regarded as an evolution for the new diplomacy. For instance, the USA reached its economic growth via the idea of cooperation in expanding its economy exports creating an open market and free trade at the same time as fulfilling its self-interest of hegemonic desire.

But it is not really new because diplomacy was used to express the sates’ self-interest huger through war. What is new is the understanding to replace the war with cooperation.

Thanks to the evolution of the human thinking the cooperation started to alter the relations among states, the respect of human rights and liberties were codified, non-state actors emerged partly as a consequence of this cooperation among the countries which transformed the diplomacy to a practice more overt to the citizens of these countries.