The important aspects and the "New", in New Diplomacy

During these weeks we have followed the evolvement of diplomacy from its traditional form to the current practice of diplomacy, which has come to be regarded the “New Diplomacy”. Even though the practice and conduct of this new diplomacy is not always truly new, and does not in fact represent a complete alteration from its traditional form, many improvements and modifications can be detected. What I would argue is the foremost important improvement of the new diplomacy is the incorporation of the long neglected “great mass”. While it still cannot be argued that the public is truly included in the political sphere, the new diplomacy has as a minimum demonstrated that the public has developed into a variable included in the diplomatic equation. In the age of information and wide-spread technological communication means, the role of the public has turned greatly significant, much because the public itself has become a lot more aware and involved with the different (political, environmental, societal etc.) issues of the world. The new diplomacy demonstrates how traditional practices much often need to change, especially in our time of globalization. These changes can be detected in the new diplomatic practice in for instance its (new founded) interest in collaborating with associational life such as NGOs, INGOs, CBOs etc., or even incorporating these non-state actors in the diplomatic sphere. The emphasis on public diplomacy, that is inspiring and being inspired by the (often foreign, but also domestic) public further demonstrates the turn in diplomacy towards a more “soft power” (Nye 2004) inspired, public oriented conduct. These attributes were traditionally neglected in the sphere of diplomacy and they exemplify what the “new” in new diplomacy indicates. On these grounds, I would argue that the new, and most modify changes with diplomacy is that the actors, and receivers of diplomacy and diplomatic conduct is no longer solely delimited to the state, or the elitists state actors. On that note, contemporary diplomacy could be, in my opinion, considered “new and improved”.