The end of the Cold War, is argued, is the time of the history where the term globalization began to be widely used. As we all know, this is the time of triumph of liberal democracy and of course, democratic values such as freedom of expression, self determination, etc..Furthermore, the increasing interconnectedness between states led to the globalization of politics, markets and issues of any type. In this sense, the world saw the emergence of wide range of human activities, which are not consistent of geographical location, and most important of all, with government permission or regulations. Few argued, that much of this activities has had a little political or diplomatic significance, but most agreed that this non-state actors somehow weakened government authority in a general way, but mainly the traditional state to state diplomatic activity. As a result, non-governmental organisation have adopted much higher activities, taking oppositionist approach to a specific government decisions, especially in humanitarian and human rights entity. This on the other hand, has led to the believe that there has been a revolution of the traditional government to government diplomacy and particularly in recent years, diplomatic representation is also widely given to non-governmental actors. Furthermore, management of global issues increasingly involve new actors beyond the state. It is arguable, International treaties an organizations, such as WTO, were believed to be too centred on their interest of capitalist enterprises. Therefore, in attempt to counterbalance this trend, NGO’s have been developed to emphasise humanitarian issues, sustainable aid and development. NGO’s, such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Oxfam, Global 2000, Save the Children and many, many more have really managed not only to raise an awareness about certain issues, but has provided much needed help towards tackling the issues.
Despite the fact that NGO’s have been heavily criticized of being politically orientated and serving a particular state’s interests, they still remain important players in the diplomatic activities as they are aiming to achieve what governments are not capable of dealing with. Or perhaps, this is what we might call a soft power....
I agree that the the end of the cold war bought about a rise in non-state actors in diplomacy and also opened up many diplomatic channels. During the cold war the bipolar system took priority and secret meetings were focussed on hard power topics. Since the end of the cold war, the rise of new states and non-states actors have risen significantly. So too, have global issues such as terrorism, climate change and human rights issues. These, combined with the rise of ICTs has led to the need for more multilateral negotiations and transparency between states as civil society is far more aware of global issues and humanitarian disasters taking place due to fastpaced media bulletins. Soft power, such as public diplomacy appears to be the greatest tool for states to work together when facing global issues such security and economy in an increasing environment of interconnectedness.
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