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In December of 2014, I conducted a series of interviews with Geneva based Ambassadors hoping to understand how smartphones had influenced the conduct of diplomacy. Through these interviews I learned that Ambassadors were increasingly using the messaging application WhatsApp to communicate with their peers. Such communication influenced diplomacy in three ways. First, the Ambassadors stated... Continue Reading →
Note: This post was co-written with Prof. Corneliu Bjola and first appeared on the USC Center for Public Diplomacy Blog On the 1st and 2nd of February 2017, the Oxford Digital Diplomacy Research Group (DigDiploRox) took part in The Hague Digital Diplomacy Camp. Organized by the Dutch Foreign Ministry, the Camp sought to explore the... Continue Reading →
During World War 2, the US 101st Airborne Division took part in what would be known as the Battle of the Bulge. Encircled by the German Military, pounded by German artillery and freezing in the winter’s snow, members of 101st were told to hold their positions near the municipality of Bastogne at all costs. By... Continue Reading →
In 1988 Robert Putnam conceptualized diplomacy as a two level game. At the first level lies the world of domestic or national politics. At the second level lies the world of international politics. Putnam argued that these two levels continuously collide with one another. For instance, a government's ability to negotiate treaties is limited given... Continue Reading →
Last month I had the pleasure of reviewing Anne Marie Slaughter’s recent book ‘The Chessboard and the Web: Strategies of Connection in a Networked World’. Slaughter’s book encourages academics and policymakers to view the world through two metaphors- that of the chessboard and that of the web. The chessboard metaphor has long since inspired diplomats... Continue Reading →
In many respects, 2017 was a year of digital uncertainty. It was a year in which digital platforms were used to weaponize uncertainty. It was a year in which the societal role of digital platforms became uncertain. It was a year in which the relationship between states and tech gaits became uncertain. And it was... Continue Reading →
Between the 5th and 7th of December the Israeli Foreign Ministry hosted Israel's Second Digital Diplomacy Conference. Attended by diplomats and academics from more than thirty countries, the conference explored the practice of diplomacy in the age of algorithms. As such, conference panels dealt with the issues of online propaganda and disinformation campaigns, countering the... Continue Reading →
Some have traced the origins of digital diplomacy to America's need to counter Al-Qaeda's online narrative and recruitment efforts. As Ellen Hallams has written, already in 2008 it was estimated that the internet was responsible of 80% of recruitment of Jihadi movements. In an attempt to stem the tide of recruitment, and counter Al-Qaeda's narrative... Continue Reading →
American poet Allen Ginsburg opens his masterpiece, Howl, with the lines I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angel headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of... Continue Reading →
From Digital Diplomacy 1.0 to Digital Diplomacy 2.0 When foreign ministries first migrated online, they viewed social media platforms as mass media channels. Much like the radio and television, Twitter and Facebook could be used to disseminate messages among millions of users. The conceptualization of social media as mass media was, in part, the result... Continue Reading →
Exploring Digital Diplomacy 