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On January 18, 2024, the European Digital Diplomacy Exchange, and the State Department, invited me to discuss my work on Digital Diplomacy. In this 45 minute lecture, I argue that in order to research digital diplomacy one must first research the digital society. This is because diplomacy is a social institution. When societies adopt new... Continue Reading →
On Monday, the British Ministry of Defence tweeted that the United Kingdom (UK) had decided to send a squadron of Challenger 2 Tanks to Ukraine thus accelerating “Ukrainian successes”. This new ‘arms package’ comes in the wake of heated debates on social media. In recent days, Twitter has been abuzz with rumors that European nations... Continue Reading →
The Russia-Ukraine war has witnessed the emergence of new social media practices. The Ukrainian government, for one, has been using social media to crowdfund its armed forces and create an IT army charged with cyber-attacks against Russia. Yet the war has also seen the growing use of memes. Ukrainian diplomats and government ministries have published... Continue Reading →
In his renowned article from 1990, Joseph Nye hoped to conceptualize how America would exercise power following the Cold War. Power, asserted Nye, rests on the ability to change the behavior of other states. This can be achieved through co-opetive, or Soft Power, or coercive Hard Power. Nye therefore distinguished between two policies that could... Continue Reading →
A paradox, by nature, is hard to grasp. It is a self-contradictory statement that at first seems false, or misleading. George Bernard Shaw’s most famous paradox is that ‘youth is wasted on the young’. This is seemingly contradictory for how can youth be wasted on those who are youthful? Shaw was of course referring to... Continue Reading →
Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week – What on Earth is Happening in Ukraine (The Jerusalem Post)Truth Social: Banned from Twitter, Trump returns with a new platform (BBC News)What's the Most Dangerous Emerging Technology? (Gizmodo)How big technology systems... Continue Reading →
Dead Clade Walking. These three words shook the foundations of the scientific world several years ago. It relates to a theory which argues that some Dinosaurs survived the asteroid impact which triggered their extinction. Notably, the Dead Clade Walking theory did not argue that extinction did not occur, but rather that some Dinosaurs survived the... Continue Reading →
To understand digital diplomacy, one must first understand the digital society. The reason being that diplomacy is a social institution and diplomats are social beings. Processes that affect society as a whole affect diplomats and it is through diplomats that such processes permeate into MFAs giving rise to new norms, values and working routines. Sociologists... Continue Reading →
In the year 2000, Zygmunt Bauman introduced his theory of Liquid Modernity. Bauman argues that modernity (i.e., 18th-20th centuries) was characterized by solid social institutions such as nation states, with clearly marked borders, social classes, characterized by limited mobility, and fixed identities built around nations, religion or ethnicity. Late modernity, or the 21st century, is... Continue Reading →
Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week- Hey, Facebook, I Made a Metaverse 27 Years Ago (The Atlantic)The Technopolar Moment (Foreign Affairs)Analysis: Can Hybrid Diplomacy Work? (Oxford Institute for the Study of Diplomacy)Biden’s new cyber czar is pushing... Continue Reading →
Exploring Digital Diplomacy 