The Evolution of Diplomacy Over Time

Diplomacy is known as the art of handling people sensibly or tactfully; it can also be called the profession or skill of managing one country’s international relations.

Traditionally, a few people represent a specific country known as diplomats. They have settled abroad and work to represent their home country abroad by maintaining international relations.

Diplomacy, over the years, has evolved a great deal. So much so that it is further divided into two categories; classical diplomacy and modern diplomacy.

Classical diplomacy can be categorized as the era before World War I, as the true evolution began after the war. However, the point to be highlighted, diplomacy needed to evolve as the civilization developed; it was inevitable.

Moreover, there is no way to determine that diplomacy has stopped evolving; one can only analyze the changes and reflect on what a long way it has come, but there is no perfect way to calculate whether evolution has paused. As the word progresses, and we come across several new global changes- it affects our economic, social, and international relations directly, which in turn also affects our diplomacy.

Similarly, as civilization evolved and moved onto bigger and better ventures, expanding the economy, building community after community, industry after industry, it was bound to change the diplomatic situations as well.

Since diplomacy mainly involves managing relations between governments and relationships with state actors- in the past, a traditional diplomatic body would be rather focused on managing their relationships and promoting peace by preventing and refraining from war. They were more concerned with the factors of power.

However, in the newer age, or in recent times there have emerged many more pressing concerns that must come into notice before deriving a diplomatic plan like illegal immigration, human rights, terrorism, drug trafficking, population pressures, etc. In simpler words, diplomacy now has more areas of economic, social, political factors to consider from and since these pressing matters needed to be taken into account, diplomacy had to be molded similarly to cater to these issues.

The developments in diplomacy include several services like helping to enforce international regulations, representing the interests of various state and private actors, facilitating the establishment of relations between national and transnational entities, coordinating the activities of several actors for the sake of national interests, etc. The only drawback from this is it may, in one way or another, undermine a state’s government and its role in diplomacy.

With the advancements of technology and the era, in general, the relationship between diplomats and the government has changed. From bilateral to multilateral, government officials tend to affiliate diplomats with regular politicians as the extreme need for diplomatic missions and negotiations can be done by a politician, according to them.

Even though politicians may choose to play the role of diplomats, the power of a diplomat or diplomatic body cannot be overshadowed by one.

With all this said, it is clear that diplomacy has evolved due to the development of human civilization- as the evolution of diplomacy carried on, it was bound to bring in new issues and factors of its own. Hence, diplomacy had to change to cater to the emerging needs of the recent information era.

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