The era of digital foreign policy: Comprehensive approaches to digitalisation

Promoting e-Commerce in developing countries

This study examines the advantages and possibilities for the use of digital signatures to carry out electronic transactions. It focuses on developing and transition countries that have not fully implemented the use of digital signatures in their economic, commercial and productive processes. An important aim of this research is to create awareness on the likely effects for enforcing the use of digital signatures to carry out e-commerce transactions on the economies of developing and transition countries. The study also proposes key issues to be considered for policy-makers in countries in orde...

Towards a secure cyberspace via regional co-operation

The study Towards a secure cyberspace via regional co-operation provides an overview of the international dialogue on establishing norms of state behaviour and confidence-building measures in cyberspace.

A study of the UN Working Group on IG – MSP in communication technology for development at the global level

The paper aims to identify best practices and lessons learned in multi-stakeholder partnership (MSP) practices at the global policy level through a participatory methodology based on interviews and an online electronic survey.

The Rise of TechPlomacy in the Bay area

Tech diplomacy is becoming a necessity for countries worldwide. Countries need to capture the nexus between technology innovation and economic developments. To be effectively present in the Bay Area, countries need to use innovative diplomatic approaches. This report discusses how tech diplomacy can be developed, and more specifically, how countries approach the Bay Area tech industry.

Mediation and artificial intelligence: Notes on the future of international conflict resolution

Over the last years AI has emerged as a hot topic with regard to its impact on our political, social, and economic lives.

Virtual Diplomacy: Diplomacy of the Digital Age

Olesya Grech investigates the impact of information and communication technologies on the conduct of modern diplomacy.

NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement

Exploring the need for speed in deploying information and communications technology for international development and bridging the digital divide

This paper comes on the eve of the millennium development goals deadline of 2015 which acknowledges ICT as the enabler for speeding towards the finish line. The quest is to explore whether we are all speeding towards a clearly defined goal, given our varied capacities and affinities.

International cyber security diplomatic negotiations: Role of Africa in inter-regional cooperation for a global approach on the security and stability of cyberspace

This research paper examines African countries cybersecurity readiness and how Africa can play a role in shaping international negotiations and discussions on global cybersecurity governance.

E-diplomacy and Diplomatic Law in the Internet Era

Peacetime Regime for State Activities in Cyberspace (ed by Katharine Ziolkowski) covers in a multi-disciplinary approach the technical, legal, policy and diplomacy aspects of State activities in cyberspace during peacetime. It consists of 23 chapters of academic nature, elaborated by 24 authors specialised in the respective areas of expertise. Diplo's Dr Jovan Kurbalija contributed this chapter on E-diplomacy and Diplomatic Law in the Internet Era.

Leaving No One Behind in the Data Revolution (Briefing Paper #5)

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

Don’t close foreign embassies, open digital ones

Review of the Use of Social Media by the Department of State

The use of Information and Communications Technology (ICTs) in human rights promotion: A case study of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

The employment of ICT tools as a weapon of choice at the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, an organ established within the African Union with a broad mandate of spearheading human rights promotion on the African Continent has not been emphasised as a crucial element in the struggle towards achieving human rights promotion and protection on the African continent, with the resulting consequence that the Commission is not as visible and known to the people that it is supposed to serve.

Understanding the Digital Divide

Namibia’s Digital Foreign Policy and Diplomacy (Briefing Paper #3)

This briefing paper emerged from Diplo's participation in Namibia's Foreign Policy Review Conference (July 2016). In this paper, Dr Katharina E. Höne suggests a three-pronged approach to Namibia's digital foreign policy and diplomacy, and looks at the discourse on information and communications technology (ICT) and development.

Emerging Leaders for a Digital World (2011): Dalsie Greenrose Kalna Baniala from Vanuatu

‘With the number of training courses I have attended, including attending the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), I have learnt a lot.’

Digital diplomacy: Conversations on Innovations in Foreign Policy

Intergovernmental organisations sharing and linking open and real-time data for inclusive governance

The rapid rise of the Internet has encouraged the use of open, real-time, and linked data to help understand and improve development processes.The advancement of data use for development without an Internet governance framework, however, raises the importance of inclusion of the most marginalized, as well as privacy and security. This paper will examine such issues, as well as the role inter-governmental organisations can play in helping to encourage the use of data while supporting the protection of privacy and security.

The EU’s New Commission: Digital Policy in the Limelight (Briefing Paper #13)

In this briefing paper, Dr Stephanie Borg Psaila analyses Ursula von der Leyen's new EU Commission's emphasis on digital policy for 2019–2024.

Connectivity and networks rule: Virtuality, public diplomacy and the foreign ministry

Book of Abstracts (Internet Governance)

This collection of abstracts comes from from research projects conducted during the 2010/2011 Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme (IGCBP).

Emerging Leaders for the Digital World

Emerging leaders, whose stories feature in this publication, are among 501 participants from 60 ACP countries who participated in the Capacity Development programme in ICT Policy and Internet Governance for Africa Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) 2010/2011.

Data-driven Public Diplomacy: Progress Towards Measuring the Impact of Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting Activities

From a Safer Internet to a Better Internet for Kids

Trends in Diplomatic Communication: A Case Study of Uganda

The aim of this research was to examine the communication trends in diplomacy with a focus on Uganda.

Cyber-diplomacy: Managing Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century

Net neutrality in Europe

Digital Diplomacy and the ICRC (Briefing Paper #7)

In this briefing paper, Ms Alice Maillot discusses the potential of digital diplomacy for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). She looks at the changing nature of diplomacy, new developments in digital diplomacy, and how the ICRC can implement and adopt some of the current trends.

Mapping e-Diplomacy

This list of themes and topics is an attempt to map the field of e-diplomacy. It is work in progress, and all comments welcomed.

Journal of Moral Theology, Vol. 11, Special Issue no. 1, Spring 2022, “Artificial Intelligence”

Journal of Moral Theology dedicated special issue on 'artificial intelligence'.

Broadening the diplomatic bandwidth

‘I believe whistle-blowing websites have a greater role to play in the future of the humankind. These are a few of the issues that I became aware of through DiploFoundation, on whose blogosphere these issues continue to be debated.’ - Felix Samakande from Zimbabwe

Updating International Geneva to the Data-driven Era (Briefing Paper #12)

In this briefing paper, Ms Rafaela Marinho and Mr Avi Krish Bedi outline their research on how international organisations (IOs) in Geneva address and use big data in their work.

Enterprise Data Strategy: Empowering Data Informed Diplomacy (U.S. State Departement)

The Enterprise Data Strategy (EDS) aims to ensure that State Department’s workforce is equipped with the timely and relevant data necessary to make informed management decisions.

Internet governance (IG) as a diplomatic priority

This dissertation demonstrates that IG is a significant, emerging diplomatic process that should be studied and addressed seriously by diplomats to prepare them to manage the implications it has for future impact on global governance of the Internet.

Twitter and Diplomacy: How Social Networking is Changing Foreign Policy

Hands on digital diplomacy

Wikileaks and the Future of Diplomacy: Summary and Reflections

In 2011, Diplo have held a series of meetings discussing the impact of WikiLeaks on diplomacy. This paper summarises the main conclusions of our discussions and research. It is close enough in time (3+ months) to understand the emotions, dynamics, and concerns raised by WikiLeaks. It is also far enough – in particular since the media hype has died down – in order to be discussed objectively with a necessary distance.

Digital Opportunities for All: Meeting the Challenge

2021: The emergence of digital foreign policy

While digital tools, in particular social media, have been gradually introduced to the practice of diplomacy, many open questions remain regarding the impact of digitisation on foreign policy and the environment in which diplomacy is practised. This is where digital foreign policy becomes important. The report is available for download. The summary and recordings of the online conference 2021: The emergence of digital foreign policy are also available.

Public diplomacy at the crossroads: Definitions and challenges in an ‘Open Source’ era

Information and communications technologies for development

Twitter for Diplomats

Twitter for Diplomats is not a manual, or a list of what to do or not to do. It is rather a collection of information, anecdotes, and experiences. It recounts a few episodes involving foreign ministers and ambassadors, as well as their ways of interacting with the tool and exploring its great potential. It wants to inspire ambassadors and diplomats to open and nurture their accounts – and it wants to inspire all of us to use Twitter to also listen and open our minds.

Improving the practice of cyber diplomacy: Training, tools, and other resources – Phase I

Cyber diplomacy, the conduct of diplomacy with respect to a state’s interests in cyberspace, is too important to ignore. Yet, the participation of countries is far from ideal.

Humanitarian public diplomacy: International calls to action in the digital era

This dissertation examines IOs (IOs) as emerging stars in the constellation of diplomatic actors, as extra-state and supra-state entities that do not replace, but rather complement, align with and encourage states. Specifically focusing on humanitarian - those attentive to the needs of people - international organisations, the paper explores their use of calls to action as a public diplomacy tool that both activates the public and reflects the needs and desires of individuals and their communities, translated to policy context. Calls to action should be strategic, well-researched, authoritive,...

China’s Soft Power in the Information Age: Think Again

In recent years, many have argued that China has been largely successful at using soft power to bolster its rise to great power status. This essay suggests that the Chinese government—and other authoritarian states—have fundamentally misread the nature of the relationship between soft power and the globally networked, information-rich environment, thus misunderstanding how soft power is accumulated. Because of this, their efforts at deploying soft power over the long term are not likely to be as effective as conventional wisdom would make them out to be.

Twiplomacy Study 2015

Digital Diplomacy as a foreign policy statecraft to achieving regional cooperation and integration in the Polynesian Leaders Group

Established in 2011, the Polynesian Leaders Groups serves to fulfill a vision of cooperation, strengthening integration on issues pertinent to the region and to the future of the PLG. Its nine – American Samoa, French Polynesia, Niue, Cook Islands, Tokelau, Tuvalu, Tonga and Wallis Futuna, is argued to have strength in numbers, resources and diversity, and a positive addition to the growing regional diplomacies in the South Pacific.

The role of knowledge in the cyber-age of globalisation

In his paper, Richard Falk reflects on the application of information technology on diplomacy, and discusses the challenge of converting information technology to ‘knowledge technology’, and subsequently to ‘wisdom technology’. Yet, the ‘crossroads in human experience’ brings many challenges and dangers which the author analyses.

Futures for dipomacy: Integrative Diplomacy in the 21st Century

The Role of Information and Communication Technologies in Diplomacy and Diplomatic Service

Rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has lead to significant changes in social, economical and political relations of the modern society.

The era of digital foreign policy: Comprehensive approaches to digitalisation

As the theme of this issue, ‘foreign policy for the 4th industrial revolution’, suggests, diplomats and foreign ministries are faced with tremendous changes brought about by digitalisation. The ability to respond to these changes appropriately and effectively determines the future prosperity of countries. Foreign policy is already digital in many ways - including its tools and the topics on bilateral and multilateral agendas. In this article, we introduce the idea of ‘digital foreign policy’ as a comprehensive way of responding to the challenges of digitalisation and the 4th industr...

Data Diplomacy: Mapping the Field

The adoption of open data policies and the standardization of data collection were among the recommendations made during DiploFoundation's Data Diplomacy Roundtable: Mapping the Field, a brainstorming event that took place on 5 April 2017 – on the role of (big) data in international affairs and diplomacy.

Crossing the Executive Digital Divide

Information and communications technologies (ICT) have become critical in business, government, manufacturing, critical infrastructures, academia, and, literally, everywhere else, and yet, despite the large sums of money involved, ICT remains the least well understood function in an organization.

World Summit on the Information Society and development of Internet diplomacy

The purpose of this paper is to identify new developments and innovations in diplomatic practice resultant from the WSIS and WGIG. First, the author describes the overall WSIS framework and specific aspects of the WGIG. Second, he identifies the new developments and innovation in diplomatic practice that are likely of lasting importance. The author does so by comparing WSIS diplomatic practice to the practices developed during other major UN summits held since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

Cybersecurity in the Western Balkans: Policy gaps and cooperation opportunities

Report on cybersecurity cooperation in the Western Balkans.

Measuring the Information Society Report 2015

Challenges in Virtual Collaboration: Videoconferencing, Audioconferencing and Computer Mediated Communications

This report was developed as part of a larger project on aids to highlevel national-security decisionmaking. It discusses the effects of the medium of collaboration (face-to-face, videoconferencing, audioconferencing, or computer-mediated conferencing) on group processes and outcomes.

Foreign Ministries and the Information Revolution: Going Virtual?

The ongoing information revolution is perceived as a profound organizational challenge for foreign ministries. Yet there is only scant empirical evidence on the nature of the change dynamics. Anchored in new institutionalist approaches in political science, this book reconceptualizes diplomacy as an institution of the modern state order and identifies its key organizing principles maintained by the global group of foreign ministries. With this conceptualization as a point of departure, the book provides a comparative analysis of information technology effects in the foreign ministries of Canad...

The use of ICT in human rights promotion: A case study of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

The paper seeks to render a critical analysis that will lead and co-ordinate a programme of promotional work across the region, including the integration of ICT strategies in its promotional work.

Improving the practice of cyber diplomacy: Training, tools, and other resources – Final study

This study analyses the capacity development of cyber diplomacy, including training opportunities, tools, and other resources, and looks at their reach, take-up, and what should come next. Why? Because although cyber diplomacy, the conduct of diplomacy with respect to a state’s interests in cyberspace, is too important to ignore, the participation of countries is far from ideal.

Revolution @State: The Spread of Ediplomacy

Cybersecurity in the Republic of Fiji

This paper discusses cybersecurity in Fiji and offers recommendations to challenges such as the vulnerability of systems due to lack of a cybersecurity framework. The poorly framed laws and lack of appropriate policies.

Going Public: Diplomacy for the Information Society

Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems: Mapping the GGE Debate (Briefing Paper #8)

EU’s Council Conclusions on digital diplomacy

EU's Council Conclusions on Digital Diplomacy introduce a holistic approach including cybersecurity, standardisation, human rights, and other digital topics. There is also a prominent link between green and digital/cyber diplomacy.

Une introduction à la gouvernance d’Internet

La gouvernance d’Internet n’est pas un sujet simple. Bien qu’elle traite d’une notion qui se veut être un symbole représentatif majeur du monde numérique, elle ne peut pas être abordée avec une simple logique numérique binaire qui ne reconnait que le vrai et le faux, le bon et le mauvais.

Diplomats on Twitter: The good, the bad and the ugly

International multistakeholder cyber threat information sharing regimes: Policy considerations for scaling trust and active participation

This paper examines cybersecurity information sharing mechanisms. It looks at the research into public-private partnership (PPP) theory, their application for cybersecurity, and the burgeoning field of international cybersecurity collaboration, and draws conclusions on what policy elements are needed to foster success in architecting a platform for cybersecurity information sharing on a large scale. The paper surveys existing information sharing regimes and the policy objectives they attempt to reach, including capacity building, standardized languages for information sharing, liability prote...

Peacetime Regime for State Activities in Cyberspace

The publication covers in a multi-disciplinary approach the technical, legal, policy and diplomacy aspects of State activities in cyberspace during peacetime. It consists of 23 chapters of academic nature, elaborated by 24 authors specialised in the respective areas of expertise. Diplo's Dr Jovan Kurbalija contributed the chapter on E-diplomacy and Diplomatic Law in the Internet Era.

Introducción a la Gobernanza de Internet

Aunque la gobernanza de Internet trata de los fundamentos del mundo digital, la gobernanza no puede manejarse con la lógica digital binaria de lo verdadero o lo falso, lo bueno o lo malo. En cambio, el sujeto exige muchas sutilezas y sombras de significado y percepción, requiriendo un enfoque analógico, cubriendo un continuo de opciones y compromisos. El objetivo del libro Introducción a la Gobernanza de Internet, del Dr Jovan Kurbalija, es proporcionar una visión general de los principales temas y actores en el campo a través de un marco práctico para el análisis, discusión, y resolu...

The waning of the state and the waxing of cyberworld

This paper discusses whether IT is functioning mainly as an instrument of states in their quest for power and wealth or is principally operating as a transformative agent by market forces and various sectors of civil society.

New threats: the cyber-dimension

Rapport: Des voix africaines plus fortes dans le numérique : construire une politique étrangère et une diplomatie africaines du numérique

À mesure que le dynamisme numérique de l'Afrique s'accroît, sa participation à la politique numérique mondiale doit augmenter. Dans cette transition, les pays africains doivent composer avec les réalités géopolitiques de notre époque.

The Internet and diplomats of the 20th century

The Internet and diplomats of the twenty century: how new information technologies affect the ordinary work of diplomats.

From Harmonising Cyberpolicies to Promoting Twiplomacy: How Diplomacy Can Strengthen Asia-Europe’s Digital Connectivity

This text was published in the ASEF Outlook Report 2016/2017.