Periodic Reporting for period 5 - DIPLOFACE (Diplomatic Face-Work - between confidential negotiations and public display)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-04-01 bis 2023-04-30
The rise of social media and demands for more transparency in world politics bring new challenges to international diplomacy.
DIPLOFACE explored the relationship between confidential negotiations and the public. Combining participant observation, interviews and computational methods, we generated new knowledge about how the information revolution challenges and transforms diplomacy. We asked: What happens to the diplomatic encounter when it goes online? How does the use of smartphones during negotiations affect established codes of confidentiality, patience and tact? How is diplomacy visually and digitally mediated?
Zooming in on how national representatives, diplomats, aids, and interpreters use digital technologies in their everyday practice, we found that the analogue and the digital have become entangled. The digital is a productive force that leads to contradictory and sometimes even absurd moments in diplomatic life. Ultimately, it questions what it means to be a diplomat.
DIPLOFACE explored the relationship between confidential negotiations and the public. Combining participant observation, interviews and computational methods, we generated new knowledge about how the information revolution challenges and transforms diplomacy. We asked: What happens to the diplomatic encounter when it goes online? How does the use of smartphones during negotiations affect established codes of confidentiality, patience and tact? How is diplomacy visually and digitally mediated?
Zooming in on how national representatives, diplomats, aids, and interpreters use digital technologies in their everyday practice, we found that the analogue and the digital have become entangled. The digital is a productive force that leads to contradictory and sometimes even absurd moments in diplomatic life. Ultimately, it questions what it means to be a diplomat.
The research has so far led to a number of important publications, providing new insights on the nature of diplomacy, the relationship between off- and online international relations and the importance of face-work in international negotations.
The project publications have reached a very wide readership, thus the article published in International Affairs (published September 2018) was the most-read article in the journal for many weeks. Results were also picked up by newspapers (including the Washington Post where we contributed with a blogpost) and the paper received widespread attention on social media.
In addition, the DIPLOFACE project has been widely dissiminated and communicated across a range of platforms, reaching a wide and diverse audience. The PI has engaged in radio, TV, newspaper and magazine coverage of the main ideas as well as presented the project in TEDx talks and at public lectures, key-note lectures, academic conferences and PhD schools. As such, the project is already well-established and on the radar of both academic and non-academic audiences.
The project publications have reached a very wide readership, thus the article published in International Affairs (published September 2018) was the most-read article in the journal for many weeks. Results were also picked up by newspapers (including the Washington Post where we contributed with a blogpost) and the paper received widespread attention on social media.
In addition, the DIPLOFACE project has been widely dissiminated and communicated across a range of platforms, reaching a wide and diverse audience. The PI has engaged in radio, TV, newspaper and magazine coverage of the main ideas as well as presented the project in TEDx talks and at public lectures, key-note lectures, academic conferences and PhD schools. As such, the project is already well-established and on the radar of both academic and non-academic audiences.
The key publications emerging from DIPLOFACE have taken us significantly beyond state-of-the-art. Below are a few concrete publication examples of how DIPLOFACE breaks new scientific ground.
Rebecca Adler-Nissen and Alena Drieschova (2019). 'Track-change diplomacy: Technology, affordances and the practice of international negotiations'. International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming.
How does technology influence international negotiations? This article explores ‘track-change diplomacy’ – how diplomats use information and communication technology (ICT) such as word processing software and mobile devices to collaboratively edit and negotiate documents. The article shows how digital ICT affords shareability, visualization and immediacy of information, thus shaping the temporality and power dynamics of international negotiations. Rather than delivering on the technology’s promise of keeping track and reinforcing national oversight in negotiations, we argue that track-change diplomacy can in fact lead to a loss of control, challenging existing understandings of diplomacy.
Yevgeniy Golovchenko, Mareike Hartmann and Rebecca Adler-Nissen (2018) 'State, media and civil society in the information warfare over Ukraine: citizen curators of digital disinformation.' International Affairs, pp. 975-994.
This article explores the dynamics of digital (dis)information in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. International Relations scholars have presented the online debate in terms of ‘information warfare’—that is, a number of strategic campaigns to win over local and global public opinion, largely orchestrated by the Kremlin and pro-western authorities.This article presents a different understanding of the debate. By examining the social media engagement generated by one of the conflict's most important events—the downing of the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) over Ukraine—we explore how competing claims about the cause of the plane crash are disseminated by the state, media and civil society. Our findings challenge conceptualizations of a state-orchestrated information war over Ukraine, and point to the importance of citizen activity in the struggle over truths during international conflicts.
Rebecca Adler-Nissen and Alexei Tsinovoi (2018) 'International Misrecognition: The Politics of Humour and National Identity in Israel’s Public Diplomacy.' European Journal of International Relations, pp. 1-27.
The article conceptualises international misrecognition as a gap between the dominant narrative of a national Self and the way in which this national Self is reflected in the ‘mirror’ of the international Other. We argue that humour offers an important way of coping with misrecognition by ridiculing and thereby downplaying international criticism. The significance for international relations is illustrated through an analysis of the public diplomacy campaign ‘Presenting Israel’, which, through parodying video clips, mobilised ordinary Israeli citizens to engage in peer-to-peer public diplomacy when travelling abroad. Public diplomacy campaigns are commonly seen as attempts to improve the nation’s image and smoothen or normalise international Self–Other relations. However, after analysing the discursive and visual components of the campaign — which parodied how European media portrayed Israel as primitive, violent and exotic — this article observes that in the context of international misrecognition, such coping attempts can actually contribute to further international estrangement.
Rebecca Adler-Nissen (2017) 'Are we 'Nazi Germans' or 'Lazy Greeks'? Negotiating International Hierarchies in the Euro Crisis.' In A. Zarakol (Ed.), Hierarchies in World Politics (pp. 189-218). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
This chapter argues that to understand international hierarchies, we need to examine not only forms of hierarchy but also processes of internalisation of – and resistance to – hierarchies. We will then discover that many hierarchies are not simply imposed from above but that subordinate actors are often complicit in the ongoing production and negotiation of hierarchies. Combining a focus on the public display of status, shame and national pride with the actual diplomatic negotiations, the chapter provides a reinterpretation of the euro crisis and shows that the emergence of Greece as an underdog and Germany on top in the hierarchy is just as much related to historical legacies and domestic self-reproach in both countries as it has to do with a straightforward and one-directional international stigma process.
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We expect further path-breaking publications in the coming years, including a paper investigating the role of social media in the negotiation of Brexit, a paper on how to combine particpant observations and interviews with quantiative social media analysis in the study of international relations as well as a conceptual paper setting out a theory of diplomatic face-work and a methodological paper on how to translate methodological and ethical commitments into the study of everyday diplomacy.
Rebecca Adler-Nissen and Alena Drieschova (2019). 'Track-change diplomacy: Technology, affordances and the practice of international negotiations'. International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming.
How does technology influence international negotiations? This article explores ‘track-change diplomacy’ – how diplomats use information and communication technology (ICT) such as word processing software and mobile devices to collaboratively edit and negotiate documents. The article shows how digital ICT affords shareability, visualization and immediacy of information, thus shaping the temporality and power dynamics of international negotiations. Rather than delivering on the technology’s promise of keeping track and reinforcing national oversight in negotiations, we argue that track-change diplomacy can in fact lead to a loss of control, challenging existing understandings of diplomacy.
Yevgeniy Golovchenko, Mareike Hartmann and Rebecca Adler-Nissen (2018) 'State, media and civil society in the information warfare over Ukraine: citizen curators of digital disinformation.' International Affairs, pp. 975-994.
This article explores the dynamics of digital (dis)information in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. International Relations scholars have presented the online debate in terms of ‘information warfare’—that is, a number of strategic campaigns to win over local and global public opinion, largely orchestrated by the Kremlin and pro-western authorities.This article presents a different understanding of the debate. By examining the social media engagement generated by one of the conflict's most important events—the downing of the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) over Ukraine—we explore how competing claims about the cause of the plane crash are disseminated by the state, media and civil society. Our findings challenge conceptualizations of a state-orchestrated information war over Ukraine, and point to the importance of citizen activity in the struggle over truths during international conflicts.
Rebecca Adler-Nissen and Alexei Tsinovoi (2018) 'International Misrecognition: The Politics of Humour and National Identity in Israel’s Public Diplomacy.' European Journal of International Relations, pp. 1-27.
The article conceptualises international misrecognition as a gap between the dominant narrative of a national Self and the way in which this national Self is reflected in the ‘mirror’ of the international Other. We argue that humour offers an important way of coping with misrecognition by ridiculing and thereby downplaying international criticism. The significance for international relations is illustrated through an analysis of the public diplomacy campaign ‘Presenting Israel’, which, through parodying video clips, mobilised ordinary Israeli citizens to engage in peer-to-peer public diplomacy when travelling abroad. Public diplomacy campaigns are commonly seen as attempts to improve the nation’s image and smoothen or normalise international Self–Other relations. However, after analysing the discursive and visual components of the campaign — which parodied how European media portrayed Israel as primitive, violent and exotic — this article observes that in the context of international misrecognition, such coping attempts can actually contribute to further international estrangement.
Rebecca Adler-Nissen (2017) 'Are we 'Nazi Germans' or 'Lazy Greeks'? Negotiating International Hierarchies in the Euro Crisis.' In A. Zarakol (Ed.), Hierarchies in World Politics (pp. 189-218). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
This chapter argues that to understand international hierarchies, we need to examine not only forms of hierarchy but also processes of internalisation of – and resistance to – hierarchies. We will then discover that many hierarchies are not simply imposed from above but that subordinate actors are often complicit in the ongoing production and negotiation of hierarchies. Combining a focus on the public display of status, shame and national pride with the actual diplomatic negotiations, the chapter provides a reinterpretation of the euro crisis and shows that the emergence of Greece as an underdog and Germany on top in the hierarchy is just as much related to historical legacies and domestic self-reproach in both countries as it has to do with a straightforward and one-directional international stigma process.
***
We expect further path-breaking publications in the coming years, including a paper investigating the role of social media in the negotiation of Brexit, a paper on how to combine particpant observations and interviews with quantiative social media analysis in the study of international relations as well as a conceptual paper setting out a theory of diplomatic face-work and a methodological paper on how to translate methodological and ethical commitments into the study of everyday diplomacy.