ABSTRACT
This chapter continues to trace diplomacy from its beginnings to the global age. The last chapter already started dealing with an important post-WWII development, i.e. the increasing number of actors (Æ glossary) and issues they get involved in. This chapter will elaborate on these observations. The multiplication of actors and the multiplication of issue areas amount to the key features of today’s global diplomacy. Whereas diplomacy traditionally dealt primarily with matters of war and peace, as well as, to a considerable extent, with economics, it now deals with many issue areas that were previously considered domestic policy fields only (e.g., health), or were not even regarded as policy fields of much significance at all (e.g., environment). The proliferation of issue areas goes hand in hand with the proliferation of actors on the diplomatic stage. Diplomacy is no longer reserved for the foreign services of states. The latter get competition from within the state, such as ministries of finance, economics or environment ministries, who tend to have easier access to specialised knowledge. In a similar vein, international civil servants – working, for instance, for a specialised UN agency or the World Bank – sometimes have a grasp of the details of an issue area that is difficult to match for foreign services, especially the ones of smaller states. The proliferation of issue areas also provides opportunities for NGOs and activists to leave a mark. They can do so, for instance, by providing detailed knowledge to a broader public. Amnesty International’s and Human Rights Watch’s reports on human rights abuses are a good example of this mechanism. This chapter discusses the six major issue areas of global diplomacy: war and peace, economics, development, environment, health and migration. The discussion of each issue area follows the same pattern: we identify key actors, instruments and challenges in these fields.
