ABSTRACT
Diplomacy is concerned with the management of relations between states and between states and other actors. From a state perspective, diplomacy is concerned with advising, shaping and implementing foreign policy. Diplomacy is often thought of as being concerned with peaceful activity, although it may occur within war or armed conflict or be used in the orchestration of particular acts of violence, such as seeking overflight clearance for an air strike. The blurring of the line, in fact, between diplomatic activity and violence is one of the developments distinguishing modern diplomacy. The functions of diplomacy can be broken down into six broad areas: ceremonial, management, information and communication, international negotiation, duty of protection and normative/legal. The principal normative objective of diplomacy from a multilateralist perspective is contribution to the creation of universal rules. Multilateralism is thus distinct from other approaches, such as regionalism, and in direct contrast to narrow state power preoccupation, for example ‘soft’ power, ‘smart power’ and ‘win-win power’.
