ABSTRACT
We must now consider the effect on diplomacy of two long-term trends: the increase in the domestic power of states and the growing interdependence of the world. One of the major transformations in the nature of state power taking place in our time is that states are visibly and steadily expanding their administration into areas of human activity, like industrial production and human health, that were previously not their direct concern. At the same time the world continues to ‘shrink’ and to grow more interdependent, so that what happens inside one state increasingly crosses state frontiers and influences what happens elsewhere. These tendencies might at first glance seem contradictory. But the effect of the two taken together is to enlarge the list of subjects on which governments feel the need to talk to one another, and to increase considerably both the scope and the intensity of the diplomatic dialogue.
