Leading through civilian power: an overview

Last year I purchased a copy of the journal 'Foreign Affairs', whilst expensive, a must have in my opinion. In this particular volume (November/December 2010) there was an article written by Hillary Rodham Clinton, entitled Leading through civilian power, redefining American Diplomacy and development.

In her article Mrs Clinton outlines that "increasing global interconnectedness now necessitates reaching beyond governments to citizens directly and broadening the US foreign policy portfolio to include issues once confined to the domestic sphere". In her suggestion it is clear that this is a reference to a new understanding of the importance of public diplomacy in a new world within which a realisation has occurred, that groups must work together in solving problems. Whilst Mrs Clinton's article was interesting it focused little however on public diplomacy and predominantly on the benefits to the USA's development agenda in utilising this new form of interaction however it did highlight the importance of this evolution in diplomacy reinforcing the idea of the Canadian ambassador Allan Gotlieb who stated "the new diplomacy, as i call it is to a large extent public diplmomacy" (CSIS, Reinventing diplomacy in the information age, p35).

This shift, as even Mrs Clinton accepts is largely due to Globalisation, which, through the growth of NGO's and MNC's, the rise of new technologies, notably the internet, and increased interconnectedness, that it has developed have provoked diplomats and diplomatic institution to rethink their approach to the diplomatic process as a whole, as Berridge stated "international society keeps changing and diplomacy keeps evolving".