HBC Scott-Smith 2023 11 15 (274 Kb)

What is citizen diplomacy? How can it open up new lines of historical enquiry? Citizen diplomacy would at first appear to be a classic oxymoron. The elite, separate world of diplomacy and the everyday, ordinary experiences of citizens do not easily fit together. Diplomacy involves the formal representation of a sovereign state and the pursuit of its interests through negotiations, whereas citizens tend to represent private interests or moral causes. Yet citizen diplomacy is increasingly presented in the literature and the media as something intrinsic to current-day international relations, broad in scope and hence difficult to encapsulate in terms of both practice and meaning. This talk will explore its meanings and usefulness, delving into its arrival as a concept in the 1980s and highlighting its limitations.