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Mass diplomacy : foreign policy in the global information age

A sophisticated and high tech form of state-to-foreign population diplomacy based on the use of the latest communication technologies has developed rapidly in recent years and has acquired an increasingly important position within a significant number of foreign affairs systems. Pioneered by the heavyweights of the international stage, the phenomenon has spread rapidly to secondary powers and is progressively extending itself to varying degrees to all states around the globe. This thesis grapples with the enigma raised by the brisk re-emergence of this foreign policy concentration by attempting to understand the reasons behind both the quantitative increase in public diplomacy activities and the qualitative evolution of these activities in terms of planning, organisation and implementation. The first argument that this thesis broaches is that the sudden growth of public diplomacy is the result of the shift to a new phase of the information revolution (necessary enabling force) which has been amplified by contingent factors: the explosion of global terrorism (accelerator) and the perception of leaders and foreign policy makers of this new environment (prism). The second argument is that, beyond quantitative growth, the new operational context born of the advent of the global information society provoked a qualitative evolution of the public diplomacy inherited from the Cold War towards what is today mass diplomacy. The result is the appearance of a market driven diplomacy employing persuasive techniques borrowed from the world of public relations and marketing. The new diplomacy is an entrepreneurial diplomacy that limits governmental leadership to a necessary minimum and encourages the participation of private and foreign sub-contractors. It is also a cyber-space diplomacy equipped with new diplomatic instruments such as high-resolution satellite imagery, high-speed networks, digital broadcasting and other marvels of the late twentieth cen

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.85196
Date January 2004
CreatorsPahlavi, Pierre Cyril Cyrus Teymour
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageDoctor of Philosophy (Department of Political Science.)
RightsAll items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
Relationalephsysno: 002209155, proquestno: AAINR12923, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

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