The Importance of Face-to-Face Diplomacy

Famous Kiss of Brezhnev and Honecker: engaging in face-to-face diplomacy?

As it was already outlined in my previous blog, there are several challenges to the ‘old’ conduct of diplomacy. One of the main challenges is posed by the rapid increase and improvement in Information Communication Technology (ICT) since World War II. There is now a great variety of means of communication ranging from the telephone over email, fax, and instant messages to video-conferencing. Information is available extensively through the Internet and the mass media. If communication and information gathering is no longer bound to a certain place or personal contacts, but can be accessed from everywhere in the world, where ICT is available, do we still need embassies and diplomats “on the spot” in foreign countries or are they just a relict of the ‘old’ diplomacy? Why do officers of the foreign ministry not just open the daily newspaper for information gathering and send an email to the foreign offices in other countries to conduct their relations?

Kurbalija suggests that even though “communication and information, the main pillars of diplomacy, have been fundamentally changed in recent years by the process of digitalisation”, paradoxically diplomacy did not change a lot (Kurbalija, 1998, 171).
It can be argued that this is because of the crucial role of face-to-face communication and personal encounter in diplomatic conduct.
New digital forms of communication are missing non-verbal components such as body language as well as the physical dimension of diplomacy such as handshakes. Diplomats are therefore not able to send a message or emphasis a certain point through their body language when using ICT. There is also no place for informal communication at breaks during negotiation. The so-called corridor diplomacy is an important part for diplomats to come to agreement or gather information in an informal way which is lacking if no personal encounter is taken place.
It has also been argued that if diplomats conduct their negotiations electronically from their home country, they are less likely to adapt to other points of view or compromises. In that sense non-personal, digital diplomacy can even be “anti-diplomatic” (Berridge, 2010, 200).

When it comes to information gathering embassies and diplomats also still play a vital role. Through the sheer amount of information being available and accessible in nowadays ”information overload” occurs frequently. As Leguey-Feilleux points out “the usefulness of communication technology greatly depends on the effectiveness of administrative adjustment; the human element must not be forgotten...” (Leguey-Feilleux, 2008, 86). Diplomats are important in filtering and contextualise information. In addition, there is also still information which cannot be found on the Web or in media, but must be obtained first hand through personal contact between diplomats. One should also not forget that information provided through the media or internet is often evaluated and not objective. Working for the political unit of a NGO in Germany over the summer I often accompanied my supervisor to the government’s weekly press conference as he stressed the importance of observing the way how people deliver information live. I was surprised, when I saw the press conferences later in the TV news, how different the impression of the edited news coverage was in comparison to what I saw live early that day. So the argument that information could be obtained by foreign ministries only through the media and the internet is certainly not valid.

Although new means of information communication technology are surely useful in dissemination of information and for the follow-up process of conferences or agreements, as well as for smaller states with limited human resources, I believe the importance of face-to-face communication and personal encounter through embassies and diplomats will remain essential for diplomacy even in an age of Information Technology.