reflections

Reaching back to my idea of diplomacy at the beginning of the semester, I must admit I feel really embarrased of how negligent my perception of it was. A few months ago I perceived diplomacy as the peaceful means of negotiations plus some consulary services and additionally a "representation" of a particular state in a foreign country. During the new diplomacy module I found out that diplomacy practices are a lot more complicated than that and actually they have many dimensions.
One of the interesting discoveries concerning diplomacy was also brought about by the piece of news one day this semester and what I mean is the controversial Wikileaks. A number of New Yorker articles on the topic that I have read not ony provided me with some amusing findings on how the most boring country to reside for a diplomat is Canada (the cables from canada revealed that diplomats gossip about soap operas and hardly about any serious political issues), but also brought about some interesting news about issues which I have studied during the module. For instance, secrecy of bilateral diplomacy or the acting against morality just because of being under the control of the politicians (for instance, questionable tasks assigned to diplomats by Hillary Clinton) which issues were clearly visible in the revealed facts.
Judging from a perspective of time, the aspect of the new diplomacy which interested me the most is public diplomacy, about which I hardly knew anything before. I believe it to be modern and controversial phenomenon, yet capable of creating some brilliant results. thus, I hope I am going to expand my knowledge about it further, a well a about other diplmatic practices.