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TAKING INTO CONSIDERATION ALSO THE RUN FOR THE SECURITY COUNCIL, WHICH CHANGES IN THE ITALIAN SOFT POWER AND IN THE ITALIAN ENGAGEMENT IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS?
Tipologia: Tesi di laurea
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a.a.2015/ Responsabile scientifico: Prof. Guido Formigoni
PROJECT WORK
Nome e cognome: PIETRO DI GIROLAMO
Matricola: 1017643
Titolo project work: DIGITAL DIPLOMACY AND E – DIPLOMACY: TAKING INTO CONSIDERATION ALSO THE RUN FOR THE SECURITY COUNCIL, WHICH CHANGES IN THE ITALIAN SOFT POWER AND IN THE ITALIAN ENGAGEMENT IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS?
Relatore: DOTT. ROBERTO RAZETO
- INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................pag. 3
1.1 WHAT IS CHANGING IN USING SOCIAL MEDIA...............................................pag. 4
1.2 NEW DIPLOMACY ERA...........................................................................................pag. 7
2.1 WHAT IS SOFT POWER............................................................................................pag. 9
2.2 ITALIAN SOFT POWER..........................................................................................pag. 11
2.3 MIXING SOFT POWER WITH DIGITAL DIPLOMACY.....................................pag. 24
3.1 NEW TOOLS, OLD GOALS...................................................................................pag. 25
3.2 TWITTER AND OTHER TOOLS............................................................................pag. 30
3.3 LIVE (ON AIR): WHAT HAPPENS AT PERMANENT MISSION OF ITALY TO THE UNITED NATIONS..................................................................................................pag. 38
**- CONCLUSIONS.......................................................................................................pag. 40
[...] perché non ci comportiamo tutti come fratelli? Perché anche l'uomo migliore è come se nascondesse sempre qualcosa all'altro e gli tacesse qualcosa? Perché non dire subito, direttamente, quel che si ha nel cuore, se sai che non parlerai al vento?
Social Media have, doubtless, changed our lives; the way we think, the way we speak, we act, are influenced by this tool. Most of people could think this phenomenon is recent, but if we do a deep analysis of it, we could easily note it has twenty-year roots. To make the reader more comfortable with Social Media, I will try to resume shortly its history.
We have to mention Six Degrees as the first Social Media, but it had short life; born in 1997 it was closed in 2001, maybe because the time was not ripe yet.
What happened then? Easy. In 2000 more than 100 million of people could have access to the Internet and was easy for people become "social", keeping connected with other people through this tool.
information in different ways, such as videos, links, pictures and so on. That's why it is now the most popular Social Media with more than 1 billion of people engaged. Another famous way to communicate is Twitter; its inventors were inspired by SMS and create this tool, in which you have to use just 140 characters to convey your message. In tha last years it was uploaded and now you can share a message with a video or picture. Twitter is the way preferred from Diplomacy to communicate: brief, quick and direct. So today the majority of Governments, Embassy, Consulate and missions use this instrument as a new way to "do diplomacy". But this issue will be discuss further in depth. To conclude this brief analysis of Social Media we must to mention others that are as famous as the previous ones: LinkedIn , mostly used by people to look a job and from enterprise to select people for hiring; Tumblr, that is a microblogging website born in 2007; Foursquare, Instagram, Spotify, Pinterest, Periscope, Snapchat. But many others will come out in the next years to satisfy an old human need in a modern way: being social. 1
As I said previously, Social Media are actually used for different purposes: business, marketing and in the last period for diplomacy goals as well; lots of diplomats have
1 Steinbock, D. Global Trends: The era of new diplomacy
understood the potential strength of using social media, so in the last years they began "to be social", matching social media with diplomacy. Many insiders have started to call this phenomenon "Twiplomacy" , because diplomats prefer to use Twitter among all the social media available.
Another name for this phenomenon is Digital Diplomacy, or again E-Diplomacy, to remark that there is a new way to communicate, between the different Governments as well. This doesn't mean that the old way to negotiate or to "talk" is obsolete. Not at all. 2 The Digital Diplomacy is a support for the traditional one, in order to make quicker the message. To consolidate this position is useful to remark that the purpose of diplomacy has remained the same: promote the interest of the State in the International System. This means traditional diplomacy has still a prominent role in "talks" among the Countries and digital diplomacy can help it to reach its goals. To be more clear, and to stress the importance of digital diplomacy, we have to say that today almost every Country has at least one Twitter account and so is present in the Internet. 3
2 Deruda, A. The Digital Diplomacy Handbook , December 2014 3 Ivi
Since some decades the concept of "Soft Power" has raised an increasing importance in relation with diplomacy. While in the past politician stressed and utilized only "hard power" tools, such us military power or political one, in carrying on their Foreign Policy, nowadays in really common for a country, in particular for those that have not a strong hard power, use others tools in International Relations field. When we talk about Soft Power we refer to some that is intangible, that belongs to different aspects of a country's heritage; it concerns, according to his developer J. Nye, "the ability of a country to persuade others to do what it wants without force or coercion". So it means that a country has "the ability to attract and co-opt rather than by coercion (hard power), using force or giving money as a means of persuasion. Soft power is the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. A defining feature of soft power is that it is non-coercive; the currency of soft power is culture, political values, and foreign policies". 6 If you look in depth at this concept you can find it really powerful; imagine a small country that has no hard power to spend in its International Relations, but has a really powerful culture that can help it to obtain something or force other country doing what it want. The history is full of examples that show it happened very often. 7 But we have to be careful about this concepts. Very often the idea of soft power is translated, especially in journalism, almost exclusively as a form of cultural power. For this reason, some underestimate the importance, but culture is just one of the components of soft power. In addition, the cultural resource, if it wants to work, has to be converted into power through public diplomacy. For example, the Oscar win by Paolo Sorrentino for "The Great Beauty" has certainly helped to increase Italy's cultural resources, but we need to turn this resource into a source of attraction. Further, if you look at the spread of Coca-Cola or fast food you can notice that it does not automatically entail acceptance of USA policies, nor does it mean that the latter exercise a power over people who use those products. The emphasis on the cultural aspect can also lead to consider soft power as a "weak" power; as recalled by Joseph Nye, there are of course areas where soft power is insufficient, for example, "it is hard to imagine how soft power can resolve the dispute on the nuclear weapons of North Korea", but this fact should not lead to feel the soft power an ineffective tool. The usefulness and effectiveness of a power depends on the context in which it is used and the nature of the objective to be pursued. 8
6 www.estrattiweb.com/osservazioni-sul-concetto-di-soft-power 7 Ibidem (^8) Ibidem
It should be useful, according to me, to our discussion mentioning Italy's soft power; which are the tools Italy could use in International Relations and how did it spread and make strong its soft power? In this new era of diplomacy, which is the link between soft power and digital diplomacy? Could digital diplomacy help Italy and its soft power in Foreign Policy more than in the past? I will try to respond to these questions being as clear as I can.
According to a ranking released in 2014 Italy's soft power is increasing; in the previous years we are out of the top 10 Country concerning soft power. Many experts thought it happened because of political instability of Italy and the bad reputation held by Italy abroad. 9 Surprisingly we are get in the top 10 in these last years ( 11th in 2016 ) thanks to a renewed reputation abroad and most of all thanks to a huge investment in our own culture
(^9) www.softpower30.portlandcommunications.com/ranking/
the whole Europe, including Italy. That said, we must recognize that there is still a huge untapped potential, which is closely linked to a number of factors. The first among these is certainly the Italian history: just for the fact of being a millennial tale, the historical events of our country inspire a special charm, as well as raise some respect and consideration on international collective imagination. In Asia, for example, only 'being Italian' involves a series of 'openings', due to its importance and the value that these peoples attach to our historical heritage. An ancient people (such as Italian), in fact, is seen by Asians as a holder of a special wisdom, which derives its historical experience. Another aspect is, however, a bit 'more contemporary and has to do with the current Italian culture ranging from literature, music, fashion and language. We all know what is the point of the image of Italy in political, or at least dubious image and criticized in many areas, while as regards the economy, the speech is completely different. Italy (although we Italians tend always a little 'to underestimate us) is still one of the largest existing economic realities. 10 Of course, we are no longer the sixth of the world economy and we lost some positions in recent years, partly because of the crisis. Nevertheless Italy remains a major actor at international level, especially in Europe. Removing the economic aspect, however, there are more 'soft' aspects which are not only the result of the music-related thoughts, the thought, the arts and culture in general that only Italy are projected outward, but also exported through the oversight of the community of Italians abroad. We must consider that abroad live almost the equivalent of the entire population of our country. Through these communities, which are spread a bit 'all over the world, the culture and the Italian image propagates. This represents a crucial resource for the diffusion of the 'soft power' Italian, but which has so far been taken into account in the institutional framework only for the weight of domestic politics that can represent durations periodic elections. On this ground it would be possible to do much more. Many states have a strong relationship with its community of citizens abroad through which they can safely convey a number of messages. We certainly have a base projection potential that Italy could use, but it is not taken care of properly. 11
10 www.lindro.it/il-soft-power-dellitalia/ (^11) Ibidem
One of the pieces could be to give greater support to the Institutes of Italian Culture Abroad , framing them as nerve centers on which to invest for dissemination to other countries our image, language, culture, history etc. In addition, you need to start at the institutional level a reflection of a strategic type, leading to the decisions at the political level because they determine the precise addresses development and dissemination of our culture abroad. Under this view, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is already starting (slowly) to orient themselves strategically towards the use of 'public diplomacy', or of that particular type of diplomatic relations that no longer takes place only between the Governments, but also between the Government and the population. Through this new methodology, Italy is starting to transmit messages not only to its institutional partners, but also to entire peoples (like the Libyan). An exercise in 'soft power' which, however, must be seen only in the medium to long term: only in this time horizon will be able to register the great benefits for our country. In addition, we must step up the volume of the cultural exchanges between our country and other international organizations, including through innovative projects such as Erasmus
UN Security Council (even though just for 1 year - split seat between Italy and the Netherlands)
Running for a Security Council non-permanent seat was also decided taking into account our soft power and our strong commitment in several issues care to United Nations. I asked to an Italian diplomat of Permanent Mission of Italy to the UN 14 the reasons why Italy run for the seat and the tools Italy used, at diplomatic level and not, to reach its goal.
Italy tried to convince the majority of the UN Member States focusing its campaign on the issues it takes care mostly.
(^14) First Counsellor PierLuigi Zamporlini - Poitical Election Department
Peacekeeping , for example; Italy is the top Western troop-contributing country to UN peacekeeping and one of the top-10 overall financial contributors. Its commitment to the maintenance of international peace and security is a firm one and goes back a long time. The first Italian contingent in UN peacekeeping was deployed in 1960. Since then, Italian troops have served in multiple crisis areas. 15
Strong commitment in achieving 2030 Agenda goals : the 2030 Agenda is the path to a better and more sustainable future, and Italy sees its implementation as the only way to ensure that no one is left behind. Its commitment to sustainable development is reflected in three key areas: Fighting climate change, promoting food security, International development assistance.
15 www.italyun.esteri.it/rappresentanza_onu/en/comunicazione/archivio-news/2016/05/perche-l-italia-in-consiglio- di.html
Further, investing in renewable energy ;
(^17) Ibidem
