What is the Future of Diplomacy?

Contributor(s): Tristen Naylor | Are pixellated images of leaders in tiny squares on a computer screen the 'new normal' for international diplomacy? What are the implications of the loss of physicality in diplomacy? And what does this portend for international relations in the post-Covid world? As with all facets of life, COVID-19 brought the world of international diplomacy to a halt, forcing diplomats and heads of government to quickly overhaul how they do their work. Forced to move their interactions online, an institution that is fundamentally about bringing people together was acutely weakened by the need for social distancing. Most significantly, this severely undermined the ability of the G20 to address the twin crises of the pandemic and the global economic crisis it ushered in, reducing the summit of the world's most powerful leaders to being little more than an extended Zoom call. Meet our speaker Tristen Naylor is a Fellow in International Relations at LSE. His most recent book, Social Closure and International Society, examines the history of international summits over the past two hundred years. Previously, he was the Lecturer in Diplomatic Studies at the University of Oxford and, before joining academia, was a Foreign Policy Analyst and Advisor to the Government of Canada. He is a recipient of the Canadian Public Service Award of Excellence. Find out more about Tristen’s research: All That’s Lost: The Hollowing of Summit Diplomacy in a Socially Distanced World This film is part of the 'Festival Shorts' series, 10-minute talks by LSE experts released during Festival week Keywords: Shaping the Post-COVID World, diplomacy, politics, face-to-face, Zoom, online, virtual, networking, international relations, foreign policy.