Review: Diplomacy in the Digital Age <i>Essays in Honour of Ambassador Allan Gotlieb</i>

DIPLOMACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE Essays in Honour of Ambassador Allan Gotlieb Janice Gross Stein, ed. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2011. 288pp, $29.99 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-7710-8139-2Scorned by scholars, ridiculed in the media and neglected by governments, diplomacy desperately needs some serious attention. The arrival of a new book on the subject, particularly one dealing with the Canadian experience and dedicated to examining the legacy of a distinguished former ambassador, Allan Gotlieb, is therefore cause for celebration. Diplomacy in the Digital Age features an exceptional range of contributors, offers a variety of perspectives on modern diplomatic practice, and provides some useful insights into the workings of the world's second-oldest profession. With 17 concise, diverse, and largely well-written chapters, the book provides an overview, stimulates reflection, and whets the appetite for more.To contextualize a fuller assessment of this anthology, however, I would observe that today, in too many countries around the globe, diplomacy is feeing very tough times. Countries such as China, India, Brazil, and Turkey are significant exceptions, but elsewhere, and especially in the west, the budgets of foreign ministries are shrinking, foreign services are losing staff, and diplomatic missions are closing. Many western governments are looking to military force as their international instrument of choice.Canada is no exception. Today, the country lacks diplomatic initiative. Recall, by way of comparison, the record of the Mulroney years, including free trade with the United States, the Rio conference on environment and development, the campaign to end apartheid, the Montreal protocol on ozone depletion, and the acid rain treaty. Consider too the niche diplomacy that characterized Lloyd Axwcrth/s human security agenda during the second half of the 19905, including the land mine treaty, the Kimberley process to curtail trade in blood diamonds, the creation of the International Criminal Court, restrictions on child soldiers, and the responsibility to protect. Relative to these achievements, Canadian internationalism has all but disappeared today. The world, finally, has taken note. The spectacular failure in the fall of 2OIO to win a seat on the UN security council testifies to this decline.Gotiieb was Canada's ambassador to Washington from 1981 to 1989, at a time when this country occupied a larger space on the world stage. He was a pioneer, not just in conducting diplomacy - especially public diplomacy in Washington - but also in thinking about how to make diplomacy more effective and foreign ministries more relevant His contributions in this regard deserve recognition.Regrettably, the Canadian government has recently repudiated Gotlieb's prescription instead of building upon it. DFAIT is more marginalized than ever. It still does not serve as a central agency for the integration of international policy across government. Decision-makers no longer solicit its strategic advice. Budget cuts, the centralization of control over government communications, and the gagging of the foreign service have made Canadian public diplomacy nearly impossible.Oddly, the anthology gives no hint of these developments. It leaves the reader with no sense of urgency or crisis. It does not defend diplomacy as a nonviolent and cost-effective approach to managing global issues. Given the dire circumstances facing Canadian diplomats, these lacunae are curious. More significantly, the volume ignores a crucial question: What has become of Gotlieb's legacy, and why? It likewise fails to evaluate the specific implications of a digital world for Canadian foreign policy. All of this leaves the reader with a slight sense of disconnectedness.The book features a good balance of contributions from academics (Janice Stein, Denis Stairs, Kim Nossal, Brian Bow, Bob Bothwell), serving (Marc Lortie, Elissa Goldberg, Arif Lalani) and former (Jeremy Kinsman, David Malone, George Haynal ) diplomats, and ex- journalists (Sondra Gotlieb, Andrew Cohen, Drew Fagan, Ed Greenspon, William Thorsell). …

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