Andreas Fulda, vimeo.com
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What do we mean by citizen diplomacy?
The term of citizen diplomacy involves the role that non-state actors play in building bridges and mitigating difficult interstate relations and deep-rooted conflicts that political leaders and the private sector can not solve alone.
The concept and practice of citizen diplomacy overlaps with public diplomacy. While the two terms have different connotations they also complement each other.
State-centric public diplomacy [JB emphasis] can be regarded as top-down government attempts to influence foreign public attitudes through political messaging.
Society-centric citizen diplomacy, on the other hand, can be explained as bottom-up efforts of private citizens, who act in their individual capacity and independently from governments and businesses.
Citizen diplomacy is of crucial importance in the search for effective, pragmatic solutions to many global issues and challenges, for example climate change, air and ocean pollution, migration, digital privacy etc.
The political scientist Joseph Nye defines citizen diplomacy as "networked communications among civil societies [which] take advantage of two-way communications and peer-to-peer relations to overcome cultural differences".
It helps to build trust between citizens of different nations with sometimes conflicting cultural values, interests and agendas, and contributes to sustainable peace.
Authors: Andreas Fulda, Lisa Gibson and Horst Fabian
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