Digital Diplomacy and International Organisations: Autonomy, Legitimacy and Contestation

This book examines how international organisations (IOs) have struggled to adapt to the digital age, and with social media in particular.

The global spread of new digital communication technologies has profoundly transformed the way organisations operate and interact with the outside world. This edited volume explores the impact of digital technologies, with a focus on social media, for one of the major actors in international affairs, namely IOs. To examine the peculiar dynamics characterising the IO-digital nexus, the volume relies on theoretical insights drawn from the disciplines of International Relations, Diplomatic Studies, Media, and Communication Studies, as well as from Organisation Studies. The volume maps the evolution of IOs’ digital universe and examines the impact of digital technologies on issues of organisational autonomy, legitimacy, and contestation. The volume’s contributions combine engaging theoretical insights with newly compiled empirical material and an eclectic set of methodological approaches (multivariate regression, network analysis, content analysis, sentiment analysis), offering a highly nuanced and textured understanding of the multifaceted, complex, and ever-evolving nature of the use of digital technologies by international organisations in their multilateral engagements.

This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy, media, and communication studies, and international organisations.