E-Diplomacy Capacities within the EU-27: Small States and Social Media

Master’s Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 1,3, University of Barcelona (Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI)), course: International Relations, language: English, abstract: The argument that this thesis broaches is that extended use of the Internet not only poses challenges, but also new possibilities for diplomatic actors in the European Union, especially those of small states. This study aims at the creation of a nexus between a lack of ‘traditional’ diplomatic capacities, as shown by tangible diplomatic infrastructure, and an increased use of public diplomacy in cyberspace, or ‘e-diplomacy’. The hypothesis holds that small states pursue higher efforts to leave a larger ‘digital diplomatic footprint’ in social media, aiming at a projection of a positive image inside the public sphere. In order to prove the hypothesis, this work combines both a qualitative and a quantitative approach, connecting metadata of three diplomatic actors per state with three social media platforms. As a theoretical backbone, Joseph Nye’s Soft Power concepts are problematized as well as Nazli Chucri’s approach on Cyberpolitics in International Relations (2012). However, since this research project is the first of its kind, theoretical lacuna becomes apparent during the performance of a large-N study of the EU-27 member states. Although this dissertation provides an extensive overview on capacities of Heads of State, Government and respective Ministries of Foreign Affairs, future research should be aimed at depicting the increasing role of national cultural institutions and transnational power diffusion towards non-state actors.