Types of diplomacy

Democratic Diplomacy:
It is now believed that as power resides in the people and it is exercised by the representatives chosen by and accountable to the people, the work of foreign policy-making and its implementation should be carried on according to the will of the people. Not only that, due importance should be attached to the weight of public opinion. Whatever is done by the President or the Prime Minister or the Foreign Minister or the professional diplomats should be known to the people. Crucial matters should be discussed and deliberated in the legislature and there should be a free press in the country to make them known to the common people. It is based on the assumption that ‘national interest’ is safer in the hands of the public rather than in the hands of some elite group, no matter how well skilled in the art of negotiation the latter might be. If the head of the state or of the government or his representative signs a treaty with any other state or states, it should be subject to ratification by the legislature in order to be valid. Thus, the American Senate was justified in rejecting the Treaty of Versailles signed by President Wilson at Paris in 1919. A wrong step taken by a Foreign Minister (as Sir Samuel Hoare of Britain or Madhavsinh Solanki of India) would invite serious criticism in the Parliament and be the cause of his exit from the government. In Nepalese context we can take the examples of TANAKPUR and PANCHESHWOR Treaty and conflict within the political parties as well as in people. Thus, the making and implementation of the foreign policy should be under the popular check. It is true that this kind of diplomacy invites certain ‘dangers’. The people in general are ignorant and they are not capable of exercising control over the role of professional and skilled diplomats. It is likely that the exposure of each diplomatic effort would put the diplomats in a very awkward situation. It is also possible that the operation of diplomacy on such a manner would suffer from the evils of delay and impulsion. However, these weaknesses may be removed if the people in general are politically develop.

Totalitarian Diplomacy:
It is more or less a duplication of traditional or close diplomacy. In a fascist or in a communist system, the chief-leader of the country is the sole maker of foreign policy and it is implemented according to his will that is supported and sustained by his clique of government. The operation of diplomacy is done according to the principles of a particular ‘ideology’ and any consideration of international peace and security is set aside as may be seen in the. Matters are not taken to the parliament for a free and frank discussion and there is strict censorship over the publication of news. Imperialism and war are glorified and the rulers of such a state frankly condemn peace as the dream of the cowards. Mao of China branded all ‘capitalist’ states of the world as ‘paper tigers’. Surprisingly, the diplomats of a totalitarian state invoke fantastic doctrines of racial superiority, mysticism, materialism and militarism for furtherance of their aims. The diplomats become agents of conquest, double-dealing, and spying, whose business is not to work for peaceful international relations but to provoke disagreement rather than understanding to make the leaders and peoples of other nations weak and blind and divided in the face of the growing totalitarian threaten. The object of Totalitarian Diplomacy “is thoroughly calculated to create and maintain bad relations within the world politics and relation.

Personal or Summit Diplomacy:
The direct participation of the heads of great powers (with their ministers or confidants) to sort out matters or to arrive at crucial decisions makes the case of summit or personal diplomacy. It has become increasingly common since the days of the World War II as war time conferences. Major and fateful decisions affecting the whole course of war and the post-war international order were made during the several personal meetings between Prime Minister Churchill of Britain and President Roosevelt of the United States with which Prime Minister Stalin of the USSR and Chinese Prime Minister was associated afterwards. The making of the Atlantic Charter (1941) is the first instance in this regard. The Tehran Conference of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin followed by the Yalta meet of 1943 are other important instances. These were followed by the Potsdam Conference of July-August 1945. These meetings prepared the ground for the creation of the United Nations. The Yalta Conference attended by the President of the United States and the Prime Ministers of Britain, France and the USSR solved the tangled problem of peace in Europe. Reference may be made to a number of non-aligned conferences from the Belgrade meet of 1961. The Camp David negotiations of 1959 between American President Eisenhower and the Soviet Prime Minister Khrushchev softened relations between the two superpowers to the point that one could trace a hint of growing cold war between the USSR and Communist China. The Camp David meet of 1978 hosted by the President of the United States and attended by the President of Egypt and the Prime Minister of Israel tackled the issue of peace in the Middle East. In the 1980s such meetings between the Presidents of the US and the USSR cemented the situation of detente signifying steady curtailment of the cold war. Sometimes personal diplomacy is short-circuited by the role of the most trusted agents or assistants of the heads of the states as we may see in Nixon’s reliance on Kissinger and Yahya Khan’s dependence on Bhutto of Pakistan. Frequent movements of such a trusted representative from one place to another with a particular mission make the case of ‘shuttle diplomacy’.

Other Diplomacy
i)Commercial or Economic Diplomacy: Also known by the names of ‘bourgeois’ or ‘civilian’ diplomacy, it resembles the diplomacy of the merchants and the shopkeepers. It is based on the prescription that a compromise settlement between the rivals through negotiations is generally more profitable than their complete destruction. Through negotiations and by agreeing to give mutual concessions some durable understanding may be reached. Here money plays a decisive part as an essential element of national interest. As every state attempts to increase its economic resources through pacific means, it is also known by the name of economic diplomacy. The line of distinction between politics and economics is unclear and since all focus is laid on trade or commerce, non-state agencies or organized business. The agents of such commercial organizations manage to have half-official and half-mercantile status. We may take note of the fact of the entry of foreign capital into poor and backward countries where the multinational corporations are not only producing and selling their finished goods but also undertaking works as construction of roads and bridges, laying of railway lines, installation of power-generating plants etc. The giving of financial assistance by the rich countries to the poor countries has created a new form of colonialism that is nicknamed as ‘dollar imperialism’. This kind of diplomacy may also be seen in the imposition of economic sanctions by a rich and powerful country on a poor and backward country of the world.
ii) Resource Diplomacy: Nature has blessed all countries with certain natural and mineral resources like oil, coal, iron, gold, uranium, etc. If a country is strong and developed, it makes best possible use of its resources. In case it is poor and backward, it becomes the victim of colonial exploitation. But a number of such countries may form an organization and thereby dictate their terms on those who need their resources. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is considering one of the best examples for this purpose. The oil is used by the Arab states as an instrument and the term ‘oil diplomacy’ thus comes into popularity. Oil is nicknamed as ‘black gold’ or ‘liquid gold’ and it is true, who captures the oil, captures the power of the world in the present context.