by António Vale
Bill Clinton first used the famous “it’s the economy, stupid” in his presidential campaign against George H. W. Bush – an adage to signify the primacy of economic considerations in politics. But I believe that an adaptation of this phrase is absolutely necessary in light of the current international political atmosphere. Regardless of its occasional flaws, there is no other way of resolving conflicts and easing tension. And world leaders really need to be reminded of this as they have been increasingly resorting to alternative (and far more aggressive) forms of intergovernmental communication. At the same time, the average citizen is becoming increasingly out-of-touch with the enduring importance not only of bilateral diplomacy, but also of multilateral talks and negotiations catalysed by organisations such as the European Union and the United Nations (UN). This growing lack of trust in the necessity of such institutions, promulgated by different populist movements, globally threatens to trigger a severe regression in the protection of more vulnerable countries and safeguard of peaceful conflict resolution.
The common thread to the public’s lack of interest in these inter-governmental organisations (IGOs) is that they are not currently facing issues as noticeable and popular as the ones faced during their inception. The UN, for instance, was built over the rubble of the Second World War and its normative intentions inspired much interest – there was a generalised passion towards it since it represented a new beginning for global relations and the recovery from a very dark historical period. Currently, there is no such analogous crisis that puts it on the pedestal. Today’s crises, such as the Russo-Ukrainian war and the pandemic, have rather shifted the focus of media attention to national and local levels of governance, rather than the supra-national. The character of contemporary crises – which appears to feed on cults of personality – means we end up concentrating on explosive statements from politicians, rather than the technical work of organisations or diplomats.
Simultaneously, we are witnessing the rise of a generalised unwillingness to critically and holistically analyse situations. We fail to ask questions or reflect upon the information that we are constantly bombarded with, without even having a chance to evaluate its degree of truthfulness. We rush to conclusions, in response to the pressure to opine on everything, due to the rush of fast-flowing communication. This has, albeit indirectly, compromised the UN’s popularity, and led to widespread criticisms of the UN for not solving every existing problem as soon as it arises. The very nature of the UN requires it to deal with sensitive issues in a very delicate way so that actually sustainable solutions can be reached. Such an approach clearly diverges from the aforementioned reality of personal communications on online platforms, or the way the media delivers information.
We expect immediate solutions to huge crises and ignore ‘lower’ level diplomatic achievements. This reflects our failure to actually understand their multifaceted structure and multilayered existence, which prioritises the protection of human life through diplomacy, rather than resorting to threat-based salacious dialogue. The most recent example of this was during April 2022 While some were criticising the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for his inaction and calling him ‘boring’ in light of the UN’s perceived failure amidst the invasion of Ukraine, he was actually negotiating the release of women and children from the Azovstal factory in Mariupol – which turned out to be highly successful. What we must be able to understand is that there is no silver bullet allowing the UN to find a miraculous solution to every problem and that ‘tough’, theatrical diplomacy populist leaders have accustomed us to is neither sustainable nor realistic.
But the sad reality is that at the end of the day, the vast majority of people will prefer to read a headline containing the words ‘nuclear bomb’ than one that asks for a more critical evaluation of a conflict coupled with a more complex solution. A study by the Nielsen Norman Group shows that on average people read around 20% of the information in a web page. This makes it very hard for news agencies to gain any popularity, if a full comprehension of their articles actually required people to read their articles! Another study by McGill University showed that people are more drawn to negative news – a phenomenon they call the ‘negativity bias’. This partly explains why news agencies will therefore prefer certain pieces and, consequently, leaders will adopt certain approaches in order to have more visibility.
A complete re-orientation of approaches to international relations is imperative to tackle these contemporary menaces, which threaten to decimate intra-governmental ties that were so carefully constructed by the most astute diplomats of the 20th century. We should not be creating new states and encouraging separatist movements, nor fostering protectionist policies, and especially not closing ourselves in our own little local bunkers with the comfort of words coming from atomistic, self-interested and myopic politicians. The more countries and individuals merge together and the greater the global dialogue, the easier it will be to find solutions. The more we found our diplomacy in intellectuality and genuine concern for the problems we face, the easier it will be to create a more peaceful global environment.
Similar to citizens’ social contracts with governments at birth, I believe our nations should be engaging with the UN to commit themselves to investing much more trust in multilateral co-operation. It is in my view critical to reformulate the relationship between governments and IGOs for the sake of developing global policies that would stimulate homogeneous growth as a civilization: the perception of states as completely independent entities bears no sense in this globalised world.
There is, however, one fundamental requirement for this transition to be efficiently carried out: increasing transparency. Diplomacy implies patience, and if we want to gather support for it from our impatient societies, we must grant every single citizen access to what is being done. Creating an opaque environment facilitates speculation, paving the way for antagonistic populists to raise bad-faith questions and false allegations. Consequently, the reinforcement of a centralised governance body such as the UN – with the power to interfere more directly with national policy and law – would have to go hand in hand with the reinforcement of transparency mechanisms to allow for an almost direct contact with individuals. To put it another way, while there is an obvious need for more diplomacy, under no circumstance can the title of this article be, on its own, enough to justify any strategy or decision whatsoever. If it were, it would just undermine the power of and support for diplomacy – lest it take on a life of its own, as the original saying did.
