ABSTRACT
In October 2012, four luminaries of the diplomatic studies field – Brian Hocking, Jan Melissen, Shaun Riordan and Paul Sharp – produced a report entitled Futures for Diplomacy. In an era ‘marked by change and uncertainty’, they argued, the modern diplomatic environment would be shaped by ‘the resurgence of more traditional geopolitical agenda’ as well as the ‘expansion in the number and variety of international actors’ (Hocking et al. 2012, 5). The report argued the case for ‘integrative diplomacy’, and the need for states to embrace ‘change and continuity, different agendas and arenas, different diplomatic processes and structures and machinery of diplomacy’ (Hocking et al. 2012, 5). The authors of the Futures report captured the essence of twenty-first century diplomacy: plurality of actors, continuity and change, and trying something different.
