Track-change diplomacy: Technology, affordances and the practice of international negotiations

TY - JOUR

T1 - Track-change diplomacy: Technology, affordances and the practice of international negotiations

AU - Adler-Nissen, Rebecca

AU - Drieschova, Alena

PY - 2019/9/1

Y1 - 2019/9/1

N2 - How does technology influence international negotiations? This article explores "track-change diplomacy," that is, how diplomats use information and communication technology (ICT) such as word processing software and mobile devices to collaboratively edit and negotiate documents. To analyze the widespread but understudied phenomenon of track-change diplomacy, the article adopts a practice-oriented approach to technology, developing the concept of affordance: the way a tool or technology simultaneously enables and constrains the tasks users can possibly perform with it. The article shows how digital ICT affords shareability, visualization, and immediacy of information, thus shaping the temporality and power dynamics of international negotiations. These three affordances have significant consequences for how states construct and promote national interests; how diplomats reach compromises among a large number of states (as text edits in collective drafting exercises); and how power plays out in international negotiations. Drawing on ethnographic methods, including participant observation of negotiations between the European Union's member states, as well as in-depth interviews, the analysis casts new light on these negotiations, where documents become the site of both semantic and political struggle. Rather than delivering on the technology's promise of keeping track and reinforcing national oversight in negotiations, we argue that track-change diplomacy can in fact lead to a loss of control, challenging existing understandings of diplomacy.

AB - How does technology influence international negotiations? This article explores "track-change diplomacy," that is, how diplomats use information and communication technology (ICT) such as word processing software and mobile devices to collaboratively edit and negotiate documents. To analyze the widespread but understudied phenomenon of track-change diplomacy, the article adopts a practice-oriented approach to technology, developing the concept of affordance: the way a tool or technology simultaneously enables and constrains the tasks users can possibly perform with it. The article shows how digital ICT affords shareability, visualization, and immediacy of information, thus shaping the temporality and power dynamics of international negotiations. These three affordances have significant consequences for how states construct and promote national interests; how diplomats reach compromises among a large number of states (as text edits in collective drafting exercises); and how power plays out in international negotiations. Drawing on ethnographic methods, including participant observation of negotiations between the European Union's member states, as well as in-depth interviews, the analysis casts new light on these negotiations, where documents become the site of both semantic and political struggle. Rather than delivering on the technology's promise of keeping track and reinforcing national oversight in negotiations, we argue that track-change diplomacy can in fact lead to a loss of control, challenging existing understandings of diplomacy.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - Practice Theory

KW - International Relations Theory

KW - Diplomacy

KW - Negotiations

KW - Power

KW - STS

KW - ANT

KW - Affordance

KW - European Union

KW - participant observation

KW - Interviews

KW - interpretive studies

KW - Documents

KW - International relations

KW - Technology

KW - ICT

KW - Information and communication technologies (ICTs)

KW - Digital Data

KW - social data science

KW - Digital technologies

KW - anthropological method

KW - Ethnography

KW - Qualitative case study

KW - diplomats

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0020-8833

JO - International Studies Quarterly

JF - International Studies Quarterly

ER -