Description
Cyber-diplomacy, as an international practice focused on the use of diplomatic resources and the performance of diplomatic functions to secure national interests in cyberspace, is fairly recent. Only in the last two decades have states focused on the need to use the traditional diplomatic means in discussions surrounding issues such as internet governance and cybersecurity. Within the context of cyber-diplomacy, practice theory allows us to consider the details of the emergence of this new diplomatic field, whilst being able to offer a broader understanding of how diplomats trained in the traditional practices of foreign policy making adjust to the novelty and (often) technical specificity of cyberspace-related issues. Adopting a Bourdieusian approach, this paper will explore the formation of a cyber-diplomatic field as well as the development of new habitus among diplomats. It will look at the idiosyncratic evolution of this practice within specific nation states, and of the overall developments at the international level. That will contribute to highlight both the novelty aspects of this field as well as how it integrates in the old structures of international relations (and within the general diplomatic pecking order). It will do so by particularly focusing on the evolution of cyber-diplomacy in Europe and North America.
